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The purpose of this study is to explore the use of expletives and derogatory terminology in the naming structure for companies, products and brands; a marketing strategy which is growing across a wide range of industries. The author defines this concept as brand vulgarity and explores the practice, as it situates in the midst of irony, as terms commonly held as taboo and societally indecent, are moving into the mainstream.

This study draws on the established literature in branding, profanity and ironic marketing to create a conceptual framework through which to understand brand vulgarity.

Brand vulgarity is intended to capture attention. However, several factors influence consumer receptivity and acceptance. These factors include perceived offensiveness exposure and the reclaiming and reappropriation of vulgar terms. Brand vulgarity not only challenges traditional approaches to nomenclature in branding but the building of brand image as well.

The marketplace has become a brand war demarcated by fierce competition each entity vying for attention. The use of vulgar terminology and the growing ease of consumer receptivity calls to question changes in sociocultural sensitivity and its influence on social acceptance of brand vulgarity.

This work breaks new ground as the first to introduce the concept of brand vulgarity and examine the practice across multiple industries.

Reviews the current transition in French retail banking from oligopolistic power and strict state control towards a greater marketing orientation and competitive challenges. Drawing on research including interviews with French marketing practitioners, identifies a number of trends in marketing practice – the expansion and targeting of products and distribution channels, packaging products and “personalizing” services. Illustrates the centrality of market segmentation to these practices by the use of a case study company, Credit Agricole. Focusing on the organization′s use of a psychographic study on European lifestyles, shows segmentation to be a core strategic tool in a changing society and competitive marketplace. Concludes by noting the parallels between developments in France and elsewhere, but also highlighting the application of marketing in particular economic and cultural contexts. In addition, identifies some possible dangers with targeting and “courting” particular consumer segments with a “personalized” service.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the determinants of the need for reassurance, while emphasizing the role of perceived traceability.

Data were collected through individual interviews, and analyzed by thematic analysis.

Results showed that the traceability of modern foods is low perceived by the consumers. This indirectly influences the need for reassurance toward the modern foods by reducing the confidence in these products and strengthening the feeling about the risk associated to their consumption.

The major limits of this paper concern the development of the research model through the means of an exploratory study. This can affect the possibility to generalize results since the described hypotheses are not quantitatively validated. Another limit is concerned by the non-investigation of moderating factors, which can be the object of future researches.

This paper is one of the few efforts integrating the need for reassurance in a theoretical model of consumer behavior, and explaining its origins. This justifies the use of a qualitative methodology.

The purpose of this paper is to address an under‐researched issue in marketing, atypical consumption behaviours. More particularly it focuses on the deviant behaviours of consumers in a commercial or consumption situation and on their reactions in regard to the market system.

Drawing on multidisciplinary literature, this work articulates the concepts of deviance, resistance and anti‐consumption. It looks at the interactions between these concepts and positions deviant, resistant and anti‐consumption behaviours in relation to the norm.

Through the notion of deviance, the research provides a new framework clearly differentiating and articulating the concepts of resistant and anti‐consumption behaviours. This integrative framework is sufficiently flexible and broad to cover and position the various behaviours and practices involving consumption rejection, opposition and avoidance.

This contribution answers a need for theoretical clarification of consumers' behaviours that challenge and oppose the market system and culture of consumption. By mobilising the concept of deviance, this research provides an original topological model that increases understanding and positions the concepts of resistant and anti‐consumption behaviours around the notion of social norm.

The purpose of this study is to understand the effect of increasing the intensity of sexual or violent content on consumer responses to online video advertisements, with a particular emphasis on sharing intentions.

The paper uses a between-subjects experimental design across two studies using new to the world online video advertisements as stimuli.

Study 1 finds that increasing the intensity of sexual and violent humor improves advertisement effectiveness amongst men but leads to significantly more negative attitudes toward the advertisement and brand amongst women. Study 2 identifies gender and humor type as moderators for sharing intentions in the presence of audience diversity. While men are more likely to publicly share sexual and violent humor advertisements, social anxiety mediates intentions to share sexual humor advertisements in the presence of greater audience diversity.

The paper offers insights to practitioners regarding the use of risqué forms of humor as part of a digital marketing strategy.

Drawing on and extending benign violation theory, the paper introduces and verifies a theoretical model for understanding consumer responses to the use of risqué forms of humor in online advertisements. It identifies how audience diversity affects sharing intentions for sexual and violent humor-based advertisements on social media.

The purpose of this paper is to show the difficulty inherent in maintaining long‐term ethical behaviours in organisations. Such ethical behaviours are not always clearly identified in terms of their priorities, and interpretation methods (laws, directives, rating agencies) highlight the heterogeneity of indicators and processes.

The paper shows that an exploratory qualitative survey, based on interviews with managers and company documents, was conducted on a panel of six organisations to explore their key ethical points and identified weaknesses (interviews, company and/or rating agency documents). The reality surrounding these companies, rated in accordance with their social responsibility and ethical behaviours, demonstrates a major inadequacy to clarify their conduct and a dilution of values when taking action.

The paper is based on past research; the author proposes three guiding questions aimed at palliating the difficulties faced in maintaining ethical behaviours both in time and in the geographical space. It explores a series of processes permitting the establishment of points of reference and the subsequent evaluation of the different stages, focusing on the values ensuring a performance link and strengthening the managerial axis as a vector of ethics.

The paper challenges the notion of ratings based on non‐long‐term effects, yet, while underlining the difficulty of the exercise, also proposes possible solutions to ensure sustainability. It takes account of the limitations of a debate based on an exploratory survey, but opens the way for subsequent research connecting the proposed paths to the concept of sustainable ethics inscribed in the context of overall performance.

It is known that to encourage people to interact (e.g. sharing) with brands through social media, businesses create content in line with the expectations of their target audience. On these sites, however, such interaction by consumers is visible, contributing to their self-presentation, which can be seen by their wider network; some of whom will find it appropriate, others may not. Currently, little is known about the effects of consumers’ own diverse set of audiences on behavioral intention toward brand interaction and emotional effect. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Survey methodology (n=386) was adopted to examine intention to interact with real brand posts.

Results show that the brand interaction is associated with social anxiety when it is felt that visible evidence of such actions is discrepant from the audience expectations. This, then, constrains the behavioral intention to interact with brands online.

For businesses to maximize brand interactions and minimize social anxiety, they must be mindful of not just the expectations of their target but also consider their target’s own network. For site designers, this research urges for greater refining of privacy tools and suggests the addition of a “Secret Like” option.

Encouraging visible brand interaction through social media is paramount for businesses. Managers focus only on their target audience when designing content but neglect to consider the self-presentational implications of interacting with branded content to wider networks. This paper shows that this must be considered to increase success and maintain ethical practice. This is of value for multiple-stakeholders, managers, users, site designers and academics.

I. Rapport de synthèse de André Guignand, Paris Après les souhaits de bienvenue par les représentants des Autorités autrichiennes nationales, régionales et locales qui nous ont si aimablement accueillis, le Président W. Hunziker lance le Congrès en appelant à une concentration des esprits sur ce sujet d'actualité qu'on appelle le Marketing.

Co‐operation is necessary for the economic survival of destinations with a fragmented offer under conditions of global competition. Customer orientation forces the SME's to co‐operate for the development and the commercialisation of tourism services.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the online fashion sponsorship, shedding light on the content and appeal of online fashion magazine advertising. Heeding the call of researchers for cross-cultural advertising investigations, this research offers a comparison of online fashion magazine advertisements in France and the USA in terms of needs appeals, emotional appeals, and sex appeals.

Elle and Vogue were identified as prominent fashion magazines with an online presence in France and the USA After pretesting to identify appeals that appeared most frequently in online fashion advertisements, a content analysis of website advertisements was conducted with the full population of online advertisements in the US and French Elle and Vogue at the time of the study.

The research found that need appeals conform primarily to national character and that emotional advertising is more preponderant in French advertisements, whereas sexual advertising is more preponderant in US advertisements. For needs appeals, the need for affiliation was higher for US advertisements, whereas online French magazines advertisements were more likely to use guidance and safety appeals. The need for prominence, attention, and autonomy were higher for online US magazine advertisements, whereas French advertisements were more likely to use escape and aggression appeals.

As fashion magazines develop an online presence that is well coordinated with their print fashion pages, it is important to understand how advertising sponsors on the magazines’ webpages target consumers. This study is a first step in providing cross-cultural comparative insights into advertising appeals in relation to national character and preferences.