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Besides the metrics developed to measure the impact of the video campaign run by the company, the case has serious practical implications for all companies in emerging markets selling budget/low-cost products. Marketing managers can take note of these key performance indicators in evaluating the success of their social media campaigns.More importantly, students need to understand how the campaign managed to integrate uninitiated and less-privileged consumers to the world of social media with aspirational sentiments.

The case deals with a digital media planning activity for a low-cost handset company based in India. TRIVIA International Ltd is a manufacturer and marketer of smart phones and feature phone in the price range of below US$70–100 and US$20, respectively. The phones cater to low-income consumer bracket, which forms the vast microcosm of India. The consumer base is huge, but the purchasing power is very low, so they are at times referred to as the micro-consumer in Bottom of Pyramid approach. To approach this consumer base, Trivia planned a very engaging campaign on social media that yielded positive results, contrary to popular belief that only high-income individuals explore the social media intensively through their smart phones. The chapter ends with a set of recommendations for all digital managers who want to analyse their campaigns effectively via awareness, sentiment and engagement metrics.

The case is meant for all post graduate programs in Business Management, which include the MBAs, Masters in Business Administration and the Executive Development program for managers. The case can also be used in Part Time Business Management programs held over weekends for working professionals. Most likely the students are going to handle this case in their second year of a full-time program or at an advanced level of their career development programs. The subjects so mentioned here were offered as electives or areas of specialization. It is presumed that the students undergoing these courses have basic understanding of marketing management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

What was the older daughter's name on Father Knows Best? Who hit the ball that Willy Mays miraculously caught in the 1954 World Series? Who was Goldwater's running mate in 1964? These questions are less than earth‐shattering; in fact they are labeled as ‘trivia.’ But that does not mean that they are unimportant. Ask any librarian who has ever spent a half‐hour cross‐checking lists to find the one performer who won the Oscar, Emmy, Tony, and Grammy.

Since the creation of the trivium and quadrivium as the core for a post- secondary education, education itself has undergone substantive change, particularly since the end of the eighteenth century. Unspoken is the change in the population seeking such advanced knowledge, as well as the idea that the original elements might be recast as liberal studies and STEM (science/technology/engineering/mathematics); unspoken, too, are the ramifications. This paper aims to discuss these issues.

The increased emphasis on STEM and its applications has reduced funding for liberal studies, leading to the potential for seriously reducing the perceived importance of the humanities and related liberal studies. This creates a feedback loop, as the increasing cost of education shifts the focus towards “practical” knowledge.

As with the trivium and quadrivium, where it was expected that the latter was focused on work-related skills, there may be an increasing split in society between those who have the fiscal resources and obtain a liberal education, and the balance who enter the applied professions, amplifying the increasing socioeconomic gap in today's society. It also becomes problematic for members of society to effectively participate in the political process.

An innovative look at the need for liberal education in the modern world.

The traditional liberal-arts curriculum of the word-based Trivium (grammar, dialectic/logic, rhetoric) and the number-based Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music) has an intrinsic unity. Used in an integrated way, it provides a tool for self-development, self-realisation and self-integration. The purpose of this paper is to outline the core nature of the integrative quality of the liberal-arts curriculum, trace the gradual disintegration of the curriculum from its adoption in classical Greece, and provide practical suggestions for the re-integration of the curriculum in the context of modern educational practice.

The paper presents a philosophical survey of the history of the theory and practice relating to the intrinsic integrated quality of liberal-arts education from pre-classical Greece to the present day.

The integrated quality of the liberal-arts curriculum has experienced a gradual disintegration from its adoption in classical Greece to the twenty-first century. The paper provides practical suggestions for the re-integration of an integrated approach to the curriculum in the context of modern educational practice.

Re-engaging with the integrated quality of the liberal-arts curriculum is vital for fulfilling the purpose of education as a practice: that of enabling a human being to flourish in a holistic way, in order to take an active role within a civil society.

The paper provides a valuable antidote to overly rational thinking by arguing for the need to restore the intrinsic integrative quality of the liberal-arts curriculum in educational practice in order to support the flourishing of individuals, society in order for the emergence of a mutually supportive interaction between them to appear.

Corporate managers must find a way to communicate their CSR activities to stakeholders without creating a boomerang effect where the CSR messages create resentment of instead of support for the corporation. One alternative is to use social media channels because they are low cost and can use a soft sell approach, thereby reducing the likelihood of a boomerang effect. However, using social media messaging about CSR challenges managers to attract followers to those social media channels. This chapter explores the use of gamification, the use of gaming features in the CSR messaging, to present CSR messages. The case study of Kraft’s “Two-Minute Drill” is used to illustrate how gamification can be used to promote social media-based CSR messaging.

A case study method is used to illuminate how Kraft used gamification to increase the audience for its anti-hunger CSR efforts. Kraft used the “Two-Minute Drill” game to attract people to their effort to fight hunger.

The “2-Minute Trivia Drill” seemed to overcome the CSR promotional communication concerns of tone and cost. The dominant message and theme is feeding the hungry. The tone on the Facebook page and the game itself is subtle in relation to the Kraft brand because Kraft appears in the background through its logo, name, and the names of prominent Kraft products. The stakeholders are treated as the drivers of the CSR effort because the individuals playing the game are what create the donations from Kraft. Donations could even be personalized. None of the comments posted to the Kraft Fight Hunger Facebook page questioned the expense of the project. Overall the comments were very favorable suggesting there was no boomerang effect from the game.

The study offers only one case study of gamification in CSR communication. More cases are necessary to draw stronger conclusions about the utility of gamification for CSR communication presented via social media. Moreover, more direct measures are needed to assess how stakeholders feel about CSR messages using gamifications and if the strategy can consistently prevent a boomerang effect.

The implications from the case study are that gamification can be an effective way to attract stakeholders to social media-based CSR messages and to generate positive reactions to the CSR messaging.

This chapter is one of the first detailed explorations of gamification as a means to avoid the dangers of the CSR promotional communication dilemma (stakeholders wanting CSR information but reacting negatively to the promotion of CSR activities).

There are many suggestions that marketing is a discipline in decline and distress, or experiencing a “mid‐life crisis” (though one from which it may not recover). At the heart of these problems lies the fact that much research in marketing appears trivial and irrelevant to practitioners of marketing. Researching trivial and obsolete topics, even with the most sophisticated research methodology conceivable, does not merely exacerbate the divide between academics and practitioners in marketing, it threatens the place of marketing in the business‐school curriculum. The alternative is the adoption of research and publishing strategies for impact with diverse audiences, taking research priorities from practice, and demanding the right to conduct research‐led teaching in marketing.

Are people more or less likely to use their power if they have high social status? This chapter discusses how having status affects the use of power by those in positions of power in exchange relations or small groups. Although status and power are typically assumed to be mutually reinforcing, there is growing recognition that having status may actually inhibit the use of power under certain conditions.

I review relevant research findings and consider three variables in particular that may moderate the effects of status on the use of power: legitimacy of status, achieved versus ascribed status, and individualist versus collectivist cultures.

While status and power are close correlates, there is growing recognition – particularly in organizational psychology – that, under certain conditions, having status may inhibit the use of power or that lacking status increases power use. These studies shed new light on how status interacts with power in hierarchical groups and challenge the pervasive view of power and status as mutually reinforcing forces that perpetuate inequalities. Understanding more precisely when and why status and power have convergent or divergent effects on power use is an important task for scholars of group processes.

The possibility that status and power can have distinct consequences, let alone opposite effects, presents an intriguing opportunity for scholars of group processes to rethink and extend our understanding of social hierarchies in a new light.

Serious games are computer games with a primary purpose of educating or training while also entertaining. Literature has established that serious games can enhance learning in the classroom and improve student engagement. However, few studies have analyzed the factors that inhibit the adoption of serious games. The current study extends research by analyzing inhibitors of serious game adoption in an introductory accounting course for MBA students. The accounting mobile challenge (AMC) is a mobile accounting trivia game which utilizes both competitive and collaborative features in gameplay. Results demonstrated that students who identified as collaborative engaged in a greater amount of gameplay while those who identified as competitive did not. Furthermore, independent learners, as well as those who utilized mobile technology more outside of class, more readily adopted the technology. Utilizing the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989) as a framework, it was predicted that the perceived value of the AMC would increase as students played the game more. Results support this prediction. Finally, a “discouragement effect” was detected as a major inhibitor to utilizing the technology as students who did poorly gave up and discontinued playing the game. This research contributes to the emerging literature on the inhibitors to serious game adoption in accounting.

Most everyone has heard the rumblings on the horizon of the National Information Infrastructure (NII). To some, it is the sound of traffic: a steady roar of bytes rushing by over the Internet. To others, it is the roar of an approaching storm that threatens to flatten everything in its path. What I hear is a combination of the two. The coming of Universal Access will also produce the “Universal Publisher,” and we will soon be awash in a flood of trivia as each household finds out that they can contribute data to the growing roar.