BizResearch

The Impact of Tablet Visitors on Retail Websites

Source: Adobe Systems Incorporated via iStrategy Conference

Executive Summary

Consumers who visit retail websites using tablet devices (“Tablet Visitors”) are more valuable online customers than those who visit websites using smartphones or traditional desktop/laptop computers.

Based on its analysis of 16.2 billion visits to the websites of more than 150 retailers in 2011, Adobe Digital Marketing Insights found that Tablet Visitors spend over 50% more per purchase than visitors who use smartphones (“Smartphone Visitors”) and over 20% more than visitors who use desktop/laptop computers (“Traditional Visitors”). Additionally, Adobe found that Tablet Visitors are three times more likely to make a purchase than Smartphone Visitors and nearly as likely to purchase as Traditional Visitors.

Other findings from the Adobe study include:

• Tablet Visitors respond to promotions: Conversion rates and average order values on Black Friday and Cyber Monday rose above their 2011 Holiday and Calendar 2011 averages.
• Tablet Visitors are rapidly growing in size. Although they generate a small portion of total website visits, their share of total visits increased from 1% to 4% in just 12 months.
• Tablet Visitors appear to spend more because of their demographics, the nature of the tablet user experience, and the environment in which Tablet Visitors shop online.

These findings suggest that retailers can no longer afford a “one-size-fits-all” approach to mobile optimization because Tablet Visitors and Smartphone Visitors are distinct customer segments. Retailers should evaluate the opportunity that Tablet Visitors offer and develop strategies to better attract, convert and retain them.

Click here to read the full white paper

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Loyalty Programs - recent research from Foundations and Trends

Loyalty Programs: Generalizations on Their Adoption, Effectiveness and Design
Foundations and Trends® in Marketing
Volume 5 Issue 4
Tammo H. A. Bijmolt, Matilda Dorotic, Peter C. Verhoef

 

"Loyalty programs (LPs) have increased in popularity, and have been studied extensively in the academic literature with mixed findings. Therefore, we offer an overview of extant research on LPs. We derive generalizations on the effectiveness and best design of LPs, discuss conditions that mediate and moderate the effects of LPs on customer behavior and attitudes, and highlight avenues for further research. Overall, we conclude that LPs are effective in increasing consumer purchase behaviors over time, but their impact differs across consumer segments and markets. Numerous practical examples illustrate the points discussed. Overall, this monograph provides insights to researchers and practitioners through a comprehensive, research-based synthesis of current knowledge. As a consequence, LP managers may better understand the implications of LP adoption, and ultimately improve the effectiveness of their LPs."

For London Business current students can read the whole articleby going to: Portal>Library Services>A-Z list of databases> Foundations and Trends.

Picture of Augustus: Flickr, creative commons by shrugged

2011 Digital Marketing Outlook

The 2011 Digital Marketing Outlook study conducted by the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) and its research partner, AnswerLab, surveyed professionals at digital advertising and marketing agencies, traditional advertising agencies, service providers in the digital industry, corporate brand marketers and independent consultants.

The study reveals significant information regarding budgets, hiring strategies and what marketers value the most. For example the study discovered that 80% of marketers plan to increase the volume of digital projects in 2011 with 43% planning to decrease traditional paid media investments.

Twenty four SoDA member agencies have provided thought-provoking articles and case studies. And a 14-person panel comprised of guest contributors and notable CMO advisors have provided their insights.

Selecting Findings

• 47% of agencies spend at least half of their budget on digital


• In total, 80% of marketers plan to increase the volume of digital projects in 2011
  Marketers plan to invest in digital technologies/tools in 2011. Top areas include social networks/applications, brand experiences and digital infrastructure – blogger outreach and games are lower priorities


• Brand and product awareness, leads and web analytics – “engagement” metrics – have surpassed traditional metrics like page views and CPM for measuring performance


• Overall, 95% of respondents plan to use some form of social media in 2011


• Marketers look to mobile application and technologies that tie into mobile apps “location-based” technology and HTML5 for digital marketing in 2011-12

 

Photo from Creative Commons: Flickr: Kristina B

Communicating Corporate Responsbility

Corporate responsibility is about how a business conducts itself in all its activities. How it makes its products. Does it operate ethically and fairly in its dealings with employees, suppliers, customers, governments, competitors? Does it seek to minimise negative environmental and social impacts and maximise positive ones? Is it a good neighbour? Increasingly, leading companies are talking the language of sustainability – in the environmental and social senses as well as commercial sustainability. Given the challenges of climate change, resource depletion and burgeoning global population, businesses can no longer be committed to corporate responsibility, without a commitment to sustainability.  The evidence suggests that the next generation will have even higher expectations of corporate behaviour - and an even lower tolerance threshold for anything that appears to be insincere or spin. Transparency, authenticity will be vital ingredients for all organisations - and it follows, therefore, that this will be particularly important for a business trying to explain its understanding of what it means to be responsible and sustainable (taken from forward by David Grayson).

This report, produced by Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, is based on a workshop led by Professor David Grayson at Business in Society's annual corporate social responsibility (CSR) event in Brussels. It makes the case for why communicating about a company’s commitment to responsible business is so important; and offers practical, relevant advice about how to do so. Effective communications are essential for engaging stakeholders which, in turn, will be crucial for restoring trust in business and creating the low-carbon economy.

Photo from Creative Commons: Flickr: velo_city

Do Green Products Make Us Better People?

Consumer choices reflect not only price and quality preferences but also social and moral values, as witnessed in the remarkable growth of the global market for organic and environmentally friendly products.  What is not sufficiently understood is how green consumption fits into people’s global sense of social responsibility and morality and affects behaviours outside the consumption domain.

On the basis of recent theories in behavioural priming and moral regulation, the authors of this article, Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong argue that mere exposure to green products and the purchase of such products will have markedly different effects on subsequent behaviours. Whereas mere exposure can activate concepts related to social responsibility and ethical conduct and induce corresponding behaviours, purchasing green products may produce the counterintuitive effect of licensing asocial and unethical behaviours by establishing moral credentials. Thus, green products do not necessarily make for better people.

Mazar & Zhong conducted three experiments to test their predictions. Experiment 1 established that people attach higher social and ethical values to green than to conventional consumerism. Experiment 2 demonstrated that mere exposure to green products and purchase of green products have opposing effects on altruistic behaviour. Finally, Experiment 3 extended the licensing effect of purchasing green products to clear ethical violations: cheating and stealing money. Together, these studies suggest that consumption is more tightly connected to the social and moral self than previously thought.

Click here to read this article from Psychological science

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Better-for-who? revisiting company promises on food marketing to children

Background: In January 2006, the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine (IOM) concluded that food marketing influences children’s food preferences, requests, diets, and health. One of the IOM’s recommendations was that food and media companies shift the mix of foods marketed to youth toward healthier foods within two years.  As a result the food industry formed the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI), a self‐regulatory program administered by the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB).  Now, nearly four years since the IOM released its recommendations, how healthy are the products that companies market to children? The CBBB has been monitoring the CFBAI primarily using company reports, and adherence to pledges is high.  However, do nutrition standards and pledge adherence translate to fewer ads for foods of poor nutritional quality? To answer those questions, this study from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, analyzed the nutritional quality of foods and beverages that companies have approved for marketing to children, and tracked changes in the nutritional quality of foods and beverages marketed to children over time.

Main findings:

The percentage of approved products that met nutrition standards varied across food product types, from 0% of puddings, fruit‐flavoured snacks, and sweet snacks to 73% of yogurts.

The percentage of foods that met CSPI's nutrition standards varied across companies, from 0% to 100%. The majority of approved products from Burger King, Nestlé, Dannon and ConAgra met the standards, while the majority of products approved for marketing to kids by Pepsi, Kraft, McDonald’s, General Mills, Kellogg, Unilever and Campbell failed to meet the specified nutrition standards.

On Nickelodeon, the most popular children’s television station, ads for foods of poor nutritional quality decreased slightly, from about nine in ten (88%) to eight in ten (79%) food ads. The decrease was not statistically significant.

While the percentage of ads for foods exceeding the recommended limits for total fat, saturated plus trans fat, and sodium decreased, the percentage of ads for foods exceeding the recommended limit for added sugars increased.

The number of ads for foods that exceeded two or more limits for problem nutrients dropped from 29% of food ads in 2005 to 10% of food ads in 2009 (excluding brand ads).

One‐quarter of Nickelodeon’s TV food ads were from companies that do not participate in the Council of Better Business Bureaus' Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI).

Almost no ads from non‐CFBAI companies met CSPI's recommended nutrition standards for food marketing to children, while 28% of ads from CFBAI companies met the standards.

Click here to read the full report

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Understanding and Preventing Greenwash: A Business Guide

Despite indicators that consumers are seeking out deep discounts and shopping for necessities only, recent studies show that demand for environmentally low-impact products remains high. The 2009 “Cone Environmental Survey,” for example, found that attitudes toward environmentally responsible products remain strong despite a weak economy.  Paradoxically, it would seem that many consumers remain sceptical about the green messages that frequently accompany these products, many of which are perceived as misguided, unsubstantiated, or, worst of all, just “noise.” In other words, the messages are construed as "greenwash."  According to a 2009 Edelman study of more than 20 countries, global trust in business is at an all-time low and diminishing, with people less trustful of all sources of information about companies.  From a business standpoint, demand for environmentally sensitive products is growing, but communicating accurately and credibly is becoming more challenging.

The term greenwashing, is now in the lexicon of most industries. Whether real or perceived, when consumers see greenwashing, they are likely to punish companies with less sales. When NGOs see it, they are motivated to drive negative campaigns and press. And when regulators see it, they can determine that an environmental claim is a “deceptive practice” and fine companies.  The report argues that the problem of greenwashing should be a concern to all companies, because even if your company is not singled out, greenwashing by your competitors hurts the industry as a whole. The more companies are seen as greenwashing, the less likely customers are to trust environmental-related claims in general, and the more likely regulators are to step in and impose restrictions.

Ultimately, this practice is a barrier to developing a sustainable economy. It can slow down sustainability efforts by making more people sceptical of environmental initiatives.  It also impedes consumers from understanding the impacts of their purchasing decisions as they struggle to differentiate between valid and invalid claims. Fighting greenwash uses time and resources that could be better spent on initiatives with positive environmental impacts.

This latest report from BSR (Business for Social Responsibility) in conjunction with Futerra Sustainability Communications, explores the concept of greenwashing and provides advice on how companies can avoid.

Click here for the full report

Photo from Creative Commons: flickr: velo city

The Over-50s Consumer

This market assessment report from Key Note takes an in-depth look at the lives of those aged 50 and over. In particular, it looks at the behaviour and attitudes of this important demographic group in relation to: health, diet and appearance; home, work and finance; and leisure time and holidays.  Adults aged 50+ made up 34% of the total UK population in 2007. Official forecasts indicate that the number of UK residents aged 45 and over will increase by 7.7% between 2008 and 2013, which means that the over-50s are an increasingly important group for companies to target. 

Key findings:

A consumer survey commissioned by Key Note for this report found that health is a key issue for this age group, with more than a third (35.3%) of respondents agreeing that they worry `a lot' about their health. Appearance is also high on their list of priorities: 87.5% of respondents agreed that they take pride in their appearance and just under half (45.5%) of women said that they used anti-wrinkle creams. Around two-thirds (64%) of respondents were satisfied with the range of clothes offered by high-street retailers.

Looking after relatives is fairly common in this age group, with 22.6% of respondents having one or more of their children still living with them and 23.8% regularly spending time caring for older relatives. Only 13.5% of respondents paid someone to help with their household chores.

The importance of holidays to this age group is highlighted by the fact that 40.3% of respondents take more holidays and short breaks now than they did 10 years ago. However, very few respondents (9.8%) had been on a holiday organised by a company that specialises in travel for the over-50s.

The majority of respondents seem content with their quality of life, with more than half (58.7%) of those aged 50 and over agreeing that they are happier with their quality of life now than they were in their 20s and 30s.

This report is available to current London Business School staff, students and faculty from Key Note Online which can be found on the A-Z list of library databases within Portal.

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: Leo Reynolds

Slimming Market

This Market Assessment from Key Note takes a broad look at the UK slimming market, covering: reduced-fat and reduced-sugar (RFRS) foods; specific slimming products, such as meal replacements, appetite suppressants and very-low-calorie diets (VLCDs); exercise and fitness; and slimming clubs and magazines.

Highlights from the report:

Total UK retail sales of RFRS products and specialist slimming products amounted to an estimated £2.6bn in 2007, having increased by 3.8% in 2007 and by 23.2% across the review period (2003 to 2007).  Sales of RFRS products have been boosted by the concerns surrounding rising obesity levels and by media coverage of healthy eating. Specialist slimming products remain a niche market, which lacks professional support. Sales have declined as rising awareness and understanding of healthy eating has encouraged consumers to try to lose weight by adopting more balanced diets and exercising more regularly.

The proportion of adults taking part in some form of exercise is rising, as is the amount of time consumers spend exercising. A third of consumers use leisure centres, health clubs and gyms. Nevertheless, slimming clubs remain a popular way to lose weight, with just under a fifth of consumers using them. Research commissioned by Key Note from NEMS Market Research revealed that around a fifth of adults are trying to lose weight most of the time. However, the main reason why people diet is to be healthier and the most popular method of losing weight is to reduce fat intake.

Total sales of RFRS products and specialist slimming products are forecast to continue to grow between 2008 and 2012, albeit at a slower rate than was achieved over the previous 5 years. This is largely due to the fact that growth in sales of RFRS products is forecast to slow, as a result of growing competition from more natural products and functional foods. Conversely, specialist slimming products are predicted to return to growth over the forecast period, owing to the growth of VLCDs, which allow users to eat more balanced diets than those based on meal-replacement products and appetite suppressants.

The full report is available to current London Business School staff, students & faculty via Key Note Online which can be found on the A-Z list of library databases in Portal. 

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Brand management: then and now

In this article from Tim Ambler, Senior Fellow in Marketing at London Business School, discusses the future of marketing. As the word 'marketing' will mean different things to different people, the focus of this article is on brand management.

He argues that brand managers have always included some of the most talented people in business and, although complexity and the need for accountability are not going to decrease, the industry will find ways to cope. New technology will be a major part of the solution. Clearly the internet will play an increasingly important role for brands providing new opportunities for consumer-to-consumer communication. There is also the possibility that a common business language may emerge between marketers and non-marketers. However, marketers also need to ensure they respect continuity rather than chasing fashionable metrics. Establishing a brand dashboard will be one key way of achieving this, while also having access to a key range of metrics.

This article from Market Leader (Qtr 1, Jan 2009) is available to current London Business School staff, students and faculty from the WARC database located on the A-Z list of library databases via Portal.

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: JPhilipson

Targeting new behaviour is key to marketing in a recession

In this latest article from ADMAP, Richard Storey outlines research from M&C Saatchi that explores how different people are likely to respond to an economic downturn. Using a programme of qualitative and quantitative segmentation, eight different categories of UK consumers were identified, according to their attitudes to and behaviour during recession. These include: Crash Dieters; Scrimpers; Abstainers; Clothcutters; Treaters; Justifiers; Ostriches; and Vultures.  Each group adopts a different predominant behaviour or ‘strategy’ to cope financially with the downturn and it is this behaviour that defines each grouping. The characteristics that are prevalent to these types include: approach to risk, short-term versus long-term focus; levels of optimism; approach to debt; desire to enjoy life; and views of the significance of money generally. Understanding these dynamics enables marketers to identify more interesting and effective recession-beating strategies for their brands.

Demographic factors, in particular income levels, also go some way to understanding the different typologies. But one's financial situation only partly influences which typology you are. For example, you can be relatively well-off and still nurse a 'Crash Dieting' mindset. The article found that many of the attitudes identified are deeply ingrained, often handed down from parents. Mindsets such as "waste not, want not" persist long after the circumstances that bred them have changed.

This article is taken from the January issue of ADMAP, available to current London Business School students, faculty and staff from the WARC database located on the A-Z list of library databases via Portal

 

IPA Effectiveness Awards 2008

The IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards were first launched in 1980 with the objective of achieving three things: a better understanding of the crucial role advertising plays in marketing; closer analysis of advertising effectiveness and improved methods of evaluation a clear demonstration that advertising can be proven to work, against measurable criteria.  The Awards are conducted every two years. Submissions take the form of case studies which are written by advertising agencies, with the full co-operation and endorsement of their client. The judging for the Awards is unique in advertising awards schemes because it comprises more experts from outside the advertising agency world than experts within it.

This year's gold winners include:

UKTV – Dave: the home of witty banter: With the number of TV channels in the UK dramatically increasing UKTVG2 was one of a large number of 'lost' channels with only 2% spontaneous brand awareness.  In 2007 it was re-branded as "Dave", and launched on the digital Freeview service with the tagline "The Home of Witty Banter". This helped give the brand its own "personality", and aimed to promote the channel rather than just individual programmes. Spontaneous awareness rose to 32%, and Dave also attracted an additional eight million viewers to the UKTV network, delivering some £4.5 million in profit. This amounts to a return of investment of £2.99 for every £1 spent.

Kentucky Fried Chicken – Finger Lickin’ Good: In 2005, KFC was facing a declining market, a hostile media environment and increasing concerns about childhood obesity and healthy-eating.  As a result, the brand lost penetration, sales and market share.  Whilst many of its competitors aimed to demonstrate their healthy-eating credentials, KFC chose to remind consumers of what they loved about the brand - the taste of its chicken. As a result of this strategy its fortunes turned around almost immediately with sales and share value returning to growth. Using a combination of measures, the campaign demonstrated that advertising is a key driver of recovery, generating £328.05 million in incremental sales and payback of £4.30 incremental profit every £1 spent.

All the case studies from this year’s awards are now available on the Warc database.

The WARC database is available to current London Business School students, faculty and staff which can be found on the A-Z list of library databases via Portal.

Search marketing fact pack 2008

The week’s edition of Adverting age comes with a supplement on search marketing. Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that promotes websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). SEM methods include: search engine optimization (or SEO), paid placement, and paid inclusion. According to ComScore, overall US search volume increased almost 20% over the past year, with search-marketing spending expected to approach $14 billion in 2008. 

Unsurprisingly, Google is the NO. 1 search engine taking 63% of the 11.8 billion US searches and 58.6% of the 82.8 billion worldwide searches conducted in the last year. In 2007 Google generated around 99% of its revenue from advertising mainly through its web-search advertising services. Google also generated $6 billion in US media revenue last year which placed it at No.12 on Ad age’s list of 100 largest US media companies. Yahoo came in second with 19.6% of US searches and Microsoft, remained third with 8.3% of US searches.

The supplement is available from the Advertising Age website

Alternatively, the supplement can be found on the magazine stand located on the first floor of the library.

Nordic brands

The latest issue of the Journal of brand management is a special issue on Nordic brands. It offers a selection of papers that examine brand management and strategy within a Nordic context. The selected papers cover a wide range of topics starting with Biune & Andersen study on branding in a deregulated market. Their study looks at a major player in the Danish energy sector DONG. Once a monopoly, DONG has transformed itself from an invisible supplier to one of Denmark’s strongest and most visible brands. Rubin, Shultz and Hatch investigate whether Nordic brands can successfully penetrate the US market. Focusing on the pharmaceutical sector, the study looks at how the company Novo Nordisk differentiates its brands in the US through its ethical positioning founded on the concepts of corporate social responsibility.  Anselmsson, Johansson & Persson conducted a web survey with Swedish consumers in order to identify preferences in the Swedish market for consumer packaged food. The authors attempt to identify the differences in brand strength between: international and domestic brands; store and manufacturer brands; and single-category and extended multi-category brands. The issue also includes an interesting study from Lassen, Kunde and Gioria, who look at the specific brand-building challenges faced by small and medium size enterprises. How do SME companies, who have smaller marketing budgets compete locally and globally.

The latest issue of the Journal of brand management (Vol.16:1-2 ) can be found in the journals collection located in the library basement

Advertising and the brain

If the goal of advertising is to influence how consumers make decisions and respond to products, then it is essential that advertisers accumulate and integrate current knowledge about the structure and functionality of the human brain. Yet according to the guest editors of the latest issue of the International journal of advertising, neuroscientific research findings have been overlooked or even ignored by those involved in the business of both marketing and advertising research (Kenning, Marci & Calvert). To encourage further exploration on this topic five papers have been selected to reflect the broad approaches and theories in the research field of consumer neuroscience.

Papers include a study using steady-state topography (SST) to measure brain activity in order to examine the relationship between television advertising and changes in consumer brand preference (Silberstein & Nield).  A much needed discussion on the neglected area of attention. The paper by Milosavjevic & Cerf introduces computational neuroscience and its research on visual attention as a useful framework for studying bottom-up attention. Geske & Bellur examine the differences between seeing an advertisement in print to viewing it on a screen. Siefert et al look at the effect of watching fast-forwarded ads on DVR. Whilst Nairn & Fine’s paper provides an update to the debate on the ethics of advertising to children

This special issue of the International journal of advertising (Vol.27:3) can be found in the journals collection located in the library basement.

Alternatively, London Business School students, faculty, staff and alumni can access this journal via Business Source Complete which can be found on the A-Z list of library database (via Portal)

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: Gaetan Lee

The Advertising age 2008 executive compensation survey

Every year the magazine Advertising age carry out a number of industry specific surveys, which they publish on their website. The latest to be released is the 2008 executive compensation survey. The survey of executive salaries also includes reimbursement trends throughout advertising, marketing and media, providing top executive pay and compensation by industry category. Equilar, an executive-compensation-research firm, were asked to provide pay data for 100 US CMO-level marketing executives and for CEOs of the the 10 largest publicly held media companies. Ad Age selected the companies and executives from Equilar's database, which is drawn from proxy statements and other filings of publicly traded companies. Many companies don't disclose CMO pay in proxies, so the list provides a broad sample of CMO pay but is not comprehensive.

The website also provides free online access to the print edition's DataCenter columns which cover topics including ad spending, industry employment and holding-company new-business rankings; plus extended downloadable data for each column.

The latest issue of Advertising age can be found on the magazine stand located on the first floor of the library.

Alternatively, current staff, students and faculty can use Article Finder (available via Portal) to find out which of our databases provides full-text access to this journal.

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: alles-schlumpf

Character count: 30 years of Lego stars

This week Design week magazine (Vol.23:34) celebrates 30 years of the much-loved Lego’s minifigures. The minifigures were first created back in 1978 by Jens Nygaard Knudsen, a Danish designer.  Knudsen carved Lego bricks, creating 50 protypes before coming up with the design icon that we know and love today. Each figure is three bricks high with eight moveable parts. The figures were specifically designed to be able to hold Lego bricks and be plugged into other Lego parts. This design is very flexible and provides ample scope for adaptation, they also accommodate a range of accessories such as different hats and hairstyles. Originally the figures were totally asexual, then in 1980 the first female figure, a nurse, made her debut. Facial expressions were introduced in 1989 and in 1999 specific characters were introduced such as Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars films. Today more than four billion figures have been produced in 121 different designs. These minifigures have enabled Lego to constantly update its products and fight off rivals, the sheer flexibility of this design that should keep Lego in a good position for years to come.

Click here to see a collection of Lego minifigures put together by Icon eye

The latest issue of Design week magazine can be found on the magazine stand located on the first floor of the library.

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: sean dreilinger

UK consumer behaviour: single source results from IPA TouchPoints 2

In the latest report on WARC media, Stephen Whiteside discusses some of the findings of the IPA's TouchPoints, an annual survey which aims to provide an insight into the media use of an average adult in the UK. Respondents are asked to record their activities for every waking half hour over a seven day period, thus providing a unique view of peoples’ daily lives and how their media usage fits into these patterns. According to this year’s survey television is still the UK’s most frequently-used medium, with the average adult Briton spending almost a quarter of his or her waking time watching television. This amounts to an average of 3.69 hours a day during the week, and 4.29 hours on each weekend day (compared with 3.71 hours and 4.02 hours respectively in last year’s survey). By comparison, an average of only 3.5% of their time was spent using the internet, which is the same amount time spent reading a newspaper or magazine. For people with home internet access, time spent online rose to 10%, though this was still short of the average time spent by UK consumers listening to radio (12%).

In terms of mobile phone usage the survey found that over half of mobile phone users (53%) said they could not imagine life without their mobile phone. Some 90% of mobile phone owners sent at least one text message a day, with 6% sending more than ten, this rises to 19% among 15-24 year olds. Over a third of texts were sent while watching TV, 17% when listening to the radio, 14% when using the internet, and 7% when reading. Nearly two-thirds of mobile phone owners found receiving commercial text messages intrusive, with 62% saying they ignored all such messages they received.

This WARC report is available from the WARC database (on the A-Z list of library databases via Portal) available to staff, students & faculty of London Business School.

 

Mobile marketing

The latest issue of the Journal of targeting, measurement and analysis for marketing is a special issue on mobile marketing.  In a recent survey from OFCOM, mobile phones accounted for more than 50% of total telecommunications revenue globally. In line with this, the analysts Berg Insight suggests that mobile advertising will reach 7.5% of all global AD spend by 2012.  This growing dependence on mobile phones and other portable devices is creating enormous potential for marketers.  However, despite this potential, there seems to be very little evidence to support the effectiveness of marketing in this area. To address this gap the papers selected for this special issue focus entirely on measurement issues in relation to mobile marketing.

Amongst the contributions Hannu Verkasalo’ s paper reports on an extensive empirical study of mobile service usage in Finland, focusing on smartphones with extensive functionality.  Suleyman Barut analyses the possible impacts of mobile phone technology developments on marketing and determines those target mobile phone users who have the most positive attitudes towards mobile marketing tools. Alexander Muk’s paper examines whether cultural differences between countries (specifically the US and Taiwan) have a significant impact on consumers’ adoption of SMS advertising. Kondo et al explores whether sending direct mail (DM) coupons via mobile phones increases the probability of beauty salon customers using a coupon when visiting the store.

The latest issue of Journal of targeting, measurement and analysis for marketing (Vol.16:1) can be found in the journals collection located in the library basement.

Alternatively, current London Business School students, faculty, staff and alumni can access this journal via Business Source Complete which can be found on the Library A-Z list of databases (via the Portal).

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: ahhhhmen

Retailing research

The August issue of the Journal of business research is a special issue presenting selected papers from the 8th SMA Retailing Research Symposium which took place in 2005. One of the themes that ran through the conference was the growing realisation that traditional retailing principles and theories often have analogies to virtual shopping. For example Chebat and Babin who open up the special issue, make the point that often physical “way-finding” principles are very similar to the click-stream analyses of paths indicating how a consumer eventually ends up at a place where he/she buys or exits the virtual store.  Mounting evidence is showing that existing theories and practices can be applied to both reality and virtuality. 

The six featured papers span a wide range of retail and marketing topics and include:

• An examination of behavioural and emotional responses to on-line store atmospherics and how these vary across cultural value systems.
• A study of the impact of anger and related negative affective states on evaluations and behaviour following firm service failure.
• An exploration of the differential effects of gender and work status characteristics on the relationship between shopping mall characteristics (including atmospherics) and consumer shopping centre patronage.
• Discussion on retailers' major ethical decision making constructs
• A look at the technological investments that retail managers must effectively manage in conjunction with supplier partners to reap superior gains
• And finally, assessment of the impact of both positive and negative outcomes when close inter-firm relationships are regulated directly by public policy

The latest issue of the Journal of Business Research (Vol. 61:8) can be found in the journals collection located in the library basement.

Alternatively, London Business School students, faculty and staff can access this journal via Science Direct which can be found on the A-Z list of library database (via Portal)

The worldwide newspaper market in 2007

The latest WARC media report by Stephen Whiteside looks at some of the main findings from the 2008 edition of World press trends, an annual survey from the World Association of Newspapers (WAN). Highlights from the survey show that globally the circulation of newspapers has increased by 2.57% in 2007, with daily sales reaching a record level of 532 million. The addition of free daily newspapers to paid-for figures has also made a significant impact on the market increasing annual circulation figures by 3.65% to a total of 573 million. The number of newspaper websites has continued to grow and it is predicted that online ad revenues will more than double by 2011, accounting for 12% of newspapers’ advertising-based income.

This WARC report is available from the WARC database (on the A-Z list of library databases via Portal) available to staff, students & faculty of London Business School.

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: MildlyDiverting

Recruitment marketing

The June issue of People management comes with their annual guide to the latest trends in the recruitment marketing sector. The supplement includes the results of the CIPD Recruitment Marketing Awards. This year saw Claire’s Accessories and its agency ThirtyThree winning the Grand Prix award for their “Boa selector” campaign. Although the winners used the traditional print medium, a variety of media was included to get their recruitment message across - from poster campaigns and recruitment brochures to on-campus installations and viral marketing on YouTube. This year’s awards also saw heavy use of online channels; indeed developments such as Facebook, YouTube, Second Life and increasingly sophisticated intranets and microsites have created new and exciting possibilities for the recruitment industry. In this year’s digital category, online banners, interactive games, viral films and virtual environments were all included, with websites retaining their own category. The winner of the innovation award was an ad incorporated into an online Xbox game, highlighting the new ideas that technology is making possible.

The CIPD award results plus selected articles from this supplement are available from the magazine’s website.

Alternatively the latest edition of People Management can be found in the journals collection located in the library basement

Brand management special

The articles presented in this special issue on brand management have been taken from two branding events held in 2006; the Thought Leaders International Conference on Brand Management and the 2nd Academy of Marketing International Brand and Corporate Reputation Special Interest Group Colloquium. Leslie de Chernatony, the guest editor, introduces the eleven papers featured in this issue. Contributions include an interesting study by Power, Whelan & Davies who look at why some brands with negative associations are successful. Their study specifically focuses on those brands perceived as ruthless, possibly due to their leaders’ images. The research concludes that provided the brand is trusted, the negative influence of a ruthless image will not necessarily influence the relational outcome.  Another paper from Medway & Warnaby’s discusses the growing trend for place branding. This emphasis of this type of branding is on creating an attractive place image and/or diluting any negative images associated with a place. The authors introduce the concept of place demarketing which counter to the conventional wisdom explicitly accentuates the negative, rather than the positive. A good example is the “Crap Towns” phenomenon which markets places through a humorous emphasis on negativity.

The special issue of the European Journal of Marketing (Vol.42:5/6) is available to current London Business School students, faculty, staff and alumni from Emerald Management Xtra

The service side of manufacturing

In recent years, there has been a growing global trend for industrial manufacturers to develop services in addition to their traditional core products in order to secure long-term growth and remain competitive. Academics, too, have witnessed a growing interest in services, and the recent debate around the service-dominant logic of marketing highlights this interest. With this in mind, the purpose of this special issue is to investigate the service side of manufacturing. The guest editors, Wolfgang Ulaga and Frank Jacob have selected a range of articles that provide an academic perspective of the industry’s migration from product(s) to service(s). In their introductory article they discuss key aspects of this trend and examine how this has impacted on business marketing. The article includes an interview with the managing director of ThyssenKrupp Service AG, who discusses some of the main challenges of this transition from a product-centric to a service-centric business for industrial companies.

This issue of Industrial marketing management (Vol: 37:3) can be found in the journals collection located in the library basement.

Alternatively, current staff, students and faculty can access this journal from Elsevier Science Direct, which can be found on the A-Z list of library databases.

Competing for the dark chocolate market

This article by Jonathan Thomas discusses the increasingly popularity of dark chocolate. People in mainland Europe have traditionally had a taste for dark chocolate whilst the milk variety has long been the dominant preference of the Anglo-American world. But it seems tastes are shifting and manufacturers such as Mars, Hershey and Cadbury Schweppes, have been developing new dark products and/or extensions of staple brands such as Kisses, M&Ms and Flake. In April, Nestle, who account for around 13% of the global chocolate market, estimated that dark chocolate (often a subset of the luxury chocolate sector) is growing at 8% annually, twice the market average. Some of the factors driving this increase are due to health and ethical issues. Single-origin products make greater claims about traceability and provenance and seek to address concerns from consumers about Fairtrade and organic production issues. Dark chocolate is also now recognised as a potent source of flavonoids, which have antioxidant properties. These compounds act to neutralise free radicals and therefore protect the body. There is little wonder, then, that established providers are looking to the dark market for future growth and new entrants are seeking to gain a foothold.

This WARC online exclusive article is available from the WARC database (on the A-Z list of library databases via Portal) available to staff, students & faculty of London Business School.

Animal companions, consumption experiences, and the marketing of pets

The May issue of the Journal of business research is a special issue focusing on the marketing of pets and pet-related products and the emotional bond between consumers and their animal companions. People invest a huge amount of love and attention in caring for their animals which makes this an extremely lucrative business.  This collection of essays, empirical studies, interpretive investigations and other materials, has been put together by the editors in order to highlight some of the leading-edge research on the consumption- and marketing related aspects of animal companionship. The contributions have been organized according to a conceptual scheme, namely a typology of value in the consumption experiences (Holbrook). This has been simplified into four key categories - economic, hedonic, social and altruistic value, all of which encapsulate the main ways in which animals enrich our lives as consumers.

The latest issue of the Journal of business research (Vol.61:5) can be found in the journals collection located in the library basement

Alternatively, current staff, students and faculty can use Article Finder (available via Portal) to find out which of our databases provides full-text access to this journal.

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: jackhynes

Advertising and ethics

The latest Journal of advertising research presents a special issue covering advertising and ethics. This special edition starts of with contributions from Wally Snyder, president and CEO of the American Advertising Federation and Ruth Wooden, president of Public Agenda, a non-profit research and education organization. Both share their opinions on how thinking about ethics can result in good, even great, advertising. Fred Beard then provides a thought-provoking lead article on when and why audiences are offended by advertisements.  Kitt and Strater look at the impact of advertising on the confections market in the US.  Zimmerman and Dahlberg present findings from their study on the sexual objectification of women in advertising. Three papers focus on the area of pharmaceutical advertising. Two of these discuss the effects of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription drugs. Whilst Brennan et al review the intentions and assumptions underlying calls for more regulation of nutrition and health claims in food advertising.  Finally, Maher et al discuss ethnic portrayal in children’s advertising. Their research looks at both stereotypical character portrayals and the frequency of ethnic representation.

The latest issue of the Journal of advertising research (Vol 48:1) can be found in the journals collection located in the library basement.

Alternatively, online access to this journal is available to staff, students, faculty & external lecturers of London Business School via Business Source Complete (on the A-Z list of library databases via Portal)

NMA marketing services guide 2008

The main aim of this guide is to bring together and rank specialist providers whose focus is different to standard digital marketing agencies.  Agencies are invited to submit for entry into the guide by selecting one of the following areas as their main area of business: Ad networks; Affiliate networks; Analytics providers; Email agencies; Interactive TV agencies; Mobile agencies; and Search marketing (SEM) agencies.  The companies included in these categories cover both providers that focus entirely on one of these areas and those that have a know expertise. Financial details are supplied by the companies themselves and checked where necessary with Companies House. The companies are then ranked by the amount of turnover that they can attribute to the particular area in question. This year all entries had to derive at least 20% of their business from a specialist area in order to qualify.

The latest issue of New Media Age can be on the magazine stand located on the first floor of the library.

What will neuroscience do for advertisers?

This article, from Tim Ambler, Senior Fellow in Marketing at London Business School evaluates neuroscience in its application to advertising. The first part of the article looks at some of the myths surrounding neuroscience. For example, neuroscience can be used to detect brand familiarity and the strength of reactions to the unfamiliar. It may also be used to rank degrees of liking for a package at first perception. What it cannot do is predict future purchase levels. The second part of the article provides a brief look at the influence of science on advertising. The article then goes on to speculate what neuroscience may be able to tell us in the future.  Although it has little practical value at present, Tim Ambler makes the point that we need to understand the possibilities and capabilities in order to realise its potential. Neuroscience will, in the future, do a great deal for advertisers.

This article is from the January issue of Admap, (Issue 490, pp.24-26) which can be found in the journals collection located in the library basement

Alternatively, Admap is available full-text from the WARC database (on the A-Z list of library databases via Portal) available to staff, students & faculty of London Business School.

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: Jan Tik

Entrepreneurial and small business marketing: an introduction

The latest issue of the Journal of small business management focuses on entrepreneurial and small business marketing. The contributions in this special issue resulted from papers and reports presented at the 2nd Office Depot Small Business Research Forum. The forum covered topics such as brand management in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the evolution of franchise contracts, effects of entrepreneurial orientation on market orientation, franchisee failure, the role of entrepreneurship in market-driving behaviour and relational governance in franchise systems. The common thread running through the ten papers presented is the recognition that smaller, entrepreneurial ventures face specific marketing challenges due to limited budgets and human resources.

The latest issue of the Journal of small business management can be found in the journals collection located in the library basement.

Alternatively, current staff, students and faculty can use Article Finder (available via Portal) to find out which of our databases provides full-text access to this journal.

How green are you?

In an online survey of 1,006 marketers, Marks & Spencer was overwhelmingly named as the UK’s greenest brand. The results of the survey conducted by YouGov are published in the latest issue of Marketing week (27/03/08). M&S received 222 unprompted mentions; more than double that of its nearest rival Innocent Drinks. A striking feature of the survey is the strong performance of car brands. The survey placed Honda as the car manufacturer regarded as the most environmentally responsible, although on the measure of those that have made the greatest inroads into green issues in recent years, Toyota took fifth place ahead of Honda. Companies considered to have the worst green reputation included Shell, closely followed by Exon/Esso and Macdonalds. To read the story click here

Alternatively the latest edition of Marketing week can be found on the magazine stand located on the first floor of the library.

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: Purpleslog

Putting a price on insurance branding

Last year 50% of all UK car insurance was bought online, and one in five of these transactions started on a price comparison website. As a result, insurance companies have had to alter their marketing strategies in order to remain competitive in this environment.  How should these companies respond to the rise of price aggregator or comparison websites?  How can companies who resist the power of the web aggregators, ensure brand awareness to win and retain their customers? Using market share data for UK insurance comparison websites, Tim Evershed, looks at how insurance brands can avoid becoming online commodities judged mainly by price. 

This article is available from the WARC database (on the A-Z list of library databases via Portal) available to staff, students & faculty of London Business School.

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: net_efekt

Guilt-edged: can luxury brands go green?

It is generally assumed that the luxury goods market has little in common with the green movement. However, Boyd Farrow argues that there is a growing demand for ‘eco-luxury’ goods. Research from the Luxury Institute based in New York, estimates that 57% of high-income Americans would be willing to pay more for a brand recognised for socially responsible practices and 70% for brands with a good environmental record.  Similarly, a Mastercard survey of affluent consumers in China found that 48% of respondents believed that the environmental friendliness of a brand would influence their purchase decisions. So is this forging of two markets a flash-in-the pan or a long term trend?

This article is available from the WARC database (on the A-Z list of library databases via Portal) available to staff, students & faculty of London Business School.

Who can I trust?

This article from Admap magazine (Issue 489) examines the importance of trust in consumer choice. Research shows that consumers have always been influenced by trust when choosing between brands. This means that the product itself must be worthy of trust; without that quality, PR or word-of-mouth just isn’t enough.  Martin Lee argues that evidence shows that consumers are already starting to get suspicious of word-of-mouth, Web 2.0 reviews, Google positioning, and so on: they want independent evidence that these are not just company-generated. When people receive information from a trusted source, the decision process is shortened markedly. So marketers need to ensure that the brand itself is a trusted source. What makes a brand trusted are qualities such as generosity, transparency, wisdom and warmth.

This article is available from the WARC database (on the A-Z list of library databases via Portal) available to staff, students & faculty of London Business School. Alternatively, our print holdings of Admap can be found in the journals collection located in the library basement.

Marketing week interactive

Online advertising is booming, accounting for 15% of overall advertising. Last year it grew more than 41% year on year and Group M predict that, by the end of this year the internet will account for 24.8% of UK ad spend, that’s only 26% behind television. This week Marketing week magazine includes a supplement examining recent trends and developments in the online environment. It also provides an overview of how developments are affecting brands and their relationships with consumers. As internet users grow more sophisticated in their behaviour, advertisers and ad agencies will need to respond with equal sophistication.

The latest issue of Marketing week can be found on the magazine stand located on the first floor of the library.

Brand attachment: constructs, consequences and causes

The latest issue in the Foundation and Trends in marketing (Vol. 1:3) examines four key issues involved in developing and establishing strong brand relationships with customers. The first concerns the meaning of “brand attachment” and its consequences for brand equity. The second concentrates on the outcomes of brand attachment to customers and the firm. The third looks at the causes of brand attachment. The authors argue that strong brand attachment is created through meaningful personal connections between the brand and its customers. The authors also seek to identify a strategic brand model that enables the firm to not only create brand attachment but also sustain and grow the brand’s competitive advantages.

Foundation and trends can be found on the A-Z list of library databases in the library area of the Portal. It is available to available to current staff, students and faculty of London Business School.

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: Grumpy Cup

Call centres, CRM and cows: why modern service marketing is not like cattle farming

Market Leader, Winter 2007, Issue 39, pp.33-37

Tim Ambler, Senior Fellow in Marketing at the School, discusses the paradox that although technological advances should help marketers to communicate with their customers more effectively, in many cases its use can leave customers feeling alienated. The use of call centres is a good example. Whilst there is no argument that the use of scripts and phone technology reduces costs "treating your own staff like battery hens means that they will treat customers like battery hens".  The problem lies with a managerial approach to customers known as 'cattle-farming'. Want to read more?

Online access to Market leader, the quarterly journal of the Marketing Society is available to staff, students & faculty of London Business School via the WARC database (on the A-Z list of library databases via Portal)

 

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: misterbisson

Word of mouth – a new advertising discipline

Consumer surveys show that individuals are likely to base their buying preferences on word of mouth (WOM) rather than on the more formal channels of promotion. For this reason

WOM advertising is proving to be a highly valuable tool for advertisers.

 

As well as helping consumers to make purchasing decisions, it encourages consumers to try out new brands and provides a measure of just how effective advertising campaigns are. The latest issue of the Journal of advertising research (Vol 47:4) is a special issue exploring word of mouth advertising.

 

Featured articles include:

• Reconsidering models of influence: the relationship between consumer social networks and word-of-mouth effectiveness
• Word-of-mouth research: principles and applications
• Visibility versus surprise: which drives the greatest discussion of super bowl advertisements?
• The origin and impact of CPG new-product buzz: emerging trends and implications
• Finding the “missing link”: advertising’s impact on word of mouth, web searches and site visits
• Word of mouth on the web: the impact of web 2.0 on consumer purchase decisions
• Unleashing the power of word of mouth: creating brand advocacy to drive growth

The Journal of advertising research can be found in the journal collection located in the library basement. Alternatively, use Article Finder (available via Portal) to find out which of our databases provides full-text online access.

 

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: nyki_m

The IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards

 The IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) Advertising Effectiveness Awards were established in 1980, with the objective of providing a better understanding of the importance of advertising to marketing. The Awards are conducted every two years and comprise of case studies written by advertising agencies. The IPA Advertising Effectiveness Data Bank now contains over 700 case histories of best practice in advertising across a wide spectrum of marketing sectors and expenditures. Each case history is around 4,000 words and is fully illustrated by market research, sales and profit data. Full text and abstracts of all these case histories are available from the WARC (World Advertising Research Center) database.

The latest case study to be added to WARC looks at the ‘The Weetabix Week’, an advertising campaign designed to reinvigorate sales of the iconic breakfast cereal Weetabix.

The WARC database is available to staff, students & faculty of the London Business School Library via the A-Z list of library databases in the Library area of the Portal.

Year in marketing 2007

This week’s Marketing magazine presents a year in marketing - a complete overview of the industry for 2007. Reviewing the biggest marketing moments, the best-performing adverts, the best selling brands, and presenting agency league tables and the top 100 advertisers and online advertisers.

The latest edition of Marketing can be found on the magazine stand located on the first floor of the library

The SAGE handbook of advertising

Tim Ambler, Senior Fellow in Marketing at the School, has co-edited this comprehensive, scholarly contribution to the field, published this month.

'In this era of 'snackable' content which satisfies only in the moment, it's great to have a comprehensive Advertising Handbook which one can consult repeatedly. The references are comprehensive and the Handbook opens up many key areas for practitioners' - Hamish Pringle, Director General, IPA

'Finally, a Handbook of Advertising that brings the field up-to-date. I am impressed with its comprehensive coverage of topics and the distinguished specialists who have shared their key findings with us' - Philip Kotler, Kellogg School of Management

'When trying to make sense of the mystifying world of advertising, academics and practitioners often seem to inhabit separate universes. Not in this Handbook. For once, the best brains from each side genuinely collude -- with constructive results. Wise agencies will read it before their clients do' - Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP

'This mighty tome brings together a vast range of views of advertising based on deep experience and scholarship. For practitioners and academics alike, it will be a voyage of discovery and enlightenment' - Lord (Maurice) Saatchi, Chairman, M&C Saatchi

'This magnificent volume captures all we need to know about how advertising works and its context' - Baroness (Peta) Buscombe, Director General, Advertising Association, London

Gerard J Tellis and Tim Ambler (editors), The SAGE handbook of advertising, SAGE, 2007

A copy is available in Library stock.

DVRs, fast-forwarding and advertising attention

The September issue of Admap discusses the potential impact in the growth of the digital video recorders (DVRs) on the effectiveness of TV advertisements. Industry experts fear that the fast-forwarding functions of the DVR offer more ‘viewer control’ which they believe is bad news for the ’30 second ad’. Indeed, the ability to skips ads is listed as one of the biggest advantages of owning a DVR according to surveys based on DVR owners self-reporting. In line with this many industry experts are pessimistic about the future of TV adverts; Mckinsey estimates that by 2010, ‘televisions advertising could be only 35% as effective as it was in 1990’. So should TV advertisers be concerned for the future? 

The latest issue of Admap can be found in the journals collection located in the library basement.  Online access is available to staff, students & faculty of London Business School Library (3 month embargo) via the WARC database (on the A-Z list of library databases via Portal)

 

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: Thunderchild tm

Corporate marketing and the branding of the organisation

The September issue of the Journal of brand management is a special issue featuring papers presented at the 9^th symposium of the International Corporate Identity Group (ICIG), held in Edinburgh earlier this year. The theme of the symposium was ‘Corporate marketing and the branding of the organization’. The lead paper of this edition ‘Corporate brands with heritage’ reports on the findings of a major study which set out to ‘introduce and define what the authors see as a distinct branding category, which they term heritage brands’. The study used extensive interviews with senior executives from a wide range of organizations to examine the importance of nurturing and protecting brand heritage. Want to read more…..

The latest issue of the journal can be found in the journals collection located in the library basement. Alternatively, use Article Finder (available via Portal) to find out which of our databases provides full-text access.

Marketing Week interactive supplement

The latest issue of Marketing week comes with the fourth in a series of Interactive guides packed with the latest advice and opinions of leading industry experts in interactive media. Includes a variety of topics covering: digital disciplines; search marketing; affiliate marketing; online advertising; e-mail marketing; mobile marketing; interactive TV; web 2.0; e-commerce; campaign planning; behavioural targeting.

Visit the magazine’s website to download the book for free. Want to read more from Marketing Week? Use Article Finder (available via Portal) to find out which of our databases provides full-text access.