The applications of social media in sports marketing

n the era of big data, sports consumer's activities in social media become valuable assets to sports marketers. In this paper, the authors review extant literature regarding how to effectively use social media to promote sports as well as how to effectively analyze social media data to support business decisions. Methods: The literature review method. Results: Our findings suggest that sports marketers can use social media to achieve the following goals, such as facilitating marketing communication campaigns, adding values to sports products and services, creating a two-way communication between sports brands and consumers, supporting sports sponsorship program, and forging brand communities. As to how to effectively analyze social media data to support business decisions, extent literature suggests that sports marketers to undertake traffic and engagement analysis on their social media sites as well as to conduct sentiment analysis to probe customer's opinions. These insights can support various aspects of business decisions, such as marketing communication management, consumer's voice probing, and sales predictions. Conclusion: Social media are ubiquitous in the sports marketing and consumption practices. In the era of big data, these ＂footprints＂ can now be effectively analyzed to generate insights to support business decisions. Recommendations to both the sports marketing practices and research are also addressed

The 4s web-marketing mix model

This paper reviews the criticism on the 4Ps Marketing Mix framework, the most popular tool of traditional marketing management, and categorizes the main objections of using the model as the foundation of physical marketing. It argues that applying the traditional approach, based on the 4Ps paradigm, is also a poor choice in the case of virtual marketing and identifies two main limitations of the framework in online environments: the drastically diminished role of the Ps and the lack of any strategic elements in the model. Next to identifying the critical factors of the Web marketing, the paper argues that the basis for successful E-Commerce is the full integration of the virtual activities into the company’s physical strategy, marketing plan and organisational processes. The four S elements of the Web-Marketing Mix framework present a sound and functional conceptual basis for designing, developing and commercialising Business-to-Consumer online projects. The model was originally developed for educational purposes and has been tested and refined by means of field projects; two of them are presented as case studies in the paper.\ud \u

Viewing the Future? Virtual Reality In Journalism

Journalism underwent a flurry of virtual reality content creation, production and distribution starting in the final months of 2015. The New York Times distributed more than 1 million cardboard virtual reality viewers and released an app showing a spherical video short about displaced refugees. The Los Angeles Times landed people next to a crater on Mars. USA TODAY took visitors on a ride-along in the "Back to the Future" car on the Universal Studios lot and on a spin through Old Havana in a bright pink '57 Ford. ABC News went to North Korea for a spherical view of a military parade and to Syria to see artifacts threatened by war. The Emblematic Group, a company that creates virtual reality content, followed a woman navigating a gauntlet of anti- abortion demonstrators at a family planning clinic and allowed people to witness a murder-suicide stemming from domestic violence.In short, the period from October 2015 through February 2016 was one of significant experimentation with virtual reality (VR) storytelling. These efforts are part of an initial foray into determining whether VR is a feasible way to present news. The year 2016 is shaping up as a period of further testing and careful monitoring of potential growth in the use of virtual reality among consumers

A conceptual framework for the direct marketing process using business intelligence

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Direct marketing is becoming a key strategy for organisations to develop and maintain strong customer relationships. This method targets specific customers with personalised advertising and promotional campaigns in order to help organisations increase campaign responses and to get a higher return on their investments. There are, however, many issues related to direct marketing, ranging from the highly technical to the more organisational and managerial aspects. This research focuses on the organisational and managerial issues of the direct marketing process and investigates the stages, activities and technologies required to effectively execute direct marketing. The direct marketing process integrates a complex collection of marketing concepts and business analytics principles, which form an entirely ‘self-contained’ choice for organisations. This makes direct marketing a significantly difficult process to perform. As a result, many scholars have attempted to tackle the complexity of executing the direct marketing process. However, most of their research efforts did not consider an integrated information system platform capable of effectively supporting the direct marketing process. This research attempts to address the above issues by developing a conceptual framework for the Direct Marketing Process with Business Intelligence (DMP-BI). The conceptual framework is developed using the identified marketing concepts and business analytics principles for the direct marketing process. It also proposes Business Intelligence (BI) as an integrated information system platform to effectively execute the direct marketing process. In order to evaluate and illustrate the practicality and impact of the DMP-BI framework, this thesis adopts a case study approach. Three case studies have been carried out in different industries including retailing, telecommunication and higher education. The aim of the case studies is also to demonstrate the usage of the DMP-BI framework within an organisational context. Based on the case studies’ findings, this thesis compares the DMP-BI framework with existing rival methodologies. The comparisons provide clear indications of the DMP-BI framework’s benefits over existing rival methodologies

DSS (Decision Support Systems) in Indian Organised Retail Sector

Indian organised retail industry is poised for growth. Rapid state of change due to speedy technological developments, changing competitive positions, varying consumer behaviour as well as their expectations and liberalized regulatory environment is being observed in organized retailing. Information is crucial to plan and control profitable retail businesses and it can be an important source of competitive advantage so long as it is affordable and readily available. DSS (Decision Support Systems) which provide timely and accurate information can be viewed as an integrated entity providing management with the tools and information to assist their decision making. The study, exploratory in nature plans to adopt a case study approach to understand practices of organized retailers in grocery sector regarding applications of various DSS tools. Conceptual overview of DSS is undertaken by reviewing the literature. The study attempts to describe practices and usage of DSS in operational decisions in grocery sector and managerial issues in design and implementation of DSS. Comparision across national chain and local organized retailer in grocery sector reveals that national chain having implemented ERP partially are mostly using the same for majority of operational decisions like inventory management, CRM, campaign management. Two local players use spread sheets and in house software to make the above operational decisions. The benefits realized remain the same across the retailers. Prioritization as well as quantification of benefits was not communicated. The issues of coordination, integration with other systems in case of ERP usage, training were highlighted. Future outlook of DSS by the respondents portrayed a promising picture.

A Few Implementation Solutions for Business Intelligence

To succeed in the context of a global and dynamic economic environment, the companies must use all the information they have, as efficiently as possible, in order to gain competitive advantages and to consolidate their position on the market. They have to respond quickly to the changes in the business environment and to adapt themselves to the market’s requirements. To achieve these goals, the companies must use modern informatics technologies for data acquiring, storing, accessing and analyzing. These technologies are to be integrated into innovative solutions, such as Business Intelligence systems, which can help managers to better control the business practices and processes, to improve the company’s performance and to conserve it’s competitive advantages.Business Intelligence, competitive advantage, OLAP, data mining, key performance indicators.

Interactive Food and Beverage Marketing: Targeting Children and Youth in the Digital Age

Looks at the practices of food and beverage industry marketers in reaching youth via digital videos, cell phones, interactive games and social networking sites. Recommends imposing governmental regulations on marketing to children and adolescents

To boardrooms and sustainability: the changing nature of segmentation

Market segmentation is the process by which customers in markets with some heterogeneity are grouped into smaller homogeneous segments of more ‘similar’ customers. A market segment is a group of individuals, groups or organisations sharing similar characteristics and buying behaviour that cause them to have relatively similar needs and purchasing behaviour. Segmentation is not a new concept: for six decades marketers have, in various guises, sought to break-down a market into sub-groups of users, each sharing common needs, buying behavior and marketing requirements. However, this approach to target market strategy development has been rejuvenated in the past few years. Various reasons account for this upsurge in the usage of segmentation, examination of which forms the focus of this white paper. Ready access to data enables faster creation of a segmentation and the testing of propositions to take to market. ‘Big data’ has made the re-thinking of target market segments and value propositions inevitable, desirable, faster and more flexible. The resulting information has presented companies with more topical and consumer-generated insights than ever before. However, many marketers, analytics directors and leadership teams feel over-whelmed by the sheer quantity and immediacy of such data. Analytical prowess in consultants and inside client organisations has benefited from a stepchange, using new heuristics and faster computing power, more topical data and stronger market insights. The approach to segmentation today is much smarter and has stretched well away from the days of limited data explored only with cluster analysis. The coverage and wealth of the solutions are unimaginable when compared to the practices of a few years ago. Then, typically between only six to ten segments were forced into segmentation solutions, so that an organisation could cater for these macro segments operationally as well as understand them intellectually. Now there is the advent of what is commonly recognised as micro segmentation, where the complexity of business operations and customer management requires highly granular thinking. In support of this development, traditional agency/consultancy roles have transitioned into in-house business teams led by data, campaign and business change planners. The challenge has shifted from developing a granular segmentation solution that describes all customers and prospects, into one of enabling an organisation to react to the granularity of the solution, deploying its resources to permit controlled and consistent one-to-one interaction within segments. So whilst the cost of delivering and maintaining the solution has reduced with technology advances, a new set of systems, costs and skills in channel and execution management is required to deliver on this promise. These new capabilities range from rich feature creative and content management solutions, tailored copy design and deployment tools, through to instant messaging middleware solutions that initiate multi-streams of activity in a variety of analytical engines and operational systems. Companies have recruited analytics and insight teams, often headed by senior personnel, such as an Insight Manager or Analytics Director. Indeed, the situations-vacant adverts for such personnel out-weigh posts for brand and marketing managers. Far more companies possess the in-house expertise necessary to help with segmentation analysis. Some organisations are also seeking to monetise one of the most regularly under-used latent business assets… data. Developing the capability and culture to bring data together from all corners of a business, the open market, commercial sources and business partners, is a step-change, often requiring a Chief Data Officer. This emerging role has also driven the professionalism of data exploration, using more varied and sophisticated statistical techniques. CEOs, CFOs and COOs increasingly are the sponsor of segmentation projects as well as the users of the resulting outputs, rather than CMOs. CEOs because recession has forced re-engineering of value propositions and the need to look after core customers; CFOs because segmentation leads to better and more prudent allocation of resources – especially NPD and marketing – around the most important sub-sets of a market; COOs because they need to better look after key customers and improve their satisfaction in service delivery. More and more it is recognised that with a new segmentation comes organisational realignment and change, so most business functions now have an interest in a segmentation project, not only the marketers. Largely as a result of the digital era and the growth of analytics, directors and company leadership teams are becoming used to receiving more extensive market intelligence and quickly updated customer insight, so leading to faster responses to market changes, customer issues, competitor moves and their own performance. This refreshing of insight and a leadership team’s reaction to this intelligence often result in there being more frequent modification of a target market strategy and segmentation decisions. So many projects set up to consider multi-channel strategy and offerings; digital marketing; customer relationship management; brand strategies; new product and service development; the re-thinking of value propositions, and so forth, now routinely commence with a segmentation piece in order to frame the ongoing work. Most organisations have deployed CRM systems and harnessed associated customer data. CRM first requires clarity in segment priorities. The insights from a CRM system help inform the segmentation agenda and steer how they engage with their important customers or prospects. The growth of CRM and its ensuing data have assisted the ongoing deployment of segmentation. One of the biggest changes for segmentation is the extent to which it is now deployed by practitioners in the public and not-for-profit sectors, who are harnessing what is termed social marketing, in order to develop and to execute more shrewdly their targeting, campaigns and messaging. For Marketing per se, the interest in the marketing toolkit from non-profit organisations, has been big news in recent years. At the very heart of the concept of social marketing is the market segmentation process. The extreme rise in the threat to security from global unrest, terrorism and crime has focused the minds of governments, security chiefs and their advisors. As a result, significant resources, intellectual capability, computing and data management have been brought to bear on the problem. The core of this work is the importance of identifying and profiling threats and so mitigating risk. In practice, much of this security and surveillance work harnesses the tools developed for market segmentation and the profiling of different consumer behaviours. This white paper presents the findings from interviews with leading exponents of segmentation and also the insights from a recent study of marketing practitioners relating to their current imperatives and foci. More extensive views of some of these ‘leading lights’ have been sought and are included here in order to showcase the latest developments and to help explain both the ongoing surge of segmentation and the issues under-pinning its practice. The principal trends and developments are thereby presented and discussed in this paper