The Impact of Web Site Design on Consumer Loyalty in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Internet Commerce: A Rhetorical Approach

With an enormous multitude of potential consumers globally, the Internet offers an opportunity that merchants have never before seen. Corporate giants to small businesses considered investments of large amounts of time, money, resources, man-hours, and venture capital a wise decision when considering the potential return-on-investment (ROI) of the Internet boom of the early to mid 1990\u27s. However, electronic commerce has experienced the meteoric rise and subsequent crash of any behemoth entity cast aloft without moorings or foundation. When millions of dollars were lost, experts emerged &om the ashes and attempted to develop new paradigms designed to explain the failure, redirect the quickly amassed skills and resources previously applied, and stem the exit of great numbers of commercial entities from the Internet and a virtual economy . An important issue related to Internet commerce is what factors would facilitate customer loyalty to a Web site. An effective Web site design could be one of the ways to a company success. Using the previously unapplied concepts of logos, pathos, and ethos to electronic commerce as found in the research taxonomy of Winn and Beck\u27s studies (2002), this research composes a theoretical framework for further investigate the interaction between the customer and the Web site design in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Internet commerce. The research design employed a quantitative method approach using 36 closed-ended questions, plus one open-ended question on the survey instrument. A survey questionnaire with a closed-ended 1 to 9 Likert scale was used to ask respondents the extent to which they disagree or agree (1 = very strongly disagree, 5 = neither agree nor disagree, 9 = very strongly agree). Data was collected in a period of four months from September to December of 2003. A sample using a Web survey in U.S. was obtained with an N count of 307 (154 males and 153 females). Collected data were analyzed by SPSS Windows Version 11.0. A total of five different statistical analyses were employed in this study. They are descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, independent-samples t Test analysis, one-way ANOVA analysis, and multiple regression analysis. Rhetorical design is concerned with modification of the consumer\u27s attitude toward the site. The regression results support the inference of rhetorical elements (logos, pathos, and ethos) and consumer loyalty relationship. This research provides a crucial finding facilitate the development of Internet commerce in persuasive discourse. Results of this study indicated that the more rhetorical elements that online sellers can offer through the visual display of Web sites, the more interested the consumers will be to frequently visit, make repeated purchases or service, and do word-of-mouth referrals to the same Web site. The outcomes of the study will help marketers and Web designers to create the most persuasive site environment for online shoppers. Web sites that operate on the basis of rational, emotional, and credible ways will have best chances to win consumers\u27 hearts

Advertising: An Entity of Business Discourse

This study focused on advertising as an object of business discourse, revealed through grammatical structures and pictorial images in the frameworks. Eight advertisements of beverages and financial institutions were items of the analysis. The Transitivity system of English operated as the concept of processing the texts. Thus, the application of Transitivity informed the calibration of textual frequencies of the string of words in the advertising plates. The researchers observed three perspectives, where advertising elements correlated with business measures. These were: negotiation through communication; conviction to patronise goods and services; and generation of cash, being the pivot of business firms. Budweiser® employed the features of the crown – The king is here, Guinness Gold® utilised glamorous merriment – Savour the flavour, and Coca-Cola® deployed code-mixing – Gbe bottle e!, to negotiate patronisation of goods and services. Skills’ acquisitions, provision of loans, and personal exaltation were subjects, persuading viewers towards consumption in the Zenith®, Goldberg® and Coca-Cola advertisements. Besides, love, culture and religion, illuminated in StanbicIBTC®, UBA®, and Ecobank® were axioms of communications. The thrust of these strategies was to encourage readers to consume the advertised services, which can lead to cash generation for institutions. As a neglect of advertising might be detrimental to business, this study suggested that the propagation of advertisements en mass might heighten business capacities, which could create different grammatical understanding for discourse analysts.&nbsp

Looking at the Lanham Act: Images in Trademark and Advertising Law

Words are the prototypical regulatory subjects for trademark and advertising law, despite our increasingly audiovisual economy. This word-focused baseline means that the Lanham Act often misconceives its object, resulting in confusion and incoherence. This Article explores some of the ways courts have attempted to fit images into a word-centric model, while not fully recognizing the particular ways in which images make meaning in trademark and other forms of advertising. While problems interpreting images are likely to persist, this Article suggests some ways in which courts could pay closer attention to the special features of images as compared to words

Healthy Food Environment Scoping Review

This work was conducted at the request of the Centre for Population Health at the NSW Ministry of Health, to inform implementation of the relevant strategic direction of the NSW Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Strategy 2013–2018. It is not intended to be an exhaustive review but rather to provide an indication of the rationale for intervening and the potential effectiveness of a broad range of policy options. It is also intended to inform ongoing stakeholder consultation regarding action with respect to the food environment. This consultation will necessarily take account of other evidence of effectiveness including likely reach and population impact, as well as implementation issues such as sustainability of effects, feasibility, acceptability, equity, and other factors affectingplanning and investment decisions. It is noted that no single action contained within this evidence synthesis will in itself be sufficient to affect weight status substantially at the population level. A portfolio of interventions within the food environment, alongside action to increase physical activity and reduce sedentary behaviours, is required to halt the progress of obesity and prevent chronic disease. This sentiment has been expressed many times previously but also recently in the McKinsey paper by Dobbs et al (November 2014) relating to an economic analysis for obesity prevention: “Existing evidence indicates that no single intervention is likely to have a significant overall impact. A systemic, sustained portfolio of initiatives, delivered at scale, is needed to reverse the health burden.” Similarly, no individual sector in society can address obesity acting on its own — neither governments, retailers, consumer-goods companies, restaurants, employers, media organisations, educators, healthcare providers, or individuals.Achieving the full potential impact requires engagement from as many sectors as possible. Ideally such actions would be contained within an overarching National Nutrition Policy in Australia. Finally, we would like to echo another sentiment of the McKinsey Global Institute discussion paper, that “… our analysis is by no means complete. Rather we see our work [on a potential program to address obesity] as the equivalent of the maps used by 16th-century navigators. Some islands were missing and some islands were misshapen in these maps, but they were helpful to the sailors of the era. We are sure that we have missed some interventions and over- or underestimated the impact of others. But we hope our work to be a useful guide….”The Physical Activity Nutrition and Obesity Research Group (PANORG) is funded by the Centre for Population Health, NSW Ministry of Health. It is part of the Prevention Research Collaboration in the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney

Toward Deep Understanding of Persuasive Product Recommendation Agents

Product recommendation agents (PRA) are systems built to facilitate customers’ products purchase on e-commerce websites. Prior literature focuses on the “shaping” effects of PRA to customers’ decision making. More challengingly, PRA can be built to change customers’ product choice by combining with persuasive features. This paper explores this new type of PRA “persuasive product recommendation agents” (PPRA). In this paper, we make a distinction of PPRA with neutral and deceptive ones. The basic functioning principle of PPRA is stated and a classification of persuasive tactics is made. We propose the mechanism via which PPRA work by incorporating elaboration likelihood model, 4w and theory of reasoned action together. Despite marketing usage, the proposed PPRA can be used to benefit society by promoting green purchases or encouraging charity. The theory also has the generalizability to be used in decision making contexts like healthcare and education. Discussion and future research directions are made

The effects of customised food advergames on children’s affective, cognitive, and conative responses

The practice of promoting food to children via advergames is a highly topical issue which attracts much concern due to the low nutritional value of the promoted foods. This thesis examines the effects of customised food advergames on children’s affective, cognitive and conative responses. It also investigates the role persuasion knowledge and prior brand usage have in children’s interaction with advergames. In particular, whether children’s persuasion knowledge acts as a barrier to those responses. This research is situated within the domains of marketing communications, consumer behaviour and consumer socialisation. It adopts an affect transfer theory, the Dual Mediation Hypothesis (DMH), to explain the transfer of affect from an advergame to children’s responses. Three versions of the same advergame were designed for the purpose of this thesis with different levels of customisation (i.e. control, low and high experimental conditions). An experiment among younger (5-7 year olds) and older (11¬12 year olds) children reveals that customisation in advergames has a detrimental effect on children’s affective, cognitive and conative responses. It was the control condition, without customisation options, that rendered a positive impact on brand attitudes and preferences relative to the other two experimental conditions. Persuasion knowledge does not influence children’s affective, cognitive or conative responses. This implies that children’s understanding of the persuasive intent of an advergame does not act as a barrier against its effects. Age had a significant role on children’s attitudes towards the advergame, but not on their other responses to it. Finally, prior brand usage has a positive impact on children’s responses apart from on advergame attitudes. This thesis has implications to policy and practice. It is evident that children from two distinct age and cognitive developmental groups cannot protect themselves from advergames’ effects. Therefore, regulators should broaden the scope of concern to older and younger children alike

Heritage entrepreneurship. Agency-driven promotion of the Mediterranean diet in Spain.

This article explores the role of the agency in the social process that constitutes cultural heritage. By introducing the concept of heritage entrepreneurship to explain the conversion of cultural elements into heritage, we discuss the case of the Mediterranean diet (MD) in Spain. We explore the role of an expert NGO in the recent inclusion of the MD in the UNESCO Representative List of the intangible cultural heritage of Humanity. Empirical evidence is presented for two basic patterns of heritage entrepreneurship, namely the construction and promotion of cultural heritage. First, we show how the community-heritage narrative is constructed in the official nomination file of the MD. Second, we analyse how businesses, governments and researchers constitute a specific heritage entrepreneur. We argue that the promotion of the MD as cultural heritage makes ordinary food different, both qualitatively (healthy and sustainable) and culturally (Mediterranean and traditional). We then look at the specific political, economic and scientific value of such a difference and its uses in Spain

The London Creative Industries

This lecture draws from the Creative Industries Observatory research on the London creative industries and in particular provides some initial insights into the networks and relationships which exist including organisational structure, size, and location. Consideration has been given to clustering and markets. In particular attention has been paid to the levels of creativity found in the London creative industries and the possible implications for public policy intervention. These findings are based on a shared definitional framework, and can be compared with other cities

Culture in Promotional Texts: a Comparative Study of the Barilla Website and Advertising in English and Italian

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Academic Brands and Cognitive Dissonance

Published as Chapter 7 in Academic Brands: Distinction in Global Higher Education (Mario Biagioli & Madhavi Sunder, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2022). It is hard to reconcile the research university’s supposed reason for being – the reasoned pursuit of knowledge – with its methods for building brand awareness and equity. Just like pitches for other luxury goods, the selling of higher education depends on irrational appeals devoid of information and marketing missives meant to hug the line between legally protected puffery and outright fraud. Although universities have always borrowed from the selling strategies of the commercial sphere, in recent years, there has been a sea change in the prevalence and degree of less-than-truthful content in higher educational self-promotion. How do university constituents – administrators, professors, students – interpret this gap between their institutions’ traditionally understood role and the logic of today’s academic branding strategies? The chapter chronicles the main rationalizations these actors deploy to reduce the tension between academic mission and academic marketing. By telling themselves that their school’s advertising efforts can be quarantined from the university’s larger purpose or actually provide tangible and truthful information to outside audiences or are a necessary evil, university constituents reduce their internal dissonance but fail to confront the realities of academic branding.https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/book_sections/1424/thumbnail.jp