What can We Learn from City Marketing Practice?

It is evident in contemporary urban studies that the interest in city marketing both as a practice within urban centre management and as an academic sub-discipline has accelerated. There remain, however, several issues that need clarification before an agreement can be reached as to the exact effects and potential of city marketing as a tool of economic and socio-cultural development. A particular gap can be noticed between theoretical suggestions on the ways in which marketing should be understood and used within cities and the practical implementation as this can be observed in contemporary cities. A common view on this issue highlights the need for practitioners to follow theoretical ideas but the practice can also be a source of useful lessons that might enrich the theory. This paper investigates marketing and branding practices of two European cities in order to extract from the practice lessons that will support the theoretical development of city marketing and city branding and might contribute towards bridging this gap. The cities investigated are Amsterdam and Budapest, both of which provide valuable insights into the challenges of an effective city marketing implementation

The internet as a relationship marketing tool - some evidence from Irish companies

This article explores the strategies underlying the use of the internet as a marketing tool by Irish businesses. Three different approaches to internet Marketing are described: the ornamental, the informational and the relational. It is shown that, theoretically, the internet offers a unique opportunity for marketers to build up and maintain relationships with their clients. However, data collected through a mail survey and a content analysis of web sites reveal that currently the most frequent use of the internet by Irish companies still follows an ornamental or, at most, informational pattern. The authors discuss whether this discrepancy between internet potential and practice is due to the social basis of market relationships or whether it can be seen as evidence that the adaptation of a new marketing tool follows an incremental pattern

An agent-based fuzzy cognitive map approach to the strategic marketing planning for industrial firms

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Industrial Marketing Management. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier B.V.Industrial marketing planning is a typical example of an unstructured decision making problem due to the large number of variables to consider and the uncertainty imposed on those variables. Although abundant studies identified barriers and facilitators of effective industrial marketing planning in practice, the literature still lacks practical tools and methods that marketing managers can use for the task. This paper applies fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) to industrial marketing planning. In particular, agent based inference method is proposed to overcome dynamic relationships, time lags, and reusability issues of FCM evaluation. MACOM simulator also is developed to help marketing managers conduct what-if scenarios to see the impacts of possible changes on the variables defined in an FCM that represents industrial marketing planning problem. The simulator is applied to an industrial marketing planning problem for a global software service company in South Korea. This study has practical implication as it supports marketing managers for industrial marketing planning that has large number of variables and their cause–effect relationships. It also contributes to FCM theory by providing an agent based method for the inference of FCM. Finally, MACOM also provides academics in the industrial marketing management discipline with a tool for developing and pre-verifying a conceptual model based on qualitative knowledge of marketing practitioners.Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (Korea

Point-of-sale marketing and context of marijuana retailers: Assessing reliability and generalizability of the marijuana retail surveillance tool

As recreational marijuana expands, standardized surveillance measures examining the retail environment are critical for informing policy and enforcement. We conducted a reliability and generalizability study using a previously developed tool involving assessment of a sample of 25 randomly selected Seattle recreational marijuana retailers (20 recreational; 5 recreational/medical) in 2017. The tool assessed: 1) contextual/neighborhood features (i.e., facilities nearby); 2) compliance/security (e.g., age-of-sale signage, age verification); and 3) marketing (i.e., promotions, product availability, price). We found that retailers were commonly within two blocks of restaurants (n = 23), grocery stores (n = 17), liquor stores (n = 13), and bars/clubs (n = 11). Additionally, two were within two blocks of schools, and four were within two blocks of parks. Almost all (n = 23) had exterior signage indicating the minimum age requirement, and 23 verified age. Two retailers had exterior ads for marijuana, and 24 had interior ads. Overall, there were 76 interior ads (M = 3.04; SD = 1.84), most commonly for edibles (n = 28). At least one price promotion/discount was recorded in 17 retailers, most commonly in the form of loyalty membership programs (n = 10) or daily/weekly deals (n = 10). One retailer displayed potential health harms/warnings, while three posted some health claim. Products available across product categories were similar; we also noted instances of selling retailer-branded apparel/ paraphernalia (which is prohibited). Lowest price/unit across product categories demonstrated low variability across retailers. This study documented high inter-rater reliability of the surveillance tool (Kappas = 0.73 to 1.00). In conclusion, this tool can be used in future research and practice aimed at examining retailers marketing practices and regulatory compliance. Keywords: Marijuana use, Retail environment, Marketing, Recreational marijuana, Measure developmen

The IPA (Advertising) Effectiveness Awards 1980 - 2002: A Reflection of Non-Marketing Advertising

Theoretically, advertising has been regarded as a marketing communication; that is, advertising is subsumed under marketing. However, this thesis deconstructs the existing theories and argues that advertising historically was not a marketing tool due to practical conflicts within the British advertising industry. Field work was conducted by means of interviews in addition to document research of publications by practitioners. After the Second World War, marketing people in Britain adopted the modern marketing concepts from the US where marketing and advertising people used the same principles and practice of advertising. The thesis traces back to fundamental concepts in social sciences such as economics, sociology and psychology that marketing and advertising people applied to their disciplines. Then, relevant historical backgrounds including the history of advertising agencies, market research and account planning are explored. They indicate that advertising was not part of marketing communications but rather located between marketing and communications. The application of various social sciences and the historical backgrounds govern British agency people's practice of advertising research during the 1960s and 1970s. They used research to explain advertising effectiveness in terms of both communication and sales. However, they found some disagreements between their concepts and that of marketing people in their client companies. They felt more frustrated when clients and research companies used scientific principles and practice in measuring advertising effectiveness. The 1960s and 1970s events led to the origin of the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) Awards in 1980. The IPA Awards were in fact the consequence of the past as they tried to maintain their stance of developing advertising effectiveness theories as opposed to those of clients and research companies for two decades. However, as the Awards grew and became one of the most recognised award schemes in the industry, they were used by agency people as a tool to increase their agencies' reputation rather than a demonstration of advertising effectiveness

Reflections in the Classroom: Learning to Market Education

Reflective practice has become a key trope within debates around teaching and learning in higher education. Yet, beneath this anodyne rhetoric, teachers and students are being disciplined in a manner that aligns so-called “standards” and professional development with the corporate strategies of educational institutions. Educational developers who seek to promote “standards” and “accountability” in the learning environment enforce the practice of “reflection” as a key educational experience and tool. Repetitive reflective exercises become the means and the monitoring of education. How should anthropology, a discipline that focuses on dynamics of diversity and structure, respond to this discourse, and the generic teaching methods that it promotes. And what are the links between these initiatives and the marketing of higher education as a quality-assured educational product? This article compares the author’s experience of teaching English to European teenagers in a small community centre to teaching anthropology to undergraduates in a large university. It uses the case of the HEA accredited teaching course that was meant to bridge these two, apparently distinct educational realms

Marketing Audit and Factors Influencing Its Use in Practice of Companies (From an Expert Point of View)

The paper presents a marketing audit as a factor of company’s growth and future success. The mentioned marketing activity is becoming a new trend in managing the business. It can help various types of companies to review their marketing structures and therefore it can contribute to the rejuvenation of the overall business and to the improvement of not just marketing but also overall performance of the company. The main aim of this paper is to define and establish preconditions for the successful implementation of marketing audit to marketing management of Slovak companies. The paper presents the results of own research conducted through the Delphi method with a panel of experts from the area of marketing and marketing audit. The research was carried out in two rounds and a questionnaire was selected as a research tool. Through the Delphi method we were able to obtain views and opinions of experts on the issue of marketing audit. Based on conducted research, the paper states the main factors influencing the efficiency and the results of marketing audit and also the main barriers that have an impact on the use of the marketing audit in the practice of companies. In conclusion, the paper presents the main assumptions and conditions for the successful implementation of the marketing audit into the practice of companies operating in the Slovak market

MANAGING POLICY NETWORKS: A SOCIAL MARKETING- AND COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE SYSTEMS-DRIVEN VIEW

This research contributes a new view of Policy Networks (PN) management. The research object is a successful PN practice in the Basque Country (BC) over an 8-year period, in relation to Local Agenda 21 (LA21) promotion. The Basque experience is studied using a qualitative and a quantitative approach. PNs are viewed as social marketing-driven collective intelligence systems built to have an effect on municipality commitment to LA21 (in terms of value, satisfaction and loyalty). The research concludes that by fostering the co-development ‘genome’ (a mix of co-decision, co-creation, love, glory and money ‘genes’) a commitment to the new tool is achieved.

Research Ethics and Fieldwork at New Consumption Communities

It is hard to deny that marketing practice has changed considerably during recent years. This is reflected in its increased focus on customisation, coproduction and interactive marketing, much of which has been enabled by new information technologies. While marketing has remained innovative there has also been much rhetoric and little reflexivity about what has been done (Szmigin, 2003). Although marketers may have been listening more to consumers (e.g. through qualitative research), efforts have almost always been directed at controlling consumers; ranges of products pre-determined by producers have been pushed through with little real involvement of consumers in the process, at a time in which we, consumers (are we not consumers as well as marketers?), are ever more aware of what is being done to us (Szmigin, 2003). In fact, many of these issues are also reflected in current consumer research practice. Consumer research has been of paramount importance to the development of marketing theory and practice, yet control over the research process remains entirely in the hands of marketers and academic marketing researchers alike. Consumers are seldom, if ever, involved in the research design and analysis processes, which raises issues that go beyond ethics and into an epistemological arena. These issues are particularly problematic when participant-observation is employed, as little is (and little could be) addressed by research guidelines and codes of ethics relevant to marketing research. Adopting an ethical standpoint of care and responsibility based on feminist theories (Edwards and Mauthner, 2002), I address some of the relevant ethical issues pertinent to participant-observation that arise from the lack of inclusion of the consumer in the research process (as well as the potential issues that may be involved in participatory and emancipatory research designs), the shortcomings of the available marketing research guidelines and codes of ethics as far as participant-observation is concerned, alongside the several issues that may arise during fieldwork. To illustrate the discussion a reflexive account of my own fieldwork at six distinct New Consumption Communities (Szmigin and Carrigan, 2003) is presented. Although some authors have put reflexivity as the means to achieve ethical fieldwork conduct and relationships (Guillemin and Gillam, 2004), such argument disregards the real-time and context-bound nature of ethical circumstances at the field, where the researcher must often respond to unexpected situations immediately. Reflexivity is a tool but cannot be used alone; it is not completely exempt from its own political, philosophical and epistemological stances and paradoxes, as well explored by Harley, Hardy and Alvesson (2004). This paper therefore does not aim to construct yet another set of guidelines for researchers that will engage or are already engaged in participantobservation; what goes on in the field can be unpredictable and fluid. Rather, the aim is to discuss the key issues that may be encountered while in the field through practical examples. This should prove valuable in alerting consumer researchers on the breadth and depth of ethical issues in the field, and on the all encompassing epistemological issues that we face, as researchers, on a daily basis. As put by Birch et al. (2002, p.3), the aim here “is to suggest ethical ways of thinking rather than to provide answers or rules to be adhered to”. In this study such ethical ways of thinking will be placed within the particular context of participant-observation