Theatre Marketing: Using Websites to Attract Young Target Audience

Classic theatres worldwide are faced with the trend of aging of loyal audiences and general decrease of the audience size. It indicates that attracting young audiences to classic theatre is the key issue of its existence. Since the quality of communication is one of the major elements of marketing efficiency, the aim of this research is to identify Croatian classic theatre website characteristics and usability elements which are connected with website experience of young target audiences. Altogether 7 Croatian national theatres and three commercial theatres’ official websites were tested. The in-depth analysis of websites of sample theatres implies that website content had the most positive perception among respondents. Two other measured constructs – visual attractiveness and visibility of theatre websites have also scored both positive. Finally, the overall perception of sample theatre websites was graded somewhat positive. In terms of strategic implications, this research indicates the underutilized websites potential as an efficient communication tool toward young audiences. They are currently created with the aim to satisfy the need for information, but the expectations of young audiences are higher. Two-way web communication, which makes existing and potential consumers an integral part of theatre product in its widest sense should be implemented

Destination website quality, users’ attitudes and the willingness to participate in online co-creation experiences

Purpose – An official destination website (ODW) is a key component for tourist’s decision-making processes. ODW acts as a direct channel where users may share experiences and opinions about previous or future travels. At the same time, it drives user participation in destination branding activities. In this context, it is crucial to identify how the destination website, using Web 2.0 technologies, could motivate user’s participation with the brand. The purpose of this paper is to propose and evaluate a model that posits the destination website quality as a determinant factor to predict users’ attitudes toward the website and their willingness to participate in co-creation experiences. Design/methodology/approach – Using a combined qualitative and quantitative method, this paper provides an exploratory research that examines the role of destination website quality on attitudes toward the website and the willingness to participate in online co-creation experiences. Findings – Findings confirm that there is a direct and significant relationship between website quality, attitudes toward the website and willingness to participate in online co-creation experiences. Moreover, attitudes toward the website partially mediate relationships between destination website quality and willingness to participate in online co-creation experiences. Originality/value – The literature of value co-creation is trying to identify which factors drive consumer’s participation with brands across different consumption contexts. This study provides evidence that confirms, from a tourism destination website point of view, that website quality is one of these key factors that motives user’s co-creation with a destination.This research was funded by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, with the National Plan for Research, Development and Innovation ECO2014-59356-P, and also with the research project ECO2015-69103-

Managing E-commerce Platform Quality and its Performance Implication: Multiple-Group Structural Model Comparison

This study develops a comprehensive e-service quality measure of e-commerce platforms as intermediaries which considers both the functionality of the website itself, and the performance assessment of independent sellers. The study further investigates the joint impacts of both the attributes of e-commerce platforms and the performance of independent sellers on users\u27 online shopping experience - perceived online transaction value and the ensuing satisfaction. Finally, the study examines the effects of e-service quality on the outcome variables across two major e-commerce platforms as intermediaries, eBay and Amazon. The multiple-group structural model analysis provides important insights to understanding differing impacts of different quality components on shopping experiences across various online marketplaces. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed

Defining grounds in literature findings for a business model framework: an online community portal serving to a niche market or a particular interest group

This paper investigates what are literature findings that provide framework for establishing a business proposal – an e-business model launched in a form of an online community portal dedicated to a niche market or an interest group. Such portal should successfully serve both users and advertisers through its solid customer base and accumulated social capital in the target market segment. Findings of extensive literature research provided reasonable basis for identifying functionalities of such a business model and opened up areas for further research

An empirical study of the effect of brand personality and consistency between marketing channels on performance within the UK higher education sector

2/316 Abstract Over the past decade, increased pressure on Higher Education Institutions (“HEIs”) has contributed to additional national and international competition for students and funding. This has been compounded by policy decisions on the part of government. Such increasing competition has led to an increase in managerialism, with tools and practices traditionally associated with the corporate sector now being adopted and utilised by HEIs. Marketing and brand management has received special attention from such institutions, particularly in order to attract students and build reputation. Some authors argue that the concept of branding transfers directly to the education sector, whilst others argue that HEIs are more complex with more specialist approaches required. Research suggests UK universities do not consistently communicate across all audiences, whilst previous literature recognises brand consistency as important. However, this literature is based predominantly on anecdote, or on evidence from single cases. In this study, sixty HEIs were selected to represent the full range of UK universities. For each HEI, a prospectus was obtained, and the websites and Twitter feeds of the institutions were downloaded. This provided 18,956,366 words to analyse. Brand personality was measured using Aaker’s brand personality scale and Opoku’s dictionary of synonyms. The frequency of words was used to assess brand personality across Aaker’s five dimensions for each marketing channel. The data was then analysed to test the research hypotheses, using statistical analysis techniques. These looked for relationships between brand personality, strength, consistency, and performance. Results highlighted a positive correlation between brand personality consistency relating to the prospectus and website, and HEI research and recruitment performance. Those HEIs with a consistent brand personality between these two marketing channels performed better on RAE, UCAS Demand and points. This agrees with the existing literature, which suggests that brands represent crucial aspects of success in mature markets, and that consistency can be a key driver in creating strong brands. This research shows that these findings extend into the HE context. Our findings provide empirical support to anecdotal literature which has stated that brands are important differential tools within higher education, and that an online brand’s synonymity and consistency with its offline brand is crucial to performance. Social media participation and validation was also positively related to RAE and UCAS Points performance on all measures of Twitter and Facebook. Lastly, brand personality strength communicated via the prospectus was significantly and positively related to performance in the dimension of Sophistication, but was significantly and negatively related to performance upon the dimensions of Competence, Excitement, Ruggedness and Sincerity

E-government services effectiveness evaluation framework (E-GEEF) : a case study of Indian e-tax service

Technological amplification has expended the involvement of information and communication technology in public sectors and enhanced governmental dependence on information systems which restrains the management attention towards improving the effectiveness of e-government services. Based on the analytical review of literature, it was found that most of the e-government evaluation models address the e-service dimensions that assess the quality of e-government websites. This gives a very constrict perspective to e-government and ignores the key dimensions. It becomes important to understand how citizens perceive and evaluate e-government services. This involves defining what e-government service is, identifying its underlying dimensions, and determining how it can be measured. Therefore, periodical evaluation of the effectiveness of e-government services becomes essential. Foregoing discussion clearly indicates the necessity of developing a well founded e-government e-service effectiveness evaluation framework which not only evaluates the e-government service effectiveness but also evaluates the e-government service quality criteria and the citizens‟ perception in the form of citizens‟ trust in offered e-services. Thus, the objective of this study was to develop a framework (E-GEEF) "e-government service effectiveness evaluation framework" that assesses e-government service effectiveness from the citizens‟ (G2C) perspective. A systematic study of the existing e-government service assessment frameworks has been carried out to establish the basis for conceptualizing a theoretical framework called e-government service effectiveness evaluation framework (E-GEEF). In this research, the author attempts to explore the underlying dimensions and factors of e-government services, and has proposed an effectiveness evaluation framework (E-GEEF). Present empirical research adapted DeLone and McLean, (2003) IS success model as base model which is upgradable and extendable, hence additional dimensions were incorporated to develop a novel framework (E-GEEF) for evaluating the effectiveness of e-government service. The suggested framework has identified number of measuring dimensions and associated items within each dimension for (E-GEEF). System quality, information quality, and service quality dimensions were adopted from DeLone and McLean (2003) IS success model and “intention to use and user satisfaction” dimensions were re-specified in proposed framework (E-GEEF) as “citizens‟ use / usefulness” and “citizens‟ satisfaction”. Further, "citizens" trust, perceived e-government service quality, and perceived effectiveness” were incorporated as new dimensions in the proposed framework (E-GEEF). Three new dimensions were identified and two existing dimensions were re-specified for evaluating the effectiveness of e-government service. Sixteen hypotheses were formulated from literature on existing e-government assessment frameworks to test the proposed framework (E-GEEF). In order to test the proposed framework and their associated dimensions, Indian e-tax service was considered, because e-tax service of Indian e-government is utilized by several Indian citizens for filing their taxes. Preliminary qualitative study was carried out carefully to ensure whether all important dimensions and measurement items were included in the proposed framework E-GEEF in the right research context or not. Empirical research has used quantitative analysis for validating the proposed framework (E-GEEF). Data collection was done using survey which was conducted among citizens of India who have been utilizing e-tax service as users. Descriptive statistical analysis was performed to ensure the data normality by using SPSS 20. Structural equation modeling statistical technique was applied using AMOS 21 on the collected data for testing the hypotheses. The empirical research findings have confirmed most of the hypothesized relationships within the validated framework (E-GEEF). Consequently, in terms of the theoretical implications, this study emphasizes the significance of such hypothesized relationships when performing empirical research in e-government context. Key findings demonstrated the strong relationships of perceived e-government service quality with system quality, information quality, service quality, and citizens‟ satisfaction. Further, citizens‟ trust exhibited direct relationships with perceived e-government service quality and perceived effectiveness of e-government service. Thus, as a major contribution to the proposed research, the identified new dimensions “perceived e-government service quality, citizens‟ trust, perceived effectiveness” and re-specified dimensions “citizens‟ use/usefulness and citizens‟ satisfaction” have shown great significance in evaluating effectiveness of e-government e-tax service in Indian G2C context. The developed and validated framework (E-GEEF) provides government agencies with an appropriate approach and dimensions in order to evaluate the effectiveness of e-government services