Internet-induced marketing techniques: Critical factors in viral marketing campaigns

The rapid diffusion of the Internet and the emergence of various social constructs facilitated by Internet technologies are changing the drivers that define how marketing techniques are developed and refined. This paper identifies critical factors for viral marketing, an Internet-based ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing technique. Based on existing knowledge, five types of viral marketing factors that may critically influence the success of viral marketing campaigns are identified. These factors are the overall structure of the campaign, the characteristics of the product or service, the content of the message, the characteristics of the diffusion and, the peer-to-peer information conduit. The paper discusses three examples of viral marketing campaigns and identifies the specific factors in each case that influence its success. The paper concludes with a viral marketing typology differentiating between viral marketing communications, unintended viral marketing and commercial viral marketing. This is still a rapidly evolving area and further research is clearly needed to monitor new developments and make sense of the radical changes these developments bring to the market

ICTs and ethical consumption: the political and market futures of fair trade

This paper addresses the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and ethical consumption as part of a cause for the insurance of a sustainable future. It homes in on fair trade as an ethical market, politically progressive cause and, crucially, form of participation where citizens can engage in the formation of an alternative future and the broader issue of food security. An three-dimensional analysis of agencies and uses of digital structures and content is informed by a case study approach, as well as interviews with fair trade activists, and ethically consuming citizens in the British metropolis. Through this, the argument which primarily rises distinguishes between the dimensions of durability (in terms of time and duration) and sustainability (in terms of time, duration and environmental concerns) of engagement in fair trade as a form of participation. Ethical consumption, then, is part of a durable market which has developed despite general market fluctuation, but is still very much bound in traditional physical economic spaces; in other words, ethical consumption has been integrated in the business as usual paradigm. Additionally, ICTs have not challenged the way in which information about ethical consumption is communicated or the spaces in which it is conducted. ICTs have been employed by fair trade activists, but they have not contributed to the development of fair trade as a political or economic project. Over a period of over five decades since the inception of the cause, their use has not significantly altered the way in which citizens engage with fair trade in the alternative or mainstream marketplace

Communicating for change: media and agency in the networked public sphere

This paper is aimed at anyone who is interested in the role of media as an influence on power and policy. It especially about the role of news journalism, NGOs and other activists who use communication for change. It looks at the context for those actors and their actions. It asks how much the Internet and social networks are changing advocacy. It takes an ethical and political rather than technological or theoretical approach. It ask whether the ‘public sphere’ needs to be redefined. If that is the case, I argue, then we need to think again about journalism, advocacy communications and the relationship between mediation and social, political or economic change. I would identify three overlapping, interrelated media dynamics that might add up to the need for a new notion of the public sphere: the disruption of communication power; the rise of networked journalism; the dual forces for online socialisation and corporatisation. This is not only a theoretical concern. From these dynamics flow all the other arguments about what kind of media we want or need, and what effect it will have on our ability to communicate particular kinds of issues or information. Unless we understand the strategic context of these changes we will continue to make the kind of tactical blunders that Kony2012, for example, represents. This is not just an academic question, it is an ethical, political and practical set of problems

Autopilot? A reflexive review of the piloting process in qualitative e-research

Purpose: This paper examines an oft-neglected aspect of qualitative research practice – conducting a pilot – using the innovative approach of ‘e-research’ to generate both practical and methodological insights. Approach: Using the authors’ ‘e-research’ pilot as a reflexive case study, key methodological issues are critically reviewed. This review is set in a broader context of the qualitative methods literature in which piloting appears largely as an implicit practice. Using a new and emerging approach (‘e-research’) provides a prompt to review our ‘autopilot’ tendencies and offers a new lens for analysing research practice. Findings: We find that despite an initial focus on ‘practical’ aspects of data collection within our ‘e-research’, the pilot opened up a range of areas for further consideration. We review research ethics, collaborative research practices and data management issues specifically for e-research but also reflect more broadly on potential implications for piloting within other research designs. Practical implications: We aim to offer both practical and methodological insights for qualitative researchers, whatever their methodological orientation, so that they might develop approaches for piloting that are appropriate to their own research endeavours. More specifically, we offer tentative guidance to those venturing into the emerging area of ‘e-research’. Value: This paper offers insight into an oft-ignored aspect of qualitative research, whilst also engaging in emerging area of methodological interest

Country Reports April to June 2002

A compilation of country reports on the activities of the various European Clean Clothes Campaigns from April to June 2002

Reports of the activities of the different European CCC’s between September 1999 and January 2000

A compilation of country reports on the activities of the various European Clean Clothes Campaigns from September 1999 to January 2000

Clean Clothes national campaigns and projects: February – July 2005

A compilation of country reports on the activities of the various European Clean Clothes Campaigns from February to July 2005

Corporate social responsibility as cultural meaning management: a critique of the marketing of ‘ethical’ bottled water

To date, the primary focus of research in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been on the strategic implications of CSR for corporations and less on an evaluation of CSR from a wider political, economic and social perspective. In this paper, we aim to address this gap by critically engaging with marketing campaigns of so-called ‘ethical’ bottled water. We especially focus on a major CSR strategy of a range of different companies that promise to provide drinking water for (what they name as) ‘poor African people’ by way of Western consumers purchasing bottled water. Following Fairclough's approach, we unfold a three-step critical discourse analysis of the marketing campaigns of 10 such ‘ethical’ brands. Our results show that bottled water companies try to influence consumers' tastes through the management of the cultural meaning of bottled water, producing a more ‘ethical’ and ‘socially responsible’ perception of their products/brands. Theoretically, we base our analysis on McCracken's model of the cultural meaning of consumer goods, which, we argue, offers a critical perspective of the recent emergence of CSR and business ethics initiatives. We discuss how these marketing campaigns can be framed as historical struggles associated with neo-liberal ideology and hegemony. Our analysis demonstrates how such CSR strategies are part of a general process of the reproduction of capitalist modes of accumulation and legitimation through the usage of cultural categories