The role of brand equity and crisis type on corporate brand alliances in crises

Co-branding is regarded as a beneficial corporate branding strategy. Corporate crises can, however, result in one or both brands damaging customer-firm relationships. Research evidence in the area is sparse and shows that the non-culpable partner is negatively influenced by crises when perceived as being aware of the wrongdoing. Extending prior research, we investigate how brand equity of the non-culpable partner shapes consumers’ post-crisis attitudes. We also examine boundary conditions to the brand equity effect. Drawing on expectancy violation theory, we show that high-equity of the non-culpable partner mitigates the negative effects of accidental crises, whilst low-equity can mitigate preventable crises. In preventable crises, non-culpable partner brands enjoying high equity suffer from negative attitudes accruing from the culpable brand in the alliance. The results suggest that managers should use corporate co-branding with caution, carefully evaluating the partner brand’s equity and its effects when planning for and managing crisis situations

Factors shaping attitudes towards UK bank brands: An exploratory analysis of social media data

Social media provides a huge amount of data and rich market insight, and has changed the way customers interact with brands. This interaction is of great concern for any organisation as it transfers the power to shape brand image from advertisers to consumers. In light of the global financial crisis and the ensuing negative attitudes towards bank brands, this study has extracted 1176 comments on bank advertisements from the verified Facebook pages of 10 UK banks. These comments have been thematically analysed to identify seven key factors that shape customer attitudes to bank brands. The study presents the power of social media as a platform for brands and customers to engage and build relationships, especially bank–customer relationships in the UK, providing managers with important insights that can guide the development and execution of their brand-relationship campaigns. The fact that this study is based on real-life advertisements and real-life responses from social media network users can be considered as one of its strengths, as it does not suffer from various issues relating to experimental studies. Nonetheless, the study’s limitations and suggestions for future research directions are provided

Poverty Porn as Humanitarian Business: The Effects of Framing, Affect Intensity and Spokesperson Characteristics

Motivated by controversies surrounding the continued employment of poverty porn in humanitarian business, we initiated two 2x2x2 experiments to examine the extent to which humanitarian ads that utilise poverty porn images weaponize fundraising. Informed by negative state relief and affect intensity theory, the two investigations explored the effects on study participants of the inclusion within ad appeals of images of starving children, ad spokespeople of disparate gender and ethnicity, and different types of message frame. A two (protest emotive vs. informative message) × two (male vs. female announcer) × two (white British or black African ethnicity) between-subjects eye track experiment (n = 236) revealed that an informative message with a white female announcer attracted the most attention. Next, a survey (n = 667) was completed which recorded participants’ levels of affect intensity, advertising scepticism, and donation intention. The results suggested that a white British female announcer was more likely to engage potential donors than a male and/or non-white spokesperson. The implications of the findings are discussed in light of how poverty porn might work in practice

Exploring sense of community within an online healthcare context

This paper argues that organisations considering corporate community involvement within online communities need to understanding how the notion of sense of community (SOC) is manifested and experienced within such stakeholder groups. This is based on the assumption that CCI is a form of corporate social responsibility that goes beyond the mere funding of charitable activities but involves a deeper involvement and participation within the life of the community (Moon and Muthuri 2006). Hence, it is expected that the corporation not only allocates significant amount of time and resources to such involvement (Yekini et al. 2017), but also implies a more in-depth understanding of the community itself. Therefore, this paper argues that in order for CSR managers to better identify and engage with relevant online communities, they need to be able to understand and apply the notion SOC within an online context. The case of an online healthcare community, hosted by a charitable institution in the UK, is presented to illustrate and support this argument

Determinants of university students’ attendance

Background: Attendance of university students at their timetabled teaching sessions is usually associated with higher levels of educational attainment. Attendance is usually considered to reflect students’ level of engagement with their course and to be critical to student success; despite the potential for technological alternatives, lectures and other face-to-face sessions still tend to be the primary method of teaching at university. Purpose: Here we review studies which have investigated these determinants of attendance in order to gain a better understanding of whether–and how–Higher Education Institutions are able to improve attendance rates. Sources of evidence: Electronic databases (e.g. ERIC, Web of Science) were used to identify articles exploring attendance in Higher Education settings. Main argument: Some of the most debated determinants of attendance are reviewed: teaching issues (e.g. quality, style and format); effects of university expectations and policy (e.g. mandating attendance, awarding grades for attendance); scheduling issues; provision of materials online; and the effects of individual factors arguably outside of the Higher Education Institution’s control (e.g. finance, student employment, student demographics and psychological factors). Conclusions: It is suggested that, although some individual factors influence student attendance and are arguably out of the control of HEIs, it is possible for them to facilitate attendance through adjustments to aspects of degree delivery such as attendance policies and monitoring, timetabling and style of teaching. Implications for policies on the recording of lectures, curriculum design and student term-time working are also discussed. Future research on student attendance should include longer and larger studies which simultaneously consider a range of influences; examining both inter- and intra-individual variability and different types of teaching sessions