Intersecting inequalities in higher education: reaching out to LGBT-identified students on universities marketing communications

The marketisation of higher education has led to increasing emphasis on universities to market themselves to prospective students, competitions among all institutions – not just the very best to attract perspective students. Previous studies has suggested that educational qualifications, geographical mobility and financial considerations affects students choice of Universities and more likely universities will be presenting these information to attract prospective students. This research goes outside these conventional marketing appeal to consider if sexual orientation of students are considered as an advertising appeal and reaching out to prospective LGBT students, after all in the same vein as the Guardian and Times Higher Education Ranking of Universities, Stonewall, a UK charity that works for the equal rights of LGBT people, compiles the ‘Gay by Degree’ ranking of universities in UK, rating how gay-friendly these universities are. Results indicated that unlike disability or race, sexual orientation is seldom considered in University marketing communication, suggesting the need to intersect this inequalities in higher education recruitment

Exploring Nostalgic Advertising Effects on Social Media: A Case of UK Retail Bank Brand

While practitioners have adopted nostalgia-based marketing and advertising strategies, consumers’ responses have also been empirically considered, the theoretical argument of this paper is how the brand context affects these outcomes. No doubt, nostalgia can evoke positive emotions, but can that be same for a retail bank, taking into consideration the utilitarian nature of financial service and unprecedented turbulence, uncertainty and lack of trust in the sector. Based on the pre-existing knowledge about these characters and the banking industry, this study aims to explore the emotional reaction towards the nostalgia advertisements and the Halifax brand within the digital sphere. As social media is transforming how consumers interact with brands and how brand-related content is consumed, this research analysed user-generated contents in the form of comments on the advertisements; as previous studies have either used fictitious advertisement or scale measurement, these comments are considered a unique data set. This place a lot of importance on the visuals used in service advertisements and further highlighting the possibilities of different meanings transferred from the visual elements of advertisements to the brand

How are we tempted into debt? Emotional appeals in loan advertisements in UK newspapers

Purpose: This study examined the use of emotional appeals in advertisements for loans and explored consumers’ perceptions of advertisements featuring such appeals in order to explore how emotional meanings are transferred to consumers via advertising. Design/methodology/approach: Study 1 employed content analysis to examine the use of emotional appeals in loan advertisements. Over 2900 editions of eight British newspapers were monitored for advertisements for loans containing emotional appeals. Study 2 employed 33 semi-structured interviews to explore consumers’ perceptions of emotional appeals in loan advertisements. Findings: Loans were positioned as services providing relief, security, and excitement. The use of negative emotional appeals such as guilt, fear, and sorrow was sporadic. Loans that carried the most risk were advertised with positive emotional appeals the most frequently. Five dimensions of perceptions of emotional loan advertisements were conceptualised from the reported data in Study 2. Originality: This is the first study in the UK to examine the use of emotional appeals in loan advertising and to explore consumers’ perceptions of loan advertisements featuring emotional appeals. The study identified five dimensions of perceptions of emotional appeals

How are we tempted into debt? Emotional appeals in loan advertisements in UK newspapers

Purpose: This study examined the use of emotional appeals in advertisements for loans and explored consumers’ perceptions of advertisements featuring such appeals in order to explore how emotional meanings are transferred to consumers via advertising. Design/methodology/approach: Study 1 employed content analysis to examine the use of emotional appeals in loan advertisements. Over 2900 editions of eight British newspapers were monitored for advertisements for loans containing emotional appeals. Study 2 employed 33 semi-structured interviews to explore consumers’ perceptions of emotional appeals in loan advertisements. Findings: Loans were positioned as services providing relief, security, and excitement. The use of negative emotional appeals such as guilt, fear, and sorrow was sporadic. Loans that carried the most risk were advertised with positive emotional appeals the most frequently. Five dimensions of perceptions of emotional loan advertisements were conceptualised from the reported data in Study 2. Originality: This is the first study in the UK to examine the use of emotional appeals in loan advertising and to explore consumers’ perceptions of loan advertisements featuring emotional appeals. The study identified five dimensions of perceptions of emotional appeals

Emotional appeals in UK banks’ print advertisement

“A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy”The unprecedented turbulence and uncertainty experienced in global economic and financial markets because of the ―credit crunch‖ has had a damaging impact on consumer confidence. Trust and credibility have been eroded as many customers feel let down by the banks suggesting the need for banks to rebuild constructive dialogue and long-term, meaningful relationships with their customers again. Though financial service, in this case, is considered a utilitarian service, based on the fact that money is needed to support people‘s daily activities, the present state of financial service has suggested the need for banks to appeal to consumers‘ emotions with the aim of improving their reputation. Also, the competition within the industry also could suggest the need to adopt an emotionally appealing advertisement strategy as emotions are known to play an influential role in building robust brand preference. This study builds on the communication theory, meaning transfer theory and consumer involvement theory, to understand the messages the banks are sending out and to elicit consumers‘ emotional reaction. One thousand, two hundred and seventy-four UK bank advertisements in nine national newspapers were content-analysed to identify the emotional appeals presented by the banks. The perception of these appeals and their associated meanings were sought through semi-structured interviews with 33 participants in London and Luton. The results of the analysis indicated that UK Banks are utilising emotional appeal in their advertisements to reach out to the consumers to convince them to upgrade their account, to open an additional account or switch their account. The most predominantly used appeals were relief and relaxation followed by excitement and happiness or satisfaction with the bank, and finally, security and adventure. However, variations were found in different financial products that employed emotional appeals. It was found that high-involvement products such as mortgages and loans used fewer emotional appeals. Both bank groups - high street banks, including the big four (Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS) and non-high street banks, such as the new entrants, supermarket brands, and online banks were using emotional appeals. However, it is acknowledged that the communication strategies between these banks could be different as the non-high street banks are more likely to repeat and publish the same messages across many newspapers, instead of publishing different emotionally appealing advertisements. Though consumers acknowledged these emotional appeals in the advertisements, they were more concerned about their relationship with the banks as they don‘t rely on advertisements to make a financial decision. Rather, recommendations from families, friends and associates and also branch location are more important when deciding on which bank to choose. The lack of congruency between financial services and emotional appeals in advertisements is also observed as customers are more likely to be persuaded by rational appeals however this study has not completely ruled out emotional appeals in bank advertisements as the use of both types of appeals is recommended. The study provides important theoretical and managerial contributions to understanding how the consumers understand meaning-embedded advertisements produced by the banks. Managers will be able to consider the implications of advertisements in enhancing their brand equity and building relationships with customers in anticipation that, by word of the mouth and established relationship, their bank‘s reputation will be enhanced. Limitations of the study and opportunities for future research are identified

Empirical Assessment of Exchange Market Pressure within the West African Monetary Zone.

The focus of this paper is the identification of currency risks periods (or otherwise) in the WAMZ and to further test the response of exchange market pressure (EMP) to monetary policy related factors in these countries as well as movements in primary commodity prices, given the feature of these countries as primary commodity exporting countries. The first phase of the EMP analysis in this work employed the model-independent statistical method of Eichengreen, Rose and Wyplosz (1996) to derive EMP indices in determining currency crisis susceptibility of the countries under study. The second part assessed the response of EMP to monetary policy across the WAMZ as well as evaluate the similarities in the patterns and strengths of the response of EMP towards checking for compatibility across the WAMZ countries. In this respect, the Girton and Roper (1977) model of exchange market pressure was applied in the model-dependent estimations for the six countries under study. The evaluation of exchange market pressure in the WAMZ employed the use of both annual and monthly data of the WAMZ countries under assessment as well as the CPI inflation data of the US. These data spanning between 2001 and 2015. EMP index were constructed for each of the WAMZ member countries within the contexts of the US dollar and the Nigeria naira foreign exchange markets in the WAMZ. For the model dependent EMP, robust regression method was applied in the estimation. Evidences gathered revealed mixed forms of the absorption of market pressure in the WAMZ, with the majority of the member countries of the WAMZ (including the lead economy) absorbing exchange market pressure through domestic currency depreciation relative to reserves depletion. From the results of the assessments with both annual and quarterly data it cannot be confidently inferred that a common exchange rate and a single foreign exchange market is feasible for the WAMZ countries in the proposed single currency area. The adoption of a single exchange rate in a common foreign exchange market should therefore be considered with caution. The foreign exchange market is likely to be free from future currency crisis. Because of the possible and expected massive influence of Nigeria in the foreign exchange market, foreign inflation may not hugely impact the proposed exchange rate and the external value of the proposed single currency

Could there be an alternative to the undergraduate marketing student's dissertation?

While recognising the emotional rollercoaster for students embarking on their dissertation and their struggle in selecting research topics, this reflective piece offers a short and thought-provoking reflection on the dissertation topic and support for undergraduate marketing students. The paper raises the question of alternative methods towards supporting undergraduate marketing students with their dissertation. The piece identified key issues that have warranted the questions and provide alternatives for consideration by tutors and academic staff supporting the students. Also, the paper presented the challenges to adopting the alternative methods

Do Monetary Expansion Hypotheses Hold in the WAMZ?

This paper tests test if two of the monetary expansion hypotheses hold in the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ). The WAMZ consists of The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Nigeria and Liberia. The monetary expansion hypotheses tested are the Government-push Hypothesis/Budget Deficit Hypothesis and the Balance of Payment Surplus Hypothesis. The postulation of budget deficit hypothesis is that the size of government budget balance significantly affects monetary expansion. The balance of payments surplus hypothesis conjecture is that monetary expansion emanates from surpluses in balance of payments or changes in international reserve position. The models derived from these hypotheses reflect changes in money supply as a function of changes in government budget balance and changes in international reserves. Autoregressive distributed lag dynamic effects are introduced into the model. Fixed Effects (within), Random Effects Generalised Least Square and Random-effect Maximum Likelihood regressions are the three unbalanced panel data estimation methods employed for annual data of money supply, budget balance and international reserves, spanning averagely over the period of 14 years between 1980 and 2014. The random effect output reveal that the Government-push Hypothesis/Budget Deficit Hypothesis holds while there was no evidence of such for the Balance of Payment Surplus Hypothesis. These results suggest that for the WAMZ as a future monetary union, it is likely that with the effects of past changes in money supply and budget balance, there would be contraction of monetary base whenever budget balance goes up. The implication of this for the monetary union is that conflict of interests (in between actions at both national and union levels) in monetary expansion decision

Consumers’ Financial Vulnerability when accessing Financial Services

The concept of vulnerability denotes the conflict between the resources available to an individual and the challenges they face in life. Due to personal characterisers and market structures, some consumers are made financially vulnerable, which makes it difficult to access the formal financial system such as having a bank account or credit facilities. This paper presents a conceptual explanation of consumers’ financial vulnerability when accessing financial services. It explores the two broad categories of consumer vulnerability and the barriers they present to accessing financial services. This conceptual framework recognises the role of governmental financial policy, financial technology from banks, and consumers’ financial education in overcoming these barriers and making financial services inclusive

Goal-Setting and Task Performance among Nigerian Managers in a Cross-Cultural Context

This study assessed goal-setting and task performance among Nigerian managers. Data were collected from 521 subjects including 176 Yoruba, 147 Igbo and 198 Hausa/Fulani managerial employees in Lagos, Nigeria. The relevant scales of the 57-item questionnaire designed by Mendonca and Kanungo (1994) were used to obtain measures of the dependent variables. Mean scores in goal setting and performance-intrinsic reward contingency were highest among the Yoruba managers followed by Hausa/Fulani and Igbo managers respectively. Mean score in task significance was highest among the Igbo managers followed by Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani managers respectively. Mean score in performance-extrinsic reward contingency was highest among the Hausa/Fulani managers followed by Yoruba and Igbo managers respectively. One-way ANOVA showed cultural differences in performance-intrinsic reward contingency (p\u3c .05) and task significance (p\u3c .01) but not in goal-setting and performance-extrinsic reward contingency respectively. The results were discussed in terms of the influence of culture on human resources management practices and that managers who value performance-intrinsic reward allocation should engage in goal-setting more than the others