Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda

Although social media use is gaining increasing importance as a component of firms’ portfolio of strategies, scant research has systematically consolidated and extended knowledge on social media marketing strategies (SMMSs). To fill this research gap, we first define SMMS, using social media and marketing strategy dimensions. This is followed by a conceptualization of the developmental process of SMMSs, which comprises four major components, namely drivers, inputs, throughputs, and outputs. Next, we propose a taxonomy that classifies SMMSs into four types according to their strategic maturity level: social commerce strategy, social content strategy, social monitoring strategy, and social CRM strategy. We subsequently validate this taxonomy of SMMSs using information derived from prior empirical studies, as well with data collected from in-depth interviews and a quantitive survey among social media marketing managers. Finally, we suggest fruitful directions for future research based on input received from scholars specializing in the field

Understanding Big Data and its application in the digital marketing landscape

This chapter outlines the increasing prominence of Big Data and its application to marketing practice. The 8Ps of the Expanded Marketing Mix: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Process, Physical evidence, Partnerships and People are applied as the lens in explaining the application of Big Data in contemporary marketing practice. Big Data is already guiding marketing decision-making at multiple levels, from analysing consumer buying behaviour to Internet-of-Things (IoT)-enabled devices that report on product use conditions, service requirements or processing data from manufacturing. In the future, Artificial Intelligence will become important in handling Big Data. In preparation for this, there is an urgent need for ethical design principles to be integrated into the capture, storage and use of Big Data as part of the entire data management process.peerReviewe

Interorganisational new service development capability in the mobile communications ecosystem

Advances in platform technologies suggest that the evolution of common digital-media platforms will usher in a proliferation of applications and services in the new media business space. However, organisations are unlikely to develop services on their own because of the diverse range of skills, resources and knowledge required to succeed in the digital age. Organisations specializing in domains as diverse as content development to technology infrastructure provision are increasingly finding themselves structurally dependent on one another through network arrangements such as business ecosystems. They find themselves contributing their specialist competencies in providing end-to-end rich media services such as Mobile TV and Mobile Music services within the context of the business ecosystem. This emerging trend has intrigued new service providers in the mobile services industry in their attempt to understand the underpinning concepts that affect the capability of such business ecosystems to develop new rich media mobile services. This thesis contributes to our understanding of the new service development (NSD) literature in complex business networks with technologically dynamic and structurally changing environment. In understanding how interrelated businesses develop new rich media mobile services on common technological platforms within dynamic business environments, the thesis moves the analytical focus from the level of a focal business to the level of the business ecosystem, a collection of related businesses and institutions. It examines how platform technologies such as Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) bring about a new business potential in business ecosystems. The thesis identifies the business concepts that impact on NSD capability from two primary dimensions; network interconnectedness and business customer collaboration. Literature suggests that the concepts 'network interconnected' and 'business customer collaboration' are critical in defining interorganisational NSD capability. Network interconnectedness is defined by concepts such as joint dependence, New Service Development Platform (NSDP), network centrality, structural differentiation and co-opetition. The notion of customer collaboration is defined by the concept of lead customer knowledge. The setting for the thesis is the infocoms (IT, Telecommunications and Media industries) sector. The unit of analysis in the thesis is the rich media mobile services business ecosystem. A qualitative approach was adopted to provide; (a) greater depth of insight to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon present in business ecosystems and, (b) to address the lack of, or limited, theoretical frameworks available to guide this research. Being a new phenomenon, case study data was collected to refine the working propositions developed from literature. Theory building follows the process identified by Eisenhardt (1989). The case study approach is based on semi structured interviews that investigates contemporary phenomenon in a real-life context. The key informant technique was employed in selecting respondents for the research. The single case study approach was chosen with the view to developing a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon that characterizes a business ecosystem to assist in theory building. Concerns of external validity were traded off against opportunities to gain greater insights into yet incompletely documented phenomenon. The research findings reveal that joint dependence, New Service Development Platform (NSDP), network centrality, structural differentiation and coopetition affect the capability of the business ecosystem in developing new services. Joint dependence rather than network interconnectedness is the cornerstone concept that affects the new service development capability of business ecosystems. Joint dependence is explained by the notion of embeddedness; mutual empathy and mutual commitment; structural congruence; and familiarity and mutual forbearance displayed in the actions of actors within the business ecosystem. The concept of a New Service Development Platform (NSDP) that affects the capability of a business ecosystem in developing new services provides standardized reusable components that are important to the service development capability of the business ecosystem. This modular feature of the NSDP provides the fundamental building blocks for the Mobile TV service which enables the business ecosystem to reduce service development time and costs; as a result enabling the business ecosystem to create a proliferation of services and variety of niche services. Network centrality emphasizes the importance of key organisations in the overall structure, the well-being and the future prospects of the business ecosystem. The evidence deduced from this thesis indicates that the determinants of network centrality (i.e. the framework of SLAs in the ecosystem guided by the primary SLAs between the primary actors, New Service Development Platform (NSDP) and the Interorganisational New Service Development Framework (INSDF) ) provides for the visibility and attractiveness of the network operator as the central actor in the ecosystem. Structural differentiation suggests that the emergent systemic property that actors (organisations) come to occupy in an identifiable set of network positions is in fact niches. Actors‘ unique and specialized area of competencies promotes the necessity for business ecosystems to be on a constant search for such niche actors within and without the business ecosystem to ensure the vitality and the capability of the business ecosystem in creating new rich media services. The creation of niches according to the evidence deduced in this thesis indicate a joint niche creation initiative; a systematic effort in strategic niche management initiatives; and the diligent management of key technologies on a trial and error basis on the part of the primary actors in the Mobile TV ecosystem. Finally, the analysis of the notion of coopetition in this research reveals that it is not merely the dynamics of coopetition that contribute to the new service development capability of the ecosystem. Rather the evidence suggests that the dynamic forces of a coopetitive relationship between actors enable the emergence of dynamic capabilities. It is dynamics capabilities from coopetitive relationships that make the contribution to increased new service development capability of the Mobile TV ecosystem

Interorganisational new service development capability in the mobile communications ecosystem

Advances in platform technologies suggest that the evolution of common digital-media platforms will usher in a proliferation of applications and services in the new media business space. However, organisations are unlikely to develop services on their own because of the diverse range of skills, resources and knowledge required to succeed in the digital age. Organisations specializing in domains as diverse as content development to technology infrastructure provision are increasingly finding themselves structurally dependent on one another through network arrangements such as business ecosystems. They find themselves contributing their specialist competencies in providing end-to-end rich media services such as Mobile TV and Mobile Music services within the context of the business ecosystem. This emerging trend has intrigued new service providers in the mobile services industry in their attempt to understand the underpinning concepts that affect the capability of such business ecosystems to develop new rich media mobile services. This thesis contributes to our understanding of the new service development (NSD) literature in complex business networks with technologically dynamic and structurally changing environment. In understanding how interrelated businesses develop new rich media mobile services on common technological platforms within dynamic business environments, the thesis moves the analytical focus from the level of a focal business to the level of the business ecosystem, a collection of related businesses and institutions. It examines how platform technologies such as Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) bring about a new business potential in business ecosystems. The thesis identifies the business concepts that impact on NSD capability from two primary dimensions; network interconnectedness and business customer collaboration. Literature suggests that the concepts 'network interconnected' and 'business customer collaboration' are critical in defining interorganisational NSD capability. Network interconnectedness is defined by concepts such as joint dependence, New Service Development Platform (NSDP), network centrality, structural differentiation and co-opetition. The notion of customer collaboration is defined by the concept of lead customer knowledge. The setting for the thesis is the infocoms (IT, Telecommunications and Media industries) sector. The unit of analysis in the thesis is the rich media mobile services business ecosystem. A qualitative approach was adopted to provide; (a) greater depth of insight to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon present in business ecosystems and, (b) to address the lack of, or limited, theoretical frameworks available to guide this research. Being a new phenomenon, case study data was collected to refine the working propositions developed from literature. Theory building follows the process identified by Eisenhardt (1989). The case study approach is based on semi structured interviews that investigates contemporary phenomenon in a real-life context. The key informant technique was employed in selecting respondents for the research. The single case study approach was chosen with the view to developing a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon that characterizes a business ecosystem to assist in theory building. Concerns of external validity were traded off against opportunities to gain greater insights into yet incompletely documented phenomenon. The research findings reveal that joint dependence, New Service Development Platform (NSDP), network centrality, structural differentiation and coopetition affect the capability of the business ecosystem in developing new services. Joint dependence rather than network interconnectedness is the cornerstone concept that affects the new service development capability of business ecosystems. Joint dependence is explained by the notion of embeddedness; mutual empathy and mutual commitment; structural congruence; and familiarity and mutual forbearance displayed in the actions of actors within the business ecosystem. The concept of a New Service Development Platform (NSDP) that affects the capability of a business ecosystem in developing new services provides standardized reusable components that are important to the service development capability of the business ecosystem. This modular feature of the NSDP provides the fundamental building blocks for the Mobile TV service which enables the business ecosystem to reduce service development time and costs; as a result enabling the business ecosystem to create a proliferation of services and variety of niche services. Network centrality emphasizes the importance of key organisations in the overall structure, the well-being and the future prospects of the business ecosystem. The evidence deduced from this thesis indicates that the determinants of network centrality (i.e. the framework of SLAs in the ecosystem guided by the primary SLAs between the primary actors, New Service Development Platform (NSDP) and the Interorganisational New Service Development Framework (INSDF) ) provides for the visibility and attractiveness of the network operator as the central actor in the ecosystem. Structural differentiation suggests that the emergent systemic property that actors (organisations) come to occupy in an identifiable set of network positions is in fact niches. Actors‘ unique and specialized area of competencies promotes the necessity for business ecosystems to be on a constant search for such niche actors within and without the business ecosystem to ensure the vitality and the capability of the business ecosystem in creating new rich media services. The creation of niches according to the evidence deduced in this thesis indicate a joint niche creation initiative; a systematic effort in strategic niche management initiatives; and the diligent management of key technologies on a trial and error basis on the part of the primary actors in the Mobile TV ecosystem. Finally, the analysis of the notion of coopetition in this research reveals that it is not merely the dynamics of coopetition that contribute to the new service development capability of the ecosystem. Rather the evidence suggests that the dynamic forces of a coopetitive relationship between actors enable the emergence of dynamic capabilities. It is dynamics capabilities from coopetitive relationships that make the contribution to increased new service development capability of the Mobile TV ecosystem

Consumer Responses to AI-Generated Charitable Giving Ads

Content created by employing artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, also known as synthetic content, promises to radically change the advertising and marketing landscape in the coming decades, presumably for the better. It is fundamental for advertising and marketing scholars and practitioners to have solid knowledge of how synthetic content is perceived by consumers before widespread adoption is promoted. Across three experimental studies we tested how consumers in charitable giving contexts reacted to advertising messages featuring content generated by an AI neural network. We show that potential donors responded differently to children’s faces when they knew they had been generated by AI. Study 1 established that awareness of the falsity of a face or its status as an AI-generated image has a negative impact on donation intentions. This negative impact is serially mediated by empathy and anticipatory guilt and empathy and emotion perception. Study 2 investigated several motives for employing AI-generated images and indicated that charities employing those images can benefit by making their ethical motives salient. Finally, Study 3 revealed that under extraordinary circumstances the use of AI images by charities is considered acceptable by consumers and is likely to lead to similar outcomes as the use of real images. Therefore, we recommend a cautious approach to the adoption of synthetic content.peerReviewe

Veganism : Theory of planned behaviour, ethical concerns and the moderating role of catalytic experiences

The growing movement of veganism culture is drawing increasing scientific attention but falls short of an empirical investigation to examine antecedents and catalytic experiences for maintaining vegan diets. An integrated theoretical framework is proposed using the Theory of Planned Behaviour Model (TPB) and includes ethical concerns to investigate the interrelationships. Comparisons are also made by adopting the strength of high and low ethical catalytic experiences of each consumer group to identify moderating results. The proposed conceptual model was tested using Structural Equation Modelling from the responses of 478 vegan consumers. Results indicate that the TPB factors exert positive effects on the buying intention and ethical concerns mediate the relationship between attitudes and intention, as well as between PBC and intention, however, social norms did not impact ethical concerns. While consumers experiencing high catalytic experience had no significance, low catalytic experience consumers showed an inverse significant moderating relationship on PBC and maintaining vegan diets. Whereas the relationship for ethical concerns influencing the intention to buy vegan foods was significant and positive for the high catalytic experienced consumer, but not significant for the low catalytic experienced consumer. The moderating results for social norms were not significant on ethical concerns for the high catalytic experienced consumer but were negatively significant for the low catalytic experienced consumers indicating that the effect of peer pressure increase, results in a decline for ethical considerations. These findings offer strong theoretical and practical implications by contributing to the understanding of consumers’ behavioural intention to undertake vegan diets and extending our knowledge for formulating retail strategies to effectively tailor their offerings for this consumer segment

Consumer biases in the perception of organizational greed

This article extends current models of how consumers judge or perceive organizations as greedy by employing the theoretical framework of motivated moral reasoning. We show that inherent features of an organization (size and “black sheep” status) and its behavior (relative frequency) bias consumer perceptions of organizational greed. We use an experimental methodology, present subjects with vignettes describing different scenarios, validate our questionnaire using confirmatory factor analysis, and test our hypotheses by employing a general linear model with covariates. Our findings suggest that consumer perceptions of organizational greed are subject to three effects: the underdog effect (Study 1, n = 496), the black sheep effect (Study 2, n = 229), and the “common is moral” heuristic (Study 3, n = 249). This is the first study to investigate greed under a motivated reasoning paradigm and to show that perceptions of organizational greed are subject to socio-psychological biases. This study also provides advice on branding and positioning strategies that appeal to the underdog status of an organization or its local origins.peerReviewe

Synergistic Interactions of SDGs in Food Supply Chains: A Review of Responsible Consumption and Production

In light of the significance of Food Supply Chains (FSCs) in attaining the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a greater focus on synergistic interactions between these SDGs is called for. Although there is research within this area, the impact on the interactions of responsible consumption and production for supply chains is either fragmented or inconclusive. Implementing supply chain solutions to achieve one goal could potentially support or inhibit progress in other goals; thus, before implementing such solutions, a better understanding of the interrelationships between SDGs is required. A systematic review is conducted to evidence the current nature of the understanding of these interrelationships within the food supply chain context by focusing on Responsible Consumption and Production, which refers to SDG number 12. This review is conducted through a filtering process, where 171 peer-reviewed articles addressing different SDGs were analysed and synthesized. In addition to a detailed summary of the recent literature on the SDGs and their interrelationships, as addressed in the literature, this paper establishes the limitations in the existing literature and research challenges surrounding the SDGs. This article contributes a conceptual framework that identifies stakeholder and consumer pressures as enablers of synergistic interactions between SDGs, thus directing managerial and regulatory interventions through a holistic perspective of SDGs. Finally, the review discusses contradictory findings on SDGs and provides future research avenues

Value attitude behaviour and social stigma in the adoption of veganism : An integrated model

While veganism has been growing and receiving increasing attention, there is a gap on how factors such as health and environmental beliefs and anti-speciesism values, that create attitude towards their diets, influence their vegan behaviour. Furthermore, the role of social stigma experienced by vegans has not been examined within this context. Building on the value-attitude-behaviour model, the present study addresses this gap by conceptualizing these different streams of variables to build a testable conceptual framework for understanding how these factors contribute to maintaining a vegan lifestyle. The study uses structural equation modelling to analyse the data on 315 vegan consumers, testing the framework and its variables. The study shows that the value‐attitude‐behaviour model can successfully be applied to vegan behaviour. The findings show that anti-speciesism values are strong predictors of a positive attitude toward a vegan diet. Furthermore, social stigma does not inhibit consumers from maintaining a vegan lifestyle. Ultimately, the study contributes to a novel multifaceted model for understanding veganism in broader terms, allowing for the examination of other influencing factors on a complex outcome. The findings are useful for policymakers and marketing practitioners to engage in understanding behavioural segments

Future look : Communicating with customers using digital channels

Digital Marketing is a fast-moving field, and the future of Digital Marketing Communication is multifaceted. Communication with customers can be based on either their current geographical location, their past online behaviour or their actions across various social media platforms. Communications can vary from one-to-one to many-to-many with varying types of digital technology used to facilitate it. The focus of Digital Marketing is to deliver smooth, effortless and enjoyable experiences to customers no matter their location. Existing digital services will be enhanced by greater use of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and automation. Analytics, when combined with location-based services, will tempt consumers with goods/services designed to delight each individual ‘at the right time, in the right place’. This chapter offers a picture of what communication with customers might look like in the future.peerReviewe