Older Consumers and Celebrity Advertising

Older consumers have long been the 'invisible majority' in advertising despite the rapid increase in an ageing population. A significant proportion of this population have high levels of disposable income, even in times of recession, but advertisers are not encouraging them to part with it. This paper intends to find out why advertisers have been slow or struggle to target older consumers effectively. Using a case study approach this paper has two aims: to explore the portrayal and representation of older consumers, with specific reference to the use of celebrities and to understand the value of a more progressive, aspirational set of role models that older consumers can identify with

The Legacy of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games

Seoul was awarded the 1988 Olympic Games on 29th September 1981 in Baden-Baden. The Olympic Movement was going through ‘a very worrying time’, recalls Juan Antonio Samaranch, the then President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC); “The terrorist attack that traumatized the 1972 Games in Munich had demoralized several cities that were nurturing hopes of hosting the Olympic Games. Montreal’s financial problems in 1976 exacerbated this recession. As a result in 1978 only one city, Los Angeles, bid for the 1984 Games. The 1980 boycott of the Moscow Games was a further setback.” (Samaranch in Park, 1994: 406) Only two oriental cities, Nagoya (Japan) and Seoul were bidding for the Games and Seoul was chosen. Held in a politically divided nation, the 1988 Games have the significance in that it was where athletes of the whole world met together for the first time since the 1976 Montreal Olympics. A total of 160 countries participated in the 1988 Games and the Games clearly had an impact on the Olympic Movement in that it ended the era of boycotts, despite the absence of seven countries. The Olympic Movement, in return, has also affected the domestic political context of South Korea. The 1988 Seoul Games has been closely associated with a dramatic and decisive process of democratisation, by the end of which the military regime in South Korea had been peacefully displaced by a new era of multi-partyism and electoral democracy (Black and Bezanson, 2004: 1246). The IOC’s decision to award the 1988 Games to Seoul had been understood as an international legitimacy to the repressive military regime of General Chun Doo-Hwan (Kim, 1997: 392). The IOC’s decision can be seen as the instance where it turned a collective blind eye to the right-abusive practices of regimes that clearly violated the principles promoted in the Olympic Charter such as ‘the establishment of a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity’, ‘respect for universal fundamental ethical principles’, and incompatibility with ‘any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, sex or otherwise’ (Black and Bezanson, 2004: 1246). Ironically enough, the military-led government of President Chun for whom the bidding for the Seoul Olympics was very much a political project, was the last military regime. The Games thus played a catalytic role in political change and there is no doubt that it also had the economic and cultural impacts on major events in the Korean peninsula. These include the joint entry of North and South Korea into the United Nations in September 1991 and the first international exposition held in a developing country at Tae-Jon in 1993. The Koreans are now hopeful that 2014 Olympic Winter Games will be held in Pyeong-Chang. By further building upon their efforts for 2010 Games, Pyeong-Chang is competing with Sochi (Russia) and Salzburg (Austria) this time. The focus of the campaign is the sustainable increase in winter sports participation in Asia (Jin, 2007: 24). Following the IOC’s site inspections of the three cities from February to March 2007, the decision will be made in Guatemala City on 4th July 2007 (Lee, 2007: 30). This chapter explores further the political, economic and cultural impacts of the Games on the hosting city and country. It aims to examine the legacy of the 1988 Games, both hard legacy gains, such as improved infrastructure, and soft legacy gains, such as enhanced confidence and international status

Motivation, engagement and interactivity: Use of the Student Response System in the classroom

Student Response System is becoming more widely used in higher education. This report examines the way in which SRS can increase the student motivation, engagement and interactivity in the classroom. Based on the use of Socrative and Kahoot in marketing and advertising modules in all three levels of undergraduate programmes at the University of Greenwich between September 2017 and April 2018, this report aims to cover the practicalities, advantages, limitations, and the students’ feedback. It considers how SRS related activities in the classroom could be embedded in virtual learning environment such as Moodle. It also provides level-specific recommendations for suitable activities using SRS

Thematic analysis of marketing messages in UK universities’ prospectuses

Purpose: Prospective students are exposed to abundant choices, and they are eagerly searching for information to select the best universities for themselves. Likewise, prospectuses are regularly produced by universities to meet this information needs; the purpose of this paper is to examine the key marketing messages used in their prospectuses. Design/methodology/approach: The 2017 undergraduate prospectuses of 121 universities in the UK (out of the 134 members of University UK) were thematically analysed using NVivo10. Findings: Messages were predominantly about the location, the course, student experience, credibility and career progression. They are framed in an appealing way, filled with facts and figures, images of beautiful buildings and smiling students, testimonials of facilities and experiences that form a sense of compatibility and belonging. Research limitations/implications: This study provides insights for the higher educational institutions to enhance their future marketing communications strategies in terms of effectively differentiating one university from another by highlighting the predominantly used appeals among 121 prospectuses and the need for adopting a more consistent approach between the clearing period and non-clearing period in terms of designing the prospectuses. This study has considered only the print platform, and therefore future studies should also look at social media and university websites in the context of the integrated marketing communications. Practical implications: Accurate and coherent narratives should be provided, taking into consideration the diverse nature of target audience. Universities need to realise that they can be held responsible for the promises presented in their prospectuses. Using the city appeal by many universities may be challenging, as there is need to attract students not just to the city itself, but to the university’s campus. Originality/value: Having a significantly larger sample than any other previous studies in this field, the empirical evidence provided in this paper is rich and in-depth, thanks to the size and age of the sample as well as the integrated and combined methodological approach. Five keys themes with sub-themes, descriptions and examples were provided, suitable for future research in higher education marketing

Mapping out the K-pop fandom in the UK

This study offers an ethnographic account of cultural practices of the K-pop fans in the UK. It considers the ways in which the UK’s social milieu receives culturally hybridized K-pop, in particular how young fans consume this cultural import. While focusing on the emergence, development and prospects of K-pop fandom, it also examines the ways in which the media – both the British and the Korean – responded to K-pop phenomenon and how the fans have appropriated the media representation. The theoretical framework of this study comes from relevant literature on the Korean wave, on fandom, and on popular music and youth culture. In the British context, the emergence of the K-pop fandom cannot be attributed to the cultural similarities and geographic proximity nor the popularity of the Korean dramas; it was social media that facilitated the spread of K-pop popularity. The study reveals that the UK K-pop fans are media literate and well-mannered, far from the stereotyped image of fans being obsessive loner or hysterical crowd. It also shows that there is a potential to develop a distinct subculture: within the K-pop fan community, ‘subcultural’ sensibilities were found in the ways that they often used their knowledge of music, dance, and music industry in cultural production as well as cultural consumption. Media representation was found lagged behind the times in that the British media was Orientalist while the Korean counterpart was nationalistic. Although K-pop does not seem to have ‘invaded’ Britain and there is quite a long way to go before K-pop is accepted by the mainstream media and music industry, this study concludes that 2011 clearly marked the landing of the K-pop in the UK. Subtle approach in a long term, with not too much of a commercial drive at first, is recommended in arguably the most ‘impermeable’ British market

Korean wave in the British context

This presentation was delivered as the keynote speech at the 2013 Korean Culture Forum, A Bridge to the Future, in London, organised by the Korean Cultural Centre UK. It provides a brief overview of the origin, development and current status of the Korean popular culture in the British context. It is based on the frame analysis of media reports by BBC, Guardian, Economist and Financial Times since the early 2000s, of which the key findings are disseminated to primarily non-academic audience

Employability and advertising education

This presentation draws on the author's critical reflection on employability and advertising education in UK Higher Education (HE), using her experience of teaching the discipline over two decades. It focuses on the origin, definition, critique and ongoing debate of employability discourse in HE. Based on extant literature on employability model in HE, the author analyses employability discourse presented by the key HE providers of advertising degree programmes in the UK. Strategies to enhance graduate employability prospects are offered

Advertising education in multicultural UK Higher Education

This presentation addresses current landscape of advertising education in UK Higher Education (HE). It focuses on the typology of advertising curriculum in multicultural UK HE, cultural difference in classroom activities and assessment between Chinese students and home students, and decolonising curriculum and pedagogy to support Chinese students

Lynx: the challenges of lad culture

This chapter explores the way in which youth offers both possibilities and ongoing challenges to advertisers. Lynx (also known as Axe in some countries) will provide the narrative drive for the discussion and function as an illustration of the way in which a brand became aware of and tapped into the development of a new market sector, namely, deodorants and bodysprays for young lads. Acknowledging Lynx’s twenty-year history, the chapter will focus on how the brand through its advertising has continually reinvented itself, keeping pace with both the rise and demise of lad culture. In view of this, the main topics considered include: characteristics of the youth market, development of brand loyalty, identity construction and media/new media influences

Working towards sustainable consumption

This poster presentation is about how an internationally collaborative relationship with industry has been established and enhanced the student experience and employability. In MA module titled Developing Advertising and Promotional Strategies, a partnership with EQUA, a Slovenian company that produced an environmentally friendly reusable bottles, provided a live brief for EQUA's UK launch and paid internship opportunities for the students