Special Issue on Turkey and Turkish Communities: Journal of Macromarketing, 2015

[No abstract available

Developing markets? Understanding the role of markets and development at the intersection of macromarketing and transformative consumer research (TCR)

Situated at the intersection of markets and development, this commentary aims to promote a cross-fertilization of macromarketing and Transformative Consumer Research (TCR) that directs attention to the sociocultural context and situational embeddedness of consumer experience and well-being, while acknowledging complex, systemic interdependencies between markets, marketing, and society. Based on a critical review of the meaning of development and an interrogation of various developmental discourses, the authors develop a conceptual framework that brings together issues of development, well-being, and social inequalities. We suggest that these issues are better understood and addressed when examined via grounded investigations of the role of markets in shaping the management of resources, consumer agency, power inequalities and ethics. The use of markets as units of analysis may lead to further cross-fertilizations of TCR and macromarketing and to more comprehensive theorizing and transformational impact. Two empirical cases are provided to illustrate our framework

Digital play and the actualisation of the consumer imagination

In this article, the authors consider emerging consumer practices in digital virtual spaces. Building on constructions of consumer behavior as both a sense-making activity and a resource for the construction of daydreams, as well as anthropological readings of performance, the authors speculate that many performances during digital play are products of consumer fantasy. The authors develop an interpretation of the relationship between the real and the virtual that is better equipped to understand the movement between consumer daydreams and those practices actualized in the material and now also in digital virtual reality. The authors argue that digital virtual performances present opportunities for liminoid transformations through inversions, speculations, and playfulness acted out in aesthetic dramas. To illustrate, the authors consider specific examples of the theatrical productions available to consumers in digital spaces, highlighting the consumer imagination that feeds them, the performances they produce, and the potential for transformation in consumer-players

Driven to excess? Linking calling, character and the (mis)behaviour of marketers

We are presently at a point of unique circumstantial convergence where recession, an increased emphasis on business ethics, and marketer’s reluctance to accept shifting social agendas have combined to identify the need for a new approach to marketing. Using concepts from the human resources, marketing and psychology literatures, and especially Erich Fromm’s ideas concerning economic character, this paper posits that marketers – as a professional community – are driven to promote consumerist outcomes; victims of an automaton amalgam of calling and character. The analysis suggests the vulnerability of both marketer and consumer are mutually reinforcing and that we need, somehow, to break this damaging cycle of dependence. We know little, however, about how marketers think and feel about their discipline, so this paper also promotes an agenda for marketer behaviour research, as a countervailing balance to a currently disproportionate focus on the consumer

The semiology of changing brand image

This article considers the attempted change to the image of an established brand by studying the semiotics within the brand’s historical advertising campaigns. The use of semiotics to study the interpretation of messages is discussed, and the link between interpretation of messages and advertising effectiveness in changing brand image is explored. The authors deconstruct advertisements of a brand to provide a model containing opposing dialectics that may aid managers by highlighting alternative symbolic messages contained in advertisements. Oncwe identified, these alternative symbolic messages may be used to help change brand image and influence advertising effectiveness. Although the study focuses upon a major brand of beer, this is an industry in which there are numerous small firms, and many of those have constrained marketing budgets, and thus need to make sure that their advertising is effective. Equally, entrepreneurial marketing is not to found only in the small firm, and the case study discusses a radical and imaginative brand repositioning of a well established product

Special Issue on Turkey and Turkish Communities: Journal of Macromarketing, 2015

[No abstract available

Smooth Muscle Hyperplasia In An Asthmatic Patient: Do We Know It All?

Scopu

AFLP and SRAP markers linked to the mj gene for root-knot nematode resistance in cucumber [Marcadores AFLP e SRAP ligados ao gene mj para resistência a nematóides causadores de galhas em pepino]

Root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne spp.) are an important worldwide pest of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.). Molecular markers linked to the Javanese root-knot nematode (M. javanica) resistance gene mj in cucumber may aid marker assisted selection. One-hundred AFLP (EcoRI-MseI) and 112 SRAP were used to screen resistant and susceptible parents for polymorphisms to develop molecular markers linked to the mj gene. Of the 100 AFLP primers, 92 produced bands and two yielded candidate markers (E-ATT/M-CAA and E-AAC/M-CTG). These two bands were cut off from polyacrylamide gel, cloned and sequenced. Primers designed from the sequences did not yield polymorphic bands between the parents. In addition, the sequences did not contain any restriction site or indel to be used to convert them to CAPS or SCAR markers. The two sequences obtained from polymorphic AFLP markers were used primarily to design D1F, D1R, D17F and D17R primers. SRAP forward and reverse primers were used in combination with these four specific primers to search for polymorphisms between parents. Of the 112 primer combinations 11 yielded polymorphisms between parents. MapMaker Exp 3.0 software was used to analyze the 11 markers. Two markers were identified that flanked the mj gene at distance of 16.3 and 19.3 cM. The results indicated that these markers should be useful to develop molecular markers flanking the mj gene