Biomass residential heating: semantic structure and implications for advertising

For a business, knowing current stakeholder product knowledge is essential to infl uencing behaviour. What do consumers think and feel about biomass residential heating? An assessment of consumers’ semantic structure about a biomass residential heating product: pellet stove/furnace, reveals that consumers perceive the product as natural but laborious to maintain, and dirty/smelly. An exploratory analysis of the industry’s marketing communications suggests that the industry is not addressing the ‘ease-of-use’ issue

MARKET INTELLIGENCE FROM THE INTERNET: AN ILLUSTRATION USING THE BIOMASS HEATING INDUSTRY

Extant research on marketing strategy suggests that most companies underuse web intelligence as publicly available data on the Internet are considered hard to access and analyse. This paper demonstrates how biomass home heating businesses can utilise the Internet for data collection and business insights. The market structure of the biomass heating industry was identified using the Google Correlate algorithm. The production rule ‘that newer the product the higher is consumer search for the product’ was operationalised using the correlations of the concept ‘home heating equipment’. Intra-industry competition was assessed using Google’s brand impression analysis and firm behaviour and performance were modelled using a differential equation relating product sales to marketing expenditures. Empirical analysis reveals that the product form “biomass home heating” is growing, pellet stoves and fireplace inserts top the lists of “stove” searches, there are two competitive clusters of biomass firms and the marketing spending for the industry is well below its optimum level needed to increase and maintain sales

The economic impact of canal cruising in the Hennepin Canal State Park, Illinois: a scenario analysis

Hennepin Canal State Park boasts healthy visitor numbers: in 2009, it attracted 1.25m visitors and since 2004, visitor levels to the park have increased at the rate of 2% per annum (compound annual growth rate (CAGR) = 2%). This is in spite of the overall negative growth in visitor numbers for the state parks in Illinois (-1.25% CAGR for the period 2004-2009). Key issue is whether to expand Hennepin Canal State Park's services to include canal cruising or boating. To address this question, plausible future scenarios for the park were constructed. These are: Positive: In order to benefit from the increases in visitor numbers, a state park has to provide quality services. Since customer attraction is a function of product mix and quality, only state parks with a vast product line (for example, trail-based recreation, water-based recreation, etc.) will survive. Hence, the industry concentration will be low. Developments in virtual technology will not impact visitor numbers. Negative: Increased competition from businesses in the leisure and recreational sectors, developments in virtual technology, and declining US market for state parks will decrease park revenues. Also, developments in virtual technology will make customers indifferent to the variety (product mix) of state park services. However, due to state funding (cf. Senate Bill 1566), industry concentration will be high. If canal cruising is enabled, given the positive scenario, it will generate $42.68mil in revenues during the first year of its operation. The impact of this revenue would be 1,284 full-time jobs mostly in the hospitality sector and the retail trade. In the case where developments in virtual technology, and declining US market for state parks make customers indifferent to the variety of services (negative scenario), introduction of canal cruising will still bring in revenues totaling$31.8mil in the very first year, and create 959 full-time jobs in the region. Finally, economic benefit assessment is only one part of the knowledge about the consequence of facilitating canal cruising. Research is needed to gauge social and ecological consequences of the decision

Cognitive, affective, and behavioural responses to the introduction of internet-connected-computer requirement: a study among enrolling distance education students in a print-based environment

A review of published papers on Internet-based education reveals that there are at least four obstacles to Internet-based teaching: institutional (for example,financial support from the university to develop the Internet technology), instructional (for example, time commitment by faculty in developing the course or the program), technical (for instance, equipment reliability), and personal (for example, faculty I student technological competence, and attitudes toward acceptance of the Internet) (Piotrowski & Vodanovich, 2000). This research deals with "personal" obstacles to Internet-based instruction. Specifically, the question, "What are the cognitive, affective, and behavioural responses of enrolling distance education students in a traditional print-based environment to the introduction of Internet-Connect ed-Computer Requirement (ICCR) " is addressed. An empirical analysis of surveyed belieft feelings, and intentions regarding ICCR suggests that even though students believe that ICCR will cost them money, they do recognise the importance of computing and Internet skills for employment. This results in students assimilating the negatives associated with ICCR and feeling positive or happy about the stimulus. It is suggested that print-based distance education providers adopt ICCR to compete with corporate universities such as Motorola

Modelling probabilistic aspects of brand recall: the case of internet purchases

This paper is an attempt at analysis and extending the "brand name recall" model discussed by Hutchinson, Raman and Mantrala (1994) (hereafter HRM). The paper is organised as follows: Section I assesses the theoretical and managerial contributions of HRM's work, Section II highlights assumptions and limitations, if any, of the HRM's model, Section III extends HRM's work by presenting an intermediate and an aggregate level model of brand name recall, Section IV continues with the model extension task by discussing additional factors that could be incorporated in the model, and finally, Section V discusses a consumer behavior model specific to internet purchases: specifically, consumer information acquisition activities

Community radio broadcasts in north Queensland, Australia: a market structure analysis using Markov chains

This paper examines competition between commercial radio and community radio in regional Australia. Based on radio listening information obtained from a sample of 528 respondents, probability measures of "switching" among radio stations are derived, and inferences about competitive market structure for radio in the region is drawn. The results of this research should help radio broadcasters fine-tune their broadcasts to either maintain or enhance station loyalty among listeners

Graduates, perceptions about business educations : an exploratory investigation

The Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) (Ramsden, 1991) is being used as a measure of teaching quality by most of the higher education institutions in Australia. However, the CEQ does little to further our understanding of the specific skills required of graduates in the workplace and the extent to which higher education has prepared them to meet these requirements. This study attempts to overcome this shortcoming. Specifically, using the techniques of multi-attribute attitude models (Fishbein, 1967), this study examines the perceptions of Bachelor of Business graduates about the importance of various skills and attributes in their career, and the extent to which these skills and attributes were developed during their study. The implications of the results of this study to practitioners in higher education institutions are discussed

Optimizing radio advertising in North Queensland, Australia: A mathematical programming approach

Decision making could be described using 2 steps: (a) understanding the effects of a particular course of action and (b) selecting an action given this knowledge of effects. It is my contention that businesses wanting to advertise in radio have only partial information about the marketplace. There are approximately 500 commercial and community radio stations in Australia. However, only commercial radio stations, which make up 47% of the total radio stations in the country, systematically conduct radio surveys. In this article, I profile radio audiences in North Queensland, Australia using the list of values measure (LOV; Kahle & Kennedy, 1989). Also, I present the combinations of commercial and community radio stations that could deliver the maximum possible impact on the pertinent target market

Purchase determinants for pre-loved clothing and stores that sell pre-loved clothing

This study was conducted to help ascertain the purchase determinants of pre-loved clothing, and the desired features or characteristics of shops that sell pre-loved clothing. The purchase decision was modelled using the constructs of "motivation ", and "cognition ". Motivation refers to the "activation" of behaviour, and cognition to the "direction of behaviour ". A survey of 150 consumers in the Sydney metropolitan area revealed that one-half of respondents are influenced by stimuli such as window displays to purchase clothing; consumer expectations of price of clothing influence consumer attitude towards pre-loved clothing, and "merchandise variety" and "quality" are two of the 19 features that determine clothing store patronage. Results should stimulate retailers to improve their marketing mix to better satisfy shoppers' needs

Using social values to profile radio audience: a study among community radio listeners in Australia

The most common approach to audience analysis is the use of geographic, and demographic variables to describe the population of interest. However, geo-demographic variables are causally remote to consumer behaviour. For example, two households with identical demographics may have different social beliefs, and outlooks on life. Because of these\ud differences, each household would respond to marketing messages in a different way and more importantly, each household might purchase and consume different products and\ud brands. What is required is a profiling approach that would help radio stations highlight to media buyers the future consumer behaviour of their audience; not their geo-demographic details and their past purchase behaviour. This paper highlights the use of "social values" in such an exercise. As part of this exercise, the question 'do community radio stations attract a different audience than commercial radio stations' is addressed