Cause Branding

This study introduces two different types of communication strategies in social cause advertising: a partake-in-our-cause message attempts to engage audiences to take part in a social cause, whereas a promotional social cause message simply conveys information on what a company does for the social cause. The results of two experiments showed that the type of social cause message and the company–cause fit interacted to influence the perceptual and behavioral intention variables related to the company sponsoring the social cause. The partake-in-our-cause message led to more favourable perceptions and stronger behavioral intentions about the company when the company–cause fit was low, rather than high, and such a relationship was partly mediated by the perceived corporate self-serving motive and shared support for the social cause. In contrast, the promotional social cause message appeared to be more persuasive when the company–cause fit was high, rather than low, due in part to the enhanced processing fluency. These findings suggest different psychological mechanisms for each type of social cause message. Implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.

Purpose
– This study aims to investigate the effects of type of message (information/buy), the moderating effects of fit (high/low) and salience (brand vs cause) and the mediating effects of attributions of partner motives in cause marketing advertisements.

Design/methodology/approach
– Two experiments, one with students and the second with a more representative sample of the population were used to investigate the effects. ANOVA and structural equation modeling were used to test the relationships.

Findings
– Fit and salience were found to be key moderators on the effect of type of message on consumer responses. While brands can use a buy message when they are salient, this benefits them only when fit is high. For informational messages, cause salience leads to positive outcomes, especially when fit is low. Further, consumer attributions of partner motives mediate responses to the advertisement.

Research limitations/implications
– Type of message is an important variable that needs to be selected with care. However, the moderating effects of fit and salience and the mediating effects of consumer attributions of partner motives may be able to overcome type of message.

Practical implications
– Initial partner selection is critical for the brand. A second key factor is inferences due to the specific message, fit and salience. Nonprofit firms have less to worry about fit compared to brands as attitude and behavioral intentions are high under both fit conditions.

Social implications
– Cause marketing can be used successfully to benefit both brand and cause simultaneously.

Originality/value
– This study examines the effects for both brands and causes and suggests ways in which both can benefit, leading to a win–win situation. This is an important contribution to the cause marketing field.

Tourism industry is undergoing a considerable extent of research in recent times due to its high relative influence on the economy of nations. The area is subject to multiple studies done by
scholars as well as practitioners. All destinations provide a unique style of experience to every leisure traveler who has a unique perspective about country that is influenced by destination
brand image. This study develops a variable interaction model that assist in forming destination brand image in context to UK’s tourism industry. It also identifies opportunities of further
improvement in enhancing UK's brand image as a tourist destination.

Today’s business customers expect sellers not only to respond effectively to their expressed needs but also to understand their business sufficiently well to proactively address their latent and future needs. Yet, research shows that many firms underestimate, misunderstand, or overlook these customer expectations. To draw clarity to this discrepancy, this study explores the notion of proactive customer orientation and examines the degree to which this capability offers an opportunity for competitive advantage. While research in recent years has explored the role of proactive customer orientation in new product performance, empirical investigation in this stream of market orientation literature is significantly underdeveloped. We assess the impact of the proactive customer orientation construct on value creation by taking a novel approach that examines the proactive customer orientation → value → satisfaction → loyalty chain using data from 800 business customers in India, Singapore, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We find that, relative to other firm capabilities, proactive customer orientation is the most consistent driver of customer value across our multinational data set. Results also show robust effects for the interaction of proactive and responsive customer orientation to create superior value. Several moderating conditions further frame the impact of this capability: intense levels of customer value change, a global relationship scope, and a transnational relationship structure. Overall, findings significantly advance the understanding of the proactive dimension within market orientation and provide marketers with insights for voice of the customer processes.

Abstract Today's business customers expect sellers not only to respond effectively to their expressed needs but also to understand their business sufficiently well to proactively address their latent and future needs. Yet, research shows that many firms underestimate, misunderstand, or overlook these customer expectations. To draw clarity to this discrepancy, this study explores the notion of proactive customer orientation and examines the degree to which this capability offers an opportunity for competitive advantage. While research in ...

The recent innovation literature has increasingly emphasized the efficient use of knowledge and information not only inside the company borders, but particularly the knowledge locating outside the company borders, such as the knowledge of customers and users. In addition, the co-creation of new knowledge has gained fast in importance. Various types of collaborative web tools and approaches, such as social media, can enable and significantly increase the collaboration, the collaborative knowledge creation and the use of the distributed knowledge both within and outside the company borders. In this paper, we have studied the role and possibilities of social media in the sharing and creation of customer information and knowledge especially from the perspective of business-to-business companies' innovation with an extensive literature review. Business-to-business context was chosen because it is in many ways a very different environment for social media than business-to-consumer context, and is currently very little academically studied.

Albeit often—and fairly—degraded in the world of high culture as a populist and politicised representation of music, the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC)—by sheer virtue of the populist and politicised nature of its essence—stands among the most consequential cultural encounters to which post-independence Azerbaijan has been exposed, in that the extent to which Baku’s victory in the ESC-2011—and the further developments this victory has generated—can potentially impact on, and contribute to, the very process of nation-building and national identity formation, with which this post-Soviet Muslim-majority country is currently struggling, is unparalleled by any of the state’s earlier encounters of the kind.  This paper focuses on, and examines, four intimately related ways in which the ESC and Azerbaijan’s successful involvement with the latter worked to interfere with the country’s nation-building: as a dubious factor in the evolution of the Western sense of self among Azerbaijanis; as a unifying force within the structure of the country’s rapidly maturing civil society; as a medium working to open up a channel through which Western popular cultural elements could interfere with the evolving dynamics of, and work to globalise , indeed de-endogenise, indigenous Azerbaijani culture, on one hand, and unify the discursive realm within which the country’s cultural domain is to further evolve, on the other; and, finally, as an important element serving to decouple the evolving processes within the country’s cultural domain from the unfolding dynamics of conflict settlement and hence conducive to the diversification of public discourse in Azerbaijan.

This article explores the relationship between place-branding and creative industries in post-industrial urban landscapes, with a particular focus on Wales’ capital city, Cardiff. It examines the production and representation of place by close reference to BBC Wales’ television production as a case study of place-making. It draws upon original research undertaken for BBC Audience Council Wales that sought to gauge the cultural impact of BBC Wales’ landmark drama production. Questions of ethics, representation and cultural identity are explored through analysis of developers' and broadcasters’ promotional materials, key speeches and interviews with television commissioners, and focus groups with BBC Wales’ viewers and residents of Cardiff and the rest of Wales. Arguing that television is a powerful medium for representing and branding place, the article contributes to debates concerning the relationship between national media organisations and urban regeneration projects.