16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 2

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS The New Knowledge Globalization Era: Future Trends Changin. Corporate and Marketing Communications. ISBN: 978-960-9443-07-4 3

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Athens University of Economics and Business, MBA Programme, Department of Busine ss Administration-Department of Marketing Communication George Panigyrakis, Prokopis Theodoridis and Anastasios Panopoulos (Eds.) The New Knowledge Globalization Era: Future Trends Changing Corporate Marketing Communications 16th International Conference on Corporate Marketing Communications (CMC 2011) Athens, 2011 Conference Proceedings ISBN: 978-960-9443-07-4 4

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications SPONSORS

COMMUNICATION SPONSOR

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 6

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications CONTENTS

Editorial Note 11 Conference Chair 13 Organizing Committee 13 Scientific Committee 13 Keynote Speakers 13 Track Chairs 14 Reviewers 14 Interactive Marketing and Corporate Communications 17 Philip J. Kitchen; B. Zafer Erdogan; Tolga Torun: The Impact of IMC in Virtual 1 8 Communities on Brand Strategy for Universities Eirini Tsichla; Leonidas Hatzithomas; Christina Boutsouki: Gender differences in the 20 interpretation of a Museum s web atmosphere: A Selectivity Hypothesis Approach Yioula Melanthiou; Angelika Kokkinaki; Alexis Droussiotis: An Examination Of The 36 Use of Web 2.0 Services in Cyprus Prodromos Yannas; Alexandros Kleftodimos; Georgios Lappas:Online Political 38 Marketing in 2010 Greek Local Elections: The Shift from Web to Web 2.0 Campaigns Anastasios Panopoulos; Prokopis Theodoridis: A Proposed Framework For The 51 Adoption Of The Internet By Public Relations Managers Jenny Palla; Athina Y. Zotou; Anastasia Konstantopoulou: The moderating role of 65 product involvement on online attitude formation towards brands and websites Anastasios P. Pagiaslis; George Maglaras; Prokopis Theodoridis: The impact of 80 Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use on Online Purchases: a comparison of Buyers and Non-Buyers Perceptions Elli Vlachopoulou; Christina Boutsouki: Marketing on the go 95 Brand Communications 101 Georgia Stavraki; Emmanuella Plakoyiannaki: Appropriating an Artistic Brand 102 Meaning: a Case Study of Consumers Responses to Miro s Exhibition Irene Kamenidou; Spyridon Mamalis; Christina Intze: Consumers motivation and 113 choice criteria towards a brand: The case of Ardas Festival in Ardas area Evros, Greece

Ilias Kapareliotis; Gary Mulholland: Constructing the luxury concept: the brand 125 validation guide for luxury brands Athanasios Krystallis; Polymeros Chrysochou: Private vs. manufacturer brand 130 buyers: Do they show different preferences in product attributes? George J. Avlonitis; Lamprini Piha: Internal Brand Orientation: a prerequisite f or 132 brand excellence Erifili Papista; Sergios Dimitriadis:Exploring the Antecedents of Consumer-Brand 141 Identification Gary Mulholland; T. Williams:Emotional Intelligence and the leadership brand 143 7

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Anna Zarkada: The personal branding phenomenon: Pushing epistemological boundaries or desperately marketing marketing? George Panigyrakis; Thanasis Poulis: Is there a standardized role for the brand manager internationally? A comparative study George Panigyrakis; Eirini Koronaki: Luxury brand consumption and cultural influences 146 157 170 Advertising and Media Insights 181 Leonidas Hatzithomas; Evaggelia Outra; Yorgos Zotos; Christina Boutsouki: Is 182 Humor a Countercyclical Advertising Strategy? Prokopis Theodoridis; Athina Y. Zotou; Antigone G. Kyrousi: Male & Female 194 Attitudes Towards Female Stereotypes: Some preliminary evidence Hsuan-Yi Chou; Cheng-Shih Lin: Consumers Responses to Spokespersons in 208 Homosexual Advertisements Emmanuel Heretakis: Towards the end of euphoria-Latest developments in the 210 Greek (old and new) media scene, from 2000 to 2010. Michael A. Belch; George E. Belch: Measuring Effectiveness In The New Media 212 Environment Hsuan-Yi Chou; Nai-Hwa Lien; Cheng-Shih Lin: The Effects of Song Choice in 219 Advertisements Eugenia Tzoumaka; Rodoula Tsiotsou; George Siomkos: Investigating the Role of 22 1 Sport Celebrity Characteristics on Endorsement Outcomes Don E. Schultz; Martin P. Block: Does Culture Drive Social Media Strategy? 223 Polymeros Chrysochou; Georgios Nikolakis; Athanasios Krystallis: Too fat to be a 237 model? The role of body image in advertising effectiveness of healthy food products Georgios Halkias; Flora Kokkinaki: Increasing Advertising Effectiveness through 239 Incongruity Based Tactics: The Moderating Role of Consumer Involvement George Gantzias: Cultural, Political and Social Destruction: Global Info Cash (G IC) 254 and Participatory Freedom (PF) Corporate Communications 255 Marwa Tourky; Philip Kitchen; Dianne Dean; Ahmed Shaalan: Institutionalizing CSR : 256 The role of Corporate Identity Management Ioanna Papasolomou; Haris Kountouros: Developing a framework for a successful 27 6 symbiosis of corporate social responsibility, internal marketing and employee

involvement procedures deriving Despina A. Karayanni; Christina 7 Medicines: Firms Communication Stelios C. Zyglidopoulos; Craig

from labour law C. Georgi; Constantinos A. Polydoros: Generic 28 Strategies And Phycisians Attitudes Carroll; Philemon Bantimaroudis: Framing the 300

Corporate World: The Impact of Corporate Social Performance on Media Attention and Prominence of Business Firms Sabine A. Einwiller; Christopher Ruppel: Trust in financial investments-Who or 3 12 what really counts Ioanna Papasolomou; Marlen Demetriou: Building corporate reputation through 314 the use of Corporate Social Responsibility and Cause Related Marketing: A longitudinal study of consumers perceptions in Cyprus Maria Pyrgeli; George Panigyrakis; E. Bakas: Patients' Satisfaction with Hospita l 325 Rehabilitation Services Ioannis Bombakos: Marketing and Human Resources Management for improving 329 hospital image. The case of the Greek state hospitals. 8

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Panagiotis Gkorezis; Naoum Mylonas; Athina Besleme: The intervening role of 342 Organizational Identification on the relationship between Perceived External Prestige and Psychological Empowerment: The case of Greek Citizens Service Centers Retail Communications 351 Neesha McCrory; Ann Mitsis: Shopping Centre Environmental Factors: Does 352 Generation Y s Gender Influence Strategic Marketing Communication? An Australian Exploration Evangelia Chatzopoulou; Rodoula Tsiotsou; Kleanthis Sirakoulis: Examining the 36 2 effect of gender on motivational factors for visiting shopping malls Eleni K. Kevork; Adam P. Vrechopoulos: The Dynamics Of Servicescape As A 364 Customer Relationship Management Dimension In Web Retailing: An Inderdisciplinary Approach Maria Michailidis; Maria Economou: Corporate Social Responsibility Practices in 372 the Retail Industry in Cyprus George Baltas; Grigorios Painesis: Coupon Face Value Framing & The Moderating 38 4 Role of Stock-up Product Nature Irena Descubes: New Social Movements and Consumer Resistance to Hypermarket 398 Retail in the Czech Republic: Case NESEhnu Ioannis Krasonikolakis; Adam P. Vrechopoulos; Athanasia Pouloudi: 3D Retail Stor e 404 Typology George Panigyrakis; Antonios Zairis; George Stamatis: Consumer Behavior towards 406 Convenience Stores in Greece Marketing Communications 409 Georgios Avlonitis; Erifili Papista: An Examination of the Effect of Eco-Labelli ng on 410 Consumer Behaviour Despina A. Karayanni; Christina C. Georgi: Relating OTC consumer buying styles 4 12 with Over-the-Counter medicines marketing communications: Does one size fit all? Tareq Hashem: Using Demarketing strategies in tobacco companies to reduce 424 smoking in Jordan Katerina Sarri; Elpida Samara; Ioannis Bakouros; Paraskevi Giourka: Innovativene ss 432 in SMEs: Exploring the role of Marketing Innovation Lucia Porcu; Salvador del Barrio Garca; Philip J. Kitchen: Communication in a Tim e 446

of Financial Stringency: Revisiting Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) Evangelia N. Markaki; Robert P. Ormrod; Theodoros Chatzipantelis: Integrating 44 8 Human Resource Management into Strategic Political Marketing Ivan Buksa; Ann Mitsis: Effectiveness of Athlete Endorsement Strategies and 450 Generation Y: An Australian Exploration Ahmed S. Shaalan; Jon Reast; Debra Johnson; Marwa E. Tourky: Unifying Guanxi462 Type Relationships and Relationship Marketing: A Conceptual Framework Branding and Corporate Communications 477 Wim J.L. Elving: The war for talent? The relevance of employer branding in job 4 78 advertisements for becoming an employer of choice Cleopatra Veloutsou; Luiz Moutinho: Tribal Behaviour and its Effect on Brand 492 Relationships: The View of the More Mature Market Bahar Yasin; Zehra Bozbay: The Impact Of Corporate Reputation On Customer 505 Trust 9

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 10

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The New Knowledge Globalization Era: Future Trends Changin. Corporate and Marketing Communications. Editorial Note

As the global economy seems to awaken from the darkness of an intense crisis, th e business landscape emerges in a newfound form. In the aftermath of the most intense shock the world economy has recently experienced, most Western economies exhibit signs of reviva l, yet everything has changed. In the dawn of this new era, the corporations and organizations that have surviv ed face new challenges, the society still suffers from the inevitable questioning of its fun damental values, the consumers have become skeptical, the citizens lack trust of institutions and gov ernments. Responding to the turbulent environment, both academics and practitioners seek t o put forward new strategies, models and techniques for corporate and marketing communications . The focal point of the 2011 conference lies in these future trends in corporate and marketing communications. Have certain communications practices been proved inadequate? Wh ich are the critical changes to be implemented? What is the role of corporate and market ing communications in the recuperation of the economy and the society? How can commu nications help rebuild trust in institutions and corporations? 16th This volume includes the papers of the International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications, an annual conference which is the meeting place for ac ademic researchers and teachers, as well as practitioners wishing to advance and create knowledge in the field of communications. The conference is by the MBA program of the departments of Business Administrati on and Marketing and Communication of Athens University of Economics and Business in Ap ril 2011 and is held in the Zappeion Hall, a place of historical importance. At the conference, theory and practice are combined to create a body of knowledg e available for solving current corporate issues and to provide solutions to the challenges prev ailing in today s business world. Thus, communications can serve as a valuable resource of the cor

porations realizing their potentials. This volume consists of both theoretical and empirical papers and extended abstr acts, including competitive and working papers in the fields of: interactive marketing and corpo rate communications, brand communications, advertising and media insights, corporate communications, retail communications, marketing communications as well as brand ing and corporate communications. Researchers from different cultural backgrounds have kept a broad perspective, i ndicating the increasing role of corporate and marketing communications. All papers went through the process of peer blind review, and were subsequently evaluated by the Review Committee. To be specific, the identity and affiliations of authors w ere kept separate from the actual work under review. The majority of the reviewers did not know th e author of the refereed papers, and the programme committees selections were made without knowi ng the authors' details. In the name of the CMC 2011 organizing committee, I would like to thank the revi ewers for their time and effort. Their kind participation in the review process for th e submitted papers has been essential for the successful implementation of the Conference. The significant contribution of those who submitted their papers to the impact o f the conference could not be left unmentioned. I would also like to acknowledge the importance o f the 11

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications volunteers contribution. Many thanks are given to the editorial team which tackle d proofreading and copy-editing for these proceedings. We wish you all the best with your research and development and hope that the wo rk in these proceedings helps you toward your goals. Prof. George G. Panigyrakis, Conference Chair 12

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications CONFERENCE CHAIR

Prof. George G. Panigyrakis, Director of the MBA programme, Athens University of Economics and Business, e-mail: pgg@aueb.gr ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Avra Katzilieri, Athens University of Economics and Business Eirini Koronaki, Athens University of Economics and Business Antigone .yrousi, Athens University of Economics and Business Dr. Anastasios Panopoulos, University of Western Macedonia Dr. Athanasios Poulis, Athens University of Economics and Business Maria Pyrgeli, Athens University of Economics and Business Dr. Prokopis Theodoridis, University of Western Greece Dr. Rodoula Tsiotsou, University of Macedonia Dr. Anna Zarkada, Athens University of Economics and Business Athina Zotou, Athens University of Economics and Business Dr. Cleopatra Veloutsou, University of Glasgow Dr. Ilias Kapareliotis, Abertay Dundee University SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Prof. George Baltas, Athens University of Economics and Business Prof. Michael A. Belch, San Diego State University Prof. Philip J. Kitchen, Brock University Prof. Luiz Moutinho, University of Glasgow Dr. Anastasios P. Panopoulos, University of Western Macedonia Prof. George J. Siomkos, Athens University of Economics and Business Dr. Prokopis K. Theodoridis, University of Western Greece KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Prof. Charles R. Taylor, Villanova University Prof. George J. Avlonitis, Athens University of Economics and Business 13

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications TRACK CHAIRS

Dr. Aikaterini Sarri, University of Western Macedonia Dr. Cleopatra Veloutsou, University of Glasgow Dr. Prokopis Theodoridis, University of Western Greece Prof. Don Schultz, Northwestern University Prof. George Baltas, Athens University of Economics and Business Prof. Michael Belch , San Diego State University Prof. Philip Kitchen , Brock University Prof. Prodromos Yannas , Technological Educational Institute of Western Macedoni a Prof. Wim Elving, University of Amsterdam Prof. Yorgos Zotos , Cyprus University of Technology Prof. George J. Siomkos, Athens University of Economics and Business Dr. Athanasios Krystallis , Aarhus School of Business Dr. Ioanna Papasolomou, University of Nicosia, Cyprus Dr. Rodoula Tsiotsou, University of Macedonia Dr. Anna Zarkada, Athens University of Economics and Business Prof. Sabine A. Einwiller, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz REVIEWERS

Prof. George Baltas Department of Marketing and Communication, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece george@aueb.gr Prof. Michael Belch San Diego State University, USA mbelch@mail.sdsu.edu Dr. Xuemei Bian University of Nottingham, Business School, UK Xuemei.Bian@nottingham.ac.uk Dr. George Christodoulides University of Birmingham, UK g.christodoulides@bham.ac.uk Dr. Fiona Davies Cardiff Business School, UK DaviesFM@cardiff.ac.uk

Prof. Bayram Zafer Erdogan Bilecik Universitesi,Ikt.Id.Bil. Fakultesi,Bilecik, Turkey bzerdogan@anadolu.edu.tr Dr. Leonidas Hatzithomas Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece leonidasnoe@yahoo.com Dr. Ilias Kapareliotis Abertay Dundee University, UK ikaparel@yahoo.gr 14

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Dr. Despina Karayanni University of Patras, Greece karayan@otenet.gr Prof. Philip Kitchen Brock University, Faculty of Business Niagara Region pkitchen@brocku.ca Dr. Athanasios Krystallis Aarhus School of Business, Denmark ATKR@asb.dk Dr. Ong Fon Sim Graduate School of Business, Universiti Tun Abdul Razak, Kuala Lumpur ongfonsim@gmail.com Dr. Maria Palazzo University of Bedfordshire, UK info.mariapalazzo@alice.it Dr. Polyxeni (Jenny) Palla Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece jennypalla80@ymail.com Dr. Anastasios Panopoulos University of Western Macedonia apanopoulos@uowm.gr Dr. Athanasios Poulis Department of Business Administration, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece tpoulis@aueb.gr Prof. Alfonso Siano Department of Communication Sciences, University of Salerno, Italy alfonsosiano@tin.it Dr. Prokopis Theodoridis University of Western Greece ptheodo@cc.uoi.gr Dr. Rodoula Tsiotsou

Assistant Professor of Services Marketing, Department of Marketing & Operations Management, University of Macedonia, Greece rtsiotsou@uom.gr Dr. Cleopatra Veloutsou Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Glasgow Business School, University of Glasgow, UK Cleopatra.Veloutsou@glasgow.ac.uk Prof. Prodromos Yannas Technological Educational Institution (TEI) of Western Macedonia yannas@kastoria.teikoz.gr Dr. Anna Zarkada Department of Business Administration, Athens University of Economics and Business azarkada@aueb.gr Prof. Yorgos Zotos Cyprus University of Technology, Faculty of Applied Arts and Communication, Department of Communication and Internet Studies, Cyprus, yorgos.zotos@cut.ac.cy, zotos@econ.auth.gr 15

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Interactive Marketing and Corporate Communications

17

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The Impact of IMC in Virtual Communities on Brand Strategy for Universities

Philip J. Kitchen Brock University, Canada and ESC Rennes Business School, France pkitchen@brocku.ca B. Zafer Erdogan Bilecik University, Turkey Tolga Torun Bilecik University, Turkey The emergence of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) has become a signific ant example of development in the marketing discipline. It has influenced thinking a nd acting among all types of companies and organizations facing the realities and complexity of competition in a global economy (Holm 2006). The starting point on IMC was bundling promotion mix elements together to create the on-voice phenomenon. But IMC approaches have since grown in dimensionality and sophistication and have become essential in modern marketing (Schultz, Patti and Kitchen 2011; Kitchen et al. 2004). IMC has thus become widely accepted, pervaded various levels within businesses, and become an integral part of brand strategy (Sreedhar et al. 2005). Hence there is a now strong relationship between brand strategy and IMC. Both these have been influenced by the growth of the Internet (Kitchen and Panopoulos 2010). Nowadays, among the younger generation and also adults, it is very popular to vi sit Internet and have an account on or in social networking sites as known as virtual communities (Nielsen 2010). According to Stutzman s (2006, 1-7), Facebook is the most popular social networkin g site which 78% of users prefer with 55% expressing preference for MySpace (Hargittai 2007). In the global arena international and national universities are acting like for profit companies. They are very competitive. They also engage in widespread use of virtual communi ties to reach young people and in considering students as customers. Thus, taking part in virt ual communities represents a significant opportunity for the graduate education sector. In these respects, usage of integrated communication approaches by in relation t o virtual

communities, may affect student behaviour. For example, internalization (adoptio n of a university s values) (Bagozzi 2002) may impact upon satisfaction which in turn aff ects brand strategy. This paper will explore the impact of IMC in virtual communities on in relation to brand strategy. Initially, this begins with a rigorous conceptual overview, to be followed by a dual phase approach to gathering empirical data. The eventual importance of the study lies in providing depth knowledge on relationship between IMC and brand strategy in virtual commun ication using graduate education as the preferred foci for empirical research. References Bogazzi, Richard P. and Dholakia, Utpal M. 2002. Intentional Social Action in Vi rtual Communities. Journal of Interactive Marketing 16(2): 2-21. Hargittai, Eszter. 2007. Whose Space? Differences Among Users and Non-users of S ocial Network Sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communications 13(1):http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/hargittai.html Holm, Olof. 2006. Integrating Marketing Communication: From Tactics to Strategy. Corporate 18

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Communications: an International Journal 11(1): 23-33. Kitchen, Philip J.; Brignell, Joanne; Li, Tao; & Spickett-Jones, Graham. 2004. E mergence of IMC: A Theoretical Perspective. Journal of Advertising Research: 19-30. Kitchen, Philip J. and Panopoulos, Anastasios. 2010. Online Public Relations: Th e Adoption Process and Innovation Challenge, a Greek Example. Public Relation Review 36: 222-229. Nielsen/Netratings, http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_060511.pdf. 01.10.2010. Schultz, Don, Patti, Charles, Kitchen, Philip J. 2011. The Evolution of Integrat ed Marketing Communications: The Customer-driven Marketplace, Routledge 1 Edition. Sreedhar, Madhavaram, Badrinarayanan, Vishag, Mcdonald, Robert E. 2005. Integrat ing Marketing Communication (IMC) and Brand Identity as Critical Components of Brand Equity Strategy: a Conc eptual Framework and Research Propositions. Journal of Advertising 34(4): 69-80. Stutzman, Frederic. 2006. An Evaluation of Identity-Sharing Behavior in Social N etwork Communities. IDMAa Journal 3(1): 1-7. 19

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Gender differences in the interpretation of a Museum s web atmosphere. A Selectivity Hypothesis Approach

Eirini Tsichla Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Business Administration, Gre ece, eirini_tsichla@yahoo.gr Leonidas Hatzithomas Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Business Administration, Gre ece, leonidasnoe@yahoo.gr Christina Boutsouki Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Business Administration, Gre ece. chbouts@econ.auth.gr Abstract This paper investigates the web atmosphere and consumer attitude interface. Onli ne environmental stimuli, conceived as high task relevant and low task relevant cue s, were manipulated employing an experimental design so as to assess their impact on att itude towards the website as well as attitude toward the brand. Similarly to expectations, low task relevant cues seemed to enhance both dependent variables of the study. Furthermore, the f indings suggest that gender exerts a moderating effect on the relationship between onlin e atmospherics and brand attitude: More specifically, on the absence of low task relevant cues, males developed less favourable attitude toward the brand while females attitude was consistent i n both experimental conditions. The particular differences are interpreted from a Selec tivity Hypothesis viewpoint, which attributes gender differences to differences in information pro cessing. Hence, the study supports the applicability of the Selectivity Hypothesis in the intern et context and propounds its relevance concerning brand attitude development.

Introduction Nowadays, the internet has managed to establish itself as a valuable everyday in formation and communication tool. The rapid development of virtual contexts for either commerc ial or communication purposes motivated practitioners to attentively develop and mainta in their online presence. Towards this end, web atmospheric elements have been excessivel y manipulated as a means to create an effective web design, capable of satisfying the organisation s marketing objectives while at the same time attracting surfers inter est. Web atmospherics are defined as the conscious designing of web environments to cr eate positive affect and/or cognitions in surfers in order to develop positive consum er responses (Dailey 2004, 796). For Milliman and Fugate (1993, 68), a web atmospheric cue is comparable to a brick-and-mortar cue and is described as any web interface component within an individual s perceptual field that stimulates one s senses . According to Eroglu, Machleit and Da vis (2001) although the online atmosphere lacks the tactical and olfactory cues of the offl ine store environment, the online retailer can manipulate the visual cues (and, to a limit ed extent, auditory cues) so as to produce affective reactions in site visitors, provide in formation about the retailer and influence shopper responses during the site visit. The pertinent li terature 20

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications acknowledges the importance of attractive web design in the enhancement of the s hoppers online experience (Woflinbarger and Gilly 2003; Wu, Cheng and Yen 2008; Ganesh e t al., 2010). Szymanski and Hise (2000) postulate the influence of site design and merchandisi ng on customer attraction and their satisfaction with Internet shopping while Ganesh et al. (20 10) found that many web surfers are motivated to conduct online shopping activities because of the stimulation effect of interesting websites. The tremendous potential of the new medium regarding the pursuit of marketing communications goals has fuelled considerable academic attention. A sound litera ture on web atmospherics has been developed, documenting their relationship with consumer pl easure and arousal, satisfaction, purchase intentions and urge to recommend the site to oth ers (for a review see Manganari, Siomkos and Vrechopoulos 2009). However, the content of the major ity of the existing studies seems rather dimensional, as it strives to investigate the envi ronmental stimuli in online store milieus. As a consequence, virtual service settings remain relat ively unexplored. Few exceptions include Rafaeli and Pratt (2005) and Hopkins et al. (2009) who fu rther attempt to amplify the relationship between web site design and the services marketing l iterature, suggesting that the internet itself can be conceived as a service and an organiz ation s website as an e-servicescape . The extensive focus on the online store context bears another implication as far as the studies dependent variables are concerned. The use of online retailer websites enabled t he elucidation of the web atmospherics influence on attitude toward the retailer (Eroglu et al. 2003; Fiore, Jin and Kim 2005) but their impact on attitude toward individual brands-and even mor e, service brands-is still not crystallized. Given the vital importance of online branding in the highly competitive contemporary marketplace (Ibeh, Luo and Dinnie, 2005), the particula r research gap should no longer remain unaddressed. Additionally, although gender differences in the internet context have been stud ied with respect to web advertising perceptions (Schlosser et al., 1999; Venkatesh and Morris, 20 00; McMahan, Hovland and McMillan 2009), use patterns (Wells and Chen 1999; Weiser, 2000; For d, Miller and Moss, 2001; Roger and Harris, 2003; Hupfer and Detlor, 2006), online privacy con cerns (Sheehan, 1999) and risk perceptions (Garbarino and Strahilevitz, 2004), the exi sting literature remains almost silent concerning the possible moderating effects of gender with

respect to the interpretation of web atmospheric stimuli. This is surprising taking into consid eration the interdisciplinary acknowledgment of differences in information processing betwee n men and women. These differences may result in non similar evaluations of verbal and vis ual stimuli which, in turn, may impact on their attitude development. The present study attempts to add to the scant literature of gender differences in the internet context, and the interpretation of the web atmosphere in particular. A virtual s ervicescape and more specifically a Museum website was chosen as the basis of an experimental de sign, following Fortin and Ballantine s (2009) advice on the perfect suitability of expe riments for the study of online environments. The purpose of the research is twofold: Firstly, t o elucidate the influence of web atmospherics on attitude toward the website as well as attitude towards the brand. Secondly, it attempts to investigate the potential moderating effect of g ender with respect to the above brand associations. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: The next section juxtapose s the theoretical background that informs the development of the proposed model of the study. Next , the analytic procedure that was followed during the conduction of the experiment is thoroughly explained. The subsequent section displays the empirical results of the study, f ollowed by an interpretive discussion that explains their value and highlights their contribut ion to the relevant literature. Managerial implications are drawn for practitioners who are interest ed in ameliorating their web presence. Finally, the study s limitations are acknowledged , and fruitful areas for further inquiry are suggested. 21

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Theoretical background and hypothesis development Web atmospherics Kotler (1973, 50) was the first to introduce the term atmospherics as the conscious designing of space to create certain buyer effects, specifically, the designing of buying environments to produce specific emotional effects in the buyer that enhance purchase probabilit y . As soon as the notion of atmospherics was adapted from the physical settings to the virtual m arketplace, academic interest was directed towards the conceptualization of the particular e nvironmental cues that were applicable to the new medium along with the exploration of their potential impact. A highly influential typology was the one suggested and thereafter empir ically tested by Eroglu, Machleit and Davis (2001; 2003) who distinguish online atmospherics betw een high task relevant and low task relevant cues. According to their taxonomy, high task rele vant cues include all the site descriptors (verbal or pictorial) that appear on the screen which fa cilitate and enable the consumer s shopping goal attainment such as descriptions of the merchandise, th e price, the terms of sale, delivery and return policies, pictures of the merchandise and navigation aids. Low task relevant cues refer to site information that is relatively inconsequenti al to the completion of the shopping task (Eroglu, Machleit and Davis, 2001 p. 180) and inc lude colours, borders and background patterns, typestyles and fonts, animation, music, enterta inment, pictures other than the merchandise etc. Low task relevant cues appear to create an atmosphere that has the potential to make a pleasurable experience and trigger m emories of a brick-and-mortar setting rather than directly affecting the completion of the ta sk (Eroglu, Machleit and Davis, 2001). Another popular conceptualization considers four variables pertaining to web atm ospherics: structure, effectiveness of its content, informativeness and entertainment (Bell and Tang, 1998; Chen and Wells, 1999; Richard, 2005). Structure and refers to the virtual store layout

according to Huizingh (2000) it could be a tree, a tree with a return-to-home pa ge button, a tree with horizontal links, and an extensive network. Effectiveness of information con tent pertains to currency of the information content of the website. Informativeness encompasses

the amount as well as the richness of the information the website displays, and tainment

enter

encompasses sensory and hedonic elements such as color, music, action, pictures, graphs, videos and interactivity. Richard (2005) connects the two typologies arguing tha t structure, effectiveness of the information content and informativeness belong to the high task relevant cues while entertainment is the sole dimension of the low task relevant cues. Th is study will utilize the Eroglu, Machleit and Davis typology (2001) as it been widely tested and supported (e.g. Eroglu, Machleit and Davis 2003; Ha and Lennon, 2010). This classification of web atmospherics into two categories facilitates their unambiguous manipulation and ideally suits the needs of the 2 X 2 full factorial design effectuated in the study. Hence the following conceptual framework is developed, schematically illustrated in Figure 1. The th eoretical grounding of the emergent research hypotheses is thoroughly explained as follows . 22

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Figure 1: The proposed model for the study Attitude toward the site ions are is considered a useful variable as far as website evaluat

concerned and has a positive impact on attitudes towards the advertisement, bran d attitudes and purchase intentions (Stevenson, Bruner and Kumar 2000; Dodds, 1991). The per tinent literature has drawn parallels between online atmospherics and attitude towards the site (Childers et al. 2001; Coyle and Thorson, 2001). The importance of entertainment with respect to website evaluations and attitude toward the site has also been reported (Duco ffe, 1996; McMillan et al. 2003; Richard, 2005, Richard et al. 2009). Childers et al. (2001 ) argue that the more immersive, hedonic aspects of the new media play an equal role along the ins trumental aspects as predictors of online attitudes. Visual attractiveness was found to be a primary indicator of overall impression and website preference (Schenkman and Jonsson, 2 000). Moreover, significant changes in attitudes were observed when subjects were expo sed to versions of a website that only varied in low task relevant cues (Mandel and Joh nson, 2002; Eroglu et al., 2003). Consequently, it can be hypothesized that: H1: Low task relevant atmospheric cues will exert a positive effect on attitude toward the website The website might create a link between the consumer interaction and the brand, likely better than traditional advertising media can, and sustain a relationship and positive feeling with a brand (Dahlen, Rasch, and Rosengren 2003). The relevant literature provides some evidence that factors pertaining to low task relevant cues are related to consumers brand attit udes. Form, as far as technical issues and content, has been found to enhance the total brand e xperience (Schenkman and Johnsson 2000; Lavie and Tractinsky 2004). Wang, Minor and Wei (2 010) argue that consumers cognitive, affective and conative outcomes can be significantly ev oked by web aesthetic elements. Schlosser (2003) postulates object interactivity to be an an tecedent of brand attitudes. In a services context, due to intangibility, the online experience mi ght be of significant importance in forming brand attitudes: Rafaeli and Pratt (2005) suggest that the

virtual servicescape may be critical as it constitutes the key artifact representing the organization to consumers. It seems reasonable then to expect an influence on brand attitude as well. Therefore, it could be hypothesized that a website displaying both high task rel evant and low task relevant atmospheric stimuli is likely to reinforce more favourable brand a ttitude than a website which lacks low task relevant cues. Hence: H2: Low task relevant atmospheric cues will exert a positive effect on attitude toward the brand 23

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Gender differences The role of potential moderating effects on the relationship between online atmo spherics and consumers attitude seems to be of great interest, taking into consideration that websites, just like physical products and services are usually targeted to specific segments of the market. Nonetheless, it has also been argued that hypothesizing direct effects may be so mewhat obvious and it is more meaningful to investigate moderating effects of external factors such as consumer and situational characteristics (e.g. Baron and Kenny, 1986; Ajzen, 1991). According to Putrevu (2001) gender is frequently used as a basis for segmentatio n for a significant proportion of products and services. Such segmentation, meets severa l of the requirements for successful implementation: It defines segments easy to identify , easy to access, and large enough to be profitable. Traditionally, certain personality traits hav e been ascribed to either men or women and empirical research has documented various differences: H olbrook (1986) revealed that gender showed a significant tendency to moderate the effect s of features on evaluative judgments and thereby to serve as meaningful source of heterogenei ty in preference structure. Men, due to their frequent conceptualization of items in t erms of physical attributes and objective states, have been portrayed as more analytical and logi cal in their processing orientation. In contrast, women have been characterized as more subje ctive, interpretive and intuitive as they indulge in more associative, imagery-laced in terpretations (Haas 1979). Women seem more accurate in decoding nonverbal cues (Hall 1984; Eve rhart et al. 2001) and they have been found to show greater sensitivity to a variety of situa tion specific cues in determining their self-evaluations (Lenney, Gold and Browning 1983). Biology, Socialization Theory and information processing style offer possible ex planations for gender differences observed in consumer responses. Biology suggests that the ori gin of these differences lies in brain hemispheric lateralization. According to Hansen (1981) the human brain is divided into two hemispheres: The left hemisphere specializes in verbal abili ties whereas the right specializes in spatial perception. Empirical evidence documents that the t wo hemispheres are more integrated in females and more specialized in males (Everhart et al. 20 01; Saucier and Elias 2001). Consequently, more functionally lateralised male brains process inf ormation on a piecemeal basis, whereas more integrated female brains process information holis

tically. Men are thus likely to prefer highly focused information along a few key attributes while women may be more attracted to information-rich sources (Richard et al. 2009). The socialization literature claims that gender role identification holds a corn erstone position in the development of gender differences. Males are considered to pursue agentic go als due to their self-assertive and achievement orientation whereas females pursue communal goals, being driven by interdependent and interpersonal concerns (Bakan, 1966; Eagly, 1987). This assertion seems as a precursor to the development of Item-specific versus Relational proces sing theory (Einstein and Hunt 1980) that claims the existence of two types of elaboration. The first is called relational processing and emphasizes similarities or shared themes among dispara te pieces of information. The second type, item specific elaboration, stresses attributes tha t are unique or distinctive to a message. As men are driven by agentic goals they are more likel y to attend to message claims that affect them directly, engaging in item-specific processing. On the contrary, women due to their communal orientation tend to consider all aspects of the mess age, undertaking relational processing (Putrevu, 2001). More recently Meyers-Levy and her colleagues (Meyers-Levy 1989; Meyers-Levy and Maheswaran 1991; Meyers-Levy and Sternthal 1991) developed a Selectivity Hypothe sis proposing that the origin of gender differences lies in differences in depth of processing. More specifically, men are considered as to be driven by selective processors , as they are more likely

overall message themes and rely on efficiency-striving heuristics in spite of de tailed message elaboration. Heuristic processing is conceived as a limited processing mode that demands much 24

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications less cognitive effort and capacity than systematic processing. When processing h euristically, people focus on that subset of available information that enables them to use si mple inferential rules, schemata, or cognitive heuristics to formulate their judgements and decis ions (Chaiken, Liberman and Eagly, 1989). On the contrary, the Selectivity Hypothesis regards women as comprehensive or syste matic processors . Systematic processing is conceived as an analytic orientation on whic h perceivers access and scrutinize all informational input for its relevance and importance t o their judgement task, and integrate all useful information in forming their judgements (Chaiken, Liberman and Eagly, 1989). Therefore, females are more likely to engage in effortful elaborat ion of the message content, attempt to extensively elaborate on more message claims than me n and give equal weight to self-generated and other-generated information. Meyers-Levy and Sternthal (1991) further attest that females possess a lower threshold for elaborating on message cues, and may have greater access to the implications of those cues at judgment. Conse quently, apart from considering highly available, objective attributes, females may elaborate o n message cues that command a limited amount of attention. Thus they are able to consider non o bservable conditions or subjective considerations that may more thoroughly explain that wh ich is readily discernible (Meyers-Levy 1989). The selectivity model has been widely attributed to explain the detection of gen der differences regarding advertising response (e.g. Carsky and Zuckerman 1991; Darley and Smith , 1995) as well as online consumer behavior. More specifically Rodgers and Harris (2003) as cribed their finding that women seem to perceive less emotional gratification from online sho pping than men and report lower levels of trust to the selectivity hypothesis, since female s are supposed to rely on details and intricacies and might very well affect how they feel about a particular website. Ford and Miller (1996) reported gender differences in Internet searchin g, as men appeared to enjoy browsing and women appeared disappointed and disoriented by th e internet. In a later study Ford, Miller and Moss (2001) associated information retrieval w ith men and information failure with women. These findings were accommodated within the sele ctivity model, as the comprehensive processing of women might have prevented them from a voiding unnecessary information while men s selective processing could have facilitated th eir

concentration on the appropriate information. In addition, Richard et al. (2009) findings indicate that males preferred straightforward information presented in a well structured website due to their selective processing, whereas female comprehensive orientation urged them to more exploratory behavior and greater involvement with the website content. Since attitude development is conceived as a function of incremental information al input (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975: 275) the adoption of a selectivity model viewpoint may reasonably hypothesize that differences in information processing strategies will lead to v ariations concerning male and female attitude toward the website along with attitude towar d the brand. Since men s threshold for elaborate processing is higher than women it is anticipa ted that a web atmosphere that lacks low task relevant cues will fail to exceed their threshold and as a result the stimuli will be processed schematically. As the cornerstone of heuristic pro cessing is the idea that specific rules, schemata, or heuristics can mediate people s attitude (or oth er social) judgments (Chaiken, Liberman and Eagly, 1989) the schema based processing is exp ected to generate lower attitudes toward the site. On the opposite, women s lower threshold is expected to be exceeded even in the presence of high task relevant cues alone and thus, f avourable attitudes toward the website may be evoked. Hence, it is hypothesized that: H3: Gender will have a moderating effect on the relationship between online atmo spherics and attitude toward the website Moreover, in the light of the Selectivity Hypothesis it is expected that males he uristic processing will influence their attitude toward the museum brand, in a manner that attitude would be largely dependent on the web atmosphere they were about to encounter. As men won t be 25

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications likely to elaborate on other information stimuli before rendering judgements, in the both high and low task relevant cues condition men might report higher attitude toward the brand whereas in the condition displaying only high task relevant cues their attitude might be less favorable. Instead, females are anticipated to consistently value both websites since their detailed elaborating style would be satisfied from the informational character o f the high task relevant cues, present in both conditions. Therefore: H4: Gender will have a moderating effect on the relationship between online atmo spherics and attitude toward the brand Methodology In order to collect the data for the study, the website of a Museum was selected . The particular virtual servicescape was considered suitable, taking into consideration its pure ly informative and educational function that does not entail e-shopping opportunities. Consequently , common issues pertaining to online transactions such as pricing, financial security con cerns, delivery policies and merchandise information are eliminated, leaving a fertile ground fo r the exploration of the relationship between environmental stimuli and consumer brand perceptions . In a museum website, it is evident that the goal attainment of the visitors is to inf orm and educate themselves rather than to perform shopping activities. In this case, it is presu med that the high task relevant cues consist of information in the form of text and pictures refer ring to the museum s exhibitions, particular artifacts, and educational programmes. The websites A laboratory experiment was conducted in order to fulfill the purpose of the res earch. The actual website of the Archeological Museum of Thessaloniki was chosen as the context of the study, the web atmospherics of which were manipulated by the webpage designers so as to create two slightly modified special site versions. According to the suggestion of Stevenso n, Bruner and Kumar (2000) the use of a real webpage was employed in order to improve the ecol ogical validity of the study, instead of creating a fictitious one. In both versions, h igh task relevant cues were identical: The introduction page presented the title as well as an exterior photograph of the Museum. The homepage displayed a picture of the Museum s interior and the site

menu directed the visitor to

Permanent Exhibitions ,

Temporary Exhibitions , News and Events , sub-menus. Finally, an array of butto Sitemap sections.

Educational Programmes , Publications and ns enabled the user to access the Contact Us , The

Archive

Visitor Information , and

manipulation concerned the low-task relevant cues: Version A was enriched with m usic, displayed a light blue colour background and fonts (instead of white), added a p hotograph on the main section of the homepage as well as some frames and background patterns, incorporated more vivid photos of the museum exterior and exhibitions, and five animated graphics replaced static pictures on several sub menus of the webpage. Finally, the text descriptions regarding the permanent m and temporary exhibitions sections of the museu

website were complemented with virtual reality tours. On the contrary, Version B was designed on a white background with black fonts, displayed museum photos and text descrip tions and contained no music, virtual tours or animation. Research Sample A total sample of 68 undergraduate students (20 males and 48 females) enrolled i n Marketing courses from the School of Economics, Department of Business Administration of t he Aristotle University of Thessaloniki participated in the study. As a result, groups were s imilar in terms of 26

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications age and educational backgrounds. Each version of the webpage was viewed equally by 34 subjects. The assignment of the participants to the groups was conducted randoml y. Procedure The experimental sessions took place in a campus computer laboratory. The person al computers that were used in the procedure possessed exactly the same technical characteris tics, screen resolution and speakers, ensuring that all respondents would experience the webs ite stimuli facing identical conditions. Each student was assigned individually to a persona l computer, and received instructions to browse the particular version of the webpage for fiftee n minutes, in order to assure that he or she they wouldn t give up viewing the webpage, but adeq uate time would be available in order to form attitudes and perceptions. After the complet ion of the timeline, participants were instructed to complete a questionnaire. Measures The questionnaire contained several attitude scales. Respondents attitude toward the site was measured with the 6-item scale proposed by Chen and Wells (1999). Attitude towar d the brand was measured with the three following items: favorable/unfavorable , like/dislike positive/ negative . Additionally, involvement was measured using the six-item Laur ent and Kapferer s scale (1985) which operationalises the construct as two dimensional: pr oduct-class involvement and purchase intention involvement. All variables were measured usin g five point Likert scales. Respondents were also asked to indicate whether they had visited the Museum before and whether they had previously encountered the webpage. Finally, gender information was collected. The questionnaire was pilot tested on an experiment with 14 postg raduate students, using with the same conditions as the actual experiment. Research Findings To test the four hypotheses of interest a factorial multivariate analysis of cov ariance (MANCOVA) was conducted with online store atmospherics (a website that contained both low and high task relevant cues and a website that contained only high task relevant cues) and gender as the independent variables and attitude toward the site along with atti tude toward the (museum) brand as the dependent factors. In addition, to explore further the pre and

cise nature of interactions, two separate, factorial analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) were unde rtaken. MANCOVA and ANCOVAs were chosen as appropriate statistical procedures for identi fying the effects of the dichotomous independent variables on the continues dependent vari ables (Tabachnick and Fidell 2001). We calculated the average of the ratings for each scale, because their internal reliability, as measured by Cronbach s Alpha, satisfied Nunnally's (1978) criterion of 0.7. Particularly, Cronbach s alpha coefficient of reliability was .82 for atti tude toward the site, .77 for the attitude toward the museum brand, .84 for product class involvement and .78 for purchase decision involvement. Covariates Product class involvement and purchase decision involvement (Laurent and Kapfere r s scale 1985; Mittal 1989) were used as covariates for the MANCOVA and for the two ANCOV As, since many prior studies have stressed the important role of product involvement in at titude toward the web site and attitude toward the brand (Elliott and Speck 2005; Koufaris 200 2; McMillan 2000; McMillan 1999; Ognianova 1998). In that manner, the present study assessed the 27

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications interactive effects of online environmental cues and gender on attitudes, adjust ing simultaneously for differences in product involvement (Tabachnick and Fidell 200 1). Both MANCOVA and separate ANCOVAs indicated no effect of product class involvement an d purchase decision involvement on the attitude toward the site and attitude towar d the museum (Table 1). Table 1: Effects of Low Task Relevant Atmospheric Cues and Gender on Attitude toward Site and Attitude toward the Brand Multivariate Effects Univariate Effects Independent Variables Wilks F-Value df Attitude df Attitude Lambda toward toward the site the brand Covariates Product class involvement .979 .646 1 1.20 1 1.11 Purchase decision .997 .091 1 .169 1 .55 involvement Main Effects Online environmental cues .896 3.55 1 6.78* 1 5.81* Gender .922 2.57 1 4.20* 1 .84 Interactions Online environmental cues .921 2.60 1 2.79 1 5.26* * Gender *p<.05 Attitude toward the site The MANCOVA, showed a significant main effect of online environmental cues on at titude toward the site (F=6.78, p<.012) (Table 1). It appears that exposure to low task relevant atmospheric cues is associated with more positive attitude toward the site (M=3. 72, SD=.56, mean for high task relevant cues=3.42, SD=.75) (see Figure 2). Thus, hypothesis 1 is supported. Besides, there was a significant main effect of participants gender on attitude t oward the site (F=4. 20, p<.044) with females (M=3.65, SD=.58) reporting more positive attitude scores than males (M=3.37, SD=.85). Hypothesis 3 posited that gender has a moderating effect on the relationship bet ween online environmental cues and attitude toward the site. However, neither MANCOVA (F=2.7 9, p<.10) nor ANCOVA (F=2.78, p<.10) found any evidence of moderation. Only the analysis o f simple effects of online atmospheric cues at each level of gender indicated that males were significantly more likely to formulate positive attitude toward the site (F=6.91, p<.018) when exposed both to low and high task relevant cues (Mean=3.68, SD= .64) than when exposed only to h

igh task relevant cues (Mean=2.92, SD=.95) (see Figure 1). Thus hypothesis 3 receives onl y weak support. Attitude toward the brand Similarly, the MANCOVA supported a main effect of online atmospheric cues on att itude toward the museum brand (F=5. 81, p<.019) (Table 1). It seems that participants created more positive attitude toward the brand when exposed both to low and high task relevant cues ( M=3.80, SD=.70) than when exposed only to high task relevant cues (M=3.52, SD=.75). Thes e findings are consistent with hypothesis 2. As expected, MANCOVA revealed an interaction effec t between online environmental cues and gender in attitude toward the brand (F=5.26, p<.02 5). Males had significantly more positive attitude toward the brand in the presence of low tas k relevant cues. On the contrary, low and high task relevant cues produce similar levels of attit ude toward the 28

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications brand in female group (see Figure 2). ANCOVA resulted in the same finding as tha t obtained with MANCOVA (F=5.26, p<.025). Thus, hypothesis 4 is supported. Figure 1: Effects of Low Task Relevant Atmospheric Cues and Gender on Attitude toward the Site

29

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Figure 2: Effects of Low Task Relevant Atmospheric Cues and Gender on Attitude toward the Brand

Discussion The research findings yield important insights regarding the under researched ro le of web atmospherics on virtual servicescapes. Particular effects of high task and low t ask relevant cues on consumer brand associations are highlighted and the moderating effect of gend er is unfurled. The study findings provide support to H1, indicating that low task relevant cues may enhance attitude toward the website. Consequently, the enrichment of a webpage with fact ors that augment its entertainment value positively influences surfers attitude toward the site itself. The above finding is congruent with Rowley (2002) who claims that images including b oth static and kinetic graphics can make a web site page look more interesting. Furthermore, it aligns with relevant research reflecting the idea that the internet as a medium is not used for utilitarian purposes alone; rather, it increasingly serves consumers iding a blend hedonic motivations prov

of entertaining and recreational experiences (Childers et al, 2001; Ganesh et al ., 2010). As H2 attests, low task relevant atmospheric cues exert a positive effect on att itude toward the brand. The analysis of the findings denote that subjects who viewed the version of the website that contained both low task and high task relevant cues were keen to develop mo re favorable attitude toward the museum brand than participants who encountered the website t hat displayed solely high task relevant cues. The above assertion is in accordance w ith Keller s (2009) view which considers interactive marketing communications able to encourage atti tude formation and decision making, especially when combined with off-line channels. Their potential to deliver sight, sound and motion of all forms, -in that case reinforced by the low task relevant cues-facilitates the creation of impactful experiential and enduring feelings. However, the study s most salient contribution lies on the revelation of the moder ating effect of gender on the relationship between online atmosphere and attitude toward the bra nd, lending support to H4. The experimental evidence suggests that males who were instructed

to view the website that displayed only high task relevant cues formulated less favorable at titude toward the brand than males who viewed the webpage where low and high task relevant cue s co existed. Interestingly, females manifested similar attitudinal responses towards the brand, no matter which version of the website they had encountered. This finding can be interpreted from a Selectivity Hypothesis viewpoint. The mod el theorizes that men are selective processors who tend to focus on a subset of salient and r eadily available cues, overall message themes and schemas with the goal to use efficiency-strivin g heuristics. Hence, in the particular case it seems that males heavily relied on the stimuli they have just been 30

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications exposed to during the experiment, and developed their evaluative judgments accor dingly. The webpage that displayed a source of available cues might have served as heuristic s in the process of brand attitude development. Consequently, the presence of high task relevant cues alone led males to evaluate the Museum brand in a less favorable way while the incorporati on of the webpage with low task relevant cues enhanced their attitudes of the Museum brand . Moreover, it appears that in the absence of low task relevant cues, men s threshold failed t o be exceeded resulting in lower brand attitude while the existence of both web atmospheric di mensions managed to overleap their threshold, stimulating higher attitude. On the contrary, females, who according to the selectivity hypothesis are consid ered to engage in more detailed message content elaboration and to encode more message claims i n a more extensive manner, appear not to be dramatically affected by the virtual atmosphe re in order to develop their attitudes toward the museum brand. Since they are regarded as more sensitive to a variety of situation-specific cues in rendering judgments, it seems logical to assume that unlike males, they assimilated other stimuli apart from the web atmospherics. These ext ernal cues could include information they have been exposed to previously (such as past exp erience, word of mouth, marketing communication claims) and seem to receive equal weight along with the virtual servicescape. As a consequence, the evaluations of the female participan ts of both experimental groups resulted in consistent responses with respect to their attit udes toward the museum brand. Similarly, the upheld of H4 seems to support that the specialized hemispheric pr ocessing by men might require nonverbal reinforcement in the form of pictures, graphs, music etc (the low task relevant cues that were manipulated in the current study) of the verbal product information (Putrevu 2001) contained in marketing communications. Females, on the other hand are considered to prefer more verbally and visually rich information stimuli, since they ideally accommodate their elaborate processing nature. Thus, is appears that the informa tional value of the high task relevant cues satisfied the effortful elaboration processing of wo men and thus did not contribute to less favorable brand evaluations. Nevertheless, as far as male s are concerned, the absence of visual reinforcement might have been critical for their reported less favorable attitudes.

The empirical findings of the study lend only weak support to H3. Gender failed to exhibit a moderating effect no matter simple effects of web atmospheric stimuli were found to instigate consistent attitudinal responses, in a manner that low task relevant cues led to more favourable attitude toward the site. Interestingly, however, women reported more favourable attitude toward the website compared to men. This unexpected result is congruent with Ric hard et al. (2009) and could be explained in the context of gender differences in the intern et use patterns which, in turn are accommodated within the Selectivity framework. Their study in dicates that since women are more likely to use websites for enjoyment and information gather ing, they were likely to value the effectiveness and entertainment value of such informati on and engage in more exploratory behavior. Consequently, our study suggests that females are keen to formulate stronger and more favourable responses than men, who tend to approach information on a piecemeal manner and limit their information gathering to cues that are immediately relevant to the current context. (Richard et al., 2009). 31

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Managerial Implications This study may contribute to a better specification of the parameters that marke ting practitioners should emphasize so as to optimize their internet presence. Taking into consideration that the online atmospheric stimuli, apart from influencing surfer s attitude toward the site may decisively shape brand attitude as well, especially as far a s male consumers are concerned, it is reasonable to argue that an effective web design grows in i mportance and should receive adequate attention. In addition, as Vilnai-Yavetz and Rafaeli (20 06) argue, the initial first impression effects of the physical servicescapes are of particular i mportance for the e-services context, as costs of transfer from one setting to another are much lo wer, not to mention easier and quicker. As far as gender is a common segmenting factor for a plentitude of products and services and thus a website could possibly target either of the two, the insights of this stu dy could inform the development of such websites. The Selectivity Hypothesis implies that men as heu ristic processors would benefit from marketing communications stimuli that are simple a nd focus on a single theme while at the same time the verbal information should be reinforced with non verbal, visual stimuli (Putrevu, 2001). Thus, websites targeted to men should be enriched with low task relevant cues such as music, pictures, graphs and animation that align with the concrete verbal information. On the contrary, websites targeted to women should ideally i ncorporate both low task and high task relevant cues, but attention should be paid on the l evel of richness of the information displayed, and on its highly informative nature that satisfie s their detailed elaboration processing. Limitations and Further Research The generalisability of the research findings should be considered with caution due to the smallsized, convenience student sample used for the collection of the data. Although convenience samples are suitable for theory testing (Calder, Phillips and Tybout, 1981) furt her research among a bigger and less homogeneous sample of consumers may seek to validate the generalisability of this study s findings. Moreover, the participants of the exper

iment were not equally comprised of men and women. Due to a greater attendance of women in the particular Marketing courses the sample was drawn from, and the voluntary nature of their p articipation it was impossible to establish an exact equal number of males and females. However, the pertinent literature provides evidence of studies exploring gender differences o r testing the selectivity hypothesis which did not employ an equal number of males and females (e.g. Rodgers and Harris 2003; Hupfer and Detlor, 2006; Richard et al. 2009) without negative influences on the quality of their results. Moreover, the study was context specific, as it was conducted using a Museum web site, as an example of a virtual servicescape. Consequently, future research could investiga te other service territories or physical products so as to gauge attitudinal responses provoked b y the online stimuli of their websites. Furthermore, it would be interesting to explore the r ole of web atmosphere in other brand associations such as brand personality, brand equity o r brand experience. Concluding Remarks The conceptual framework suggested in this study attempts to contribute to the k nowledge base of the web atmospherics by shedding some light on their role in consumers website and brand attitude formulation. The study s findings support the applicability of the Select ivity Hypothesis in the internet context and yields important insights concerning gender differen ces in attitude 32

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications An Examination Of The Use Of Web 2.0 Services In Cyprus

Yioula Melanthiou Lecturer Marketing Department School of Business University of Nicosia, Cyprus melanthiou.y@unic.ac.cy Angelika Kokkinaki Associate Professor, Associate Dean, School of Business University of Nicosia, C yprus Alexis Droussiotis University of Nicosia, Cyprus The extent and uses of Web 2.0 have proved to be limitless. From simple forms su ch as forums, wikis, and blogs to more complex web-based services such as Facebook and YouTube . Web users can now share, inform, interact and even unite in virtual spaces available to th em from anywhere around the world. The world that DiNucci (1999) envisioned a decade ago is the reality today, where internet connectivity is practically embedded in everything . In the evolved Web 2.0, users often come together to create pages or spaces for specific causes and events. The internet is no longer just a depository of data and information but a living and breathing virtual village made up of the millions of users. Cyprus has not been an excepti on to this phenomenon. Web 2.0 users in the Greek Cypriot community encapsulate a wide and diverse range of individuals cutting across criteria such as gender, age and occupation. Although the penetration rate in Cyprus is the second lowest in the EU (39.3%) (Internet Worl d Stats, 2011), the increase in usage has been rapid. The goal of this research was to identify the information that will allow an und erstanding of the nature of Web 2.0 as it pertains to the Greek Cypriot community, the attitude of these individuals towards Web 2.0 services and their willingness and readiness to appr oach Web 2.0 as an increasingly vital part of their personal, business or professional developme nt. The findings attempt to create a profile of the Greek Cypriot Web 2.0 user and to gain some i nsights of their overall perception of and attitude toward its services and applications. The tar get population for this study was Greek Cypriots living in Cyprus and who use the internet as a soc ial interaction tool. A self administered questionnaire was used in an effort to gather informat

ion about their perceptions and understandings of Web 2.0 services and applications as they pert ain to their social life but also to their business. This information determined the extent o f usage of Web 2.0 services and their potential as business and marketing tools. The method of samp ling that was used for the purpose of this research was convenience sampling, mainly because t he study is of an exploratory nature. Moreover, with the internet usage rate being low in Cypru s, the population frame was also quite small since this included only Greek Cypriots wh o have access to the Internet. Although having to deal with a small sampling frame, a relative ly high response rate resulted in collecting a total of 150 responses from 62 males and 38 female s, between the ages of 18-61 with the majority being in the 25-36 age group. The findings suggest that Greek Cypriots tend to frequently use Web 2.0 services and applications. Most popular uses are Facebook followed by forums, and blogs for t hose who are more accustomed to the use of Web 2.0 services. The respondents use Web services because of the advantages they offer; finding information about a product, providing feedba ck about a product, finding and chatting with friends online etc. Staying in touch or inter acting with friends, family or acquaintances, for pleasure or for business, has never been so simple. The social web has shown to bypass any conventional means of communication and has cut across s urprising amounts of barriers; geographic, social, and even linguistic. In addition to soc ializing online, one 36

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications of the extensive uses of Web 2.0 services appears to be forums. The use of forum s is generally the result that arises from the need of finding information about a product or o btaining knowledge about a certain matter with the hope of finding the answer easily and quickly. In addition to forums, another Web 2.0 service commonly used is blogs. This is used mainly for promoting shared information about a specific subject, and interacting and colla borating by means of communication to converse about a subject. VOIP telephony (voice over I P) has increased in the last couple of years with the introduction of Skype and MSN in Cyprus. It may not be as common as email, however many consumer sites have made it possible to directly communicate via Skype and other VOIP software due to the low cost in maintenance compared to standard ISP (Internet Service Provider). The benefits and possibilities of Web 2.0 services are numerous; coupled with a positive acceptance by recipients, the outcome could be remarkable. Companies may now hav e an open dialogue with not only their customers but millions of prospects online. No othe r communication tool has such great capabilities. The study has shown that Greek C ypriots are growing continuously more aware of Web 2.0 applications and services and seem to have embraced them. What remains to be done is for companies to share these sentiment s and invest in the Web since, at least in Cyprus, the majority of companies do not ev en have an online presence. With web penetration being low in Cyprus, Cypriot web users and compan ies still have quite a bit to learn about Web 2.0 benefits and threats. However, the rapid grow th and acceptance of web applications shows promising signs both for customer satisfact ion and company profit. References DiNucci, D. (1999). "Fragmented Future". Print 53 (4): 32. http://www.cdinucci.com/Darcy2/articles/Print/Printarticle7.html. Internet World Stats (2011). Accessed online at: http://www.internetworldstats.c om/stats9.htm. Accessed on 15/01/11 37

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Online Political Marketing in 2010 Greek Local Elections: The Shift from Web to Web 2.0 Campaigns Prodromos Yannas Technological Educational Institution (TEI) of Western Macedonia, Department of Public Relations and Communication, Greece yannas@kastoria.teikoz.gr Alexandros Kleftodimos Technological Educational Institution (TEI) of Western Macedonia, Department of Public Relations and Communication, Greece kleftodimos@kastoria.teikoz.gr Georgios Lappas Technological Educational Institution (TEI) of Western Macedonia, Department of Public Relations and Communication, Greece lappas@kastoria.teikoz.gr Abstract Web 2.0 has transformed user involvement and has created more active, more engag ed, more participative and more demanding users, citizens and voters. This study explores the use of social media by candidates during the October 2010 Greek local elections. In par ticular, this study undertakes an in-depth analysis of the use of web 2.0 tools by candidates running for the governor s post in the 13 peripheries in Greece. The major finding indicates that all winners used web 1.0 and web 2.0 tools but their online presence didn t have a significant impa ct on their election. Early Web 1.0 Campaigns The mid-1990s was the period when the web was discovered by politicians and partie s around the world as a new medium that could be incorporated into their campaign strateg y. From an early attempt in the US presidential elections of 1992 (Diamond, et. al 1993; My ers, 1993; Hacker, et. al., 1996) campaigning on the web by politicians has increased its u sage in every

electoral circle thereafter. The first attempts of politicians around the world to use the web have been the subject of investigation by many researchers. Such extensive studies on the USA covered Presidential and Congressional campaigns on the web (Bimber, 1998; Brown ing, 1996; Casey, 1996; Corrado and Firestone 1996; D Alessio, 2000; Dulio, et al 1999; Farn sworth and Owen, 2001; Foot, et al 2003; Kaid and Bystrom 1998; Kern 1997; Klotz 1997; Marg olis, et al 1999; Puopolo 2001; Rash, 1997; Schneider and Foot, 2002; Whillock 1997; William s, et al 2002;). A number of electoral contests have also been studied in the United King dom (UK) (Yates and Perrone 1998; Margolis, et. al. 1999; Ward and Gibson 2003; Marcella, et. al . 2003). Beyond the USA and UK contexts, web campaigns studies have been conducted for Italy (Ne well 2001), Finland (Carlson and Djupsund 2001), Germany (Gibson and Rommele 2003), Netherla nds (Tops, et. al. 2000), Australia (Gibson and McAllister 2003) to name just a few cases f rom the many studies in the literature. Moreover, the use of the web by parties and politicia ns has been the focus of many studies around the world as in the Netherlands (Voerman 1998), Rus sia and 38

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Ukraine (Semetko and Krasnoboka 2003), Denmark (Lofgren 2000), and Japan (Tkatch -Kawasaki 2003), naming just a few cases from the long catalog. Regarding Greece the study of online politics, has also attracted the interest of researchers (Kotsikopoulou 2002; De mertzis and Armenakis 2003; Yannas and Lappas 2004; Yannas and Lappas 2005a; Yannas and Lapp as 2005b; Demertzis,et. al. 2005; Lappas et. al. 2008). Up until the mid-1990s, campaign websites were mainly providing political and ca mpaign information. The interactivity features and the interaction of the campaigner wi th their voters was a favourite subject in almost all web 1.0 campaign related studies. Blogs ha ve provided a more interactive form of communication and became popular in political campaigns since the 2004 election cycle in the USA (Trammel, et. al. 2006). The adoption of the web 2 .0 term was created for distinguishing the new web featuring the new interactive tools from the old web 1.0 permitting limited interaction. Thus, the main characteristic of the web1.0 campaigns signified that electoral c ampaigns were dominated by information provision material of the campaigner leaving limited sp ace for citizen interaction and participation. On the one hand candidates and parties adopted ne w communication technologies in their campaigns to demonstrate that they had espou sed technological developments and to project an image of a forward looking candidat e or party. On the other hand evidence (Stromer-Galley, 2000) showed that candidates were actua lly trying to avoid interacting with voters. The emergence of Web 2.0 enabled a qualitative sh ift in the flow of communication from one-way to two-way. Researchers could thus dwell upon the many new interactive tools of Web 2.0 to investigate the use of the new media by parties and candidates in their campaigns. The emergence of Web 2.0 in party campaigns The emergence of Web 2.0 tools allowed users to change roles from a passive audi ence of a web page to becoming actual contributors of web content. This dialogic feature broug ht people together providing opportunities for social networking and dialogic communicatio n. Wikis, Facebook, My Space, YouTube, Flickr and any web medium that users may contribute with content is referred to as social media. The massive content contribution by grou p of users held the promise for better citizen participation in politics enhancing the potential of e-democracy.

Web 2.0 provides opportunities for individuals to become citizen-campaigners cap able of assuming a more direct or organized role in a campaign (Gibson, 2009), elevating hopes for the growth of bottom-up campaigns. Initial studies of parties experimenting with web 2 .0 (Kalnes, 2009) showed that although Web 2.0 offers a weak pluralizing effect in party com munication, it enhanced participatory democracy by lowering the threshold for the involvement o f the party grassroots and other sympathizers with the party. The effect of web 2.0 in campaigning appears already in a number of studies (Gib son and McAllister, 2009; Jackson and Lilleker 2009; Jaeger et.al. 2010; Kalnes 2009; Li lleker et. al 2010), offering interesting findings on the use of web 2.0 in the political arena. Gibs on and McAllister (2009) studied web 2.0 campaign in the Australian Federal Elections. Their findi ngs demonstrated that online campaigning did attract votes and campaigns based on th e older web 1.0 tools but seemed to be losing votes compared to the more technologically adv anced counterpart campaigns. Jaeger et.al. (2010) compared the use of social networks in the 2008 campaigns for US president and Prime Minister of Canada. The effects of web 2.0 to parties have been investigated by Kalnes (2009) on the use of Web 2.0 by Norwegian Parti es. According to Kalnes, Web 2.0 enhanced participatory democracy and party visibility in Web 2.0 roughly reflected party vote share. Jackson and Lilleker (2009) study of UK parties on W eb 2.0 focused on the participatory architecture of political communication, introducing the te rm web 1.5 to better fit the current approach by parties in using Web 2.0 tools as promotional and marketing 39

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications tools in campaigns. Lilleker et. al (2010) study of Web 2.0 by the Liberal Democ rat party in UK found a weak interactivity for the party.

Facebook is often referenced by campaign staff members as a channel to reach you ng voters. First use of Facebook in election campaigns started in September 2006, as Facebo ok invited candidates for U.S. Senate and House of Representative elections (Sweetser and L ariscy, 2008) to participate in this network targeting younger-than-25 age voters. Westling (2 007) considers Facebook an excellent tool for informing, mobilizing and organizing political su pporters. Facebook adoption diffused rapidly in the US between 2006 and 2008 Congressional Elections generating interest among researchers for studying the Facebook phenomenon in th ese election contests (Robertson et. al. 2009, Williams and Gullati 2007, 2009a, 2009b). A nu mber of studies have focused on Facebook usage in the US Presidential elections (Robertson et. a l 2009, 2010, Small, 2008; Williams and Gullati, 2008). Small (2008) compared Facebook usage b etween US and Canadian elections. Sweetser and Lariscy (2008) content analysis of Facebook wall comments in U.S. House and Senate races in 2006 midterm elections revealed that individuals who wrote on candidate walls perceived themselves to be on friendly terms with t he candidates and their messages were overwhelmingly shallow, supportive and in positive tone. The use of Facebook in National Election Campaigns in Denmark was studied by Andersen and M edaglia (2009), who contend that users view Facebook in election campaigns as a medium o f information provision by the parties and as a means to gain social prestige. Campaigning on YouTube was first used during 2006 and 2008 US elections (Church 2010, Gulati and Williams 2010; Klotz, 2010; Wallsten, 2010). Carlson and Strandberg s (2008) s tudy on the effects of YouTube in 2007 Finnish national elections found that YouTube played a marginal role in the elections, provided a voice for certain minor electoral players and also allowed ordinary citizens to play a role in the elections by disseminating political information. Links to YouTube videos by Facebook walls is explored by Robertson et. al (2010b) showing that ne ither Facebook nor YouTube can be viewed as an isolated political discourse environment, formin g a multidimensional communication environment. Twitter recently gained attention for its usage in political campaigns. Williams and Gullati (2010)

studied the use of Twitter by members of Congress whereas Tumasjan et. al (2010) proposed a challenging approach to use the tweets for predicting election results in the co ntext of German federal elections. The effect of MySpace, another networking site, in elections has been less studi ed than Facebook and YouTube. Ancu and Cozma (2009) work on the 2008 US election reveale d that voters are drawn to this source of political information mainly by the desire fo r social interaction with other like-minded supporters, followed by information seeking and entertain ment. Second Life ed in and virtual worlds are the most unusual social networks that can be us

political campaigns. Candidates of US 2008 national elections had offices in Sec ond Life (Graf, 2008). Thus far, research has not reached conclusive results on the impact Web 2.0 tech nology on elections. Findings point in the direction that the impact seems to be rather po sitive and citizen participation enabled by the use of this technology raising the prospects of e-d emocracy projects. In this paper we explore the use of social media by candidates during the Octobe r 2010 local electoral contests. This electoral period is loaded with campaign information. 40

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Web 1.0 Campaign Patterns in Greek Elections Kotsikopoulou (2002) credits the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) for bein g the first Greek party that featured a web page in the parliamentary elections of 1996. Wit hin a two-year period, all the other major parties followed suit. Internet did not become a par t of the campaign strategy of candidates in Greece until the prefecture and municipal elections of 1998. At that time a very small number of candidates published only text material on the web. The use of the internet in political campaigns was more widespread in the 2000 parliamentary el ections with 1 out of 6 members of the Greek Parliament (17%) going online and 16 out of the 35 parties (45%) running campaign web sites (Kotsikopoulou 2002: 200). In the prefecture and muni cipal elections of 2002, 14% or 1 out of 8 prefecture candidates and 3.6% or 1 out of 28 municipal candidates respectively engaged in a web campaign. In the 2004 national election s approximately 1 out of 3 candidates representing the two major parties was a web candidate (33%) (see Table 1). From the 2000 to the 2004 Parliamentary elections, the numb er of e campaigning politicians doubled, underlying the importance of the web in politic ians campaign strategy. In analyzing the impact of web campaigns in Greek elections, one shoul d bear in mind that in October 2002 the households with internet connection in Greece were 14% while the average for European Union member-states was 43% (Flash Eurobarometer 135, 2002) . Additionally at the time of the parliamentary elections the number of households with internet rose to 18%. Certainly, this low percentage represented a small pool of voters a nd testifies to a deficit time. in web campaign appreciation by Greek politicians and voters alike at that

Elections in Greece are held every 5 years for European Parliament representativ es and every 4 years for national and local elections respectively. In October 2002 local polit icians entered contests for assuming office either at the prefecture level or at the level of m unicipalities. In the national elections of March 2004, politicians were campaigning in their prefectu res for a seat in the Greek parliament. In the June 2004 elections, Greek parties nominated their 24-member ranked lists of candidates for the European Parliament elections.

Table 1: Web 1.0 Candidates by Electoral Contests Election Contest Year Households with Web Candidates over Total internet connection at Number of candidates election year Parliamentary Elections 2000 12% 1/6th (17%) Prefecture Elections 2002 14% 1/8th(13%) Municipal Elections 2002 14% 1/28th (4%) Parliamentary Elections 2004 18% 1/3th (33%) European Parliament 2004 18% 0 (0%) Elections Although the number of households that were connected to the Internet increased from the Parliamentary 2000 elections to the following 2002 Prefecture-Municipal election s, the number of e-campaigning politicians was proportionally larger at the 2000 elections. Th is reveals that the more important the election contest is, the more candidates campaign on the web. Ecampaigning in the 2004 Parliamentary elections shows that the web was seriously considered as part of politicians campaign strategy. In the European Parliament elections, c andidates opted to promote their image through the web pages of their party, since their electio n depended on the 24-member ranked list of candidates put together by the party. Therefore in the European Parliament election, parties, rather than candidates carry out the election camp aign. The main characteristic of post-modern campaigns (Norris, 2000) is that politici ans and parties are in a permanent campaign period, which reaches its pick just before the elect ion. Parties in Greece may use the web as a permanent campaign tool, although the crucial electi on campaign 41

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications period in Greek elections is very short and usually lasts less than a month. Nat ional elections although are supposed to be held every 4 years but the party in power reserves t he right to call elections earlier than the four year interval. New Democracy, the 2004 national election party winner, decided to proceed with an early call for elections in order to gain a t actical advantage over the other parties in elections held in 2007 and 2009 respectively. In case of an early call for elections, the formal campaign period lasts exactly one month. This short campai gn period affects also web campaigning. Most negatively affected are challengers for the s eats as there is a very short time to prepare and lunch a campaign site. On the contrary incumbents that may already operate a website have the relatively easier task of adjusting their sit e to the campaign. Extensively use of new technologies by incumbents is a common pattern found also in other studies (Williams, Gulati, 2009b) irrespective of the short campaign time exhibi ted in our case. Although the early call for elections cannot be activated in elections for the l ocal government and the European parliament, the short campaign period pattern can be observed i n both of them. In European parliament elections as well as in local government elections, most of the party candidates usually have very short time for campaigning as party support i s given in most cases just a few weeks before the day of election. On the contrary, independent candidates in local government elections have the advantage of more preparation time for their campaigns as the decision to run is made months ago. For many years, the two major parties re lied on their existing large pool of voters in local communities to win local elections. Peopl e were more likely to vote for their party candidate. Thus party candidates were decided based on p arty strategies against other parties and not against independent candidates. Independent candid ates are usually financially disadvantaged candidates, less likely to have a campaign web site (Gibson et. al., 2003). In the 2002 Greek local government elections, however, the web made an impact on the final outcome for independent candidates. (Yannas, Lappas, 2005a). Local gov ernment elections of 2006 revealed that local communities were more likely to vote for t heir favorite persons than for their favorite party and the nominated party candidate. The sur prising positive results for independent candidates in the 2002 local elections had considerable impact on the party election strategy which moved towards supporting independent candidates wi th the potential of winning elections instead of nominating their own party candidate i

n the corresponding communities. One could argue that in the 2002 local elections, the web partially played the role of the ical support equalizer between the rich in political resources and polit

party candidate and the resource poor lacking political support independent cand idate. The emergence of Web 2.0 in Greek Electoral Campaigns All parliamentary parties in Greece are well established on the web by operating a website, having gained considerable experience in online communication through their webs ite. Web 2.0 offered Greek parties the chance to differentiate themselves in online campaigns and deliver electoral benefits. Major parties are more likely to incorporate the latest tech nology and features in their campaign strategies (Foot, Schneider, 2006). Adopting new tech nology features in communication strategies is constrained by institutional inertia and build-in resistance of parties for large changes. According to Kalnes (2009) parties can be expected to change their communication strategy only concurrent with changes in the environment that is r elevant for gaining votes. Thus, the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies by Greek parties is re lated to whether each party believes that there exists an adequate pool of voters using a specifi c web 2.0 technology or feature that is worthwhile. Online campaigning in Greece was also affected by the innovative example of the Obama online campaign, which attained unprecedented su ccess through the utilization of the web as a primary vehicle for his political campai gn (Carpenter, 2010). 42

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications A preliminary study (Lappas, et. al. 2010) on the use of web 2.0 tools by partie s in the October 2009 national elections showed that Facebook was the only web 2.0 tool adopted b y all parliamentary parties (see Table 2). However, only PASOK, ND and SYRIZA maintain ed a wall with party posts on it. KKE and LAOS provided a wall for posts by individuals, w ithout party participation in the posts. Table 2: Web 2.0 tools adopted by Greek Parties In this study our aim is to investigate the use of web 2.0 tools by candidates r unning for the 2010 local elections. We will explore the following hypotheses: H1: There are significant differences between the use of Web tools between candi dates of different party affiliations. H2: There are significant differences between the use of Web tools between candi dates from different peripheries. H3: Election of a candidate depends on the party affiliation and the presence of Web tools like Website, Facebook profile, You Tube, Twitter, Blog, and Flickr. Methodology Data Collection and Measures Due to the Greek financial crisis the Greek government instituted major reforms in local administration presenting a new scheme in Spring 2010 under the name Kallikratis a nd put into Law 3852/2010. The Kallikratis scheme brought about major reductions in the n umber of local government units in Greece, reducing the number of municipalities from 910 down to 325. Table 3 shows the difference before and after Kallikratis . The major changes were the abolition of Prefectures and the election of a Governor in each Periphery. 43

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 3: Greek Local Administration Scheme Administration scheme Prior to Kallikratis After Kallikratis Municipalities: The smallest local government unit Number: 910 Municipalities 325 Municipalities Local Government: Elected Elected Prefectures: A number of Municipalities form the Prefecture Number: 57 Prefectures None Local Government: Elected Peripheries: A number of Prefectures form the Periphery Number: 13 Peripheries 13 Peripheries Local Government: Appointed by the Government Elected 325 municipality seats and for the first time 13 seats for peripheries were cont ested in the October 2010 local elections. Web as well web 2.0 was used as a campaign tool by the candidates for the local government seats. Identifying Web candidates for any el ection contest in Greece is not an easy task as parties do not provide links to all their candi dates. The data on which this study is based, include the party affiliation, the periphery, and the use of web tools (i.e. Website, Facebook profile, You Tube, Twitter, Blog and Flickr) by the 90 c andidates biding in October 2010 for the position of governor in the 13 Peripheries. In order to obt ain the data we browsed well-known Greek political portals (www.e-kloges.gr, www.ekloges-2010.gr , www.grelections.gr, www.greekelections.com) for candidate links and made use of a search engine (Google), using candidate names as keywords. All hypotheses were tested using chi-square independence tests, while the third hypothesis was further tested using binary logistic regression. Party affiliation measure was t reated as a categorical variable with 9 categories (i.e. PASOK, Nea Dimokratia, KKE, LAOS, E cology Party Democratic Left, Independent Party, Synaspismos and Fringe Parties). However, fo r the regression analysis, the party affiliation measure was treated as a dichotomous variable having two categories namely, 1: if the candidate belonged to one of the two major part ies, namely, PASOK and Nea Dimokratia, and 2: if the candidate didn t belong to one of the two major parties. The periphery measure was coded as a categorical variable having 13 cat egories based on the 13 contested peripheries (i.e. Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, Attica, Nort h Aegean, Western Greece, Western Macedonia, Epirus, Thessaly, Ionian Islands, Central Mac edonia, Crete, South Aegean, Peloponnesus, Central Greece). A set of 7 binary variables were used to measure the existence or not of particular Web tools (i.e. Website, Facebook pro

file, Facebook and Website, You Tube, Twitter, Blog, and Flickr). Furthermore, the success of a candidate was measured using a binary variable coded 1: if the candidate was elected and 0: if the candidate was not elected. Data analysis Looking at Table 4 we may surmise that a) Facebook seems to be the most popular online political campaign tool in the 2010 local elections; b) A growing interest in th e use of other Web 2.0 such as Twitter, You Tube and Blogs was found among Greek candidates; c) PAS OK is the party leading in online political marketing, especially in the use of web campai gns including the 2010 local electoral contest; and d) the Communist party KKE for one more time i s absent from the websphere, a policy that has been followed consistently by both candidates a nd Members of Parliament of the party alike. 44

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 4: Use of Web tools by candidates from different party affiliations Website Facebook Website &Facebook Twitter You Tube Blogs Flickr No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes PASOK 0 13 0 13 0 13 7 6 4 9 10 3 9 4 Nea Dimokratia 0 11 1 10 1 10 7 4 7 4 10 1 10 1 KKE 12 1 12 1 13 0 13 0 13 0 10 3 13 0 LAOS 3 5 3 5 4 4 7 1 6 2 6 2 8 0 Ecology Party 7 4 3 8 8 3 9 2 8 3 5 6 10 1 Democratic Left 3 4 5 2 5 2 7 0 7 0 5 2 7 0 Independent 1 2 0 3 1 2 2 1 1 2 1 2 2 1 Synaspismos 6 4 2 8 7 3 7 3 8 2 2 8 8 2 Fringe Parties 13 1 9 5 14 0 14 0 12 2 3 11 14 0 Total 45 45 35 55 53 37 73 17 66 24 52 38 81 9 Chi-Square Statistic .2: 45.788 p.: 0.000 .2: 38.952 p.: 0.000 .2: 51.643 p.: 0.000 .2: 17.849 p.: 0.022 .2: 23.638 p.: 0.003 .2: 25.216 p.: 0.001 .2: 13.844 p.: 0.086 Specifically as Table 4 indicates, there are significant differences between can didates from different parties regarding the use of a Website as a promotional tool (.2: 45.7 88, p.: 0.000). Results suggest that 50.0 percent of all candidates possess a Website. The major ity of candidates owning a website come from PASOK (28.9 percent) and Nea Dimokratia (24.4 percent ). Consequently, 53.3 percent of Website owners belong to a major party. The use of a Facebook profile also differs significantly between the candidates of different parties ( .2: 38.95, p.: 0.000). 61.1 percent of all candidates have a Facebook profile. Specifically, of those w ith a Facebook profile 23.6 percent belong to PASOK while 18.2 percent belong to Nea Dimokratia . Although, candidates from major parties dominate in the use of Facebook (41.8 percent), ca ndidates from Synaspismos and Ecology Party seem to be also users of Facebook (29 percent). In regards to the use of Twitter, results indicate significant differences between parties at 0.05 level of

significance (.2: 17.84, p.: 0.022). 18.9 percent of all candidates had a Twitte r profile. Candidates from PASOK and Nea Dimokratia came first in the use of Twitter (35.3 and 36.4 pe rcent respectively), followed by candidates from Synaspismos (17.6 percent) and Ecolog y Party (11.8 percent). You Tube use among candidates from different parties also differed sig nificantly at 0.01 level of significance (.2: 23.63, p.: 0.003). You Tube was used by 26.7 per cent of all candidates. The majority of candidates that placed videos on You Tube belonged t o major parties (54.2 percent) while candidates from Ecology Party hold the third place in the use of You Tube (12.5 percent). The examined parties also differed significantly in the use of blogs at 0.01 level of significance (.2: 25.21, p.: 0.001). Findings suggest that blogosphere attracted 42.2 percent of candidates. Surprisingly, those candidates came from Fringe Parties ( 28.9 percent), Synaspismos (21.1 percent) and Ecology Party (15.8 percent). Finally, significan t differences at 0.10 level were found in the use of Flickr among different party affiliations (. 2: 13.84, p.: 0.086). Few candidates have used Flickr applications during their political campaigns (1 0.0 percent of all candidates) and most of them belonged to PASOK (44.4 percent). Therefore, it can be concluded that, H1 was supported. The overall use of online campaign tools has been considerably increased since t he time of our previous study (Yannas, Lappas, 2005a) where 12,5% and 3,6% of candidates runnin g in local elections for Prefecture and Municipal seats made use of the internet. Looking at Table 5, candidates from the periphery of Attica seem to dominate in the use of Web tools such as Website (15.6 percent), Facebook (16.4 percent), You Tube (25.0 pe rcent), Twitter (35.3 percent), and Flickr (33.3 percent) in their political campaigns. Candidat es from the periphery of Central Macedonia have taken the second place in the use of Website (11.1 percent). In regards to the use of Facebook, candidates contesting in the periph eries of Central Macedonia and South Aegean came second after Attica s candidates (9.1 percent for each periphery). The dominance of Attica s candidates was not found in the use of blogs . Candidates 45

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications form the peripheries of Central Macedonia and Ionian Islands exhibit the highest use of blogs (21 percent collectively). However, as the chi-square tests revealed, the aforementi oned differences were not statistically significant except for the case of Twitter. Candidates fr om different peripheries differ significantly at 0.05 level in the use of Twitter (.2: 21.90, p.: 0.039) with candidates of Attica showing the highest level of Twitter use. Thus, H2 was part ially supported. Table 5: Use of Web tools by candidates from different peripheries Website Facebook Website &Facebook Twitter You Tube Blogs Flickr No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes Eastern Macedonia & Thrace 4 2 2 4 4 2 5 1 5 1 3 3 6 0 Attica 3 7 1 9 3 7 4 6 4 6 7 3 7 3 North Aegean 3 3 1 5 4 2 5 1 5 1 3 3 6 0 Western Greece 6 3 6 3 8 1 9 0 7 2 6 3 9 0 Western Macedonia 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 2 4 2 4 2 5 1 Epirus 3 3 3 3 4 2 6 0 6 0 4 2 6 0 Thessaly 4 4 4 4 5 3 8 0 6 2 5 3 7 1 Ionian Islands 2 4 3 3 3 3 5 1 5 1 2 4 6 0 Central Macedonia 3 5 3 5 4 4 6 2 6 2 4 4 7 1 Crete 3 3 2 4 4 2 6 0 5 1 4 2 6 0 South Aegean 2 3 1 4 2 3 3 2 3 2 3 2 4 1 Peloponnesus 5 3 4 4 5 3 6 2 6 2 3 5 6 2 Central Greece 4 2 2 4 4 2 6 0 4 2 4 2 6 0 Total 45 45 35 55 53 37 73 17 66 24 52 38 81 9 Chi-Square Statistic .2: 5.800 p.: 0.926 .2: 10.438 p.: 0.578 .2: 9.018 p.: 0.701 .2: 21.902 p.: 0.039 .2: 9.943 p.: 0.621 .2: 5.078 p.: 0.955

.2: 12.407 p.: 0.414 Before testing the third hypothesis and in order to determine which variables wi ll be included in the regression model, we examined the relationships between the predictor variab les (i.e. belong to a major party, presence of Website, Facebook profile, Twitter, You Tub e, Blogs and Flickr) and the independent dichotomous variable (i.e. winning or not the electi ons) via chisquare independency tests (see Table 6). Significant associations were found bet ween the elections results and the candidate s party affiliation (i.e. major or minor party ), presence of a Website, a Facebook profile, and You Tube videos. Interestingly, all elected can didates had a Website and a Facebook profile. The use of other Web 2.0 tools like Twitter, Blo gs and Flickr didn t impact significantly at 0.05 level the election results. 46

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 6: Use of Web tools based on the election results Major Party Website Facebook Twitter You Tube Blogs Flickr No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes Not Elected 64 13 45 32 35 42 64 13 59 18 42 35 69 8 Elected 2 11 0 13 0 13 9 4 7 6 10 3 12 1 Total 66 24 45 45 35 55 73 17 66 24 52 38 81 9 Chi.2: 26.092 *** .2: 15.195 *** .2: 9.609 ** .2: 1.400 .2: 2.951 * .2: 2.283 .2: 0.090 Square p.: 0.000 p.: 0.000 p.: 0.002 p.: 0.237 p.: 0.086 p.: 0.131 p.: 0.764 Statistic * p:.10, ** p:.0.05, *** p: .001 The next step was to determine the contribution of each of the three dependent v ariables on the election results. Since, the dependent variable was dichotomous, binary logi stic regression analysis was used. Table 7 presents the results of the regression analysis. The model fitted the data well as the Hosmer and Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test indicates (.2: 1.681, p.: 0.975). The findings of the regression analysis indicate that only the party affiliation var iable impacts significantly on the election results. Specifically, looking at the relative odd s (Exp (B)) of the party affiliation variable it can be argued that a candidate belonging to a major part y is 5.717 times more likely to win the elections than a candidate belonging to a minor party. Al though, variables regarding the use of Web tools like Website and Facebook by candidates exhibit v ery large beta coefficients, their contribution to the regression model was insignificant. Henc e, there is no statistically significant discernible impact of the use of web and web 2.0 tools on the elections results. Party affiliation dominates the election results. Consequently, the thi rd research hypothesis was only partially supported. Table 7: Logistic Regression Model of Winning Election Variables Beta Coefficient Exp (B) Intercept -38.079 0.000 Belong to a major party 1.744 * 5.717 Owns a website 18.376 9.565E7 Existence of a Facebook profile 18.041 6.839E7 Presence in You Tube -0.324 0.723 -2 Log Likelihood 43.132 Chi-square (.2) 31.199 ** * p < .05, ** p< .0.001 Conclusions and Limitations The present study revealed that candidates from different parties showed differe

nt levels of Web tools usage during their political campaigns. Candidates belonging to PASOK and Nea Dimokratia are pioneers and heavy users of Web tools. Surprisingly, candidates f rom Synaspismos and Ecology party have begun to take advantage of Web campaigns. The periphery where the contest took place didn t influence the use of most Web tools by candida tes. Finally, although all winners used various Web tools during their political campaigns (i. e. Website and Facebook) the election results were not influenced by the presence of Web tools. Greek voters put emphasis only on the party affiliation of candidates, without considering th eir online political campaigns. This finding could be attributed to two reasons: (a) the lack of awar eness among Greek voters regarding the online tools that candidates use in order to promote themselves during the election period and (b) the non-strategically usage of Web-tools by p olitical candidates. 47

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Since, this paper is part of a research project in progress the main limitation is the narrow focus of this study. Specifically, the present study examined the impact of online cam paigns on the election results without considering the influence of other important factors li ke the use of offline promotional tools (advertisements) and other specific characteristics of online campaigns (i.e. number of posts, and friends of a candidate s Facebook profile). Future research will probe further examining candidates using only Facebook and candidates using both web and Facebook. It is generally believed that creating a Facebook s ite is very easy, tremendous easier than creating a website, as a Facebook site requires little ti me without knowledge of any web design skills. As we have seen in Table 5 the overwhelming majority of web site campaigners were also Facebook campaigners. We may consider these campa igners more committed to online campaigning given that a web campaign is more difficult than adopting a Facebook campaign. On the other hand, we may treat the Facebook only campaigners as appearing innovative campaigners. To examine however how innovati ve they have been compared to committed campaigners we must take a closer look on the Fa cebook campaigns between Committed and Appearing Innovating campaigners. References Ancu, M., Cozma, R. (2009) MySpace Politics: Uses and Gratifications of Befriending Ca ndidates, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 53(4):567-583. Andersen, K.N., Medaglia, R. (2009). The Use of Facebook in National Election Ca mpaigns: Politics as Usual?, in Macintosh, A. and Tambouris, E. (eds): ePart, LNCS 5694, pp. 101-111, Springer V erlag Berlin Heidelberg. Bimber, B., (1998). The Internet and Political Mobilization: Research Note on th e 1996 Election Season. Social Science Computer Review, 16(4): 391-401. Browning, G., (1996). Electronic Democracy: Using the Internet to Influence Amer ican Politics. Wilten, CT: Pemberton Press. Carlson T., Djupsund G., (2001). Old Wines in New Bottles? The 1999 Finnish Elec tion Campaign on the Internet. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 6(1):68-87. Carlson, T., Strandberg, K. (2008). Riding the Web 2.0 Wave: Candidates on YouTu be in the 2007 Finnish National Elections, Journal of Information Technology and Politics, 5(2):159-174. Carpenter, C. (2010). The Obamachine: Technopolitics 2.0, Journal of Information Technology and Politics, 7(2):216

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications A Proposed Framework For The Adoption Of The Internet By Public Relations Managers Anastasios Panopoulos University of Western Macedonia, apanopoulos@uowm.gr Prokopis Theodoridis University of Western Greece, ptheodo@cc.uoi.gr Abstract The purpose of this paper is to establish a model for the adoption of the intern et by public relations managers. Although there are several research efforts in different sci entific areas (Information Technology, Marketing, Management e.t.c.) pointing out the innovati ve dimension of the internet and the radical changes that come along there is little focus co ncerning the adoption of the internet in the field of public relations. The authors conducted two focus groups in order to formulate a questionnaire which was then completed by 113 respondent s who worked as public relations managers in firms participating in the Athens Stock E xchange (ASE). In order to create a scale for each element of the proposed model, factor analysis was used. Six critical change elements were identified to influence the adoption of the intern et by public relations managers. Keywords: Public relations managers, Electronic public relations, Internet adopt ion, Electronic communication Introduction Despite the rapid and vast growth of the internet the importance of its use as a communication medium in the field of public relations remains unexplored (Walsh, 2006; Gregory , 2004; White & Raman, 1999; Kent et al., 2003; Institute for Public Relations, 1997; Hill & W hite, 2001). The implementation of new technologies in the communication process (Daly et al., 20 03; Lane, 2007; Porter & Sallot 2003) has change the practice of public relations, introdu cing new and more effective methods for the creation, the distribution and the storage of mes sages (Cutlip et al., 2000). Marlow (1996) and Wright (1995) argue that there is no question conc

erning the use of the internet by public relations managers, since this today is a fact but the re is an issue of how effective it is used. The results of new technologies, like the internet, usually are underestimated i n the short period of time and overestimated in the long period (Negroponte, 1995). A possible expl anation for this is that the initial investment for the adoption of a technological innovation is relatively high. Moreover the complexity of technology and the rapid rate of change make it diffi cult for public relations managers to adjust to the changing environment and to the new challeng es that appear (Negroponte, 1995). According to Porter (2001) it is easier with the use of the internet, compared to other information technologies, to improve the strategic position of an organization securing a competitive advantage. As a communication medium, the internet, overcomes the constraints of time and p lace changing the way that people act and inform, while at the same time alters the c reation and 51

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications enhancement of relationships (Cho & Cameron, 2006; Witmer, 2000; Marlow, 1996). That is why the internet is generally accepted as a medium for communication, entertainment, information but also as an important business tool (Perry & Bodkin, 2002; Trammell, 2006; Wi ll & Callison, 2006). Communication and relationships between organizations and publics are dee ply affected by the use of the internet (Hauss, 1995) since large numbers of information are available to all the stakeholders (Amezcua, 1997). In the physical world every organization can be seen as a source of information directing and controlling the information flow to the public. On the other side, in the digita l world, the public can be seen as a new source of information towards any organization, participati ng in a two way communication model (Cutlip et al., 2000; Ihator, 1999; Kent et al., 2001). This element elevates the important role of public relations managers since they must be prepared to f ace this new communication challenge. In the first Annual Webmaster Survey (1998) was revealed that information depart ments employed only 11% of webmasters with a computer science background while employe es with marketing, public relations and communications experiences were preferred. Korne gay and Grunig (1997), state that increasingly more communication and MIS practitioners are forging partnerships in order to accomplish organization goals. The purpose of this study is to investigate the adoption of the internet by publ ic relations managers in order to create a model that would best explain the factors that inf luence the adoption process. According to Grunig (1976) when organizations become constraine d by their technology and knowledge, they also fail to recognize problems and become closed . In that way since we will know the factors that affects the behavior and use of public relat ions managers towards the internet we will be able to proceed in examining the practice of pub lic relations over the internet and their effectiveness concluding to a complete approach of E lectronic Public Relations (E-PR). As a result the following research question was formulated. RQ1: What are the elements that affect the adoption process of the internet by p ublic relations practitioners? This paper is organized as follows: in section II the theoretical background is described, in section III the methodology is presented, in section IV the research method is analyzed, in section V a discussion of the results is presented and finally the conclusion and suggestion s for future research are offered.

Theoretical background Innovation is an idea, object or procedure that people perceive it as new and as a result it is not necessary something totally pioneer (Rogers, 1995). Kimberly (1981) and Kitchell (1995) support that innovation is the tendency of every enterprise to deviate from technologies that already exist and adopt new ones. In that way the use of the internet by public relation s managers could be seen as an innovation, although generally the use of the internet is not some thing new. Taylor and Perry (2005) support that Rogers s innovation theory is suitable for th e study of electronic public relations. Johnson (1997) argues that Public relations managers saw themselves in the midst of a learning curve about new technologies. This was dri ven primarily by perceptions or facts about the needs of target audiences. But the second clear t heme that developed was that adoption of the new technologies was self-driven by their own definitions of professionalism. All the respondents admitted to knowledge gaps about various te chnologies and their self-identity as a professional was dependent on reducing the gap . According to Rogers (1995) the diffusion technology process is 1) the procedure during which an innovation is 2) spread through communication channels 3) over a period of time 4) to the members of a social system. In his Meta analysis he managed to reveal five chara cteristics that 52

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications are connected with the rate of adoption of a technological innovation coded as r elative advantage, compatibility, complexity, triability and observability. Relative advantage, according to researcher s results (Rogers, 1995; Glaser et al. , 1983), is positive correlated with the rate of adoption of innovation and usually is descr ibed by return of investment, improvement of competition, e.t.c. The role of compatibility depends on the meaning of the term. If compatibility is considered as a way to perform a smooth switch form one situation to another were innovation will take place then it is positive cor related with the rate of adoption. On the other hand if compatibility is considered as way to sti ck to previous or present situations then it is negative correlated with the rate of adoption. Com plexity is negatively correlated with the rate of adoption (Rogers, 1995; Zaltman et. al., 1973) especially when technology innovation is examined (Pelz and Andrews 1985). A possible expla nation for this is that the harder someone understands an innovation, because of its comple xity, the more difficult it is for him to adopt it. The capability to try (triability) an innov ation before adopting it is positively correlated with the rate of adoption. The use of simulation method s, when technology innovation is examined, can give the necessary time for people to eli minate any perceived danger or fear and enhance the positive reactions towards the innovati on tested. Newland & White (2000) argue that although public relations practitioners believ e in the value of a website they demand tangible evidence in order to put their skepticism away . Motivation and accessibility are two significant factors to the successful use of technolog ical innovations and the internet. Observability is the last attribute of innovation and is posit ively correlated with the rate of adoption. According to Rogers (1995), Brace & Roberts (1996), Newlan d & White (2000) and Taylor & Perry (2005) the adoption of innovation would be easier if i t can be tied with visible and tangible results. Fliegel and Kilvin (1966) extended Rogers innovati on attributes adding in the financial cost, the social cost, return on investment, efficiency concerning time and avoidance of possible dangers and problems. Concluding Surry & Farquhar (1997) r eport that an innovation will present a high rate of adoption if a) it provides a relative adv antage, b) it is compatible with the environment c) it is not complicated when used d) it can be tested before its official use and e) the results that produces are easily observed. Papacharissi and Rubin (2000) examined the social and psychological factors, foc using on the motives that affect the behavior and attitude towards the use of the internet, c

oncluding that there is a strong relation with the adoption of the internet. Williams and Smith (2000) confirmed the implications of social and psychological factors related with the use of the internet in a working environment. Another element that affects the use of the internet is its entertainment dimension (Ferguson & Perse 2000). Besides social factors organizational factors (Proctor & Doukakis, 2003) play an important role in the diffusion of the innovation. According to Rogers (1995) organizational chara cteristics can be separated to internal and external ones. Internal variables contain the size of the organization, the chain and type of management e.t.c. while external variables depict the rela tionships and the exchange of information with the environment of the organization. For exampl e a centralized management system is usually negatively correlated with the adoption of an innovation but when a decision for the adoption of an innovation is taken it is much easier to be applied. Kornegay and Grunig (1998) reported that technology s impact created for public relations practitioners a greater sense of inclusion in their organization s decis ion-making process. Sallot et al. (2004) move a step forward declaring that the web provide s numerous opportunities for public relations practitioners to assume powerful decision mak ing roles within organizations. Bourgeois (1981), Chakravarthy (1982) and Dess & Beard (1984) found that when a surplus of resources is available then the diffusion process is accelerated. As a result Br ace & Roberts (1996), Craig (1995), Kelly (1996) and Rogers (1995) stated that larger organiza tions are usually more prepared to adopt an innovation. The reality for public relations practitio ners is that they 53

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications have to deal with limited resources (Newland & White 2000) and great management expectations (Johnson 1997). Every organization has its own unique characteristics and policies that affect t he innovation process (Chakravarthy, 1982; Rogers, 1995). Variables like the accomplishment of technological projects, the encouragement of employees by the higher management, the hire of e mployees with technological skills and the connection of those skills with their rewards are factors that can accelerate the adoption of a technological innovation. Newland & White (2000) su pport that public relations practitioners combine the possession of a website with a positiv e image and competitive edge for an organization. Another significant factor in the innovation process according to several studie s (Rogers, 1995; Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000; Moore & Benbasat, 1991; Weick, 1969; Miles et al., 1 974; Downey et al., 1975; Achrol & Stern, 1988) is the pressures from the exterior environme nt. In this research the dimensions of the external environment were captured with the creat ion of perception scales for the public relations manager in order to understand and an alyze the external environmental effects through the eyes of those who are responsible to monitor it and inform the organization. According to previous researches a critical factor affecting the adoption of new technologies is the size of an organization (Rogers, 1995; Dess & Beard, 1984; Dholakia & Kshetr i, 2004). A variety of variables such as the total number of employees, the number of employ ees of the public relations department, the capitalization of the organization e.t.c. corre lating with the size of an organization is examined. During the innovation process it is possible to encounter problems because of th e perceived dangers that someone may identify. According to Garner (1986), Stone & Groenhaug (1993), and Dholakia (1997) when an innovation is studied there are six danger dimensions th at an executive may identify during the innovation process which are 1) social 2) economical 3) performance 4) time 5) health and 6) psychological. In this study the perceived danger of healt h was removed because there wasn t any way that it could be connected with the adoption of the i nternet by public relations managers. Except from the perceived danger there are real problems that are different from one organization to another but could be proved powerful in the public relations man

ager effort to adopt the internet. What differentiates the meaning of a danger from the meaning of a problem is the subjective nature of danger toward the objective nature of a real problem . As variables in order to describe problems that public relations managers face we used the lack of software and hardware infrastructure, the lack of technical support, the low connection speed , the lack of training as far as the internet is concerned, the monitoring of the activities o f employees e.t.c. (Dholakia & Kshetri, 2004; Lin, 1998; Koufaris et al., 2001). Atkin and Jeffres (1996), (1998) and Madden & Savage (2000) studied internet use rs based on their social characteristics and the theory of communication reporting that demo graphic technological and communicational characteristics are factors that influence the internet adoption process. Internet users are usually young, male with high educational l evel and income and the internet applications that they use more is the e-mail and the file tran sfer service. Limayem et al. (2000) accept that personal innovativeness is a crucial behaviour factor towards the use of the internet and the intention of online purchasing. A continuous and complete research effort is the one made by Lin (1998, 1999, 20 01) that best describes the adoption of personal computers and internet. Demographic factors a s the educational level and sex are critical to the adoption process and positively co rrelated with the adoption of the internet while age is not so important since the initial age gap between the users seems to be eliminated. The possession of other technologically advanced devices and the recognition of relative advantage are also positively correlated with the adopti on of the internet while complexity is not an obstacle. 54

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Generally as far as the demographic characteristics are concerned a continuous d ifferentiation is observed during a period of time with the first users to be in majority male wit h a high educational and economical level (Hoffman and Novak, 1996). According to Porter et al. (2001), women in public relations lagged behind men in use and expertise of new technolo gies. On the other hand Sallot et al. (2004) states that public relations practitioners are n o longer laggards when it comes to technology with age, gender and tenure differences in the web u se to become non-existent. This may explain the contradictory results compared to other studi es of Stevens, Williams and Smith (2000) that the educational level is not a factor of adoption or that age is of no importance in the innovation process (Lin, 1999). As a result the effectivene ss and accuracy of an innovation study depends on the strict definition of a group of people ove r a certain period of time. Finally as we have already mention the demographic characteristics of the person who will use the internet for public relations purposes form the attitude towards the use of the internet (Atkin & Jeffres, 1996; 1998; Madden & Savage, 2000; Du, 1999; Lin, 1998; 1999; 2001; Hoffman & Novak, 1996; Stevens et al., 2000). Demographic elements connecting with the i nternet adoption in work are age, sex, education, income and years of employment. In his study about the diffusion of the internet in China, Du (1999) concluded that the persons fir st adopting the internet were young, not married with a high income and educational level. In th e same study after implementing Rogers theory of innovation it came up that relative advantag e, complexity, innovativeness, the content of web sites and the connection speed were critical factors affecting the adoption of the internet. Another research effort made by La Ferle et al. (2 002) for Japan points out the same factors but also focuses on the cultural differences. The cu ltural dimension is depicted in the study of Petrazzinin and Guerrero (2000) concerning the use o f the internet in Argentina during 1993-1999 and also besides the usual internet adoption factors the national infrastructures and the cost of use of the internet are reported as additional f actors. Methodology After a thorough study of the literature, as it was cited above, six major chang e elements affecting the adoption of the internet by public relations managers were identif ied. This change elements were coded under the names of 1) Rogers innovation attributes 2) Extern

al environment 3) Organizational characteristics 4) Perceived dangers 5) Adoption p roblems 6) Demographic characteristics. The first step was to develop a set of items for ea ch factor that is described in Figure 1. 55

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Figure 1 Grade of Adoption Demographic Characteristiti cs External Environment Organizational Characteristics Problems Perceived Dangers Rogers Attributes In the first phase two focus groups were conducted among Greek public relations managers of different age, sex, educational level, years of employment and years of employme nt exclusively in the public relations sector and income in order to see the impact of electron ic public relations in groups with different demographic characteristics (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2000). The respondents of the focus groups were public relations practitioners from the 305 organizatio ns that participate in the Athens Stock Exchange Market. That impact was tried to be cro ss-checked with the impact of the use of internet to public relations. The focus groups members were asked what traits or behaviors they associated with the words electronic public relatio ns and internet in public relations . The factor scales were validated using several tests , asking from the respondents to express themselves about electronic public relations and the use of the internet. A total of 82 perceived similarity statements remained for further eva luation, after taking into account the existence of identical items. The next step was to test the items gathered during the focus groups on a wider sample of Greek public relations managers with the use of a questionnaire. In order to determine the satisfactory for the research size of the sample we adopt the following approach (Cochran, 19 77). Since the questions formulated will be answered with the use of a Likert scale it was calc ulated from the pilot test of the questionnaire the standard deviation of all the items and the highest value was selected. Furthermore we demanded that the difference of the average scale value from the sample to be less than 0.3 with a probability of 95% in the population. The foll owing mathematical form was used: ..

22975.0BsZn. Where the percentage of the normal distribution S: is the estimation of the standard deviation of the sample B: is the accepted deviation for the unknown average value of the population (0. 3 in our case). The size of n which is the desirable size of the population is any number above 96 since it secures us that for all the items with possibility 95% the confidence interval w ill be close enough to the unknown mean. The actual size of our sample was 113 which is relatively h igher than the minimum accepted size determined above. The response rate was 37% which accordin g to the literature is satisfactory (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2000). 56

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Rogers innovation attributes according to previous studies (Rogers, 1995; Glaser et al., 1983; Zaltman et al., 1973; Pelz and Andrews, 1985; Brace & Roberts, 1996; Taylor & Pe rry, 2005; Fliegel and Kilvin, 1966; Surry & Farquhar, 1997) are predictors of the percepti ons and the behavior concerning the adoption of innovation. For each innovation attribute ce rtain variables were created in order to be tested in an effort to examine the reliability and v alidity of the proposed model. As a result ten variables describing the relative advantage were formulated, seven concerning the compatibility, seven concerning the complexity, six concern ing the observability and five concerning the triability. Based both on literature review and the focus group discussion an initial pool o f 12 variables were created in order to describe the organizational characteristics. For the ex ternal environment ten variables were used based on the perceptions of public relations managers (Weick, 1969; Miles et al., 1974; Downey et al., 1975; Achrol & Stern, 1988; Moo re & Benbasat, 1991). In order to describe the perceived dangers the six scale model created by Garner (1986) was adapted. According to Garner (1986) the factor of the perceived danger has t he following six dimensions 1) health dimension 2) psychological dimension 3) social dimension 4) time dimension 5) economical dimension and 6) yield dimension. A set of 13 items was created in order to measure the problems, reported by public relations managers, which occu r when they use the internet for public relations activities (Dholakia & Kshetri, 2004; Lin, 1998; Koufaris et al., 2001). Finally a set of six variables, in order to determine the grade of adopti on by public relations managers towards the use of the internet for public relations activiti es, was created. Results The purpose of all the items created was to be used in an items reduction proces s. One hundred thirteen subjects rated these items on a 7-point-scale (1 strongly disagree, 7 s trongly agree). Those items were reduced through factor analysis with principal component analys is with varimax rotation. As a result relative advantage contains seven items with 0.81 alpha coefficient, compatibility contains five items with 0.77 alpha coefficient, complexity contai ns five items with 0.86 alpha coefficient, observability contains three items with 0.67 alpha coeff icient and triability contains three items with 0.63 alpha coefficient. As far as the other factors of the

model proposed organizational characteristics were decreased to nine with 0.68 a lpha coefficient, the external environment items were decreased to eight with 0.60 al pha coefficient, perceived dangers were decreased to five with 0.79 alpha coefficient, the proble m items were decreased to ten with 0.78 alpha coefficient and the grade of adoption variables were decreased to three with 0.76 alpha coefficient. These new scales were subjected to a confirmatory factor analysis. The confirmat ory factor analysis gave 1 factor (5 items) solution for relative advantage, 1 factor (3 it ems) solution for compatibility, 1 factor (3 items) solution for complexity, 1 factor (2 items) so lution for triability, 1 factor (2 items) solution for observability and modification was achieved. Some fit indices didn t meet the recommended threshold, which lead to the elimination of two items from the organizational characteristics, one item from the external environment, none ite m of the perceived dangers, three items from the problems and one item from the grade ado ption. The model fit was quite satisfactory with determination coefficients greater than 0. 60 which is above the threshold value of 0.60 recommended for exploratory research (Hair et. al. 2 000). A second confirmatory factor analysis (maximum likelihood technique) was conduct ed for the exploratory factors and model identification was achieved. Finally three items a re used in order to describe relative advantage, two for compatibility, two for complexity, one f or triability, one for observability, five for organizational characteristics, five for the externa l environment, three for the perceived danger, five for problems and three for the grade of adoption. The fit of the 57

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications model was satisfying and all indicators appeared a coefficient of determination greater than 0.6. The goodness of fit statistics were GFI= 0.95, RMSEA= 0.1 and the CFI =0.90. As far as Rogers attributes are concerned and after conducting a confirmatory fa ctor analysis for each dimension of Rogers attributes, it is obvious that each dimension has a uni que weight in the adoption process. More specific in the table 1 below the items that loaded h igh in the confirmatory factor analysis are depicted. Table 1 ROGERS ATTRIBUTES FACTOR LOADINGS 1) The use of the internet for public relations purposes elevates the effectiveness of organization s public relations Relative advantage 0.89 2) The use of the internet allows to adopt faster to everyday working needs Relative advantage 0.79 3) The use of the internet enhance communication with the public Relative advantage 0.76 4) The use of the internet for public relations purposes is complementary to other public relations activities Compatibility 0.87 5) The use of the internet is compatible with everyday working public relations activities Compatibility 0.85 6) The use of internet applications for public relations purposes is easy to learn and no special education is necessary Complexity 0.80 7) The use of the English language and special terms is not a problem Complexity 0.91 8) Before the official use of an internet application I have the opportunity to test it in my personal computer Triability 0.83 9) The use of the internet for public relations purposes enables the measurement of the effectiveness of these activities Observability 0.89 All the other items loaded are shown in Table 2 below. It is easy to explain why some items were omitted due to the results of the confirmatory factor analysis since there is no

evident connection with the use of the internet by public relations managers. For exampl e the perceived danger of health, the perceived psychological danger and the perceived social da nger were elements that could not match with the use of the internet. 58

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 2 1) My organization has a strong technological vision Organizational Characteristics 0.79 2) The use of internet for public relations purposes is encouraged by the organization Organizational Characteristics 0.77 3) The knowledge and experience of the internet for public relations activities is an essential qualification for anyone that wish to work in the public relations department of my organization Organizational Characteristics 0.73 4) The planning and maintenance of the organization web site is a responsibility of the public relations manager Organizational Characteristics 0.77 5) The use of the internet for public relations purposes is connected with the reward system of my organization Organizational Characteristics 0.79 6) More and more organizations use the internet for public relations purposes External environment 0.76 7) The global digital environment were most organizations are active demands a 24-hour presence without geographical boundaries External environment 0.71 8) The public choose to use the internet more as a communication, information and entertainment channel External environment 0.74 9) In the near future more organizations will choose to use their web sites in a more advance way in order to enhance public relations activities through them External environment 0.76 10) In the near future more public relations managers will be involved in the maintenance and planning of corporate web sites External environment 0.82 11) The use of the internet could be characterized as a timeconsuming effort Perceived danger time dimension 0.80 12) The use of the internet could

be proved inefficient Perceived danger . yield dimension 0.88 13) The use of the internet has a profound economic cost due to real and hidden costs for the organization Perceived danger . economical dimension 0.86 14) The lack of technical support Problems 0.80 15) The lack of hardware equipment Problems 0.91 16) The lack of software equipment and applications Problems 0.83 59

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 17) The existence of low connection speed with the internet Problems 0.94 18) The use of recording and monitoring techniques by the organization towards the activities of the managers that use the internet in their place of work Problems 0.80 19) Evaluate your Knowledge towards the use of the internet and personal computers Grade of adoption 0.91 20) How often do you use the internet in your working place Grade of adoption 0.88 21) When was the first time that you used the internet for public relations activities Grade of adoption 0.91 The results of the confirmatory factor analysis match with previous studies conc erning the adoption of technological innovations (Du, 1999; Dholakia & Kshetri, 2004; Lin, 1998; Koufaris et al., 2001, Surry & Farquhar, 1997), although never to our knowledge all the fact ors examined have been considered before in the same study and never examined in the Greek pu blic relations sector. Any differentiation observed and any item omitted is due to th e narrow focus of the research on the public relations sector. Finally the differences in the answ ers of the two groups during the focus group process enhance the feeling owed to the literature review (Atkin & Jeffres, 1996; 1998; Madden & Savage, 2000; Limayem et al., 2000; Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000) that there is a connection between the adoption and use of the internet an d certain demographic factors which needs a thorough investigation. Discussion Public relations managers have to adapt to the use of the internet in order to p ractice effective electronic public relations (Walsh, 2006; Gregory, 2004; Kent et al., 2003; Cutl ip et al., 2000). Johnson stresses (1997) that the public relations practitioner s ability to be a ch ange agent is critical not only to the success of the public relations effort, but to the succ ess of the organization . This means that they will have to accept the use of internet applic ations such as

web sites, teleconferences e.t.c. and confront with a number of factors that aff ect their adoption to this new working environment. Through this research effort six critical chang e elements were identified coded as Rogers attributes (relative advantage, complexity, compatibi lity, observability, triability), organizational characteristics, external environment , perceived dangers, problems and demographic characteristics. Taken those elements into account publ ic relations practitioners can become more effective as communication managers and gain speci fic insight on how to become part of the dominant coalition using technology and the interne t. As far as public relations managers are concerned it is essential a) to understa nd the advantage of this movement, b) to minimize the technological complexity, c) to discover th e compatibility with traditional public relations methods and to establish the d) triability and e) visibility of the final results in order to move to the new digital era. By doing so it will be ea sier to adapt to the challenges of the digital environment. The information gathered from this resear ch can enhance the communication manager s role and power in an organization. Of course it is not only pr managers that have to adapt but the organization as a whole. As a result there a re several variables concerning the organizational environment that influence the adaptatio n process (Barrett, 2002). It was clear from the discussion in the focus groups and the re sults that the 60

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications managers that work for IT companies are much more comfortable and eager to the u se of the internet for public relations purposes than others. Knowledge, experience, techn ological vision and the connection with the reward system are the internal organizational charac teristics that help the adoption process. Finally the external environment and especially the p ressures of the global digital market determine the rate of the adoption. According to several researchers and pr practitioners (Cutlip et al., 2000) the use of the Internet for public relations purposes can be seen as an innovative challenge that will o pen new roads in practicing effective public relations. Stakeholders will be approached more effe ctively as Internet a) transmits mass or personalized messages more easily to them b)incorp orates text, sound, image, movement and interaction in one package and c) enlarges the number of them. We should never forget that the Internet attracts some stakeholders groups more easily than other communication channels and it is identified as the only suitable channel t o support a dialogic approach between an organization and its stakeholder publics. But in or der to achieve a dialogic behavior and exploit all the advantages of the internet it is necessary for public relations managers to adapt to the use of the internet (Esrock & Leichty, 1998,1999,2000). Public relations managers will have to evaluate their knowledge and their competencies and skills related to new technologies and improve them as main working tools and tools for public relatio ns strategies. Limitations Future research This paper focuses only in the use of the internet in public relations and that is why there was no concern for other functions and activities of the organization that can be corre lated in any way with the use of the internet. As a result any interactions by other departments or functions that affect the adoption and use of the internet by public relations managers are not taken into account. Another constraint that the reader of this research should take into considerati on is the constraint of time. The data collected reflect a situation for a certain period of time and as a result we can not incorporate any future changes in the behavior of public relat ions managers or any technological advance. The recognition of time as a critical limitation fact or in this study is easily understandable if we take into account the rapid development of the inter net through time and the changes that occurred until today.

A further investigation of the adoption of internet by public relations managers and especially of the relations and the roles of the factors identified above should be made. By d oing so we will be able to understand the impact of each factor, the possible correlations between the factors and their contribution to the grade of adoption of public relations managers towards the use of the internet for public relations purposes. Future studies should examine the cultur al differences between public relations managers because of the lowering of geographical barrie rs, the mobility of public relations managers and the nature of the internet. Those diff erences may have a significant effect to the adoption process and especially to the general use o f the internet in public relations. 61

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The moderating role of product involvement on online attitude formation

Polyxeni (Jenny) Palla BCA Business College of Athens, jennypalla80@ymail.com Athina Y. Zotou Athens University of Economics and Business, azotou@aueb.gr Anastasia Konstantopoulou BCA Business College of Athens Abstract Internet is commonly used the last decade as a marketing tool, while online adve rtising is a growing stream over the last years. There are numerous studies focusing on websi tes advertising, attitude formation towards website and the level of interactivity a s a website dimension. Recent researches, underline that the construct of interactivity may have both negative and positive influences under different circumstances on consumers asses sment. The purpose of the present study is to examine the moderating role of product involv ement when assessing the impact of website interactivity on attitude formation towards bran ds and websites. Through experimental design two hypotheses were tested and data analys is indicated that as the level of website interactivity increases the formulated attitude tow ards the brand and the website becomes more favourable when the advertised product is of low in volvement. Moreover, when the product, under consideration, is of high involvement the most positive attitudes are formulated for the medium interactive website. To conclude some im plications are proposed, as well as limitations and suggestions for further research. Key words: interactivity, product involvement, brand, website, attitudes Introduction Over the past decade, the importance of the ol has been internet as an additional marketing to

underlined by many researchers and practitioners (Sicilia 2005). Academic studie s have grown exponentially investigating the impact of this additional tool on the integrated marketing communications in general and advertising in particular. Moreover, various compa nies have already expanded their activities online to capitalize the benefits of this medi um (Bidgoli, 2002). It is worth mentioning the growing adoption of this medium by individuals since Internet users for the 2010 represent the 28.7% of the world population, indicating a growth of 444.8% from 2000 (www.intrentworldstats.com, 2011). Under the light of the Internet marketing theory the official web page is the co rner-stone in order to establish online presence, to advertise business, to generate and reinf orce positive brand and product messages globally (Karson, et al., 2006; Yang et al., 2003). W ebsites are considered as an official form of online advertising (Sicilia et al., 2005; Hwan g, McMillan and Lee, 2003; Dholakia and Rego, 1998; Pardun and Lamb, 1999; Vlachopoulou, 2003). The u ltimate objective of the websites is to maximize customer experience and not just to des cribe a product. This environment underlines the importance of the online branding. Online brand perception is 65

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications affected by the online experience that it is delivered to the consumer (Flores, 2004a, 1004b). Interactivity is a website dimension that is increasing directed to online exper ience (Chen and Wells, 1999). According to previous studies, interactivity not only creates bran d identities, but also converts visitors into interactive customers (Berthon, Layland, and Watson, 1996). What is more, many researchers have underline that the attitude towards the website and the brand represent two important indicators of the overall website effectiveness (Raney, Arpan, Pashpati and Brill, 2003; McMillan et al., 2003; Thorson and Rodgers, 2006; Johnson et al . 2006; Raney et al., 2003; Macias, 2003). The present work seeks to examine weather increased interactivity levels on a we bsite, lead to the formulation of favorable attitudes toward the brand and the website. The pro duct involvement is examined as a moderator of the website interactivity effectivenes s, and according to Zaichkowsky, (1985 p. 342), is defined as a person s perceived relevan ce of the object based on inherent needs, values, and interests . This paper is constructed as follows. It begins with a literature review of the related concepts of interactivity and pro duct involvement and hypotheses are formulated respectively. The description of the methodology f ollows, wherein pretests and experimental design are analyzed continuing with data analy sis and results. Finally, significant conclusions are proposed and some implications, li mitations and suggestions for further research are presented as well. Review of Literature Interactivity The most prevalent definition of the interactivity construct in the advertising arena appears to be the one proposed by Bezjian-Avery et al. (1998, p. 23) as the immediately iter ative process by which customers needs and desires are uncovered, met, modified, and satisfied by the providing firm . Interactivity in a website provides individuals and organizations with the ability of direct and bilateral communication. On the other hand the mechanical approach supports that individuals interact with the medium (website) in order to formulate and co ntrol the type and the duration of the presented information (Ariely, 2000; Bezjian-Avery et al ., 1998). It

should be underlined that websites offer different levels of interactivity, as l ong as it is not dichotomous (a medium is not just interactive or not), but can differ in level ( from not interactive to highly interactive), as well as type (the user affects the form a nd the content) (Lombard and Snyder-Duch, 2001; Coyle and Thorson, 2001). A number of researches have ascribed in the interactivity concept two-levels: low or high (Ghose and Dou, 19 98; Coyle and Thorson, 2001; Macias, 2003; Sicilia et al., 2005; Johnson et al., 2006; Liu and Shrum, 2009), whereas others ascribed three levels, including the medium one (Sohn et al., 200 7). This difference may be attributed to the diverse definitions, conceptualizations, met hodological approaches and research objectives. A number of studies have been contacted to assess the impact of website s perceive d interactivity on consumers responses in terms of attitude toward the brand and th e website. Many authors address the positive influence of the higher levels of interactivit y on consumers evaluation (Chen, Griffith and Shen 2005; Sicilia, Ruiz and Munuera, 2005; Ghose and Dou, 1998; Cho and Leckenby, 1999; Wu, 1999; McMillan, et al., 2003; Thorson and Rodgers, 2 006).). However, another line of interactivity literature proposes the negative impact t hat highly interactive websites may have on consumers assessment (Bezjian-Avery et al., 1998 ; Ariely, 2000; Fortin and Dholakia, 2005). It could be assumed that the findings on the e ffectiveness of interactivity are conflicting. Nevertheless, recent studies, underline that the construct of interactivity may have both negative and positive influences under different cir cumstances (Sohn et al. 2007; Liu and Shrum 2009). 66

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Recent studies highlighted that the interactivity in a website may generate posi tive communication outcomes under certain situations. Sohn et al. (2007) propose that the relationship between the website interactivity and consumers attitude toward the site is moderated by the expected interactivity . Expected interactivity is termed as the e xtent of interactivity that an individual expects to experience during navigation on a we bsite for a particular product category. Their results indicated that an individuals toward the attitude

website is not determined directly by the interactive feature of web sites; it a lso depends on prior experience with web sites dealing with similar products (Sohn et al., 2007 p. 116 ). When consumers had low level of the expected interactivity their attitude toward the website decreased as the level of website interactivity increased. However, when consume rs had high level of expected interactivity their attitude toward the website increased as t he level of website interactivity increased. Their study confirms that heightening interactivity may have positive effects when expected interactivity is high. On the other hand, increasing inter activity may have a negative impression of the site when consumers e product expected interactivity toward th

category is low. Liu and Shrum (2009) have recognize the inconsistent finding regarding the inter activity research and they underline that there are factors that moderate the effect of interactiv ity on advertising effective measures. They proposed that individuals reaction to the presence of in teractive elements is varied based on personal (usage experience) and situational factors (task involvement). So, they investigate person and situation as moderators. Their res ults indicate that under conditions of high involvement, interactivity elicited more positive attit ude for experienced users but less positive attitudes for inexperienced ones. Under cond itions of low involvement, the presence of interactive elements leads to positive attitudes de spite the users experience. In particular, under low involvement conditions, interactivity serve d as a peripheral cue. Product involvement

Although the product is exactly the same, the consumers level of involvement with the product should also be measured. It should be underlined that more expensive products ar e not necessarily more involving (Hupfer and Gardner, 1971). According to Zaichkowsky (1985), the level of involvement with several product categories differs among persons. In p articular, she found that breakfast cereals, 35mm cameras and red wine were perceived as either low or high involvement by students. It has been proposed that consumers, in the pre-purchas e stage, do not evaluate every choice alternative not only when they purchase major items, b ut also on first purchase (Olshavsky and Granbois, 1979). Moreover, a consumer has to make a lot of decisions every day, many of which may be of low importance. Thus, consumers do not proces s all the provided information actively. Based on this notion theorists developed a two-fo ld dichotomy consumer behavior: low involvement and high involvement consumer behavior (Engel and Blackweel, 1982). 67

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Hypotheses Testing Nowadays, interactive websites provides the opportunity to create strong brand i dentity online (Upshaw, 2001). A number of studies have been contacted to assess the impact of website s perceived interactivity on attitude formation. Particularly, a growing body of e mpirical research considers that the usage of interactive functions in a message have the potentia l to generate an effective communication outcome (Ballantine, 2005; Chen et al., 2005; Sicilia et al., 2005; Macias, 2003; Merrilees and Fry, 2003; Cho and Leckenby, 1999; Briggs and Hollis, 1997; Maddox et al., 1997). Increased levels of interactivity are correlated with a positive and favo rable attitude toward the brand and the website (Ghose and Dou, 1998; Cho and Leckenby, 1999; W u, 1999; Newhagen and Rafaeli 1996; McMillan et al., 2003; Thorson and Rodgers, 2006; Joh nson et al., 2006; Raney et al., 2003; Macias, 2003; Sicilia et al., 2005). Prior research on interactive environment has confirmed the positive association between the perceived interac tivity and the user s attitude toward the website and the advertised brand (Fiore, Jin and Kim, 2 003; McMillan and Hwang, 2002; Wu, 1999). What is more, a number of researchers have assumed t hat (Chen and Wells, 1999; Yoo and Stout, 2001). In addition, Petty and Cacioppo (1979b) h ave proposed that the attitude formed for low involvement products is based on peripheral cue s such as music, colours etc. In addition to that statement, Liu and Shrum (2009) indicate d that the interactivity construct may act as a peripheral cue for low involvement products . Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed: H1: When the level of website interactivity is high and the advertised product i s of low involvement, consumers tend to formulate more positive attitudes towards the (a) advertised brand and (b) webpage, as compared to those exposed to a website with medium and low interactive level. Apart from the positive effects of increased interactivity, Coyle and Thorson (2 001) found that the construct of interactivity influences neither the attitude formation toward the website nor the attitude-behavior consistency. Another line of research, underlines its nega tive effects (Bezjian-Avery et al., 1998; Sohn, et al., 2007; Raney, et al., 2003). Moreover, it is suggested that enhanced levels of interactivity interrupt the process of persuasion, especially

when the advertising message is visually complicated (Bezjian-Avery et al., 1998) and ero de the quality of consumers decision (Ariely, 2000; Fortin and Dholakia, 2005). Therefore, a number of researchers doubt the value of the interactivity in the virtual environment. In addition, it is proposed that high involvement products are assessed extensiv ely. High involvement with a product leads people to search for and actively process infor mation regarding the product (Laurent and Kapferer, 1985; Celsi and Olson, 1988; Greenw ald and Leavitt, 1984). So, it is expected that increased interactivity in the website t hat presents a high involvement product will prohibit the process of product evaluation. Moreover, m any researchers have highlighted that the low interactivity level is inefficient whe n assessing the overall website performance (Merrilees and Fry, 2003; Cho and Leckenby, 1999; Br iggs and Hollis, 1997; Maddox, Mehta and Daubek, 1997; Ghose and Dou, 1998). Thus, it is expected that the medium interactive website will lead individuals to formulate more positive attitude toward the brand and the website as compared to low and high interactive ones. Concerni ng the existing literature the second hypothesis is addressed: H2: When the level of website interactivity is medium, consumers tend to formula te more positive attitudes towards the (a) advertised brand and (b) webpage, as compared to those exposed to a website with high and low interactive level, when the product depic ted on the website is of low involvement. 68

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Methodology A theoretical background is already presented and a set of two hypotheses was fo rmulated. This part of the study deals with the research methodology that will be used to test the hypotheses. The experimental design ed to was adapted in the same line with previous studies conduct

examine the impact of several variables (e.g. interactivity, vividness, internet usage experience and task involvement) on website advertising effectiveness (Coyle and Thorson, 2 001; Sicilia et al., 2005; Liu and Shrum, 2009). Following previous research in the interactive environment, an experimental desi gn is utilized in which the manipulated (independent) variables are: (1) the involvement with the product (high or low) and (2) the websites perceived interactivity (high, medium or low) for a 2x2 factorial design. The dependent variables are (1) subjects attitude toward the advertised b rand and (2) subjects attitude towards the website.nTable 2 depicts the manipulated (independe nt) and the dependent variables. Table 1: Manipulated (Independent) Variables and Depended Variables Independent-Manipulated Variables Product Involvement High Low Zaichkowsky (1985) Perceived Interactivity High Medium Low McMillan and Hwang (2002) Dependent Variables Attitude toward the Website Chen and Wells (1999) Attitude toward the Brand Pretests A number of pretests were accomplished to ensure the successful manipulation of the independent variables. Overall, the pretested variables were 1) the level of the product involvement and after the website development there were also pretested 2) the l evel of the perceived interactivity. The Pretested Variables are presented in Table 3. Table 2: The Pretested Variables Pre-test Variable Questionnaire* A. Product Pretest 1A Product Involvement List of High and Low involvement in product

categories Questionnaire 1.A Pretest 1B One product of high and one of low involvement based on PII proposed by Zaichkowsky in 1985 Questionnaire 1.B 2. Website Development B. Interactivity Pretest 3A Actual Interactivity Questionnaire 5 Pretest 3B Perceived Interactivity McMillan and Hwang (2002) Questionnaire 6 69

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The level of Product Involvement The individual importance that a person assigns to an object forms the level of involvement regarding the particular object (Antil, 1984). It incorporates person-specific c haracteristics, since it can differ from person to person (Zaichkowsky, 1985; 1986). Consumers may per ceive the same product in a different way (Lastovicka and Gardner, 1978; Zaichkowsky, 1985 a; 1985b). Nevertheless, the group effect according of certain product categories should be underlined,

to which for certain groups of people (target markets) certain products seem to be high involving, whilst others tend to be low involving (Rahtz and Moore, 1989). Consi dering the nature of the group effect , the first pretest is employed. The aim of this pretest is to arrive at two products based on which the experimental websites would be constructed and t he product involvement variable would be manipulated. Participants were invited to list a number of products that require effortful th inking before purchase, have personal meaning to them, require a sizeable financial amount and posses a long-term life-cycle. These are characteristics attributed to products of high i nvolvement. In addition, participants were invited to list a number of products that do not req uire effortful thinking before purchase, do not have personal meaning to them, do not require a great financial amount and do not have a long-term life-cycle. These attributes charac terize products of low involvement. The participants involvement with the four more frequently mentioned groups of hi gh and low involvement products was measured using the Personal Involvement Inventory (PII) developed by Zaichkowsky (1985) (pretest 1.B) (Questionnaire 1B). There was chosen one pro duct in every category. The results of the first pretest provided insights into the selection of high and low involvement products indicated the laptop as a high involvement and refreshment drink as a low involvement product. Two fictitious products and brands were designed for the needs of the experiment . The first reason is to avoid the confusing effect or the pre-attitudinal effects. The seco nd is because the exposure to the website is a voluntary action; there should be a reason in order that an individual will visit the website. Though the issue of how individuals are drive n to a website is

out of the scope of the present study, there should be ensured at least the inte rest of the visitors while navigating the website. The level of Perceived Interactivity For the purpose of the study a high-interactive, a medium-interactive and a lowinteractive webpage for each product (totally 6 webpages) were designed. The objective of th is pretest was to ensure that the level of actual interactivity is equivalent to the level of t he perceived one. The interactive features employed in every level followed recommendation of relevant literature. Consistent with previous researches, the level of actual interactivity was opera tionalized by varying the presence or absence of interactive elements. Specifically, a high le vel of actual interactivity was characterized by the presence of interactive elements, a mediu m level by the presence of some of them, while a low level of interactivity website by their ab sence. The Measures of Perceived Interactivity (MPI) proposed by McMillan and Hwang (20 02) was employed to assess the perceived level of interactivity by 30 students. This con ceptualization is important because the consumer s perception is the key to creating successful adve rtising communications. It is important to consider that there may be a difference betwe en what web designers consider interactive and what consumers actually do. The results confi rm that each webpage provides the appropriate level of interactivity. Main Experiment 70

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Treatment Conditions The treatment conditions referred to the variables of the product involvement an d perceived interactivity. The product involvement is manipulated by exposing half of the pa rticipants to the website presenting a laptop and the other half to the website presenting a refre shment drink. Perceived interactivity is manipulated by exposing one group to the high interac tive website, while the other is exposed to medium or low interactive websites. In order to test the hypotheses proposed, an on-line experiment with a 2(product involvement: high/low) x 3(website interactivity: high/medium/low) factorial design was condu cted and six (6) different treatment conditions were developed (Table 11). In every condition the re were manipulated simultaneously the two main variables [(1) the product involvement ( high vs. low), and (3) the perceived interactivity level (high vs. medium vs. low)]. Table 3: Experiment Treatments PRODUCT LEVEL OF PERCEIVED INTERACTIVITY INVOLVEMENT HIGH MEDIUM LOW HIGH 1 2 3 LOW 4 5 6 Procedure The experiment was conducted in the lab of BCA Business College of Athens of twe nty 20minute sessions that took place in November 2010 (from 8th to 19th November 2010). The 6 conditions presented in Table 11 were randomly assigned to the experiment sessio ns. Approximately 20 participants were scheduled for each session and they were rand omly assigned to one of the 20 operating computers (same model) in the computer lab. Each participant received a booklet that included two parts. The first part outl ined the general instructions regarding the experiment, as well as the questionnaire regarding de mographics, web-usage time per week and web experience. The second part of the booklet inclu ded (1) the 3-itemed questionnaire measuring the attitude towards the brand () and (2) the 6 -itemed questionnaire measuring the attitude toward the website (Chen and Wells, 1999). General instructions served to facilitate participants with the experiment process and c ompletion of the questionnaire. Sample The selected sample (approximately 200 participants), is a convenient one that c

onsists of undergraduate students in their 3rd or 4th year. The participants were recruited from the BCA Business College of Athens. The students that took part should be internet users and the least prerequisite is to have been navigating on the Internet for at least 2 hours las t week. This basic condition ensures that subjects have the knowledge to operate a personal compute r (PC), to navigate on the Internet and moreover, have the ability to evaluate a webpage. 71

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Data Analysis To assure the reliability and validity of measures, Cronbach alpha and Factor An alysis were conducted. Table 1 presents the alpha coefficient for the three items of the att itude toward the brand questionnaire as well as for the six items of the attitude toward the webp age questionnaire for the low and the high involvement products. Alpha coefficient i s higher than 0.8, suggesting that the items have relatively high internal consistency. It sho uld be underlined that a reliability coefficient of .70 or higher is considered "acceptable" in mo st social science research situations (Nunnally 1978). Table 1: Reliability Statistics Low Involvement Product High Involvement Product Croancach s Alpha N of Items Croancach s Alpha N of Items Attitude toward the Brand (Ab) scale 0.98 3 0.837 3 Attitude toward the Website (Ast) scale 0.872 6 0.883 6 To test undimesnionality, the attitude toward the brand and the attitude toward the website scale items were factor analyzed. As presented in table 2 the three items of the attitude toward the brand questionnaire loaded on one factor for low and high involvement produc t. Table 3 indicates that the six factors of the attitude towards the webpage questionnaire loaded to one factor as well. Table 2: Factor analysis (attitude toward the brand) Low involvement product High involvement product B1 .929 ,878 B2 .950 ,890 B3 .904 ,838 Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. a. 1 components extracted. Table 3: Factor analysis (attitude toward the website) Low involvement product Component: 1 High involvement

product W1 ,742 W2 ,801 W3 ,754 W4 ,847 W5 ,798 W6 ,743

,838 ,832 ,790 ,783 ,809 ,714

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. a. 1 components extracted. The H1 proposes that when the level of website interactivity is high and the adv ertised product is of low involvement, consumers tend to formulate more positive attitudes towar ds the (a) advertised brand and (b) the webpage as compared to those exposed to a website w ith medium and low interactive level. Almost thirty participants were exposed to a h ighly, thirty to 72

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications a medium and thirty to a low interactive website. Every website was presenting t he same information about the same low involvement product. To examine the effects of in teractivity manipulation a MANOVA analysis was conducted with interactivity as the fixed fac tor and the attitude towards the brand and the attitude towards the website as the dependent variables. Data analysis indicated that the significance values of the multivariate tests a re lower than 0.05 (e.g. Hotelling's Trace: F= 51.010, Sig. = .000) indicating that the effects con tribute to the model. Therefore, the attitude towards the brand and the attitude towards the we bsite varied among different levels of interactivity. Tests of Between-Subjects Effects indic ated that different levels of interactivity in a website affect not only the attitude towa rds the brand (F= 43.126 Sig. = .000) but also the attitude towards the website (F= 64.812, Sig. = .000) (Table 4). Table 4: Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Source Dependent Variable Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Corrected MEAN BRAND 64,460a 2 32,230 43,126 ,000 Model MEAN WEB 24,227b 2 12,114 64,812 ,000 a. R Squared = ,484 (Adjusted R Squared = ,473) b. R Squared = ,585 (Adjusted R Squared = ,576) Table 5 presents the findings of Tukey analysis. Participants exposed to the hig hly interactive websites generated significantly more positive attitude towards the advertised b rand as compared to those exposed to the low interactive webpage (High-Low: 1.801, Sig.: .000). However, participants exposed to high and medium interactive websites do not sta tistically differ in average performance (High-Medium: .151, Sig.: .772). Therefore the hyp othesis H1(a) is partially supported. Table 5 depicts also that individuals exposed to the high interactive website fo rmulated significantly more positive attitude towards the webpage as compare to those exp osed to medium and to low interactive websites (High-Medium: .914, Sig.000: High-Low: 1. 181, Sig.: .041). Thus the hypothesis H1(b) is supported. 73

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 5: Multiple Comparisons -Tukey HSD Dependent Variable (I) INTERACTIVITY (J) INTERACTIVITY Mean Difference (I-J) Std. Error Sig. 95% Interval Confidence Lower Bound Upper Bound MEAN BRAND HIGH MEDIUM ,151 ,2196 ,772 -,373 ,674 LOW 1,801 * ,2162 ,000 1,285 2,316 MEDIUM HIGH -,151 ,2196 ,772 -,674 ,373 LOW 1,650 * ,2162 ,000 1,135 2,165 LOW HIGH -1,801 * ,2162 ,000 -2,316 -1,285 MEDIUM -1,650 * ,2162 ,000 -2,165 -1,135 MEAN WEB HIGH MEDIUM ,914 * ,1098 ,000 ,652 1,176 LOW 1,181 * ,1081 ,000 ,923 1,438 MEDIUM HIGH -,914 * ,1098 ,000 -1,176 -,652 LOW ,267 * ,1081 ,041 ,009 ,524 LOW HIGH -1,181 * ,1081 ,000 -1,438 -,923 MEDIUM -,267 * ,1081 ,041 -,524 -,009 Based on observed means. The error term is Mean Square(Error) = ,187. *. The mean difference is significant at the ,05 level. Table 6 and 7 present the means for homogenous subsets for attitude towards the brand and the attitude towards the website confirming the previous results. Table 6: MEAN BRAND Tukey HSDa,b INTERACTIVITY N Subset 1 2 LOW 33 4,242 MEDIUM 31 5,892 HIGH 31 6,043 Sig. 1,000 ,768 Means for groups in homogeneous subsets are displayed. Based on observed means. The error term is Mean Square(Error) = ,747.

a. Uses Harmonic Mean Sample Size = 31,639. b. Alpha = ,05. Table 7: MEAN WEB Tukey HSDa,b INTERACTIVITY N Subset 1 2 3 LOW 33 2,717 MEDIUM 31 2,984 HIGH 31 3,898 Sig. 1,000 1,000 1,000 Means for groups in homogeneous subsets are displayed. Based on observed means. The error term is Mean Square(Error) = ,187. a. Uses Harmonic Mean Sample Size = 31,639. b. Alpha = ,05. Hypothesis 2 proposes that when the level of website interactivity is medium, co nsumers tend to formulate more positive attitudes towards the (a) advertised brand and (b) we bpage brand as compared to those exposed to a website with high and low interactive level when the product depicted on the website is of low involvement. Almost thirty participants were e xposed to a highly, thirty to a medium and thirty to a low interactive website. Every websit e was presenting 74

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications the same information about the same high involvement product. To examine the eff ects of interactivity manipulation a MANOVA analysis was conducted with interactivity as the fixed factor and the attitude towards the brand and the attitude towards the website a s the dependent variables. Data analysis indicated that the significance values of the multivariate tests are lower than 0.05 (e.g. Hotelling's Trace: F= 58.585, Sig. = .000) indicating that the effects contribute to the model. Therefore, the attitude towards the brand and the attit ude towards the website varied among different levels of interactivity. Tests of Between-Subject s Effects indicated that different levels of interactivity in a website affect not only th e attitude towards the brand (F= 70.068 Sig. = .000) but also the attitude towards the website (F= 84.729, Sig. = .000). Table 8: Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Source Dependent Variable Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Corrected BRAND 107,028a 2 53,514 70,068 ,000 Model WEBSITE 30,632b 2 15,316 84,729 ,000 a. R Squared = ,601 (Adjusted R Squared = ,593) b. R Squared = ,646 (Adjusted R Squared = ,638) Table 9 presents the findings of Tukey analysis. Participants exposed to the med ium interactive websites generated significantly more positive attitude towards the advertised b rand as compared to those exposed to the high and to the low interactive websites (Mediu m-Low: 2.047, Sig.: .000, Medium-High: 2.442, Sig.: .000). However, participants expose d to high interactive website do not statistically differ in average performance with thos e exposed to low (High-Low: -.395, Sig.: .164). Therefore the hypothesis H2(a) is supported. Table 5 depicts also that individuals exposed to the medium interactive website formulated significantly more positive attitude towards the webpage as compare to those exp osed to high and to low interactive websites (High-Medium: -.954, Sig.000: Low-Medium: -1.376 , Sig.: .000). Thus the hypothesis H2(b) is supported. 75

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 9: Multiple Comparisons -Tukey HSD Dependent Variable (I) INTERACTIVITY (J) INTERACTIVITY Mean Difference (I-J) Std. Error Sig. 95% Interval Confidence Lower Bound Upper Bound BRAND HIGH MEDIUM -2.442 * .2189 .000 -2.963 -1.920 LOW -.395 .2152 .164 -.907 .118 MEDIUM HIGH 2.442 * .2189 .000 1.920 2.963 LOW 2.047 * .2221 .000 1.518 2.576 LOW HIGH .395 .2152 .164 -.118 .907 MEDIUM -2.047 * .2221 .000 -2.576 -1.518 WEBSITE HIGH MEDIUM -.954 * .1065 .000 -1.207 -.700 LOW .423 * .1047 .000 .173 .672 MEDIUM HIGH .954 * .1065 .000 .700 1.207 LOW 1.376 * .1080 .000 1.119 1.634 LOW HIGH -.423 * .1047 .000 -.672 -.173 MEDIUM -1.376 * .1080 .000 -1.634 -1.119 Based on observed means. The error term is Mean Square(Error) = .181. *. The mean difference is significant at the .05 level. Table 10 and 11 present the means for homogenous subsets for attitude towards th e brand and the attitude towards the website confirming the previous results. Table 11: WEBSITE Tukey HSDa,b INTERACTIVITY N Subset 1 2 3 LOW 32 2,646 HIGH 34 3,069 MEDIUM 30 4,022 Sig. 1,000 1,000 1,000 Means for groups in homogeneous subsets are displayed. Based on observed means. The error term is Mean Square(Error) = ,181. a. Uses Harmonic Mean Sample Size = 31,917. b. Alpha = ,05. Table 10: BRAND

Tukey HSDa,b INTERACTIVITY N Subset 1 2 HIGH 34 4,647 LOW 32 5,042 MEDIUM 30 7,089 Sig. ,174 1,000 Means for groups in homogeneous subsets are displayed. Based on observed means. The error term is Mean Square(Error) = ,764. a. Uses Harmonic Mean Sample Size = 31,917. b. Alpha = ,05. 76

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Conclusions The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of interactivity effectiveness in the online environment. It seems that interactivity works in a different manner when the advertised product falls in a low involvement product category than it does when it falls in a high one. Data analysis indicated that as the level of website interactivity increase s the formulated attitude towards the brand and the website becomes more favourable when the adve rtised product is of low involvement. In particular, individuals exposed to the highly interactive website elicited more positive attitude toward the brand and the website as compared to those exposed to medium and low [H1]. The large number of interactive elements appears to enha nce the likeability of the brand and the website. This finding is in line with previous research indicating that interactivity leads to positive attitude and results in a more enjoyable ex perience (Raney et al. 2003). Previous study suggests that high levels of interactivity do not lead to stronge r attitudes toward the website (Coyle and Thorson, 2001). In the present study this finding is veri fied for the website of a high involvement product while it is controversial when a low invol vement product is exposed. In particular, data analysis indicated that individuals attitude grow positively as the level of website interactivity increases when the product under consideration is of low involvement. However, when the product under consideration is of high involvemen t the most positive attitudes are formulated for the medium interactive website [H2]. The present study proposes an important theoretical implication. Interactivity c an be considered as a variable with multiple roles. This viewpoint is also underlined by Liu and Shrum (2009). What is more, product involvement is underlined as a variable that moderates the effectiveness of website interactivity. The present study clearly suggest that each type of at titudinal influence occurs in some instances, and the level of personal involvement with a product a s well as the level of interactivity employed in the website appear to be two key determinants of the formulated attitude towards the brand and the website. Overall, the results demonstrate that the direction of the interactivity effects can drastically change with certain product categories, which implies that increasing level of i nteractivity may not always yield positive communication outcomes (Sohn et al., 2007). The analys is of the present study reinforce Liu and Shrum (2002) suggestion that the rush to employ interactive

elements into the marketing context should be mediated or tempered by fully unde rstanding both; what interactivity can do well and most importantly what it cannot do. The y also add that before adopting the latest technological trend they should first take into consi deration both its advantages and limitations. The current research suggests also that when designing an online marketing strat egy, online marketers should consider two key questions. The first question involves the lev el of product involvement that will be presented on the website whereas the second question in volves the main objectives of the advertising strategy. The results of the present research can help practitioners to select the appropriate interactivity level, in order to design an effective webpage and therefore, increase their marketing edge. Further Research and Limitations of the Study Though this study underlies a number of interested findings additional research would provide remarkable findings in the debated literature of interactivity and website effec tiveness. Future research in other forms of advertising messages and other types of products woul d shed more light in the website design. Additional research that examines individual differ ences such as locus of control would help the consumer online behavior model to be synthesized . Finally 77

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications further investigation in the accessibility of the attitude and online pre-purcha se behavior would provide insights into the cognitive psychology in the online environment. Several limitations of this study, encompassing the nature of the sample, data c ollection procedures and the product involvement measurement (measured in advance) should be taken into consideration when interpreting the study s results and developing future res earch to extend and expand its scope. References Antil, J. H. (1984). Conceptualization and operationalization of involvement (Ad vances in consumer research XI ed.). Provo, UT: Association for consumer research, (203-209): Thomas C. Kinnear ed. Ariely, D. (2000). Controlling information flow: Effects on consumers' decision making and preference. Journal of Consumer Research, 27(2), 233-248. Ballantine, P. W. (2005). Effects of interactivity and product information on co nsumer satisfaction in an online retail setting. International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, 33(6), 461 -471. Berthon, P., Pitt, L. F., and Watson, R. T. (1996). Modeling response pattern to direct marketing campaigns. Journal of Marketing Research, 32, 204-213. Bezjian-Avery., A., Calder, B., and Iacobucci, D. (1998) Interactive advertising vs. traditional advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, 38(4), 23-32. Bidgoli, H. (Ed.). (2002). Electronic commerce: Principles and practice. London: Academic Press. Briggs, R., and Hollis, N. (1997). Advertising on the web: Is there response bef ore click-through? Journal of Advertising Research, 37(2), 33-45. Celsi, R. L., and Olson, J. C. (1988). The role of involvement in attention and comprehension process. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(2), 210-223. Chen, Q. and Wells, D. W. (1999). Attitude Toward the Site, Journal of Advertisi ng Research, 39(5), 27-37. Chen, Q., Griffith, D. A., and Shen, F. (2005). The effects of interactivity on cross-channel communication effectiveness. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 5(3), 30-44. Cho, C.H. and Leckenby, J.D. (1999). Interactivity as a Measure of advertising e ffectiveness, in Proceedings of the American Academy of Advertising, M.S. Roberts, ed. Gainesville, FL: University o f Florida, 162-179.

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The impact of Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use on Online Purchases: A comparison of Buyers and Non-Buyers Perceptions

Anastasios P. Pagiaslis Nottingham University Business School, anastasios.pagiaslis@nottingham.ac.uk George Ch. Maglaras University of Western Greece, Agrinio, Greece Prokopis K. Theodoridis University of Western Greece, Agrinio, Greece Abstract The study offers insights on the impact of subjective beliefs on online purchase s; utilising the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM; Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw, 1989). Data were collected through a field study survey of 200 respondents. Hypotheses based on a literatur e review are tested through multiple regression analyses and means differences analyses (T-te sts, Anova). Results show that the effect of perceived ease of use is completely mediated by perceived usefulness, while the strength of the relationships varies between buyers and no n-buyers. Demographics did not reveal important difference, except in the case of unemploy ed respondents who exemplify reduced attitudes as well as usage. The study posits t hat TAM is of high value in the effort to explain consumers esearch should online shopping behaviour. Future r

look into more detail the role of perceived ease of use as well as the role of e xternal predictors and their effects on the whole TAM model. Keywords: Technology Acceptance Model, Risk, ,Online Consumer Behaviour Introduction

The explosive internet adoption and the increase of internet users have great im pact on the way that today s commercial transactions are made. On line activities and particular e -shopping gives great opportunities in vendors and consumers as well. As a result examining cons umer behavior in the online environment is of primary concern. However, empirical research in the area of online shopping is rather limited (Lee et al., 2000). Consumers e-commerce accept ance requires the interaction of the shopper with the online shopping interface of the vendor s website. According to the literature perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) are two significant factors affecting the decision to adopt and then continue using the website for further online shopping (Gefen et al., 2003). PU and PEOU are the two behavioral beliefs (motivational factors) of the Technol ogy Acceptance Model (TAM). TAM is the most widely applied model in the Information Technology (IT) acceptance and use, a research area that has received high attention recently du e to its big impact on business performance. Despite the technological breakthroughs and the significant advances in computers hardware and software the problem of underutilized systems has 80

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications significant implications in business operations (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000). Ther e has been a significant progress during past years in explaining and predicting user accepta nce of information technology at work and the use of TAM gave a lot of insights towards this direction (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000). E-commerce through the World Wide Web is an emergin g new IT and thus TAM is applicable as a tool to understanding consumer acceptance and us e of ecommerce (Moon & Kim, 2000). The aim of the present study is to empirically investigate the differences in th e relationships between the TAM constructs by applying the model in two different consumer group s: buyers and non buyers, while investigating the different perceptions of the two groups. Literature review The Technology Acceptance Model The origins of TAM are based on the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), a model dev eloped by Ajzen and Fishbein (1980), which is concerned with the determinants of conscious ly intended behaviors. Its basic assumption is that people consciously decide if they will p erform or not a specific behavior. In fact, there are numerous criteria that they consider befor e actually performing a specific behavior (Bauer et al., 2005). Based on the work of Ajzen and Fishbein, Davis conceived that the relationship between belief, attitude, intention and be havior predicts user acceptance of IT (Lederer et al., 2000). TAM was developed to achieve two o bjectives. The first was the introduction of a model that could predict the acceptance of infor mation systems and the second was to give TAM an exploratory nature. In this way TAM can not on ly predict but also explain why a particular system is unacceptable by presenting the determina nts of behavior across a broad range of end-user computing technologies and user populations (Da vis et al., 1989). According to TAM there are two behavioral variables that lead to computer accept ance behaviors. These are the beliefs of PU and PEOU. PU is defined as the prospectiv e user s subjective probability that using a specific application system will increase hi s or her job performance within an organizational context (Davis et al., 1989). So, in a syst em with high PU,

the user believes that the system s use would yield positive benefits for task per formance (Teo et al., 1999). On the other hand, PEOU is defined as the spective user expects the target system to be free of effort. All else tion perceived to be easier to use than another is more likely to be accepted 1989). TAM s final dependent variable is the Actual System Usage. The model bles. Attitude degree to which the pro being equal, an applica by users (Davis et al., includes two more varia

towards system use which is defined as the user s evaluation of the desirability o f employing a particular information system s application and Behavioral Intention to use the sy stem which is a measure of the likelihood a person will employ the application (Lederer et al., 2000). In Figure 1 we can identify the relationships of the TAM s variables as presented in Davis et al. (1989). Behavioral Intention, which is the determinant of the actual system usage, is be ing directly affected by Attitude implying that an individual forms intentions to perform beh aviors towards which they have positive affect. In addition, Behavioral Intention is also deter mined by PU since people form intentions towards behaviors they believe will increase their perfor mance. Another important set of TAM s relationships is the direct impact of PU and PEOU on Attitu de which is based on TRA s principals that attitudes toward behavior are determined by relevan t beliefs. Finally, due to the expected increase of performance based on improved PEOU the model postulates that PEOU have a direct effect on PU (Davis et al., 1989). According to Venkatesh and Davis (2000), TAM has a great impact in explaining an d predicting user acceptance of information technology since it explains a substantial propor tion of the variance in an individual s usage behavior. It has received significant empirical support through 81

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications researches examining its explanatory power and measurement validity in different points in time, populations and technology settings (see for example: Venkatesh & Morris; 2000; Gefen and Straub, 1997; Davis and Venkatesh, 1996; Szajna, 1996; Adams et al., 1992). Initially, TAM was used to examine user acceptance in e-mail, word processing and graphics soft ware but its implementation has extended to diverse types of Information Systems, personal co mputing and other software. Recently, TAM was used to analyze people s behaviors on the Intern et (e.g. Lee et al., 2000). Figure 1. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Source: Davis et al. (1989: 985) Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use on the Web Companies tried to exploit the internet s potential as a new communication channel but many of them failed to utilize it because they never examined the perceptions of custome rs regarding the web (Lin and Lu, 2000). According to the literature a web site is an IT and therefore, the useantecedents of IT that were initially introduced by the TAM model, namely PU and PEOU, apply also in the case of a web site (Gefen et al., 2003). We can find a number of res earch attempts that used TAM in order to examine the user s perceptions of a web site and its acc eptance as an application. Teo et al. (1999) found that PU and PEOU predicted the website s Usag e and PU showed a stronger effect. In addition Morris and Dillon (1997) found that PEOU p redicted Usage. The results of the work of Lederer et al. (2000) also supported TAM in the case of work-related tasks with the World Wide Web as the application. On the contrary, Agarwal & Pra sad (1997) found that the effect of PEOU on Internet Usage was insignificant. Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use and E-Commerce The increase in on line activities and particular e-shopping that resulted from the explosive internet adoption in households gives great opportunities in both vendors and co nsumers through the creation of new channels for marketing, distribution and business to business transactions. Regardless the potential of e-commerce, to date it is not clear wh ich are the deciding factors that draw people to shop on the web. However, it is evident tha t a crucial factor

that influences the success of e-commerce is the effectiveness of the interface interacting with the consumers (Shaw et al., 1997). Since a web site is described as a form of IT , it is reasonable to use TAM in order to explain online purchase intentions (Gefen et al., 2003). There are a number of past researches in which TAM is applied in the e-commerce concept and their results validate the model s propositions. Gefen and Straub (2000) showed that PU affects the Intention to use a web site while PEOU s effect depends on the reason of usage. Moreover, th e results of their research suggest that PEOU affects PU. The work of Lee et al. (2000) also confirmed TAM model and showed that PU had a strong direct impact on Purchasing Behavior. In a ddition, the 82

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications construct of PEOU had higher indirect than direct impact on Purchasing Behavior. Devaraj et al. (2002) showed that PEOU of an e-commerce channel had higher impact on Satisfacti on with the channel than PU did. In addition, they confirmed the relationship between PEOU a nd PU. However, Koufaris (2002) showed that only PU had a significant impact on the con sumer s Intention to Return to a web-based store. Gefen et al. (2003), presented a direc t impact of PU and PEOU on Intended Use and a strong relationship between PEOU and PU. Finally, the work of Hererro Crespo et al. (2009) supports the relationship of PU with Attitude and I ntention and that of PEOU with PU but does not support the PEOU-Attitude relationship. As discussed above, TAM has been successfully applied for examining online consu mer behavior. However, most of these researches have been usually focused in buyers and have perceptions

neglected the non-buyers behavior (Hernandez Garcia et al., 2010). Moreover, in the work of Hererro Crespo et al. (2009) we can identify differences in the perceptions of u sefulness, ease of use and attitudes towards online shopping between consumers with past online buy ing experience (buyers) and consumers who have not made any online purchases (non-bu yers). For these reason we examine the following hypothesis in our paper: H1: Consumers who have purchased online (buyers) will have more positive percept ions of usefulness, ease of use & attitudes towards online shopping than consumers wh o have not made any online purchases (non-buyers). Examination of Attitude in TAM Brown et al. (2002) reports that until today the research on IT has examined the role of Attitude towards the output of a system and has neglected the Attitude towards using the system. The initial TAM model included the Attitude construct which had a direct effect on B ehavioral Intension as discussed above. However, in the later study of Davis et al. (1989) the authors found that the explanatory power of TAM was equally good and more parsimonious w ithout Attitude. As a result the majority of the following researches in TAM didn t take account of Attitude in the model (Yousafzai et al., 2007). However, the number of researche s using the Attitude construct as part of TAM to explain online shopping behavior (e.g. Here rro Crespo et al.,

2009; Lee and Lee, 2003; Olson and Boyer, 2003; Chen et al., 2002; Devraj et al. , 2002) and the number that don t (e.g. Gefen et al., 2003; Pavlou, 2003; Koufaris, 2002; Aladwani , 2002; Lee et al., 2000) is quite similar. The exclusion of the Attitude construct could be ba sed on the fact that TAM was initially developed for workplace settings where intentions are formed b ased primarily on performance considerations rather than simply on personal likes with respect to performing a behavior (Yousafzai et al., 2007). Moreover, according to Teo (2009), Attitude i s a significant predictor of the Intension to Use technology in settings where the use of techno logy is voluntary and such is the case of online shopping. For this reason, the present study focu ses on explicitly investigating this particular part of the TAM;, that is the interrelation betwee n PU, PEOU and attitude towards online shopping. These relationships are seen in Figure 2 and a re stated in the following hypotheses. H2: Consumers perceived usefulness of e-commerce has a positive direct impact on their attitudes towards online shopping. H3: Consumers perceived ease of use of e-commerce has a positive direct impact on their attitudes towards online shopping. H4: Consumers perceived ease of use of e-commerce has a positive direct impact on their perceived usefulness of e-commerce. Figure 2. Tested model with Hypotheses 83

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Data and methods The study is based on a convenience sample of 200 young adults in mainland Greec e encompassing both rural and urban areas (See Table 1). Data collection was compl eted through personal survey interviews using graduate students as field researchers after th ey had been trained on the completion of the questionnaire by the authors. The questionnaire was printed out, handed out to the different consumers and self-completed by the study parti cipants. The majority of the respondents were females, while mean age was 24 years old. Overa ll the sample represents the slightly younger more technologically savvy, university educated consumer audience which is more likely to be acquainted with and consistently purchase go ods and services online (Li and Zhang, 2002). The choice of the sample is based on stati stic figures regarding the Internet diffusion in Greece (Observatory for the Greek Informatio n Society, 2010a) that show the typical Greek Internet user of younger age. In particular t he Internet usage in people between 16 and 24 years old is as high as 92%, between 25 and 34 years of age is 74% and beyond 35 years of age is significantly lower. Education plays a significant role in Internet usage and people of higher educational level show significantly higher Internet usage levels. Another important demographic characteristic is the place of residence since onl y the big urban areas show Internet usage higher than 50 %. Regarding sex, males are heavier use rs than females in Greece (52% and 37% in the Greek population respectively). However, i n younger ages no differences in the Internet usage between men and women are detected. In addition the figures regarding the profile of the Greek online consumer clearly suggest that the demographic characteristics of the Greek online consumers are in a high degree similar with those of the Greek Internet user (Observatory for the Greek Information Society, 2010b). Thus , the sample is closely representative of the majority of online consumers. 84

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 1. Sample s Socio-demographic Profile, %, N=200 Gender Male Female 39 61 Age 18 23 24 . 30 30 . 35 60.5 30 9.5 Marital Status Married Single 9 91 Place of residence Urban Areas Rural Areas 67.5 32.5 Educational level Secondary Tertiary education Postgraduate degree education 10.5 79.5 10 Work Status Full . time Part . time Student Unemployed 34 14 48.5 3.5 Employment Type Self . employed Employee Student Unemployed 17.5 30.5 48.5 3.5 Monthly household income, <1,000 1,001 . 1,500 >1,501 74 18 8 The majority of the sample has at least one computer in their house while signif icant percentage also state that they own two or more computers (see Table 2). The percentages of desktop owners are approximately similar to those of laptop owners; this high degree of laptop adoption could point out to the mobile and energetic lifestyles of this younger generatio n. Fifty-five per cent of the sample reported having shopped online, a variety of goods with the m ost prominent among them being: a) Travel related goods (e.g. airplane tickets and hotel reser vations), b)

Computer related products (e.g. desktops, laptops, USB drives, external hard dri ves etc.), c) Clothes, shoes and accessories, d) Books, music and movies and e) Electronic dev ices (e.g. MP3 players, Hi-Fi systems, etc.). Nevertheless, even for this young generation the mean purchase online is between one hundred and three hundred Euros and only twenty percent of the sample reports more than five purchases per year (i.e. less than 1 purchase every two m onths). 85

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 2. Sample s online purchasing profile, %, N=200 Number of computers in house One Two 41.5 35.5 More than three 23 Types of computers in house Desktop Laptop 71.5 70 Net-book 15 Have purchased online Yes No 55 45 Product Categories bought online (most frequently)a Travel b Computer products Clothes, shoes & accessories 35 30.5 21 Books, music & movies 18 Electronic devices c 17.5 Number of online purchases, in the last year One Two Five More than five 16.4 Last <100 37.3 63.6 20 online purchase value, in 100 300 >300 44.4 18.3

a: Other product categories purchased online include (%): Financial services (15 .5), Gadgets & electronic gaming (10), Flowers & gifts (3), Electric appliances (1.5), Jewellery (1). b: Travel includes: airplane & other transportation tickets, hotel & accommodati on reservations as well as booking of vacation packages. c: Electronic devices include: Hi-Fi systems, DVD players, Television sets etc. The questionnaire used in the present study included three parts. The first part included questions regarding consumers online purchases. The second part comprised the que stions measuring consumers perceived e-commerce usefulness and ease of use as well as th eir attitudes towards online shopping. The third part composed of the demographic qu estions. PU, PEOU and Attitude towards online shopping were measured in two different que stions containing items rated on Likert types scales from 1 I totally disagree to 10 ally agree . The question measuring PU and PEOU begun with the introductory sentence: I generally feel that... while the question measuring the attitudes begun with the introductory

I tot

sentence: Shopping online is... . Both questions asked respondents to rate their ag reement with the relevant statements accordingly. All measures were adopted from previou s research with the necessary adaptation. Specifically, the present study used the PU, PEOU and Attitude towards e-commerce proposed by Hererro Crespo et al. (2009). The aforementioned study adapted the original scales of the technology acceptance model as developed thro ugh the proposals of Taylor and Todd (1995), Gefen and Straub (2000) and van der Heijden , Verhagen, and Creamers (2003). All studies have reported satisfactory validity and reliabi lity of the measures. For the definition of the final questionnaire the researchers pre-teste d the initial draft with 10 consumers to check for comprehension and issues of wording, releva nce and presentation of the items included in the questionnaire. The final questionnaire was produced after only minor changes were implemented mainly in the wording of certain quest ions. The final sample of the study does not include the pre-test consumers. The present research used Principal Component Factor Analysis (PCA) and Cronbach Alpha analysis to test for the reliability and validity of the adopted scales. The res ults (see Table 3) 86

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications reveal that all scales are uni-dimensional and reliable. The scores on each fact or are computed by averaging item ratings per factor per respondent. Finally, to test the hypotheses put forward in the previous section and to inves tigate the relationships between PU, PEOU and attitude towards online shopping, two kinds o f analyses were used. To test for Hypothesis 1 t-tests were run to examine the existence of significant differences between group means (buyers vs non buyers). To test for Hypotheses 2-4 multiple regression analysis (MRA) was run, due to the relatively small sample and the in ability to utilise more statistically complex methods such as SEM due to the small ratio of observa tions to the requested parameters for specification. Analysis and results Preliminary analyses assessed descriptive statistics for all the items used, as well as the internal consistency (reliability) for each factor in the model. As can be observed from Table 3 the respondents seem to find online shopping relatively easy, while their ratings bo th in term of PU as well as in terms of attitudes are positive but reserved. Skewness and Kurtosi s, for all observed items, are near zero and thus univariate normality is assured. All cons tructs are internally consistent, as Cronbach alpha values are greater than 0.80 (Nunnally, 1978), while all item loadings are strong, ranging from 0.605 to 0.968 (see Table 3). 87

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 88 Table 3. Descriptive Statistics, Factor Loadings and Factor Reliability, N=200 Code Questionnaire Scale Items Factor Label Factors Mean / SD 1 2 3 Q8_1 ... something I like doing Attitude towards online shopping 0.946 6.205 / 3.140 Q8_2 ... a smart idea 0.968 6.425 / 3.002 Q8_3 ... a good idea 0.963 6.365 / 3.025 Q8_4 ... a positive idea 0.946 6.415 / 3.043 Q9_1 ...using the Internet to purchase makes shopping easier Perceived Usefulness 0.862 6.750 / 2.667 Q9_3 ...shopping online enables me to shop faster 0.835 7.060 / 2.674 Q9_5 ...shopping online enhances my shopping effectiveness 0.866 6.545 / 2.765 Q9_7 ...shopping online is useful to get better purchases 0.848 6.095 / 2.748 Q9_2 ...using the Internet for shopping is easy to learn for me. Perceived Ease of Use

0.890 8.225 / 2.240 Q9_4 ...using the Internet for shopping is easy. 0.817 7.495 / 2.620 Q9_6 ...using the Internet for shopping would require a lot of mental effort (R) 0.605 7.465 / 2.252 Q9_8 ...it would be easy for me to follow the instructions provided on online shops 0.880 8.125 / 2.240 Cronbach Alpha 0.969 0.875 0.813 KMO 0.876 0.798 0.755 % of Variance explained 91.417 72.711 64.989 Eigenvalues 3.657 2.908 2.600 Mean/ SD 6.353 / 0.206 6.613 / 0.164 7.828 / 0.136 In terms of demographics, some results worth mentioning (analyses included t-tes ts and ANOVA s for all variables as well as the relevant non-parametric tests; only stati stically significant relationships are reported). Analyses show an effect of employment t ype and / or work status on attitude towards online shopping for consumers who have shopped o nline. Univariate analysis of variance (UNIANOVA) shows that when attitude towards onli ne shopping is controlled for buyers / non-buyers then the unemployed consumers exhibit stat istically significant lower attitudes towards online shopping (Overall F=23.024, p<0.0001) . Further, analyses exhibit a linear relationship between the number of online purchases in the last 12 months and attitude towards online purchases. The higher the number of purchases the higher the reported attitude towards online shopping (ANOVA F= 3.446, p< 0.035). Simila rly a pattern appears between the last online purchase value and attitude towards online shopp ing; the

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications higher the value of the last purchase the more positive the attitude towards onl ine shopping (ANOVA F=4.497, p< 0.013). Hypotheses Testing T-tests T-test results can be found in Table 4. All hypothesized relationships are confi rmed, as is evident from the t-test values. More specifically, comparing buyers with non-buyers, a s tatistically significant difference (t-value = 8.015, p< 0.001) emerges regarding their PU of online shopping (mean scores = 7.540 and 5.034 for buyers and non-buyers respectively). Similarl y, statistically significant differences result (t-value = 5.387, p< 0.001(for PEOU) and t-value = 10.430, p<0.001(for Attitude)) in terms of PEOU and attitude towards online shopping (me an scores = 8.400 and 6.860 for PEOU and 7.760 and 3.960 for attitude for buyers and non-buy ers respectively). This finding supports hypothesis H1. Table 4. T-tests of Buyers ~ Non Buyers mean differences per construct, N=200 t Mean SD P value Buyers 7.540 1.726 8.015 0.001 Perceived Usefulness Non Buyers 5.034 2.342

Buyers 8.400 1.520 5.387 0.001 Perceived Ease of Use Non Buyers 6.860 2.164

Attitude towards online Buyers 7.760 1.930 10.430 0.001 shopping Non Buyers 3.960 2.763 Regression Analyses Tables 5, 6 and figure 3 summarise the results of the regression analyses for th e non buyers and buyers groups. Hypothesis 2 predicts that PU of e-commerce has a positive direct impact on cons umers attitudes towards online shopping. Regression analyses confirm the hypothesis fo r both buyers

and non-buyers. In fact the analyses show that PU has a very strong and pronounc ed impact on attitudes towards online shopping. 89

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 5. Regression results for Non Buyers, N=74 Regression equation for Non-buyers -Full model Dependent Variable: Attitude towards online shopping Variables entered Standardised beta Standard error T value Sig. PU 0.634 0.111 6.753 0.001 PEOU 0.085 0.120 0.906 0.368 Regression equation for Non-buyers -Reduced model Dependent Variable: Attitude towards online shopping Variables entered Standardised beta Standard error T value Sig. PU 0.664 0.104 7.528 0.001 Overall F=56.677, p<0.0001, R2=0.440, adjusted R2=0.433. Regression equation for Non-buyers Dependent Variable: Perceived usefulness of online shopping Variables entered Standardised beta Standard error T value Sig. PEOU

0.343 0.120 3.096 0.003 Overall F=9.854, p<0.003, R2=0.117, adjusted R2=0.105. Hypothesis 3 examines whether PEOU of e-commerce has a direct positive impact on consumers attitudes towards online shopping. Regression analyses reveal that for both buyers and non-buyers PEOU does not have a direct impact on attitudes towards online sh opping. Table 6. Regression results for Buyers, N=126 Regression equation for Buyers -Full model Dependent Variable: Attitude towards online shopping Variables entered Standardised beta Standard error T value Sig. PU 0.585 0.099 6.574 0.001 PEOU 0.036 0.113 0.405 0.686 Regression equation for Buyers -Reduced model Dependent Variable: Attitude towards online shopping Variables entered Standardised beta Standard error T value Sig. PU 0.606

0.080 8.480 0.001 Overall F=71.905, p<0.0001, R2=0.367, adjusted R2=0.362. Regression equation for Buyers -Reduced model Dependent Variable: Perceived usefulness of online shopping Variables entered Standardised beta Standard error T value Sig. PEOU 0.592 0.082 8.172 0.001 Overall F=66.779, p<0.0001, R2=0.350, adjusted R2=0.345. This research suggests that the unexpected result is a direct outcome of the sam ple demographics in the current study, as one would expect that young consumers desp ite having differing abilities in using online shops they are, in general, quite versed and accustomed to online operations so PEOU is a secondary issue for them. This is supported by ex ecuting partial correlations for correlating PEOU to attitude controlling for PU where it is evi dent that although PEOU and attitude towards online shopping are correlated the correlation becomes non significant and almost completely vanishes after introducing PU (initial correla tion PEOU Attitude: r = 0.486, p<0.0001; controlling for PU: r = 0.115, p<0.105). Finally, Hypothesis 3 predicts that PEOU has a direct positive impact on PU. The data support this hypothesis and find that PEOU has a significant impact on PU. It is however interesting to observe that the impact differs significantly between buyers and non-buyers, not only in terms of the beta coefficient but more importantly in the percentage of variance it ex plains in the two 90

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications cases. Thus, in non-buyers the impact of PEOU on PU is approximately 40% lower ( beta coefficients comparison) and explains only 10% of variance of PU. This finding p oints to the direction that non-buyers perceptions of usefulness are influenced largely by oth er factors;, factors that could be related to perceptions of risk (Crespo et al., 2009), emot ions related to computer usage, computer self efficacy and computer playfulness (Venkatesh, 2000 ; Venkatesh & Davis, 1996). Figure 3. Regression models for Non-buyers / Buyers group Non Buyers Group Buyers Group In both buyers and non buyers regression analyses illustrate that the effect of PEOU on Attitude is completely mediated through PU. This finding is partially in agreeme nt and disagreement with the vicarious nature of PEOU impact, as exemplified from previ ous research (see for example Venkatesh & Davis, 2000 where PEOU has a significant impact acr oss all studied environments; Subramanian, 1994 where the impact of PEOU is insignificant in all examined settings; and Davis et al., 1989: the impact of PEOU is only significant in the second study). 91

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Discussion The findings of this study offer implications for marketers who want to understa nd the proponents of online shopping behavior and promote those features of their busin ess that may help attract more users and buyers. Taken together, results suggest that PU and PEOU are indeed important predictors of technology related behaviours albeit some relatio nships may appear or become weak under specific conditions. Specifically, the observed non significant relationship between PEOU and Attitude towards online shopping come in partial a ccordance with previous research (e.g. Herrero Crespo et al., 2009; Brown et al., 2002; Ag arwal and Prasad, 2000; Davis et al., 1989 (first study);) and give way to the relevant literature that discusses the relative effect of PEOU on Attitude, Intention and Usage especially when taking under consideration respondents experience with computing and the level of self-reporte d perceived technological (specific to the technology examined) competence (Szajna, 1996; Ig baria and Iivari, 1995;). Past research suggests that PEOU s effect on Attitude, Intention and Usage is of vicarious nature and the dependence of the effect on whether the usage context i s volitional or not, whether or not users are experienced, and whether the final outcome is much more important than the actual system characteristics leading to that outcome. The pr esent study posits that in technological contexts where the end-users are highly familiarize d and competent with the processes of the specific technology under examination (as is the case with young people and online shopping) PEOU will have a reduced or even non-significant eff ect on Attitude, Intention and / or Usage. Albeit the present study does not explicitly account for user experience or competence, the findings suggest that experience and / or comptenc e may indeed be a significant predictor of online shopping and technology acceptance in gener al. More specifically, the study s results corroborate past findings regarding both th e strong positive connection between PU and attitude as well as the strong positive connection bet ween PU and PEOU. These findings point not only to the confirmation of validity and reliabil ity of the TAM model but also to the ability of the TAM model to explain online shopping behavi our. Additionally, the study s results raise interesting questions regarding the differ ence between the

observed behaviour differences between the groups relationships between people who ernet for purchasing before. h online

of non-buyers versus buyers. The study tried to evaluate the by exploring the difference in means and strength of reported had never made an online purchase and people who had used int As Herrero Crespo et al. (2009) note, previous experience wit decision to repeat an online purchase. The present stud

shopping shapes consumers y similarly

contents that previous experience with online shops informs the attitude of cons umers towards online shopping. Indeed analyses confirm this initial hypothesis, and further sh ow that nonbuyers differ from buyers not only in terms of mean attitude but also in terms o f mean beliefs (PU, PEOU); they also differ in the strength and explanatory power of the examin ed relationships. The study s results show that non-buyers hold less positive beliefs and attitudes than buyers; results also corroborate previous research (Herrero Cresp et al., 2 009) regarding the differences in the strength and explanatory power of the examined constructs . As in the case of Herrero Crespo et al. our findings also suggest that the non-buyers belie fs of the system s (i.e. online shopping) usefulness have a higher impact on attitude toward s online shopping when compared with the impact of PU on attitudes in the case of buyers. Regarding demographics, previous meta analyses of research suggest that demograp hics have been found to play a role both as far as the TAM model is concerned (Youfzai et al., 2007) as well as far as more generic investigations of online consumer behaviour are concerned (Li and Zhang, 2002). Former research (Li and Zhang, 2002) suggests that the online population is relatively younger, more educated and somewhat wealthier; following this the present study focused on this type of population. The study s results concerning demographics however did n ot provide any particular statistically significant results except in the case of unemploye d respondents who 92

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications exhibited lower attitudes as well as beliefs towards online shopping (when contr olled for buyers / non-buyers). As Li and Zhang (2002) note previous studies suggest that people who have a more wired lifestyle ve attitudes and more intense time constraints seem to exhibit more positi

and beliefs towards online shopping as well as a higher number of online purchas es. This observation could partially explain why unemployed people have lowered attitudes and beliefs since they are less time constrained and most probably lead a much less estyle than wired lif

employed individuals. The results obtained show a series of relevant implications for businesses. In t he first place, the need to achieve that individuals improve their general attitude towards shopping online, emphasizing its usefulness against other more traditional channels of purchase. In addition, in view of the non significant impact of PEOU on attitudes and its reduced signific ance on PU as far as non-buyers are concerned, the firms presently online have to look into ex ternal factors influencing consumers specific beliefs for online shopping such as perceptions of risk (Herrero Crespo et al., 2009), general computer competence or playfulness (Venkatesh, 200 0; Venkatesh & Davis, 1996) and perceptions of the internet s compatibility as a shopping mediu m in terms of lifestyle (Hernandez-Garcia et al., 2010). Finally, this study has some limitations. The most important limitation comes fr om the choice of sample in the present study to include mainly young consumers familiar both with computer technology as well as the general processes of buying online. Another limitation comes from the study s examination of a slightly shortened TAM model since we did not investigate the effects of PU and PEOU as well as attitude on behavioural intention to shop online. Futu re research should be generalised across larger population samples including as well intenti ons and when possible actual system usage (Youfzai et al., 2007). Future research should look into more detail the differences between buyers and non-buyers and account for the effect of prev ious experience on attitudes, beliefs and intention. References

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Hernandez Garcia, A., S., Iglesias Pradas, J., Chaparro Pelaez, and, F., Pascual Miguel. 2010. Perceived Compatibility and the Adoption of B2C E-Commerce by Non-buyers. Communications in Computer and Information Science 112: 186-192. Herrero Crespo, A., I. Rodriguez del Bosque, and M. M. Garcia de los Salmones. 2 009. The influence of perceived risk on Internet shopping behavior: A multidimensional perspective. Journal of Risk R esearch 12: 259 277. Igbaria, M,. and Iivari, J. 1995, The effect of self-efficacy on computer usage, Omega 23(6): 587 605. Koufaris, M. 2002. Applying the technology acceptance model and flow theory to o nline consumer behavior. Information Systems Research 13(2): 205-223. Lederer, A.L., D.J., Maupin, M.P., Sena, and Y., Zhuang. 2000. The technology ac ceptance model and the World Wide Web. Decision Support Systems 29: 269-282. Lee, D., J., Park, and, J., Ahn. 2000. On the Explanation of Factors Affecting E -Commerce Adoption. Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Information Systems, Storey, V., S. Sarker, and , J. I. DeGross (eds.), New Orleans, Louisiana, 2001, 109-120. Lee, K., and, S., Lee. 2003. Cognitive map simulation approach to adjusting the design fa ctors of the electronic commerce web sites. Expert Systems with Applications 24(1): 1-11. Li, N., & Zhang, P., 2002. Consumer Online Shopping Attitudes and Behavior: An A ssessment of Research. Eighth Americas Conference on Information Systems, August 9-11, Dallas, Texas USA: 508 517. Lin, J.C.C., and H., Lu. 2000. Towards an understanding of the behavioural inten tion to use a web site. International Journal of Information Management 20: 197-208. Moon, J.W., and, Y.G., Kim. 2000. Extending the TAM for a World-Wide-Web context . Information & Management 38: 217-230. Morris, M.G., and A., Dillon. 1997. How user perceptions influence software use, decision support systems, IEEE Software (1997) 58-65, Jouly-August. Nunnally, J. C. 1978, Psychometric Theory, (2nd ed.), New York: McGraw Hill. Observatory of the Greek Information Society. 2010a. Internet uses profile in Gre ece. March. Observatory of the Greek Information Society. 2010b. Distant purchasing in Greec e. July. Olson, J.R., and, K.K., Boyer. 2003. Factors influencing the utilization of Inte rnet purchasing in small organizations. Journal of Operations Management 21(2): 225-245.

Pavlou, P.A. 2003. Consumer acceptance of electronic commerce: integrating trust and risk with the technology acceptance model. International Journal of Electronic Commerce 7(3): 69-103. Shaw, M.J. 1997. Research opportunities in electronic commerce. Decision Support Systems 21: 149-156. Subramanian, G.H. 1994. A replication of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of Use Measurement. Decision Sciences 25: 863 874. Szajna, B. 1996. Empirical evaluation of the revised technology acceptance model . Management Science 42(1): 85-92. Taylor, S., and P.A., Todd. 1995. Understanding information technology usage: A test of competing models. Information Systems Research 6(2): 144 176. Teo T.S.H., V.K.G., Lim, and R.Y.C., Lai. 1999. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivati on in Internet usage. Omega, The International Journal of Management Science 27: 25-37. Teo, T. 2009. Is there an attitude problem? Reconsidering the role of attitude i n the TAM. British Journal of Educational Technology 40(6): 1139-1141. van der Heijden, H.T., T., Verhagen, and M., Creemers. 2003. Understanding onlin e purchase intentions: Contributions from technology and trust perspectives. European Journal of Information Systems 12(1): 41 48. Venkatesh, V. 2000. Determinants of Perceived Ease of Use: Integrating Control, Intrinsic Motivation, and Emotion into the Technology Acceptance Model. Information Systems Research 11: 342 365. Venkatesh, V. and F., Davis. 1996. A Model of the Antecedents of Perceived Ease of Use: Development and Test. Decision Sciences 27: 451-481. Venkatesh, V. and F.D., Davis. 2000. A Theoretical Extension of the Technology A cceptance Model: Four Longitudinal Field Studies. Management Science 46(2): 186-204. Venkatesh, V., and M.G., Morris. 2000. Why don t men ever stop to ask for directio ns? Gender, social influence, and their role in technology acceptance and usage behavior. MIS Quarterly 24(1): 115 -139. Yousafzai, S.Y., G.R., Foxall, and, J.G., Pallister. 2007. Technology acceptance : a meta-analysis of the TAM: Part 1. Journal of Modelling in Management 2(3): 251-280. 94

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Marketing on the go

Christina Boutsouki Assistant Professor, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Greece, Department of Economics chbouts@econ.auth.gr Elli Vlachopoulou PhD Candidate, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Greece, Department of Econom ics Abstract Purpose The entrance of new media has changed the way marketers promote their br ands. There has been a shift from PC Internet usage to mobile Internet usage, as more and more consumers own a mobile device through which they publish their profiles and loca tions. The aim of this paper is to open a discussion regarding the opportunities of Mobile Web advertising. Findings Advertisers need to investigate the correlations between the user s diffe rent activities during his path, cooperate with each other and target accordingly. Conclusions with The Internet is becoming portable and daily, and the same is happening

Mobile Internet advertising. Keywords: Mobile Internet, mobile advertising, social media, data mining. Introduction Marketing innovation has never been so important as nowadays. The economic crisi s and the intensified competition are hindering company performance. Marketers need to rea ssess their brands positioning and performance. New media, and specifically the Internet, provides a new way for marketers to pr omote their brands. A shift from traditional media advertising to Internet advertising is ap parent. PC Internet usage is giving way to mobile Internet usage, due to the competitive advantages mobile phones are providing to the users. Marketers are coming to exploit this shift, by deliv ering more

targeted, personalised and strong

daily

advertising messages in order to build trust and

relationships between their brands and the consumers. Consumers are time and money restricted, more demanding and informed, most of th em own a mobile device through which they participate in Social Media in order to gain so ciability, interactivity, information and to be entertained. The advertisers exploit the pu blication of users profiles and locations by sending to them more targeted SMS messages (location-b ased advertising). The value chain of Content Providers companies and Telecommunications companies has been changing, giving the best examples of Apple s acquisition of mobile company Quattr o Wireless, and Google s acquisition of one of the largest mobile ad networks, AdMob. What should advertisers do in order to survive in this highly competitive and ch anging environment? How can they exploit the growth of both mobile Internet marketing a nd social networking sites in order to get closer to consumers and prospective customers i n their daily lives? Overview of the issues 95

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Market Crisis, Opportunities and Innovation Market Crisis means need for changes, time for searching and exploiting new opport unities. As Danneels (2002) supported, in times of environmental changes and economic crisis , the need for innovation is more imperative than ever before. At the same time, the role of marketing communication is changing, leading marke ting innovation to a contributing factor to firm survival (Naidoo, 2010, Harris & Rae , 2009). Naidoo (2010) examined Chinese small to medium manufacturers as case studies and he fou nd that if they had developed a sustainable competitive advantage, they would have had a gr eater likelihood of survival. Marketers need to pay attention on improving one, all, or some of the four eleme nts of marketing mix, product, price, placement, promotion, in order to survive and suc ceed in the highly competitive, aggressive and turbulent market. The launch of New Media New media has had a high impact on promotion, the fourth element of the marketin g mix, in terms of what media do marketers use to promote their brands more effectively. A ccording to BBC (2009), online advertising has overtaken TV. The Internet has started being a major advertising medium due to the population s higher Internet accessibility, technolo gical improvements, such as broadband, and the realisation of the potential of search engines as an advertising vehicle (Taylor, 2009). Pergelova, Prior and Rialp (2010) used a sam ple from the Spanish automobile industry and found that online advertising can help increase overall advertising efficiency. We live in an era where branding and interactivity are more important to markete rs than ever before. Digital advertising has a unique capacity of brand building and interact ivity (Taylor, 2009), as it expands reach, minimizes time lag, promotes brands to the relevant audience, engage it with the brand in depth, resulting in building relationships with cons umers (Harris & Rae, 2009). According to Peters (1998), increased user control, specialised content, speed o f transmission and non-linear access, are some of new media core characteristics that marketers must take advantage of them.

PC & mobile Internet usage and the role of advertising Apart from the shift from traditional media advertising to Internet advertising, another shift has been noticed the last couple of years, within the Internet usage; a shift from P C Internet usage to mobile Internet usage (Okazaki, 2010). This shift is due to the ability of mobile devices to provide the traditional In ternet functions of the PC format, such as email, chat, web browsing, entertainment, and information searching (Okazaki, 2004), plus some competitive advantages such as, the smaller size of t he device, the greater flexibility in terms of time and space, its user friendly interface, and the ability to compare alternatives at the point of purchase (Okazaki, 2010). However, the most unique characteristic of mobile Internet is that most of consu mers carry all the time with them their mobile devices that operate in an always on mode (Taylor, 2009). The Internet is being transferred from PC to mobile, becoming more movable and daily . The same must happen with advertising, which must be more targeted, daily , and interac tive in order to engage the user with the brand, fulfil his needs at the right place, th e right time, with the right message and build strong relationships. 96

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The Mobile Web and the use of SMS The mobile Internet is the convergence of the Internet and wireless technology ( Okazaki, 2005). Such technology innovations change the way people use and experience technology (Petruzzellis, 2010). The mobile phone is the newest medium of interactive marke ting and advertising, where advertising takes on forms similar to web advertising, such a s web links, email, banner ads e.t.c., but it also a form unique to the mobile phone: SMS (Sh ort Message Service) advertisements (Wei et al., 2010). SMS advertisement is the most successful killer mobile service application (Dick inger et al., 2005, Wei and Lo, 2006). Asia was the world s largest mobile advertising market with $1. 5bn in 2010 (Warc, 2010). During the same year, in Singapore, a world leader in SMS usage, S MS messages averages 330 per user per month (IDA, 2010). But is there a right time and place for consumers to receive and respond positiv ely to SMS advertising messages (Banerjee & Dholakia, 2008)? According to their research, t hey found that consumers are willing to respond to the offer depending on the strategy (locatio n-based or location irrelevant) and where the location is. According to the location-based strategy, a consumer is less likely to respond to an offer when the ad is received at a priv ate location than at a public one. In case of the location irrelevant, consumer is willing to resp ond across both locations. Mobile advertising is becoming more ubiquitous, which means that the mobile phon e as a personal technology must be taken seriously from the advertisers, who must be se lective, by sending informative, entertaining, interactive and permission-based messages to the right person at the right time (Wei et al., 2010). The value chain of companies and the impact on mobile Internet advertising It has been noticed lately a change in the value chain of Content Providers comp anies and Telecommunications companies. According to Buskirk (2010), Apple has acquired mo bile ad company, Quattro Wireless and Google has acquired one of the largest mobile ad n etworks, AdMob. In that way they can place ads on iPhone OS devices, and Android OS devic es, respectively, which give them an advantage towards other advertisers and smaller networks. Also, it seems that mobile advertising has its Coke and Pepsi (Eliot, 2010).

There has been a rising demand from big brands to launch mobile campaigns (Reute rs, 2010),

but most of the expenditure was about brand awareness. According to Andrew Bud ( 2010), co founder and Executive Chairman of the world s largest mobile transaction network, mBlow, the spend on mobile advertising had been held back by the fact that the only transac tions currently conducted on mobile phones was to buy mobile entertainment . He believes that the mobile phone could become a very powerful medium for visual advertising due to its time less, the focus of attention you have on it and the quality of its screen. It is the medium thro ugh which targeted ads can be sent based on consumer s behavior and location. The problem is how consumers response to mobile ads, are they annoyed? And how m arketers must handle it? Roachm (2009) found that there is a significant and positive rel ationship between a consumer s level of involvement with their mobile phone, and their inten tion to adopt marketing communication sent via this medium. Moreover, according to Taylor s (2009) six digital advertising principles, Marketer s must be sensitive to consumer concerns about privacy and spam . This means that marketers need to know in depth their targets characteristics, such as behaviour and location, in o rder to send them as much relevant messages as possible. They need to start building relation ships with 97

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications them in order to have more success, because consumers are more likely to respond to digital ads for products that are relevant to them. Another Taylor s (2009) digital advertising principle is that of trust. It has bee n found that consumers are more able to accept digital ads from a trusted source. This credib ility of the source sender has also been supported by Nantel and Sekhavat (2008) who tested t he influence of the language and the source of an SMS advertisement on consumer s attitudes and purchase intention generated by the message. Social Networking Sites (SNS) and Web 2.0 Social networking sites are amongst the most visited sites on the Internet (Keen an & Shiri, 2009) and they keep growing exponentially. They encourage interaction through profilebased user accounts, named Web 2.0 (Harris & Rae, 2009). Some of the most popular SNS are Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Flickr, and Linked In. Each one of them has different social features but the emphasis to almost all of them has be en transferred from topics and interests to individuals and their identities (Keenan & Shiri, 2 009). Users are uploading their photos and videos in order to interact and socialise with other friends or users with common friends and interests. They can portray themselves in the most posit ive light, in order to aspire an ideal self (Dunne, Lawlor & Rowley, 2010). Fraser and Dutta ( 2008) well described them as Generation V , because many of them have never experienced life w ithout the Internet. Dunne, Lawlor and Rowley (2010) explored aged 12-14 years seek and obtain from the Bebo SNS. Among ate their profiles, to examine other users pages, eer acceptance, to make friends, to maintain group and to the uses and gratifications that girls the reasons girls visit Bebo are to upd to communicate with others, to maintain p existing friendships, to feel part of a

escape from boredom. It is obvious that SNSs have a significant role in the girl s lives and the reasons for visiting them are varied. Through SNSs, consumers publish their profiles and locations, which gives market ers the opportunity to exploit this information through data mining and deliver consumer s with more targeted messages.

Discussion & Research Proposal The objective of this paper was to provide a literature review on the new media and its trends, while at the same time to open a discussion for mobile Internet advertising. As you can see in Figure 1, the entrance of new media resulted in a high Interne t usage but also in a shift from PC to mobile Internet usage. Companies have started reassessing their value chains and investing more in mobile advertising by integrating the mobile medium into their marketing mix. At the same time, consumers interests and needs have changed, they look for more targeted, personalised, instant and updated information, and they participa te in SNSs and gaming (through applications) to gain more sociability, interactivity, informati on and entertainment. Advertisers need to analyse the information they gain from the above through a d ata mining process, which will provide them with a deeper overview of what consumers need a nytime, anywhere. Consumers are always online through their mobile devices, which means that advertisers can follow not only some of consumer s spots but the whole track; all the activities that a user follows during a day (e.g. a bookshop, a clothing shop, a restaurant ) and then create a profile for him. Advertisers then, need to investigate, through cross referenc e, the correlations between the user s different activities throughout his path and then to cooperate with each 98

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications others from different backgrounds (e.g. a bookshop, a clothing shop, e.t.c.) and target each customer with personalised messages. This leads to the need for a different strategy for companies to succeed, a port able marketing strategy, through mobile Internet advertising with daily, and targeted messages.

Figure 1.Framework of Marketing on the go New media A shift from PC to mobile Internet usage A change in the value chain of companies Revolution: Mobile Web Marketing Changing consumers attributes Marketing on the go Data mining (correlations between the user s different activities during his path) Social Media, gaming, applications References Banerjee, S. Dholakia, R. (2008). Mobile advertising: Does location-based advert ising work? International Journal of Mobile Marketing, 3(2), 68-74. BBC News (2009). Online advertising overtakes TV . *Online+ *Accessed 16th Septembe r 2010] <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8280557.stm> Buskirk, E. (2010). With FTC s Blessing, Google and Apple Poised to Dominate Mobil e Advertising. *Online+ *Accessed 18th November 2010] <http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/with-ftc-blessing-go ogle-and-apple-nowpoisedto-dominate-mobile-advertising/> Danneels, E. (2002). The dynamics of product innovation and firm competences. St rategic Management Journal, 23(12), 1095-1121. Dunne, A. Lawlor, M.A. & Rowley, J. (2010). Young people s use of online social ne tworking sites a uses and gratifications perspective. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 4(1), 46-58. Fraser, M. & Dutta, S. (2008). Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom: How Online Socia l Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and World. Wiley, Chichester. Harris, L. & Rae, A. (2009). Social Networks: the future of marketing for small

business. Journal of Business Strategy, 30(5), 24-31. Henderson, A. Bowley, R. (2010). Authentic dialogue? The role of ocial media recruitment campaign. Journal of Communication Management, 14(3), 237-257. 99 friendship in a s

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), 2010.Statistics on Telecom Services for 20 10 (July-December) [Online] [Accessed 19th January 2010] < http://www.ida.gov.sg/Publications/20100908153408 .aspx> Keenan, A. & Shiri, A. (2009). Sociability and social interaction on social netw orking websites. Library Review, 58(6), 438-450. Naidoo, V. (2010). Firm survival through a crisis: The influence of market orien tation, marketing innovation and business strategy. Industrial Marketing Management, 39(8), 1311-1320. Nantel, J. & Sekhavat, Y. (2008). The impact of SMS Advertising on Members of a Virtual Community. Journal of Advertising Research, 48(3), 363-374. Okazaki, S. (2004). How do Japanese consumers perceive wireless ads? A multivari ate analysis. International Journal of Advertising, 23(4), 429-454. Okazaki, S. (2005). Mobile advertising adoption by multinationals, Senior execut ives initial responses. Internet Research, 15(2), 160-180. Okazaki, S. & Romero, J. (2010). Online media rivalry: A latent class model for mobile and PC internet users. Online Information Review, 34(1), 98-114. Pergelova, A. Prior, D. Rialp, J. (2010). Assessing Advertising Efficiency. Jour nal of Advertising, 39(3), 39-54) Peters, L. (1998). The new interactive media: one-to-one, but who to whom? Marke ting Intelligence & Planning, 16(1), 22-30. Petruzzellis, L. (2010). Mobile phone choice: technology versus marketing. The b rand effect in the Italian market. European Journal of Marketing, 44(5), 610-634. Reuters (2010). Mobile Advertising Needs Transaction Spur. [Online] [Accessed 18 th November 2010] <http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/02/mobile-advertising-needs-transaction-spu r/> Roach, G. (2009). Consumer perceptions of mobile phone marketing: a direct marke ting innovation. Direct Marketing: An International Journal, 3(2), 124-138. Taylor, C. (2009). The six principles of digital advertising. International Jour nal of advertising, 28(3), 411-418. Warc (2010). Asia dominates mobile adspend. [Online] [Accessed 3rd January 2010] < http://www.warc.com/LatestNews/News/ArchiveNews.news?ID=27656> Wei, R. Xiaoming, H. Pan, J. (2010). Examining user behavioural response to SMS

ads: Implications for the evolution of the mobile phoe as a bona-fide medium. Telematics and Informatics, 27, 32-41. 100

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Brand Communications

101

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Appropriating an Artistic Brand Meaning: A Case Study of Consumers Responses to Miro s ExhibitioS

Georgia Stavraki School of Economics, Department of Business Administration, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki gstavra@econ.auth.gr Dr. Emmanuella Plakoyiannaki, Assistant Professor of Marketing, School of Economics, Department of Business Ad ministration, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, emplak@econ.auth.gr Abstract: The current study investigates how visitors create meanings of art exhibitions a s brands through the lenses of the appropriation process. Its serves two objectives, notably 1) t o identify the role of museum context in creating and transmitting the meaning of the artistic brand ; and, 2) to understand the role of the appropriation process in creating the meaning of the exhibition brand. In order to meet the objectives of the study, the authors conducted a sin gle interpretive case study of Joan Miro s exhibition. The case study evidence that consumers user s tatus influences their brand meaning-making formations, enriches previous research on brand meaning and suggests that both occasional and regular visitors engage in a gradu al but diverse processes of appropriating the brand meaning. Introduction The notion of consumption experience has recently gained attention in consumer b ehaviour and arts marketing literatures. However, its roots may be traced to the seminal work of Holbrook and Hirschman (1982, p. 132) who introduced the experiential view of consumption that constitutes a primarily subjective state of consciousness with a variety of symbo lic meanings, hedonic responses, and aesthetic criteria . For researchers in the field of consum er behaviour the experience constitutes a subjective occurrence, which often encompasses emot

ional importance (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982). Thus, the consuming-as-experience appro ach emphasises subjective and emotional rather than utilitarian aspects of consumpti on (Holt, 1995). The experiential view of consumption considers consumers subjective respon ses to perceptive objects as the main source of personal value that enriches human sens e and life experiences (Chen, 2009; Addis & Holbrook, 2001). This approach can be particula rly useful for understanding art consumption for two reasons: 1) it seeks to minimise the dista nce between the visitor and artwork, which is essential for accessing a museum experience (C hen, 2009; Car & Cova, 2007) and 2) it emphasises the sense-making dimension of consumption, wh ich is linked to consumers responses to artistic-related stimuli (Dewey, 1980). Schroeder (2005) discusses artistic-related responses and art consumption in lig ht of the concept of the brand. He acknowledges that brands are inherent to the art industry and o ffers examples of globally recognized artists such as Picasso, Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Caravagg io that encapsulate the essence of the brand. He also maintains that museums serve as mi lieus that communicate artistic brands. These brands may refer to artists, whose creations are hosted by 102

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications museums (e.g. the Picasso brand ), to the exhibition as a whole, (e.g. Impressionis ts Still Life) or to museums as organizations that accommodate artistic creations (e.g. Guggenheim New York). Nonetheless, artistic brands communicate stories that consumers may interpret an d tailor to their own idiosyncratic life experiences (Brown, Kozinets and Sherry, 2003). Despite the fact that various models discuss the concept of branding in terms of tangible goods, limited research has addressed this issue in the context of museum experiences ( cf. Schmitt, 1999). Similarly, there seems to be a void in the literature with respect to con sumers responses to artistic stimuli (cf. Firat & Shultz, 1997; Fournier 1998). To illustrate, re levant research (McCracken, 1986; Aaker, 1997) has mainly concentrated on the functional view of branding associated with tangible products. Such a view is nested on the assumption that branded products communicate uniform messages to consumers through advertising and promo tion (Hirschman, 1983). According to Hirschman there are limitations to this function al approach of branding especially as manifested in the art industry. Particularly, art consump tion incorporates symbolic and emotional aspects of art consumption, which are esoteric and tacit in nature (Chen, 2009; Bourgeon-Renault, Urbain, Petr, Le Gall-Ely & Gombault, 2006; Hirsc hman, 1983). Additionally, a call for investigating consumer experiences in art settings as w ell as human agency in the meaning-making of art experiences have been discussed in previous research (Penaloza & Venkatesh, 2006). Our study considers the branding of a museum experience from the consumers ctive perspe

(McEnally & de Chernatony, 1999). In other words, a museum experience is shaped not only by museum s brand, namely museum s layout, logo, scene setting and augmented services, but also by visitors internal factors, such as thoughts and interpretive frameworks that e nable understanding of the art brand. Within this frame, the experiential context (e.g . the museum context in the current study) is primarily considered as a behavioural environme nt, that instills relativism (Aubert-Gamet, 1997, p. 30) and highlights meaning-making in the proc ess of consumption.

Contrary to the external-oriented approach of branding (Caldwell, 2000; Wallace, 2006) that views consumers ial approach as passive receptors of the brand and its meanings, the experient

acknowledges the consumer as a co-creator of the brand-meaning and as an integra l part of the experiential content and context. In other words, the experiential setting embra ces the consumer who undertakes an active role in the meaning-making of the artwork and art brand. This meaning-making process is manifested in subjective operations (e.g., behavi ours, thoughts) that serve to eliminate the distance between the consumer and the context and to control the meaning of the consumption situation. According to Car and Cova (2006), these sub jective operations labeled as the appropriation process, facilitate visitors immersion in a museum experience. Visitors immersion in a museum experience occurs when feelings of fam iliarity emerge as a result of an enhanced understanding of the museum setting (Car and Co va, 2006). An outcome of this state is that consumers can enter the world of the symbolic a nd attribute meanings to art products and brands. Through the operations of appropriation, co nsumers feel capable of accessing artworks and tapping the artistic brand by personally relat ed the brand to their existing life stories (Ligas & Cotte, 1999). Moreover, via the appropriati on process the artist s and museum s brand attributes are infused to consumer understanding of the brand (Cirrincione & Pace, 2005). The current study investigates how visitors create meanings of exhibitions as br ands through the lenses of the appropriation process. Its objectives are twofold, notably to iden tify: 1) the role of museum context in creating and transmitting the meaning of the exhibition brand through the lens of the appropriation process; and 2) the role of the appropriation process in creating the meaning of the exhibition brand. Viewed in this light, this research endeavour c oncentrates on the field of art consumption because of its subjective nature, which is closely related to the beholder s way of feeling, perceiving and interpreting (Addis & Holbrook, 2001; Li gas & Cotte, 103

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 1999; Duwey, 1980). The finding that consumers user status influences their brand meaningmaking formations, enriches previous research on brand meaning and suggests that both occasional and regular visitors engage in a gradual but diverse processes of app ropriating the brand meaning. Literature Review Appropriation Theory The distinctive qualities of art works, namely subjectivity, abstractness, non u tilitarianism and holisticity (Hirschman, 1983), constitute their consumption experiential, self-o riented, symbolic and therefore unique (Chen, 2009; Bourgeon-Renault, Urbain, Petr, Le Gall-Ely & Gombault, 2006; Hirschman, 1983). The distinct nature of art products renders the role of museum visitors critical in experiencing their salient attributes and making sense of a museum exp erience. In this frame experience is conceived as a subjective, inner kind of phenomenon (Hi rschman, 1983) which is personally unique. According to Duwey (1980) experiencing like breathing is a rhythm of intakings and outgivings . Therefore, experience is constructed by the existence of sequential activities that shape its whole meaning. These sequential effects are reflected in the appropriation phases, with their intervals to refer to the preparation of the fo rmation of the subsequent phase. The under-investigated process of appropriation has its roots in environmental psychology and is shaped by individuals different backgrounds and h istories. It is manifested through the exercise of authority, control and physical or psychologi cal power over an object or place (Car & Cova, 2005, p. 42). The concept of appropriation is rel ated to experiences as a meaning making activity (Aubert-Gamet, 1997) and is defined as a consumption situation within which consumers are able to reflect their inner properties to t he consumption object and, hence, brand (Ostergaard, Fitchett, & Jantzen, 1999). The appropriat ion cycle can be envisaged through three major operations, notably nesting, investigating and sta mping that facilitate immersion in experiences (Car & Cova, 2006). The operation of nesting is linked to physical and intellectual sensations that consumers develop in search of familia r elements within the experiential context. Nesting reinforces investigating, where consumers try to enhance their own knowledge over the consumption context so as to develop anchorage points and control. Nesting and investigating lead to stamping, namely the personal attribution of m

eaning in the consumption experience. Once individuals reach stamping, they are in position to access an artistic experience and, therefore become immersed. Thus, immersion is considered as an incremental act that counterbalances the figu re of an inert consumer who dives into an experiential context (Car & Cova, 2007, p. 37). It is p erceived as a set of consumers subjective operations that serve as a means of accessing a museu m experience. Immersion manifests visitors interpretative frameworks employed to co ntrol contextual stimuli and create rather than accept the meaning of their experience s (Dervin, 1981, adapted from Silverman, 1995). However, the appropriation process may not be comp leted successfully in order to lead to immersion. For instance, the absence of familia r points that trigger the appropriation process may generate various negative sensations and e motions, increasing the feeling of the distance and uncertainty with the museum content a nd context. The appropriation process is a set of operations that facilitate the immersion o f consumers in a consumption experience. These consumers he brand, operations enable them to make sense of t

through experiencing it (Firat & Dholakia, 1998). The following section of the l iterature review elaborates on the key concept of the brand and its meaning within the art world. Brand meaning within the art world 104

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Brand development is crucial in consumption experiences, given their intangible and subjective nature (cf. Berry, 2000). A strong brand serves as a safe place for consumers and reduces their perceived level of risk in the consumption process (Grace & O Cass, 2002; Berry, 2000). According to these scholars, the brand meaning is mainly influenced by the consu mer and her experience with the provider. This is in line with relevant research in the stre am of brand management that recently highlights the role of the consumer in the production a nd consumption of the branded experience (Schroeder 2005; Kay, 2006; Schembri, 2009 ). Within this stream, brands are socially or culturally constructed by consumers, namely the meaning of the brand is dynamic and lies in the mind of the consumer (Ligas & Cotte, 1999). Aesthetic industry serves as a territory for understanding consumers meaning-maki ng of an art brand (Hirschman, 1983; Schroeder 2005). The art museum brand is communicated to specific marketing techniques that enhance its power and clarity (Wallace, 2006). These t echniques include advertising, sponsorship, public relations and direct marketing (Caldwel l, 2000) and concentrate on shaping the brand of the museum by communicating its artworks and complementary services offered to audiences. The museum/organisation brand is us ually considered as the main brand in aesthetic industries, which reflects on visitors consumption experience. However, there are other brands mirrored in the consumption experience namely the name and the reputation of the artist (Cirrincione & Pace, 2005). Artists ha ve been approached as brands and/or as brand managers of their products, since they care to be take

obvious about how each of their pieces differs from all others (Hirschman, 1983, p. 52). Furthermore, museums exhibitions as a whole, acts also as a brand, since consumer s often perceive artworks collectively (Hirschman, 1983). To illustrate, each artwork of a given exhibition conveys meanings. The sum of exhibitions artworks meanings reveals the holistic c ontent of the exhibition brand. As a result the consumer-receptor is aware of the exhibitions c entral meaning and its symbolic features. It should be noted that the museum, artist and exhibi tion brands although separate are highly inter-connected aspects of the artistic brand.

Aesthetic brand products generate distinct responses to consumers due to their u nique, subjective and non-utilitarian nature. The nature of artworks (Schroeder, 2005) reinforces the power of the brand and the unique attributes of the consumption experience. Cons equently, consumers perceptive meanings and stories for the artistic brand emerge from the s pecific kind of relationship or interaction, what may be termed an aesthetic relationship , betw een the object and the consumer (Evrard & Colbert, 2000, p. 5). Therefore, artistic brand meanings are highly personalised and idiosyncratic to visitors characteristics (Firat, Dholaki a, & Venkatesh, 1995; Holt, 2002). It follows that the meaning of the exhibition brand emerges f rom consumers access to the exhibition s content (Ratneshwar & Mick, 2005). The communication be tween the artist and consumers transforms artwork into a meaningful entity and moves consu mers beyond its visual content (Ligas & Cotte, 1999). It illustrates the consumer-oriented p erspective of artistic brand meaning-making that relies on visitors meaning-making processes, w hich render a personal meaning to the brand. 105

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Methodology: Interpretive case study In order to meet the twofold purpose of the study, the authors conducted a singl e interpretive case study of Joan Mir s comprehensive collection of artworks hosted in 2010 in Gre ece. We followed Stake s (1995) interpretive case approach, which starts from the position that our knowledge of reality, including the domain of human experience, is a social cons truction by human actors. Particularly, the interpretive case study permitted an understandi ng of the subjective meanings of consumers o s lived experiences with the art brand, namely Mir

exhibition as a whole (cf. Fournier, 1998). Additionally, the case study method offered insights into the context within which subjects ascribe meaning to their own experiences as well as the content of these experiences (cf. Walsham, 2006). Hence, consumers were perceive d as agents participating in the meaning-making of the art brand. The current study sought t heory building through a single deep case study (Dyers and Wilkins, 1991; Siggelkow, 2007) that allowed the researchers to get closer to visitors and their experiences and to engage in int erpretation of visitor s meaning-making activities (meta-interpretation). Case study selection followed the principles of purposeful sampling. Particularl y, the exhibition of Joan Mir s artwork served as an instrumental case (Stake, 1995) for capturing th e dynamism, subjectivity and complexity of art consumption experience that constituted the u nit of analysis of the current research. The exhibition entitled Miro of Majorca included over 400 significant Mir. s works of all themes and forms such as paintings, sculptures, etchings, draw ings, sketches for sculpts or public art. According to art critics, the artwork of Miro arouses personally unique responses as it blends cognitive and intuitive elements, emotions and symbols in a manner both imaginative and inventive (Prat, Koutsomallis & Plessa, 2002, p.11). As Mir q uoted himself (1959): In a picture, it should be possible to discover new things every time you see it. But you can look at a picture for a week together and never think of it again. Y ou can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life. The case study evidence emerged from various data sources including 50 in-depth, on-site visitor interviews, participant and systematic observation within the museum context and archival records of Joan Mir s exhibition. We interviewed visitors from diverse demographic and

psychographic backgrounds so as to unveil different consumer voices and acts of appropriation. The visitor sample included regular (21) and occasional (29) museum visitors. Th is sample was purposively selected to maximize nuances associated with meaning-making of the i nvestigated art brand. The distinction of visitors between regular and occasional was based on their familiarity with the museum context and their annual frequency of visits in muse um exhibitions. Interviews were designed to yield information on 1) informants consumption exper ience in the museum context; 2) the facilitators and obstacles of the consumption experience; 3) the branding of the consumption experiences; and 4) consumer s responses to the art br and. Respondents were invited to narrate their on stories associated with the art bra nd, i.e. Miro s exhibition. All interviews were conducted in the museum setting and they were ty pe-recorded and transcribed. The authors conducted participant observation through the duration of the study. The researcher engaged in participant observation tries to learn what life is like f or an insider while remaining, inevitably, an outsider. This method served a number of purposes. Firs t, it enabled to develop a familiarity with the museum context and exhibition prior to collect ing data through interviews. It gave us a nuanced understanding of museum context that can come o nly from personal experience. Second, participant observation facilitated the recruitment of interview respondents. It is rather distinctive as the researchers approached participants in their own environment rather than having the participants come to the researchers. Third, observing visitors was integral to understanding the complexities of the consumption exper ience an overarching research endeavour of the current study. Archival data (museum docum ents and 106

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications books and press covering the exhibition) were systematically investigated follow ing the process discussed by Welch (2000). The nuances gleaned from archives were used to confir m or refine nuances generated by the other sources of evidence, namely interviews and observ ation. We conducted intratextual and intertextual cycles of interpretation (Thompson, 1 997) and employed narrative analysis in order to flesh out consumers brand stories; the c onsumption experience of Miro s exhibition; the influence of context, the appropriation proce ss and experiential outcomes of visitors. Following Fournier (1998), consumption and br and stories were considered individually and collectively; and across-visitor analysis was c onducted to identify consumption patterns. In order to ensure the trustworthiness of the cas e study findings, the researchers followed numerous practices recommended in the literature, such as theory to structure the list of interview topics and between-method triangulation that rel ied on the use of multiple methods of data collection such as interviews, observation, archival da ta in order to understand the consumption experience in the museum milieu and meaning-making of the art brand. Purposeful selection of the case study and interview respondents illumina ted distinctly different experiences and understanding of the phenomena of interest and allowed for the development of thick descriptions. Presentation and discussion of case study evidence The case study evidence is discussed in two parts: first, the role of museum s con text on communicating the exhibition brand meaning to visitors and, second the different cycles of appropriation that visitors of different user status followed in order to identi fy and to interact with the exhibition brand. The museum as a meaning-making context The case study evidence highlighted the importance of control over the museum ex perience as a means of eliminating the distance between the museum setting and the visitors. T he elimination of this distance enabled visitors to render meanings to the exhibition brand. Ac cording to the findings, visitors control in the museum experience was defined as the relationsh ip between the visitors familiarity with the museum context and their control over this relation ship. We suggest that the sense of visitors control over the museum experience enhanced their sens e of feeling

that they can be part of the museum brandscape and facilitated the formation of imaginative impressions of Mir s artwork. Our case study evidence illustrated that situational control emerged from physical and mental sensations of visitors within the museum enviro nment. As illustrated in the quotation below, anchorage points such as the reception staff , the museum atmospherics, the museum s labels and guides served as mental and emotional cking the visitor with the experience s content: hooks lo

The guide made Mir s world easy to grasp. She offered insights and familiar pictures that I could identify with. I was able to see Mir s world as something that related to me! Something that I could manage [Gender: female visitor, Age: 26, User Status: occasional mus eum visitor.] In terms of activating visitors interpretative frameworks, the situational contro l via anchorage points, assisted visitors in recognizing the artistic brand meaning within the mu seum context and creating the contextual brand knowledge that enabled them to be involved in the museum experience. This transformation of visitors into interpretative agents led them to experience feelings of familiarity with the exhibition brand, i.e. Miro s exhibition, which f acilitated meaning attribution to the museum exhibits. As quoted below: The guide assisted me to participate in the imaginary orbit of Miro s exhibition! S he introduced Miro to me and reveal his thoughts. She helped to comprehend Miro s existence and creation moments. His artworks are a source of passion and energy! That s the reason why pe ople adore 107

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Miro s artworks because they constantly remind us of our life stories e visitor, Age: 60, User Status: occasional museum visitor.] [Gender: femal

On the contrary, visitors perception of lack of familiar points provoked situatio nal anxiety that inhibited the communication with the brand itself and consequently the transfer and the ascription of meaning in Mir s artworks. This study adds insights into the contextual formation of visitors perceptions of the exhibition brand by unraveling the contribution of the museum context to visitors attempts t o control, access, process and reconstruct the symbolic meanings of artworks. It is in line with the postmodernist perspective (Car & Cova, 2007; Aubert-Gamet, 1997) that views the e xperiential context as a provider of stimuli and meanings that mobilize consumers to reduce the distance between the context and themselves and acquire a personal meaning of their brand consumption experience. Previous research highly conceptualizes context as pre-d etermined and planned (Petkus, 2004; Pine & Gilmore, 1999) and views sensory and thematic stimuli as moderators for accessing a museum experience. Our evidence brings up the locus of control as an aspect of the museum s context in terms of recognizing, accepting and interpret ing a consistent exhibition brand meaning. Visitors different appropriation cycles and brand meaning making formations

The case study findings indicated that consumers followed different paths of app ropriation based on their visitor status. Regular users immersion into Mir s artwork was intens e, bypassing the operation of nesting and occurring via operations of investigating and stamping. On the contrary, occasional museum visitors reached immersion following the whol e appropriation cycle through operations of nesting, investigating and stamping. O ccasional users experienced lower intensity in their immersion moments compared with regular mus eum visitors. In the case of Miro, immersion of various occasional visitors was not completed successfully due to information asymmetry. They suggested that the lack of suppo rting systems (e.g. guided tours) facilitating their appropriation process, inhibited the acqu isition of critical information. This information served to awaken their competencies (Car & Cova, 20 06), i.e. knowledge, thoughts, personal histories so as to eliminate the distance between the museum

context and themselves and to develop a brand meaning according to their point o f view. As quoted below: All of the artworks portrayed something abstract that I couldn t figure out their m eanings I didn t attend the tour guide and the labels were so briefly for me that again I co uldn t find why I was here! *Gender: female visitor, Age: 25, User Status: occasional museum visitor .] Based on the above, one may comprehend the importance of contextual information gained through nesting and investigating for understanding the derived meanings of the artistic brand. Our case study showed that stamping was the terminal operation of the appropriat ion process that enabled immersion and interpretation of the meanings of the exhibition bran d. As a result of being immersed, occasional visitors of Mir s exhibition linked the brand meaning with their personal histories. These visitors set out on their personal journeys using muse um anchorage points, notably guidance and labels as vehicles for initiating reflections and r ecollecting memories. Their personal journeys were largely shaped by their personal life con text rather than the museum context. Once the journey was completed, they stamped their experienc e with the artistic brand as an individualized meaning of the brand : Miro s exhibition transferred me to my childhood As a result this exhibition will sti ck in my mind as a retro, delightful and colourful museum experience. This exhibition has already altered my attitude towards museums! [Gender: male visitor, Age: 30, User Status: occasio nal museum visitor.] 108

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Regarding, the regular museum visitors, their immersion outcome of Miro s exhibiti on was characterized as a self-referential act of consumption and as an imaginative res ponse to the content of the exhibition. Regular visitors acquired familiarity with museum contex ts facilitated their efforts to interpret the content of the museum context and as a result allowed them to escape into Miro s artworld and thoughts. These visitors interpreted the cen tral meanings of the exhibits, renegotiated with them and created definitions and int erpretations of them in their own rights. Their personal journeys were largely molded by their e nhanced understanding of the brand meaning of the given situation. They actively moved b eyond the shared meaning of the brand through immersing themselves into the museum experienc e (Car and Cova, 2007, p. 37). Indeed, some visitors lived the exhibition brand thr ough their museum experience: Today I felt like I was walking in Majorca! I felt like observing the artist in h is work. The museum was converted into Miro s atelier! *Gender: male visitor, Age: 54, User Status: regu lar museum visitor.] Regular visitors appropriation largely relied on the phase of investigating. Labe ls content, museum s guides and the design of the exhibition facilitated their progressive pro cess of immersing themselves into the museum experience, notably going beyond the rules and ideas (e.g. the message of the exhibition content communicated by guided tour) tha t have been originally associated with the exhibition brand. Figure 1 illustrates the appropriation process according to visitors user status and their responses to Miro s exhibition brand. The case study evidence is in accordance wit h previous findings on the notion of access as a consumption way (Chen, 2009), the appropri ation process as a facilitator of accessing and interpreting a museum experience (Car & Cova, 2 005) and consumers processes or frameworks that they use so as to constitute the meaning o f the exhibition brand intrinsically relevant to them (Ligas & Cotte, 1999; Ratneshwar & Mick, 2005). Our research illustrates the very important role played by the different cycles of appropriation in visitors sense-making formations of exhibition brand. Previous research highlight ed the development of the meaning of the exhibition brand from museum s perspective, with

out to demonstrate consumers processes for creating, altering and appropriating the mean ing of an exhibition brand and their responses to exhibition brand meanings. Conclusion and further research The current study suggests that the appropriation process is associated with the contextual formation and personalization of meaning of an exhibition brand. As far as the f irst objective is 109

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications concerned, situational control facilitated access and interpretation of the exhi bition brand, acted as a meaning supplier by refining the certain properties of the exhibition brand t o the consumer and shaped occasional visitors appropriation path. The case study eviden ce demonstrated that regular visitors familiarity with the museum context downplayed the role of control in their appropriation process. With respect to the second research obje ctive, we suggest that differences in visitors user status generated different paths of app ropriation that led to immersion and to visitors responses to the exhibition brand. The results s howed that visitors sense making formations of Miro s exhibition reinforced their future inten tion to return to the museum context. From a theoretical viewpoint, the present research uncovers the critical role of the appropriation cycle in consumers efforts to access, construct and re-construct th e artistic brand stories. Specifically, the current case study fulfills its theory building aim b y identifying the appropriation process as the mean by which meaning is drawn out of exhibits and experienced by visitors within the museum context. First, it extends the conceptualization o f the brand meaning by introducing two different meaning creation pathways that lead to imme rsion. These pathways are associated with different visitor statutes in the museum context. I n previous research, the critical role of consumers user status was a neglected aspect in th e creation of exhibition brand meaning of a museum experience. Second, it shed light into the (different) outcomes of immersion, concerning the creation of meaning of an exhibition brand . Our case evidence distinguishes between imaginative responses and personal reflections of consumers responses to an exhibition brand linked to occasional and regular visitors respe ctively. From a managerial viewpoint, the findings can be used by museum managers to enha nce the branding of museum experiences of visitors in exhibitions of contemporary art. T he managerial contribution of the study is twofold. With regard to occasional museum visitors the role of supporting systems, such as labels and museum s guides, is crucial for museums bra nd in order to convert single-time visitors into enthusiastic return visitors. Specifically, museum

management could support the visitors

meaning creation of the exhibition brand by

concentrating on the function of interpretation. This may enable occasional muse um visitors to adopt or/and to change the meanings of the exhibition brand and as a consequence to make personal connections that may invoke personally meaningful experiences. As far a s regular visitors are concerned, the provider of the museum experience could considerably support the positive attitude of these visitors through the labels content and the design of the exhibition brand, so as to convert a museum visit into a memorable and personally cumulativ e museum experience. The aim of the current study was not generalization, rather than understanding o f the appropriation process as a mode of creating brand meaning and its outcomes in a particular setting. Specifically, we sought to generate a localized account on the role of museum context and visitor s status in creating and appropriating the brand meaning of Miro s exhib ition and invite the reader to evaluate the applicability of our results in other situatio ns. Future research may consider the appropriation process as a collective phenomenon, which occurs when visitors share museum experiences. Visitors consumption occasions may affect the appropria tion s cycle and their responses towards artistic brands. The role of the individual consumer as a brand meaning creator may have important implications in shaping a collective museum e xperience (Ligas & Cotte, 1999). References Addis, M. and Holbrook, M. B. 2001. On the conceptual link between mass customis ation and experiential consumption: An explosion of subjectivity. Journal of Consumer Behaviour 1, no. 1: 50-66. Aaker, J. 1997. Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research 3 4: 347-356. Aubert-Gamet, V. 1997. Twisting servicescapes: Diversion of the physical environ ment in a re-appropriation process. International Journal of Service Industry Management 8, no. 1: 26-41. Berry, L. L. 2000. Cultivating service brand equity. Journal of the Academy of M arketing Science 28, no. 1: 128-137. 110

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Consumers motivation and choice criteria towards a brand The case of Ardas Festival in Ardas area Evros, Greece.

Irene Kamenidou Technological Educational Institute of Kavala, Greece rkam@teikav.edu.gr Spyridon Mamalis Technological Educational Institute of Kavala , Greece mamalis@econ.auth.gr Christina Intze Technological Educational Institute of Kavala, Greece Abstract In the highly competitive tourism market, tourism destination branding is growin g in popularity and destinations are applying various branding principles to differentiate thems elves. In this context festivals have gathered international interest due to the numerous benef its they bring to the community that host them. The purpose of this study is to examine Ardas Fest ivals visitor s motivations for attending, their impressions, satisfaction, and intention to rev isit and recommend festival to other visitors. Objective of the research is to segment at tendees based on the above variables and to suggest brand destination marketing strategies for Ardas area. Results of the research can be a valuable input for both marketers and tourist p olicy makers in order to develop a unique brand image for the attraction of Ardas Festival. Keywords: Brand destination, Festival, Consumer Behaviour, Marketing, Greece Introduction In recent years, leading tourist destinations (countries, regions, areas) offer similar high quality services, accommodation, as well as attractions and facilities. These are no lon ger differentiators, as every country claims to have a unique culture and heritage ( Morgan, Pritchard, and Piggott 2003). Kotler and Getner (2002) point out that countries (even regions

and smaller areas) can be brands and can have brand equity; and consequently str ong country brands attract tourists, businesses and investments. A destination brand can be used by marketers order to differentiate the offering and create a unique identity. More over, a destination brand can help tourists in strengthening their perceptions of the de stination after their travel experience (Ritchie and Ritchie, 1998). Building a destination brand image essentially means identifying the most releva nt associations for the destination and strengthening their linkages to the destination brand (K eller, 1993). Clarke (2000) stated that branding helps to reduce choice, the risk factors atta ched to holiday decision-making, and the impact of intangibility. Also, branding conveys consist ence across multiple outlets, facilitates precise segmentation, and lastly, helps to provide a focus for the integration of producer efforts which helps people to work towards the same outc ome. Williams, Gill, and Chura (2004) stressed that branding in the tourist industry is increasing, while 113

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Tasci and Kozak (2006) stated that despite the growing importance of the tourist industry, research on destination branding has received insufficient attention to date. Although events are more and more used by destination marketers to improve the b rand of a destination (Chalip and Costa 2005), a limited number of studies have focused on event tourism and its relationship to destination branding (e.g. Chalip and Costa, 2005; Jago et al., 2003). Furthermore, the research concerning festival tourism and destination branding i s limited (e.g. Huang, Li, and Cai 2010; Esu and Arrey, 2009; Mossberg and Getz, 2006; Derrett, 2000). Festivals are important elements of the destination s attractions and especially i n the rural and unknown tourist areas and therefore should be included in the destination s brandi ng strategy. Contemporary literature recognizes that festivals and special events are now a w orldwide tourism phenomenon and one of the fastest growing tourism businesses (Lee, Lee, and Wicks 2004) playing a significant role in communities lives. Research of the festivals impacts is numerous (e.g. Kim, Suh, and Eves 2010; Robertson, Rogers, and Leask 2009; Liang , Illum, and Cole 2008; Getz, 2008; Rollins and Delamere, 2007; Felsenstein and Fleischer, 20 03; Crompton, Lee, and Shuster 2001; Crompton and McKay, 1994; Getz, 1993). Because of the multidimensional benefits that festivals hold, an increasing number of communiti es developed or have been actively developing new festivals and events. Studies on festival brand destination are scarce. There are just a small number of researches on festival destination brands. Huang, Li, and Cai in 2010, conducted a research in order to explore image constructs of the CBF (Community-Based Festivals) on the basis of visitor perceptions and develop a model of CBF image. A CBF image model was proposed and empirically tes ted based on existing destination image models. Four image constructs were identified as A ttributes, Family and Friendliness, Affective Association, and Overall Evaluation. Also, th e role of loyalty was explored as it was found that repeated visitors had more favourable percepti ons of the CBF than did first-time visitors. In addition, it was revealed that loyalty exerted significantly negative interaction effects on the relationship between Attributes and Family and Friend liness, as well as the linkage between Family and Friendliness and Overall Evaluation. Finally, thi s study illustrated the importance of the support of local residents for CBFs and their

role in building the destination s brand. Esu and Arrey, (2009) investigated cultural festival attributes that are explana tory of brand association and proposed a model that simplifies the process of branding of cult ural festivals. Their case study was on 2007 Calabar Carnival Festival. Service quality variable s of carnival festivals were conceptualized as cultural festival branding attributes. The vari ables included: event organization; promotion; facilities; friendly locals; shopping refreshment and food; ambience of the environment; safety and security. They concluded that the Calaba r Carnival Festival conveys the following images that can be identified as brand attributes : well attended and promoted cultural festival; a friendly and hospitable people; beautiful dram a; glamour resulting from the organization (well organized); refreshing experience that mak es one want to stay longer because of the cuisines (gastronomical). Leenders (2009) examined the relative impact of tangible and intangible factors on the success of music festivals, such as hedonic consumption, customer equity and loyalty. Da ta were collected among music festival goers by means of structured interviews in the Ne therlands. The results show that brand equity components (image, festival atmosphere associatio ns, and anticipated emotions) are most important for loyalty. Value equity (i.e. ticket price; travel costs; line-up quality; having a theme) plays some role but is less important than bran d equity components. Interestingly, the program of the festival does not seem to affect l oyalty in the current environment. Relationship equity components (Website visits; receiving m ailings; organizing online contests) seem to play a marginal role at best. Mossberg and Getz (2006) investigated the role of brand ownership in the formati on of festival branding. The main goals were to increase the understanding of issues and diffic ulties 114

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications concerning branding in the not-for-profit festival sector and to contribute the effective management and sustainability of festivals through investigation of real-world b randing issues and strategies. They found that most of the 14 festivals in the sample stressed the importance of autonomy and independence. None of the festivals studied were systematically involved in brand formation and management. Evidence was found that festival branding was oc curring in an ad hoc manner. Derrett (2000) in his study discussed if festivals can brand community cultural development and cultural tourism simultaneously. He investigated the significant role festivals fulfill in cultural tourism, community cultural development and destination marketing. He identified a number of case study communities on the northern rivers of New South Wales, Australia. Ardas Festival The present study focused on Ardas festival. Ardas Festival started in 1995 and since then it takes place annually in Evros prefecture in the Thrace region (Northern Greece). The festival is organised by the municipality of Vissa, and the local body of Kastanies in colla boration with the General Secretariat of New Generation and the prefecture of Evros. The festival is organised near the banks of the Ardas River and is known as Festival Arda: Meeting of Young People . The main objectives of the organisers is to attract visitors who want to amuse thems elves and at the same time to discover the natural wealth of the region. Ardas festival exceeds t he domestic borders; links together young people of the Balkan area and with its music sends a message of peace (www.ardas.gr). In the Ardas River Festival, music concerts, parallel events and activities are taking place. For the starting years from 1995 to 1997, no published data exists. From 1998-2000, Arda s festival had more than 70000 visitors, while from 2001 the number of visitors were under 5000 0 (2008). Need for the study In recent years, competition in the tourism industry is very intensive. So, it i s of crucial importance for marketers to understand the tourist s decision making process as we ll as their motives and the factors of repeated visitation (Currie and Wesley, 2008; Shukla, Brown, and Harper 2006). So far, numerous studies have been conducted searching different a spects of

destination image and destination choice, few have focused on brand festival des tination. To our knowledge there are no published research focused on Ardas River Festival so far. In this context, the current paper aims to explore through a quantitative exploratory re search study, tourist motives as choice factors for Ardas festival. More specifically, the obj ectives are to explore: 1. How visitors identify the Ardas Festival and area ; 2. What are the motivations for attending the Ardas Festival based on the existi ng activities. Also, the research aims to conduct a first level visitor s segmentation based on m otivations for attending, impression, satisfaction, intention to revisit and recommendation. This research is considered of great importance for Greek and local authorities as well as the bodies of tourism planning policy since is the first attempt to understand the c riteria that visitors of Ardas River Festival use in order to choose this destination. Methodology Procedure and sampling 115

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The research was conducted by means of questionnaire in the 14th Meeting of Youn g People at the Ardas River Festival in the summer of 2008. The questionnaire was constructe d based on the results of a qualitative research conducted by the researchers and the liter ature review on branding festivals, destinations and motivation for attending. Previous studies that were utilized for the questionnaire development were questions extracted from the studies of: Van Zyl (2008); Lee et al., (2004); Prentice and Andersen (2003); Crompton and McKay (1997). The questionnaire included introductory questions about the ardas festival, 27 motiv ations statements, 2 satisfaction statements, questions, a question measuring loyalty a nd finally, demographic questions. In order to measure the concepts open questions; multiple choice questions and Likert type scales included. Quantitative research was applied on a sample of 410 visitors/attendees, via mall intercept personal interview technique (Malhotra, 2 007). Since, this research is considered as a first attempt to study visitors of the Ardas river f estival, the sample size can be considered as satisfactory for the purposes of the research as well as the main statistical analysis utilized (Hair et al., 1995). Statistical Data Analysis Data analysis included descriptive statistics, reliability, factor and cluster a nalysis. Specifically, from descriptive statistics analysis, frequencies and percentages was utilized t o determine how visitors identify Ardas area, Ardas festival, information sources, visitors moti vations of attending Ardas River Festival, their impression, satisfaction, intention to revisit and r ecommendation. The 27 motivation statements were factor analyzed, through the Principle Component A nalysis (PCA) method with Varimax rotation in order to produce a smaller set of variables. Fol lowing these variables along with the variables of satisfaction, revisitation, impression, an d intention to recommend were cluster analyzed with K-means cluster analysis in order to perfor m visitor segmentation. Consumers profile

Almost half of the respondents (48%) were males and the other half (52%) were fe males. The great majority of respondents were young people less than 35 years old (85%), si ngle (66%), being students in higher education (55%) and with an indivi dual monthly income up to 1500 Euros (81%). The majority of the visitors participating in the research (53%) me

ntioned that they had visited the Ardas Festival (including this festival) 2-5 times, while the 22 % had visited it 6-10 times. 16% of the sample was first time visitors while 9% of the sample had visi ted the festival more than 10 times. They mentioned that their first visit to the festival was at the age of 18 years old, and almost all of them came with their friends and families. Results Ardas area and Ardas festival as a destination information sources. Ardas area has a synonymous meaning with the festival and the scenery of the area. The Ardas Festival is strongly connected with music (152 participants, 37.1%), to music a nd young people (106, 25.8%); to events and activities (18.3%, 75 participants); and yo ung peoples gathering , (77, 18.8%). The main Information source of Ardas festival acco rding to the participants was mainly friends (76.6%) and acquaintances (36.6%). Traditional m edia such as Television (16.6%) and internet (11.7%) are low sources of information, while ne wspapers and magazines (5.9%), brochures, (4.9%) and tour operators (2.4%) have been rated ve ry low as 116

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications information source. The impact of social media was also very low as at the time of research blogs and facebook were not so popular. Motivations for attending Ardas Festival, impression, satisfaction, re-visitatio n and recommendation People were motivated to attend the Ardas Festival for a number of reasons. In g eneral, the reasons for choosing the Ardas River Festival as a destination were music, natur e, events and activities and meeting other people (table I). Total impression from the Ardas f estival for the 42.0% of the participants was like I expected it to be ; positive impression for th e 46.8% and negative for the 11.2%. Referring to total satisfaction, 61.0% was satisfied; 32 .7% neither satisfied/nor dissatisfied; and 6.4% dissatisfied. Regarding intention to revisi t Ardas area in the next 5 years, 80.5% stated likely; 11.7% neither likely/unlikely; 7.8% unlikely. Lastly, participants were willing to recommend Ardas area to others, as the great majority (83.4%) st ated likely; where only a few stated either likely/unlikely (9.3%) or (6.3%) unlikely. Twenty seven items were included in the questionnaire in order to measure the degree of agreement o r disagreement for each activity that was a motive of visitation to the Ardas fest ival. Statements were measured on a five point Likert scale. It must be noted that for the 27 ite ms (reasons for choosing to visit Ardas River Festival as a destination), mean scores (MS)>3.50, have 8 items ranging from 3.51 to 4.51 implying that visitors of Ardas Festival tend to agree with these statements. The remaining statements have MS ranging from 2.84 to 3.50, meaning that the participants tend to neither agree/ nor disagree towards these statements (Table 1). 117

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 1: Factors extracted for preferred events-activities at Ardas Festival Mean Score Factors Motivation Item Factor loading (Std) 1st Sports and activities TVE= 16.6% a=0.850 2nd Cultural activities and environmental issues TVE= 11.1% a=0.820 3rd competitions TVE= 10.5% a=0.815 4th Music concerts and activities in Nature TVE= 9.3% a=0.736 5th Social interaction TVE= 8.8% a=0.543 6th Shows and presentations TVE= 8.4% a=0.669 Trekking Extreme sport Canoeing

Ascension Archery River soccer Presentation of local cookery Presentations with issues regarding the Mediterranean diet Local dancing groups Issues regarding environmental concerns Photograph exhibition Theatrical presentations Watermelon competition Spoon runs Spaghetti competition Music concerts Horseback riding Enjoying the nature Observation of the vault from the Amateur Observatory Club of Thrace Chess tournament Observation of rare plants and birds Meet new people make friends Socialization Curiosity Martial arts presentations Moto cross shows Remote-controlled models shows 0.802 0.768 0.731 0.705 0.587 0.500 0.831 0.683 0.647 0.573 0.515 0.489 0.842 0.810 0.741 0.722 0.617 0.574 0.540 0.485 0.482 0.851 0.842 3.42 (1.07) 3.39 (1.09) 3.44 (1.04) 3.49 (1.15) 3.50 (1.14) 3.63 (1.18) 3.39 (1.15) 3.35 (1.06) 3.43 (1.17) 3.91 (1.03) 3.47 (1.03) 3.43 (0.98) 3.12 (1.17) 2.84 (1.17) 3.08 (1.10) 4.51(0.84) 3.57 (1.12) 4.08 (0.96) 3.48 (1.06) 3.27 (1.05) 3.61 (1.04) 4.15 (0.9) 3.83 (10.5)

0.833 3.34 (1.04) 0.795 3.07 (1.14) 0.704 3.53 (1.14) 0.700 3.18 (1.08) Factor Analysis The next step in the research was factor analysis. Factor analysis was used to r educe the amount of data and identify the main factors for motivating consumers to visit t he Arda 118

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications festival . The data was factor analysed using the Principal Components Analysis. As illustrated in Table 1, PCA identified six factors (K.M.O.= 0.84 B.T.S.= 4498.280; df=351; p = 0.00). All items had factor loading = 0.48 on the factors, illustrating a good fit and accounting for 65.7% of the total variance. Reliability analysis was calculated for the scale in total (a=0. 894), which was considered satisfactory (Malhotra, 2007). Six factors have been identified by th e analysis namely: Sports and activities, Cultural activities and environmental issues, Com petitions Music concerts and activities in Nature, Social interaction, Shows and presentations. The six factors explained the motivations of visitors and are valuables tools for marketing plan ning and implementation. Moreover, the underlying factors can be used as an input for mar ket segmentation using cluster analysis. Cluster analysis Attendees segments The next step was to employ cluster analysis in order to segment the market. Clu ster analysis was employed to classify visitors into mutually exclusive groups. Four variables were added in the cluster analysis process. These were total impression, total satisfaction, a nd intention to revisit and to recommend. The analysis resulted in a three cluster solution. Mul tivariate statistic results, indicated statistical significant difference between the three clusters and the results of ANOVA tests also revealed that all six factors contributed to differentiate the three cluster solution (in all cases p=0.00). The Final Cluster Centers (FCC) regarding each c luster, as well as the sample size is presented in table 2. Table 2: Cluster analysis based on the motivation factors, total impression, sat isfaction, intention to revisit and recommend Factors 1st cluster, n=66 2nd n=190 cluster, 3rd n=154 cluster, Statistics Activities regarding sports in the nature 3.18 3.91 2.92 F=100.38 (p=0.000) Activities regarding environmental issues

Cultural and 3.40 3.88 3.07 F=61.003 (p=0.000) Eating competitions 3.04 3.54 2.36 F=87.807 (p=0.000) Music concerts Nature and soft activities in 3.58 4.19 3.45 F=70.961 (p=0.000) Social interaction 3.26 3.95 3.68 F=26.189 p=(0.000) Shows and presentations 3.25 3.61 2.84 F=39.445 (p=0.000) Total impression of stay 2.55 3.66 3.70 F=55.528 (p=0.000) Total satisfaction from stay 2.70 3.84 3.84 F=74.205 (p=0.000) Intention to revisit Ardas 2.33 4.54 4.49 F=279.566 (p=0.000) Intention to recommend Ardas area 2.73 4.55 4.60 F=206.794 (p=0.000) The analysis produced 3 segments with different profile. More specifically the p rofile of segments are the following: Segment n.1: 66 participants: indifferent. This segment is totally indifferent. Members are indifferent towards all activities-events at Ardas Festival. The participants pr obably visit the Ardas Festival accompanying their friends. Their total satisfaction is low, tend ing to be neither satisfied nor dissatisfied (indifferent) and they do not tend to revisit the fes tival. Moreover, they are not willing to recommend Ardas area to others. 119

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Segment n.2: 190 visitors: positives. This segment is the positive-motivated seg ment. The members of this segment were positive towards almost all factors. They have the highest FCC for the factors music concerts and soft activities in nature and social interaction (both: FCC=4.19). Their total impression is tending to be better than expected; also, t hey tend to be overall satisfied; and they are willing to revisit the festival and recommend it to other participants. Segment n.3: 154 visitors: negatives. This members of this segment were the most negatively motivated to come to Ardas festival (it has the lowest FCC scores ranging from 2 .36-3.45). Participants probably visited the festival in case. Even though, participants co mposing this segment were not motivated to attend the festival, their total impression of sta y is the most positive among the three groups, tending to be ction is better than expected . Their satisfa

quite high and they are willing to revisit the festival. The members of this seg ment are willing to recommend Ardas area to others. Discussion Data analysis revealed that participants consider as synonymous the Ardas area and Ardas festival . Keller (1993), argues that building a destination brand image means ide ntifying the most relevant associations for the destination and strengthening their linkages to the destination brand, while Hankinson (2004) states that events (i.e., festivals) a re a component of the core brand experience. The answers of attendees show very clearly how Ardas destination as a brand is perceived by its target audience. There is a strong link between t he Ardas festival and the destination area, which reveals a brand identity. The Ardas destination s largest influence and its brand identity is the yearly multidimensional festival. Ardas f estival was strongly connected to the attributes that consist the brand Ardas such as music, eve nts and young people. These responses show that this festival is a multi-event festival which matches the destination brand identity. Jago et al. (2003) point out that usually the en tire event portfolio, rather than a single event, needs to be considered in order to build the brand and have a clear effect on a destination s brand. Tourist destination brands are planned to generate an exclusive and attractive identity for targeted visitors and the host community (

Reich, 1999 in Williams, Gill, and Chura 2004). Almost all participants considered the Ardas fe stival to be about music, singers and bands, while many considered that it to be about music and yo ung people. Cummings (2006) suggests that at a music festival, the common love of music, ser ves as a common point of interest for attendees, while Larsen and O Reilly (2005) in their research found that one reason for festival attending is social interaction. Kotler and Gertner (2002) and Morgan and Pritchard (2006) suggest that brands ha ve social significance, emotional benefits and identity value to users, which is consisten t with Morgan and Pritchard (2002) who affirm that developing an emotional connection with targete d tourists is the key to destination branding. Moreover, Rowden (2000 in Williams, Gill, and C hura) suggests that the most successful brands go further than providing a distinctive destinat ion identity; they create an understanding of the place's natural values that are undoubtedly place specific. The same is reported by Yoon, Lee, and Lee (2010), who state that the challenge for d estination marketers is to make the destination brand live, so that visitors experience the promoted brand values and feel the authenticity of a unique place . Ardas festival through its na ture and unique atmosphere, as stated by the participants in the qualitative research, seems to fulfil this requirement, since it brings up strong emotions and sensations in the festival a ttendees. Ardas Festival is the gathering of young people and if there is anything that young peop le want is strong emotions and sensation . These strong emotions should be part of an advertis ing campaign on national and international (Balkans) bases. Moreover the developing of a site can 120

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications reproduce these experiences. The aim of the organisers should be the connection of these emotions to the Ardas festival brand. Main source of information about Ardas area and Ardas festival is friends, and a cquaintances, while secondary sources are the TV and internet. The effect of social media is a key question that needs to be explored in the future. Communication marketing through media d oes not seem to be the host community s competitive advantage, since main source of inform ation of Ardas festival by attendees is friends and acquaintances. WOM is considered very important in recommending a product or a service, especially in Greece, due to Greek mentalit y. Other sources that are equally important seem not to be fully exploited. Such communic ation tools used could be the internet, and especially university student e-newspapers, such as fititis.gr, in Greece, and the social media such as facebook, twitter etc. Another point that s hould be taken into account about Ardas internet site is its improvement and to easily access t he English language, as to also have the sites in other languages as well (objectives of th e organisers is also to attract young people of the Balkan area). Factor analysis revealed six motivational factors. Blain, Levy, and Ritchie (200 5), support the importance of incorporating the concept of the visitor experience into the proce ss of branding. Therefore, the development of a tourist destination brand must encapsulate the t ourist s motivation in seeking out the destination (Gnoth, 2002). Gursoy, Kim, and Uysal (2004) and Crompton and McKay (1997), report that people are motivated to visit festivals f or different reasons. Larsen and O Reilly (2005) in their qualitative research into music festi val consumption found that one motivation for festival attending was social interaction. They fo und that social interactions occurred at three different levels: existing relationships, new con nections, and the festival attendees as a whole. Participants have more than a single motive in at tending Ardas festival, so the festivals destination marketers must be aware of the significanc e of considering visitors multiple motives. Destination marketers should develop a portfolio of ev ents and activities such as cultural festivities, sport activities, gastronomy in order t o build their brands and attract different interests. This way they can successfully reinforce the de stination brand (Jago et al. 2003). This finding is of great importance, since it shows that the festival and its ac

tivities bring excitement and pleasure to who revisit the destination (Kaplanidou, 2007). Huang , Li, and Cai (2010) report that community-led visitors festivals benefit from repeat visitors , while Shone and Perry (2004 in van Zyl ,2008) state that if the motivations, expectations and ne eds of the contributors and visitors are not met, a festival and event will fail. In order to satisfy the different motives of visitation and be effective two things can be employed. Fir st of all, in the official site of Ardas festival, an online questionnaire should be developed, in order for previous attendees as well as potential ones can state problems to be improved or activit ies that should enrich the festival. Secondly a newsletter could be developed and send to member s, meaning that membership could be also provided through the site. This strengthens relati onships with previous and potential visitors, and gives them the sensation of being a part of a larger family where they too are part of decision making. Three segments were extracted which all have one thing in common that is positiv ely associated for visiting the festival: music concerts and soft activities in nature. Thus, t he festival providers should focus on this issue and enrich their product by providing visitors more a nd different activities and bands. Policy makers should identify consumer s needs and wants in order to satisfy them. The first segment includes all the satisfied visitors from the festival. Members of this segment enjoy all the activities that take place during the festival. Moreover, they enj oy the scenery and the nature of the place. They are satisfied from the festival and they are willi ng to strongly recommend the festival to their friends. Also, they intend to revisit the place. However, a policy that intends to strengthen this relationship should be developed by the organise rs of the 121

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications festival. A loyalty card should be introduced with special rates for the festiva l. Moreover, groups of friends of Ardas festival can be developed by the organisers. Moreover a n ewsletter with all the news of the festival can be send to the visitors. Finally, a blog a nd a group in the facebook can be developed in order to give the Ardas funs the opportunity to communi cate with their friends and other Ardas funs The indifferent group was indifferent to the motives for attending, and was the le ast satisfied one. Also, it is the one that is negative to revisit and to recommend the festiv al to others. First of all, a research investigating the reasons for low satisfaction among the part icipants of the group should be conducted. Moreover, the organisers of the festival should inclu de new activities and events in order to attract this segment. In this case all the new activities and events should be in line with the distinct identity of the Ardas festival. The p articipants of this group rated very low their overall satisfaction of stay at Ardas. So, the infras tructure of the area should be improved. However, they like music concerts and the scenery of the pla ce. A communication strategy promoting music events and the beauty of the area should be developed and implemented by the organisers of the festival. The participants of entations negative group were negative to sport activities, shows and pres

as well as eating competitions but, they had an overall positive impression, sat isfaction, and are willing to revisit and to recommend Ardas festival in the future. The participan ts, of this segment are potential consumers. So, the policy makers of Ardas Festival should modify their product in order to attract more participants of this segment. This segment is m ore interested in issues about education, environment and ecology. They admire the nature and scen ery of the place but they are not interested at all in competition and music events. They p refer an alternative way of amuse themselves and they are willing to visit the area in or der to spend a weekend in nature. Finally, they prefer cultural events to other types of amusem ent and are willing to spend time and money in order to attend a quality event. Moreover, th ey are willing to develop relations with other attendees of the festival. A good idea for the o rganisers is the usage of social media such as blogs and groups at facebook in order to create ecommunities of

Ardas family . Of course this strategy should be developed for all segments and try to create awareness and loyalty to both the visitors and potential visitors of Ardas Festiva l . Conclusions Branding a destination is a crucial matter in tourist area strategy and therefor e, it is a challenge for marketers and planners (Mazurek, 2008; Prideaux and Cooper, 2002). While man y destinations use events to strengthen their brand, only a few studies have explo red this approach and even fewer have explored festival destinations. The current paper extends the knowledge in the brand destination area by examini ng the relationship between a festival and the destination branding process. The Ardas festival area has a competitive advantage, being located in impressive natural scenery. Jago e t al. (2003), stress that events may be used to shape the brand identity by differentiating th e destination from others. So, the strategy for Ardas festival is to host the kind of events t hat differentiate this destination from others in the country. The quantitative research revealed Six factors which explained the motivations of visitors to visit the area. Cluster analysis reveal ed three segments with different profile. The results of this study can be a valuable input for planning and implementing marketing and branding strategies for Ardas Festival. The findings of the current research sho w that this festival can build brand equity, since it helps to communicate destination aware ness. Visitors attended and revisited the destination of Ardas because it hosts the Ardas river festival. The latter is closely related to Ardas destination s brand since it bears the name of its host destination. 122

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Limitations and recommendations This study is the first one focusing to the branding of Ardas Festival . The results of the current study have several unavoidable limitations. First the research was exploratory i n nature so, it employed a non-probability sampling method, which was adequate for the purposes of this study but cannot be considered representative. The sample used in this study was adequate for its purposes and allowed reasonable conclusions to be drawn; however, it cannot be consi dered representative of all visitors. The findings are limited by the sample and measu res used. Larger empirical studies using quantitative measures should be done to replicate and ex pand these results. Regardless of the current limitations, the present study brought to light some f indings which may assist destination marketers and festivals organizers in creating a more app ealing festival destination brand to visitors. Furthermore, the findings of this study could be a basis for future research on the topic in Greece and internationally. References Blain, C., S.E. Levy, and J.R.B. Ritchie. 2005. Destination branding: Insights a nd practices from destination management organizations. Journal of Travel Research 43, no. 4: 328-338. Chalip, L. and C.A. Costa. 2005. Sport event tourism and destination brand: Towa rds a general theory. Sport in Society 8, No. 2: 218-237. Clarke, J. 2000. Tourism brands: An exploratory study of the brands box model. J ournal of Vacation Marketing 6, no. 4:329-345. Crompton, J.L. and S.L. McKay. 1994. Measuring the economic impacts of festivals and events: Some myths, misapplications and ethical dilemmas, Festival Management & Event Tourism 2, no. 1: 33 43. Crompton, J. L., and S. L. McKay 1997. Motives of Visitors Attending Festival Ev ents. Annals of Tourism Research 24, no. 2: 425-39. Crompton, J.L., Lee, S., and Shuster, T.S. 2001. A guide for undertaking economi c impact studies: the Springfest example. Journal of Travel Research 40, no. 1:79 87. Cummings J.L. 2006. We re All in This Together: The Meanings Festivalgoers Attribu te to Their Music Festival Participation. In Kallioniemi, K., Krki, K., Mkel, J., and Salmi, H. Eds. 2007. His tory of Stardom Reconsidered. Edited by Turku: International Institute for Popular Culture.

Currie, R.R., F. Wesley. 2008. Going where the Joneses go: understanding how oth er influence travel decisionmaking., International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research 2, n o.1:12-24 Derrett, R. 2000. Can Festivals Brand Community Cultural Development and Cultura l Tourism Simultaneously? In Events Beyond 2000: Setting the agenda. Event Evaluation, Research and education Conference Proceedings. July, 2000: 120-130. Ed. Allen, J., R. Harris, L. K. Jago and A. J. Veal. Esu, B.B. and V.M.-E. Arrey. 2009. Branding cultural festival as a destination a ttraction: A case study of Calabar carnival festival. International Business Research 2, no. 3: 182-192. Felsenstein, D. and A. Fleischer. 2003. Local festivals and tourism promotion: T he role of public assistance and visitor expenditure. Journal of Travel Research 41, no. 4: 385-392. Getz, D. 1993. Festivals and special events, in M.A. Khan, M.D. Olsen and T. Var Eds., Encyclopedia of Hospitality and Tourism Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 789-810. In Liang, Y., Illum, S.F., and Cole, S.T. 2008. Benefits Received and Behavioural Intentions of Festival Visitors in Relation to Distance Travelled and Their Origins. International Journal of Event Management Research, 4, no.1:12-23 Getz, D. 2008. Event tourism: Definition, evolution, and research. Tourism Manag ement 29, No. 3: 403 428. Gnoth, J. 2002. Leveraging export brands through a tourism destination brand. Jo urnal of Brand Management 9, no. 4/5: 262-280. Gursoy, D., K. Kim and M. Uysal. 2004. Perceived impacts of festivals and specia l events by organizers: an extension and validation. Tourism Management 25, no. 2: 171 181. Hankinson, G. 2004. Relational network brands: Towards a conceptual model of pla ce brands. Journal of Vacation Marketing 10, no. 2: 109-121. Hair J., R. Anderson, R. Taham, and W. Black. 1995. Multivariate data analysis w ith readings, 4th Edition, Prentice-Hall International. http://www.ardas.gr/2008/info.html, accessed 12/12/08 Huang, J.Z., M. Li, and L.A. Cai. 2010. A model of community-based festival imag e. International Journal of Hospitality Management 29: 254 260. 123

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Jago, L., L. Chalip, G. Brown, T. Mules and S. Ali. 2003. Building events into d estination branding: Insights from experts. Event Management 8, no. 1: 3-14. Kaplanidou, K. 2007. Affective event and destination image: Their influence on O lympic travelers behavioral intentions. Event Management 10, no. 2:159-173. Keller, K. L. 1993. Conceptualizing, measuring and managing customer-based brand equity. Journal of Marketing 57, no. 1: 1-22. Kim Y.G., B.W. Suh, and A. Eves. 2010. The relationships between food-related pe rsonality traits, satisfaction, and loyalty among visitors attending food events and festivals. International Journa l of Hospitality Management 29:16 226. Kotler, P. and D. Getner. 2002. Country as brand, product and beyond: A place ma rketing and brand management perspective. Journal of Brand Management 9, no. 4/5: 249-261. Larsen, G. and D. O Reilly. 2005. Music festivals as sites of consumption: An expl oratory study, Working Paper no 05/05. Bradford University School of Management. Lee, C-K., Y-K. Lee, and B.E. Wicks. 2004. Segmentation of festival motivation b y nationality and satisfaction. Tourism Management 25, no. 1: 61-70. Leenders, M. A. A. M. 2010. The relative importance of the brand of music festiv als: a customer equity perspective. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 18, no. 4: 291-301 Liang, Y., S.F. Illum, and S.T. Cole. 2008. Benefits received and behavioural in tentions of festival visitors in relation to distance travelled and their origins. International Journal of Event Management Research 4, no.1: 12-23. Malhotra N.K., 2007. Marketing research: An applied orientation. 5th Edition. Pe arson Prentice Hall Mazurek, M. 2008. Tourism destination branding: A competitive marketing strategy -does it really matter? A case study of Kremnica, Slovakia. In Conference proceedings The 4th Graduate Research Symposium by Travel and Tourism Research Association Canada. 15 October, Canada, 2008: 31-41. Morgan, N.J. and A. Pritchard. 2006. Promoting niche tourism destination brands. Journal of Promotion Management 12, no.1:17-33. Morgan, N., A. Pritchard, and R. Piggott. 2003. Destination branding and the rol e of the stakeholders: the case of New Zealand. Journal of Vacation Marketing 9, no. 3: 285-299. Morgan, N., A. Pritchard, and R. Pride. 2002. New Zealand, 100% pure. The creati

on of a powerful niche destination brand. The Journal of Brand Management 9, no. 4: 335-354. Mossberg, L and D. Getz. 2006. Stakeholder influences on the ownership and manag ement of festival brands. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 6, no. 4: 308-326. Prentice, R. and Andersen, V. (2003). Festival as creative destination Annals of Tourism Research, 30 (1): 7 30. Prideaux, B. and C. Cooper. 2002. Marketing and destination growth: A symbolic r elationship or simple coincidence? Journal of Vacation Marketing 9, no. 1: 35-48. Reich, A. Z. 1999. Positioning of Tourist Destinations, Sagamore, Champaign, IL. In Williams, P.W., A.M. Gill, and N. Chura. 2004. Branding mountain destinations: the battle for peacefulness . Tourism Review, 59, no. 1: 6-15. Ritchie, J.R.B. and R.J.B. Ritchie. 1998. The Branding of tourism destinations: Past achievements and future challenges. In Conference proceedings Annual Congress of the International Association of Sc ientific Experts in Tourism, Destination Marketing: Scopes and Limitations, Marrakesh, Morocco, International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism 1998: 89-116. Robertson, M., P. Rogers, and A. Leask. 2009. Progressing socio-cultural impact evaluation for festivals. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events 1, no. 2:156 -169. Rollins, R. and T. Delamere. 2007. Measuring the social impact of festivals. Ann als of Tourism Research 34, no. 3: 805 808. Rowden, M. 2000. The Art of Identity: Creating and Managing a Successful Corpora te Identity, Gower Publishing, Hampshire. In: Williams, P.W., A.M. Gill, and N. Chura. 2004. Branding mountain destinations: the battle for peacefulness . Tourism Review 59, no. 1: 6-15. Shone, A. and B. Perry. 2004. Successful Event Management, Thomson, Australia. Tasci, A.D.A. and M. Kozak. 2006. Destination brands vs destination images: Do w e know what we mean. Journal of Vacation Marketing 12, no. 4: 299-317. Van Zyl, C. 2008. A conjoint analysis of festival attributes for successful posi tioning of selected arts festivals in South Africa. Southern African Business Review 12, no. 3: 129-155. Williams, P.W., A.M. Gill, and N. Chura. 2004. Branding mountain destinations: t he battle for peacefulness . Tourism Review, 59, no. 1: 6-15. Yoon, Y-S., J-S. Lee, and C-K. Lee. 2010. Measuring festival quality and value a ffecting visitor s satisfaction and loyalty using a structural approach. International Journal of Hospitality Management 29, no. 2: 335 342.

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Constructing the luxury concept: the brand validation guide for luxury brands

Ilias Kapareliotis Lecturer University of Abertay Dundee Gary Mullholland Senior Lecturer University of Abertay Dundee Abstract Recognizing brands as intangible assets for the company s financial statements is a quiet recent development in international financial reporting focused late 80s. International accounting organization debate over procedures for brand valuations and the treatment of th e subject is still under debate. A lot of companies believe that valuing their brands bring a lot of advantages to the organization. Companies producing luxury brands till now didn t orient them selves to a brand valuation concept and methodology. The present study gives guidance to the academia, and professionals on how to treat their brands as intangible assets, and how the y can build their accountability. Introduction A brand can be defined as an asset without a physical existence, and the value o f which can be determined exactly, unless it becomes the subject of specific business transacti on of sale and acquisition.. The difference between the product and the brand is that the produ ct has less tangible and intangible characteristics than the brand. A brand can speak to a p erson depending on how much the person knows the brand (Seetharaman et al 2001). Interbrand comp any was the first one was launched the brand valuation concept, and methodologies by suc ceeding to the accounting treatment presenting a global concept of brand valuation. It was the wave of brand acquisitions in the late 1980 s that exposed the hidden value in highly branded co mpanies and brought brand valuation to the fore (Motameni 1998). The money paid for the acqu

isition particularly for the brand name, was increasingly higher than the value of a com pany s value net tangible assets. Keller (1993) posited that companies are motivated to study brand equity for two reasons: -Financially based to estimate the value of a brand more precisely for financial reporting purposes -Strategy based to improve marketing productivity Erdem et al(2004) classified brand equity measurement models into: -Component based models -Holistic models Component based models measure individual elements of brand equity; holistic mod els give an overall evaluation of the models. The approach of the evaluation relies mostly o n the needs of the company, and the brands it has. The most commonly used approach for brand eq uity is the one that Aaker (1991) had already suggested. The elements of brand equity that h e had proposed are: -Brand awareness 125

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications -Brand perceived quality -Brand loyalty -Brand associations -Other proprietary brand assets Various brand equity studies had already used this approach, which is commonly c alled as customer based brand equity (CBBE). In 1996 Aaker introduced a new model for mea suring brand equity The Brand Equity Ten . The model included customer based brand equity components, and market behaviour measures like market share, market price, and d istribution coverage. Considerable research has been conducted to identify and conceptualise the diffe rent dimensions of various brands, and much of that has been on the symbolic use of t he brands (Kim et al 2004) . Despite the importance of luxury brands in consumers lives, and th e fact that the luxury markets has a high contribution very little is known about the key elemen ts that need to be evaluated when speaking for the financial value of the brand. Various researc hes have focused on how luxury brands enable companies to be more profitable if they are in the luxury business sector. Luxury is also seen as a main factor to differentiate a brand i n a product category. Luxury products offer the opportunity to companies to suitably develop the marketing mix. Consumers and academics had recognised the necessity for brand valuation of luxu ry brands, at present there isn t a scale or a model validating luxury brands value. Kapferer & Dubois recognised the necessity of brand valuation for luxury brands, and the developme nt of different scales associated to the luxury brand concept. Although a brand may be perceived as luxurious customers and researchers recognised that not all luxury brands had been perceiv ed or deemed as luxurious. The market of luxury products or goods has been growing steadily. Its because of social characteristics, and special personal needs that the concept has develope d during the last five years. Kapferer (1997) defined luxury Luxury defines beauty it s an art applie d to functional items. Like light, luxury is enlightening. They offer more than mere objects: th ey provide reference of good taste. That is why luxury management should not only depend on customer expectations: luxury brands are animated by their internal programme, their glob al vision, their specific taste which they promote as well as the pursuit of their own standards Lu xury items provide extra pleasure and flatter all senses at once Luxury is the appendage of

the ruling classes. Nueno et al( define luxury brands as those whose ratio of functionality to price is low, while the ration of intangible and situational utility to price is high ts define luxury marketing consultan

brands as those whose price and quality ratios are the highest of the market; th at is their price is significantly grater than the price of products with similar tangible features. Luxury brands overall are related to associations with upper or low luxury degrees, a consider ation which companies need to take very seriously. A brand may be defined as luxury but not all luxury brands may be deemed equal and that gives a possibility to one luxury product ca tegory to be perceived as inferior to another one. Louis Vuitton for instance may have a grea ter appeal in the accessories industry than in the perfumes industry. Although luxury is a subjective concept brand may have some of the characteristi cs that common brands have like brand loyalty, perceived quality (Keller 1998). This con cept of exclusivity is well known as luxury mentioned in the literature. Luxury brands f ace today a pressure while they maintain a quiet prestigious perception about their position , and consumer s everyday lives. Luxury brands have been targeting the wealthiest consum ers with product and brand extensions, or new product introduction. Luxury brands have an impact also to the culture that consumers develop, and from which luxury branding evaluates its position to the market. Additionally, to that luxury had developed a prestige seeking framew ork of behaviour conscious or unconscious one. Thus, we need to remember that luxury co nsumption 126

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications isn t part only of instant approaches or instant stimuli, but luxury consumer beha viour is part of an education, and a consumer s development (Kapferer (1997b). The term in this con text is more inclusive because it includes personal, societal and interpersonal aspects. As a social approach luxury buying involves purchasing of a higher priced product reinforces thus consumer s ego and a more valuable purchase. A review of the literature suggests t hat the topic of luxury needs to be more exploited in various terms, but there is also much wo rk to be done on the valuation of luxury brands (Kapferer1997a). The psychometric work in the measurement of luxury brands offers strong evidence for the multidimensionality in the concepts definition. Vingeron and Johnson(1998) sugge st that the luxury seeking consumer s decision making process is explained by five main factor s that form semantic network. They reviewed the latent structure of luxury evaluation. In th eir study they defined also five perceived dimensions of a luxury brand: -Conspicuousness -Uniqueness -Quality -Hedonic -Extended self The five key luxury dimensions that must be established or monitored for the cre ation of a luxury brand (Cung et al 1999). The dimensions they had used are strongly correl ated, but not identical as constructed in the formative framework. When creating a luxury bran ds these five key dimensions should be taken into consideration (Dubois 1993). Of course luxur y brand managers should have in mind that different sets of consumers would have differe nt perceptions for luxury, and the overall luxury level should integrate these perc eptions. Several studies attempted to link customer based brand equity models with the Hie rarchy of Effects Model the model consists of three components -Cognitive -Affective -Co-native (behavioural) The model is based on the assumption that potential buyers move from different s tages during their purchasing behaviour or their everyday lives purchases to the actual knowl edge and purchase. Consumers don t follow all the steps of the model. That means that consu mers have

to be segmented probably according to the steps of the model they follow. Differ ent researchers have used the model for brand validation purposes. The model fits also for valua tion of luxury brands as it: -Takes into consideration the alternative approaches that consumers do when they purchase luxury brands -Gives the opportunity to customise the model according to the market circumstan ces -Can take into consideration the industry, and the sector they brands under valu ation will be -Takes rational and irrational characteristics into account when consumers purch ase luxury brands Thus, we could come up with following framework related to the valuation of luxu ry brands. 127

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Figure 1 Proposed framework for brand valuation Luxury brand valuation Affective Luxury consumption characteristics Cognitive Luxury culture Behavioural brand equity constructs Conclusions This study advances a brand equity model that is based on luxury brands. Brand v aluation has arisen because of the importance of brands and their treatment as intangible ass ets. To assess the value of the brand there are several methods to be followed unfortunately ti ll now none of the models used can be applied to an environment of luxury brands. The model tak es into consideration different dimensions that should be applied as luxury brands are s pecial brand types. Rational and irrational dimensions will lead those who want to evaluate l uxury brands in variables that apply to both categories, and can very easily be identified. The model proposed incorporates also the possible changes that have to be done when markets face di fferent circumstances or different t situations. As noted earlier the concept of luxury is a more philosophical one than marketable. Markets, marketers, and managers need to know that the luxury concept may need alterations or better and more in-depth approaches not o nly speaking about brand valuation, but also when we are trying to determine the luxury conce pt for different markets. Creating a valuation model for luxury brands isn t an easy task it asks for adopti on of a philosophy which is much different from the other ones, and related with special consumer s characteristics, and overall develops an orientation towards the intangible char acter of the valuation constructs. Future research This study may open the door for a series of research streams in advancing knowl edge in the research area of brand valuation. This study concludes that there are constructs that a model should first build, and then go through in order to evaluate.. Future research s hould quantify the different approaches of the model, and determine which activities marketing or b

randed ones should the managers focus on in order to build first up the necessary variables, and then go through the evaluation process as a whole. Future research should attempt to ana lyze and determine the variables used at our model based on different brand categories, a nd types. It 128

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications would be also interesting to test the model trough a longitudinal research in or der to test different relationships built among the variables. References Chung, A. and Zaichkowsky, J. (1999) Understanding luxury brands in Hong Kong , 1999, ACR Europe Conference,24th 26th June. Dubois, B. and Duquesne, P. (1993) The Market for Luxury Goods: Income versus Cul ture , European Journal of Marketing, Volume 27, Number 1, pp. 35 44. Dubois, B. and Paternault, C. (1995) Observations: Understanding the World of Int ernational Luxury Brands: The Dream Formula , Journal of Advertising Research, Volume 35, Number 4, pp. 69 76. Echikson, W. (1995) Luxury Steals Back ,Fortune, Volume 131, Number 1, pp.112 19. Hall, R. (1992), The strategic analysis of intangible resources , Strategic Managem ent Journal, Vol. 13 No. 2,pp. 135 44. Helm, S. (2005), Designing a formative measure for corporate reputation , Corporate Reputation Review, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 95-109. Javalgi, R.G., Taylor, M.B., Gross, A.C. and Lampan, E.(1994), Awareness of spons orship and corporate image: an empirical investigation , Journal of Advertising, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 47-58. Kapferer, J.-N. (1997a) Managing luxury brands , The Journal of Brand Management,Vo lume 4, Number 4, pp. 251 60. Kapferer, J.-N. (1997b) Strategic Brand Management , 2nd Edn, Kogan Page, London. Keller, K.L. (1998), Strategic Brand Management: Building,Measuring and Managing Brand Equity, Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Kennedy, S.H. (1977), Nurturing corporate images: total communication or ego trip ? , European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 120-64. Kollock, P. (1994), The emergence of exchange structure: an experimental study of uncertainty, commitment, and trust , American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 100 No. 2, pp. 313-45. Keller, K.L. and Lehmann, D.R. (2003), gement, Vol. 12 No. 3, p. 26. How do brands create value? , Marketing Mana

Kim, W.G. and Kim, H.-B. (2004), Measuring customer based restaurant brand equity : investigating the relationship

between brand equity and firms performance , Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administr ation Quarterly, Vol. 45 No. 2, pp. 115-31. Kirmani, A., Sood, S. and Bridges, S. (1999), The ownership effect in consumer re sponses to brand line stretches , Journal of Marketing, Vol. 63, January, pp. 88-101. Lassar, W., Mittal, B. and Sharma, A. (1995), Measuring customer-based brand equi ty , Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 11-19. Lavidge, R.J. (1961), A model for predictive measurements of advertising effectiv eness , Journal of Marketing, Vol. 25No. 6, pp. 59-62. Mackay, M.M. (2001a), Evaluation of brand equity measures: further empirical resu lts , Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 10 No. 1, p. 38. Mackay, M.M. (2001b), Application of brand equity measures in service markets , Jou rnal of Services Marketing, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 210-21. Morgan, R.P. (2000), A consumer-oriented framework of brand equity and loyalty , Jo urnal of Market Research Society, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 65-78. Motameni, R. and Shahrokhi, M. (1998), Brand equity valuation: a global perspecti ve , Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 7 No. 4, p. 275. Myers, C.A. (2003), Managing brand equity: a look at the impact of attributes , Jou rnal of Product & BrandManagement, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 39-51. Nunnally, J.C. (1994), Psychometric Theory, 3rd ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Park, C.S. and Srinivasan, V. (1994), A survey-based method for measuring and und erstanding brand equity and its extendibility , Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 31No. 5, pp. 271-88. Linking c ustomer-based brand equity with brand market performance Percy, L. and Rossiter, J.R. (1992), e advertising strategies , A model of brand awareness and brand attitud

Phau, Ian and Prendergast, Gerard (1998) Asia s brand of conspicuous consumption Re search Directions , Business and Economics for the 21st Century, Volume II,pp. 46 52. 129

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Private vs. manufacturer brand buyers: Do they show different preferences in product attributes? Athanasios Krystallis MAPP, Department of Marketing and Statistics, Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus, Denmark atkr@asb.dk Polymeros Chrysochou Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, University of South Australia, A delaide, Australia Nowadays, in most of the developed countries around the globe private brands hav e witnessed considerable growth (Sethuraman, 2009). This growth can be attributed to increas ed consumer recognition and retailers ). Although capability to promote private brands (Dhar & Hoch, 1997

consumer decisions to purchase private brands may depend on the product category (Richardson, Jain & Dick, 1996), product characteristics may be important driver s of choice and differ between private and manufacturer brands (Kwon, Lee & Kwon, 2008). Kwon et al. (2008) postulated that perceived product characteristics may influence purchase intent towards private brands. More specific, in product categories that are characterised by low invol vement and low switching costs there is higher intention to buy private brands. Moreover, low v alue-conscious consumers are more likely to buy private brands when the products are search goo ds rather than experience goods. These findings suggest that private brands, in comparison to manufacturer brands , are perceived differently by consumers. Moreover, consumers may place different importance wei ghts to product attributes when choosing between private and manufacturer brands within the same product category. However, the literature still lacks comparative insights into the differences in preferences for specific attributes between private labels and manufacturer bran d buyers across different product categories. In order to further explore this phenomenon, this paper aims to investigate differences in product attribute preferences between brand type buye r groups (i.e. private vs. manufacturer brand buyers) between two fast moving consumer goods ca tegories. For the purposes of this study, the Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) method was used to measure the

importance that private and manufacturer brand buyers assign to product attribut es (Marley and Louviere, 2005). Two product categories were selected (a non-edible (toothpa ste) and an edible (orange juice) one), and for each category 13 most prominent attributes w ere chosen. Then, these 13 attributes were combined into 13 subsets of 4 attributes each, ba sed on a balanced incomplete block design. Data were collected in the form of a web-based survey carried out in Germany during July 2010. The results suggest that between product categories, both private and manufactur er brand buyers assign importance to similar product attributes. For example, the attribu te good value for money was among the most important ones, followed by health and quality relat ed attributes. However, between buyer groups there were also significant difference s within each product category. Brand trust and corporate image were more important for manufa cturer brand buyers, whereas good value of money was more important for private brand b uyers (especially in the orange juice category). On the opposite, physical product att ributes (i.e. packaging-related) do not seem to differ between buyer groups or, where differen t, the preference scores are among the lowest of all attributes examined. This study raises some broader implications for the marketing of private brands. Private label buyers care for functional performance of products (i.e. in the present case for hedonic and health-related attributes) as much as manufacturer brands buyers do. However, th eir 130

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications preferences are led by good value for money. This suggests that this group shoul d be provided with products that are good value for money and at the same time be similar in p erformance to manufacturer brands. On the other hand, branding is more important for manufactu rer brand buy References Dhar, S., S. Hoch. 1997. Why store brand penetration varies by retailer. Marketi ng Science 16, no. 3: 208-227. Kwon, K. N., M. H. Lee, Y.J. Kwon. 2008. The effect of perceived product charact eristics on private brand purchases. Journal of Consumer Marketing 25, no. 2: 105-14. Marley, A. A. J., J. J. Louviere. 2005. Some probabilistic models of best, worst , and best-worst choices. Journal of Mathematical Psychology 49, no. 6: 464-80. Richardson, P., A.K. Jain, A. Dick. 1996. Household store brand proneness: A fra mework. Journal of Retailing 72, no. 2: 159-85. Sethuraman, R. 2009. Assessing the external validity of analytical results from national brand and store brand competition models. Marketing Science 28, no. 4: 759-81. 131

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Internal Brand Orientation: a prerequisite for brand excellence

George J. Avlonitis Professor of Marketing Department of Marketing and Communication Athens Universi ty of Economics and Business, Greece. avlonitis@aueb.gr Lamprini P. Piha PhD Candidate Department of Marketing and Communication Athens University of Eco nomics and Business, Greece Abstract In recent years, an augmenting academic and practitioner interest is witnessed r egarding brand orientation and the factors that engender this orientation in organizations. How ever, much less attention has been devoted to operationalizing this notion. The authors delineat e the domain of brand orientation and focus on one of its building blocks, namely internal brand orientation (IBO). They define it as the degree to which an organization effectively and eff iciently adopts the necessary internal behaviors for developing and maintaining strong brands. They report the development of a valid measure of IBO, consisting of two behavioral components: top management commitment and shared brand values. Theoretical and managerial implic ations of the new scale are discussed. Keywords: Brand orientation, Internal branding, Top management commitment, Share d brand value. Introduction In our increasingly complex world, marketers are struggling to find new conceptu al bases on which to design and deliver their marketing programs. According to Kotler (2005) , there are two answers to the marketing challenge facing today s companies. One is to know your c ustomers better and to get closer to them. The other is to differentiate your offering th rough your branding work so that the offering stands out as relevant and superior in value to a clear target

market. Brands are clusters of functional and emotional values making promises about uni que experiences (de Chernatony, 2001). These clusters of values are communicated not just through advertisements and other marketing activities, but also through the interactions between staff and customers (de Chernatony and Segal-Horn, 2001). Thus, the success of brands depends critically on staff reinforcing the desired values through appropriate behavior, and as a result, branding requires that everyone in the organization works to carry out the brand s promise. In this context, the organizational perspective of brand identity management, recen tly termed Brand Orientation , is more than crucial. However, since the term Brand Orientation was coined by Urde (1994) in order to describe an organizational focus on developing and maintaining strong brands over time, the number of research works that focus on the subject is limited. Most importantly, the major ity of those efforts, while providing useful insights for the construct, are descriptive in n ature, based on qualitative means of survey such as case studies. As a consequence, a review of all relevant 132

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications work, as well as a focused research on the subject is needed, so that a sound co nceptualization and consequently operationalization of Brand Orientation becomes possible. The purpose of this research project is to present both a conceptual analysis of brand orientation and a reliable and valid scale for effectively measuring the degree of its internal facet (Internal Brand Orientation) in an organization. The article describes in detail the scale development process and concludes with a discussion of theoretical and manageria l implications, as well as with directions for future research in light of the new scale. Literature review The first to propose the term Brand Orientation was Urde (1994). Based on a case s tudy, he defined it as an approach in which the processes of the organization revolve arou nd the creation, development and protection of brand identity in an ongoing interaction with target customers with the aim of achieving lasting competitive advantages in the form o f brands . Hankinson (2001) maintained that Brand Orientation is the extent to which organiz ations regard themselves as brands and an indication of how much (or how little) the or ganization accepts the theory and practice of branding . Later on, Bridson and Evans (2004) p roposed that Brand Orientation is the degree to which the organization values brands and its p ractices are oriented towards building brand capabilities . Variants of these ideas are offered by Simoes and Dibb (2001), Ewing and Napoli (2004), Reid et al. (2006) and Wong and Merrilles (2008). However, all aforementioned studies, most of which are focusing on the developme nt of a brand orientation framework and fewer on the empirical measurement of brand orientatio n (Ewing and Napoli, 2004; Hankinson, 2001), either have taken a narrow industry-specific perspective (e.g. the charity sector) or have been based on a limited theoretical foundation . Only recently did Baumgarth (2010) provide a broader empirical measurement of Brand Orientatio n but, focusing explicitly on the business-to-business sector, he conceptualized brand orientation similarly to the existing market orientation model of Homburg and Pflesser (2000 ), translating the marketing framework to the branding context. Apart from those research efforts that particularly deal with Brand Orientation, important

insights for the construct can be retrieved by the work of top academics in the branding field that focus their research on brand management and maintenance of strong brands o ver time, without however mentioning specifically brand orientation (e.g. Doyle, 1990; Aak er, 1996; Davis et al., 2002; Keller, 2008). A thorough review of the above relevant literature reveals that brand orientatio n refers to an integrated organizational approach towards the development, maintenance and enha ncement of successful brands over time. This wide meaning of brand orientation is probab ly the reason why, till now, a high difficulty in operationalization or an operationalization based on existing models (e.g. market orientation) is witnessed. As a consequence and in contrast with previous research efforts, we suggest that brand orientation should be viewed as consisti ng of four basic building blocks (see table 1). 133

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 1: Brand Orientation Building Blocks Brand The level of importance a company attaches to its brands (e.g. Aaker, 1996, Orientation as Urde, 1999; Hankinson, 2001). Attitude Brand Development Orientation The extent to which an organization successfully adopts the requisite behaviors for the development of clear and differentiated brands, based on a thorough knowledge regarding customers brand needs, competitive brand offerings, and internal brand capabilities (e.g. Aaker, 1996; Keller 2008). Internal Brand Orientation The level of common understanding of the brands values across the organization, through top management commitment and internal processes that motivate towards brand supportive behaviors (e.g. de Chernatony 1999; Urde, 1999). External Brand Orientation The degree to which an organization, after having successfully developed its brands, effectively and efficiently adopts the necessary behaviors for the management of this superior brand identity (e.g. Keller, 2000; Keller and Lehmann, 2006). Considering the fact that each building block comprises several dimensions, we m aintain that the operationalization of brand orientation should entail the development of fou r distinct scales, according to the respective building blocks, which can be used separately or tog ether, depending on the research context. This article focuses on the Internal Brand Or ientation construct (hereafter called IBO) and presents the development of a reliable and valid measure of this notion. Research methodology Construct definition and content domain The development of the IBO scale must go hand-in-hand with the conceptual develo pment of the construct itself. After defining IBO (see table 1), we need to identify the possible underlying dimensions of the construct and then develop scale items that can measure the st rength with which each dimension exists in an organization. For this purpose, we carefully e xamined the brand research that focuses on internal branding, revealing significant insights regarding the internal prerequisites that are necessary in order for organizations to successf ully support their brands over time. In order to enhance the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the

construct definition, we also conducted 27 carefully planned in-depth interviews with expe rts and individuals from relevant populations in multinational companies (usually Chief Marketing Officers). Their feedback was incorporated and translated into novel insights re garding IBO. Although such qualitative studies have been more associated with item judging, t hey can help delineate the facets of the construct prior to item generation (Netemeyer et al. , 2003). Synthesizing the received view from the literature and the results of our in-dep th interviews, IBO, as defined in our study, seems to be reflected in the following aspects of an organization: a) Top Management Commitment (TMC), referring to a clear and consistent commitme nt of the top management to the organization s brands, by supporting the development and inf usion of the brands values across the organization, in order to generate an ongoing staff commitment to the organization s brands and encourage brand supporting behaviors (e.g. Aaker, 19 96; de Chernatony 1999; Dunn and Davis, 2003). b) Shared Brand Values (SBV), pertaining to an effective communication of the br ands vision and positioning to all internal stakeholders and partners, in order to create a common understanding of the brands values across the organization and motivate towards t he proper delivery of the brands promise to customers (e.g. Keller, 2008, Davis et al., 200 2, Vallaster and de Chernatony, 2005). 134

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Item generation and selection After accurately defining and delineating IBO, we generated a pool of items with desirable psychometric properties in order to tap the domain of the construct (Churchill, 1979). In particular, by conducting extensive literature search and reading carefully all views expressed in the interviews, we generated a total of 44 items (15 for the TMC dimension, and 29 for the SBV dimension). Several issues were considered during this stage, including wording clarity, redundancy and response formats (DeVellis, 1991). After the initial screening, a s well as content and face validity check, we retained 32 applicable items. We then asked from 15 judges (10 expert marketing practitioners and 5 marketing academicians) to evaluate those i tems in a 5point evaluation scale in terms of representativeness, specificity and clarity, and ra ise any concerns as they completed the scale. 21 items were retained (8 items for TMC, a nd 13 items for SBV), which had high levels of interjudge agreement (Haynes et al., 1995). In ad dition, some of the remaining items were adequately refined, following the experts suggestions. Item reduction and dimensionality of the scale As some psychometricians advocate (e.g. Clark and Watson, 1995), once an item po ol has been thoroughly judged, modified and/or trimmed by expert and population judges, pilo t testing the items on a larger sample (n=100-200) is in order. For pilot testing, convenience samples (e.g. college students) may suffice, but it is preferable to use a sample from a relev ant population of interest (Netemeyer et al., 2003). Taking this fact into account, we decided to use 146 managers attending part-time post graduate executive programs at the Athens University of Economics and Business as respondents in this stage. We included the 21 items in a questio nnaire in random order and asked these managers to fill in the questionnaire. In particula r, after explaining the concept of IBO, participants were asked to evaluate in a 7-point likert scale the extent to which the 21 items described behaviors in their company. Although they may have not necessarily been working in the marketing field, these managers have had several years of working experience and were in some way aware of the internal branding policy of their firm. As the main goals at this stage were a) to reduce the number of items so that th e remaining items maximize the explained variance in the scale and the scale s reliability and b) to test the

underlying dimensions of the construct, we performed EFA analysis using varimax rotation. The factor analysis revealed, consistent to theory, a two-factor solution with eigen values greater than 1 (variance explained = 73%). However, based on specific psychometric crite ria (Robinson et al., 1991) such as avoidance of cross loadings, factor loadings no less than .40 but no greater than .90, and corrected item-to-total correlations of .50 and above, 7 items wer e selected for deletion as they did not satisfied one or more of the above criteria. Given the reflective nature of the scale, exclusion of an item does not alter the measure (Jarvis et al., 20 03). A sufficient item pool of 14 items was retained (5 items for TMC dimension, and 9 items for S BV). 135

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Finalizing and confirming the scale In order to finalize the scale and confirm its dimensionality, reliability and v alidity, a second quantitative study was conducted. In particular, a formal questionnaire was form ed, which included the IBO scale developed, as well as the interfunctional coordination sc ale (Narver and Slater, 1990) and the interdepartmental conflict scale (Kohli and Jaworski, 1993 ) for validity purposes. The population of the study included large firms and firms with a stru ctured marketing department, so that the existence of an organized branding strategy is guarantee d. As a sampling frame, we selected a list of 1545 firms from the ICAP s database (the Gal lup s subsidiary in Greece), which satisfied our criteria. From these companies, a str atified sample of 500 firms was selected (strata were derived on the basis of size and SIC code). A web-based survey procedure was then used for data collection (Dillman, 2000), through whic h questionnaires were distributed via e-mail to marketing or brand managers of the selected firms. From the 500 questionnaires sent, and with the aid of two follow up efforts, 242 usable questionnaires were returned (48,4% response rate). An exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation revealed a clear two-factor structure with eigenvalues greater than 1, explaining 71% of the variance. All items loaded pre dominantly on a single factor and satisfied all other necessary psychometric criteria, suggestin g that no further trimming was needed. We also assessed the internal reliability of the two dimens ions of IBO by calculating the Cronbach s alpha. Values were satisfactory (TMC = .931, SBV = .935 ), as each exceeded the accepted reliability threshold of .70 (Nunnally, 1978). In addition , all individual items within each dimension averaged item-to-total correlations of .78, and all exceeded .69, indicating satisfactory levels of internal consistency. Following Gerbin and Anderson (1988) recommendations, we used confirmatory facto r analysis to further evaluate the resultant scale (see Table 2). The overall fit of the tw o-factor measurement model was good: root mean square of approximation (RMSEA) = .079, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.959, goodness-of-fit index (GFI) = 0.907, and .(1 01) = 189.36, p<0.001. Baggozi and Heatherton (1994) question the usefulness of the chi-square statistic in similar models; thus, we consider other fit statistics more valuable in this con text. In addition,

the ratio between the chi-square statistic and the number of degrees of freedom was 2.49, indicating an adequate fit. 136

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 2: Confirmatory Factor Analysis two-factor model *p< .01 Notes: All coefficient values are standardized and appear above the associated p ath. Dotted lines represent correlations. Table 3 Squared Correlations 137

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Construct AVE 1 2 1. TMC .73 2. SBV .63 .60 4. COOR .49 .55 5. CONF .28 .23 All indicators, as shown in table 2, loaded significantly on their hypothesized latent construct, which demonstrates convergent validity. The results of the tests for discriminan t validity appear in table 3. For each IBO construct (Top Management Commitment: TMC and Shared Br and Values: SBV), average variance extracted (AVE) exceeds the .5 level that Hair an d colleagues (1998) recommend. In addition, the AVE for each construct is higher than the squ ared correlation between that construct and any other construct (including interfunct ional coordination: COOR and interdepartmental conflict: CONF), indicating that discri minant validity is not a problem (Fornell and Larcker 1981). In order to assess nomological vali dity, we tested the relationship between IBO and interfunctional coordination (COOR) and interde partmental conflict (CONF), as these constructs are thought to be theoretically related. Mo re specifically, following Vallaster s and de Chernatony s suggestion (2005) that successful internal branding goes hand in hand with a harmonized and well coordinated cooperation between all organizational departments, we expected a positive relationship between IBO and the organization s degree of interfunctional coordination and a negative relationship between IBO and the organization s level of interdepartmental conflict. Indeed, significant re lationships (positive for correlations with COOR and negative for correlations with CONF) at the 0.01 level between all respective constructs were found, with correlation coefficients ragi ng from (-).48 to .74. Results and discussion Branding and brand management has clearly become an important management priorit y for all types of organizations (Keller & Lehmann 2006). Managing strong brands, though, requires from organizations a certain approach and brand competence. Employees are a criticall y important constituent of the brand and ultimately responsible for delivering its promise. As such, they need a clear understanding of the brand s values, along with strong commitment and

identification. To act as brand ambassadors , employees do not only need to underst and the brands values and have the right skills and organizational support, but they also need to firmly believe in and internalize those values. In this vein, our anticipated contribution to business firms is to show them a the oretically wellgrounded and empirically tested way to successfully link internal brand building to emplo yee commitment, achieve the necessary homophony in all corporate and marketing communications regarding the brands and consequently strengthen their market pos ition. Overall, our effort hopefully provides managers with a comprehensive view of wha t internal brand orientation is and how it can be attained. Taking into account that such a n orientation may not be easily engendered, it could be considered an additional and distinct form of sustainable competitive advantage. As far as Marketing academics are concerned, they have now at their disposal a c arefully developed, reliable and valid measure of internal brand orientation, which can b e assessed along with other important marketing organizational constructs. However, multiple test s and applications are required to more confidently infer a construct s validity, and so me of these tests 138

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications may even lead to a refinement of the construct itself. Additionally, more studie s are needed in order to test Internal Brand Orientation s antecedents and consequences, giving ev idence of its importance for an organization s success. Finally, the development of measures reg arding all facets of brand orientation, which are currently absent from the scientific fiel d, are needed so that the integrated Brand Orientation strategy of a firm is adequately operation alized and assessed. References Aaker, D. A. (1996). Building Strong Brands. Free Press NY. Baggozi, R. P. and Heatherton, T. F., (1994). A General Approach to Representing Multifaceted Personality Constructs: Application to State Self-Esteem. Structural Equation Modeling, 1(1), 35-67. Baumgarth, C. (2010). Living the Brand : Brand Orientation in the Business-to-Busin ess Sector. European Journal of Marketing, 44 (5), 653-671. Bridson, K. & Evans, J. (2004). The Secret to a Fashion Advantage is Brand Orien tation. International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, 32(8), 403-411. Churchill, G. A. (1979). A Paradigm for Developing Better Measures of Marketing Constructs. Journal of Marketing Research, 16(February), 64-73. Clark, L.A. & Watson, D. (1995). Constructing Validity: Basic Issues in Scale De velopment. Psychological Assessment, 7(3), 309-319. Davis, S. M., Dunn, M. & Aaker, D.A. (2002). Building the Brand-Driven Business. Free Press NY. Dillman, D. A. (2000), Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method , NY: John Wiley & Sons. de Chernatony, L. (1999). Brand Management Through Narrowing the Gap Between Bra nd Identity and Brand Reputation. Journal of Marketing Management, 15(1-3), 157-179. de Chernatony, L. (2001). From Brand Vision to Brand Education Strategically Branding and Sustaining Brands. Oxford, Butterworth Heinemann. de Chernatony, L. and Segal-Horn, S., (2001). Building on Services: Characterist ics to Develop Successful Services

Brands. Journal of Marketing Management, 17, 645-669. DeVellis, R.F. (1991). Scale Development: Theory and Applications. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Doyle, P. (1990). Building Successful Brands. The Journal of Consumer Marketing, 7(2), 5-21. Dunn, M. and Davis, S., (2003). Building Brands From the Inside. Marketing Manag ement, May/June, 32-37. Ewing, M. T. & Napoli, J. (2004). Developing and Validating a Multidimensional N onprofit Brand Orientation Scale. Journal of Business Research, 58(6), 841-853. Fornell, C. & Larcker, D.F. (1981). Evaluating Structural Equation Models with U nobservable Variables and Measurement Error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(February), 39-50. Gerbing, D.P. & Anderson, J.C. (1988). An Updated Paradigm for Scale Development Incorporating Unidimentionality and its Assessment. Journal of Marketing Research, 25(May), 186-192. Hair, J. F., Rolph, E., Anderson, R. L. & William, C. B. (1998). Multivariate Da ta analysis. NJ: Prentice Hall. Hankinson, Ph.. (2001). Brand Orientation in the Top 500 Fundraising Charities i n the UK. Journal of Product and Brand Management, 10 (6), 346-360. Haynes, S., Richard, D.C. & Kubany, E.S. (1995). Content Validity in Psychologic al Assessment: A Functional Approach to Concepts and Methods. Psychological Assessment, 7, 238-247 Homburg, C. & Pflesser, C. (2000). A Multiple-Layer Model of Market-Oriented Org anizational Culture: Measurement Issues and Performance Outcomes. Journal of Marketing Research, 37 (4), 449-462. Jarvis, C.B., MacKenzie, S.B. & Podsakoff P.M. (2003). A Critical Review of Cons truct Indicators and Measurement Model Misspecification in Marketing and Consumer Research. Journal of Consumer R esearch, 30 (Sept.), 199 218. Keller, K. L. & Lehmann, D. R. (2006). Brands and Branding: Research Findings an d Future Priorities. Marketing Science. 25(6), 740-759. Keller, K.L. (2000). The Brand Report Card. Harvard Business Review, 78(1), 147157. Keller, K.L. (2008). Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managi ng Brand Equity. Prentice Hall. Kohli, A. & Jaworski, B. (1993). Market Orientation: Antecedents and Consequence s. Journal of Marketing, 57(3), 53 71. Kotler, Ph. (2005). Foreword in Kellogg on Branding (Edited by Tybout A.M. & Cal kins T.). Wiley & Sons.

Narver, J.C. & Slater F.S. (1990). The Effect of a Market Orientation on Busines s Profitability. Journal of Marketing, 54(4), 20-35. Netemeyer, R., Bearden, W. & Sharma, S. (2003). Scaling Procedures: Issues and A pplications. Sage Publications. Nunnally, JC. (1978). Psychometric Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill. Robinson, J.P., Shaver, P.R. & Wrightsman, L.S. (1991). Criteria for Scale Selec tion and Evaluation. San Diego: Academic Press. 139

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Simoes, C. & Dibb, S. (2001). Rethinking the Brand Concept: A New Brand Orientat ion. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 6(4), 217-224. Reid, M., Luxton, S. & Mavondo F. (2006). The Relationship Between Integrated Ma rketing Communication, Market Orientation and Brand Orientation. The Journal of Advertising, 34(4), 11-23. Urde, M. (1994). Brand Orientation . A Strategy for Survival. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 11(3), 18-32. Urde, M. (1999). Brand Orientation: A Mindset for Building Brands into Strategic Resources. Journal of Marketing Management, 15(1-3), 117-133. Vallaster, C., & de Chernatony, L. (2005). Internationalization of Services Bran ds: The Role of Leadership During the Internal Brand Building Process. Journal of Marketing Management, 21(1-2), 181-2 03. Wong, H. Y. & Merrilees, B. (2008). Closing the Marketing Strategy to Performanc e Gap: the Role of Brand Orientation. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 15(5), 387-402. 140

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Exploring the Antecedents of Consumer-Brand Identification

Erifili Papista Athens Laboratory of Research in Marketing Athens, Greece epapista@aueb.gr Sergios Dimitriadis Marketing and Communication Department Athens University of Economics and Business The concept of identification, based on the social identity theory and on the or ganisational identification research (e.g. Tajfel and Turner 1985), is defined as psychological one form of

attachment that occurs when members adopt the defining characteristics of the or ganisation as defining characteristics for themselves (Dutton et al. 1994); and has been tradit ionally applied in a range of employees and members relationships with their respective organisations as well as to describe the strength of consumer-company relationships. Du et al. (2007) sup port that identification can also be developed in a range of company-brand relationships ( i.e. from corporate brands to individual brands). Thus, the concept of identification has been recently transferred in the branding field (consumer-brand identification) demonstrating the degree to which the brand expresses and enhances the individual s identity (Kim et al. 2001) . According to theorists, consumer identification with a company or brand is motiv ated by the satisfaction of one or more self-definitional needs (among them, self-continuity and selfdistinctiveness) (Bhattacharya and Sen 2003). The need for self-continuity sugge sts that in an attempt to understand themselves and their social worlds, people are motivated t o maintain a consistent sense of self (Bhattacharya and Sen 2003). Thus, consumers are expect ed to repeatedly consume brands that match their own sense of who they are. Similarly, social identity theorists contend that people need to distinguish themselves from others in soci al contexts (Tajfel and Turner 1985), so they are likely to seek out groups for affiliation

that are distinctive in dimensions they value. Therefore, through his or her purchase behaviour the cons umer expresses his or her need to socialise with certain groups in order to enhance h is or her social image. These two self-defining needs, although theoretically supported by identi fication literature, have not been empirically tested in the framework of consumer-brand relationships. Existing research has mainly focused on the attractiveness of brand personality or the corporate social responsibility (csr) of the company or brand ignoring the very basic cons umer needs that motivate the development of identification with a brand. Furthermore, this concept is also approached by branding theorists, named self-c onnection to a brand, reflecting the extent to which the brand is part of the self and the degre e to which the brand delivers on important identity concerns, tasks or themes (e.g. Fournier 199 8). The conceptual similarity of the two concepts has started to attract researchers atte ntion (e.g. Swaminathan et al). Moreover, those constructs seem to share the same antecedent s, as their development is based on the satisfaction of the same consumer needs. Research on branding field has long supported that consumers avoid choosing inconsistent with their b elief system products; rather consumers construct their self-identity and present themselves to others through their brand choices based on the congruency between brand-user associati ons and selfimage associations (e.g. Escalas and Bettman 2003). In addition, brands satisfy the underlying needs for social approval and outer-directed self-esteem and communicate referen ce group identity (e.g. Keller 1993). 141

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications To sum up, social identity theory provides us with antecedents of identification which are based on the satisfaction of the same human needs, namely self-expression and enhancem ent of social self-concept, in a similar way as the branding field. This research, based on th e conceptual similarity of the two constructs, attempts to empirically test the relative impa ct of those two motivations on the development of consumer-brand identification. This research question was part of a wider study conducted on the consumer-brand relationships. Data were collected from three samples, each one consisting of th e customers patronizing the stores of the selected natural cosmetics brands, resulting in a total of 850 respondents. Stores were selected to cover geographically the greater Athens met ropolitan area and the number of questionnaires per store was determined on the basis of the ta rget population residing in each district. To measure the constructs of self-expressi on and socialisation, well-established scales of the branding field were employed. The model also included the traditional antecedents of brand reputation and corporate social re sponsibility, in order to compare the relative effect of each antecedent on consumer-brand identi fication. Data analysis was conducted with structural equation modelling; the model had a satis factory fit. Preliminary findings suggest that the effect of self-expression on consumer-bran d identification is statistically significant and higher than the relative effect of reputation a nd csr. This research is a first attempt to study the conceptual similarity of two diffe rent constructs that have been used simultaneously in the branding context to describe the consumer-b rand relationships, as well the existence of common antecedents between them. Especia lly for the consumer-brand identification concept, those two motivations of self-expression and socialisation, although theoretically supported, have never been empirically tes ted, to the best of the authors knowledge. Findings highlight the role played by the self-expressi on need in the development of consumer-brand identification, revealing a new perspective that m arketing practitioners should consider, besides brand reputation and csr, when designing consumerbrand relationships policies. Future research though should further test the rol e of those two antecedents across different product categories, as well include other self-defi nitional needs. 142

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Emotional Intelligence and the leadership brand

Gary Mulholland University of Abertay Dundee, Dundee Business School, Marketing Group; Dundee Bu siness School, UK g.mulholland@abertay.ac.uk Tim Williams York St John University; York Purpose Brands, and the communication of brands, concern the ability of producers to add value to their product through creating strong perceptions, and loyal relationships with buyers , often based on an emotional involvement. The leadership brand is core to corporate communicatio ns and has parallels in the behaviour of brands, and value of emotion. This study explores the function of emotion within internal business relationships and mechanisms that add value to the business leadership brand. The purpose of this study was to consider if leaders use Emoti onal Intelligence (EI) as a manipulative tool, using their emotional knowledge and understanding t o gain personal benefits. Does EI develop, underpin or manipulate perceptions normally recognise d as trust. Methodology/Research The literature surrounding EI theory and transformational leadership is reviewed and used to form the basis for the subsequent research and conclusions. A sample of five lea ders and five members of staff, from an international business were interviewed in a series of semi-structured interviews and focus groups. These primary methods provided the study with uniqu e data in which employee perceptions of leadership and the use of EI were explored. Findings Each of the leaders openly expressed that they regularly influenced staff in ord er to gain personal advantages. This research indicates that the leader uses several techni ques in which to achieve this and that ultimately, EI is present in each. Furthermore, the studie

s findings conclude that this manipulation brings forth many negative emotions within the staff memb ers, which may prove detrimental to the organisation. However, during the process of the re search, the study discovered that this emotional manipulation could be reversed by the staff , specifically incorporating the idea that actions speak louder than words. The implication of this is that employees use the buyers own weaponry to reverse the balance of power away from the employer and towards the employee, and this may contribute to our understanding of how buyers are reversing the effects of brands, and using them against suppliers to reduce price, and brand value 143

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Key Words Emotional Intelligence (EI), transformational leadership, manipulation, communic ation, emotional responses. References Adair, John. 1993 (1998). Effective Leadership How To Develop Leadership Skills, London: Pan Books. Barbour, Rosaline. 2008. Introducing Qualitative Research, London: SAGE Publicat ions Limited. Barling, Julian, Slater, Frank and Kelloway, E. Kevin, 2000. Transformational lea dership and emotional intelligence: an exploratory study , Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 21:3, pp. 157-1 61. Barrett, Jim. 1998. Total Leadership How To Inspire and Motivate For Personal an d Team Effectiveness, London: Kogan Page Limited. Bass, Bernard. M and Riggio, Ronald. E. 2006. Transformational Leadership, New J ersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Incorporated. Bennis, Warren and Nanus, Burt. 1985 (1997). Leaders Strategies for Taking Charg e, New York: Harper Business. Brooks, Kit and Nafukho, Fredrick. Muyia, 2006. Human resource development, socia l capital, emotional intelligence any link to productivity , Journal of European Industrial Training, 30:2, pp. 117128. Burns, James. MacGregor. 1978 (1979). Leadership, New York: Harper & Row Publish ers. Carmeli, Abraham, 2003. The relationship between emotional intelligence and work attitudes, behaviour and outcomes An examination among senior managers , Journal of Managerial Psychology, 18:8, pp. 788-813. Carmeil, Abraham, Yitzhok-Halevy, Meyrou and Weisberg, Jacob, 2009. The relations hip between emotional intelligence and psychological wellbeing , Journal of Managerial Psychology, 24:1, pp. 66-78. Chen, Huei-Fang and Chiu, Yung-Ho, 2009. The influence of psychological contracts on the adjustment and organisational commitment among expatriates An empirical study in Taiwan , Interna tional Journal of Manpower, 30:8, pp. 797-814. Chiva, Ricardo and Alegre, Joaquin, 2008. Emotional intelligence and job satisfac tion: the role of organizational learning capability , Personnel Review, 37:6, pp. 680-701. Chrusciel, Dan, 2006. Considerations of emotional intelligence (EI) in dealing wi

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Kunnanatt, James. Thomas, 2008. Emotional intelligence: theory and description A Competency Model for Interpersonal Effectiveness , Career Development International, 13:7, pp. 614-629. Langley, Andrew, 2000. Emotional intelligence elopment , Career Development International, 5:3, pp. 177-183. a new evaluation for management dev

Malin, Tiny and Birch, Ann. 1998. Introductory Psychology, London: MacMillan Pre ss Limited. Maguire, Heather, 2002. Psychological contracts: are they still relevant? , Career Development International, 7:3, pp. 167-180. Mayer, John. D, Salovey, Peter and Caruso, David. R, 2008. New Ability or Eclectic Traits? , American Psychologist, 63:6, pp. 503-517. Emotional Intelligence

Maylor, Harvey and Blackman, Kate. 2005. Researching Business and Management, Ne w York: Palgrave McMillan. Morden, Tony. 2004. Principles of Management, England: Ashgate Publishing Limite d. Morse, Janice. M and Richards, Lyn. 2002. Read Me First For A Users Guide To Qua litative Methods, California: SAGE Publications. Myers, Gerald. E, 1969. Self An Introduction to Philosophical Psychology, USA: W estern Publishing Company Incorporated. Northouse, Peter. G. 2010. Leadership Theory and Practice, California: SAGE Publ ications Incorporated. Piers, Gerhart and Singer, Milton. B. 1971. Shame and Guilt A Psychoanalytic and a Cultural Study, USA: W.W. Norton & Company Incorporated. Prati, L. Melita, Ammeter, Anthony. D and Buckley, M. Ronald, 2003. Emotional Inte lligence, Leadership Effectiveness, and Team Outcomes , The International Journal of Organizational Ana lysis, 11.1, pp. 21-40. Quinton, Sarah and Smallbone, Teresa. 2006. Postgraduate Research in Business A Critical Guide, London: SAGE Publications Limited. Ritchie, Jane, Lewis, Jane and Elam, Gillian, 2003 (2005). Designing and Selectin g Samples , in Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide For Social Science Students and Researchers, (ed.) Jane Ritchi e and Jane Lewis, London: SAGE Publications Limited, pp. 77-109. Roberts, Richard. D, Matthews, Gerald and Zeidner, Mashe, 2001. Does Emotional In

telligence Meet Traditional Standards for an Intelligence? Some New Data and Conclusions , Emotion, 1:3, pp. 1 96-231. Rozzell, Elizabeth. J and Scroggins, Wesley. A, 2010. How much is too much? The r ole of emotional intelligence in selfmanaged work team satisfaction and group processes , Team Performance Management, 16: , pp. 33-49. Sadler, Philip. 2003. Leadership, London: Kagan Page Limited. Shaw, Ian. F. 1999. Qualitative Evaluation, London: SAGE Publications Limited. Sivanathan, Niroshaan and Fekken, Cynthia. G, 2002. Emotional intelligence, moral reasoning and transformational leadership , Leadership Organization Development, 23:4, pp. 198-204. Skinner, B.F. 1974 (1993). About Behaviourism, London: Penguin Group. Welch, Jim, 2003. The best teams are emotionally literate ones , Industrial and Com mercial Training, 35:4, pp. 168 170. Wengraf, Tom. 2001 (2004). Qualitative research interviewing: biographic narrati ve and semi-structured, London: SAGE Publication Limited. Wilkinson, Sue, 1997 (2004). Focus group research , in Qualitative Research Theory, Method and Practice, (ed.) David Silverman, London: SAGE Publications Limited, pp. 177-199. Yeung, Rob. Dr. 2009. The New Rules Emotional Intelligence, London: Marshall Cav endish Limited. Yukl, Gary. 1981 (2002). Leadership in Organizations, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Incorporated. 145

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The personal branding phenomenon: Pushing epistemological boundaries or desperately marketing marketing? Anna Zarkada Department of Business Administration Athens University of Economics and Business Abstract Personal branding is marketed as the path to prominence and happiness. This pape r reviews the definitions proposed in this fast-expanding body of literature, identifies the e pistemological issues raised and highlights inconsistencies that point towards an interpretatio n of the phenomenon as a frantic attempt by marketers to expand the market for their serv ices. It then re-defines the term and positions it within the corporate branding literature th us relieving the tensions caused by the predominant application of product-based logic. Finally, it explores the conditions under which marketing theory can help satisfy fundamental emotional n eeds of people living in a world of flux. Introduction Marketing has, so far, been very successful in incorporating methods and constru cts from other disciplines into a coherent system for satisfying needs through fostering exchan ge relationships. Following social changes and the evolutionary stages of the world economy, new m arketing disciplines have emerged and developed into disciplines onto themselves. Brandin g, one of the relatively recent additions to the distinct fields of marketing, was practiced b ut largely ignored by academics for a long time; was pronounced dead, or as good as dead in 1993 (K lein 2002, p. 213) but it eventually survived. Despite the fact that it is growing as a discip line faster than ever, there is still a considerable gap in branding theory and application development (Hughes 2007). As Keller (2006) put it, academics take the e B one small b approach as opposed to the larg

practitioners adopt. It appears that the market has really taken a very large B approach to personal branding. Since Peters (1997) coined the term, there has been an increasing proliferation of self -help books,

career advisors and Web pundits search o.

(Shepherd 2005, p. 602). In February 2010 a quick

Google came up with over 1million hits and about 30 books and other types of sel f-teaching material on self/personal branding, one of which (Thomas 2007) claimed to rank i n the top ten percent of book sales on Amazon. In a search of the term le books personal branding on Goog

529 books were found to have a mention of it somewhere in the text of which 58 h ad it in their title. Exactly a year later, Google books listed another 535 books that were add ed in 2010 and a total of 612 books with Personal Branding in the title. Amazon now stocks 224 it ems on personal branding. If popularity and plentiful supply of consultants, books, articles and training-oriented multimedia are indicators of a topic s interest then self marketing and personal b randing merit a closer look. Academics, however, have so far all but ignored the phenomenon (Hug hes 2007). So far, the personal branding literature has been summarily dismissed on the gro unds of low quality and described as a regimented diet of canned optimism and connect-the-dot formulas (Conley 2008, p. 181) backed by questionable quantities of substance and sold to naive customers by experts *that+ range somewhere between corny and culty (Conley 2008, p . 146

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 178). The branding of inanimate objects and corporations literature has also bee n found to have been built on paradigmatic examples more than theory thus resembling mythology rat her than science (Kay 2006, p. 743). Personal branding as an activity has also been criticised on moral grounds and d escribed as a blatant manifestation of the rampant cynicism of commercialism (Conley 2008; Kle in 2002; 2008; Lair et al. 2005; Rosen 2004) that equates complex human beings with somethin g like Kleenex (Conley 2008, p. 185) thus resulting in a crude attempt to provide regulat ed forms of self-exposure (Rosen 2004, p. 185). The personal branding movement has also been dismissed as a valorized imposition of hyper-individuality and image over substance and se lf-awareness (Lair et al. 2005). Its product, the branded self, has been described as one of t he more cynical products of labour in the post-Fordism economy and equated to a form of self-prese ntation singularly focused on attracting attention and acquiring cultural and monetary v alue (Hearn 2008, p. 213). Morality-bound arguments against mainstream branding have also be en put forward. Branding has been aphorised as based on the assumption that the customer is not intelligent or even human (Bazos 2009, p. 59), or in a more colourful way as the i ndustrialstrength Raid with which evil multinationals spray innocent cockroach-minded consumers (Klein 2002, p. 9). At a first glance, the imagery and narratives of the popular personal branding l iterature point towards the easy conclusion that it is but a fad stemming from the frantic attem pts of marketers to create jobs for themselves and their unemployed colleagues in a stagnant worl d economy which is being violently restructured without an obvious vision of the form that will emerge and the role marketing will play in the emergent plot. It is, indeed, hard to take a method of managing ones self and life advertised as the one and only guaranteed way of achi eving not only professional success (Aruda 2003; Flemings 2007a; Glasscock 2008) but also happiness (Hodgkinson 2005; Honaman 2008; Al Reis in his Foreword to Kaputa 2006, p. XIII; Mobray 2009; Montoya and Vandehey 2002; Rampersad 2009; Schawbel 2009a) seriously. What is he re proposed, however, is that before throwing it out, the bathwater should be exami ned in case there is also a baby in the ever-expanding tub of marketing theory. This stance is suggested not only because the most ardent critics of personal branding join their voices with

the loudest proponents in concluding that *a+ccessible and affordable personal branding is he re to stay (Conley 2008, p. 178) but also, because research has demonstrated that this poten tially crucial idea (Shepherd 2005, p. 602) already constitutes a sociocultural institution (Lair et al. 2005, p. 311). A note on the methodology of the analysis Utilising the discourse analysis methodology (Bryman and Bell 2007), this paper focuses on the definitions of personal branding (with an emphasis on items published after Shep herd s (2005) review). The aim of the analysis is to unearth the conceptual foundations of the personal branding literature and propose a framework for resolving the multitude of incon sistencies it contains in order to provide a basis for the construction of a coherent theoreti cal framework for this fascinating social phenomenon. Review of definitions of personal branding: the construct s conceptual foundations Nowhere is the conceptual foundation and theoretical grounding of a term clearer than in its definition; what Aristotle described as the statement of an object's essential a ttributes that form its essential nature (Aristotle 2007). When examining the -rarely provided -defi nitions of personal branding, however, it is easy to agree with Bertrand Russel s (2004/1946, p. 192) description of the very essence they try to capture as a hopelessly muddle-headed notion . The predominant conceptual framework of the popular personal branding literature (being webor paper-based) appears to be a concoction of psychotherapy-based personal devel opment 147

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications tactics mixed the popularised metaphysics of The Secret (Byrne 2006) and sprinkl ed with aggression of the Art of War (Sun Tzu 2002) spawned genre of management. This ed ifice is particularly apparent in the following definition offered by the dubbed the perso nal branding guru by the media and clients alike (Aruda 2010) whose personal branding methodol ogy certifies personal branding strategists in over 20 countries: *personal branding is+ understanding what is truly unique about you (...) and usi ng that to differentiate yourself and guide your career decisions. Through unearthing the t rue you and consistently and constantly living your personal brand, you attract what you nee d to achieve your goals without having to wrestle with the universe to acquire it (Aruda 2009). The main idea of this definition has been summarised as unearthing what is truly unique about you and letting everyone know about it (Schawbel 2009a, p. 2) with the purpose of determining if the person will conquer the professional arena or if she will be defeated by it d' Alessandro 2004, p. 6) to the point of achieving the most prized position in cla ssical Athenian society, that of attaining ..te..f. .a (posthumous fame) as your brand is how you l ive in the hearts and minds of those in your market (Hodgkinson 2005, p. 113). A conceptually and structurally very similar (only leaning more on Alfred Binet s measures of intelligence and extending into economics and theology) definition of personal b randing is that of: *u+nlocking your inner genius and connecting it to your passion and addressing a specific problem that can lead to profitability -emotionally, mentally, psychological (si c), spiritually, and economically (Flemings 2007b). Another stream of definitions echoes marketing thought and adds support to Hearn s (2008, p. 213) evaluation of a personally branded person as a product, producer, and consum er ( ) captive to and conditioned by the controlling interests of global flexible capit al . This observation is best illustrated in the following definition: personal branding *is+ all about delivering something of value to a customer, and delivering it in such a way that it creates an emotional connection with that customer (Thomas 20

07, p. 19). Hughes (2007, p. 1115) simply equates people to goods or services and proposes t hat the current American Marketing Association definition of a brand is simply be (sic) extended to include people thus concluding that a dentify a personal brand therefore would also easily i

product or service and is a sellers promise to deliver consistently a specific s et of features, benefits and services to buyers through its four important characteristics; attrib utes, benefits, values and personality . Such an approach implies that people have the means and t he knowledge to define and research their markets to great detail as they will need to assess not only existing and explicit (as in a job advertisement) but also emerging needs a nd desired benefits. It also assumed that the person to be sold can easily be fashioned to display the attributes desired by a correctly segmented target market and clearly positioned as such in relation to all competing persons. The impossibility of achieving such a task is evident since the fundamental assumption of full information about the market and the competition, which is hard to meet with respect to products, is totally unsustainable in the fluid lab our or fame markets for individuals. For these reasons, as well as on the basis of a moral o bjection (Conley 2008) to the commodification g appears to of humans (Lair et al. 2005, p. 338), product brandin

be an inappropriate framework to be applied to people. To avoid setting such hard to sustain assumptions, some definitions are left pur posefully vague and open to a multitude of interpretations. personal branding has been described as: a proactive behaviour that influences your ability to be sought after, mentioned, valued and given a second, third and fourth look (Mobray 2009, p. 114) and those varied activities undertaken by individuals to make themselves known in the marketplace, usually, (though not exclusively) for the purpose of obtaining gain ful employment (Shepherd 2005, p. 590). 148

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications It is this confusion of disciplines, the best-seller paperback vocabulary and th e hype that gives the impression that personal branding is all about marketing the concept and its practitioners rather than the actual people that are to be become brands. All these definitions (and the many that are fashioned on the same lines) fail t o serve the only purpose of an explanation which is to remove or to prevent misunderstanding enstein 2009, p. 45e). Ordo ad chao : Repositioning personal branding within the epistemological bounda ries of marketing Personal Branding has been described as an arcane activity (Shepherd 2005, p. 590) , a strategic process (Montoya and Vandehey 2002) a programmatic approach and a proact ive response (Lair et al. 2005, p. 309 quoted in Hughes. 2007) or an indeterminate k ind of proactive behavior (Mobray 2009, p. 114) and a powerful tool (Post 2005, pp. 33-4). It is her e proposed that labelling it as just a process (Schawbel 2009a) is parsimonious. Like any pro cess, it has inputs, a method and intended outcomes. Inputs to the personal branding process: identity The proposed inputs to the process fall into two categories: they are either (a) related to the person to be branded (true you (Aruda 2009), identity (Hodgkinson 2005; Montoya and Vandehey 2002; Zara 2009), uniqueness (Schawbel 2009a), inner genius (Flemings 2 007b), character (d' Alessandro 2004; Mobray 2009), purpose in life (Rampersad 2009), p ersonality (Montoya and Vandehey 2002), passions (Mobray 2009; Montoya and Vandehey 2002; Rampersad 2009), and personal mark (Mobray 2009) or even fully equated to creati ng a life of value (Graham 2001)) or (b) related to the person s relationship with other people (perceptions about or expectations of a person in others (Montoya and Vandehey 2002), legend (d' Alessandro 2004), image (Montoya and Vandehey 2002; Rampersad 2009), reputation (Hodgkinson 2005; Montoya and Vandehey 2002; Rampersad 2009), hard to shake perc eptions (Montoya and Vandehey 2002), instant labels (Montoya and Vandehey 2002), and con sensus (d' Alessandro 2004)). It is here suggested that the (amusing or irksome) contradictions that have been illustrated above can be removed by defining the input as identity without any loss of meani (Wittg

ng as the term covers all aspects of the inputs related to the person as well as all of the inp uts related to other people listed above in the sense that a communicated identity is a person s image in as far as other people decode it using the frame in which it was cast. For the purposes of t his analysis a definition of identity as what prevents me from being identical to anybody else (M aalouf 1996, p. 10) is sufficient. The construct is the crux of the individual s relationship w ith the self, the others and the world in the ever-present struggle to overcome feelings of aliena tion and to limit the angst of existence (Cooper 1999; Erickson 1974), or in the context of curren t employment conditions in the western world, the angst of being able to stay in gainful empl oyment and maintain the standard of living one is accustomed to. The identity of an ego als o functions as the anchor-point for another, critical but confusingly dealt with, issue in the pers onal branding literature the unity of an individual life-story (Habermas 1972, p. 153). What is here proposed is that identity, the product of a transcendental experien ce of selfreflection and self-ascertainment of the consciousness (Habermas 1972), as well as the mechanisms and tools for its creation, negotiation and maintenance (Pinker 2007) fall way beyond the epistemological domain of marketing. Identity, despite its being a co ntext and frame dependent (Bauman 2008; Bouchard 1990; Gergen 1995) process of constantly becomin g (Cooper 1999), can only be taken as a given in the personal branding process. Ma nagement and 149

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications marketing theory, cannot make people into what they are, and they are unlikely to directly deliver the promised happiness (Hodgkinson 2005; Honaman 2008; Al Reis in his Fo reword to Kaputa 2006, p. XIII; Mobray 2009; Montoya and Vandehey 2002; Rampersad 2009; Sc hawbel 2009a). It is here proposed, however, that they could provide helpful abstractio ns and metaphors as well as methods for making the most of what people have (or even wh at they are) through effective communication. The method of the personal branding process: communication The proposed procedures to be used for branding oneself can be categorised as be ing (a) orientated inwardly (unearthing (Aruda 2009; Schawbel 2009a), unlocking (Fleming s 2007a) understanding (Aruda 2009), connecting to one s passions (Flemings 2007a) strategi cally taking control (Montoya and Vandehey 2002) and revealing (Flemings 2007a; Rampersad 200 9)) and/or (b) outwardly orientated (living the brand (Aruda 2009; Flemings 2007a; Honaman 2008; Montoya and Vandehey 2002; Rein et al. 2006), differentiating (Aruda 2009), crea ting consensus of impressions about the branded person (d' Alessandro 2004), delivering (Mobray 2009), bottling and marketing (Chamberlin 2007) and letting everyone know (Schawbel 200 9a; Shepherd 2005)). The inwardly orientated methods -regardless of their being based on the assumpti on that the substance of the brand is not there so it needs to be created (d' Alessandro 200 4; Lair et al. 2005; Montoya and Vandehey 2002) or that it exists so it needs to be found (Arud a 2009; Flemings 2007b; Rampersad 2009; Schawbel 2009a) belong, as extensively argued ab ove, to the realm of philosophy and psychoanalysis. The outwardly orientated methods, ho wever, are all (with the exception of living the brand which, if applied would result in an u nacceptable circular definition) aspects of one function to which marketing can significantl y contribute meaningful tools: communication. As one cannot not communicate (Watzlawick et al. 1967), it is important that we exclude from the discussion communication through what one does not do, despite its often bei ng as important as what one does (Yalom 1995), and focus on specific acts of communica tion which are thought out and intended to produce a predetermined reaction in other people in order to achieve work-related objectives. The outcome of the personal branding process: achieving work-related objectives

What the self-help or consultant-based personal branding literature gives as the reason for embarking their bandwagon is also problematic and laden with hype that supports the impression that it is marketing and marketers rather than their clients that are r eally being marketed. The suggested outcomes are either (a) related to other people s impressi ons thus overlapping with the proposed inputs or (b) related to benefits (to be given mor e than one look (Mobray 2009), increase one s worth (Schawbel 2009b), obtain emotional, mental, ps ychological spiritual gains (Flemings 2007b) and economic profitability (Flemings 2007b; Pos t 2005) or achieving the conquest of the professional world (d' Alessandro 2004)). Following the existential issues identified above, personal branding is offered as the cure to the primordial fear of being eaten by predators as it teaches people how to be the di ner and not the entre (Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the Guerilla Marketing books in Selfbran d 2006). The problem with this metaphor, however, is that, there is just an n between victi m and victimizer. In a more civilised fashion it is presented as a mechanism for effec tively facing fears of exclusion, like being ignored, misunderstood, underpaid or left behind (Aruda 2009; Kaputa 2006; Post 2005; Schawbel 2009b; Selfbrand 2006). These, of course, are but phob ias and identity problems that are best dealt with on the couch (Taylor 2007/1989). 150

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications In the general confusion that characterises the personal branding literature the re is also room for strong evaluations for discriminating between aspirations that are wer (as higher or lo

defined by Taylor 2007/1989, p. 14/4). It is not uncommon for the personal brand to be elevated to the status of a life brand that is synonymous to leading a life of value (Monto ya and Vandehey 2002; Thomas 2007), mak*ing+ a difference (Montoya and Vandehey 2002), providing value (Montoya and Vandehey 2002; Thomas 2007) and creating a transcend ent self by putting one s gifts to their highest use in the service of others (Graham 2001; Montoya and Vandehey 2002). The outcomes of a successful branding strategy extend beyond lif e on this planet to how branded people will be remembered by their friends and family, aft er they have departed it (Hodgkinson 2005; Honaman 2008; Montoya and Vandehey 2002; Rampersad 2009). The fulfillment of higher aspirations is often combined with mundane outcomes su ch as making one special, memorable, desirable, and worth extra money in the bank . 33) but (Post 2005, p

generally, money is mentioned alongside the noble aspiration of helping others ( e.g. Montoya and Vandehey 2002) by giving to charities (e.g.Mobray 2009). These objectives fa ll within the realm of philosophy whilst psychologists are better equipped than marketers to h elp one become, or appear to be a distinctive leader (Hodgkinson 2005; Post 2005).

The role of marketing is to bring two parties interested in an exchange of value s together under conditions that provide mutual satisfaction of needs and desires. Obviously, a p otential employer and a prospective employee or an entertainer and a person looking for e ntertainment can be helped by marketing techniques in their search for each other as well as in establishing and maintaining a mutually profitable and satisfying exchange relationship. This outcome has been acknowledged in the personal branding literature only in the form of entry or transition within labour markets (Aruda 2003; Chamberlin 2007; Post 2005; Schawbel 2009a). Thus, it is here suggested that the epistemology of marketing can comfortably accommodate hu man relationships if they are strictly delineated as the exchange of one s skill, tale nt and time for money that is achieving one s work related objectives.

Towards an integrative theoretical framework of personal branding The objective of this paper is to explore the conditions under which personal br anding can be reclaime*d+ (...) from the enthusiasts d that a (Shepherd 2005, p. 602). It is here propose

coherent theoretical framework can be based on corporate branding theory. As dem onstrated through the preceding deconstruction and discourse analysis of the dominant stre ams of definitions of personal branding, it is the application of product logic that le ads to irresolvable moral and methodological problems. In the context of ketchup and automobiles a purely contrived signification proce ss is perfectly achievable. The complete product experience package can be conjured up from scra tch and then formed into an autonomous value set and staged-managed as a consumable experienc e. In the case of human beings this is simply not possible. When the brand consultant or s elf-help manual starts work on the brand the complete attribute and value set is already fully f ormed: a grown person with a face and body, a history, a personality, some affiliations and a r eputation already established. The corporate branding stream, however, appears to be applicable an d capable of resolving the ambiguities of the current theoretical mispositioning. The debate over corporate anthropomorphism dates back to the early 17th century and has recently been both legally resolved (Laufer 1996) and empirically demonstrated ( Kusku and Zarkada-Fraser 2004). A few key points on the reverse argument of corporate-huma n equivalence however, need to be made to illustrate the applicability of corporat e branding theory to the problem of theoretically grounding personal branding. A person can create products for sale and can offer services in exchange for money but is much more than these potential offerings to society and the market, and as such it functions in the s ocioeconomic 151

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications system in a manner that resembles that of a corporation. A person has values and intrinsic qualities that may, or may not be evident in the context of production and is vi sible, relevant and interdependent with a set of individuals and organisations that extends much bey ond the confines of the actual and potential buyers of the products and services offered for sale what is termed as stakeholders in the case of corporations. Finally, both people and co rporation. have distinct histories, identities and reputations that can form the basis for branding but cannot be changed through branding. It has already been ascertained that corporate-level branding can also be applie d to countries, regions, and cities and that corporate brands are oduct brands fundamentally different from pr

in terms of disciplinary scope and management, (...) have a multi-stakeholder ra ther than customer orientation and [for them] the traditional marketing framework is inade quate and requires a radical reappraisal (Balmer and Gray 2003, p. 976). Thus, personal br anding would be defined in a manner similar to Balmer s (2001, p. 281) explanation of a corporate brand as the conscious decision to make known attributes of a person s identity in the form of a clearly defined branding proposition underpinning efforts to communicate in order to dif ferentiate the person from other creators of similar products or providers of similar services and to enhance stakeholder groups and networks pectations perception of the person s ability to fulfill the ex

the branding proposition raises. The key issue of corporate branding is the communication of a covenanted identit y (Otubanjo et al. 2010), the critical identity type which underpins the corporate brand and co mprises a set of expectations relating to an organisation's products or services and activities ( Balmer and Gray 2003). From the infinite number of elements that comprise a human identity, it h as been convincingly argued, that what makes the difference between a person that is con sidered to be doing something well and a successfully branded person is the latter s ability to represent qualities, values and a culture on a grander scale (Montoya and Vandehey 2002). Indeed, values, culture and communication skills have been found to be the deciding element sepa

rating very high-achievers from adequately performing managers in empirical cross-cultural a nd crosssectional studies of non-results based managerial performance measurements using a 360o methodology (Zarkada-Fraser and Fraser 1999; 2003). This observation is also hig hly congruent with current branding thought that advocates the creation of powerful symbolic pr oducts, having considerable social impact (Kay 2006, p. 746) only in the case of products the embodied values are mainly contrived (Balmer 2001, p. 281) whilst in corporate bra nding these are actually the values held by people (owners, founders and employees) -a nd giving shape and colour to 2004, p. 1) a set of ideas or values that a society deems important (Holt

shifting away from the iconicity that turns products into symbols (Holt 2004). F ollowing this line of reasoning, the role of personal branding, is to provide ready-made inferences and supply the particular logical structure of knowledge about the branded person (Kay 2006; Ke ller 1993) in relation to values (Kapferer s (2004, p. 22) conceptualisation of the brand s moral dimension as satisfaction linked to the responsible behavior of the brand in its relationship with society ), the covenanted potential to have a positive impact on the audience s life, if not the world at large, and the person s ability to act as a conduit by which pleasurable experiences may b e consumed (Balmer and Gray 2003, p. 974). The latter point being the critical one, as the magnitude of the halo effect has been empirically ascertained in social psycholo gy (Nisbett and DeCamp Wilson 1977), human resource management (Fraser and Zarkada-Fraser 2001) and brand equity measurement (Leuthesser et al. 1995). For these significations to be perceived in an engaging way (Sternberg 1995) tha t will form the basis of meaningful and permanent associative representations (Kay 2006, p. 743) w hich will lead to successful exchange relationships what is required is communication thro ugh images, symbols and narratives. In the case of people, it is nature (aided by cosmetolog y and various medical specialisations) that provides the images, material possessions (such as clothes, cars and 152

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications gadgets) and affiliations (national, religious, political or hobby-based) that p rovide the symbols and behaviour and life-stories that are provide the material of narratives. Narr atives not only convey information but also position teller and listener in social space, forge bonds and uphold the values and order of communities (Kvale 1995). They are circulated and propag ated by four different categories of authors : (i) the owner of the brand, (ii) the cultural ind ustries, (iii) intermediaries and (iv) customers (Holt 2004). In the case of personal brands th ese are: (i) the branded person, (ii) the cultural industries that would, a few years ago, be inv olved only in the case of celebrity brands but are now within reach of anyone having access to the internet or the nerve to expose one s intimate life details on reality television shows, (iii) all those that know the person (what Montoya and Vandehey (2002) call audience ) and (iv) the people with w hom the branded person enters into the intended exchange relationships (loosely equated to Montoya and Vandehey s (2002) domain ). In a manner similar to corporate branding, it is here suggested that the critica l function of personal branding is communication, leaving other, potentially useful, marketing functions to play a peripheral role of informing and assisting the person to select what to c ommunicate and how best to do it. It follows that, like any other act of communication between individuals (whether direct or mediated) the message unavoidably acts on four levels, and is received by all four of the receivers ears (Schulz von Thun 2004): factual information, self-reve lations, relationship (how the sender and the receiver relate to each other) and appeal ( what the sender actually wants the receiver to do). If the communication process is successful, then the chosen identity is well received, the targeted segment of the audience will be turned i nto a domain and the needs of the person that has embarked on the personal branding adventure wil l be met through the response the brand will elicit. So will, of course the need of the o ther party to the exchange episode which, with the aid of marketing tools, can be turned into a mu tually satisfying long-term exchange relationship based on loyalty and trust (Ford 1990 ). If the advice of personal branding gurus is taken literally and followed by all to whom it is directed (which according to the author that coined the term personal branding ( Peters 1997) is absolutely everybody regardless of age position or line of business) the result

would be the hopelessly isolating experience of living in a dog-eat-dog, 21st-century world amo ngst bastards *to be+ outrun (d' Alessandro 2004, p. 146) and spending one s life jockeyin g for position and trying to knock *others+ off in the process (Chamberlin 2007). This bellum omnium

contra omnes (an image conveyed through a variety of metaphors found in d' Aless andro 2004; Hodgkinson 2005; Mobray 2009; Montoya and Vandehey 2002; Post 2005) combined wit h the incessant waving of one s flag made of labels such as leading and expert, sought-after, popular, and well-regarded *and telling one s+ story relentlessly, passionately, and unapologetically to anyone who will listen (Chamberlin 2007) would actually turn the branded people into throngs of Sisiphuses trapped in the communication implosion (du Gay 2000) where too many symbols would so clutter the audiences perceptual space as to become indistinguishable from one another and, unable to attract and hold, the desperat ely coveted, attention. Each would, at best, only enjoy a fleeting appeal and a fragile credi bility which would soon be shattered by the next realignment of symbols, or the appearance of the n ext glossier brand. The corporate branding literature provides a solution to this product-log ic based conundrum. It is corporate identity that is necessary and applicable to all orga nisations (exactly like a person s identity which is unavoidable and uniquely applicable). Corporate, as well as personal branding are contingent and useful under certain conditions and for spe cific purposes (Balmer and Gray 2003). Conclusions 153

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications In a stagnant world economy, with cost-cutting and downsizing hard on the corpor ate survival agenda and a job market for marketing professionals in the USA (where the bulk o f the personal branding literature is produced and sold) expected to be increasingly competitiv e as job openings will, for the next decade, be strictly related to the replacement of wo rkers who leave the occupation or retire (Bureau of Labour Statistics 2009) it is indeed a good marketing move by marketers seeking to market themselves to attempt to expand the target market fo r their skills and talents by appealing to hard-hit by unemployment professionals and various c ategories of wannabes that is practically everybody. The deconstruction of the personal branding literature has demonstrated that the re is a market need for it linked to the prevalence of identity crises and job insecurity. It i s the social role of the marketer to identify needs and develop ways to fulfil them to the satisfaction o f the parties to the exchange relationship. What is being turned into a commodity by the personal branding literature, however, is not really people but hope: the hope of standing out in the crowded spaces of urban modernity, the hope of being acknowledged, feeling unique and wo rthy of attention and most of all, the hope of finding meaning now that traditional valu es have been eroded and conspicuous consumption is fast losing ground as a panacea to obscuri ty and loneliness. This paper has demonstrated that it is the product-based conceptual foundation o f the personal branding literature that harbours inconsistencies and raises moral objections to the practice. To resolve these, personal branding has been repositioned as a process to which the input is a person s identity, the method is communication and the outcome is achieving career objectives and defined. It has also been placed within the corporate branding framework. It is obvious that this exploratory first step needs to be followed by more conceptual as well as e mpirical work in order to construct a coherent theoretical framework for this fascinating phenome non that appears to be here to stay. The issue of setting the epistemological boundaries of the marketing concept (Ko tler and Levy 1969) is not relevant anymore. The issue of the 21st century is the framing of t hese boundaries in ways that allow the marketing concept to be effectively applied in order to m ake the world a better place. Marketers need to find new uses for themselves, but these cannot i nclude

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Is there a standardized role for the brand manager internationally? A comparative study. George G. Panigyrakis Athens University of Economics and Business Athanasios G. Poulis Athens University of Economics and Business Abstract This comparative study investigates through structural equation modeling if the role of the brand manager, in Greece and the United Kingdom, is a standardized one. It also investigates whether role stressors (role conflict and role ambiguity) affect their actual ro le. Additionally, the impact of their role on their commitment, their job satisfaction and, their prop ensity to leave the firm, is examined. The results reveal the existence of different variables that affect their intention to leave the corporation. Keywords: propensity to leave, job satisfaction, commitment, cross-cultural, bra nd manager Introduction Despite the established position of the brand manager worldwide, little research (Panigyrakis and Veloutsou 2001; Bhuian and Menguc 2003; Stallworth 2004; Lin and Chang 2005; Jaramillo Jay and Mulki 2006) appears to have been conducted on how their propensity to le ave the organization is affected by their role, their role conflict and role ambiguity, their job satisfaction and finally, their commitment. Given this apparent void in the literature regard ing brand managers, this research intends to provide, by using Structural Equation Modelin g, some current information and insight into the area of brand managers in the Fast Moving Consu mer Goods sector. In this context, a comparative study between United Kingdom and Greece a ims at examining the differences between the aforementioned countries. Literature review The role of the brand manager is crucial, given that brands are an integral part

of today's marketplace and undoubtedly constitute the primary assets of most companies. Rol e is defined as "the set of expectations applied to the incumbent of a particular position by the incumbent and by role senders within and beyond an organization's boundaries" (Van Sell Br ief and Schuler 1981). Brand managers, whatever their level of responsibility is, have to collab orate with various internal and external services, in order to obtain information and coordinate th e brand's success (Hankinson and Cowking 1997; Katsanis 1999). Research indicates that brand manag ers, whose jobs involve direct interaction with customers or clients, do face conflicting d emands from customers, supervisors, and coworkers (Panigyrakis and Veloutsou 1999; 2000). Ho wever, to our knowledge, no empirical research, has yet examined the cross-cultural difference s in the post of brand manager, in terms of how their role conflict, role ambiguity, job satisfac tion, job commitment and their propensity to leave the firm are affected. 157

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications This paper focuses on role conflict and role ambiguity of brand managers in the FMCG sector of Greece and United Kingdom. It sets to identify how role conflict and role ambigu ity influence their role. The importance of role conflict and role ambiguity in boundary-spann ing positions, such as the brand manager s, is evident from previous research (Behrman and Perrea ult 1984; Sager 1994). Role conflict can be defined as a situation in which the priorities of one system conflict with the priorities of the other system (Sohi 1996; Yousef 2000; Sin 20 07). On the other hand, role ambiguity, another aspect of work-related role stress, results when t he duties and actions required of an employee are unclear to them. A direct relationship betwe en role conflict, role ambiguity, job satisfaction and job commitment has been reported in the org anizational literature (Fisher and Gitelson 1983; Jackson and Schuler 1985) as well as the s ales literature (Netemeyer Johnston and Burton 1990), but it has not been examined in the contex t of the brand manager s role. It can generally be supported, according to a plethora of researchers (Abdalla 1 991; Gredson and Wendell 1994; Babakus et al. 1996; Sohi 1996; Sin 1997; Yousef 2000), that the l ess role conflict and role ambiguity the brand manager feels about his role, the greater the satis faction they experience when accomplishing their job. In addition, brand managers who face ro le conflict and role ambiguity tend to be less committed to the firm. Further, a negative correl ation between role stressors and the degree of commitment the brand manager feels has been rep orted (Agarwal and Ramaswami 1993; Babakus et al. 1996; King and Sethi 1997). Role con flict and role ambiguity have a direct or indirect (through the mediating variable of satisfact ion) effect on the commitment of the brand manager to his job (Jamal 1997; Harrison and Hubbard 199 8). According to Lynn, Cao and Horn (1996) and Brierley (1999), role stressors (role conflict and role ambiguity), correlate negatively with job satisfaction and propensity to leave. Brierley and Cowton (2000) conclude that if the manager is committed to the firm, role stress ors are not of significant importance. This means that the brand managers commitment to their fi rm has a greater impact on their propensity to leave it than role stressors do (Brierley and Cowton 2000).

Therefore, firms must find a way to reduce the propensity of their employees to leave. One of these ways is that firms carefully plan the job description of each employee. Ev ery job description should comply with the moral values and strategic plans of the firm. According to many researchers (Iverson and Roy 1994; Michaels 1994; Dodd-McCue and Wright 199 6; Nadler 1997; Limerick 1998; Taormina 1999; Clugston 2000) the brand managers commitment to the firm is crucial since it can affect the performance of the product itself. The f irms must keep their human equity satisfied and only then they will gain a competitive advantage (Kaz lauskaite Buciuniene and Turauskas 2006). The understanding of how job satisfaction is related to intentions to quit has i ntrigued a lot of researchers (Currivan 1999; Griffeth Hom and Gaertner 2000; Hom and Kinicki 2001 ). Job satisfaction has been defined and measured both as a global construct and as a c oncept with multiple dimensions or facets (Bhuian and Menguc 2003). In general, overall job satisfaction has been defined as a function of the perceived relationship between what one wants f rom one s job and what one perceives it as offering (Bussing et al. 1999). A number of rese archers have identified a negative relationship between job satisfaction and propensity to le ave (Griffeth Hom and Gaertner 2000; Hom and Kinicki 2001; Preyra and Pink 2004). Although one mig ht have expected that satisfaction in more aspects of the job would lead to less propens ity to leave, many researchers (Iverson, 1996; Mueller, Price and Wynn 1996; Riley and Szivas 2003) have concluded that the more satisfied the managers are, the more they want to quit t heir firm, since they feel that their job is not yet appreciated by their supervisors. Organizational commitment is a heavily researched area of inquiry. According to Porter et al. (1974), organizational commitment is defined as a strong belief and acceptance of the organization s goals and values, a willingness to exert considerable effort on beh alf of the organization, and a strong desire to remain in the organization . Numerous researc hers (Pfeffer 158

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications and Vega 1999; Allen and Meyer 2000; Milliman Czaplewski and Ferguson 2003; Ahme d and Rafiq 2003; Meyer Becker and Vandenberghe 2004; Stallworth 2003; 2004; Lin and C hang 2005; Winter and Jackson 2006) have examined the impact of commitment on propensity to leave and reported that job commitment leads to reduced propensity to leave. On the other hand, other research (Bashaw and Grant 1994; Boyle 1997; Meyer Becker and Vandenberghe, 2004 ) has shown a positive relationship between commitment and propensity to leave. Thus, the relationship between these variables remains an intriguing subject of investigat ion. Given this apparent void in the literature of brand managers the following hypotheses were formed: H1 The role of the brand managers positively affects their propensity to leave H2 The role of the brand managers positively affects their job satisfaction H3 The role of the brand managers positively affects their commitment H4 The satisfaction of the brand managers negatively affects their propensity to leave H5 The commitment of the brand managers negatively affects their propensity to le ave H6 Role conflict and role ambiguity of the brand manager negatively affects their role H7 The commitment of the brand managers positively affects their satisfaction Methodology Sample Considerable difficulty was encountered in obtaining lists of companies employin g brand managers in Greece and the United Kingdom. A list of companies in the FMCG secto r was provided by four major international advertising agencies based in Athens and Lo ndon. The list was also enriched by national trade directories in the aforementioned cities. In total, 1124 questionnaires were emailed to the sample (Greece and U.K.) with a cover letter briefly explaining the research procedure, followed by a promise of anonymity. The proce dure used in selecting firms in this study can be best described as a judgmental sample. An i nitial e-mail was sent in August 2009, and three follow-up e-mails were sent in September and Octo ber 2009. A total of 399 questionnaires were completed (173 from U.K. and 226 from Greece), thus indicating a total response rate of 35.4 per cent. The high response rate could be attributed to the updated email database and from the third follow-up email. Measurement of Variables

Role: A number of 29 activities that the brand manager is involved in, were coll ected from previous studies in brand management (Hankinson and Cowking 1997; Katsanis 1999; Panigyrakis and Veloutsou 1999). An exploratory factor analysis (table 2) is app lied for the Greek sample and a confirmatory factor analysis for the British one. Role conflict and role ambiguity: The most commonly used instrument to measure r ole conflict and role ambiguity has been the Rizzo et al.(1970) scale. Rizzo, House and Lirtz man (1970) viewed role ambiguity and role conflict as distinct constructs. This two constru ct model has often been criticized and the scales have been found to be unidimensional (Bedei an and 159

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Armenakis 1981), whereas others have jointly treated ambiguity and conflict as a single construct, termed work-related stress (Jackson and Schuler 1985; McGee et al. 19 89; Rasch and Harrell 1990) Satisfaction: In order to measure the satisfaction that the brand managers feel from the fulfillment of their role, Spector s scale (1997) was used. Its Alpha reliability was .831. .he scale has also been used in previous studies giving adequate Cronbach Alpha .802-.893 (Spector and Wimalasiri 1997; Bruck Allen and Spector 2002; Payne and Webber 2006; Jaramillo Jay and Mulki 2006). Commitment: This study proposes that the scale of organizational commitment deve loped by Allen and Meyer (2000) can provide a useful insight on how commitment is affecte d by the role of the brand manager and how commitment affects their propensity to leave the or ganization. Alpha reliability of the scale was .827. .he scale has also been used in previou s studies giving adequate Cronbach Alpha .812-.859 (Lee et al. 2001; Stalworth 2003; 2004). Propensity to leave: This variable was measured with the three-item scale by Don elly and Ivancevich (1975). Alpha reliability of the scale was .853. .he scale has also b een used in previous studies (Rahim 1997; Singh 1998; 2000) giving adequate Cronbach Alpha . 821-.868. Data Analysis The British brand manager was found to be younger and thus less experienced in t he firm than their Greek counterpart. There was a considerable difference between the British and the Greek manager regarding the number of years of their total brand management experience . In addition to that, British brand manages were responsible for more products than their Gre ek counterparts. Brand managers do not keep the same position in the firm for an ex tended period. This fact has been deemed as one of the causes of poor overall firm performance (Lysonski and Woodside 1989). It is common for a brand manager to change brands, to get promot ed or even change employers only three years after their first hire. This kind of mobility is so important that when it is not achieved, it is claimed that the brand manager has somehow failed in his career (Howley 1988; Panigyrakis and Glynn 1992). Table 1. Comparison Of Descriptive Statistics In Greece And United Kingdom UK Greece t-value Sig. (2-tailed) Age 26.1 28.2 -14.814 .000 Years with firm 3.1 6.9 -12.772 .000

Years as product managers 3.9 6.1 -11.378 .000 Products managed 7.2 5.4 9.296 .000 In order to study the actual role of the brand manager in both countries, an exp loratory factor analysis with a varimax rotation was performed in the Greek data set in order to ascertain the number of underlying dimensions or roles of brand managers. This analysis was pe rformed on the importance scores of the 26 individual product manager s activities in the que stionnaire. Data from all 399 questionnaires was used for the analysis. Five factors emerged , accounting for 70% of the variance. Only five of the activities-items were not captured by the five factors. The factors were "clean", meaning that each item loaded on only one factor. Table 2. Exploratory Factor Analysis Brand Managers Role In Greece

Variables Loadings Factor 1: Strategic management Cronbach's Alpha (.817) 1. Initiate product developments/modifications. (Role_1) .767 2. Evaluate market research. (Role_2) .741 3. Recommend individual marketing research projects. (Role_3) .738 160

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 4. Recommend the addition or deletion of products. (Role_4) .655 5. Marketing data analysis. (Role_5) .613 6. Training of subordinates. (Role_6) .572 7. Monitor environmental developments that could have an impact on product performance. (Role_7) .568 8. Product elimination coordination. (Role_8) .562 Factor 2: Implementation of marketing programs Cronbach's Alpha (.791) 9. Implement approved plans and programs. (Role_9) .802 10. Control advertising and promotional budget. (Role_10) .690 11. Liaise with the advertising agency. (Role_11) .669 12. Evaluation of promotional activities. (Role_12) .644 13. Allocate promotional budget (budget split). (Role_13) .601 Factor 3: Business analyst Cronbach's Alpha (.826) 14. Estimate your company s market share. (Role_14) .860 15. Estimation market share of the competitors. (Role_15) .846 Factor 4: Brand management Cronbach's Alpha (.798) 16. Contact with headquarters. (Role_16) .784 17. Product performance analysis (vs Budget). (Role_17) .710 18. Estimate Profit and Loss accounts. (Role_18) .707 Factor 5: Customer care Cronbach's Alpha (.813) 19. Evaluate key account management. (Role_19) .790 20. Contact with distribution channels. (Role_20) .645 21. Contact with point of sales. (Role_21) .635 Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy: . 793, Bartlet t s Test of Sphericity .2=3312.4 significant .000, Total Variance Explained: 70 per cent. After the exploratory factor analysis a confirmatory factor analysis was applied in order to confirm that the factor structure of the role of the brand manager in Greece app lies in the United Kingdom. With the use of structural equation modeling, the following mode l was constructed. 161

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was subsequently conducted to confirm the factor structure of the five roles using AMOS 8.0 (Joreskog and Sorbom 1993). All the l atent variables, demonstrated an acceptable level of fit to the data of the United Kingdom (GFI 0 .914; AGFI 0.906; CFI 0.926; RMSEA 0.033). The model fit indices for the proposed model are acceptable and thus the assumption that in the UK the role of the brand manager has the sam e five aspects as in Greece, can now be safely made. The instrument demonstrated evidence of bo th convergent (significant critical ratios, Average Variance Extracted > .50 in all occasions) and discriminant (AVE is greater than or equal to unity in all occasions) validity ( Fornell and Larcker 1981). 162

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications As table 3 shows, the brand managers role negatively affects their propensity to leave the organization. The analysis of the data provides general support for H1 for both countries. All aspects of the role of the brand manager, both in Greece and the United Kingdom, negatively affect the intention of the manager to leave the firm. When the brand manager wh olly fulfills their role, their intention to leave the organization is minimized. As proved by the standardized regression weights (table 3), H1 is accepted. As for H2, it is supported for the U.K., but not for Greece. In the U.K., when the brand manager wholly fulfills their role, their sa tisfaction is increased. On the other hand, in Greece, when the brand manager implements marke ting plans (-.354) and business analysis (-.169), their satisfaction is negatively affected . This could be attributed to the fact that in Greece these two job aspects have not yet been cl arified. As concern H3 it is supported for both countries. The brand managers role positiv ely affects their commitment. When the brand manager fulfills his role in the firm and feels that he contributes to the management of the brands he is in charge of, he feels more co mmitted to the firm. As proved by the standardized regression weights, H3 is accepted. Table 3. Multiple Regression For The Variable The Role Of The Brand Manager Role and Propensity to leave (H1) Role and Satisfaction (H2) Role and Commitment (H3) Standardized regression weights Independent variables U.K. (n= 173) Greece (n=226) U.K. (n= 173) Greece (n=226) U.K. (n= 173) Greece (n=226) Constant 4.443 3.798 4.121 6.541 5.367 2.707 Strategic management -.324** -.297* .359** .271** .381** .292* Implementation of marketing plans

-.312** -.347** .287** -.354** .213* .186** Business analyst -.247* -.219** .126** -.169* .124** .207* Brand management -.367* -.312** .427* .322* .347* .286** Customer care -.147** -.247** .184** .347** .124** .203** F-change 12.858** 19.763** 19.988** 17.247** 18.569** 21.784* * R2 .398 .381 .354 .327 .498 .392 *Sig. at level p<0,05 ** Sig. at level p<0,01 According to table 4, the satisfaction of brand managers negatively affects thei r propensity to leave the organization; when the brand managers are satisfied, they don t want to leave the organization. Job satisfaction has a consistent negative association with the ex pressed intentions to leave, as proved by the standardized regression weights (U.K. -.412 and Greec e -.321). Thus, H4 is accepted. Furthermore, general support is provided for H5. The brand manag ers commitment negatively affects their propensity to leave the organization. When t he brand manager is committed to the organization, they want to keep working there. The h ypothesis is supported for both countries (U.K. -.358 and Greece -.297) and therefore, H5 is accepted. 163

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 4. Regression For The Variable Prpopensity To Leave.

Satisfaction and Propensity to leave (H4) Commitment and Propensity to leave (H5 ) Standardized regression weights Independent variables U.K. (n= 173) Greece (n=226) Independent variables U.K. (n= 173) Greece (n=226) Constant 5.842 4.252 Constant 6.328 7.328 Satisfaction -.412** -.321** Commitment -.358** -.297** F-change 24.258** 20.287** F-change 22.365** 7.287** R2 .342 .248** R2 .315 .286 *Sig. at level <0,05 ** Sig. at level p<0,01 According to table 5, role stressors negatively affect the role of the brand man ager in Greece (. 338) as well as in the United Kingdom (-.412). When brand managers face role con flict and role ambiguity in their work environment, they cannot fulfill their role in the best possible way, because their duties and actions are unclear to them (Babakus et al., 1996; Sohi , 1996; Sin, 1997; Yousef, 2000). Role stressors have a negative association with all aspects of th e role of the brand manager, as proved by the standardized regression weights. The hypothesis is sup ported for both countries and therefore, H6 is accepted. Commitment positively affects the satisfaction of the brand manager. The more co mmitted the brand manager is the more satisfied he feels. Lok and Crawford (1999; 2001) supp ort that the commitment the marketing manager feels leads to the satisfaction that he gets fr om his job. Only when the employees are truly committed to their role, they are going to be satisfied from the firm. The proposed hypothesis is supported for the United Kingdom (.317) as well as for Greece (.296). Thus, H7 is accepted. Table 5. Regression Results I) For Role Stressors And Role Ii) Satisfaction And C ommitment Role stressors and Role (H6) Satisfaction and Commitment (H7) Standardized regression weights Independent variables U.K. (n= 173)

Greece (n=226) Independent variables U.K. (n= 173) Greece (n=226) Constant 3.875 2.859 Constant 8.672 5.968 Role stressors -.412** -.338** Satisfaction .317** .296** F-change 15.562** 19.672** F-change 21.529** 17.825** R2 .341 .379** R2 .416 .394 *Sig. at level <0,05 ** Sig. at level p<0,01 In order to examine the simultaneous impact of role stressors, job satisfaction, commitment and the role of the brand managers on their propensity to leave the firm, the use of structural equation modeling was imperative. The fit indices for the United Kingdom (GFI 0. 941; AGFI 0.897; CFI 0.911; RMSEA 0.057) as well as for Greece (GFI 0.917; AGFI 0.931; CFI 0.902; RMSEA 0.041) suggest that the model has a good fit to the data. A multigroup analysis was performed to prove that the two proposed models have no statistical differences. Using the .. 2, the statistical significance of the difference in the fit of the two models was examined. The re sult of the chi square difference test (..2) was used between the two models (United Kingdom and Greece). The chi square test indicated that the unrestricted model was not significantly different from the unrestricted one (..2 82.1, .df 9, p = .00) and thus a comparison could be safel y made. Table 6. Standardized Total Effects (U.K. And Greece) Role stressors Role Commitment Satisfaction UK GR UK GR UK GR UK GR Role -.352 -.572 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 164

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Commitment -.125 -,067 .497 .246 .000 .000 .000 .000 Satisfaction -.113 -.090 .448 .332 .345 .378 .000 .000 Propensity to leave -.057 -.228 -.226 -.156 -.314 -.415 -.498 -.474 As depicted in table 6, role stressors (role conflict and role ambiguity) have a substantial negative impact on the role of not only the Greek but also the British brand man ager. As for the Greek brand manager, the standardized total effect of the role stressors on the actual role of the manager is -.572. This means that the role conflict and role ambiguity that the Greek brand manager faces are very intense. They receive incompatible requests from two or m ore supervisors. In addition, they do things that are accepted from one person but n ot by others. Especially in Greek firms, brand managers don t have clear, planned goals and obje ctives for their jobs. They don t know what it is expected from them and they don t even know i f they have enough authority to complete their job. On the other hand, the role stresso rs that the British brand managers face (-.352) seem to affect them less intensely in the fu lfillment of their role. Their role and they way they have to accomplish their everyday tasks are m uch clearer in the British FMCG sector. Regarding the effect that role conflict and role ambigu ity have on the propensity of the brand manager to leave the firm, it is much more intense in Gr eece (-.228) than in the United Kingdom (-.057). The Greek brand managers are affected by the role stressors in their propensity to leave the firm as opposed to the British brand managers t hat seem to be indifferent. According to the literature (Brierley and Cowton 2000; Kazlauskaite Buciuniene and Turauskas 2006), role stressors were anticipated to largely affect the satisfact ion of the brand managers in both countries. There is only a small impact of the role stressors t o the satisfaction that the brand managers feel (Greece -.090 and U.K. (-.113). The role of the British brand managers has a greater impact on their commitment (.497) than that of their Greek counterparts (.246). The more they fulfill their role, the m ore committed they are to their job. On the other hand, job satisfaction is influenced by the role of the brand managers more in the U.K (.448) and less in Greece (.332). In both countries, th e role of the brand managers has roughly the same impact (-.226 for the UK, -.156 for Greece) on their propensity to leave. The commitment that the Greek brand managers feel restrains them in a greater deal (.-415) than it does the British (.-314) in their propensity to lea

ve the firm. Finally, the satisfaction that the British brand managers feel when fulfilling their role is a greater factor (. 498) of propensity to leave the firm than it is for the Greek brand managers (-. 474). As depicted in table 5, the satisfaction that the brand managers experience from the fulfill ment of their role highly influences their propensity to leave the firm. All mediating variables (c ommitment, satisfaction and role), were tested with the use of Sobel analysis (MacKinnon et al. 2002), and were found to significantly carry the influence of the independent variables to the dependent ones. Conclusions The economic crisis leads many firms globally to impose major cutbacks. Many res earchers (Mishra and Spreitzer 1998; Allen et al. 2001; Erickson and Rollof 2007), suppor ted that those managers who survive from a major personnel cutback work more intensively in ord er to keep their jobs. But, this phenomenon is observed only for a few months after the cut backs. In the long term, the performance of the employees will decrease due to the work overlo ad and their commitment will start to diminish. As illustrated in the data analysis, the comm itment of the brand manager is essential for the fulfillment of his role and thus it is vital for the firms performance. In today s turbulent environment, firms must try to protect their hum an equity and to minimize their intention to leave the firm. 165

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Based on the descriptive analysis, the first conclusion to be drawn is that demo graphic characteristics do exhibit some differences between the British and Greek brand managers. British brand managers are younger and thus have less job experience in the firm . In addition to that, they are responsible for fewer products than their Greek counterparts. Brand managers in both countries have five aspects in their role (strategic mana gement, implementation of marketing plans, business analysis, brand management and custo mer care). Their role, as demonstrated by the standardized regression weights, isn t a vital influential variable in their propensity to quit their jobs. In general, it is supported tha t the more brand managers fulfill their role in the firm, the less they want to leave. Furthermor e, it is principally their commitment and secondarily their satisfaction that keeps the British brand managers in the firm. That conversely applies to the Greek brand managers. Undoubtedly, the loss of talented employees is very detrimental to the company s future success and that is why it is of great importance for firms to sustain their employees. Multinational firms try to impose a global pattern for the role of the brand man ager. As depicted from the analysis the role of the Greek brand manager is more executive and less strategic. All major decision about the brands, do take place in the headquarters of the firm. All firms apply homogenous international marketing strategies in order to achieve economies of s cale. It would be quite interesting to examine the role of the brand manager in non multination al firms. The British brand managers propensity to leave was found to be more influenced by the ir commitment, while the Greek brand managers propensity to leave was found to be mo re influenced by the variable of satisfaction. In order for a firm to be successful, there has to be high involvement of the em ployees in every level of the firms activities. This way, the commitment that the employees feel g rows stronger. Elevated commitment could make the brand manager want to stay in the firm withou t expecting any additional financial returns. The only way for firms to acquire a strong com petitive advantage, in today s increasingly competitive environment, is to invest in their human capital. All firms should encourage their managers in every possible way, in order for th em to be more committed and loyal. The only way to achieve that, is to treat them as responsib le and

autonomous managers and as an equity that they have to protect. In summary, the present study reveals that there are few differences between bra nd managers in the United Kingdom and Greece, concerning their propensity to leave the firm. This phenomenon can be attributed to the nature of the globalized firm itself; in oth er words, since global organizations use a standardized type of scientific management, there are minor differences between those highly standardized roles among countries. References Abdalla, I.A. 1991. Social support and gender responses to job stress in an Arab culture. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 6(7): 273-88. Agarwal, S., and S.N. Ramaswami. 1993. Affective organizational commitment of sa lespeople: an expanded model. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management 13(2): 49-70. Ahmed, P.K., and M. Rafiq. 2003. Internal marketing issues and challenges. Europ ean Journal of Marketing 37(9): 1177-86. Allen, N.J., and J.P. Meyer. 2000. Construct validation in organizational behavi or research: the case of organizational commitment, in Problems and Solutions in Human Assessment: Honoring Douglas N. Ja ckson at Seventy, Goffin R. D. and Helmes E. eds Norwell, MA: Kluwer., 285-314, Allen, T.D., D.M. Freeman, J.E.A. Russell, R.C. Reizenstein, and J.O. Rentz. 200 1. Survivor reactions to organizational downsizing: does time ease the pain? Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 74(2): 145-64. Babakus, E., S.W. Cravens, M. Johnston, and W.C. Moncrief. 1996. Examining the r ole of organizational variables in the salesperson job satisfaction model. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Manageme nt 16(3): 33-46. Bashaw, E.R., and S.E. Grant. 1994. Exploring the distinctive nature of work com mitments: their relationships with personal characteristics, job performance, and propensity to leave. Journal of P ersonal Selling & Sales Management 14(2): 41-56. 166

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Luxury brand consumption and cultural influences

George Panigyrakis Athens University pgg@aueb.gr of Economics and Business, Department of Business Administration, Greece, Eirini Koronaki Athens University of Economics and Business, Department of Business Administrati on, Greece, eirini_kor@hotmail.com Abstract Throughout this paper the process of luxury brand consumption is analyzed with a n emphasis on the cultural aspect. Firstly the historical review of luxury is examined, follow ed by a presentation of the researches on the definition of luxury brands. In the following part, the concepts that influence luxury consumption are mentioned, concluding with an analysis on how t hose concepts are affected by culture. The aim of this paper is to create the basis f or framework that will include those parameters and the way in which culture influences them. Keywords: luxury brand consumption, culture, consumer behavior Introduction The concept of luxury has been studied from a number of perspectives and in vari ous contexts. However, during the last decades the power of the luxury brand has been increasi ng significantly, leading to an unexpected worldwide growth (Twitchell, 2002; Caill eux et al., 2009). This market, including business sectors such as fashion and accessories, leather goods, wines and spirits, hospitality and concierge, jewellery and watches, cosmetics and fra grance, automobile and transport and selective contribution, had been estimated by McKin sey & Co at more than $ 90 billion in 1998, gradually growing to an $ 180 billion global ind ustry in 2009 (Vickers and Renand, 2003; Chadha and Husband, 2006; Okonkwo, 2009). Numerous researchers have investigated the notion of luxury brands and the socio economic and demographic factors leading to their increased levels of popularity (Bialobos, 1 991; Sonimers, 1991; de Moulins, 1993; Villacampa, 1995; Holt, 2002; Sharpe, 2002; The Economis t, 2002;

Silverstein and Fiske, 2003; Boston Consulting Group, 2004; Chadha and Husband, 2006; Atwal and Williams, 2009; Okonkwo, 2009). Consumers seem to have a peculiar and intima te relationship with those brands and are willing to pay an increased price for acq uiring them. Given that the value of those brands is mostly psychological, culture becomes a defining factor in this type of consumption. Moreover, the rise in luxury brands. sales has been significantly boosted by individuals coming not only from central Europe, but also from Asia, India, the Middle East and var ious other nations, with severely different cultures. In particular, according to a BCG rep ort, in 2004 a profit of $ 400 billion was generated from the industry, from countries such as France, Germany, Italy and Japan (De Barnier and Rodina, 2000). Consequently, the interest in cultural influences on luxury brand consumption has been starting to increase (Husic and Cicic, 2007). This knowledge could give luxury conglomerates the opportunity to differentiate their top end o f their 170

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications respective markets product offerings. A thorough understanding of this different iation in consumer behavior could be a significant competitive advantage in the attempt to deal with the numerous challenges luxury brands are facing today (Koehn, 2000; Moore et al., 2 000; Brook, 2001; Vickers and Renand, 2003; Beverland, 2004; Cailleux et al., 2009). Methodology Before going into the analysis of this paper, the methodological approach used i s presented. The research approach to the formation of theory taken is deduction, through which t he hypotheses set for empirical study are set after the analysis of the collected data (Bryman and Bell, 2007). The epistemological approach of this study is interpretivism, embracing the view point that the distinctiveness of humans as against to objects and nature, highlights the notio n of subjective meaning. The data collection resulted from a thorough investigation of the existing liter ature in luxury brands and in the basic parameters of culture. The framework of grounded theory was applied; generating theory derived from the data collected (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Th us, the basis is formed to create a framework combining luxury brand consumption factors and cult ural influences. Historical Review As underlined by Dubois et al., (2005) the English word luxury as well as the Fr ench luxe, derived from the Latin term luxus, signifying (over)indulgence and extravagant living, a ccording to the Oxford Latin Dictionary (1992). As correctly stated by McKenna (1991): The luxury industry epitomizes the view that marketing is everything . Humans have been treating thems elves with luxury throughout the centuries, leading to its increased significance both in m odern societies and in Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and the Renaissance (Berry, 1994; Husic and C icic, 2007; Okonkwo, 2009). The relationship that individuals have with luxury evolved over time; treated wi th skepticism and contrary to public good in classical Greece up to the Early Christian years (Oko nkwo, 2007, Csaba, 2008), seen as positive for a nation s economy throughout the 17th and the 18th century (Csaba, 2008), used as a means of deliberate social stratification by the nobili ty (Veblen, 1899; Berry, 1994; Castarede, 2008; Kapferer and Bastien, 2009), rejected by the eight eenth century

Enlightenment philosophy (Kapferer and Bastien, 2009) to be seen as a tool for r ecreating social strata in today s fluid societies (Dubois et al., 2005). Towards A Definition Of The Luxury Brand Various marketing researchers have dealt with the classification of consumer goo ds into specific categories (Vickers and Renand, 2004). Despite the significant body of knowledge and research conducted on the field, the concept of what constitutes a luxury brand is still relatively vague and ambiguous (Dubois and Duquesne, 1993; Vickers and Renand, 2003; Vigneron and Johnson, 2004; Beverland, 2004). This lack of a clear consensus can be attributed to the inherent subjectivity of the notion of luxury (Vigneron and Johnson, 1999; Dubois et al., 2001; Cornell, 2002; Dubois and Czellar, 2002; Wiedman et al. 2009). As a typical example of extreme-end high involvement decision making (Vigneron a nd Johnson, 1999), numerous efforts to define these brands have been committed. A useful cla ssification of luxury brand definitions is that of De Barnier and Rodina (2000), which refers t o the economic, psychological and marketing perspectives. 171

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications From the economist point-of-view, the notion of luxury includes the difference b etween luxury and necessity (Veblen, 1899; Lunt and Livingstone, 1992; Kemp, 1998; Webster, 20 02), and also highlights the crucial role of pricing strategies on rarity (Lancaster, 1966; Al leres, 1990; Renand, 1993; Nueno and Quelch, 1998). On the other side, social and behavioral psychology are dealing with the motivat ion of luxury brand consumers, making a distinction between motives caused by interpersonal or external factors, and personal or internal ones. Both focused on the subjective intangible benefits of the luxury brand (Dubois and Laurent 1994; Vigneron and Johnson, 1999). The firs t type, interpersonal and external factors, includes studies dealing with the influence of others on consumption (Leibenstein, 1950; Belk, 1988; Lynn, 1991; Groth and McDaniel, 1993 ), and the need for approval and social recognition (Brinberg and Plinpton 1986; Stanley, 1 988; Lunt and Livingstone, 1992; Mason, 1992; Vigneron and Johnson, 1999; Vickers and Renand, 2004; Stankeviciene and Butkute, 2008; Wiedman et al., 2009). The other category, inte rnal and personal motivations include the significance of feelings and emotions in luxury brand consumption (Vickers and Renand, 2003; Vigneron and Johnson, 2004), in line with the satisfaction of psychological needs. This is possible through the symbolic value of luxury brands (Catry, 2003), and through the exploitation of their functionality (Vigneron and Johnson, 1999; Nia and Zaichkowsky, 2000; Vickers and Renand, 2003; Wiedman et al., 2009). Finally, marketing researchers have based their studies on luxury brands on the two aforementioned perspectives. The topics they deal with include not only the diff erences between luxury and non-luxury products (Garfein, 1989; Christodoulides et al., 2 009), but also pinpoint the characteristics that a luxury brand should possess (Berry, 1994; Be arden and LaForce, 1995; Dubois and Paternault, 1995; Pantzalis, 1995; Kapferer, 1997; Nue no and Quelch, 1998; Vigneron and Johnson, 1999; Phau and Prendergast, 2000; Dubois et al., 200 1; Wetlaufer, 2001; Catry, 2003; Beverland, 2004; Chadha and Husband, 2006; Giacalone, 2006; Christodoulides et al, 2009; Kapferer and Bastien, 2009; Wiedman et al., 2009). Factors Affecting Luxury Brand Consumption Status An fundamental factor affecting luxury brand consumption is human s need to demons trate one s place in society. This is the so-called demonstrative usage, and is the firs t classical theory

to analyze luxury consumption (Cerneviciute 2003; Giacalone, 2006; Okonkwo 2007; Atwal and Williams, 2009), with supporters such as Adam Smith and Thornstein Veblen (Stank eveciene and Butkute, 2008). It has been claimed that luxury is a social marker (Kapferer and Bastien, 2009), often combined with an ostentatious display of wealth (Mason, 1992; Dubois and D uquesne, 1993; Husic and Cicic, 2007). Its consumption is dependent not only upon the cha racteristics of the products, but also on the socio-economic environment of the consumer (Veblen , 1899), serving as a social function (Stankeveciene and Butkute, 2008). To be specific, regardless the changes that led to the gradual disappearance of social stratification, there is always the need to denote who you are in society (Husic and Cicic, 2007 ). Luxury brands play a crucial role in this effort, through their inherent communicative status. Moreover, they communicate information about their possessors (Hyman, 1942; Barkow, 1975; Dougl as and Isherwood, 1979; Dittmar, 1994), contributing to the individuals e their desired identity. Indicative of consumers need for symbolic meanings and how luxury companies took advantage of it, is the logofictation of certain luxury items (Chadha and Husband, 2006). Suc h is the success of this policy, that in Tokyo 94% of women on a Louis Vuitton bag and 51% own a Cha nel one by the time they reach their twenties. This passion for signs and logos is more evident for publicly 172 attempt to creat

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications consumed luxury goods (Twitchell, 2002; Chadha and Husband, 2006), and is fierce ly enhanced by today s ego-society of self-indulgence and gratification (Dubois and Duquesne, 199 3). An immediate result of this behavior is the so-called new luxury, aiming to middle-class cons umers with increased aspiration needs (Twithchell, 2001; Silverstein and Fiske, 2003; Yeoman I. and M cMahon-Beattie U., 2006; Husic and Cicic, 2007; Atwal and Khan, 2008; Atwal and Williams, 2009; Kap ferer and Bastien, 2009). Prestige-seeking and publicly self-conscious consumers feel more secure through the acquisition and use of well-established brands (Douglas and Isherwood, 1979; Belk, 1985; Ric hins and Dawson, 1992; Husic and Cicic, 2007), since they can thus fulfill their needs of sociabi lity and self-expression (Vigneron and Johnson, 1999). Whether consumers are fulfilling their need for pr estige deriving from interpersonal motives or the one deriving from the need for uniqueness thro ugh this consumption (Snoder and Fromkin, 1977; Vigneron and Johnson, 1999), status brand s are a vital part of this social comparison process (Festinger, 1954). Hedonic Consumption Taking into consideration that a significant percentage of luxury brands are con sumed in private, it can be claimed that conspicuousness only partially explains the proliferation of this consumption. Personal matters such as pleasing ones senses and beauty can also be accountable for prestigeseeking consumption (Alleres 1990; Wong and Ahuvia, 1998; Vigneron and Johnson, 1999; Dubois et al., 2001). The experiential nature of luxury brands is a crucial part of their success, and promotes the qualitative rather than the quantitative part of the luxury experience (Chevalie r and Mazzalovo, 2008; Kapferer and Bastien, 2009). Due to its focus on the notion of the self an d the design of one s identity, hedonic luxury is parallel to an individualistic type of luxury. This is supported by the fact that through the purchase and consumption of a luxury brand, arousing feelings a nd affective states are created, such as personal rewards and fulfillment (Sheth, Newman and Gross, 1991; Catry, 2003; Giacalone, 2006). Experiential marketing is a direct result of this tendency, emphasizing the conc epts of selfindulgence, personal creativity and meaning (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Duboi s and Duquesne, 1993; Pine and Gilmore, 1999; Vickers and Renand, 2003; Tsai, 2005; At wal and Williams, 2009; Kapferer and Bastien, 2009; Wiedman et al., 2009).

Reference Group Influence People have the tendency to conform to what is required from the groups they eit her belong to or want to be a part of, but also the ones they want to distinguish themselves from (Festinger, 1954; French and Raven, 1959; Sirgy, 1982; Midgley, 1983; Solomon, 1983; Mick, 1986; M cCracken, 1986; Belk, 1988; Dittmar, 1994; Corneo and Jeanne, 1997; Husic and Cicic, 2007; Wiedm an et al., 2009). This tendency of human nature is caused by the susceptibility to reference group influence (Bourne, 1957; Mason, 1992; Bearden and Etzel, 1982; Horiuchi, 1984; Braun and Wicklund, 1989; Bushman, 1993; Hong and Zinkhan, 1995; Bagwell and Bernheim, 1996; Corneo and Jeanne 1997 ). As Wiedman et al. (2009) have pinpointed, Social referencing and the construction of one s selfappearance are determinants of luxury consumption . The signs displayed by luxury brands can serve as a sign of group membership, an d thus there is a preference for luxury products publicly consumed (Braun and Wicklund, 1989; Ho ng and Zinkhan, 1995; Vigneron and Johnson, 2004). The power that other individuals can have on one s consumption becomes even greater for individuals sensitive to social status. Thu s, the societal ranking attributed to a brand becomes a defining factor of luxury brand consumpt ion (Wiedman et al., 2009). 173

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Price Consumers cost. perception of a luxury brand is significantly affected by its price and

Researchers have indicated that an increased price is related not only to exclus ivity (McCarthy and Perreault, 1987; Garfein, 1989; Dubois and Duquesne, 1993; Groth and McDanie l, 1993; Pantzalis, 1995; DeBarnier and Rodina, 2000; Husic and Cicic, 2007), but also to superior quality (Rao and Monroe 1989; Erickson and Johansson, 1995; Lichtenstein, Bloch and Blac k 1988). A brand s rareness results in increased levels of brand symbolism (Liebenstein, 1950 ; Snyder and Fromkin, 1977; Verhallen, 1982; Lynn, 1991; Verhallen and Robben, 1994; Pantzali s, 1995). Hence, through the acquisition of higher-priced items consumers get to reinforce their ego (Eastman, Goldsmith and Flynn, 1999), and this is the reason for which they pay increased attention to wordly possessions (Belk, 1985; Richins 1994; Wong and Ahuvia, 1998 ). A result of this phenomenon is the prestige pricing strategies adopted by luxury conglomerates, such as the Exclusive Value Principle framework (Berkowitz et al., 1992; Groth a nd McDaniel, 1993). The price of the product not only determines its economic value, but also demonstrates the status of the individual (Giacalone, 2006; Stankeviciene and Butkute, 2008), functioning as a surrogate indicator of prestige (Wiedman et al., 2009). Quality Another fundamental feature of luxury brands is superior quality. Consumers expe ct the luxury brands they purchase to last for a significant amount of time, given that they o ften see them as investments. What they expect from them is excellence, longevity and durability. For premium brands excellent quality and superior materials is a sine qua non (Quelch, 1987; Fennel, 1978; Garfein 1989; Rao and Monroe, 1989; Aaaker, 1991; Vigneron and Johnson 1999; DeB arnier and Rosina, 2000; Nia and Zaichkowsky, 2000; Kotler, 2002; O Cass and Frost, 2002; Bev erland, 2004; Vigneron and Johnson, 2004; Husic and Cicic, 2007; Wiedman et al., 2009).This ch aracteristic provides luxury brand consumers with a certain degree of reassurance and enhance s the image of the brand (Vigneron and Johnson, 1999), mainly through the brand s functionalit y. Luxury Brand Consumer Behavior And Influence Of Culture

Luxury consumption is affected by both the social and the individual characteris tics of the consumer, as can be concluded from the factors presented above. Since luxury goo ds are symbols of both personal and social identity, the individual s culture significant ly affects their consumption. This becomes even clearer if one considers that luxury brands are p rimarily bought for what they mean (Aaaker and Keller, 1990), in the process of the consu mers identitybuilding process. Until recently the thoughts and behavior of the luxury brand consumer has been s een as a black box (Dubois and Paternault, 1995). The understanding of this behaviour has been significantly boosted through the knowledge of consumers values and usages of such brands and t hat is why numerous researches have been conducted in that area. One category would be rese arches on symbolic meanings of those brands in terms of functionalism (Olson, 2002; Agar, 2003; Christodoulides et al, 2009), experientialism (Hirschmann and Holbrook, 1982; Al len et al., 2002; Vickers and Renand, 2003) and symbolic interactionism (Levy, 1959; Bhat and Redd y, 1998; Aron and Frost, 2002; Vickers and Renand, 2003). Other studies have examined the dimensions that add value to the consumer experi ence of luxury brands (Wiedman et al., 2009), defining financial (Ahtola, 1984; Monroe a nd Krishnan, 1985; Chapman 1986; Mazumdar, 1986;), functional (Sheth, Newman and Gross, 1991) , 174

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications individual (Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982; Richins and Dawson, 1992; Vigneron and Johnson, 1999) and social aspects of the process (Bearden and Etzel, 1982; Brinberg and P limpton, 1986; Kim, 1999; Vigneron and Johnson, 1999). Another fundamental framework in this area is the Brand Luxury Index (Vigneron and Johnson, 2004), which defines the decision-making process of the luxury brand consumer an d the factors affecting it. Those are classified into two categories; personal perceptions, in cluding perceived extended self (the Bandwagon effect) and perceived hedonism (the Hedonic effect) , and non personal perceptions, including perceived conspicuousness (the Veblen effect), p erceived uniqueness (the Snob effect) and perceived quality (the Perfectionism effect). However, all these different values and usages are highly affected by the indivi dual s culture. Each one of the factors affecting luxury brand consumption can be differently pe rceived, depending on the individual s personal value system. To be specific, some possible influences of culture on those factors will be underlined. To begin with, the need for status differs among different not only among societies but also among different status-oriented soci eties. For example, in masculine societies, according to Hofstede s typology (1980), people f eel the need to show their superiority in society, since this equals their success in life. T his is not the case in feminine societies, in which excessive showing off one s prestige is frowned upon. However, the need for status may also be caused by another cultural factor, the collectivisti c nature of a society. In these cases, in which one s identity is formed through one s relationshi p to others, status also has an increased significance. As far as hedonic consumption is conc erned, the way in which an experience is valued is highly affected by one s culture, since it can be interpreted differently. An example would be the fact that individualist, according to Hofst ede s typology, would prefer an experience reinforcing their ego, in contrast to collectivist wh o would go for an experience reinforcing their social contacts. The reference group influence is h

ighly dependent on one s culture. An example would be collectivistic societies in which conformity is absolutely crucial to social interaction. The importance given to price and material posses sions is also congruent with one s beliefs and values, and thus conspicuous consumption is more or less important, depending on the cultural context. Finally, the individual s perception of quality is a cultural issue as well. The criteria used to judge beauty and the desired levels of quality can vary in different cultural, a typical example being feminine cultures who value the b elief that Small is beautiful . This is not the case for masculine societies, in which the ostentatiou s part of a luxury brand is crucial. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that some cultures see qualit y as more important than others. Long-term oriented cultures are more prone to value quali ty, since they have a long-term time horizon and value perseverance. They put emphasis on the d iachronicity of their possessions and a typical example of that would be the Japanese. High u ncertainty avoidance cultures also value quality, since it gives them the reassurance they crave for. These examples are only a token of the way in which culture can influence luxury consumption. Through the application of various cultural parameters defined by researchers su ch as Hofstede (1980), De Mooij (2000) and Trompenaars (1993), a thorough understanding of the luxury brand consumer can be achieved. Even though there have been researchers examining the influences of culture on this consumption, up to now there has not been developed a framewo rk unifying the factors influencing luxury consumption with fundamental cultural factors. Su ch an attempt would be very useful for today s globalised luxury firms and their management. Conclusions and Managerial Implications From the analysis of luxury brand consumption and the parameters affecting it, i t became once again evident that luxury is a complex construct. This becomes even clearer if o ne considers that the primary value that consumers gain from this consumption is psychological. Lu xury brand operate on a global scale nowadays, satisfying needs of consumers coming from co mpletely 175

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Advertising and Media Insights 181

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Is Humor a Countercyclical Advertising Strategy?

Hatzithomas Leonidas Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Economics, Department of Busines s Administration, Greece leonidasnoe@yahoo.com Evaggelia Outra Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Economics, Department of Busines s Administration, Greece Yorgos Zotos Cyprus University of Technology, Faculty of Applied Arts and Communication, Depa rtment of Communication and Internet Studies, Cyprus Christina Boutsouki Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Economics, Department of Busines s Administration, Greece Abstract Advertising researchers have rarely focused on the role of economic cycles on ad vertising effectiveness. However, the influence of economic recessions and/ or expansions on the effectiveness of different advertising message appeals has not been studied so f ur. Based on a longitudinal content analysis of commercials appearing in Super Bowl between 196 9 and 2009, the present paper aims to investigate the use and the impact of humor oriented a nd information oriented advertisements on advertising effectiveness in recessionary and expansi onary periods. The findings challenge the long-standing belief among practitioners that humor i s a countercyclical advertising strategy. It seems that humor oriented commercials a re more pervasive in economic hardship, while information oriented advertisements are mo re common in times of affluence and wealth. Humorous commercials tend to be effective at g enerating positive attitudes toward the ad both in recessions and expansions. On the contr ary, information oriented commercials lead to less favorable attitudes toward the ad over the dif ferent economic periods. These findings may imply that advertisers have expanded their understan ding of

advertising effectiveness, encompassing a broader vision to improve the general mood of times and not just to increase consumers attitudes toward the ad. The present paper aim s to inaugurate a discussion on the role of humorous advertising on societal mood in times of economic struggle. Keywords: Humor oriented Advertisements, Information oriented Advertisements, Ec onomic Cycles, Super Bowl Commercials, Longitudinal Analysis, Content Analysis Introduction Today, the global economy is undergoing a deep recession that affects every aspe ct of business and social life (Krugman 2009). In times of recession, firms confront significan t waste of capital and revenues declines. According to the most prevalent definition, a recession is two successive quarters of negative growth in gross domestic product (GDP) (Tellis and Tellis 20 09, 304). On the other hand, economic growth is defined as the sustained increase in real per capita incomes (Gould, 1972, 2). A plethora of prior studies has investigated the effect s of economic cycles on advertising expenditures, proposing that there is a positive correlati on between them 182

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications (Deleersnyder et al. 2009; Lamey et al. 2008; Srinivasan and Lilien 2009;). More concretely, it is suggested that during recessions the advertising budget is reduced, while during expansions it is increased (Picard, 2001). In addition, it seems that increasing advertising expe nditures leads to increasing sales and market share, especially during recessions (Biel and King 1 991; McGraw-Hill Research 1986; Meldrum and Fewsmith 1979; Vaile, 1927). However, the aforementioned studies did not shed light on the advertising creati ve strategies used during recessionary and/or expansionary periods. The purpose of the present study is to fill this research gap through a longitudinal content analysis of 1.516 Super Bowl co mmercials that cover the period between 1969 and 2009. Particularly, this study tests some rele vant hypotheses regarding the effects of economic cycles on the use of humor (incongruity resolu tion, arousal safety and humorous disparagement) and information content (quantity and quality of information) in advertising. There is an intuitive belief among advertising practitioners that humor is a cou ntercyclical creative strategy (Beard 2005). According to the president of the W.B. Doner & C o. agency Humor is what we took in 1929, during two world wars, Korea, Vietnam and the rece ssion of the 70 s. And it s what we will take today. We in the business of selling will employ hu mor or we ll run the risk of driving consumers to dejection and depression, and away from our products and our stores (Fried 1991, 26). Moreover, some advertisers appear to believe that hu mor can change the mood of the times and the economy in general (Devaney 2002, 36) and tha t s why it was used in Super Bowl commercials after 9/11 (Devaney 2002). To date the usage of humor in advertising across different economic periods has not been explored. The results of the present study aim to contribute to the deeper under standing of the creative strategies adopted by advertisers during recessions and expansions. In an attempt to validate these findings, a second study was conducted in order to examine the ef fect of humor on the attitude towards the ad, using USA Today Ad Meter scores (for ad likeabil ity) from 2000 to 2009, as a dependent variable. The second study reveals that humor improves s ignificantly the attitude towards the ad regardless of economic cycles. Theoretical Background

Humor in Advertising Humor, at its most basic level, is an intended or unintended message interpreted as funny (Lynch 2002, 423). In psychological literature, there are three theories concern ing the creation and the appreciation of humorous stimuli; namely incongruity theory, relief theo ry and superiority theory (Meyer 2000). Incongruity theory describes the cognitive proc ess of humor production. It proposes that humor is created when a person conceives the humoro us connection of different incongruous events, pictures and/ or texts (Alden, Mukhe rjee and Hoyer 2000; Raskin 1995). In the relief theory laughter occurs when a person has experi enced heightened arousal but at the same time (or soon after the arousal) evaluates th e stimulus (usually another person) as safe or inconsequential (Rothbart, 1973, 249). Accord ing to superiority theory, people laugh at others and laughter is an expression of sudd en triumph that indicates their perceived superiority (Hobbes 1651). Speck (1991) formulated a message taxonomy for the categorization of funny creat ive executions in advertising, taking into consideration the three classical humor t heories. In line with his typology, three humor processes can explain the different aspects of in dividual motivations that lead to the generation and comprehension of humor. Incongruity resolution, arousal safety and humorous disparagement processes interpret the cognitive, aff ective and interpersonal individual motivations in humor, respectively (Speck 1987). Few st udies (Beard, 2008; Hatzithomas, Boutsouki and Zotos 2009; Lee and Lim 2008; Shabbir and Thwai tes, 2007; 183

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Speck, 1991; Spotts et al., 1997;) have investigated the use of these processes in humorous advertising around the world. None of these research papers has investigated the effect of economic cycles on the use of humor processes in advertisements. Information Content of Advertisements Researchers (Abernethy and Franke 1996; Al-Olayan and Karande 2000; Choi, Lee an d Kim 2005; Ji and McNeal 2001; Jones and Smythe 2003) have examined the information content of advertisements using primarily Resnik and Stern s coding scheme (1977). Resnik and Stern (1977) identified a number of cues that fall into fourteen main categories of pr oduct information with respect to their focus; price or value, quality, performance, components or contents, availability, special offers, taste, nutrition, packaging, warranties, safety, i ndependent research, company research and new ideas. Resnik-Stern cue classification system provides an objective methodology for content analyzing the level of advertising informativeness. However, the main interest of the present study is to investigate the use of hum or-oriented and information-oriented Super Bowl commercials during recessionary and expansionary periods and not the amount of information in advertising during these economic phases. T he categorization between soft sell between and hard sell message strategies or in other words

emotional and rational techniques is rather common in advertising literature and seems appropriate for the purposes of this paper (Alden, Steenkamp and Batra 1999; Wel ls, Burnett and Moriarty 2003, 310;). Humor is one of the primary types of emotional approac hes, since it is quite popular among advertising professionals (Beard 2005). On the other hand, i nformationdominant advertisements reflect the real expression of hard sell appeals. The analysis of the two aforementioned advertising formats (humor and informatio n oriented ads) can reveal the advertisers intentions to amuse or to inform the target audi ence (Speck 1991). It is believed that the use of this classification can provide evidence f or the association between economic cycles and advertisers intentions to amuse or to inform consumer s. Thus, in this study, the Resnik-Stern method is used only as an effective process for ide ntifying which non-emotional commercials are information-oriented (Janssens and De Pelsmacker 2 005).

Hypotheses The Effect of Economic Cycles on the use of Humor-oriented Advertisements Severe recessions as well as slowdowns of economic growth exert intense psycholo gical and economic pressure on entrepreneurs and citizens (Solantaus, Leinonenb and Punamki c 2004). Economic stress induces feelings of uncertainty, hopelessness, loneliness and de pression (Ostamo, Lahelma and Lonnqvist 2001), deteriorating, at the same time, family li fe (Solantaus, Leinonenb and Punamkic 2004). Particularly, it causes emotional distress, depress ion and demoralization for parents, creating problems in their relationship that can aff ect children's mental health (Conger et al. 2008; Conger et al. 2002; Conger et al. 1993). In p eriods of intense stress, some people drink alcohol (Cooper et al. 1992) or smoke cigarettes (Parr ott 1999) in an attempt to forget painful feelings and experience relief from tension. Gowgiel a nd McIntosh (2010), also, believe that media preferences may reflect people s reactions to har d economic times, and thus the analysis of media consumption may reveal alternative coping mechanisms (related with media content) used by people during these phases. Indeed, several researchers from multiple disciplines have studied the effect of economic conditions on the preferences of citizens for entertainment products and media c haracters (Drass and Kiser, 1988; Gowgiel and McIntosh 2010; Kiser and Drass, 1987; Langri sh, 1982; Pettijohn and Jungeberg 2004; Pettijohn 2003; Webster 2008;). The central hypoth esis of these 184

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications research papers was that during social and economic hard times, entertainment pr oducts and media stars that foster feelings of safety and security are more appealing to pe ople, because they help them to cope with negative and depressive feelings (Pettijohn and Tess er 1999). Pettijohn and Sacco (2009) found that when societal and economic conditions are rough, songs that are longer in duration, more meaningful in content, more comforting, more r omantic, and slower were most popular. Furthermore, during these hard times, people show a pr eference for music performers with more mature facial features, such as smaller eyes, thinner faces, and larger chins. In the same vein, Petijohn and his colleagues (Pettijohn and Tesse r 2005; Pettijohn and Jungeberg 2004; Pettijohn and Tesser 2003; Pettijohn and Tesser 1999) reveal ed that when economic conditions are threatening and uncertain, people prefer older, heavier, taller actresses and models with larger waists and smaller eyes (more mature) to younger, shorter actresses and models with smaller waists and wider eyes (baby faces). Neotenous female faces ( look babyish) that are considered more submissive and weak than mature female faces (Keating e t al. 2003) generate increasing levels of uncertainty. On the contrary, mature features (sma ller eyes and larger waists) breathe confidence, independence and security into the audience. Interestingly, economic cycles appear, also, to play decisive role in the number of utopian novels published every year. Kiser and Drass (1987) using a time series analysis of uto pian novels published in the Great Britain and the United States of America from 1883 to 197 5 indicated that changes in the publication of utopian novels is associated with economic cycles. Utopian literature flourished during recessionary periods, while declined during expansi onary periods. Drass and Kiser (1988), also, validated the positive relationship between econom ic contractions and the rate of publication of eutopias in the USA According to these researcher s, during economic crises, utopian novels can provide a new point of view for the reconstr uction of the collapsing economic system. In this fashion, eutopias offer a remedy for disappo inted people who look for alternative social arrangements (Kiser and Drass 1987). Moreover, economic cycles affect the use and the overall popularity of comedies. Pettijohn (2003), through a longitudinal analysis of motion pictures, confirmed a long-sta nding suspicion, indicating that during hard economic times, comedies are very popular to America ns. Similarly, many entertainment and advertising professionals have proposed that humor can be a very effective creative approach in periods of economic predicament (Andreeva 2009; A

nonymous 2008; Reinhard 2001). For instance, Joel Goodman, founder of The Humor Project In c. claimed; it was no accident that during the Great Depression, a comedy heyday emerged with the likes of the Marx Brothers and Jack Benny (Anonymous 2008, p. 14). In line with Goodman, An dreeva (2009) alleged that dramas, shows and socially relevant comedies, which took a s atirical look at the financial crisis, prevailed in US television during the recession of 1970s. Also, Keith Reinhard the chairman of DDB expressed this belief as follows: Given the current mood (he r eferred to 2001 recession) now is the time to prove as never before that advertising that se lls can also celebrate humanity and mutual affirmation. And that humor, the great sales tool of the ages, does not have to be coarse. It just has to be funny. Lifting sales and lifting s pirits . More recently, in 2009, amidst the recession, ABC voiced the general feeling and ordered a sitc om with Kelsey Grammer, a popular comedian, in the cast (Andreeva 2009). Humor is a coping mechanism (Fhr, 2002; Henman 2001; Martin et al 1993; Nezlek an d Derks 2001) that permits people to deal with everyday anxieties, depression and hopele ssness, achieving psychological and physical well being (Freiheit et al. 1998; Kuiper an d Martin 1993; Kuiper et al. 1992; Kuiper et al. 1998; Martin et al. 2003;). The Austrian neuro logist and psychiatrist Victor Frankl had argued, describing his experiences as an Auschwit z concentration camp inmate Humor, more than anything else in the human makeup, affords an aloofn ess and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds (McGhee 19 99). Indeed, Vilaythong et al. (2003) found that individuals with a greater sense of humor ex perience increased levels of hopefulness. Particularly, their subjects achieved higher le vels of hopefulness 185

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications when exposed to a humorous video than when exposed to a neutral video (Vilaython g et al. 2003). Besides, De Pelsmacker and Geuens (1999) found that humorous appeals lead to more positive advertisement-evoked feelings, such as cheerfulness and carefreeness (s ee also De Pelsmacker and Geuens 1998 and Geuens and De Pelsmacker 1998). Based in the aforementioned analysis, it can be assumed that during recessionary periods, advertisers spend more money on humorous commercials, in an attempt to change th e mood of society. On the other hand, during economic contractions, it is believed that co nsumers have a preference for humorous executions, because humor helps them to diminish perceiv ed stress intensity and to achieve high levels of hopefulness. The following hypotheses ar e advanced: H1: There is a countercyclical trend in the use of humorous oriented Super Bowl commercials. H2: During economic contractions, humor oriented Super Bowl commercials create m ore positive attitudes. The Effect of Economic Cycles on the use of Information-oriented Advertisements The amount of information present in advertisements has been of particular inter est to researchers (Abernethy and Franke 1996; Akan 2007; Al-Olayan and Karande 2000; D owling 1980; Hong et al. 1986; Ji and McNeal 2001; Johnstone et al. 1987; Lin 1993; Mad den et al. 1986; Nevett 1992; Rice and Lu 1988; So 2004; Taylor et al. 1997; Weinberger and Spott s 1989; Whitelock and Rey 1998). One perspective on information usage is that it depends on the economic development of the countries. It seems that the higher educated, litera te customers of developed societies are seeking for more accurate information (Abernethy and Franke 1996). For instance, in the USA, magazine advertisements contain more information cues than in Arab World (e.g. in Bahrain, Iraq and Saudi Arabia) and in African Countries (e.g. in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia) (Al-Olayan and Karande 2000). An additional interpretation to the vario us levels of informativeness observed in the advertisements of different cultural environment s is the political climate. Print ads in China are more informative compared to US advert isements as a result of the Chinese government s philosophy of encouraging hard-sell techniques (Ji and McNeal 2001; Rice and Lu 1988). Regarding the longitudinal changes in advertising information levels, a number o f studies has stressed the role of US Federal Trade Commission regulatory activity (Abernethy and Franke 1998; Chou, Franke and Wilcox 1987; Healey and Kassarjian 1983; Kassarjian and K

assarjian 1988; Pollay, Zaichkowsky and Fryer 1980). Abernethy and Franke (1998) indicated that the strict advertising regulation adopted by the Federal Trade Commission from 1971 to 1981 , resulted in fewer objective information claims, compared to the less stringent regulation th at was used by Federal Trade Commission from 1982 to 1992. On the other hand, Kassarjian and Ka ssarjian (1988) revealed that the endeavors of FTC, consumer groups and activists to prod uce ads with more objective advertising claims failed during 1980 s. Moreover, Weinberger and Spotts (1989) as well as Healey, Fisher and Healer (198 6/1887) showed that the levels of information included in typical TV ads fluctuate over time. However, these studies have given rise to some contradictory results. Weinberger and Spot ts (1989) reported a statistical significant increase in the levels of informational claim s both in the USA and the UK between the years 1977 and 1985, while Healey and his colleagues (198 6/1887) found that the informativeness of US TV commercials decreased in 1985 compared w ith 1981. In line with Healey, Fisher and Healer (1986/1887), De Pesmacker and Geuens (1997) observed a sharp decline in the number of information cues in Belgian print advertisements, the period between 1975 and 1995. The aforementioned studies shed some light on the changes in the level of advert ising informativeness over the years, but they did not elucidate the role of economic cycles in these changes. Given that many researchers measure soft sell ngle 186 and hard sell appeals on a si

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications dichotomous dimension(Alden, Bradley, Hitchon, and Thorson 1994; Mueller 1996; s ee also Okazaki, Mueller, and Taylor 2010; Steenkamp and Batra 1999;), it can be assumed that increases in the use of humor oriented advertisements will lead to decreases in the use of information oriented advertisements. In other words, it is believed that during expansionary periods advertisers use more information oriented Super Bowl commercials. Howeve r, we cannot hypothesize that information oriented commercials create more positive at titudes, during economic expansions. Hence, the following hypothesis is formulated: H3: There is a cyclical trend in the use of information oriented Super Bowl comm ercials. Methodology Sample of Super Bowl Commercials A content analysis approach was adopted as the most appropriate and suitable met hod for the scientific analysis of advertising messages (Berelson 1952; Kassarjian 1977; Sam iee and Jeong 1994;). A sample of 1516 Super Bowl commercials (174 commercials for the decade 1969-1979, 468 ads for the decade 1980-1989, 427 ads for the decade 1990-1999 and 447 comme rcials for the decade 2000-2009) was content analyzed by two independent coders from the US A. The sample frame used was supplied by Adland, an independent organization that hosts Super Bowl commercials. Super Bowl is not only a universally appeal sports event, but also it has turned out to be a commercial celebration that receives a great percentage of viewers globa lly (Yelkur et al. 2004). Many multinational enterprises spend millions of dollars in advertising d uring Super Bowl due to the effectiveness and the prestige that it offers (MacAllister 1999). The demographic characteristics of Super Bowl viewers tend to be more balanced than in any other event. However, the sex ratio is slightly weighted toward males (MacAllister 1999). Sup er Bowl is considered one of the largest social gathering events in the world. For, instanc e in 1999, over seventy-five percent of Americans watched the Super Bowl in the company of at le ast one other person (Freeman 1999). Procedure The coders were trained through a sample of 200 examples on the details of the t ask and the dimensions of the constructs being measured, the methodology of the Resnik and S tern s (1977)

classification system of information cues and the humorous message taxonomy (Speck 1991). The dependent variables examined were the use of humor, the use of humor process es and the use of information in Super Bowl commercials. Two researchers watched each adver tisement at least 4 times in order to determine if it contained a certain type of humor. Eac h advertisement with a content that reflected one of the three humor processes (incongruity reso lution, arousal safety and humorous disparagement) was coded as humorous. After the initial phas e of the research, the two coders identified which of the non-humorous commercials were i nformation oriented. An advertisement was coded as information oriented when it contained o ne or more of the following information cues about the product or service: price or value, quality, performance, components or contents, availability, special offers, taste, nutrit ion, packaging, warranties, safety, independent research, company research and new ideas (Elpers , Wedel and Pieters 2003; Resnik and Stern 1977). The coders found that a small percentage o f humorous advertisements had high levels of information. These commercials were coded as i nformation oriented humorous advertisements. Inter-coder agreement was estimated based on C ohen s conditional Kappa (1960). The values range between 0.0 (no reliability) and 1.0 (perfectly reliable). The reliability coefficients were K = 0.90 for humorousness, K = 0.82 for the humor processes, and K = 0.92 for information. 187

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications For the last decade (2000) the attitude towards the ad was measured, using USA T oday Ad Meter scores as a dependent variable. Every year the research team of USA Today measures the likeability of commercials, using approximately 100 typically representative vie wers of Super Bowl as sample (Tomkovick et al. 2001). Independent Variable The economic cycle was used as the single independent variable of this study. We divided the period from 1969 to 2009 into recessionary and expansionary phases of the cycle, based on press reports of recessions indexed in the New York Times Index and Business Period icals Index (see also Picard 2001). In this manner, it was revealed that the Unites Sta tes has experienced five recessions in 1969, 1973-1975, 1990-1991, 2001 and 2007-2009, a double dip recession in the early eighties (1980-1982) and four near miss-recessions in 198 5, 1995, 1998 and 2003. On the contrary the following years were classified as expansionary or stable years: 1972, 1976, 1979, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1999, 20 00, 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006. At this point, it should be noted that we did not content a nalyze Super Bowl commercials from the years 1970, 1971, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1988, 1989 and 199 7, because they were not available in the database of Adland. The following section briefly examines the recessionary periods. Recessionary Years The first severe economic contraction in this period was the 1969-1970 recession . This economic downturn was characterized by an increase in the actual budget deficit that was the result of the growing American military involvement in the Vietnam War (Labonte and Makinen 20 02). The 1973-1975 recession was one of the deepest recessions in US history provoked by the 1973 oil shock that made the oil prices rose unexpectedly. This recession was primarily c haracterized by simultaneous rise in both inflation and unemployment rates (Labonte and Makinen 2002). The double-dip recession of 1980 through 1982, was the deepest and the longer one du ring the postwar period that followed an oil price shock. The short recession of January-July 198 0 was followed by a quite short period of expansion (1981) and the deep recession of 1 982 (Harris 2009; Labonte and Makinen 2002; Rosenblum and Atkinson 2010; Zarnowitz and Moore

1991). In 1985, Singapore entered its first recession after the end of the construction boom and after a cyclical downturn in electronics, while at the same time Malaysia and Indonesia recorded negative GDP growth (Parrado 2004; Shireen 1998). Saudi Arabia withdrew from the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) cartel in late 1985 and both the organization and the oil market collapsed (Barsky and Kilian 2004; Kilian 2006). In spite of the oil shock, American economy experienced a significant economic slowdown without rece ssion (Ferrara 2003; Rosenblum and Atkinson 2010). In 1990-1991 U.S. economy suffered a recession after Iraq s invasion of Kuwait tha t leaded to a major oil price shock. Nevertheless, the recession was brief and ended in March 1991. The bomb attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995 tragically killed 168 people but did not greatly disrupt economic activity outside of Oklahoma City (Garner 2 002). However, the anemic GDP expansion of less than 2 percent during 1995 signaled an imminent recession but finally the economic slowdown did not lead to a real recession (Ferrara 2003 ; Rosenblum and Atkinson 2010). In 1998, many economists believed that the East Asian econom ic crisis could expand quickly into a broader financial and economic crisis, affecting the USA. Russia had bankrupted, Brazil was under depression and Japanese economy was sliding again i nto recession. Although US economy experienced a slight slowdown, the recession was finally avoided (Brenner 2003). 188

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications A year after the dot-com bubble burst, the USA fell again into a mild recession in 2001. The tragic events of September 11, Enron scandal and the outbreak of the war in Afgh anistan worsened the economic climate and deepened the crisis (Barsky and Kilian 2004; E nders and Sandler 2006; Ito and Lee 2004). The 2003 invasion of Iraq and concerns over the price of oil led many analysts to believe that the economy would go into a double-dip recession i n the first quarter of this year, but it finally experienced a slowdown without recession (A restis and Karakitsos 2003). In 2007 US economy plunged into the biggest crisis since the G reat Depression of 1929. The United States housing bubble burst and the financial crisis spread from the housing market sector to financial institutions, the banking sector and the automobile i ndustry (Mian and Sufi 2009). Results Hypotheses 1 and 3 were tested by the application of Chi-square (Table 1). Consi stently with hypothesis 1, it seems that the use of humor-oriented commercials increased duri ng recessionary periods (M= 22.1) and decreased during expansionary years (M=15.8) (X2=10.06, p<.002). This negative trend is observed, especially, for those advertisements i ncorporating humorous disparagement (X2=5.31, p<.021) and incongruity resolution process (X2= -3.61, p<.05). These results provide support for hypothesis 1. As far as the effect of economic cycles on the use of information oriented commercials is concerned, it appears that it is signific ant at the .06 level and explains a marginally significant amount of variance (X2=3.55, p<.06). Thus, the third hypothesis is partially supported. Interestingly, it is revealed that humor-orie nted advertisements have increased (X2=99.72, p<.00) while information-oriented comme rcials have reduced over time (X2=82.15, p<.00). Besides, the humorous commercials that are based on humorous disparagement (X2=84.69, p<.00) or on incongruity resolution process (X 2=22.43, p<.00) have increased significantly during the last forty years. This further su pports the evidence in the literature (Beard 2005; De Pelsmacker and Geuens 1997) that humorous adve rtisements are more pervasive nowadays. 189

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 1: The Use of Humor-oriented and Information-oriented Ads during Recession s and Expansions Economic Cycles Chi Square Total 2 Amidst Amidst XSig. Use of Expansions* (%) Recessions** (%) Humor-Oriented Ads 15.7 22.1 18,3 10.06 .002 Incongruity Resolution Process 5.8 8.3 6,8 3.61 .05 Arousal Safety Process 0.9 1.3 1,1 .588 .443 Humorous Disparagement Process 9.1 12.8 10.6 5.31 .021 Information-Oriented Humorous 4.3 4.5 4.4 .039 .844 Information-Oriented Ads 36.0 31.3 34.1 3.55 0.60 * Expansions of 1972, 1976, 1979, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1992, 1993, 1994 , 1996, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006 ** Recessions of 1969, 1973-1975, 1980, 1982, 1990-1991, 2001, 2007-2009 and nea r missrecessions of 1985, 1995, 1998, 2003 Hypothesis 2 posited that humor oriented Super Bowl commercials generate more po sitive attitudes toward the ad during recessionary years than during expansionary years . To test the second hypothesis a factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted with hu mor and economic cycle as the independent variables and attitude toward the ad as the de pendent factor. Hypothesis 2 would be supported if and only if the interaction between t he independent variable (humor) and moderator (economic cycle) is significant. However, the ANO VA indicated that there is no interactive effect of humorousness and economic cycle on attitu de toward the ad (F= 1.41, p<.00). Consumers have a great liking for humor oriented commercial s (M=7.30) regardless of economic cycles (F=76.57, p<.00). Hence, hypothesis 2 is not suppo rted. On the other hand, a second factorial analysis of variance with information and economi c cycle as independent variables revealed that information oriented commercials (5.71) lead to less positive attitudes toward the ad regardless of economic cycles (F=45.95, p<.00). Table 2: Attitude toward the Ad: Humor * Economic Cycle

Independent Variables Sum of df Mean F value Significance Squares Square Main Effects Humor 74.02 1 74.02 76.57 .00 Economic cycle 1.67 1 1.67 1.73 .19 Two-way Interactions Humor * Economic cycle 1.37 1 1.37 1.41 .23 Model 74.48 3 24.83 25.68 .00 Residual 313.19 324 .97 Total 387.67 327 Conclusions and Discussion At the time of writing (31 January 2011) many western developed economies are go ing through a recession and fundamental structural changes. The present study indicated that humor oriented commercials appear more frequently in Super Bowl during such hard econo mic times than in times of affluence and economic well-being. In contrast, the use of info rmation oriented advertisements follows the opposite pattern, being higher during expansionary pe riods. These findings give an empirical evidence of a growing belief among professionals that humor is a countercyclical advertising strategy (Andreeva 2009; Anonymous 2008; Lawler 2002 ; Reinhard 190

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 2001). In addition, this study is consistent with other results reported in psyc hology literature, regarding the number of comedies produced during periods of economic hardship (P ettijohn 2003). Advertising and entertainment industry professionals appear to adopt similar str ategies during recessionary and expansionary periods. However, this paper found that economic c ycle did not have any moderating effect on the positive relationship between humorous adverti sements and attitude toward the ad. In the same vein, the slightly negative relation between i nformative advertisements and consumers attitudes did not affected by economic cycles. In ot her words, it seems that humorous advertisements are very likeable while informative commercia ls a bit boring both in recessions and expansionary periods. Thus, this study did not pro vide support for the hypothesis that humorous Super Bowl commercials are more effective during ec onomic contractions and it did not confirmed Petijohn s (2003) findings that comedies are more popular during economic hard times. These results might have been due to the intrusive n ature of advertising, which is a paid nonpersonal communication from a sponsor (Wells, Bu rnett and Moriarty 2003, p. 567). This characteristic makes much more difficult for the vi ewers to identify with the emotional advertising mood. Several prior studies have proposed that ttitudes than hard sell appeals. References Abel, M.H. 2002. Humor, stress, and coping strategies. Humor: International Jour nal of Humor Research 15: 365 381. Abernethy, A.M., and G.R. Franke. 1998. FTC Regulatory Activity and the Informat ion Content of Advertising. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 17, no.2: 239-256. Akan, P. 2007. Information Content of Magazine Advertising in Turkey. Journal of Euromarketing 16, no.4: 33-47. Alden, D.L., J.-B.E.M Steenkamp, and R. Batra. 1999. Brand positioning through a dvertising in Asia, North America, and Europe: the role of global consumer culture. Journal of Marketing 63: 75-87. Alden, D.L., .. Mukherjee, and W.D. Hoyer. 2000. The Effects of Incongruity, Sur prise and Positive Moderators on Perceived Humor in Television Advertising. Journal of Advertising 2, no.29: 1-15 . soft sell appeals lead to more positive a

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Male & Female Attitudes Towards Female Stereotypes: Some Preliminary Evidence

Prokopis K. Theodoridis University of Western Greece, Department of Business Administration of Food and Agricultural Enterprises, Greece Athina Y. Zotou Athens University of Economics and Business, Department of Business Administrati on, Greece Antigone G. Kyrousi Athens University of Economics and Business, Department of Business Administrati on, Greece Abstract The issue of female stereotypes in advertising is a prolific one in the relevant literature. However, existing studies seem to mostly focus on the description of advertising practices in given cultural and temporal frames through content analyses, while perceptions a nd attitudes of men and women on the subject are relatively underresearched. The present paper d escribes a study that investigates female and male Greek Cypriots attitudes towards stereoty pes in advertising in general, as well as their attitudes towards specific stereotypica l advertisements. Initial findings reveal that women indeed expressed more negative general attitu des towards sex role portrayal in advertising, while they also had more negative attitudes towar ds specific stereotypical advertisements, depicting women in decorative and career roles, th an men. Further, it was found that younger respondents attitudes towards specific stereot ypical advertisements actually differed from those of their older counterparts, althoug h, contrary to expectations, there were no significant differences between these two groups in their general attitudes towards sex role portrayal in advertising. Patterns were also uncovere d in the attitudes (specific and general) of 4 different groups of respondents (young men, older me

n, young women, older women). Further insights will be gained from in-depth analysis of e xisting data, and replication of the study in other countries. Keywords: advertising, women, stereotypes, attitudes Introduction The issue of gender role stereotyping has been a prominent one within the advert ising literature, especially since the 1970s (Wolin 2003); interest in the subject see ms to have been spurred by the 1960s feminist movement (Zimmerman and Dahlberg 2008). The stereo typical representation of women in advertising presents considerable interest, given the evolution of the role of women in Western societies throughout these four decades (Fugate, De cker, and Brewer 1998), as well as the wider relationship between advertising and society, ie. the mirror versus mould debate. In essence, the mirror argument holds that advertising functio ns as a mirror, that simply reflects values that already exist within a certain society (Holbrook 1987), while the mould argument posits that advertising has the capacity to mould and for m the values of its target audience and society as a whole (Pollay 1986). Depending on the stance one 194

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications holds relatively to this debate, it can be argued either that media industries r eflect the prevailing attitudes and stereotypes held by society or that they act as an agent of emphas izing and reforming society s norms and beliefs. In particular, they have been accused of de picting women in a stereotypical manner or as service agents responding to men s needs. Advertis ing has been criticized for presenting a non realistic view of women and their actual roles i n society, as it generally uses stereotypical gender roles (Furnham and Mak 1999); such a notion is in accordance with the mould argument. The present paper reports some initial findings from a study conducted among fem ale and male Greek Cypriots regarding their respective attitudes towards female stereotypes i n advertising in general, as well as their specific attitudes towards existing advertisements tha t depict women in a stereotypical manner. The study hereby described as part of an ongoing cross-c ultural research project, aiming at examining the cross-cultural similarities and differences of male and female attitudes towards female stereotypes in an advertising context. Literature Review Gender stereotypes are beliefs related to the sets of psychological traits and b ehaviours characterizing men and women, while the term that are gender roles refers to the activities

differentially appropriate for men or women (An and Kim 2007). With reference to female stereotypes in advertising, ie. the stereotypical depiction of women in advertis ements, the relevant literature employs terms such as gender role portrayals , sex role portraya ls , and female role portrayals . In general, women have been described as weak, nurturing, dependent, indecisive, and emotional; on the other hand, men have been characterized as str ong, independent, competent, and stubborn (Meyers-Levy, 1988). The four broad themes of female stereotypes in advertising are: women in decorative roles, women in traditional roles, women in non-traditional roles and women portrayed equal to men (Plakoyiannaki and Zotos 2009; Belkaoui and Belkaoui 1976; Mitchell and Taylor 1990; Lysonski 1985; Zotos and L ysonski 1994). A critical review of the existing literature reveals the existence of two discre

te streams of research; the first stream is concerned with depicting the status quo regarding female stereotypes in advertising, while the second stream focuses on the examination o f the relationships between female stereotypes (as an independent variable) and other variables related to audience perceptions, attitudes and behaviour (dependent variables). In other words, the identified research streams differ in terms of research design; studies pert aining to the first stream are in their vast majority content analytic, whereas studies included in the second stream are largely empirical. Adopting the definitions cited by Leary (2007), these str eams can be termed as descriptive Descriptive studies There is a vast volume of research dealing with the description of the use of fe male stereotypes in advertising (print or television); relevant studies seek to draw conclusions on advertising practices and document changes over time. Studies included in this stream are ma inly content analytic. Indicative publications include: Belkaoui and Belkaoui 1976; Lysonski 1983; Ruggiero and Weston 1985; Soley and Kurzbard 1986; Ferguson, Kreshel and Tinkham 1990; Ma ys and Brady 1990; Klassen, Jasper and Schwartz 1993; Leppard, Ogletree and Wallen 1993 ; Zotos and Lysonski 1994; Lindner 2004. Over time, these content analytic studies have focu sed first on magazine advertisements, then on television commercials (Eisend 2009), and more recently on online advertisements (Plakoyiannaki et al. 2008). It should be noted that studi es aiming at depicting advertising practices regarding female stereotypes have been replicate d not only in different temporal frames, but also across different cultural settings (Lysonski 1985; Wiles, Wiles 195 and correlational , respectively.

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications and Tjernlund 1995; Odekerken-Schrder, de Wulf, and Hofstee 2002; Williams and Be st 1990; Sengupta 1995; Moon and Chen 2002; An and Kim 2007). For instance, publications have dealt with female stereotypes in an advertising context in America (McArthur and Resko 1975), Australia (Mazella et al. 1992) , England (Furnham and Bitar 1993), Italy (Furnh am and Voli 1989), and Portugal (Neto and Pinto 1998). Data from these studies reveal the ex istence of similarities in such practices across different Western countries and indicate t hat female stereotyping practices are culturally bound (Lin 1998; Saad 2004; Khairullah and Khairullah 2009). Overall, from the studies encompassed in this stream, it can be inferred that the way woman is portrayed is still quite diverse (An and Kim 2007). Despite the latter though, gender stereotypes in advertising are undoubtedly a worldwide phenomenon. Although less traditional portrayals of women are nowadays common, the use of some stereotypical women dep ictions (e.g. sex objects) may have increased (Soley and Kurzbard 1986, Ferguson, Kreshe l and Tinkham 1990; Klassen, Jasper and Schwartz 1993). In general, the authors conclusions fro m the literature review agree with Eisend s comment in his 2009 meta-analysis. Eisend di stinguishes between optimistic and pessimistic studies: the former conclude that women are s till portrayed in a stereotypic manner, while the latter suggest that role portayals of women i n advertising are gradually becoming less stereotypical. Generally, the literature reviewed tends to support the optimistic view. Yet, irrespectively of the stance taken, content analyses still only show changes in advertising practices over time. The key to estimate the influence of female sex role depictions is to understand women s minds, their diverse thoughts and their consci ousness as they perceive advertisements representing their gender (Soley and Kurzbard 1986) . Correlational studies The latter refers to studies pertaining to what was termed the correlational lit erature stream. Studies in this context deal with the way consumers (mostly women) perceive the stereotypical roles portrayed in advertising, the emotions evoked by such stereotypes and the influence of stereotypes on attitudes and subsequent consumer behaviour. Existing research reveals that gender perceptions and attitudes towards the port rayal of women in advertising, are influenced by lifestyle, demographic variables and feminine

role orientation (Roberts and Loggan 1977; De Young and Crane 1992; Ford, Latour and Lundstrom 19 91; Lundstrom, White and Chopoorian 1999; Ford and Latour 1993; Latour, Henthorne an d Williams 1998; Venkatesh 1980; Wolin 2003). Attitudes seem to vary across different count ries, while dissimilarities in perceptions also exist between genders and among age-groups ( De Young and Crane 1992; Ford, Latour and Honeycutt 1997; Odekerken-Schrder, de Wulf, and Hofs tee 2002; Reichert, Latour and Kim 2007). Women tend to be more sensitive to the female po rtrayal in advertising, they do not believe that they are depicted rationally in advertisin g, and that is why they sometimes report negative attitudes (De Young and Crane 1992). Females do p refer to be portrayed with realistic and equal images in advertising, and this possibly lead s to positive reactions towards the ads (Jaffe and Berger 1994; Saad 2004). In fact, women are offended by ads depicting negative female portrayals (Ford, Latour and Lundstrom 1991; Ford and Latour 1993; Christy 2006; Scriven 2007). Although both sexes have ethical concerns abo ut the use of strong sexual appeals in advertising (LaTour and Henthorne 1994; Prakash 1992), females are more inclined than males to find ads sexist (Wolin 2003; Ford, Latour and Lunstr om 1991; Jones, Stanaland and Gelb 1998; Lundstrom and Sciglimpaglia 1977; Rossi and Rossi 1985) and in contradiction to women, males find female nudity more appealing (Peterson and Ke rin 1977; Beetles and Harris 2004; LaTour 1990; Simpson, Horton and Brown 1996). It is also worth mentioning that both females and males evaluate depictions of t he opposite sex more positively (Belch et al. 1981; Jones, Stanaland and Gelb 1998; Judd and Ale xander 1983; Latour 1990; Simpson, Horton and Brown 1996; Reichert, LaTour and Kim 2007; Graz er and 196

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Keesling 1995; Saad 2004). Despite that finding, interestingly enough, other res earch indicates that females were more positive about same sex portrayal than males (Reichert, L atour and Kim 2007; Dudley 1999). Perhaps the most important point emerging from the review of the literature rega rding the perceptions and attitudes towards female stereotypes in advertising has to do wi th the scarcity of data regarding the male attitudes towards the portrayal of women in print adv ertisements. An initial hint towards that direction can be found in the seminal study by Lund strom and Sciglimpaglia (1977) who assert that female respondents in their study assumed a more critical posture towards the general nature of sex role portrayals compared to male respo ndents. The only study explicitly dealing with differences in male and female attitudes towa rds sexism in advertising, and actually contrasting these differences across USA, Denmark, Gre ece and New Zealand, is the study by Pollay and Lysonski (1993), that reports consistent male -female differences, with little differences among countries . Differences in female and m ale Australians attitudes towards female stereotypes in advertising have been more recently exam ined by Harker, Harker, and Svensen (2005). Gender differences in perceptions of women i n advertising have also been investigated by psychologists Rossi and Rossi (1985), who found t hat females gave sexist ads lower appeal ratings than their male counterparts. Conclusively, it can be deduced that research on the effects of female stereotyp es in advertising on consumers g with the attitudes is much more limited in volume compared to research dealin

depiction and the evolution of advertising practices. There is a solid body of r esearch data, using content analysis as an instrument for analyzing print or television advertisemen ts that deals with the stereotypical approach of women in those advertisements (Wagner and Banos 19 72; Goffman 1976; Lysonski 1985; Mitchell and Taylor 1990; Wiles, Wiles and Tjernlun d 1995). However, it is interesting to note that only a scant of research data are dealin g with women s attitudes towards magazine s advertisements, and even fewer studies examine men s at titudes towards female stereotypes portrayed in print advertisements. Purpose of Study

As a result of the literature reviewed, a research gap was identified. More spec ifically, it was observed that research on the attitudes of women regarding gender stereotypes in advertising is scarce and less systematic than expected. Even less are the studies that deal wi th the attitudes of men towards female stereotypes in advertising. Further, it should be noted th at international data regarding male and female attitudes are extremely limited and hinder crosscultural comparisons. On the contrary, several studies comparing and contrasting internat ional data have been carried out regarding existing advertising stereotyping practices. This exploratory study is the first step in a wider research design whose aim is to contrast findings regarding attitudes of men and women towards female stereotypes in adve rtising from several European countries. Despite the fact that international data on the subj ect, however scarce and outdated, exist in the relevant literature, their nature is such that inhibits international comparisons; this data has been obtained in different temporal fra mes, from different samples and with different methods. Therefore, the only way to ensure that meaningful international comparisons can be made is by consistently designing an d implementing a new research project. Or, as Eisend (2009) ascertains, cross-cultu ral and longitudinal comparisons require consistent data at the expense of the adjustmen t of codings to cultural and temporal conditions . Cross-national comparisons are of high importan ce in an era when advertising messages constantly permeate the boundaries of different countr ies as they could benefit international advertisers with both practical and theoretical impl ications (An and Kim 2007). It is only reasonable to expect that cultural differences, apart from their attested influence on advertising practice regarding female stereotypes, will also influe nce perceptions 197

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications towards these stereotypes. Such a notion has been suggested, among others, by Fo rd, Latour and Honeycutt (1997), who suggest an impact of national culture on the processin g of ads featuring sex role portrayals, although they only refer to female audiences and Orth and Holancova (2004), who call for further research on the subject. Hypotheses Formulation According to the initial findings of an exploratory study conducted by the resea rchers, using focus groups, as the first part of an ongoing research plan, it was shown that f emale participants perceived most of the advertisements presented to them as stereotypical of women . Female participants generally agreed that women, despite social change, are still repre sented in a stereotypical manner in advertisements. Contrary, male participants seemed to be less sensitive in recognizing stereotypical portrayals of women. Moreover, their attitudes towa rds these stereotypes were less negative compared to women s. These results resembled with t he findings of previous research indicating different and controversial attitudes between se xes towards female portrayals in advertising. As Lull, Hanson and Marx 1997 noted, women are more aware than men of stereotyped role portrayals in advertising. According to Orth and Ho lancova (2004), females show the slightest positive reactions to advertisements that are present ing female models in better roles than males. While Whipple and Courtney (1985) reconsidere d studies examining female role portrayals in advertising involving effects on perceived p roduct quality, preferences for ads, attitudes towards ads, intention to buy, credibility and li keability, they generalized that for a female audience, contemporary, liberated female role port rayals were in general more efficient than traditional depictions. This result was later on est ablished by Ford and LaTour (1993). As already mentioned, women are more likely than men to be mo re sensitive to the portrayal of women and more likely to perceive women as portrayed depende nt on men, while men are more likely than women to perceive that women are portrayed as the y actually are (Harker, Harker and Svensen 2005; Wolin 2003). Generally, women were much mo re likely to find offensive the portrayal of women in advertising than were men, and this may leads to a negative attitude towards female stereotyping. Therefore, the following hypothes is is formulated:

H1: Women will express more negative general attitudes towards sex role portraya l in advertising and more negative attitudes towards specific stereotypical advertise ments than men. There is also some previous research dealing with the differences that may exist between age groups (younger older). As it was hinted in the exploratory focus groups study, older women were generally more critical towards the decorative-sexy image of females in adver tising, while younger women directed their criticism towards the portrayal of the typical housewife . In general, through the focus group discussion regarding the stereotypical repre sentation of women in advertising, older women seemed to be more sensitive towards the stereo typical depiction of females in advertising compared to younger women. As far as the att itudes and the perceptions of their male counterparts are concerned, it appeared that younger m en demonstrated increased sensitivity towards female stereotypes, compared to older male. In other words, younger men and women tend to differ less in terms of sensitivity. According to Harker, Harker and Svensen s (2005) indications, younger people agreed that the po rtrayal of women is sexist and that the stereotypical depiction of women had changed over t he years for the better. Conformed to the Ford and LaTour s (1996) findings, older people were not appear to be offended by the portrayal of gender in advertising, and gave the impression t hat they do not believe that the portrayal of women is changing for the better (Harker, Harker a nd Svensen 2005). Additionally, Zimmerman and Dahlberg (2008) revealed that young women did not seem to be offended by the portrayal of women in advertising. It therefore appears fr om the existing literature, the attitudes of older men and women towards female stereotyping in advertising are 198

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications more polarized, compared to the attitudes of the younger respondents. This means that older men and women express more strong attitudinal statements, regardless of their po sitive or negative character, than younger men and women, who do not show strong feelings on the subject. Along with what previous literature suggests, the second hypotheses is formulated: H2: Young respondents d attitudes general attitudes towards sex role portrayal advertising an

towards specific stereotypical advertisements will differ from those of their ol der counterparts. Some existing research suggests that consumer a priori attitudes toward sex role portrayals, will possibly affect females and males reactions to a specific sex role depiction, and influence the effectiveness of a particular ad (Bhat, Leigh and Wardlow 1998; Orth and Holanco va 2004). It has also been shown that females who have less positive a priori attitudes towards s tereotyped sex role portrayals in advertising are more likely to exhibit negative attitudes tow ards firms or products associated with stereotyped role portrayals (Lysonski and Pollay 1990). According to the relevant literature the third hypotheses is addressed: H3: Attitudes towards specific stereotypical advertisements will be influenced b y general attitudes towards sex role portrayal in advertising. Methodology Measures In order to assess feminine role orientation or female autonomy, Arnott s (1972) F emale Autonomy Inventory (AFAI) was adopted, in accordance with numerous previous stud ies (Ford, LaTour and Lundstrom 1991; Ford and LaTour 1993; Ford and LaTour 1996; Ford, LaT our and Honeycutt 1997). The AFAI, developed by Arnott (1972), consists of ten items and includes an equal number of positive and negative statements with seven response categories, ranging from 1= Strongly Disagree scores, to 7 = Strongly Agree . Originally, Arnott calculated the total

ranging from 10 to 70 and keeping the midpoint as 40, she arbitrarily assigned t he scores of 1025 to conservatives, 33-47 to moderates, and 55-70 to liberals (Venkatesh 1980). Th e AFAI instrument was selected due to its repeated validation in previous studies of si

milar nature, as reported by Ford and LaTour (1996), and due to the fact that levels of female au tonomy are well represented by responses to this scale (Ford, LaTour and Lundstrom 1991). Attitudes towards sex role portrayal were measured with the Attitudes towards sex role portrayal scale, which is part of the original Lundstrom & Sciglimpaglia (1977) i nstrument. The instrument also includes scales referring to Company Image and Purchase Intentions hat were not used in the present study, since it only focuses on attitudes. This sca le, as well as the instrument as a whole, have been widely accepted and validated in subsequent stu dies (Ford, LaTour and Lundstrom 1991; Ford and LaTour 1993; Ford and LaTour 1996; Ford, LaT our and Honeycutt 1997; Harker, Harker and Svensen 2005). It is comprised of 12 statemen ts, responses to which were given on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1= Strongly Disagree o 7 = Strongly Agree . Contrary to previous studies regarding attitudes towards stereotypical depiction s of women in advertising, that were limited to examining general (a priori) attitudes, the pr esent study also measured attitudes towards specific advertisements. A similar approach (simultan eous measurement of a priori and specific attitudes) was used by Orth and Holancova ( 2004), who found that a priori attitude (general attitude towards sex role portrayal in adv ertising) had a significant impact on attitudes towards specific advertising stimuli. Attitudes towards the specific advertising stimuli used in the study were measured by the 4 item scale by Holbrook and Batra (1987), responses to which were given on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging f rom 1= Strongly Disagree to 7 = Strongly Agree . 199

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications For the purposes of the present study, all of the items used were translated in Greek, and afterwards back-translated in English, in order to check for accuracy. Stimuli The stimuli used in this study were 3 existing advertisements, selected from an initial pool of 30 existing advertisements, drawn from recent issues of magazines, targeted at both men and women. Prior to the main study, 10 women were presented with these advertisement s and were asked to evaluate, using a 7-point Likert scale, the degree that each of th em projected a stereotyped image of women. Advertisements that received evaluation scores betwe en 3 and 5 were chosen for further use. The rationale for such a choice is that extremely s tereotypical advertisements were expected to provoke extreme reactions by respondents irrespe ctive of their gender (as was the case with extremely overt sexual appeals in LaTour and Henthorne 1994) and thus were not appropriate for measuring differences between male and f emale perceptions. On the other hand, advertisements that were not judged as stereotyp ical by women were even less likely to be considered stereotypical by men, who are thoug ht to be less sensitive to female stereotypes (Harker, Harker and Svensen 2005). Given that th e scope of the study had to do with female stereotypes in general, and not with a specific kind of stereotype (eg. sexual appeal), the authors saw that the advertisements selected fell into different categories of the Lysonski (1985) categorization scheme; the four broad themes o f female stereotypes in advertising are namely women in decorative roles, women in tradit ional roles, women in non-traditional roles and women portrayed equal to men (Plakoyiannaki a nd Zotos 2009). The stimuli used in the study were one for each of the first three catego ries. Sample and Data Collection 168 male and female (of equal representation within the sample) Greek Cypriots p articipated in the study hereby reported. Each respondent was summoned separately in a room, wh ere one of the researchers was present. Before exposure to the stimuli, respondents were ad ministered the first part of the questionnaire, referring to the female autonomy statements and attitudes towards sex role portrayal. Subsequently, respondents were presented with Stimul us A and were asked to study it for approximately 2 minutes. At that time, they were aske d to indicate

their attitudes towards the specific advertisement. The procedure was repeated f or Stimuli B and C. Out of the total 168 questionnaires completed, 160 were usable. 200

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Data Analysis Respondents Profile

Men and women were purposedly equally represented within the sample; an effort w as made as well to include both young (younger than 35 years old) and older respondents. Th e majority of the respondents are either single (41,2%) or married with children (40%). As for their educational level, the majority of the respondents have a high school education (31,2%), followed by the respondents with a graduate or postgraduate degree (26,2% and 20 % respectively). Scale Validation The data were initially checked for normality with the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test t hat yielded p values lower than 0,010; therefore, the normality assumption was rejected. Then, the data obtained were subject to further analysis. First, the 10 items comprising the AF AI were factor analyzed. Items 2, 6 and 8 (see Table 1) were recoded (Venkatesh 1980). A soluti on was found for two factors, which were identified as Individual Female Autonomy and Female aut onomy within the family . As shown in Table 1, six items loaded on the first factor, whi le three items loaded on the second one. Concerning reliability, Cronbach s alphas for each facto r were 0,896 and 0,664 respectively. The results thus indicate appropriate internal consisten cy and reliability for the factors. It should be noted that item 3 ( Men should initiate courtship ) wa s eliminated, due to low factor loadings. Table 1: AFAI Factor Analysis Items Factor 1: Factor 2: Individual Female Female Autonomy autonomy within the family Take obey out of the marriage service 0,725 Girls should be trained as homemakers* 0,781 Women should be as free as men to make decisions 0,764 Women should not subordinate their careers for their husbands 0,812 Motherhood is an ideal career for most women* 0,814 Women should be allowed to withhold or initiate 0,658 sex

Husband should be legal family representative* 0,576 Wife should make abortion decision 0,767 Women should not be disqualified from occupations because of sex 0,845 *reverse order Subsequently, the 12 items pertaining to Lundstrom & Sciglimpaglia s (1977) Attitud es towards sex role portrayal scale were factor analyzed. Two factors were extracted using P rincipal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation. The factors extracted bear a strong re semblance to the ones identified by Ford, LaTour and Honeycutt (1997), with the exception of the item Ads suggest that women do not do important things ; that is why the same labels, Portra yal Accuracy , and Role Portrayal Criticism , were adopted. Similar factors, but less so, have been identified by Ford and LaTour (1996) and Harker, Harker and Svensen (2005). The factors exhibited satisfactory reliability (Cronbach s alphas for each factor are shown in table 2). Three items were eliminated, due to low factor loadings ( I am more sensitive to the por trayal of 201

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications women in advertising than I used to be , I find the portrayal of women in advertisi ng to be offensive and Overall, I believe that the portrayal of women in advertising is cha nging for the better ). Table 2: Attitudes towards sex role portrayal Factor Analysis 1: 2: Portrayal Role Accuracy Portrayal Criticism 11. Ads which I see show women as they really are 0,820 12. Ads suggest that women are fundamentally dependent on men 0,838 13. Ads which I see show men as they really are 0,875 14. Ads treat women mainly as sex objects 0,610 15. Ads which I see accurately portray women in most of their daily 0,843 activities 16. Ads suggest that women make important decisions 0,520 17. Ads which I see accurately portray men in most of their daily 0,842 activities 18. Ads suggest that women do not do important things 0,738 19. Ads suggest that a woman s place is in the home 0,816 Cronbach s alpha 0,877 0,795 The set of the four items reflecting attitudes towards an advertisement was also subject to factor analysis, resulting an one factor solution. Hypotheses Testing Regarding the first hypothesis, in order to attest differences between sexes and their respective responses, the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test was employed. First, for the A FAI items, the distributions in the two groups (men and women) were found to differ signifi cantly for the Individual Female Autonomy 000 to 0,001 factor, since the test yielded p values ranging from 0,

for the items included. It can be thus inferred that male and female respondents significantly differed in their views regarding the autonomy of women as individuals, with wom en being more egalitarian than men. For the items referring to attitudes towards sex role portrayal, the mean ranks of the two groups (men and women) were found to differ significantly for both the Portrayal Accuracy and the Role Portrayal Criticism factors. More specifically, the mean ranks of responses to the Portrayal Accuracy items in the two groups (men and wome n) were found to differ significantly, with all p values < 0,05 (with the exception of t he item Ads suggest

that women make important decisions ), with men tending to have more positive atti tudes towards the portrayal accuracy of women in advertising, as expected. The mean ra nks of responses to the Role Portrayal Criticism items in the two groups (men and women) were found to differ significantly, with women being more critical than men towards f emale role portrayals, similarly to our initial expectations. The results of the Mann-Whitn ey U tests for the items pertaining to general attitudes towards sex role portrayal, grouped by sex , are presented in Table 3. Regarding their attitudes towards specific stereotypical advertiseme nts, it was revealed that the two sexes differed with respect to their attitudes regarding A dvertisements/ Stimuli 1 and 2, depicting women in decorative and career roles respectively. Mo re specifically, differences were found for items 23, 26, 27 and 30; men tended to have more posi tive attitudes 202

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications than women regarding these two themes of stereotypical depictions. No significan t differences were found regarding male and female attitudes towards the advertisement depicti ng the women in traditional roles ins partial stereotype. From these results, the first hypothesis ga

support, as women indeed expressed more negative general attitudes towards sex r ole portrayal in advertising, while they also had more negative attitudes towards specific ste reotypical advertisements, depicting women in decorative and career roles, than men. Table 4: Attitudes towards sex role portrayal Mann-Whitney U tests grouped by gender Items Male Female MannWhitney U* Mean Ranks 11. Ads which I see show women as they really are 109,22 51,78 902,50 12. Ads suggest that women are fundamentally dependent on men 62,64 98,36 1771,00 13. Ads which I see show men as they really are 106,17 54,83 1146,50 14. Ads treat women mainly as sex objects 57,94 103,06 1395,50 15. Ads which I see accurately portray women in most of their daily activities 108,01 52,99 999,00 17. Ads which I see accurately portray men in most of their daily activities 102,42 58,58 1446,00 18. Ads suggest that women do not do important things 50,51 110,49 801,00 19. Ads suggest that a woman s place is in the home 64,68 96,32 1934.5 *p <0,001 Regarding the second hypothesis, in order to assess differences and older respondents, a dummy ordinal dichotomous variable was computed, 3-35 years old (label: young) and 2= 36-63 years old (label: older), and a non-parametric Mann-Whitney U tests were conducted. First, for the AFAI items, n the two between younger with values 1= 1 second series of the mean ranks i

groups (younger and older) were found to differ significantly for the Individual Female Autonomy factor, since the test yielded p values ranging from 0,005 to 0,022 for all the items included. Significant differences were also found in the distributions in the tw o groups regarding the items pertaining to the alues < 0,05. Female autonomy within the family factor, with all p v

It can be thus argued that younger and older respondents significantly differed in their views regarding the autonomy of women both as individuals and within the family, with the younger respondents being more egalitarian than their older counterparts. Surprisingly e nough, there were no noteworthy differences between young and old respondents tems answers to the i

referring to general attitudes towards sex role portrayal. More specifically, th ere were no differences in the distributions in the two groups regarding the items pertainin g to Portrayal Accuracy and Role Portrayal Criticism (with the exception of item 19 where the Mann Whitney U test produced a p value = 0,001). Regarding their attitudes towards sp ecific stereotypical advertisements, it was revealed that young and old respondents dif fered with respect to their attitudes regarding all three stereotypic advertisements they w ere presented with. More specifically, differences in the two distributions were found for ite ms 24, 25, 28, 29, 31, 32 and 34, with all p values < 0,001. Younger respondents were more critical of the advertisements representing women in stereotypical roles than their older counte rparts. From these results, the second hypothesis receives partial support, as younger respon dents attitudes towards specific stereotypical advertisements actually differed from those of th eir older counterparts, despite the fact that there were no significant differences betwee n these two groups in their general attitudes towards sex role portrayal in advertising. 203

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications It was attempted to shed some light on this apparent controversy, by seeking to analyze the differences in the general and specific attitudes of respondents of different ag es and sexes. Exploiting some initial hints gained from the exploratory focus groups study, th e authors sought out patterns in the responses of 4 different groups of respondents, with respect to their ages and sexes. For this purpose, a dummy categorical variable was computed, with val ues 1= younger men, 2= older men, 3= younger women, 4 = older women. In order to test e quality of population medians among these four groups, a series of non-parametric Kruskal-W allis tests were conducted for the general and specific attitudinal items. For the items ref erring to attitudes towards sex role portrayal, the medians in the four groups were found to differ significantly for both the , with p Portrayal Accuracy and the Role Portrayal Criticism items

values for most of them being less than 0,001. More specifically, it was found t hat older men and older women exhibited more extreme attitudes (their medians located towards opposite ends of the Likert scale), while younger men and younger women s responses tended to concentrate more towards the middle. For instance, answers to item 11 Ads which I see show women as they really are (Chi square= 75,909, p Asymp. Sig. = 0,000) are indicati ve of the general image conveyed: older women tended to disagree with the statement (mean rank 42,62), while older men, on the opposite end, tended towards agreement (mean ran k 126,04); younger women tend to disagree less than their older counterparts (mean rank 60, 50), while young men tend to agree less than the older ones (mean rank 94,00). Initial find ings thus tend to hint towards the existence of differences in general attitudes towards stereotyp es in advertising within respondents of the same sex, but of a different age bracket. The results of the KruskalWallis tests for the items referring to attitudes towards specific stereotypical advertisement reveal a similar image, with p values for the test for most items being lower th an 0,01, and attitudes being more extreme for older respondents. Therefore, initial findings tend to hint towards the existence of differences in attitudes towards specific stereotypical advertisements within respondents of the same sex, but of a different age bracket. Further analysis of the data is currently underway, in order to test the third h ypothesis and construct a model that describes the relationships among key factors.

Limitations This study has a number of conceptual and methodological limitations. Foremost a mong these is the national context of our study; the attitudes hereby reported only refer to G reek Cypriots. It is however intended that the study be replicated in different cultural contexts; after all, crosscultural comparisons are one of the major goals of the wider research plan imple mented. Furthermore, limitations arise from the way respondents were selected; in order to draw meaningful conclusions, the use of a random sample is necessary. The stimuli use d in this study are also subject to certain limitations. It is possible that the selection of ac tual print advertisements might have influenced the attitudes of the respondents, through p revious experience with the advertised brand. Additionally, the viewing of the advertise ments outside their actual context (ie. magazine) could have had an impact on respondents iour. behav

Limitations also stem from the measures employed; all attitudinal measures in th is study are based on self reports. However, self reports have been shown to be less appropri ate to capture automatic and spontaneous processes in consumer evaluations and decisions (Brune l, Tietje, & Greenwald, 2004; Vantomme, Geuens and Dewitte 2005). Further, the impact of emot ions was not considered in this study; existing research however shows that consumers ional emot

responses with regard to gender sterotypes influence their attitudes towards adv ertisements with such depictions (Orth and Holancova 2004). 204

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications References An, D., and S. Kim. 2007. Relating Hofstede's masculinity dimension to gender ro le portrayals in advertising: A crosscultural comparison of web advertisements. International Marketing Review 24, no . 2: 181 207. Arnott, C. 1972. Husband s attitude and wives commitment to employment. Journal of Marriage and the Family 34: 673-677. Beetles, A. and L. Harris. 2004. Female nudity in advertising: an exploratory st udy. Paper presented at the ACR Conference on Gender, Marketing and Consumer Behavior, June in Madison, Wisconsi n. Belch, M. A., B. E. Holgerson, G. E. Belch, and J. Koppman. 1981. Psychophysical and Cognitive Responses to Sex in Advertising. In Advances in Consumer Research, ed. A. A. Mitchell, 424-42. Ann A rbor, Mi: Association for Consumer Research. Belkaoui, A., and J. M. Belkaoui. 1976. A comparative analysis of the roles port rayed by women in print advertisements-1958, 1970, 1972. Journal of Marketing Research 12, no. 2: 168-17 2. Bhat, S., T. W. Leigh, and D. L. Wardlow. 1998. The effect of consumer prejudice s on ad processing: Heterosexual consumers responses to homosexual imagery ads. Journal of Advertising 27, no. 4: 9-25. Brunel, F.F., B.C Tietje and A.G. Greenwald. 2004. Is the Implicit Association T est a valid and valuable measure of implicit consumer social cognition? Journal of Consumer Psychology 14, no. 4: 38 5-404. Christy, T.P. 2006. Females perceptions of offensive advertising: the importance of values, expectations and control. Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising 28, no. 2: 15 32. DeYoung, S., and F. G. Crane. 1992. Females' attitudes toward the portrayal of w omen in advertising: A Canadian Study. International Journal of Advertising 11, no.3: 249-255. Dudley, S. C. 1999. Consumer Attitudes Toward Nudity in Advertising. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice 7: 89 96. Eisend, M. 2009. A meta-analysis of gender roles in advertising. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Published online November 17, 2009 Ferguson, J. H., P. J. Kreshel, and S.F. Tinkham. 1990. In the pages of Ms: Wome n in advertising. Journal of Advertising 19, no. 1: 40-51. Ford, J. B., and M. S. LaTour. 1993. Differing reactions to female role portraya

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Ruggiero, J. A., and L. C. Weston. 1985. Work options for women in women s magazin es: the medium and the message. Sex Roles 12, no. 5/6: 535-47. Saad, G. 2004. Applying Evolutionary Psychology in Understanding the Representat ion of Women in Advertisements. Psychology & Marketing 21, no. 8: 593 612. Scriven, A. 2007. Advertising and low body confidence. Journal of the Royal Soci ety for the Promotion of Health 127, no. 6: 356 357. Sengupta, S. 1995. The influence of culture on portrayals of women in television commercials: a comparison between the United States and Japan. International Journal of Advertising 14, no. 4: 314 -33 Simpson, P. M., S. Horton, and G. Brown. 1996. Male nudity in advertisements: A modified replication and extension of gender and product effects. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 24: 2 57-262. Soley, L., and G. Kurzbard, 1986. Sex in Advertising: A Comparison of 1964 and 1 984 Magazine Advertisements. Journal of Advertising 15, no. 3: 54-64. Vantomme, D., M. Geuens and S. Dewitte. 2005. How to Portray Men and Women in Ad vertisements? Explicit and Implicit Evaluations of Ads Depicting Different Gender Roles. Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium. Venkatesh, A. 1980. Changing Roles of Women-A Life-Style Analysis. Journal of Co nsumer Research 7, no. 3: 189-97. Wagner, L. C., and J. B. Banos. 1973. A women s place: A follow-up analysis of the roles portrayed by women in magazine advertisements. Journal of Marketing Research 10: 213-214. Whipple, T. W., and A. E. Courtney. 1985. Female role portrayals in advertising and communication effectiveness: A review. Journal of Advertising 14, no. 3: 4-17. Wiles, J. A., C. R. Wiles, and A. Tjernlund. 1995. A comparison of gender role p ortrayals in magazine advertising: The Netherlands, Sweden, and the USA. European Journal of Marketing 29, no. 11: 35-4 9. Williams, J., and D. Best. 1990. Sex and Psyche. London: Sage Wolin, L. D. 2003. Gender Issues in Advertising-An Oversight Synthesis of Resear ch: 1970 2002. Journal of Advertising Research 43: 111-129. Zimmerman, A. and J. Dahlberg. 2008. The sexual Objectification of women in adve rtising: A contemporary cultural perspective. Journal of Advertising Research 48: 71-79.

Zotos, Y., and S. Lysonski. 1994. Gender representations: The case of Greek maga zine advertisements. Journal of Euromarketing 3, no. 2: 27-47. 207

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Consumers Responses to Spokespersons in Homosexual Advertisement.

Hsuan-Yi Chou National Taiwan University and National Quemoy University takki_1112@yahoo.com.tw Cheng-Shih Lin National Taiwan University and National Quemoy University Many marketers think of homosexual consumers as a dream market, because these co nsumers represent a sizable market segment and possess more disposable income than do he terosexual consumers (Oakenfull, McCarthy, and Greenlee 2008). Despite the pervasive use of and a great deal of importance placed by practitioners on homosexual advertising, the resear ch on it is much deficient. A review of previous studies (e.g., Bhat, Leigh, and Wardlow 1998; Oakenfull, Mc Carthy, and Greenlee 2008) reveals that most scholars have directly compared the effects of mainstream/heterosexual, homosexual, and homosexual-subculture (e.g., a pink tri angle or a rainbow flag) ads in consumers with different genders and sexual orientations. F ew studies have focused on homosexual ads and explored how to design ad content to generate bett er persuasive effects for both heterosexuals and homosexuals (Chou and Lien 2010). The mediating mechanisms of how consumers form attitudinal responses towards such ads is also unknown. Additionally, scholars have usually designed homosexual ads by featuring homosex ual couples acting in an overtly intimate manner. This approach has neglected the fact that gay depictions in ads have often been implied through subtle cues (Branchik 2007). Since the spoke sperson is a key factor in designing ads targeted to homosexuals, this study explores the eff ects on consumers attitudinal responses of varying spokesperson characteristics, includin g gayness and attractiveness, in a homosexual advertisement. According to Lutz s (1991) ABC mode l, the possible mediating effects of consumer moods, ad involvement, perceived target m arket (i.e., the degree to which consumers believe they are in the target market for the ad), and perceived spokesperson suitability to endorse the advertised product are explored also. A 2 (high vs. low spokesperson gayness) 2 (high vs. low spokesperson attractiven ess) between-

subjects experiment was conducted. To increase generalizability, this study empl oyed two different products, creating eight experimental cells. Through a pretest, four p rint ads targeted to homosexuals were selected. Each ad featured a different male model as spokesp erson; the gayness and attractiveness of the spokespersons varied. These four ads were modi fied so that each advertised the same fictitious brand name and promoted a beer or a digital camera product. The subjects were 446 students, ranging in age from 17 to 28 (M = 20.9) ; they were recruited from bulletin board systems, Internet chatrooms, dating websites, and snowball sampling. Of these, 190 were heterosexuals (56.3% male, 43.7 female, and 256 wer e homosexuals (90.2% male, 9.8% female). Each participant was instructed to view a version of the ad and then complete a questionnaire. Data analyses were conducted using a maximum-likelihood estimation procedure usi ng LISREL 8.3 and Joreskog and Sorbom s (2001) method of multi-sample analysis. The results revealed that once an ad was recognized/considered as being targeted to homosexuals, spok espersons with higher gayness generated better ad attitudes and product attitudes through increasing spokesperson suitability and the degree of perceived target market, which arouse d consumers good moods. Spokesperson attractiveness could directly improve consumer attitude s or have an indirect effect through affecting consumer ad involvement, good moods, or percei ved 208

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications spokesperson suitability. More important, consumer sexual orientation moderated the relationships among spokesperson characteristics, mediators, and attitudinal res ponses. For heterosexuals, spokesperson gayness had a significantly negative impact on perce ived target market. Additionally, the positive effect of perceived target market on ad attit udes was enhanced. Such findings suggested that spokesperson gayness worsened heterosexua l consumers ad attitudes. Conversely, spokesperson attractiveness could improve het erosexual consumers ad involvement and make them like the advertised product. For homosexua ls, spokesperson attractiveness was a more important cue for forming attitudes than gayness. The positive effects of attractiveness on ad attitudes, ad attitudes on product atti tudes, attractiveness on suitability, and suitability on perceived target market were a ll enhanced, suggesting that spokesperson attractiveness significantly improved those consume rs attitudes. The findings above contribute to the development of theories about homosexual ad vertising and provide useful suggestions for advertisers to design ads for consumers with diff erent sexual orientations. References Bhat, S., T. W. Leigh, and D. L. Wardlow. 1998. The effect of consumer prejudice s on ad processing: heterosexual consumers responses to homosexual imagery in ads. Journal of Advertising 27, no. 4: 9-28. Branchik, B. J. 2007. Queer ads: gay male imagery in American advertising. Consu mption, Market, and Culture 10, no. 2: 147-58. Chou, H.-Y. and N.-H. Lien. 2010. Dream market with not only love but fear-the e ffects of homosexual advertising. Sun Yat-Sen Management Review 18, no. 3: 769-803. Joreskog, K. G. and D. Sorbom. 2001. LISREL 8 User s Reference Guide. Illinois, Lin colnwood: Scientific Software International, Inc. Lutz, R. J. 1991. The role of attitude theory in marketing. In Perspectives in C onsumer Behavior 4th, ed. H. H. Kassarjian and T. S. Robertson, 317-339. Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall. Oakenfull, G. K., M. S. McCarthy, and T. S. Greenlee. 2008. Targeting a minority without alien ating the majority: advertising to gays and lesbians in mainstream media. Journal of Advertising Res earch 48, no: 2, 191-8.

209

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Towards the end of euphoria-Latest developments in the Greek (old and new) media scene, from 2000 to 2010. Emmanuel Heretakis Department of Communication and Media Studies, University of Athens, Greece eheretak@media.uoa.gr The year 2000 found the Greek media in a state of transition, and, at the same t ime, in a state of euphoria. The power blocks of the traditional media (i.e. mostly consisting o f print media ) and those of the electronic media were undergoing a transitional stage, facing a threat from the emerging power block of the new media , represented mostly by the internet , tog ether with the various applications of the digital field. Advertising expenditure was thriving, mostly as an income for the media power bl ocks, and especially for the electronic media, but there was a feeling that sweeping chang es were not afar. The traditional media power blocks had created various sorts of links with the political power, and the eventuality of change-in the form of redistribution of priorities -would endanger the established status quo, creating new alliances, possibly altering v arious agreements and contracts between the state and private capital, therefore upsett ing the steady flow of profits for private capital. The major issue was a chaotic deregulation, creating an almost entirely new medi a situation, new alliances, renewed contracts, and expanding new possibilities for profit cre ation ( from the part of private capital ) . Deregulation had restructured the relations of power, in favour of the private media , chiefly via the formation of private television st ations , multiplying the impact of private capital , and by giving rise to a positive acc eptance of the overall image of private capital and its various representatives (entrepreneurs) , and also expanding , by making entirely favourable across wide sections of population, a new kind of culture, the image-culture , through the preponderance of television . What was at stake was the continuance, and chiefly the longevity of the image-cul ture , which greatly enhanced the image of private capital and its major representatives ( at least ) , in an era where the worldwide dominant neoliberal financial dogma had not exhibited vi sible signs of erosion. E.g. the consequences of the dot.com bubble ( 2000-2001) were treate d as an

ordinary phenomenon, and not as an indication of the emergence of an uninterrupt ed series of stock exchange bubbles, as we can understand it years ( 2008-2009) afterwards . Because, due to the non-existence of a kind of an fair-playing competitive atmos phere, the representatives of private capital relied significantly on state funding , by ca rrying out (mostly overvalued ) public works , e.g. in telecommunications, road building and in oth er areas for the creation (and accumulation) of profits, and hence leading to a series of acc usations for bribery and corruption-which has not abated until now (2010). The creation of an image-culture , furthered by the multiplicity of commercial and privatelyowned television channels , pouring out oceans of entertainment-based programmes , and constituting the most amenable environment for an almost ever-increasing number of

advertisements , had proven to be a kind of perpetual image building activity ( so me would name it plainly, propaganda) for advancing the interests of private capital and (mainly) its major representatives. The erosion of this image-culture could be highly dangerous for the long-term inte rests of this state-fed private capital, since it would open the grounds for the examinat ion of alternatives by the people at large , i.e. the mass audiences, , when the TINA ( There Is No Alternative ) advertised and widely accepted neoliberal dogma would be directly disputed and 210

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications challenged. This reinforced the one dollar-one vote attitude towards the political field, in contradistinction to the one man-one vote prevailing attitude in Western democraci es . What if the image-culture was succeeded by the screen-culture and the ascendance of the power block of the new media? The convergence culture was the flagship of the ne w media power block. And it was in need of highly educated personnel in large numbers, n ot existing at the time being, though if such kind of personnel was available, it would sign ificantly increase the running costs of the convergence culture in terms of financing ( in cluding wages, and the necessary software and hardware). Towards the end of the 2000 decade, there were tangible signs of a number of pro blems emerging from the chaotic deregulation, the decrease in advertising expenditure and therefore in income for the mass media, coupled with the gradual downfall of consumption. This climate was aggravated by the financial woes of Greece, now entirely visible by 2009-2010, creating an entirely negative psychological atmosphere, which became overtly evi dent by 2010. The paper will examine the transitions in the mass media field , the transformat ions in the overall advertising business, the evolution of consumption, along with the mutat ion of the image-culture towards the screen-culture , and the implications of the above to the m ass audiences. It will also examine the possibility of formation of a new media scen e, with entirely diverging priorities from the older one, i.e. the one existing until the middle of the 2000 decade, focusing on the ascendance of the screen-culture , the technological succes sor of the image-culture . This evolution seems to be a radical restructuring of the old contract ( i.e. the one achieved by deregulation ) between the state and the private financiers. 211

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Measuring Effectiveness In The New Media Environment

Michael A. Belch San Diego State University, Marketing Department, San Diego, mbelch@mail.sdsu.edu George E. Belch San Diego State University, Marketing Department, San Diego, Abstract A major shift in media spending from traditional media (print, broadcast, etc.) to new media (digital, branded entertainment, etc.), has created a need to review and reconsi der the measures of effectiveness employed to determine the contribution of these channe ls. This paper reviews many of the measures used in both traditional and nontraditional media, and suggests a need for more consistency in determining the effectiveness of media employed. Introduction A major shift in the media landscape has occurred in the past decade. This shift has resulted in a significant re-allocation of media dollars from traditional media (advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, etc.) to nontraditional media such as the internet, wireless, podcasts, social media, etc. The re-allocation has resulted in a paradigm shift in the communicat ions world, requiring marketers to re-think their communications strategies. The metrics emp loyed for pricing these media as well as determining communications effectiveness have cha nged as well, however, to date, there have been no published efforts to accumulate and report on these methods. In addition, there have been no evaluative studies to provide insights into the merits (or lack thereof) of these measures. One reason for the lack of reporting in thi s area may be the enormity of the task itself. It seems that almost everyday a new communication m edium appears, with a new set of metrics associated with it. Purpose The purpose of this research was to collect, review and evaluate the myriad of n ew media

metrics that have surfaced in the past decade. This review will provide a state o f the art of new media and the metrics used to evaluate them, providing both academics and pr actitioners with the information necessary to make informed judgments regarding their use. Significance In 2011, global media spending is expected to exceed $2 trillion, at an annual g rowth rate of 6.4%. (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2010) Predictions are that advertising will grow at a rate of 5.4% reaching $531 billion, primarily driven by the migration of advertising dol lars from traditional to e digit new media. Digital and mobile spending is expected to achieve doubl

growth over the year, as are convergent media platforms. By the year 2012 an ast ounding 50% of industry growth is expected to come from online and wireless technologies. Ov erall, new 212

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications media advertising is expected go grow at an annual rate of 16.9% during this tim e period, while traditional media spending increases at a rate of 4.3% yearly. While advertising is expected to continue its growth trend, consumers are likely to spend less of their media time on ad-based media such as television, radio, newspapers and mag azines. Their time will be redirected to entertainment and media such as film, home video, the internet and interactive media among others. By 2012, spending in these media will account fo r approximately 50% of advertising expenditures. These shifts in advertising expen ditures require that advertisers re-think how and where their monies are going to be spent most effectively, resulting in a paradigm shift in the communications area. Successful communications planning requires that companies and organizations con duct a situation analysis, define specific communications objectives and design and imp lement effective message and media strategies (Belch & Belch, 2012). In addition, prope r planning requires that programs be evaluated for their communications effectiveness. In f act, a review of the literature over the past few years would reflect recognition of the need to measure effectiveness by both academics and practitioners, as the focus on determining R OI has been one of the most prevalent topics discussed during this time period. Unfortunatel y, the state of the art of measuring ROI has advanced little, if any, in the past two decades, d ue in large part to lack of consistent measures, disagreement on what measures should be employed, a nd/or a lack of knowledge of what should be tested. The addition and reallocation of monies t o a variety of new media will only add to the confusion. Attempts to measure effectiveness of advertising and promotions have been resear ched and reported on for decades. A very brief summary of some of some of these follows: Traditional Measures --Measures of effectiveness for traditional media have been available for years. Advertising and promotions textbooks (Belch & Belch; Shimp; O Guinn, et.al. ) have delineated these measures, as well as discussed their relative strengths and wea knesses. In addition, numerous books and journal articles have also been published in this a rea. Table 1, provides a quick overview and summary of some of these measures, presented in ac cordance with response hierarchy objectives. 213

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 1: IMC Response Process Framework DIMENSIONS Advertising Sales Promotion Direct Marketing Internet and Interactive Publicity/ Public Relations Presentation/ Reach Distribution of Pieces mailed Traffic Media Exposure Frequency Ratings Circulation Promotional Offers (Samples/Coupons) P-O-P Displays Circulation Ratings Page views Placements Number of positive and negative art. COGNITIVE Brand Awareness/ attention Brand Knowledge/ Comprehension Recall Recognition Brand Beliefs/ Perceptions/ Associations Cognitive Response Recall Recognition Brand Beliefs/ Perceptions/ Associations Recall Recognition Inquiries Beliefs/ Percept. Assoc. Recall/recognition / Hits/visits Click throughs/ Page Visits Brand Beliefs/ Perceptions/ Associations Recall Impressions

Brand/Company Beliefs/ Perceptions/ Associations AFFECTIVE Attitudes Message Brand Intentions Attitude.Ad Cognitive Response Attitude Brand Purchase Intent Attitude.Promotion Attitude.Brand Purchase Intentions Attitudes>M essage Attitude .Brand Purchase Intentions Attitude.Site Attitude.Brand Purchase intent Attitude.Event Attitudes Company/ brand Purchase Intent BEHAVIOR Trial Repeat Purchase/ Loyalty Initial Sales Sales and Market share Redemption/use of coupons, rebates samples Sales made during promotion Membership in loyalty programs Initial sales Repeat Sales Inquiries/ replies Redemption/use of online coupons or samples Sales directly from web site Attendance Sales Market share

(Note: While noted as a to its already

new medium the internet has been mentioned in Table 1 due

wide adoption. Specific elements of the internet will be considered under new me dia.) New Media Measures--Unfortunately, very few of the new media (Table 2) provide m easures to determine their effectiveness. Those measures that have been provided in the tra de literature have weaknesses and insufficiencies that render them equivocal No known academic articles have been published to date in this area. 214

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 2: A Partial List of New Media VOD (Video on demand) ad supported video content on TV Behavioral Targeting targeted messages based on individual online activities Other Branded Media Sports, entertainment, etc Wireless/mobile cell phones, blackberries, I pads, etc. Product placements products are placed in movies, TV shows, books, etc. Product integration the product is integrated into the program Event Marketing specific events created specifically for promoting the product Podcasting online audio content to be delivered via iPod or MP3 Blogs-online information of specific interest Social Networking Sites (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter) Search Ads Targeted ads appear when people type queries into search engines. Advertisers bid for placement. Digital Outdoor digital versions of the traditional out-of-home media Videogames ads and product placements in video games As a result, within just a few years, advertisers will be spending approximately 50% of their budgets on essentially unmeasured media, with little or no basis for determining their effectiveness. Such a situation will obviously lead to less than optimal media p lanning. While most (if not all) of the effectiveness measures of traditional media have been carefully scrutinized and evaluated from a theoretical standpoint, the same is not true fo r the new media. The goal of this study will be to provide similar insights for new media. Methodology The research involved extensive secondary research. As noted, comprehensive acad emic research on this topic does not exist. Nevertheless, there have been numerous ar ticles published in the practitioner environment that have examined specific communications media effectiveness. Articles examining recall of banner advertising on the Internet, effects of adve rtising in video games, consumers response to interactive ads, and others have been addressed. In addition, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) through their XMOS studies has sponsore d research examining the use of Internet advertising alone, and in conjunction with a tradi

tional (TV) medium on awareness and recall, finding that integrated efforts are more effecti ve ( XMOS) The secondary research involved an in-depth examination of academic journals inc luding The Journal of Advertising, The Journal of Advertising Research, The Journal of Inte ractive Advertising, The Journal of International Advertising, The Journal of Marketing and The Journal of Consumer Research, among numerous others. In addition, a much broader underta king of examining the practitioner literature for example, Advertising Age, Media, Brandwe ek, Adweek,--and online sites in the area (iemarketer.com, iab.net, POPAI org., etc. ) was conducted over the period January 2010 to December, 2010. 215

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Results While an examination of each and every measure used by every new medium is beyon d the scope of this report, a summary of the most commonly used measures among the mos t commonly employed media are provided in Table 3. Table 3: New Media Effectiveness Measures Email Social Media networks/blogs, etc. Product placements /integratio n Internet and Interactive Video Ads/games Email opens; Lifetime value; Spend on direct action; sales; leads Unique visitors; cost per unique visitor; page views; Visits; return visits; interaction rate; time spent; actions taken; interactions; friends reached; user retention; clicks; submits; engagements; Views; media equivalenci es; ROI; recall; fit with show; brand awareness Traffic; Page views; Click throughs; Brand awareness; cost per click; cost per keyword; content accessed; cost per action; registrations; visitors; unique visitors;

View/impression; Click through; completed play; Time viewed; Percent completely viewing As was shown in Table 1, a variety of traditional and new media specific measure s have been employed to measure the effectiveness of media. (Some of the internet measures i ncluded in Table 1 are repeated in Table 3, so as to provide a complete perspective.) It sh ould be noted that for the most part, the measures employed in the lower stages of the consumer fun nel, and traditional measures shown in Table 1are used to a much lesser degree than the n ew measures by new media marketers. For example, Kaye (2009) reports that in a survey of 119 digital marketers, click-through rates were still the most commonly employed metric (35% ) for measuring the effectiveness of branding campaigns, far outpacing the second most frequently used metric--brand awareness (13%). Given the fact that click-throughs typically average 1% or less, one would argue that not much effectiveness measurement is occurring. Further analysis of Table 3, reveals that many of the metrics used to measure ef fectiveness really are not measuring output effectiveness at all, but focus on inputs. For example, fit with show, traffic, and impressions have little to do with the impact of the advertisement, as these measures provide an indication of the potential of the a d, not the impact of the same. Other measures such as emails opened and media equivalencies are likely to be so misleading or irrelevant as to be potentially meaningless. At the other end of the spectrum, many of the measures used to measure effective ness may be attributing success to factors not directly responsible, or that make only a con tribution to the overall success of the marketing effort. For example, sales may be affected by t he product and price as well as the advertisement. Likewise, ROI is dependent on a variety of f actors, and has rarely been proven to be a valid measure of the promotional program (other than in direct marketing) despite numerous claims to the contrary. Still others of the measures employed, may be so unreliable as to be of no value to the marketer. The fact that an entire video was viewed provides little or no insight into the 216

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications effectiveness of the ad placed therein. Likewise, time spent on a social site pr ovides no indication as to whether one has even seen an ad, let alone its effectiveness. Conclusions So long as marketers have advertised on the Web, there has been controversy surr ounding the metrics used to measure effectiveness. As can be seen by the criteria used for t his purpose shown in this report, significant progress toward standard and reliable measures has not been made. While a variety of factors has contributed to this lack of progress, it wo uld appear that they can be summarized into a subset of significant causes: Lack of understanding-strangely, it seems that one of the primary reasons for no t having adequate measures is that many marketers may not understand the value of measuri ng effectiveness, and thus do not insist on useful metrics. In the Forrester study cited previously, it was noted that many managers do not consider these evaluations, or assign measur ement of effectiveness to junior executives who are not up to snuff when it comes to the mo st appropriate ways to measure branding campaigns. (p.1) Others simply do not recogn ize or understand the importance of measurement. Egocentricity/digital divide--articles appeared in the literature over a decade ago noting the fact that the digital media provided their own new bases for measurement (many of whi ch are shown in the tables herein) and none of these included traditional media metrics . When questioned about this fact, many of the providers suggested that traditional mar keters needed to get on board with the new metrics, and there was no need for the traditional m easures as they were irrelevant to the new media environment. Of course, many of the tradit ional marketers resisted such claims, insisting that the measures they were familiar w ith and used to using be provided. The net result has been a stubbornness of both sides to conce de, with each focusing on their own evaluative criteria. In addition, those trained in the dig ital era often have been taught that the myriad of measures available to them are appropriate and co mplete, with little or no consideration of, or need for, traditional measures necessary. Technologies-Interestingly, advances in technology have actually contributed to the measurement problem. For example, sites with numerous graphics and page views ar e more

likely to receive credit for to bypass a sites

hits , while innovations like RSS which allow viewers

home page, result in lesser page views, even though one visited the site. The in creasing use of video clips that can be watched without accessing a homepage adds to this proble m. As technologies have advanced, new measures have been added, and the existing digit al measures have been impacted in a variety of ways. Without standardization, one measure ma y take on multiple meanings (for example, unique visitors), further complicating matters. Lack of importance/designed ignorance in an in-depth study of product placements b y Russell and Belch (JAR, 2005), the authors reported that not only were there no effectiv eness measures employed, but such measures were also unwanted. Like many in the advertising are na of years ago, these managers contend that it is not possible to measure the effectiveness of product placements. Rather, they are likely to cite success stories (E.T, RayBan, etc.)-regardless of the fact that they are infrequent as evidence of their effectiveness. So long as those in upper management allow this situation to exist, these managers will avoid and argue ag ainst any measures that ultimately may prove harmful. There are numerous other examples and reasons why effectiveness measures are not used. These will be reported in a more comprehensive report to follow. Interestingly, the need for effective measurement has been recognized. In a surv ey conducted by Jupiter Research and Verse Group marketers reported that the number one prior ity facing their successful use of new media was determining measurable ROI, with measuring brand effectiveness also among the top ten (eMarketer, 2009). Other studies have shown that 217

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications marketers believe that the digital medium s metrics are in a crisis (Shields, 2009 ), and that the current measures being employed have a long way to go before being useful for bu ilding brands. (Morrissey, 2009). A large number of marketers (43.2%) believe that measurement is the single most important factor in slowing down the growth of advertising placements in on line marketing (eMarketer, 2009) The fact remains that measuring the effectiveness of the promotional effort is a n essential component of planning and achieving market success. Some of the studies have pro ven that advertising and media effectiveness can and should be measured. For example, a s tudy conducted by Nielsen Entertainment examined the impact of dynamic in-game advert ising. Employing a control and test group design and traditional brand metrics in sever al major advertising categories, the study revealed that significant differences between the groups occurred in respect to brand familiarity, purchase consideration, recall and ad and brand ratings all elements proven to be key in brand development. Also proving that new media effectiveness can be measured by traditional measures. For the successful application of integrated marketing communications to occur, managers must be able to measure the effectiveness of the strategies they employ. Without such measures, successful planning and implementation cannot occur. However, until measurement measures are understood and standardized, this situation is not likely to happen. References Brian Morrissey, Most Marketers Ignore Brand Metrics Online, Adweek, June 1, 2009, p.1 Cristel Russell and Michael A. Belch, A Managerial Investigation into the Product Placement Industry, Journal of Advertising Research, March 2005, pp. 73-91. ____ eMarketer Online Brand Measurement Report, 2009 , eMarketer.com George E. Belch, and Michael A. Belch, Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, McGraw-Hill Irwin; 2012 Kate Kaye, Brand Marketers Still Reliant on Click-throughs to Measure, www.ClickZ. com, July 17, 2009. Mike Shields, Digital Execs Say Metrics are in a Crisis , Mediaweek, May 6, 2009, p1 -2. Terence A. Shimp, Advertising, Promotion, and other aspects of Integrated Marketi ng Communications, 8ed., PriceWaterhouseCoopers, $2 Trillion in Global Entertainment & Media Spending by 2

011, www.marketingcharats.com, 2011 th Cengage, 2010. Verse Group, CMO Survey: Traditional Branding is Broken , 2009, p1. 218 www.marketing VOX, March 5,

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The Effects of Song Choice in Advertisements

Hsuan-Yi Chou National Taiwan University Taiwan takki_1112@yahoo.com.tw Nai-Hwa Lien National Taiwan University Taiwan Cheng-Shih Lin National Quemoy University, Taiwan Among the various elements of advertisements, music is particularly important. W hen watching TV, it is almost impossible not to be inundated by the profusion of music in ads . A review of studies about the effects of advertising music (e.g., Alpert, Alpert, and Maltz 2005; Lavack and Thakor 2008) reveals that most work has focused on either musical structural ele ments such as volume, tempo, and speed or nonstructural elements such as the music s likeability , fit, and familiarity. Many other music-related subjects are also worthy of investigation. This paper aims to explore the effects of three less-studied but important characteristics of po pular music. These include the period, here defined as the historical period in which a song was or iginally released, the lyrics relevance to the advertised product, and the version of the song, here defined as either vocal or instrumental. This study investigates the period mainly to understand nostalgia in more detail . Although there has been an increase in the use of nostalgia appeals in marketing practices, onl y a small number of empirical studies have examined nostalgia s influence within an advertising con text (e.g., Muehling and Sprott 2004; Pascal, Sprott, and Muehling 2002). Additionally, it i s unknown whether some advertising elements exist that can moderate the effects of nostalg ia in ads. In previous research on advertising music, most scholars have neglected the role of lyrics and therefore been unable to recognize their importance (Scott 1990). Scholars also neglect the issue of song versions (Roehm 2001). They tend to focus on either an instrumenta l or a vocal

version of a song, rather than comparing the effects of the two versions or expl oring the possibility that the version used will moderate the observed effects of other ch aracteristics of the song. The current study fills this gap by examining the impact of these thre e characteristics on consumer affective and attitudinal responses to an advertisement, and it expl ores the interactive relationship among the three. In this study, 192 undergraduates (54.2% male, 45.8% female) with a mean age of 19.2 participated in a 2 (old vs. new songs) 2 (high-relevance vs. low-relevance lyri cs) 2 (vocal vs. instrumental version of songs) between-subjects experiment. Eight versions of a television commercial for a cookie bar with a fictitious brand name were created by replaci ng the ad s original soundtrack with different songs. Two pretests were used to identify fou r vocal versions of songs that typified different historical periods and had lyrics with varying degrees of relevance to the advertised product. These songs were hit songs from popular albums, in an attempt to ensure above-moderate familiarity on the part of the participants. A software pr ogram, GoldWave, was used to eliminate the vocal tracks from each recorded song; this p rovided an instrumental version of each song. Participants viewed an ad and then completed a questionnaire. A series of ANCOVA procedures revealed that the use of old songs in television a dvertising could generate more nostalgic feelings and more favorable brand attitudes than the use of new songs. The lyrics relevance had a positive effect on ad attitudes and brand attitudes. W hen lyrics were 219

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications highly relevant to the product, old songs evoked a higher degree of bittersweet emotions and better brand attitudes than new songs. Although the versions of songs did not af fect any dependent variables, they moderated the effects of period and lyrics hen relevance. W

instrumental versions were tested, period had a significant effect on inducing b ittersweet emotions. When vocal versions were tested, lyrics relevance positively affected g ood moods, ad attitudes, and purchase intentions. There was also a three-way interaction. Inst rumental versions of old songs positively affected good moods and bittersweet emotions wh en the songs had high-relevance lyrics. In contrast, when the ad featured vocal versions of o ld songs with high-relevance lyrics, a positive effect on ad attitudes and purchase intentions occurred. For theory development, this study provides empirical evidence of the nostalgia-indu cing ability of old songs within the advertising context. Additionally, it demonstrates the mode rating roles of lyrics relevance and song versions. The results suggest that if companies want to add nostalgic flavor to an ad, they can feature an old song in the ad. The lyrics of the old s ongs selected must have at least some degree of relevance to the advertised product. To evoke good moods in consumers, companies should use instrumental versions of songs. However, to effe ctively improve consumers l versions of songs. References Alpert, M. I., J. I. Alpert, and E. N. Maltz. 2005. Purchase occasion influence on the role of music in advertising. Journal of Business Research 58, no. 3: 369-76. Lavack, A. M. and M. V. Thakor. 2008. Music-brand congruency in high-and low-cog nition radio advertising. International Journal of Advertising 27, no. 4: 549-68. Muehling, D. D. and D. E. Sprott. 2004. The power of reflection: an empirical ex amination of nostalgia advertising effects. Journal of Advertising 33, no. 3: 25-35. Pascal, V. J., D. E. Sprott, and D. D. Muehling. 2002. The influence of evoked n ostalgia on consumers responses t. advertising: an exploratory study. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Adver tising 24, no. 1: 39-49. Roehm, M. L. 2001. Instrumental vs. vocal versions of popular music in advertisi ad attitudes and purchase intentions, companies should use voca

ng. Journal of Advertising Research 41, no. 3: 49-58. Scott, L. M. 1990. Understanding jingles and needledrop: a rhetorical approach t o music in advertising. Journal of Consumer Research 17, no. 2: 223-36. 220

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Investigating the Role of Sport Celebrity Characteristics on Endorsement Outcomes

Eugenia Tzoumaka Athens University of Economics & Business, Greece Department of Business Administration eugenia.tzoumaka@gmail.com Rodoula Tsiotsou Department of Marketing & Operations Management University of Macedonia, Greece rtsiotsou@uom.gr George Siomkos Department of Business Administration Athens University of Economics & Business, Greece gsiomkos@aueb.gr Due to their fame and reputation, sport athletes are an often used celebrity cat egory in endorsement deals. Sport endorsement refers to the use of famous athletes or coa ches and their public recognition in order to promote a product by either suggesting it o r appearing with it in an advertisement (Lear, Runyan and Whitaker 2009; McCracken 1989). The practi ce of celebrity endorsement is claimed to attract audience s attention towards the ad (K oernig and Boyd 2009) and prevent them from zapping (Miciakand Shanklin 1994). Moreover, a celebrity starring in an advertisement leads to more positive attitudes towards the produc t (Atkin and Block 1983), higher brand recall (Friedman and Friedman 1979), and higher purcha se intentions (Ohanian 1991).Recent research shows that brands endorsed by celebrities create approximately 20% increases in sales (Crutchfield 2010). The present research examines the influence of the sport celebrities ics on characterist

endorsementoutcomes expressed as positive word of mouth and purchase intentions. Specifically, the study investigates the influence of celebrity attractiveness, trustworthiness, and expertise as perceived by consumers in sport endorsement effectiveness. The methodological approach followed was an exploratory quantitative research de sign using pictures of athletes and asport drink. Consumers were asked to complete a questi

onnaire after they observed for a few minutes the selected athletes in identity-card-type pict ures and a sport drink (unknown to them). The questionnaire was divided in two parts. The first c onsisted of questions regarding the athletes thiness and characteristics such as attractiveness, trustwor

expertise adopted from Ohanian (1990). Participants rated them in a 7-point-type Likertscale. The alpha coefficients for attractiveness, trustworthiness and expertise were re spectively .93, .89 and .90 respectively. The second part consisted of questions regarding purch ase intentions using a 7-point type Likertscale. In terms of positive word-of-mouth (WOM), Maxh am s III (2001) two-item scale with alpha coefficient .90 was used and for purchase intentions a three-item scale with alpha coefficient .86, which was constructed for the needs of the spe cific survey combining items from Ohanian (1991) and Till and Busler (2000). The valid questi onnaires collected for the study were 289. Based on the mean scores in perceived attractiveness, trustworthiness and expert ise, the endorsers were categorized as high and low in all these constructs. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) indicated that endorsers with high and low attractiveness differ in consumers and WOM

purchase intentions. Moreover, endorsers scored high in trustworthiness and expe rtise differ 221

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications from those scored low by eliciting consumers e intentions. more positive WOM and higher purchas

The results of the study showed that the sport celebrity s perceived characteristi cs constitute crucial factors to the endorsement s effectiveness in terms of purchase intentions and positive word of mouth. In adifficult market like the Greek one, that faces many problems due to financial recession, it is important for marketers to take action that can actua lly be translated into sales. Past research already implied that Europeanconsumers are more skepti cal to celebrity endorsement (Silvera and Austad 2004). However, this study revealsthat individua l sport celebrity characteristics influence significantly the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement.High perceived expertise of the endorser seems to influence both, positive WOM and pu rchase intentionsconfirming previous studies (Ohanian 1991; Amos, Holmes and Strutton 2 008). Moreover, high perceivedtrustworthiness has a positive effect on WOM and purchas e intentions confirming previous findings by Erdogan,Baker and Tag (2001) and Amos, Holmes an d Strutton (2008). An interesting result of the study was theinfluence of attractiveness on the two endorsement outcomes because it conflicts the findings of Ohanian (1991)and Till and Busler (2000) but confirms the results of Kahle and Homer (1985) and their Source AttractivenessModel. The present study is limited to the athletes and the sample studied. Moreover, s ome of the greater Greek athletes were not included in the study or world-class sport celeb rities. References Amos, C., Holmes, G. and Strutton, D. 2008. Exploring the relationship between c elebrity endorser effects andadvertising effectiveness: A quantitative synthesis of effect size. Internati onal Journal of Advertising27(2): 209-234. Atkin, C. and Block, M. 1983. Effectiveness of celebrity endorsers. Journal of A dvertising_Research 23(1): 57-61. Crutchfield, D. 2010. Celebrity endorsements still push product: why, in the era of social media, the rewardscontinue to outweigh the risks. AdAge.com retrieved on 23/9/2010 fromhttp://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=146023 Erdogan, B.Z., Baker, M.J. and Tagg, S. 2001. Selecting celebrity endorsers: the practitioner s perspective.Journal of Advertising Research 41(3): 39 49. Friedman, H.H. and Friedman, L. 1979. Endorser effectiveness by product type. Jo

urnal of Advertising Research9(5): 63-71. Kahle, L R. and Homer, P. M. 1985. Physical attractiveness of the celebrity endo rser: A social adaptationperspective. Journal of Consumer Research 11: 954-961. Kamins, M. A. 1990. An investigation of the match-up hypothesis in celebrity adv ertising: When beauty may beonly skin deep. Journal of Advertising 19 (l): 4-13. Koernig, S. K., and Boyd, C.T. 2009..o catch a tiger or let him go: The match-up effect and athlete endorsers for sport and non-sport brands. Sport Marketing Quarterly 18: 25-37. Lear, K.E., Runyan, R.C., & Whitaker, W.H. 2009.Sports celebrity endorsements in retail products advertising.International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. 37(4): 30 8-321. Maxham III, J.G. 2001. Service recovery s influence on consumer satisfaction, posi tive word-of-mouth andpurchase intentions. Journal of Business Research 54: 11 24. McCracken, G, 1989. Who is the celebrity endorser? Cultural foundations of the e ndorsement process. Journalof Consumer Research 16(3): 310-321. Miciak, A. R. and Shanklin, W. I. 1994.Choosing celebrity endorsers. Marketing M anagement, 3(3):51-58. Ohanian, R. 1990. Construction and validation of a scale to measure celebrity en dorsers' perceived expertise,trustworthiness, and attractiveness. Journal of Advertising 19(3): 3952. Ohanian, R. 1991. The impact of celebrity spokespersons' perceived image on cons umers' intention to purchase.Journal of Advertising Research 31: 46-54. Silvera, D.H. and Austad, B. 2004.Factors predicting the effectiveness of celebr ity endorsement advertisements.European Journal of Marketing 38(11): 1509-1526. Till, B. D. and Busler, M. 2000. The match-up hypothesis: Physical attractivenes s, expertise, and the role of fiton brand attitude, purchase intent and brand beliefs. Journal of Advertising 29(3): 1-13 222

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Does Culture Drive Social Media Strategy?

Don E. Schultz Northwestern University, Integrated Marketing Communications Department, USA dschultz@northwestern.edu Martin P. Block Northwestern University, Integrated Marketing Communications Department, USA Abstract This paper presents original research comparing consumer social media usage and traditional media consumption for the heaviest using quintiles in the U.S. and China. Social media sites, content and usage are compared along with usage of other media by social media u ser groups. Factor analysis is used to identify relevant categories of user groups. Empirica lly, results indicate that individual country social media strategies will likely be required. The stu dy further extends the cultural difference arguments for marketing communication development and implementation. A research agenda is proposed to improve existing knowledge of s ocial media strategy. Key Words: Social media strategy, cultural differences in social media strategy, social media consumption, social and traditional media usage, social media in U.S. and China Introduction Social media is one of today s most widely discussed global marketing communicatio n topics. For this paper, we define social media as consumer activated and/or generated an d controlled digital media activities, methodologies and networks which are used primarily to enable consumers to communicate with friends, relatives, associates and organizations e lectronically through computers, wireless devices and the like. (Kaplan and Haenkein, 2010), ( Shirky, 2008). Social media in various forms has diffused rapidly around the world, (Nielsen, 2 010) (www.cleancutmedia.com, 2010) Because of the high consumer interest and increasing use, many marketers and adv ertisers see these new networks/systems as having tremendous commercial opportunity. (Li and Bernoff,

2008); (Tsai, 2009); (Word of Mouth Marketing Association, 2009). Yet, because o f their newness and uniqueness, when compared to traditional media forms, few marketers and agencies have developed well formed strategies to plan, develop and implement so cial media programs. (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010) Additionally, social media systems appear to be developing differently around the world. (www.marketingpilgrim.com, 2009) Some media leaders have argued that social media is a leveling form of communica tion and thus can be used in similar ways globally. That would enable a single global social m edia strategy and would suggest the development of methodologies appropriate for that type of plan ning. (Cook and Buckley, 2007) (Hagel III, Brown and Davison, 2008). Others have suggested t hat social media is unique to each country/market/culture, thus different strategies are ne eded for each situation. (Mangold and Faulds, 2009) Still others have argued that major cultur al differences exist among different populations. Thus, no matter what form the communication m ight take, 223

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications those cultural differences will determine how the communication is developed and delivered. (Castells, 2009) (de Mooij, 2010) (Aaker, 1997) (Luna,Peracchio and deJuan, 2002 ) Through the analysis which follows, we provide some evidence to support the cult ural difference argument. The Cultural Difference Argument Over the years, an argument has been advanced that all marketing and advertising is culturally driven. (Hall, 1990), Hofstede,2001) Thus, advertising and marketing communicati on often does not travel well across borders as evidenced by the widely publicized examples su ch as the Chevrolet Nova in Latin American markets (Erichsen, 2011), the initial failure o f the Infiniti auto brand in the U.S. using a Japanese style of advertising (www.cyninfiniti.com/the -history-ofinfiniticars.html), Campbell Soup (Czinkota and Ronkainen, 2003) Alternative arguments a re presented, however, such as the global success of MTV (http://paidcontent.org 20 11), Dove brand (www.icmrindia.org, 2011) and Tobasco Hot Sauce (www.tobasco.com). As social media has developed (MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and the like) the question naturally arises as to whether or not these new media systems can travel around the work, thus negating the initial cultural arguments. If social media is, indeed culturally independent, that is, that social media is different or unique in terms of consumer usage, that would argue for a synchronous global media plan ning strategy. If usage and consumption are different, that would encourage an asynchronous app roach. In this paper, we present an analysis which provides some evidence to assist media planners going forward. A Comparison Of Two Major Markets: The U.S. And China In this paper, we compare two of the largest advertising markets in the world, t he U.S. and China, in terms of social media. The U.S. is a well established media market, ec onomically stable and technologically advanced. (Porter 1998) (Leavitt, 1983) China is an emerging media market, growing very rapidly economically and introducing some the most advanced technol ogies in the world. (Khanna, Palepu and Sinha, 2005) (Khanna and Palepu, 2004) The two market s accounted for more than 50% of the total global media spend in measured media in 2009. (Jo hnson, 2010). Social media (as defined above) is developing very rapidly in both markets and p resent excellent

examples for a more thorough examination of similarities and differences. The premise of this paper is: if social media is developing similarly in the U.S . and China, then a global social media strategy might be possible and practical for marketers. If, however, the two markets are developing differently that would suggest marketing organizations wo uld need separate social media planning and organizational strategies to optimize this ne w trend. That question forms the crux of the following discussion. The Research Data Used in the Analysis This study is part of an on-going series of explorations into the changes and ev olutions occurring in media usage of U.S. and Chinese consumers, particularly in the areas of media consumption. The initial media consumption studies by Pilotta, Schultz, Drenik and Rist (2004 ), Schultz and Pilotta (2004), and Pilotta and Schultz (2005) provide the foundation for these studies. Previously, the authors have argued that the increased availability of new media forms and technologies, have encouraged wider consumer use of all forms of media, but, hav e also encouraged them to engage in media multi-tasking and simultaneous media usage. T hese concepts challenge traditional media planning approaches which have commonly bee n focused 224

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications on media distribution methodologies developed and managed by marketers and their agencies. Further, these authors argue that by using consumer media consumption concepts, more relevant, effective and efficient media allocation approaches could be developed . Interestingly, these basic concepts were developed prior to the surge in social media developme nt. We believe these media consumption concepts can be quite helpful understanding cons umer social media usage and how that is developing in the new digital, interactive media mar ketplace. All the studies mentioned above have been based on data gathered by BIGresearch, Columbus, OH in the U.S (www.bigresearch.com) and Prosper Technologies (a sister company o f BIGresearch), in China (www.prosperchina.com). BIGresearch has been capturing U. S. consumer media consumption data twice per year since 2002 through their SIMM studies (Sim ultaneous Media Usage). The database of consumer responses with their reported media consu mption activities now numbers in excess of 260,000. Prosper International has been cond ucting similar studies in China since 2006 through their quarterly China Quarterly Studies (CQS ). The Chinese studies now have a base of 100,000 individual consumer reports. Both studies are conducted online among a representative sample of the relevant national populations. Both capture much the same type of information, that is, consumer-r eported usage of various forms of commercial media during an average day . In the U.S., the SIMM studies includes 31 media forms as reported by consumers in terms of their usage , amount of time spent with each medium, the media forms used simultaneously and in various combinations, which are the most influential media by product category and a hos t of other variables such as favorite retailer by product category, past and future product purchases and plans and the like. The Chinese study reports on consumer usage of 23 separate m edia forms, with essentially the same type of information as reported in the U.S. studies. T hus, consumer usage comparisons of the two markets are possible both on a longitudinal basis a nd among and between media forms. BIGresearch and Prosper Technologies have made their data available to a number of colleges and universities around the world for analytical purposes. From that, a number o f academic papers have been developed (Newell, Pilotta and Thomas, 2008); (Schultz and Bloc k, 2009a); (Schultz, 2006); (Schultz, Block and Raman, 2009a,b). This paper illustrates wha t can be learned from the data and is presented to encourage further study and analysis.

A Basis for Conducting This Study One of the key observations coming from the previous media consumption studies ( Schultz and Block, 2010b); (Schultz and Block, 2009b) is that there are major differences in how Chinese and U.S. consumers use the various media forms available to them. As shown in Exhibi t 1 Chinese and U.S. consumers differ substantially in a number of areas of media consumptio n, for example, in the amount of time they spend on games, blogs, instant messaging (IM), email, radio and television. Thus, it is likely we will find similar media usage differences in s ocial media between the two countries. These findings would seem to support the views of de Mooij (2 010), Castells (2009) and Aaker (1997) who argue that cultural differences drive the use, under standing and value of marketing and marketing communication. The analysis which follows attempts to verify that cultural difference hypothesi s. Exhibit 1 : Comparison of U.S. and China Media Usage 225

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Comparison of Chinese and U.S. Media Usage Time Comparison of Chinese and U.S. Media Usage Time Source, SIMM, Fall 2009Exhibit 1 What Social Media Forms Exist in the Two Countries? One of the first indicators that separate media strategies might be needed in th e U.S. and China is whether or not the social media delivery systems have developed in the same w ay in each country. If so, that would argue for homogeneity in media planning. If not, then a differentiated approach would be required. Exhibit 2 shows Social Media Usage in the U.S. based on the December, 2009 SIMM study. There, consumers reported what social media forms they used regularly and occasi onally (Note: numbers will exceed 100 because of multiple answers). Exhibit 2 : Social Media Usage in the U.S. Social Media Usage in U.S. December 2009Facebook34.5% YouTube31.2MySpace14.0Hulu10.7Classmates 9.4Twitter8.3LinkedIn7.2Plaxo2.6Exhibit 2 Facebook and You Tube dominate social media usage in the U.S. with approximately 65% of U.S. consumers saying they use one or both. MySpace, one of the early usage social me dia usage leaders in the U.S. is now third. Twitter, which was introduced that year, is ju st beginning to show consumer usage in this SIMM report. The Chinese social media form situation is quite different. Exhibit 3 illustrate s social media usage in China as reported in December, 2009. Again, the percentages shown may b e 226

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications duplicative signifying that respondents said they used one or several social med ia form regularly or occasionally. Exhibit 3: Social Media Usage in China Social Media Usage in ChinaDecember 2009QQ62.1% Biggest instant messenger of China, supplying all the others internet service nowBaidu/Baidu Kongjian40.8Biggest searching website of China, can build your relation circle,sharingblog,photosand gamesYouku39.9Biggest video website, supplying the function of video broadcasting, downloading and searchingTudou37.4Video website encouraging original creative vi deo, very popular among young peopleKaixin29.1Popular social media among young peopleXiaon ei26.3Social media focused on Chinese college studentswww.51.com18.0Social media of human nature and stylishXiao Yuan Wang17.4Website for students,containingnew s,informationservice and space, blog, photos and games. Wangyou15.6Webgamesgathering platform360quan12.2% Trendy positioned social media website, plus blog,video, music sharingFacebook12.0It is more popular among white collarMySpace10.7Blog we bsite inspiring friends togetherZhanzuo10.1Social media focus on Chinese college students, supplying space, photo album and small gamesWealink9.1Chinese version of Linedinfocusing o n job search and supplying the function of social media Hainei8.5Social media focus on playing together with friends, supplying many games Friendster8.4Biggest social media website of Asia, different versions, almost covering all main Asian languagesTianji8.4Biggest IT interactive website in ChinaLinkedIn7.5Social media focusing on career developmentExhibit 3 Social media forms in China are not only different from those found in the U.S., they are more extensive and appear to be more focused on specific social media activities. QQ, an instant messaging portal, is the leader in the category, followed by Baidu/Baidu Kongjia n and Youku. Thirteen social media sites were named by at least 10% of the CQS respondents. I nterestingly, Chinese social media sites are more focused on specific consumer uses such as Xi aonei, for college students, Wangyou, on games and Tudou, uploading and downloading of vide os. From this, it appears Chinese social media sites are more focused on specific activit ies/interests while the U.S. sites are more broad-scale and omnibus in nature. While some may argue that these development differences are the result of governmental restrictions and controls ,(MacMillan D.,www.businessweek.com,,011) (Bennett, I. www.cfr.org, 2011), the fact remains that the Chinese social media forms are growing quite rapidly in their present forms. Based simply on this one variable, social media used, it does appear that the U. S. and Chinese social media usage and consumption are quite different. Who Uses Social Media

Audience demographics are often used as to differentiate among and between vario us media vehicles. A common media analytical approach is to separate media users into Qui ntiles, (groups of 20). Since heavy using groups are generally found in most media audiences, th e Quintile approach has been widely used to separate out heavy and light users (consumers) for media planning. This Quintile analysis has been done with both the SIMM and CQS data i n terms of the heaviest reported users of social media. In the charts below, the demographics o f the top quintile groups in terms of social media usage are shown. Exhibit 4 :Demographics of Top Quintile Social Media Factors in U.S. and China 227

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Demographic Characteristics of Top Quintile (Heaviest) Social Media Usage Factors in U.S. December 2009AllAverage Age48.5Percent Male50.9Average Income-$ 68,865Exhibit 4D emographic Characteristics of Top Quintile (Heaviest) Social Media Usage Factors in ChinaDecember 2009AllAverage Age33.3Per cent Male55.6Average Income (RMB)46,159 The average age of the Top Quintile group of social media users in the U.S. is 4 8.5 years with roughly half being males. The average income of that group is roughly $68,000 US D. In China, the average age is much younger, i.e., 33.3 years or roughly 15 years junior to the U.S. group. Of that group, approximately 55.6% being male, is not too different from the U.S. g roup. Income of Chinese users is 46,000 RMB (which equates to roughly $7,100 USD,), another majo r differentiator but given the average income of the two countries, not that drama tically different. . These initial demographics seem to suggest that there are differences in the hea vy (top Quintile) group of social media users in the U.S. and China. This is another differentiato r between the U.S. and Chinese populations. Another way to identify any differences between the U.S. and Chinese social medi a users is through total media consumption as reported in the SIMM and CQS studies. In Exhi bit 5, the media usage among the top quintile of U.S. social media users is shown. Exhibit 5: Media Usage Among Top Quintile Social Media Usage in U.S. Media Usage Among Top Quintile (Heaviest) Social Media Usage Factors in U.S. Minutes per Day December 2009AllInternet133.5 Email133.1 TV125.7 Radio71.9 Direct Mail54.7 Magazines47.8 IM47.8 Video Games45.6 Newspapers42.2 Satellite19.9 Web Radio17.0 Blogs12.8 Exhibit 5 As shown, the heaviest social media user quintile in the U.S. is made up of medi a consumers who are also heavy users of other forms of media, particularly internet, email a nd television. SIMM respondents report that on average, the combined total amount of time devot ed to those three media forms (more than 125 minutes per day) total nearly 400 minutes per d ay or approximately 27% of all available time during the average day (1,440 minutes pe r day = 60

minutes x 24 hours). When one begins to add in the time spent with social media, it becomes clear that heavy social media users are unique media consumers and individuals. 228

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Chinese social media users have quite different media consumption patterns in ot her traditional media than that of the U.S. That is shown in Exhibit 6. Exhibit 6 : Media Usage Among Top Quintile Social Media in China Media Usage Among Top Quintile (Heaviest) Social Media Usage Factors in ChinaMinutes per Day December 2009AllInternet144.5I M103.2Email87.8TV76.0Video Games64.2Blogs63.0Magazines57.7Newspapers56.4Direct M ail53.8Radio44.8Web Radio39.3Exhibit 6 The greatest differences in the other media form consumption by the top quintile of Chinese heaviest social media users versus that in the U.S. are in television and instan t messaging (IM). Chinese television usage is approximately 60% of that of the same group in the U .S. Instant messaging by Chinese, on the other hand, is approximately twice that in number o f minutes reported by the U.S. sample. These usage patterns of other media forms by heavy users of social media, when u sed as a comparison between U.S. and Chinese consumers, would further argue that a global media strategy for the two countries would probably not be appropriate. Cultural diffe rences do exist in media usage and consumption and those differences can be measured and evaluat ed. Determining Social Media Usage Patterns While these descriptive statistics are interesting and generally helpful in diff erentiating between U.S. and Chinese social media users and usage, additional analysis is needed to truly understanding the major differences between the two groups in the two countries. An initial factor analysis was conducted on the social media usage reported by t he group in the top (heaviest usage) quintile. Based on their reported social media usage, U.S. users fell into two groups. Those groups have been termed Fun and Career . The Fun groups uses social media sites which focus on keeping up with friends, making social contacts, lear ning what others are doing and the like. Their primary usage is on You Tube, My Space, Facebook a nd Hulu. The group which has been labeled Career , focus on Plaxo, Linkein and Classmates. These people seem to focus on people who primarily use social media to share business contact s and connections. Interestingly, one social media site, Twitter, fell into both the Fu n and Career groups. The factor analysis explained 48.8% of social media usage in the U.S., i ndicating a fairly

robust model. The Chinese sample splits somewhat differently. Again, we found two factors. The se have been identified as White Collar , sites which are focused on work or career-related cont ent such as Linkedin, Friendster, Tianji, Hainei, Wealink and the like. The other group seem s to prefer social media sites which are more related to college and education such as Youku, Tudou , Xiaonei, QQ and others, all of which are unique to China. Two social media sites seem to off er cross-over situations, that is, they appeared as factors in both the White Collar and Student roups. 229

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Those are www.51.com and Xiao Yuan Wang. The factor analysis conducted explained 53.5% of the overall variance, again a fairly robust model. The initial factor analysis results are shown as Exhibits 7 and 8. Exhibits 7 & 8: Social Media Usage Factors in U.S. /Social Media Usage Factors i n China Social Media Usage Factors in U.S. Explains 48.8% FunCareerYouTube0.78MySpace0.68Facebook0.66Twitter0.540.42Hulu0.54Plaxo0.80Linke dIn0.73Classmates 0.61Exhibit 7U.S. Factor Analysis Social Media Usage Factors in ChinaExplains 53.5% White CollarCollegeLinkedIn0.87Friendster0.85Tianji0.85Hainei0.84Wealink0.82MySp ace0.79Facebook0.72Zhanzuo0.71360quan0.67Wangyou0.55ww.51.com0.530.41Xiao Yuan W ang0.520.46Youku0.75Tudou0.73Xiaonei0.56QQ0.54Baidu/Baidu Kongjian0.54Kaixin0.41 Exhibit 8Chinese Factor Analysis Again, we see major cultural differences between the two countries in terms of s ocial media usage. The U.S. users truly represent the social ey are used side of social media, that is, th

primary for social activities. The Chinese, alternatively, use the social media for career, education and advancement. Comparing Social and Traditional Media by Factor Groupings Earlier, we reported the differences in overall media usage based simply on whet her the audience was U.S. or Chinese. We take that analysis a step further by analyzing Media Usage Among the Top Quintile of social media by the two factors. Those are exhibits 9 and 10 which follow. Exhibit 9 illustrates an index of the amount of time the Top Quintile in the two factor groups in the U.S. report they spend with various media forms. (Note, in each of the two e xhibits below, each factor group is reported separately and is indexed against the total for pu rposes of comparison.) 230

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Exhibit 9: Media Usage Factors Among Top Quintile in U.S. Media Usage Among Top Quintile (Heaviest) Social Media Usage Factors in U.S. Minutes per Day December 2009FunCareerAllFunCareerIndexIndexInternet183.7 139.8 1 33.5 137.6 104.7 Email151.1 151.5 133.1 113.5 113.9 TV139.8 122.1 125.7 111.2 97.1 Radio76.5 76.9 71.9 106.4 107.0 Direct Mail58.9 62.6 54.7 107.6 114.5 Magazines55.2 58.8 47.8 115.4 122.9 IM101.7 58.8 47.8 212.7 122.9 Video Games94.6 43.5 45.6 207.3 95.3 Newspapers45.5 52.3 42.2 107.8 123.9 Satellite27.9 30.1 19.9 140.6 151.4 Web Radio34.8 24.9 17.0 205.1 146.6 Blogs36.0 24.3 12.8 280.9 189.9 SIMM, Dec. 2009Exhibit 9 What is interesting about this comparison of U.S. social media users are the dif ferences which now appear in terms of how much time is spent with other media. The group labele d Fun index much higher in many other media, such as internet, television, instant mes saging, video games and blogs than do the ndexing Career group. That group seems to favor print media, i

higher on direct mail, magazines and newspapers. Thus, we begin to see the diffe rences in social media users beyond just their use of social media sites. As might be expected, the Chinese social media group has a somewhat different al ternative media use patterns than does the U.S. Chinese media usage in other media is show n in Exhibit 10. Exhibit 10: Media Usage Factors Among Top Quintile in China Media Usage Among Top Quintile (Heaviest) Social Media Usage Factors in ChinaMinutes per Day December 2009WhiteCollege AllWhite Co llege CollarIndexIndexInternet112.8162.5144.578.0112.4IM92.7121.0103.289.9117.3Email83 .098.887.894.5112.5TV79.187.376.0104.0114.8Vide Games75.677.564.2117.7120.7Blogs 76.178.863.0120.7125.1Magazines71.769.357.7124.3120.1Newspapers72.566.256.4128.6 117.5Direct Mail70.963.853.8131.8118.5Radio64.653.144.8144.1118.4Web Radio63.849 .339.3162.5125.6CQS, Dec. 2009Exhibit 10 Chinese consumers in the top quintile, report substantially more time being spen t with the so called new media , i.e. instant messaging, email, video game, blogs and the like as we saw in Exhibit 6. Of note, however, is how high the College group indexes in almost every media form used compared to the White Collar group, with the exception of print media, i.e.,

magazines, newspapers and direct mail. It may well be that some of these differences are si mply the result of historic media availability/restrictions. Whatever the reason, there are majo r differences between the U.S. and Chinese populations. Influence of Media Forms on Future Purchases 231

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications One of the critical issues in understanding social media in either market is whe ther or not it can be used commercially by marketers as a message delivery form. The sheer size of the audiences using social media makes it a very attractive delivery system for marketers. Yet , there is substantial controversy among and between the marketplace buyers and sellers as to whether or not social media can or should be used for commercial purposes. One way to help understand this dilemma is to determine what media forms consume rs say have the most influence on them in various product categories. In earlier studie s, Block and Schultz (2009b) and Schultz and Block (2010) found consumers can identify the me dia form they believe have the most influence on them by product category. In both the SIMM an d CQS studies, consumers report media consumption and influence on nine broad product categories, i.e., Apparel/Clothing, Automobiles and Trucks, Eating Out, Electronics, Financi al Services, Groceries, Home Improvements, Medicines and Telecommunication and Wireless. In t he analyses below, we have taken the average media influence in those nine product categories among the top quintile of social media users (the heaviest users) and determined what other media forms they say have influence on their purchase behaviors. The results of that analysis among U.S. social media users is shown in Exhibit 1 1. Exhibit 11: Social Media Usage Factors in US Average Media Influence Among Top Quintile (Heaviest) Social Media Usage Factors in U.S. Percent December 2009FunCareerAllFunCareerIndexIndexWord of Mouth37.335.134.3108. 8 102.4 Coupons30.129.429.0 103.7 101.3 TV28.123.922.3125.7 107.1 Inserts20.522.721.296.6 107.0 Direct Mail21.120.919.5107.9 106.9 Newspapers19.220.919.2100.1 109.3 In-Store21.220.019.1110.8 104.9 Read Article20.522.118.6110.3 118.8 Magazines21.9 18.516.3135.0 113.8 Cable 22.116.014.4153.3 110.7 Email18.117.414.3126.8 121.9 Internet21.616.513.9155.6 118.9 Radio17.214.412.7134.8 113.1 Product Placement13.610.18.7157.0 117.1 Outdoor12.88.47.3175.2 114.5 Yellow Pages10.08.57.0143.9 122.0 Blogs8.96.33.8237.2 168.1 Satellite6.75.43.3201.2 163.0 IMi7.55.03.3225.3 150.0 Text7.44.93.2228.6 152.8 Video Games7.44.63.1236.5 148.1 Web Radio6.64.83.0224.7 163.4

SIMM, Dec. 2009Exhibit 11 As shown, Word-of-Mouth is the top media influence among U.S. respondents. We ha ve found this to be true in most of the other analyses done on the SIMM data. Interesting ly, Word-ofMouth might be considered a form of social media. If that premise is accepted, t hen social media or at least word-of-mouth is more influential than traditional media forms such as television, radio, direct mail and so on among this sample. Interestingly, while there are differences between the U.S., Fun and Career groups in the

they are not substantially different for the top rated media forms such as Coupo ns, TV, Inserts and Direct Mail. When the same comparison is made with electronic or new media, the differences begin to appear. For example, Blogs, Satellite, Instant Messaging an d Text Messaging, while small in number, have major index differences. Thus, there are differences in the U.S. social media users and the other media f orms they report as being most influential on their product purchases. In an allied study (Schult z and Block, 2010c) also found that social media usage provided a good predictor variable in several consumer product areas. In the CQS analysis, there were several differences. Those results are shown in Exhibit 12. Exhibit 12: Social Media Usage Factors in China 232

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Average Media Influence Among Top Quintile (Heaviest) Social Media Usage Factors in ChinaPercent December 2009White CollarCo llegeAllWhite Index College IndexWord of Mouth11.722.118.762.4118.3In-Store16.42 2.018.787.7117.7TV12.820.415.383.3133.1Magazines14.219.314.797.2131.7Coupons14.6 18.114.5100.6124.8Newspapers12.316.91.896.7132.6Cable14.516.612.7113.9130.7Ad In serts13.115.211.8110.9127.9Read Article9.313.010.984.8119.4Internet14.214.010.91 30.0128.4IM13.714.810.5129.8140.8Outdoor11.114.810.5105.8141.0Email10.98.36.317. 5132.1Direct Mail10.18.36.2162.5133.6Blogs10.09.26.1164.1149.7Product Placement7 .87.85.3147.6146.1Radio6.76.64.6147.1145.1Web Radio6.85.43.7184.7147.7Text5.25.0 3.3157.8151.7Yellow Pages3.53.72.4149.2156.3Video on Cell4.43.62.1207.6172.9Vide o Games3.83.01.8213.1171.3CQS, Dec. 2009Exhibit 12 Word-of-Mouth is the most influential media form among the Chinese social media users as it is in the U.S. That is followed by In-Store, Television and Magazines. The major di fference in the Chinese responses to these questions, when compared to the U.S., is how differen tly the two groups are in terms of media influence. The ia forms, College group reports the top four med

i.e., Word-of-Mouth, In-Store, TV and Magazines to be substantially more influen tial than do the White Collar group. There is a major difference in Read an Article (the SIMM surroga te for public relations) with the College group saying it has greater influence than othe r media forms while the White Collar group rate this promotional form much lower. Do Cultural Differences Define the Global Strategy for Social Media From this initial analysis, it seems clear that social media and consumer usage of social media differ substantially by country. Thus, a global, undifferentiated media strategy for these new media forms is likely not practical or possible. What has been found in the U.S. is substantially different from that in China. While this finding is important, a more critical i ssue is what media strategies are practical and possible? What we do find is that cultural differen ces do exist and some of those appear to be related to the cultures of the two countries. Our cur rent analysis does not answer that question. Thus, we propose suggestions for future research in the next section. Suggestions For Future Research From these initial analyses of social media use in the United States and China, major differences are evident in how the various social media sites are developing in addition to how consumers report using the social media on those sites and most of all, the impact that so cial media has on the reported influence and behaviors of those using these new media forms. Some

of this is likely cultural and perhaps some even historical. Those are areas that need to b e explored further in other research. What has been demonstrated in this paper, however, is that social media consumpt ion can be measured by social media form. Additionally, there appear to be multiple audienc es for each of the social media forms. Each of those can be identified and isolated for further study. Use of and volume of social media also appears to have some impact on the consum er s use of traditional media. In other words, not all social media users are alike and thei r media usage patterns seem to be defined by the type of social media they use and how they co mbine that with traditional media. That too may be a reflection of cultural differences. Ag ain, this could be a fruitful area for further research. 233

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications While not evident or reported here, it appears that social media usage is additi ve to the overall media use of the heaviest social media users in both countries studied Social me dia use does not appear to replace or substitute for other traditional media forms. Whether o r not this is connected to cultural differences is not known. This would be another area for u seful research If social media, in whatever form it takes, continues to expand through the numb er of users and how those users engage with social media, that could have a major impacts on how marketing organizations would want to create media combinations to influence heavy social media users. Another area for research might be using levels of social media engagement to pr edict the purchase of various types of products and services. Although that approach was n ot illustrated in this paper, in other studies we have conducted using SIMM and CQS data; we ha ve found that social media usage can act as a predictor variable in purchases in several categ ories (Schultz and Block, 2010c). We believe cross-border and cross-cultural comparisons can be very useful in und erstanding how social media will likely further develop in the two countries and around the world. Analysis of the sort we have presented can provide important benchmarks for additional an alyses, not only in these two countries, but, elsewhere. Limitations The limitations of this study are obvious. We have used only a portion of the da ta available to us from the SIMM and CQS studies. We have looked only at one point in time, the las t half or the last six months of 2009. In such a dynamic marketplace, as is found in social me dia, most likely will change by the time this paper is presented. Thus, the conditions, usage and even social media sites may have changed as well. Additionally, we have investigated and rep orted on only two countries, the United States and China. Other countries may have different s ocial media systems and the usage patterns may well be quite different based on their cultur es and the development of social media in those markets. The other major limitation of this analysis is that it goes only so far. The inf ormation found in the SIMM and CQS databases are a treasure trove of media consumption data. We ha ve only scratched the surface with this analysis. Fortunately, BIGresearch and Prosper I nternational are willing to share the data for scholarly research. Anyone interested in developin g additional studies can contact them directly through their website (www.bigresearch.com).

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications References Aaker, JL The effect of cultural orientation on persuasion Research, (1997) Vol. 24, No. 3 pg. 315-328 Bennett, I Media Censorship in China na/p11515 (sources 3/15/11) The Journal of Consumer

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Block, M.P., Schultz, D.E., Media generations: Media allocation in a consumer-con trolled marketplace , Worthington, OH: Prosper Publishing, 2009. Castells, M (2009) The Rise of the Network Society: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture Volume I , Wiley Blackwell Czinkota MR and IA Ronkainen (2003) n Publishing International Marketing, 7th Ed, South Wester

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Technologies . Boston, Ma: Harvard Business, 2008. Luna, D., LA Peracchio and M. deJuan Cross-cultural and cognitive aspects of web site navigation Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (2002) Vol. 30, No. 4 pg. 397-410 MacMillan, D Google s Quixotic China Challenge www.businessweek.com/technology/content/march2010/tc20100324_284005.htm (sourced 3/15-11) Mangold, W. Glynn, Faulds, David J. romotion Mix Science Direct 2009 (52) ppgs 357-365 Newell, J., Pilotta, J.J., Thomas, J.C., Mass media displacement and saturation . International Journal on Media Management, 2008 10, 4, 131-138. Pilotta, J.J., Schultz, D.E., Drenik, G., Rist, P. Simultaneous media usage: A cr itical consumer orientation to media planning . Journal of Consumer Behavior, 2004, 3, 3 285-292. Porter, M. Clusters and the New Economics of Competition November-December 1998. ppgs. 77-90 Harvard Business Review, social Media: The New Hybrid Element of the P

Schultz, D.E. Media synergy: The next frontier in a multimedia marketplace , Journa l of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, 2006, 8, 1, 13-29. Schultz, D.E., Block, M.P., How U.S. consumers view in-store promotions, Journal of Business Research, in press 2009a. Schultz, D.E., Block, M.P. Understanding Chinese media audiences: An exploratory study of Chinese consumers media consumption and a comparison with the U.S.A , Proceedings of the A AA AsianPacific Conference, Beijing: May 27 30, 2009b. Schultz, D.E., Block, M.P., Retail communities: Customer-driven retailing , Worthin gton, OH: Prosper Publishing 2010a. Schultz, D.E., Block, M.P., Relevant pieces to the Chinese retail media puzzle , Pr oceedings of the ESOMAR Asia-Pacific Conference, Kuala Lumpur: April 25 27, 2010b. Schultz, D.E., Block, M.P., Expanding the success of behavioral targeting with se rvice resource availability , Proceedings of the 11th International Research Seminar in Service Management, La Londe les Maures: May 25 28, 2010c. Schultz, D.E., Block, M.P., Raman, K. Media synergy comes of age part 1, Journal of Direct,

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications advertising works . Proceedings of the 3rd ESOMAR/ARF World Audience Measurement C onference, June 1218, 2004, Geneva. Schultz, D.E., Pilotta, J.J., Block, M.P. Populating and implementing a media con sumption model . Proceedings of the 4th ESOMAR/ARF World Audience Measurement Conference, June 19 -24, 2005, Montreal. Schultz, D.E., Pilotta, J.J., Block, M.P., Media consumption and consumer purchas ing: Connecting the dots .finally . Proceedings of the ESOMAR Worldwide Multi Media Measurement, June 47, 2006, Shanghai. Shirky, C., Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organization . Lo ndon, UK: Penguin Press HC, 2008. Tsai, J., Marketing and social media: Everyone s social (already) , CRM Magazine, 200 9, 13 6, 34-38. Word of Mouth Marketing Association. t Practice Research . Social Marketing Compensation Survey: Curren

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Too fat to be a model? The role of body image in advertising effectiveness of healthy food products Polymeros Chrysochou University of South Australia, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, A ustralia polymeros.chrysochou@unisa.edu.au Georgios Nikolakis Aarhus School of Business, Department of Marketing and Statistics, Denmark gnikolakis@windowslive.com Athanasios Krystallis Aarhus School of Business, Department of Marketing and Statistics, Denmark atkr@asb.dk Extended Abstract Endorsement has been an important communication strategy for companies in order to convey favourable associations about their products. In fact, there is a large body of literature reporting the positive impact of endorsers on consumer attitudes towards advertisements an d brands, consumer purchase intention, as well as other measures of effectiveness (e.g. Am os et al., 2008; Kaikati, 1987; Goldsmith et al., 2000). Choosing the appropriate endorser to pro mote a product has always been a challenge both for academics and for practitioners. Several st udies have measured under which conditions endorsers are appropriate for products and posit ively impact advertising effectiveness (e.g. Agrawal and Kamakura, 1995; Tripp et al., 1994). A common empirical approach has been based on the match-up hypothesis. This theo ry suggests endorsers to be more effective when there is a fit between the endorser and the endorsed product (Till and Busler, 2000). In the case of healthy foods, and in line with the match-up hypothesis, an effective endorser should be one perceived as healthy. This is th e most common practice of companies advertising their health brands. However, there have been successful cases where companies promoted their health brands using non-healthy and less at tractive endorsers. For example, the Danish dairy company Arla used to promote one of its pro-biotic yoghurt Cultura by using a less-attractive and un-healthy endorser. This sequel of advertisements met lots of success and received great popularity among Danes. The target group for health foods is not only healthy people but those who want to improve

their health status and, therefore, not being healthy enough. According to the s ocial comparison theory, individuals will make some inferences concerning the endorser, which lea ds them to feel pressured to conform to those with whom they compare themselves (Festinger 1954) . In other words, an advertisement using a healthy endorser may not be effective by the unhealthy target group. In fact, this raises also the question of whether such advertisements can act as interventions to improve the population s healthy eating standards. This study aims to provide a better understanding of this phenomenon and explore under which conditions a food product could be effectively advertised by a less-healthy endo rser. The objectives are: a) to explore the effect of perceived body image as a surrogate measure of perceived endorser s healthiness on advertising effectiveness; b) to explore the m oderating role of perceived product healthiness on advertising effectiveness and c) if these ef fects vary across consumer groups of different levels of health motivation and other measures of h ealthiness (e.g. Body Mass Index). For the purpose of the study an experiment is used based on me asuring the 237

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications effectiveness of advertisements that vary on the endorser s body image (slim vs. o verweight) and the food type (a perceived healthy product milk vs. a perceived un-healthy o ne sausages). The study is currently in progress and the data are being collected i n Denmark. The results of this study will lead towards both managerial and theoretical impl ications. In relation to the former, it provides useful directions to food companies in relat ion to which endorser may be more effective to increase the effectiveness of their advertisin g when to promote their healthy food products. In relation to the later, it contributes to the theoretical development of endorsement advertising effectiveness by providing further unders tanding of the processes under which both underlined theories work, especially when it come s to the promotion of healthy food products. References Agrawal, J., W.A. Kamakura 1995. The economic worth of celebrity endorsers: An e vent study analysis. Journal of Marketing 59, no. 3: 56 62. Amos, C., G. Holmes, D. Strutton 2008. Exploring the relationship between celebr ity endorser effects and advertising effectiveness. International Journal of Advertising 27, no. 2: 209-34. Festinger, L. 1954. A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations 7: 117 40. Goldsmith, R., B. Lafferty, S. Newell 2000. The impact of corporate credibility and celebrity credibility on consumer reaction to advertisements and brands. Journal of Advertising 29, no. 3: 43 54. Kaikati, J.G. 1987. Celebrity advertising: A review and synthesis. International Journal of Advertising 6, no. 2: 93-105. Till, B.D., M. Busler 2000. The match-up hypothesis: physical attractiveness, ex pertise, and the role of fit on brand attitude, purchase intentions, and brand beliefs. Journal of Advertising 29, no. 3: 1 13. Tripp, C., T. Jenson, L. Carlson 1994. The effect of multiple product endorsemen ts by celebrities on consumers attitudes and intentions. Journal of Consumer Research 20, no. 4: 535 47. 238

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Increasing Advertising Effectiveness through Incongruity Based Tactics: The Moderating Role of Consumer Involvement Georgios Halkias Department of Marketing & Communication, Athens University of Economics & Busine ss, Athens, Greece ghalkias@aueb.gr Flora Kokkinaki Department of Marketing & Communication, Athens University of Economics & Busine ss, Athens, Greece Abstract Developing effective advertising communication has been traditionally regarded a s an increasing function of the fit between consumers perceptions and the content of the transmit ted messages. Given that, relevant research has given only limited attention to the consideration of incongruent and dissonant communication. Against this background, the present st udy explores how consumers react to brand information that is in conflict with established pe rceptions. The moderating role of consumer involvement in the decision process is also examined . Consistent with predictions, the results support a positive effect for moderately incongrue nt communication, which, however, is attenuated in high involvement decisions. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed. Introduction A widely held conception in the marketing literature is to establish consistency and relevancy when communicating brand meaning to consumers (Keller 2003; Percy and Elliott 20 05; Rossiter, Percy, and Donovan 1991). Research on brand management has emphasized the idea t hat consistent and relevant communication ensures that the brand image will appeal t o consumers and enhances the brand s value over time (Aaker 1991). The empirical and conceptua l work on the brand concept consistency is substantial (Park, Jaworski, and Maclnnis 1986; Keller 1993; Lange and Dahln 2003). In a similar vein, positioning and advertising models unde rline the importance of identifying and managing consumers brand and product beliefs in ord er to

develop effective communication (Gutman 1982; Reynolds and Gutman 1984; Ratchfor d 1987; Rossiter, Percy, and Donovan 1991). The basic premise behind traditional approac hes to marketing communications suggests that persuasive messages that correspond to co nsumers knowledge and perceptions are more likely to be relevant, comprehensible, and ap pealing (Rossiter Percy, and Donovan 1991; Keller 2003; Petty and Wegener 1998). In esse nce, message persuasiveness is believed to be an increasing function of the fit between consu mers perceptions and the content of communication (Brannon and Brock 2006). However, evidence from cognitive psychology challenges the above proposition aga inst the hypothesis that incongruent communication may lead to more favorable responses ( Mandler 1982; Fiske 1982; Fiske and Pavelchak 1986). Schema-based research indicates tha t incongruent stimuli may increase recipient s cognitive arousal and, when discrepancies are suc cessfully resolved, may elicit more positive judgements (Mandler 1982; Thompson and Hamilt on 2006; Meyers-Levy, Louie, and Curren 1994; Meyers-Levy and Tybout 1989). A limited num ber of studies have examined information incongruity in a marketing context, providing insightful, yet 239

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications inconclusive, findings (Lee and Mason 1999; Goodstein 1993; Wansink and Ray 1996 ; Dahln et al. 2005). Most importantly, with a few exemptions (e.g., Trn and Dahln 2008; Lang e and Dahln 2003), only scarce attention has been given to the investigation of brand s chema incongruity. Drawing from schema theory, an empirical study is conducted that ex tends existing literature by exploring consumers responses to advertising messages that vary in terms of incongruity (i.e., congruent, moderately incongruent, and extremely incongruent) with established brand schemata. Consumers examined involvement in the decision process is also

as a potential factor that might moderate the effects of incongruity and account for some of the empirical inconsistencies found in the literature. Conceptual development The Concept of Cognitive Schemata Schema theory assumes that cognitive processing is guided by prior knowledge and experience (Crockett 1988; Fiske and Linville 1980). According to Fiske and Taylor (1991), people do not store one-by-one every individual experience and piece of information in its raw form; instead, they tend to simplify reality by organizing all available knowledge about the so cial surroundings in memory-based cognitive structures known as schemata. Cognitive schemata repre sent the accumulated experience and knowledge people have about an attitude object, inclu ding its attributes and their configuration (Fiske and Taylor 1991). As such, they are ef fectively responsible for developing a number of assumptions and hypotheses about the natu re of the social phenomena subsequently encountered (Sujan and Bettman 1989; Sujan 1985; F iske and Taylor 1991). Thus, schemata can be alternatively viewed as organized patterns o f expectations (Sujan, Bettman, and Sujan 1986). Research in social and cognitive psychology hi ghlights the significance of cognitive schemata, suggesting that schematic knowledge provides people cognitive economy, guides the perception of incoming information, and allows som e sense of prediction and control that is essential to cope with the environment (Fiske and Taylor 1991; Crockett 1988;). As Smith and Medin (1981) argue, without schemata people would perceive many social environments as complex and chaotic. Under the view that consumers may also use similar cognitive structures to organ ize their

experiences and knowledge of the market (e.g., product schema, brand schema, or ad schema), the concept of schemata has been applied in the marketing research to study seve ral aspects of consumer behavior (Stayman, Alden, and Smith 1992; Goodstein 1993; Boush and Lok en 1991; Park, Milberg, and Lawson 1991). Regardless of the perspective followed, it has been revealed that consumers rely strongly on their schemata to facilitate purchase decisions and deal with the highly cluttered market environment (Sujan and Bettman 1989; Meyers-Levy and Tyb out 1989; Goodstein 1993). Out of the wide repertoire of consumers ma has schemata, the brand sche

been identified as the most relevant for the processing and the evaluation of pe rsuasive communication (Rossiter, Percy, and Donovan 1991; Gutman 1982; Sjdin and Trn 2006; Boush and Loken 1991). Brand schemata mediate both product and ad schemata, and incorp orate the most essential information for consumers choice decisions (Gutman 1982; Sjdin and Trn 2006; Boush and Loken 1991). In essence, the brand schema refers to a memory-bas ed, organized network of all the beliefs, the emotions, and the associations consume rs attach to a specific brand and its attributes (Aaker 1991; Brannon and Brock 2006; Sjdin and Trn 2006). Schema Incongruity Theory Research on schema incongruity looks into the effects of information that is inc ompatible with existing knowledge and do not conform to some predefined pattern of expectations (Stayman, 240

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Alden, and Smith 1992; Sujan 1985). Heckler and Childers (1992) suggest a two-di mensional conceptualization of schema incongruity, where the relevancy and the expectancy of a stimulus information is what determines the existence and the degree of incongruity. Rele vancy refers to the degree to which a piece of information is useful to produce meaning and cont ributes to the identification of the primary message communicated by the stimulus object. On th e other hand, expectancy refers to the degree to which a piece of information conforms to expe ctations and falls into some predefined pattern evoked by the stimulus object (Heckler and Ch ilders 1992; Lee and Mason 1999). Following Heckler and Childers uity in this (1992) approach, schema (in)congr

study is thematic in nature and refers to advertising information and cues that conform to (or conflict with) what is expected and what is perceived as relevant by consumers a ccording to their experience with the brand. With respect to research on information incongruity at present, Mandler (1982) h as offered one of the most insightful theoretical paradigms (Noseworthy, Finlay, and Islam 2010 ; Peracchio and Tybout 1996; Lee and Schumann 2004). According to Mandler (1982), an increase in the level of incongruity between a stimulus and its predefined schema leads to heightened cog nitive arousal that, in turn, increases the extremity of evaluations. Whether an evaluation bec omes relatively more or less favorable depends on how easily the receiver can process the incomi ng data and satisfactorily resolve incongruity (Meyers-Levy and Tybout 1989). More specifica lly, Mandler (1982) suggests that congruent stimuli bear a high degree of familiarity and acc eptability that is positively valenced by recipients. Yet, they are highly predictable and do not s timulate some further interest, resulting in mildly favorable responses. In contrast, schema i ncongruent stimuli attract attention and increase the cognitive arousal as people attempt to resolv e discrepancies and produce meaning. Mandler (1982) proposes that moderate incongruity will be s uccessfully reconciled, since relatively minor revisions in existing knowledge need to be im plemented (Meyers-Levy at al. 1994). The increased cognitive stimulation and the psycholog ical reward produced by the successful resolution of incongruity is hypothesized to signific antly increase the favorability of responses. In contrast to moderate incongruity, extreme incongru ity is not likely resolved (Mandler 1982). People are typically not willing to invest the signific ant amount of

psychological resources necessary to accommodate extremely inconsistent pieces o f information. Therefore, processing is more likely abandoned and the favorability of evaluations decreases as people cannot appropriately interpret the incoming information. Hypotheses Previous research suggests that novel and unexpected information attracts attent ion and stimulates processing (Lee and Schumann 2004; Trn and Dahln 2008). For example, Trn and Dahln (2008) showed that consumers generally pay more attention to ads that misma tch with established brand beliefs. In a similar sense, Pieters, Warlop, and Wedel (2002) found that novelty and originality in the ad execution increases attention to the various a d elements, as opposed to typical and familiar ads. Following a threefold operationalization of incongruity, Ozzane, Brucks, and Grewal (1992) found a non-monotonic relationship between the degree of incongruity and consumers sumers information search behavior. They demonstrated that con

exposed to products moderately incongruent with their associated category schema engage in deeper and more effortful processing of the available information than those exp osed to either congruent or extremely incongruent new products. Along these lines, a non-monoto nic relationship between ad brand incongruity and consumer attention is anticipated. Under schema incongruity, consumers are expected to attend more to the ad trying to ga ther relevant information to reconcile incongruities. However, as discrepancies become extreme and the resolution of incongruity highly uncertain, consumers will more likely reduce th eir attention to the ad by ignoring all the incompatible information. It is predicted that: 241

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications H1. Consumers will pay more attention to ads featuring moderately incongruent br and information, compared to ads featuring either congruent or extremely incongruent brand information. Increased attention to a stimulus implies that its content is encoded in a more sophisticated and elaborate manner that, in turn, may facilitate memory performance (Hastie 1980; Friedman 1979). Congruent information typically receives only superficial encoding, since it can be readily assimilated into existing knowledge. On the other hand, a much larger cognitive investment is required when people deal with incongruent stimuli. In this case, people engage in more extensive encoding trying to accommodate the incongruent information into the ac tivated schema. When incongruity is moderate this process is successful and involves the development of a larger number of associative linkages between the stimulus content and the knowledge stored in memory (Houston, Childers, and Heckler 1987; Hastie 1980). The additio nal associative cues generated may render the stimulus information more retrievable and easier to remember (Heckler and Childers 1992; Houston, Childers, and Heckler 1987; Lange and Dahln 2003). A different effect is hypothesized for memory under extreme schema incongruity. Ex tremely discrepant pieces of information cannot be successfully linked to schematic know ledge and discourage processing. As a consequence, both retrieval and discrimination proce sses are hindered, reducing the overall memory of the information presented. Overall, the following hypotheses are suggested. H2. Ads featuring moderately incongruent brand information will lead to better a d recall, compared to ads featuring either congruent or extremely incongruent brand inform ation. H3. Ads featuring moderately incongruent brand information will lead to better a d recognition, compared to ads featuring either congruent or extremely incongruent brand inform ation. According to Mandler (1982) incongruity resolution is rewarding and may increase the favorability of evaluations. The positive effect of schema incongruity has been examined by a number of consumer studies, which, however, provide mixed results (Noseworthy, F inlay, and Islam 2010; Goodstein 1993; Lee and Mason 1999). For instance, Lange and Dahln (2 003) generally failed to identify significant differences in attitude toward the bran d between congruent and incongruent with the brand schema ads, while Goodstein (1993) show ed that ads

that do not match the typical ad schema lead to a lower ad and brand attitude th an schema congruent ads. In a later study, Dahln and colleagues (2005) found that ad incong ruity with consumers brand perceptions results in lower ad attitude and ad credibility, comp ared to ad brand congruity. Interestingly though, their study revealed a significant effect to the opposite direction for brand attitude, which was enhanced under ad-brand incongruity. Unfortunately, most of the relevant studies have used a dichotomous operationali zation of incongruity (congruent vs. incongruent). This approach simply discriminates what is congruent from what it is not, and does not allow taking into consideration any possible d ifferences in the degree of incongruity. Most importantly, this does not allow for a standard of c omparison across different studies, since all possible degrees of incongruity (from a slight to e xtreme) fall under the same term incongruent, although they essentially refer to a totally differen t case. There can be no doubt that some of the empirical inconsistencies found in the literature m ay be attributed to this. Nonetheless, a number of studies have closely adopted Mandler s (1982) conceptualization and tested the inverted-U relationship between information inc ongruity and consumer evaluations. Lee and Mason (1999) found support for the positive effect of moderate incongruity on ad attitude. The mean scores for brand attitude also followed the predicted directionality, yet statistical testing revealed no significant differences. Ful l support has been given by Meyers-Levy and Tybout (1989) who showed that when a new product propos ition is moderately incongruent with the product category it supposedly belongs it is eva luated more favorably than congruent or extremely incongruent propositions (see also Peracch io and Tybout 1996). The same pattern has been evident for incongruity between a parent brand and a brand 242

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications extension (Meyers-Levy, Louie, and Curren 1994) or when product taste does not m atch with consumers expectations (Stayman, Alden, and Smith 1992). We expect the same nonmonotonic relationship to occur. Ads with incongruent, yet resolvable, brand inf ormation will produce additional affect, compared to congruent ads. However, this affect will disappear as information becomes extremely discrepant and consumers cannot make sense of the ad. Both ad and brand attitudes are expected to be most positively influenced under moder ate schema incongruity. In detail, it is predicted that: H4. Ads featuring moderately incongruent brand information will result in higher attitude toward the ad (Aad), compared to ads featuring either congruent or extremely inc ongruent brand information. H5. Ads featuring moderately incongruent brand information will result in higher attitude toward the brand (Ab), compared to ads featuring either congruent or extremely i ncongruent brand information. Relevant research points out that the positive effects of moderate incongruity m ay be qualified by several individual or situational variables (Lee and Schumann 2004; Meyers-Le vy and Tybout 1989; Campbell and Goodstein 2001). Among the variety of such factors consumer i nvolvement has been identified as one of the most influential (MacInnis and Jaworski 1989; Lee and Schumann 2004; Sujan 1985, 1986). Involvement refers to the personal relevance a nd the perceived feeling of importance that individuals apply to a judgment process or to the object about which the judgment is being made (Mantel and Kardes 1999; Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983). It is common ground that individuals process information and beh ave in a different manner according to their level of involvement (Celsi and Olson 1988; Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983; Zaichkowsky 1985). For instance, contrary to low involvement decisions, high involvement decisions are characterized by increased willingness to spend e ffort in the processing of incoming information (Lee and Schumann 2004). In general, individu als highly involved in a task tend to process more thoroughly and spend more time consideri ng any available information during the judgment process (Mantel and Kardes 1999). With respect to schema incongruity, it has been hypothesized that in highly involving purchase d ecisions differences between congruity and incongruity might be smaller (Campbell and Goo dstein 2001; Sujan 1986). Consumers are already motivated to process the available informatio n and, thus, are more efficient in dealing with discrepancies. Moderate incongruity in this c

ase is much more easily accommodated and the additional arousal induced to resolve incongruity is low, presumably not enough to trigger the psychological reward mechanism that would o therwise enhance evaluations. Therefore, the inverted-U relationship described in the pre vious hypotheses will most likely disappear under high involvement decisions. In summa ry, it is expected that: H6. Consumer involvement will moderate responses to brand schema incongruity, su ch that under high involvement decisions the positive effect of moderately incongruent a ds on (a) attention, (b) recall, (c) recognition, (d) Aad, and (e) Ab will be eliminated. The rationale above suggests that moderate incongruity has a comparative advanta ge in low against high involvement situations. This is to imply that evaluations in respon se to moderate incongruity when consumers are not involved in the process may even be more favo rable than those from highly involved consumers. However, in light of findings suggesting t hat incongruity might not increase processing elaboration over the levels already produced by hi gh involvement (Aaker and Sengupta 2000), no differences are expected in the cognitive measures between low and high involvement. In detail, it is predicted that: H7. Aad and Ab in response to moderately incongruent ads will be higher in low, compared to high involvement decisions. H8. Attention and memory performance in response to moderately incongruent ads w ill have no difference between low and high involvement decisions. 243

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Method Design The hypotheses above were investigated in an experimental study using a 32 full f actorial, between-subjects design. Advertising incongruity with consumers schema for a real brand was analyzed in three levels (congruity, moderate incongruity, and extreme incongrui ty), while consumers involvement in the decision task in two (low vs. high involvement). In total, one hundred and eleven undergraduate students participated in the main study in exch ange for extra course credit. Cell sizes ranged from 18 to 19 across the experimental con ditions. The hypothesized relationships were tested through analysis of variance (ANOVA) and covariance (ANCOVA). Development of the stimulus material To determine the product category from which the final brand would be selected, the first pretest (n1 = 9) involved a consumer focus group session. The product category o f chocolate bars was proven to be sufficiently familiar and relevant to the sample population and was therefore chosen for the main study. The second pretest (n2 = 34) was conducted to identify consumers brand schemata within the selected product category. Participants were asked to indicate their level of knowledge (1 = not knowledgeable at all, 7 = very knowle dgeable) for a series of chocolate brands as well as to list every associations they held for e ach brand (Sujan and Bettman 1989; Lange and Dahln 2003). The brand that met the requirements of t he research was Lacta , the leading chocolate brand in the market. Brand awareness was 100% and participants were knowledgeable enough (M = 6.18) to have established a disc rete schema for the brand. A frequency analysis of participants associations was then realize d to reveal the most typical attributes of the brand schema. Brand associations sharing a common theme (e.g., a sweet little treat for my loved one and the perfect gift for Valentine s Day ) were c ollapsed under the same schema attribute, while idiosyncratic associations, i.e., those l isted by a single participant that could not be collapsed, were eliminated. Two independent coders categorized consumer associations, in addition to the researchers, to ensure reliability (in tercoder reliability above 85%). The most frequently mentioned brand associations, listed by at least 76% of

respondents, pertained to the attributes of romance, relationships, and passion. Following, 37 new participants were recruited in a third pretest to confirm the configuration of the Lacta brand schema. The three most typical brand attributes were quantified using ninepoint, Likert-type scales. Respondents were asked to indicate how representative of the stimulus brand Lacta each attribute is according to their prior experience with it. The s cale was anchored by 1 (not representative at all) and 9 (very representative). Attributes not men tioned to be part of the brand schema were used as control attributes. According to the results, s chema attributes received consistently higher scores (mean ratings ranged from 7.03 to 7.49) than did control attributes (mean ratings ranged from 3.14 to 3.70). The least possible differenc e between schema and control attributes was statistically significant (mean difference = 3 .32, t(36) = 8.79, P < 0.001), therefore the main theme of the brand schema was confirmed. Based on the findings above, 20 pictures were selected with the intention to be either congruent, moderately incongruent, or extremely incongruent with the Lacta brand schema. In a fourth pretest (n4 = 26) respondents were asked to rate each picture in terms of matching with their impression of the brand on a nine-point scale (1 = mismatch, 9 = match). T he pictures were also tested for likeability (1 = dislike, 9 = like) to ensure that the affect pr oduced in the main study is attributed to differences in the degree of schema incongruity and not t o differences in 244

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications picture liking. The order of the pictures was counterbalanced to avoid possible carryover and fatigue effects. Based on the mean ratings, we selected the three pictures that seemed to best represent the three levels of incongruity and that were similarly rated in terms of likeability. These were submitted to separate one-way repeated measures ANOVAs with picture m atching and likeability operationalized as within-subjects variables. The results provid ed a significant effect of the three pictures on perceived match (F(2, 50) = 36.38, P < 0.001) an d a non-significant effect on likeability (F(2, 50) = 2.78, n.s.), indicating that the pictures corr espond to a different degree of schema incongruity and are equally liked. These three pictures were us ed to develop the final stimulus ads. The same brand logo, tagline, and format were used in al l versions. An advertising agency was utilized in the development of the experimental ads to en sure that they are equivalent to real commercial print advertisements. Experimental procedure The study took place in a laboratory setting. Upon arrival, participants were ra ndomly assigned to one of the six experimental conditions and were given a questionnaire that co ntained all the necessary manipulations and dependent measures. Initially, subjects provided eva luations for several brands across different product categories to familiarize themselves wit h the answering process. Evaluations for the Lacta brand were also included to control for diffe rences in prior affect toward the brand. Following, participants were told a brief cover story a bout the purposes of the study, including the manipulation of involvement, and were given addition al guidelines on how to proceed. Immediately after, they were exposed to two filler ads followed by the experimental ad and when finished, continued on with the ad and brand evaluation scales as well as the manipulation check for incongruity. A 15-minute filler task followed to clear shortterm memory and then participants completed a recall and a recognition test. Aft er completing the manipulation check of involvement and a short section of demographic questio ns, participants were debriefed and thanked for their participation. Manipulations The degree of advertising incongruity with the brand schema was manipulated thro ugh the pictorial component of a print ad by means of information expectancy and relevan cy with the associated brand schema (Heckler and Childers 1992; Halkias and Kokkinaki forthc

oming). The ad format and verbal elements were held constant across conditions. Print advertise ments are reader-paced allowing for differences in attention among participants and are th us appropriate for the research purposes (Lange and Dahln 2003). Consumer involvement was manipu lated by varying participants importance and personal relevance in the decision task (Chai ken and Maheswaran 1994). Participants in the high involvement condition read that the e xperimental material is part of a new advertising campaign that is to be decided whether to be launched in their area or not. They were also told they are one of the few groups to evaluat e the ads, so their opinions are important and will weigh heavily in this decision (Petty, Cac ioppo, and Schumann 1983). In contrast, low involvement subjects were simply told they are participating in a large-scale survey about consumers ad and brand preferences and so their indivi dual opinions are not that important because they will be averaged with those of many other re spondents (Chaiken and Maheswaran 1994). Dependent measures and covariate Attention was indicated by the time consumers spent watching the ad (Goodstein 1 993). A timer running on a computer screen was set at the beginning of each exposure. Particip ants were 245

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications instructed to watch the ads at their own pace and record the number appearing on the screen after they had formed their overall impression. Recall was measured with an open-ended question asking participants to write dow n as many of the features they could remember from the ad within a two-minute time limit. Rec all protocols were coded so that each correct mention of a distinct ad item represented a hit. The total number of hits was summed up to form the overall recall score for each responden t. Recognition was measured using 12 ad related statements for which participants w ere asked to state whether they are true or false. The total number of correct answers formed the overall score for recognition. Attitude toward the ad (Aad) and toward the brand (Ab) were measured on three, n ine-point semantic differential scales anchored by dislike and like, bad and good, and unf avorable and favorable (Goodstein 1993). The Cronbach s a coefficient for the averaged index of Ab and Aad was 0.94 and 0.96, respectively. Covariate. Data screening revealed significant differences in respondents prior b rand attitude across the experimental conditions (F(2,108) = 3.57, P < 0.05), with those parti cipating in the extreme incongruity condition having already more positive attitudes toward the experimental brand Lacta (Mextreme_incongruity = 7.86) than those in the congruent (Mcongruit y = 7.27) and the moderately incongruent condition (Mmoderate_incongruity = 6.92). To eliminate th is confounding factor and control for individual differences in the affect already stored in the brand schema, prior brand attitude (priorAb) was used as a covariate in the investigation of Aad and Ab. The items used to measure priorAb were the same as above (Cronbach s a = 0.94). Results Manipulation Checks The effectiveness of the manipulation was checked using the same perceived match scale reported for the stimulus pretest. In addition, participants were asked to rate the ads in terms of relevancy and expectancy with regard to their impression of the brand (Heckler a nd Childers 1992) on a nine-point scale anchored by irrelevant/unexpected and relevant/expec ted. These three items were averaged to form a composite perceived incongruity scale (Cronb ach s a = 0.91), which was then submitted to a one-way ANOVA. Results showed a statistical ly significant

main effects on perceived incongruity (F(2,108) = 61.12, P < 0.001). Mean rating s differed significantly (P < 0.001) across the three experimental conditions (Mcongruity = 7.75, Mmoderate_incongruity = 5.49, Mextreme_incongruity = 3.58), indicating that the manipulation of schema incongruity is successful. The level of involvement was checked by asking participants to rate the perceive d importance, their interest, as well as their personal relevance in the decision process, usi ng nine-point scales anchored by not at all and highly. Responses to the three items were again avera ged to form a single decision involvement index (Cronbach s a = 0.90). The difference between the two groups (Mlow = 4.64 vs. Mhigh = 7.68) was significant (t(109) = 13.42, P < 0.001), prov iding support to our manipulation. Hypotheses Testing Analysis of variance revealed significant overall main effects for the degree of incongruity, the level of involvement, as well as their interaction on all three measures of cogn itive elaboration. Moderately incongruent ads produced the overall highest scores for attention, ad recall, and recognition. Similarly, ANCOVA results showed a significant positive main effect for prior attitudes and incongruity on ad and brand evaluations. Participants id not 246 involvement d

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications influence their evaluations, which were again the most favorable in response to moderate incongruity. A significant interaction was again detected between the degree of incongruity and the level of involvement on Aad and Ab. Table 1 below summarizes these findings. Table 1. Overall results of the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and covariance (ANC OVA) ANOVA Incongruity Involvement Incongruity Involvement Attention Recall Recognition Attention Recall Recognition Attention Recall Recognition F-value 34.95 22.47 16.13 19.06 24.13 19.14 4.82 9.44 3.09 Significance P < 0.001 P < 0.001 P < 0.001 P < 0.001 P < 0.001 P < 0.001 P < 0.01 P < 0.001 P < 0.05 ANCOVA Prior brand attitude (priorAb) Incongruity Involvement Incongruity Involvement Ad attitude (Aad) Brand attitude (Ab) Ad attitude (Aad) Brand attitude (Ab) Ad attitude (Aad) Brand attitude (Ab) Ad attitude (Aad) Brand attitude (Ab) F-value

10.07 278.62 7.99 9.45 .54 .12 2.73 6.18 Significance P < 0.01 P < 0.001 P < 0.01 P < 0.001 n.s. n.s. P < 0.05 P < 0.01 Low involvement decisions. Simple effect analysis provided support to H1 showing that the degree of incongruity significantly influences the amount of attention paid to t he ads (F(2,105) = 31.06, P < 0.001). Participants that were not involved in the decision process s pent significantly more time watching the moderately incongruent, than the congruent (mean differen ce = 8.83 seconds, P < 0.001) or the extremely incongruent ad (mean difference = 7.17 seco nds, P < 0.001). The mean values for the memory measures also followed an inverted-U pattern. Mor e precisely, consistent with H2 participants recalled more ad features for the moderately inc ongruent ad (Mmoderate_incongruity = 6.11), compared to the congruent (Mconguent = 2.61) and the extremely incongruent (Mextreme_incongruity = 2.94) ad version (F(2,105) = 28.71, P < 0.00 1). Similarly, a significant effect supported our prediction in H3 (F(2,105) = 16.01, P < 0.001), showing that participants have a much greater ability to successfully discriminate the conten t of the ad that is moderately incongruent with their brand schema. Mean differences in recognition between moderate schema incongruity and the two other conditions (2.17 and 2.50 for cong ruity and extreme incongruity, respectively) were significant at the 0.001 level. As Table 1 shows, ANCOVA revealed that participants prior brand affect significantly influences their post -exposure attitudes. After statistically controlling for the effects of the covariate, a s ignificant main effect of schema incongruity on both Aad (F(2,104) = 7.61, P < 0.01) and Ab (F(2,104) = 14.42, P < 0.001) was found. Ad and brand evaluations under low involvement decisions were signifi cantly more favorable in response to the moderately incongruent ad (post hoc comparisons wer e significant at the 0.01 level for Aad and at the 0.001 for Ab), thus H4 and H5 were supporte d. High involvement decisions. As indicated by the results of the interaction analy sis above, a

different scenario occurred for brand schema incongruity when consumers were hig hly involved in the process. Except for the amount of attention (H6a) that was significantly higher for the moderately incongruent ad (F(2,105) = 6.91, P < 0.01), the inverted-U pattern pr oduced in the 247

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications low involvement condition was not found. The level of involvement significantly moderated consumers memory and evaluations (see Table 1) resulting in no differences across the degrees of incongruity. Overall, the results support our predictions in H6b to H6e. Tabl e 2 below summarizes the effects of brand schema incongruity obtained under low and high i nvolvement decisions. Table 2. Cell means for dependent measures with simple effect analysis results. Experimental condition Low involvement decision Attention Recall Recognitio n Ad attitude (Aad) Brand attitude (Ab) n 54 Congruity 8.56 2.61 5.33 5.60 6.71 18 Moderate incongruity 17.39 6.11 7.50 7.61 8.05 18 Extreme incongruity 10.22 2.94 5.00 4.98 6.82 18 F-value 31.06** 28.71** 16.01** 7.61* 14.42** High involvement decision 57 Congruity 14.00 5.37 7.05 6.08 7.13 19 Moderate incongruity 17.69 5.84 7.74 6.23 7.33 19 Extreme incongruity 13.39 4.74 6.63 5.02 7.28 19 F-value 8.09* 2.49 2.85 2.07 .30 *P < 0.01, **P < 0.001. Mean scores for Aad and Ab are adjusted for the effect of the covariate. Low vs. high involvement decisions. It was shown that participants overall ad and brand evaluations are not influenced by their level of involvement in the task, howeve r significant interactions were found (see table 1). Further examining this interaction, simpl e effect analysis revealed no differences in Aad and Ab between low and high involvement for both the congruent and the extremely incongruent ad version (P > 0.05). However, as predicted in H7 ad and brand evaluations in response to moderate incongruity were significantly higher when p articipants were not involved (Aad: Mlow = 7.61 vs. Mhigh = 6.23, F(1,104) = 4.04, P < 0.05,

and Ab: Mlow = 8.05 vs. Mhigh = 7.33, F(1,104) = 6.89, P < 0.01). Finally, Hypothesis 8 suggested th at consumer attention and memory performance in response to moderately incongruent ads will be similar between low and high involvement decisions. Contrary to consumer attitudes, high involvement did produce an overall higher score for all measures of cognitive elaboration, c ompared to low involvement. Nevertheless, consistent with H8 no such differences occurred under moderate incongruity. Theoretical and managerial implications Developing effective advertising communication has been traditionally regarded a s an increasing function of the fit between consumers ted perceptions and the content of the transmit

messages. To that end, relevant research has intensely investigated a number of factors that would optimize this function, giving only scarce attention to the consideration of incongruent and dissonant communication. Against this background, the current study contribu tes to the marketing communications literature by providing considerable insight on how con sumers react to brand information that is incompatible with established perceptions and belie fs. Compared to previous relevant research (cf., Lange and Dahln 2003; Dahln et al. 2005), we add an 248

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications intermediate level between congruity and extreme ad brand incongruity that allow s us to use Mandler s (1982) theoretical paradigm to make specific predictions, while, further more, we explore the moderating role of consumers decision involvement. As predicted, the results show that moderately incongruent brand communication h as the most positive effect on consumer responses, which, however, is attenuated under high involvement conditions. In particular, incongruent brand information is found to attract con sumers attention so long as it can contribute to make sense of the intended message. When the inc oming information is in extreme conflict with consumers clines. beliefs, attention to the ad de

Accommodation of extreme incongruities is a doubtful process that requires consi derable psychological skills and effort. As such, it most likely discourages consumers w ho chose to abandon processing, not being able to derive coherent meaning from the ad. Moreover, the study demonstrates that in low involvement decisions consumers ieval and retr

recognition processes are significantly enhanced by moderate brand schema incong ruity. Advertising information that directly conforms to the brand schema is instantly integrated into existing knowledge and can be interpreted easily through inference making, witho ut the need of further encoding. However, incongruity resolution implies that discrepant incomi ng information is effectively linked to the knowledge already stored in memory. Thus, consumers invest additional cognitive resources in order to revise existing knowledge and develop new associations and nodes that will update the configuration of the activated brand schema. It is only under moderate schema incongruity that such new linkages are successfully c reated, resulting in a more elaborate and efficient network of associations between stim ulus and memory information that facilitates memory of the ad s content. The level of invol vement in the decision task is found to significantly moderate this effect. Even though, consu mers overall memory was significantly enhanced in the high involvement condition, there were no differences in memory performance across the degrees of incongruity. The additio nal cognitive

elaboration stimulated by moderate incongruity among highly involved individuals seems to be relatively little to produce the inverted-U pattern found under low involvement. In fact, the findings imply that the amount of cognitive elaboration produced by moderate inc ongruity under low involvement is comparable to that generally produced by a highly invol ving situation. Finally, a positive effect of moderate incongruity on consumer evaluations is su pported. Ads featuring moderately incongruent brand information seem to be perceived as more interesting and intriguing by consumers who form more favorable Aad and Ab. Accommodating in congruent information can be thought of as solving a mental puzzle in which individual pie ces or cues need to be assembled in some sort of logical pattern to reveal the answer. Consumers invest effort in the resolution of incongruity which, when successful, provides a sense of satisf action and fulfilment that intuitively makes their evaluations more favorable. In cases of extreme incongruity, where the reconciliation of discrepancies in not successful, the fi ndings suggest that people disregard the ad s content and form their attitudes on the basis of previou s evaluations stored in the brand schema. If people had refused to abandon processing and kept on spending time and effort seeking resolution, responses would probably be considerably mor e negative following the increased frustration produced by the futile attempts to appropria tely interpret information. Again, interaction analysis shows that consumer involvement moderat es this relationship. For highly involved consumers that are already motivated to proces s the incoming data the resolution of moderate incongruities appears to be not such a difficult task. As a consequence, the psychological compensation received is minimized not allowing f or differences to occur across incongruity conditions. Our study reveals that not only moderate incongruity is actually effective under low involvement, but also that it has a comparative adv antage against high involvement, since consumer attitudes for the moderately incongruent ad wer e significantly more favorable in low, compared to high involvement. 249

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications From a managerial perspective, the present findings challenge the normative reco mmendations suggested by traditional models of persuasive communication and bring forward so me interesting creative and tactical considerations. Marketing practitioners may us e incongruity based tactics to enhance their communication programmes by increasing consumers nterest and making them actively participate in the communication process. The use of in congruent brand information can make the message stand out from the clutter and increase t he memorability of the ad. From a strategic standpoint, incongruent advertising can also be used as a brand rejuvenation and brand repositioning tool by introducing additional or n ovel brand features and reestablishing the image of the brand in consumers mind. However, th e operationalization of incongruity is a delicate issue and requires great caution , since discrepancies that cannot be resolved may generate feelings of frustration and l ead consumers to ignore the message. Besides, brand information that cannot be meaningfully re conciled with existing brand knowledge may disorientate consumers and distort the brand image. A careful consideration of the context in which brand communication appears is necessary. In this sense, managers should make sure that consumers will have the ability and the opportuni ty to devote the necessary cognitive resources to process a message of this kind. Finally, su ch advertising strategies seem to be mainly appropriate for established brands that compete in highly populated markets and for purchase decisions that consumers see as of relatively low importance and risk. Limitations and future research The results presented above should be interpreted taking into consideration a nu mber of limitations relevant to the study. In particular, a student sample and only one brand from a single product category (chocolate bars) was used. Nevertheless, the product cat egory of chocolate bars and especially the brand used in the experiment is primarily targ eted to a younger audience, making the selection of a student sample less problematic. In addition, the brand is heavily advertised ensuring that consumers will have already establishe d a discreet i

schema for the brand, an element that is crucial for the nature of the study. Th at being said, the present study makes a good effort to explain the effects of incongruent informat ion in a brand communication context, yet generalizing the findings across products with differ ent characteristics calls for further examination. In operational terms, using a rea l brand from the market as well as commercial quality print ads helped to increase the ecological validity of the study. However, this was counterbalanced by the forced exposure of the stimulus ads employed in the experiment. To increase ecological validity without losing experimental c ontrol, future studies could simulate more natural circumstances during the exposure by develop ing, for example, a mock magazine or by using internet ads in browsing environment. Moreover, the study adds a new dimension by exploring the level of involvement a s a moderating factor and finds that consumer are more susceptible to the effects of incongruity under low involvement decisions. Although manipulation checks were successful, s howing a highly significant difference between the two groups, mean scores show that part icipants in the low involvement condition were in fact moderately, rather than not involved in t he process. Given that, a more deliberate interpretation of the findings would suggest not t hat incongruity is effective only under low involvement decisions, but rather that it is not effect ive when consumers are highly involved. Future studies that will manage to establish a mi nimum level of involvement during the experimental procedure will contribute to the refinement of these findings. In addition, in this study a situational dimension of consumer involve ment was manipulated, namely decision involvement. Relevant research would greatly benefi t by exploring whether similar results can be generalized to other types of involveme nt, such as involvement with a specific brand or product category. 250

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Wansink, Brian, and Michael L. Ray. 1996. Advertising Strategies to Increase Usa ge Frequency. Journal of Marketing 60 (1):31-46. Zaichkowsky, Judith Lynne. 1985. Measuring the Involvement Construct. Journal of Consumer Research 12 (3):341 352. 253

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Cultural, Political and Social Destruction: Global Info Cash (GIC) and Participatory Freedom (PF)

George Gantzias Associate Professor, Cultural Management -New Technologies , University of the A egean Email: ggantzias@aegean.gr or/and ggantzias@yahoo.gr www.globalinfocash.com & www.globalinfocash.info The cultural, political and social destruction together with the info-communicat ion economy have challenged not only the traditional cultural and political systems but also the traditional market and social structures. The digital transactions are part of our everyday life in the second decade of the 21st century. The cultural, political, economic and social activit ies in cyberspace are irrevocably changing the role of currencies in our traditional market struct ures. In particular, the number of the internet users around the world has grown from 72 million in 1 999 to more than 1.3 billion in 2011. The diffusion of the Internet, wireless communication and the infocommunication industry together with the domination of digital technology are li kely to challenge the traditional currency markets by creating a new global currency whi ch is called Global Info Cash (GIC). This paper examines and analyses the role of cultural, p olitical and social systems in the info-communication globalisation. It also examines consumerism, n etwork individualism, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism and creative industries in the infocommunication economy. It analyses the convergence of info-communication markets , global regulation, the public interest and the participatory freedom in information and knowledge society. Finally, it suggests as a solution to cultural, political, economic and social crises the introduction of the Global Info Cash (GIC) and Participatory Freedom (PF) in glo bal markets. 254

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Corporate Communications

255

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Institutionalizing CSR: The role of Corporate Identity Management Marwa Tourky Hull University, Business School, UK m.e.tourky@2007.hull.ac.uk Philip Kitchen Brock University, Faculty of Business, Niagara Region, pkitchen@brocku.ca Dianne Dean Hull University, Business School, UK d.m.dean@hull.ac.uk Ahmed Shaalan Hull University, Business School, UK a.s.shaalan@2007.hull.ac.uk Abstract This qualitative research paper aims to explore the concept of corporate identit y (CI), gain insight into the nature of corporate social responsibility (CSR), analyse the re lationship between CI and CSR, and discuss how and in what ways CSR is reflected and articulated in CI. This is done via literature review and then by drawing upon empirical evidence from 24 semi-s tructured interviews from 14 UK-based multinational companies, and three interviews with t hree public relations (PR) agency executives who worked closely with these firms in cognate areas. The study utilized Nvivo8, a computer assisted qualitative data analysis software (C AQDAS), to analyse the data. The findings evidenced that CI and CSR were vitally interconne cted. CSR initiatives are integrated into what organizations do and manifest through one o r more elements of the CI mix including corporate behaviour and culture, values, history, organi sational founder, mission statement, and communications. Introduction Organizations today are encouraged to behave in an ethical and socially responsi ble manner (Berrone et al. 2007), for instance, to compete fairly with competitors, act res ponsibly toward

the environment, treat employees fairly (David et al. 2005), and implement codes of conduct (Maignan and Ferrell 2001). This might be due to the recent spate of corporate s candals in the USA, Europe, South-East Asia and Australia which generated attention to ethics i n business and attracted the interest of researchers and the business press alike. Furthermore, the growing importance of government regulation, amplified scrutiny of off-and on-line media , and increased pressure from various stakeholders have placed the business ethics cha llenge on the strategic agenda of virtually all firms (Ponemon and Michaelson 2000 as cited in Berrone et al. 2007). Corporate social responsibility (or CSR), according to the World Business Counci l for Sustainable Development, is tribute to 256 the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and con

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and th eir families as well as of the local community and society at large (as cited in Chand 2006:240). Several authors argue that behaviour is integral to corporate identity (CI) (van Riel and Balmer 1997; Balmer and Soenen 1999; Melewar et al. 2005; Melewar and Karaosmanoglu 200 6). Corporate behaviour stems from corporate actions in their entirety over time (Ha tch and Schultz, 1997; Kiriakidou and Millward 2000), both those that are planned and co ngruent with corporate culture and those that occur spontaneously. Moreover, it is argued tha t the concept of CI can be seen as a manifestation of ethical behaviour (Cornelius et al. 2007: 132) since the firm s ethical behaviour and stance are a part of an organization s reality and uniq ueness (Berrone et al. 2007). Interest in CI has also increased in both academic and business circles in recen t years. As organizations interact in a globalising world, there has been a shift in marketi ng emphasis from product brands to corporate branding (Keller 2000; Kitchen and Schultz 2001). Th is is generally credited to the difficulties of maintaining product differentiation in the face of imitation and homogenization of products and services, as well as the fragmentation of traditi onal market segments that occur as customers become more sophisticated and markets become mo re complex (Hatch and Schultz 2003). Yet, differentiation requires positioning the whole corporation (values, emotions, personality), not just the products (Hatch and Sc hultz 2003). In this respect, organisations should create CI with unique features reflective of individuality in order to be distinguished in the competitive environment (Balmer and Soenen 1997 ). In establishing distinctive CI, CSR policies should be introduced to create shared organizational values (Atakan and Eker 2007) since CSR initiatives are likely to evoke strong a nd positive reactions among employees, customers and other external stakeholders (Morsing an d Schultz 2006). Underpinning CSR are the ideals and ethics of corporations. This paper investigates the relationship between CI (from a multidisciplinary fr amework) and CSR. The paper aims to pinpoint the key determinants of CI and their sub-element s as well as its relationship with CSR through examining the experiences and perceptions of manag ers in multinational organizations in the UK, together with associated perceptions of s enior public relations practitioner who work closely with the aforesaid managers in developin g CI and CSR

initiatives. Literature Review The Nature and Meaning of CI Over the past 30 years, research has provided a wide variety of definitions of C I which results in divergent views as to what is meant by the term (van Riel and Balmer 1997). Orig inally, research was directed toward definitions that considered visual cues indicating the corpo rate visual identity (Melewar and Jenkins 2002). For example, Abratt (1989:414) defined CI a s: an assembly of visual cues -physical and behavioural by which an audience could recognize the company and distinguish it from others However, Balmer (1998) argued that CI did not just involve the visible outward p resentation of a company, as the meaning of CI had been extended to incorporate the set of intrin sic characteristics that gives the company coherence. He defined CI as what an organi zation is referring to the inherent character underpinned by the corporate personality and experienced through everything an organization says, makes or does (i.e., total corporate co mmunications) (Balmer 1995a, 1998). Similarly, Gray and Balmer (1998:696) defined CI as an the unique characteristics of

organization . They proposed its principle components to be company strategy, phil osophy, organizational design and culture. 257

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Hatch and Schultz (1997:357), from an organizational behaviour perspective, also acknowledged organizational culture within which local meaning and organizational symbols are embedded. They referred to organizational identity as: what *organizational+ members perceive, feel and think about their organizations. It is assumed to be a collective, commonly-shared understanding of the organization 's distinctive values and characteristics . In contrast, van Rekom (1997:411), from a marketing and communication perspectiv e, referred to CI in relation to external audiences and regards this as central to the commu nications process in an organization. He adroitly defined CI as: the set of meanings by which an object allows itself to be known and through whic h it allows people to describe, remember and relate to it . In the same vein, van Riel (1997: 290) acknowledged the role of communications a s well as behaviour and symbolism as means by which the company makes itself known to the world: the self-presentation of an organization; consisting of the cues which an organization offers about itself via behaviour, communication, and symbolism whi ch are its forms of expression . Cornelissen and Elving (2003) broadened CI to include symbolic (logos, house sty le) and representational forms of behaviour (i.e. behaviour of store employees, sales re presentatives, receptionists) together with planned forms of publicity and advertising communic ations. In line with the above, Melewar (2003) demonstrated that CI involved a company s v erbal and visual presentation as well as marketplace positioning and competitive different iation at the corporate, business unit and product levels. Hence, it is closely linked to the way an organization does business and the strategies it adopts. Later Melewar and Karaosmanoglu (200 6:864) defined CI as: .the presentation to every stakeholder. It is what makes an organization unique and incorporates the organization s communication, design, culture, behaviour, structure, industry identity, and strategy. It is .intrinsically related to both personality and image . Accordingly, CI has been acknowledged as a broad, multidisciplinary concept whic h incorporates different elements (Melewar et al. 2005). It is considered the sum of all the fa

ctors that define

and project what the organization is , what it stands for , what it does , how it does it nd where it is going (Melewar and Karaosmanoglu 2006) . Thus, the meaning of CI has evolved from partial views of the concept (i.e. visu al design) into an interdisciplinary approach (i.e. visual design, organizational behaviour, market ing and communications) (Hatch and Schultz 1997; van Riel and Balmer 1997). These can be summarised under four main theoretical perspectives: graphic design, marketing, organisatio nal studies, and interdisciplinarity (Simoes et al. 2005), reflecting the wide dispersion of work in the field and indicative of its holistic nature. CSR as an integral component of CI Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has moved up the executive agenda of many organisations (Moir 2001). Zairi (2000) proposed that given the proven impact of social respon sibility on business performance and corporate image, CSR should be included in business exc ellence models. Likewise, it can be argued that if CSR impacts on factors including comp any reputation and corporate image that it shares characteristics with, therefore it may be reg arded implicitly as an integral component of at least some models of CI as noted by Cornelius et al ( 2007). Indeed these authors went further and posited that CSR should be considered a su bset of the CI model proposed by Melewar and Jenkins (2002) and suggested that because of its g enerality, CSR necessarily should be subsumed by all multi-stakeholder models of CI. In sup port, David et 258

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications al. (2005) argue that the concept of CI must include at least two dimensions: (a ) corporate expertise which is premised on exchange and can be defined as the ability of an organization to detect, assess, and satisfy consumers e needs, wants, and desires by being among th

oligopolistic leaders in a product or service category, and (b) corporate social responsibility which is a citizenship function with moral, ethical, and social obligations that provide the scaffolding upon which mutually beneficial exchanges can take place between an o rganization and its publics. In the same vein, Berrone et al. (2007) believe that since CI is recognized as a source of competitive advantage (Balmer and Gray 2000), a firm s ethical stance (i.e., its e thical values, behaviours, and communications on ethical commitments) should be seen as a compo nent of the firm s CI that may enhance corporate performance (Berrone et al. 2007). Thus CSR is argued to be of strategic importance and should be integrated in the formulation of CI (Van de Ven 2008). Kotler and Lee (2005) justify their strategic approach to corporate social initiatives. They propose that the more a firm can benefit from its social initi atives the more it will be inclined to integrate CSR at a strategic decision-making level. They fur ther explain that strategic integration increases the effectiveness of corporate social initiative s in promoting good causes. Porter and Kramer (2006) even argued that without such a strategic integ ration, the result will be a hodgepodge of uncoordinated CSR and philanthropic activities disc onnected from the company s strategy that neither make any meaningful social impact nor str engthen the firm s long-term competitiveness . From an ethical perspective it makes sense that the public tends to personalise their relationship with organizations. Indeed they are led in this direction by corporate and marke ting communications. That is, consumers tend to form relationships with brands in muc h the same way as they form relationships with people (Aaker et al. 2004), or least develop human attributes for brands. This explains why the motivation and corresponding CI beh ind CSR initiatives tend to matter to consumers (van de Ven 2008). As consumers tend to personalize the relationship with a corporate brand, it sho uld come as no surprise that they judge the personality aling with a of a corporation as if one is actually de

moral (or immoral) person. As a result, the behaviour of a corporation is judged in virtuous ethical terms such as crooked, ere corrupt, or trustworthy, and responsible.

Furthermore,

is research evidence which suggests consumers will punish firms that are perceiv ed to be insincere in their social involvement (Becker-Olsen et al. 2006). Thus, in the current climate where CSR and ethics are firmly placed on socio-pol itical and business agendas, the concept of CI can be seen largely as a manifestation of CS R and ethics (Cornelius et al. 2007). Thus, issues of CI, CSR and ethical behaviour are recei ving significant attention in both the academic literature and the public media (Fukukawa et al. 2007). Gray and Balmer (2001) have shown that investigating the related areas of CI, CSR and eth ics has the potential to afford new, and important, perspectives on the area which necessari ly underpin distinct, if not important, strands of inquiry (Fukukawa et al. 2007). With this background in mind this paper seeks to explore the nature of CI and id entify its key elements and discuss how CSR relates to CI. Research Methodology The main objective of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of practition ers views on the relationship between CI and CSR, thus, we deployed a qualitative approach as ind icated in the abstract. Interviews were targeted at senior managers responsible for the CI mix (van Riel and Balmer 1997) as well as CSR management. This included three interviewees holding a mark eting position, nine from communications, nine in the domain of CSR, one from general management, 259

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications and three directors in public relations (PR) agencies. Thus, interviewees covere d a wide range of management knowledge and cognate experience. Also, more than one individual was interviewed in certain organizations. The companies included in the study came from a broad spectrum of industries as displayed in Table 1. Table 1: Industrial Sectors Nature of Business Number of Companies Automotive 1 Bank 1 Broadcasting 1 Food and Beverage 5 Food & Drug 3 Healthcare 1 IT-Hardware, Software & Services 1 Telecommunications 1 Tobacco 1 PR Consultancies 3 The interview sample was chosen purposively, enabling the use of judgement to se lect cases that were relevant to the research and allowing for heterogeneous sampling which helped in describing and explaining the key themes observed as well as identifying pattern s and making inferences in terms of industry sector and corporate size, which were of particu lar interest and value to the study. An interview schedule was designed and followed to guide the interviews and gain insights about the following topics and their relevance: . Meaning of CI . Key elements and sub-elements of CI Based on a comprehensive review of the literature, interviewees were asked about the importance of each of the following elements in CI management: visual identity, corporate communications, corporate behaviour, culture, corporate structure, and industry identity. . Meaning of CSR . The nature of the relation between CI and CSR. Interviewees were asked whether their companies considered CSR when developing C I, and the way companies integrated/articulated CSR in CI. Semi-structured interviews presented the flexibility to explore the phenomenon i n-depth

(Carson et al. 2002) due to the open-ended nature of the questions posed which e nabled respondents to respond more freely without restrictions imposed from a limited s et of alternatives (Maxwell, 2005). Also, it allowed for considering other areas of ex amination, which had not been thought of when designing the interview schedule (Holstein and Gubr ium 2003). The interviews lasted 45 minutes, on average, and were recorded. This study utilised Nvivo8, a computer assisted qualitative data analysis softwa re (CAQDAS), in analysing the data which facilitated organizing the data into patterns, categori es and basic units, thus making the coding as well as the retrieval of data more efficient than doin g it manually, beside eliminating human error (Bryman and Bell 2007). 260

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Findings Meaning and Elements of CI The findings revealed both partial views of the meaning of CI, i.e. corporate lo go and other forms of symbolism used by the organization; corporate image; corporate reputati on; and/or corporate values, as well as more comprehensive and broader view of the concept signposting what is the organization/what it stands for, thus, reflecting a multidisciplinar y perspective encompassing internal and external orientation of a wide array of elements which represent organisational or corporate identity . In respect to CI elements, an emerging theme from interviews analysis encompasse d respondents views about the key elements of CI which included visual identity, c ommunications, behaviour, culture, industry identity, and organization structure. see Figure (1 ). 261

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Figure 1: Schematic Presentation of CI Elements and Sub-Elements Source: Authors using Nvivo 8 (from the findings: there was a general agreement of the importance of visual id entity, communications, behaviour, culture (mission statement and Values) and industry identity as key e lements of CI; mixing results on history and organization founder, rejection to country of origin (COO ), sub-cultures, corporate structure as key elements of CI). There was a general consensus among interviewees on the importance of visual exp ressions, communications (external, internal and Word-of-Mouth), behaviour (corporate, man ager, and employee) in shaping CI through expressing corporate purpose, values and ethos w hich help shape stakeholders perceptions. Culture was deemed to be an influential element with general agreement on values and mission statement to be key sub-elements, although companies which had passed through me rger and/or acquisition did not consider either history or founder of the organizatio ns to be relevant (note , this is interesting as several other businesses saw these as crucial to in underpinning CI). However, all interviewees recognized the role of CEO and other key figures in sh aping their CI. Besides, interviewees revealed mixed views regarding the importance of country o f origin. For sub-culture, although interviewees affirmed the existence of sub-cultures, due t o large size and geographic dispersion of their companies, however, they did not consider this to be an influencing factor due to the existence of a unified organizational culture, ove rarching values and clear organisational objectives. Also, corporate structure was not considered by interviewees to be a key element of CI, though the findings revealed that brand structure was linked to organizational structur e, as monolithic branded companies deemed to have centralized organizational structure, with key functions, i.e. 262

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications marketing and communications, were controlled at the centre. Another important e lement of CI was industry identity, via which interviewees were enabled to see more clearly t he impact of environmental and competitive forces on their CI. Nature and Meaning of CSR Generally speaking, the findings revealed an increasing importance of CSR, a very big part of It is

our organization, and this CSR drive seems to be growing substantially (Interview ee, Bank). Interviewees demonstrated different understandings of the meaning of the term CS R which included 1) working toward improved economic performance, 2) working towards pos itive outcomes for the natural environment, 3) supporting people/stakeholders, local c ommunities and social outcomes (Linnenluecke et al. 2009). (see Figure (2). Hence, CSR atte mpts were varied and ranged from improving relations with community and other stakeholder groups, and/or adopting products and processes to minimising resource use and avoiding environm ental pollution (Crane 2000; Gonzales-Benito and Gonzales-Benito 2006). Figure 2: Meaning of CSR Source: Authors Economic responsibility There was a common understanding among interviewees that organizations operated in the interests of its owners-shareholders through maximizing wealth. In this sense, i nterviewees claimed that CSR entailed economic performance, growth and profitability of orga nizations. However, there was a general consensus among interviewees that the realization o f economic responsibility alone was not sufficient for the overall responsibility of corpor ations; organizations should give something back to the in order to embrace CSR. The CSR statement in which the CEOs said that we have got a double project which is both economy, so making a profitable business, and also social, having a sustainable business and behaving responsibly towards our people, towards our environment, towards our community in which we are operating . (Interviewee, Food & Beverage company) On agreement, another interviewee stated:

I think it *CSR+ is about a set of behaviours that clarifies the values of the organization that reflect the fact we draw on our individual communities for our return on investment, our sales etc. and it is in many ways our responsibility t hat we make sure that we are making the appropriate contribution to those communities . (Interviewee, Bank) 263

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications This reflected a broader understanding of CSR which defined how business related to society and regarded as nt theory the most important departure of the concept from traditional manageme

(Gladwin et al. 1995). This represented a radical departure from earlier asserti ons that the corporation s sole responsibility was to maximize shareholders wealth and assumed t hat engaging in sweet music in relation to other weak constituencies would impose unfa ir and costly burdens upon shareholders (Friedman 1962, 1970; Levitt 1958). Social responsibility In fact, the majority of interviewees (15 out of 25) agreed that businesses shou ld assume wider responsibilities towards various stakeholder groups and the social communities i n which they operated (Carroll 1999; Dunphy et al. 2003). It *CSR+ means being responsible not only to the people within the organization b ut also to the world at large and to the community in which we work and live, and t he people that we actually sell our products to, and showing that we are doing it i n responsible ways and acting and maintain our values, ethics and morals in the organization and transferring that to the people whom we serve . (Interviewee, Tobacco company) In this respect, interviewees referred to different CSR practices towards variou s stakeholders, including internal staff/employees, customers, suppliers, as well as local commu nities within which organizations operated. In terms of corporate responsibility towards employees, eight interviewees repor ted practices such as equal opportunity rights, human rights, diversity, discrimination, fairn ess, transparency, treating people decently, etc which were all governed by codes of conduct and co rporate policies. It *CSR+ is all stakeholders;one channel of our CSR policy is about corporate governance, legal compliance and good morals and strong ethics. There is a globa l code of conducts which goes into things which we would not engage in such as chi ld labour. We acknowledge and represent fair rights to employees; we respect and value people differences in terms of diversity. So there is a lot of work around

labour responsibilities . (Interviewee, IT company) In the above point, an interviewee explained that integrity in corporate activit y was a main part of corporate governance which complied with legislation about financial and regu latory controls to prevent fraud, corruption and bribery, thus, pointing to legal and ethical re sponsibilities as constituents of CSR. Suppliers were another stakeholder group identified by some interviewees (7 out of 25) where companies had developed strong supply chains through which they had imposed rule s of conduct on their suppliers as well as on their divisions and subsidiaries (Rondi nelli and Berry 2000). An interviewee from a Tobacco company explained: For example with issues of child labour;we don t grow very much of our own tobacco, we still use about 95% from our third parties. So we had to influence o ur leaf supply chain and work in partnership with our own suppliers and the farmers below the suppliers . Environmental Responsibility Another understanding of the term CSR pertained to environmental sustainability. The findings revealed that proactive environmental management practices had become integral t o the business operations of most executives interviewed. Central to the understanding of environmental sustainability were organizational efforts to manage pollution pre vention and to 264

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications operate within the carrying capacity of ecosystems by minimizing resources used and their ecological footprint (Hart 1995; Sharma 2003). There are two sectors, environmental and social. In the environmental domain, we have a program called CARBON 20, which is a program to reduce our carbon emissions by 20% by the year 2020. There are other areas within management, we have other program which is called A HOME PLANET, which is a program to interfac e with consumers on how to best save energy through using our products, or how to save energy or water or resources . (Interviewee, Food & Drug company) Thus, corporate environmental responsibility included internally-oriented social responsibility practices which involved voluntary programs to lessen the environmental impact o f industrial plants and production methods (Rondinelli and Berry 2000) as well as the develop ment of sourcing and marketing initiatives that protect social welfare and commit to env ironmental benefits (Lindgreen and Swaen 2010). Besides, the findings revealed externally-oriented CSR programs (Rondinelli and Berry, 2000) in the form of incentives and encouragement for corporate employees and managers to collaborate with external stakeholders and local communities on environmental im provement projects. All *company name+ employees are able to spend two days a year working in the community. [Also] We have [company name] global week of caring where we encourage all employees globally to engage with their communities through projec ts that are organized by themselves or by the company . (Interviewee, Automotive company) Therefore, the findings revealed that CSR represented a continuing commitment by organizations to behave ethically, contribute to economic development, address a wider variety of environmental problems, while also improving seeking to improve the quality o f life of its employees (and their families), the local community, and society at large (Watts and Holme 1999). Although the findings yielded specific examples of how MNCs defined and e ngaged in CSR practices, they also showed that such corporations across many industries were a dopting similar types of CSR programs which encompassed economic, legal, ethical and discretiona ry responsibilities. Also, these companies tended to utilise a stakeholder perspective which consider ed

shareholders as one among multiple contributors to the firm (i.e. employees, con sumers, suppliers, local communities and others). Consequently, firms were viewed as a s ort of trustee for the interests of their various stakeholders; where managers had moral obliga tions as well as enlightened self-interest in directing corporate activities (Hay and Gray 1974). Given that so many MNCs claimed their social and environmental management practi ces as evidence of CSR, it was important to understand how did they pursue CSR in relat ion to their CI and how CSR was articulated in CI? The following section answers these questions by discussing the relationship between CSR and CI. Relationship between CI and CSR Surprisingly, most interviewees were not able to clearly articulate the relation ship between CSR and CI; however, interview analysis revealed associations between CI elements an d CSR as pointed out in interviewees responses. See Figure (3). For simplicity, the interr elationships between CI elements are not included, though they are explained in the findings sections below. The figure illustrates that CI through communications, behaviour and culture enc ompassing values, mission statement, and founder of the company influence CSR. Figure 3: Relationship between CI & CSR: 265

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Source: Authors using Nvivo 8. Culture Almost all interviewees claimed the existence of dominant cultures within their organizations and assumed that employees shared a common set of assumptions, values and belief s organization-wide. Across the whole business, mission, purpose, values and culture are the same... T he mission statement and the criteria we set for ourselves in the organization are very close to the culture itself. (Interviewee, Food & Beverage company) The idea of integrative culture was contested by the differentiation perspective in which different subcultures can exist throughout an organization, and members of each subculture can hold different attitudes towards CSR which are distinct from that of other subcu ltures (Linnenluecke et al., 2010). However, the findings revealed that overarching org anizational values and principles pertained throughout organizations which lessened the impa ct of subcultures; revealing a unitary perspective as indicated earlier in the paper. Thus, the findings illustrated that organizational culture and values to a large extent were shared among managers and employees, and subsequently, organizational culture and ident ity shaped and energized their behaviour. *CSR+ is embedded in the culture because it has been part of the company since th e first day It is something that we have done for years because that is the way the company works. (Interviewee, IT company) The way of doing things/business , a statement strongly repeated by 12 interviewees to describe the relationship between CI & CSR can be described as the behaviour tha t members of 266

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications an organisation feel should distinguish the organisation, which in turn if refle cted in the corporate culture and its relationships with different stakeholders, such as env ironment, community and customers (Hillestad et al. 2010). Furthermore, it was argued that for long established companies, corporate cultur e formally expressed ideas and communicated through mission statement becomes an odyssey in t h. organisation s history and origins (Urde 2003). This was the case in an Automotive company. where it was possible to go back to the ideas of the founder about business as a service to society, as he stated in a Supreme Court in the 1930s explaining the purpose for suspending dividends in favour of plant expansion: To do as much good as we can, everywhere, for everybody concerned, to make money and use it, give employment, and send out the car where the people can use it ... and incidentally to make money ... Business is a service not a bonanza wis 1976, italics added) (Le

These views, ideas and values of the founder appeared to be still embedded in co rporate culture and lived by employees, as reflected by an interviewee from the same Automotive company: *Founder name+ had a number of ideas and values;he was one of the first people who, a hundred years ago, identified ways to get weight out of the product, he a lso brought in the ethics and mass production about doing things in a very lean mann er, at the same time he emphasised social improvement, so he was one of the people who built worker housing, had worker education, and very much encouraged people to believe that they should improve themselves from the point of view of educati on I think it is reflected in the culture of the organization Mission statement The mission statement appeared to be an important organizational factor that was considered by most interviewees to be central in the interpretation of CSR as a legitimate issue and part of a firm s identity. CSR issues were legitimated as part of the CI on the basis of an internal economic focus that emphasized the maximization of financial performance objectives as we

ll as on a broader corporate social and environmental platform (Linnenluecke et al., 2010; Sharma, 2000; Sharma et al., 1999). the mission of the company considers making profit in a sustainable way, our people, our planet and the community around us. So CSR is the social part of the corporate mission . (Interviewee, Food & Beverage company) The inclusion of environment and society in corporate mission statements suggest ed that these stakeholder groups were salient to organizations and managers (Mitchell et al., 1997) and was an indicator of organization s priorities and actions towards CSR (Bartkus and Gla ssman 2008). Based on Wood s (1991) premise, CSR is the deliberate inclusion of public interest s into corporate decision making, and regarded as the honouring of a triple bottom line people, planet, and profit. This view was reflected by an interviewee from another compa ny who stated: We have something called principles and actions, so basically everything we do, w e try to do things in three ways, to impact performance, impact the planet and imp act people . (Interviewee, Food & Beverage company) Therefore, integrating CSR issues in the mission statements drew attention to th e social environmental responsibility as a legitimate focus of organization wide action w hich was central to CI, providing reference points within which employees framed decisions and ac tions and presenting active support, motivation and enthusiasm for key factors in CSR prog rams. Before we address any *CSR+ issue we should check if it is in line with our overa ll corporate mission which is around health for all and through nutrition, in gener al be 267

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications tackling issues around diet, health and things related to health and food or foo d waste, *it is+ all around food . (Interviewee, Food & Beverage company) However, the importance of a mission statement was rejected by three interviewee s who claimed that mission statements were somewhat symbolic and used for impression management and PR purposes echoing a point by Bartkus and Glassman (2008), yet d id not necessarily indicate the firm s actual objectives or guidelines for decision makin g (Bartkus et al. 2000). Thus, the mission statement was considered important in coordinating corporate u tilitarian and moral objectives across many interviewees, in order to align collective organiza tional thinking and behaviour which was embraced through a homogenous corporate culture with an embedded CSR initiative. Values If the mission is to function as a basis for organisational brand building, it m ust have foundation in the organisation s value base (Urde, 2003). Most interviewees asserted the impo rtance of values as foundation for corporate culture and noted that CSR was one of the pil lars of corporate values as embedded in organizational culture. This idea was reflected by a number of interviewees: It is just ingrained in our brand and always has been. CSR is part of the organization, it is found in the values, it is part of the brand values and it h as affected the brand positively. The brand identity and CI and CSR are ingrained a s one . (Interviewee, Telecommunications company) Another Interviewee claimed: Sustainability and environment are embedded in the culture One of our brand

values is around sustainability, so yes, this has been definitely given huge consideration . (Interviewee, IT company) These statements suggest that interviewees (organizational staff and employees) accepted the CSR values and had adopted the company s strategic goals and internalized them (Hi llestad et al., 2010) which represented an important prerequisite for building strong corpo rate brand identity (Schultz et al., 2005). Also, and despite some earlier denials, the findings revealed that organizationa l values had been often attributed to an organisation s founder(s) as discussed below.

The principals and founders put these five principles in place in 1947: responsib ility, efficiency, quality, mutuality, freedom. Those are consistent throughout the organization . (Interviewee, Food & Beverage company) Thus, the arrangement of an organisation s common values, supporting ideas, positi ons, habits, and norms converged to give a corporate culture its character. A company s values demonstrated the company s commitment towards its stakeholders and the environment in which it operates in all aspects of its business ventures as well as the true es sence of the company that manifested itself in company behaviour and performance (Kiriakidou and Millward 2000; Melewar and Wooldridge 2001). Founder of the company In the view of 10 interviewees, the founder played a leadership role and impacte d organizational culture, identity, behaviour and commitment to dedicated social areas, even seve ral years after their retirement or demise. The following statements illustrate this: I think it is absolutely incredibly important and as I said, what was important t o our founders is what is relevant today . (Interviewee, Food & Drug company) 268

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications In line with Schein (1983) and Quick (1992), the founder s impact was achieved thr ough the recognition of CSR as a fundamental core value in the company: I think that he helped shape the company because he recognized that we have to be sustainable and he had a phrase- we have to be affordable financially and affordab le socially and environmentally. I think he was one of the first executives in the car industry to address green issues. So in that way he exercised leadership on thes e issues related to social and environmental responsibility . (Interviewee, Automoti ve company) In this example, the founder of the company, through his value-based leadership and role as a cultural architect (Hillestad et al. 2010), influenced and formed a culture emphas izing social responsibility in general, and environmental awareness in particular, by taking a leading position in the development of environmentally friendly cars in the automotive industry, (aside, of course the term environmentally friendly has to be seen in what was acceptable at that ti me). In this respect, Child (1987) argued that company traditions frequently had thei r origins in the ideology of a founder who set out both a strategic perspective on the task of th e organization and a philosophy on the form of labour process to accomplish it 971), more (Child 1987, p. 1

often, a departed, charismatic leader (Mintzberg and Waters 1985). This was the case for some companies (6 out of 15), where corporate culture was based on rich CSR and moral values and beliefs set by the founders and shared by organizational members which formed an ideology that distinguished the organization from others (Mintzberg 1989; Stuart1999a). I think that the founder s values are very much still embedded in the company, we are not a premium volume manufacture , but we still try to make vehicles that gi ve people something they previously thought they could not afford. I think it is re flected in the culture of the organization (Interviewee, Automotive company). Communications There was a strong consensus among all interviewees that controlled communicatio

ns directed towards external and internal stakeholders were important elements of CI that im pacted CSR. In respect to external communications, many interviewee comments resembled that of the quotation below: we have innovation, expertise and sustainability, our brand values, and certainly in terms of anything we are trying to do, we try to make sure that one, two or if n ot three of those messages are coming out . (Interviewee, IT company) Interestingly, interviewees used phrases, e.g. Walk the talk and Actions speak louder than words. to describe the expectation that behaviour should match rhetoric since it i s generally acknowledged that firms should develop worthwhile advertising, publish accurate annual financial statements and reports and so forth. Indeed, misrepresentation nowaday s if disclosed is met with harsh criticism, extensive publicity, and sometimes legal penalties (Bartkus and Glassman 2008). In terms of internal communications, interviewees pointed to the significance of communication flow among people within the organization in order to disseminate information ab out CSR values, purpose and direction, which interviewees thought a prerequisite for a p ositive internal corporate image, since employees were considered ambassadors of the company, as explained below. It *internal communications+, might be one of the first battles that you have wit hin an organization as you need to get people on board in terms of believing what th e organization is about and believing what the objectives are all about, where it is headed, and how it is going to get there. (Interviewee IT company) 269

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications All companies interviewed cited various channels and instruments for conveying C SR information; integrating push channels (i.e. newsletters, CSR reports, house mag azine, emails) with pull and interactive ones that give employees the opportunity to express th emselves. We have lot of different ways to communicate with our people, whether through the intranet, internal magazines, internal face to face leadership meetings, we have regular employee forums, open discussion. (Interviewee, Food & Drug Company) Also, it was clear that technology had engaged employees in active communication behaviour, since communications were based on content generated by employees, which contrib uted to collaborative environment and allegiance between the company and its employees. Stories on the web site are written and employees can comment on and blog around. It encourages and opens use of communications across the company (Interviewee, Automotive company). Behaviour All interviewees agreed on the importance of behaviour as an element which shape s organisational identity. Interviewees stressed the importance of CSR (towards em ployees, consumers, communities in which organizations operate in, the world at large) an d considered it a facet of corporate behaviour. CSR, through corporate behaviour and operations, was believed to reinforce CI and reflect the personality of the brand/company organization. The CSR activity represents really the personality of the brand, because the thin gs that we do in our CSR world underpins and supports the portrayal of the brand (Interviewee, Food & Drug Company) Brown and Dacin (1997) argued that CSR associations were important for influenci ng a consumer's opinion of a company and thus may impact product evaluations. Also, the findings revealed that companies were actively participating in develo ping new ways of exploiting existing energy sources and exploring new sources of energy.. An inte rviewee from Healthcare company explained how health & safety, as organizational values, beca me a common thread that run throughout the organization in every day operations: Health and safety, as we run and plan our factories, are priority. Those plants r un as efficiently as possible and we aim to reduce waste. Similarly, if we look at hea lth care

economics, can we make products that both benefit us and benefit health care systems? That is obviously part of our deep focus . In addition, there was consensus among all interviewees on the importance of emp loyees behaviour in conveying CSR-CI. They recognized employees as ambassadors represen ting an innterface between the company and external stakeholders, which potentially impa cted upon consumers' perceptions of the organisation. Also, interviewees pointed to the im portance of employees understanding and communicating corporate values and goals in their da ily behaviour. Employees beliefs, norms and values derived from organisational cultur e influenced their actions and the informal messages that they communicated, thus, highlighti ng the relationship between behaviour and culture which encompassed values as a vital s ub-element. In this sense, employees as did the behaviour was argued to be a powerful communication tool

more formal corporate communications and visual identities. I think it is important that your employees not only work for organizations but a lso live the value set of the organization and express it. I do think there has to b e coherence about what the company says and what it does, and what employees do . (Interviewee, Automotive company) In this respect, senior management could act as leaders through defining corpora te values (de Chernatony and Harris 2001) and communicating through words and deeds the corpor ate values, goals and vision, which in turn may inspire employees and influence atti tudes and 270

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications behaviour. Thus, management could create an environment in which employees ident ify with their organizations and exemplify the values through their behaviour. Also, top management leadership is open to external influence via its concern to manage organizationa l image (Hatch and Schultz 1997). This was reflected in findings which revealed the importance of top management b ehaviour through their role in enacting the strategic core of an organization and emphasi zing CSR activities that were crucial to company survival and growth. Dutton and Dukerich (1991) and Sharma et al. (1999) argued that by devoting more time and attention to certain issues, managers show the strategic importance of these issues to corporate strategy and this influences how members interpret and respond to issues. Thus, the CEO or founder develops a shared vision of the company within their wo rkforce (de Chematony and Harris 2000) and this may permeate and unite corporate members and foster a sense of identity and commitment to corporate environmental goals and aspiration s (Dodge 1997). These, consequently, may lead to a highly integrated CSR-oriented organiz ational culture where CSR values are widely shared and held by all members of the organization ( Crane 1995). This in turn aids in communicating organizational identity to the various consti tuencies of the external environment who form organizational images, at least partly in response to identitybased communications, as argued by Hatch and Schulz (1997). Discussion In consonance with the literature, the empirical findings reflected CI as a mult idisciplinary concept with visual identity, communications, behaviour, culture (values and mis sion statement) and industry identity as key elements, while identifying mixed views relating to country of origin and corporate structure. Moreover, subcultures were deemed to be insignificant i n shaping CI which contradicts earlier statements by Melewar and Karaosmanoglu (2006). The fi ndings could serve as a foundation for developing operational measures for each element of CI leading to subsequent empirical examination. The findings evidenced that CI and CSR were vitally interconnected. CSR initiati ves were integrated into what organizations do i.e. buying, selling, hiring, firing etc) and manifested through CI mix elements including corporate behaviour and culture, values, histo ry, founder of the organization, mission statement, and communications. CSR issues were integrated in mission statements which drew attention to social

and environmental responsibility as a legitimate focus of organization-wide actions which was central to CI; providing guiding reference points within which employees framed decisions and actions and presenting active support, motivation and enthusiasm for CSR initiat ives. Further, the mission had solid foundations in organisational values as interviewees asser ted that CSR was one of the pillars of organizational values that to a large extent were shared a mong managers and employees forming a dominant culture with CSR embedded values that helped sh ape and energize employees behaviour in the work context. Also, CSR was embraced through corporate communications which reflected the inherent values of organizations encompassing sustainability and social responsibility that underpinned corporate and brand co mmunications. Thus, in line with Ashman and Winstanley (2007); Atakan and Eker (2007); Corneli us et al. (2007); Fukukawa et al. (2007); and Verbos et al. (2007), this paper argues that CSR is an integral part of CI. This relies upon usage of an eclectic approach that emphasises the i mportance of organizational context and internal factors i.e. values, founder of the organiza tion as well as issue legitimation (Sharma et al., 1999; Sharma 2000) through mission statements (Linnenluecke et al., 2010) which form the foundation for corporate culture with embedded CSR principles and actions, that in turn is manifest via behaviour and communications. 271

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications In this paper, the discussion about CI and CSR is linked to issues addressed by authors in many interrelated domains. For example CI (Olins 1989; van Riel and Balmer 1997), bra nd and corporate brand management (Balmer 1995; Keller 1998, 2000; Urde 2003), corporat e communications and reputation management (van Riel 1995; Fombrun 1996), organiza tional identification, expressive organisation and organizational theory (Hatch and Sch ultz 1997, 2001; Albert et al. 2000; Gioia et al. 2000; Knox et al. 2000) and CSR (Carroll 1999; Wood 1991). These foundational domains assist in establishing a theoretical basis that cohesively fuses the disciplines of CI and CSR. Implications The key implication of this paper is that it potentially charts new directionali ties in both theory and practice and extends the current discourse on CSR and CI studies. For practi tioners, this could enable organisations to engage more actively in CSR programmes to ensure t hat not only do they comply with regulations but also that their CI is one favourable to stak eholders and the contextual environs (Cornelius et al., 2007; Kitchen and Schultz, 2001). In order for CSR to be more than mere rhetoric, CSR should be institutionalized and actively integrated into the daily routines of the organization through collectively alig ning organizational thinking, behaviour, and corporate design in a homogenous corporate culture (Bal mer and Gray 2003; Balmer and Greyser 2006), in order for the organization to speak with one voice and create a unified impression of what the organization is and what it stands for ( Lauring and Thomsen 2009). Also, with the help of mission statements, companies can signal t he quality of products and legitimise their attempts to serve local communities through an eth ically-driven view of CSR, as another reason for their [continued[ existence (Atakan and Eker 2007). In this context, top managers and founders provide leadership through defining c orporate values which are shared by other managers and employees within various departments of a company. Thus, management could create an environment in which employees identify with th eir organizations and live the values through behaviour (Atakan and Eker 2007). Also , top management leadership is opened to external influence via its concern to manage organizational image (Hatch and Schulz 1997). This embraces the importance of CI management -th rough the mix of both internal and external elements -that together influence the way in w hich an

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Kiriakidou, O. and L. Millward. 2000. Corporate identity external reality or int ernal fit?. Corporate Communications An International Journal. 51: 49-58. Kitchen, P.J. and D.E. Schultz. 2001. Raising the Corporate Umbrella: Corporate Communications in the 21st Century, Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan. Kotler, P. and N. Lee. 2005. Corporate Social Responsibility Doing the Most Good for Your Company and Your Cause, NJ Wiley: Hoboken. Knox, S., S. Maklan, and K.E. Thompson. 2000. Building the unique organizational value proposition. In The Expressive Organization, Schultz, M., M.J. Hatch, and M.H. Larsen, 138-153. Oxfo rd: Oxford University Press. Levitt T. 1958. The dangers of social responsibility. Harvard Business Review 36 : 41 50. Lauring, J. and C. Thomsen. 2009. Collective ideals and practices in sustainable development managing corporate identity. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management 16: 38-47 . Linnenluecke, M. S. Russell, and A. Griffiths. (2009). Subcultures and sustainab ility practices: the impact on understanding corporate sustainability. Business Strategy and the Environment 18 : 432 452. Linnenluecke, M., S. Russell, and S. Griffiths. 2010. Subcultures and Sustainabi lity practices: the Impact on Understanding Corporate Sustainability. Business Strategy and the Environment 18 : 432 452. Maignan, I. and O.C. Ferrell. 2001. Antecedents and benefits of corporate citize nship An investigation of French businesses. Journal of Business Research 51: 37. Maon, F., A. Lindgreen, and V. Swaen. (2010). Organizational Stages and Cultural Phases: A Critical Review and a Consolidative Model of Corporate Social Responsibility Development. Internationa l Journal of Management Reviews 12: 20 38. Maxwell, J. 2005. Qualitative Research Design An Interactive Approach, London: S age. Melewar, T.C. 2003. Determinants of the corporate identity construct a review of literature. Journal Marketing Communications 93: 195-220. Melewar, T.C. and E. Jenkins. 2002. Defining the corporate identity construct. C orporate Reputation Review 51: 76 90. Melewar, T.C. and E. Karaosmanoglu. 2006. Seven dimensions of corporate identity a categorization from the practitioners. European Journal of Marketing 407: 846-869. Melewar, T.C., E. Karaosmanoglu, and D. Paterson. 2005. Corporate identity conce pt, components and contribution. Journal of General Management 311: 59-81. Melewar, T.C. and A. Wooldridge. 2001. The dynamics of corporate identity. Journ al of Communication Management: An International Journal 5: 327-40.

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications van Riel, M. 1997. Research in corporate communication: an overview of an emergi ng field. Management Communication Quarterly. 11: 288-309. van Riel, C.B.M. 1995. Principles of Corporate Communications. London: PrenticeHall. van Riel, M. and J. Balmer. 1997. Corporate identity: the concept, its measureme nt and management. European Journal of Marketing 3: 340-355. Verbos, A., J. Gerard, P. Forshey, H. Charles, and J. Miller. 2007. The Positive Ethical Organization: Enacting a Living Code of Ethics and Ethical Organizational Identity. Journal of Business Ethics 7 6: 17-33. Wood, D. 1991. Corporate social performance revisited. The Academy of Management Review 16: 691-718. Zairi, M. 2000. Social Responsibility and the Impact on Society. TQM Magazine 12 : 172 178. 275

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Developing a framework for a successful symbiosis of corporate social responsibility, internal marketing and employee involvement procedures deriving from labour law Ioanna Papasolomou University of Nicosia, School of Business, Marketing Department, Cyprus Papasolomou.i@unic.ac.cy Haris Kountouros Directorate for Relations with National Parliaments, Unit for Legislative Dialog ue, European Parliament, Belgium haris.kountouros@europarl.europa.eu Abstract This paper discusses the potential for a closer link between corporate social re sponsibility, internal marketing and measures deriving from traditional labour law perspective s, taking as an example two EU Directives providing for employee involvement. We argue that ther e is considerable scope for the development of a symbiotic framework leading to great er prospects for durable business competitiveness and profitability in conditions of partners hip, trust and cooperation with employees. The paper is theoretical in nature and is a first at tempt to elaborate on the main principles and key issues regarding each concept and to se t the foundations for a normative framework that links the three constructs and which can be empirically explored in the future. Due to the theoretical nature of the paper t here are no sections on research methodology, empirical evidence or assessment of practical implications. Our aim has been to examine the three concepts with a fresh zed by perspective characteri

inter-connectivity in order to stimulate reflection and discussion. The premise adopted in this paper is that organizations which give due regard to the well-being of their key stakeholder groups, in particular of their employees, and accomplis h the formation of partnership and cooperation in the workplace have a greater potential to achi eve sustainable growth, lasting profitability and a better degree of competitiveness, than those which solely

regard their shareholders ons can retain

concerns. This is so, not least because such organizati

and recruit the best personnel and to promote loyalty, high job satisfaction and motivation which are key to productivity and -significantly -to avoiding costly industrial conflict and stoppages in production. We regard initiatives stemming from marketing and measu res and processes founded in labour law as having an important and complementary role to play in this regard. A fundamental requirement for a successful symbiotic framework is that e mployer-led initiatives do not undermine labour law derived structures, but rather complemen t and enhance their role. Key Words: Corporate Social Responsibility, Internal Marketing, Employee Involve ment, Procedures for Informing and Consulting Employees, Partnership and Cooperation, Labour Law 276

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Introduction In a context of a constant transformation of the mode of production, characteris ed by strong competitive pressures, uncertainty and economic fluctuations the viability and c ompetitiveness of organizations depend crucially on the ability of organizations to differentia te themselves from their competitors and to build strong reputation attracting a wider consumer bas e and gaining social acceptance. In this respect Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has a p articularly important role to play. CSR can be understood as an organizational tool aimed at forming partnerships with a range of stakeholders -especially the ones that are linked w ith the enterprise, such as employees, customers, shareholders, the local community, gov ernment and society at large. It is a managerial initiative which is manifested in such acti vities as the creation of jobs for the local community, cause related marketing, respect for consumers ights, and the donation of funds to special interest and disadvantaged social groups. Initiativ es which are examples of integral elements of corporate citizenship aim at strengthening the organization's reputation, building customer loyalty and trust, and ultimately leading to great er wealth for the enterprise itself. In parallel to CSR, more and more businesses are embracing the principles of int ernal marketing (IM) in an effort to win the hearts provide of their employees in order to inspire them to r

maximum satisfaction to external customers. The focus of IM initiatives is to in stil customer and service orientation within the organization in order to achieve competitive diff erentiation and profitability. IM has gained wide acceptance and has been adopted by numerous se rvice and manufacturing organizations. Arguably, it can be used as a strategy to implement CSR towards the workforce. Both CSR and IM are used by managers in order to build corporate identity and influence the perceptions of key stakeholder groups in order to achieve maximum benefits for the organization. At the same time, it is evident that successful adaptation to changing economic conditions depends decisively on the involvement of the workforce. What is more, we must no t lose sight of the social cost that measures adopted in pursuit of greater profitability can have and of the need to face the challenges posed by economic globalization in a manner which re

spects the dignity and well being of the working population. In this respect, measures deri ving from labour law are particularly important, these being founded on the cardinal premise that a worker is not a commodity but first and foremost a human being whose needs and aspirations mus t be respected and addressed. Within this context procedures providing for employee i nvolvement stand out as a very useful means by which a culture of partnership and cooperati on can be fostered aiming at mutually acceptable solutions to businesses need to adapt and to remain competitive and profitable whilst taking into account of the needs of the employ ees. The premise adopted in this paper is that organizations which give due regard to the well-being of their key stakeholder groups, in particular of their employees, and accomplis h the formation of partnership and cooperation in the workplace have a greater potential to achi eve sustainable growth, lasting profitability and a better degree of competitiveness, than those which solely regard their shareholders concerns. This is so not least because such organizatio ns can retain and recruit the best personnel and to promote loyalty, high job satisfaction and motivation which are key to productivity and -significantly -to avoiding costly industrial conflict and stoppages in production. With this in mind we argue that initiatives arising fro m marketing perspectives and measures deriving from labour law can be developed in a mutuall y beneficial and harmonious framework. As regards the latter we focus in particular on two Di rectives existing in the European Union providing for procedures of employee involvement at the domestic and transnational levels. 277

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Internal Marketing Internal Marketing (IM) has been studied and debated rigorously during the past twenty years or so in an effort to understand its nature, role and complexities. The term emerge d from the services marketing literature in the 1980s as a concept aimed at developing cust omer-conscious employees and turning service quality into an organisation's imperative.1 Yet it is worth noting that the concept of rketing internal customers , which lies at the heart of the internal ma

concept, appeared in the total quality management literature as early as the 195 0s.1 What has happened over the past thirty years or so is that a rich mixture of ideas, theor ies, and techniques have been drawn together under the umbrella of IM. In particular, IM has been viewed as a concept which describes a shift in emphas is in viewing employees as partners to an organisation's efforts to achieving organisational s uccess rather than as a cost. Though there is no universally accepted definition of what the c oncept of internal marketing means,1 it may be said that it is founded on the assumption tha t by considering employees as the organisation's most valuable asset and treating the m as internal customers, the organisation can gain a competitive advantage and achieve its obj ectives.1 Internal marketing therefore evolves from the notion that employees represent an internal market within an organisation. In turn, this internal market needs to be informe d, educated, developed and motivated in order to achieve organisational goals. Furthermore, b y treating both employees and customers with the same total dedication to satisfy their needs, t he organisation can inspire employees to do extra work beyond the call of duty and help build an d sustain a great organisation. Effective marketing towards this (internal) market can contr ibute significantly towards achieving success in the external market.1 What is important in the success of IM in an organisational context is the imple mentation approach.1 Approaches to this end borrow to a large extent from the human resour ces management field, though the relationship between the two concepts has been the focus of much discussion and occasional criticism.1 For example, Woodruffe suggests that the main elements of Internal Marketing programmes include training and personnel develop ment, effective internal communications and integration schemes, and motivational prog rammes aimed at increasing knowledge and understanding of the marketing orientation wit

hin a firm.1 Today corporations are faced with the challenge of developing a competitive adva ntage within a globalized economic context characterized by uncertainty, changing consumer tast es and preferences and heightened competition. Service quality can be a tool for gainin g differentiation and a competitive advantage. The actions and behaviour of service personnel dire ctly influence the perceptions of customers regarding the service offering. In the financial se rvices sector in particular, due to the intangibility and complexity of their nature, the role of the workforce becomes an integral part of the service which is delivered. Investing in the wor kforce with the intention of employing it as a marketing and differentiation strategy has been w idely noted in literature.1 Kiriakidou and Millward for instance, argue that focusing on employ ee behaviour can be used as a means for exhibiting to external stakeholders how the organisat ion thinks, feels, and behaves .1 The ability of organisations to develop and gain a competitive advantage through an emphasis on service quality and employee behaviour is substantively influenced by their o rganisational culture. Bechtold suggests, for example, that organisational culture has various implications in terms of customer focus, continuous learning, and service quality.1 In each of t heir own studies Normann, Segal-Horn and Siehl have developed conceptual models placing corporate culture at the centre of service delivery process and have supported the view that this had a major impact on the effectiveness of an organisation s service delivery activities.1 A number o f authors also associate enhanced organisational performance with a strong organisational cultu re and improved employee productivity.1 278

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Similarly, corporate culture encompasses a company s shared values, beliefs and be haviour. Ludlow suggests that in the services industry which is characterised by a lack o f standardisation, differentiation must stem from the culture of the organisation.1 Kappelman and R ichards also suggest that over the past decade there has been a multitude of change programme s aimed at transforming organisational processes to enhance productivity, effectiveness, an d competitiveness.1 The literature review on IM has showed that it can be used as a change mechanism used to persuade individuals to embark on the different programmes tha t an organisation aims to pursue. Programmes such as for example corporate social res ponsibility, employee voluntarism and cause related marketing. Corporate Social Responsibility CSR is another managerial initiative that has been embraced and practiced especi ally by the European business sector, since it is a strategy that can be used to achieve dif ferentiation and build corporate identity. Corporate identity focuses primarily on what an organi sation is, its guiding philosophy, business scope, history, range and type of products and serv ices offered by it and its communication with various stakeholders, including its customer base. 1 Kotler and Lee place CSR in a marketing context.1 CSR can therefore be viewed as an element use d alongside IM for creating and building corporate identity. Similar to the concept of internal marketing ed definition there is as yet no universally accept

for it.1 In a non-legislative resolution adopted by the plenary on 25 November 2 010 the European Parliament defines corporate social responsibility (CSR) as the concept whereby companies voluntarily incorporate social and environmental concerns into their b usiness strategy for the overall wellbeing of stakeholders by actively engaging with pub lic policy as an important aspect of value-driven social change .1 Idowu and Papasolomou define CSR as a concept which refers to the corporate behaviour that is over and above legal req uirements and is voluntarily adopted to achieve sustainable development .1 Empirical studies highlight the depiction of good citizenship as a primary immedia te objective of CSR. This is pursued through practices which demonstrate that the organisatio n recognises its duties and responsibilities towards its various stakeholder groups, such as its shareholders,

employees and society as a whole. In its reporting guidelines, rship

CSR Europe , a membe

organisation of large companies across Europe, looks at the following areas: wor kplace (employees), marketplace (customers, suppliers), environment, community, ethics and human rights. Especially in more recent years consumer activism and government vigilan ce have increased in an attempt to monitor the impact of business on society. The ongoin g economic crisis has exacerbated demands for greater regulation and for scrutiny of busine ss practices, as well as for greater transparency and accountability. In this respect the signifi cantly changed parameters due to rapid advancements in the information and communication techno logies, including the development of social networks enabling the rapid dissemination of information at a global level cannot be overemphasised. The development of codes of conduct and greater accountability towards consumers, employees, shareholders and society in many co rporations can be seen as a response to these demands. The trend towards corporate citizenship is growing since by aligning corporate a nd community values businesses are attempting to gain the status of citizen brands. For examp le, NatWest Bank has launched NatWest Bank Community Bond to promote and sustain relationshi ps with its customers and partners in the charity sector. Johnsons and Johnsons, a highly re spected company in the US and more globally, seeks to secure a strong position in terms of its image towards social responsibility through Credo a document which sets out a code of co nduct for the corporation. Shell has sought to address the need to build social, including employee welfare and ethical behaviour into their business practices as a response to two major incidents 279

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications with potentially devastating impact on its image (the disposal of the Brent Spar oil ring in the North Sea and the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa -a human-rights activist -in Nigeri a in a region in which Shell had large-scale operations). The corporation has therefore re-writte n its business principles and devised a mechanism to measure its implementation. Beyond its immediate objectives, CSR also focuses on enhancing the reputation of businesses and securing greater employee loyalty and retention. In particular, an organizat ion s position in the marketplace depends on its acting in a socially responsible manner and also on how ethical the public perceives it to be. The way in which organizations act and the way th ey are perceived by their target audience and the general public is a fundamental factor in manag ing their reputation. Lantos traces the development of CSR practices in marketing motives, arguing that the promotion of CSR practices can lead to significant benefits such as enhanced reputation, market value, supportive communities, increased customer loyalty, improved quali ty and productivity and greater employee loyalty and retention.1 Employee Involvement Employee involvement aims to ensure that all workers are informed about and invol ved in the development of their companies and their working life .1 The concept can be approa ched in a two-fold manner. First as the realisation of the fundamental right of workers to be informed and consulted about the affairs of their workplace. In the European Union this right is recognised by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights which, after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, has assumed legal enforceability.1 Employee involvement may also be approached in terms of a procedure of informing and consulting employees. As such it forms a means for promoting dialogue between ma nagement and labour in pursuit of solutions which seek to accommodate employers interest f or profitability with workers need for secure, good quality employment. The potentia l benefits of such procedures are substantial. Effective procedures of employee involvement ar e proven to foster partnership and cooperation between employers and workers, with a greater potential for productivity and competitiveness gains, a stronger sense of belonging on behalf of employees and higher levels of staff retention and motivation.1

In the European Union procedures of employee involvement are promoted through va rious EU Directives. Some are targeted to specific events, in particular to cases involvi ng transfers of undertakings and collective redundancies.1 In more recent years, legal measures have been adopted which provide for the development of permanent procedures of information and consultation in the domestic and transnational contexts. These procedures aim at a more stable, general framework of employee involvement and encourage the development of a cul ture of partnership and cooperation between organizations and employees representatives. Significant amongst the latter type of measures is the Directive establishing a general system of information and consultation across the EU, which applies to undertakings employ ing at least 50 employees in any one Member State, or establishments employing at least 20 emplo yees in any Member State.1 The choice between these alternatives is left to the Member State s.1 The Preamble to the Dir/IC links the adoption of the measure to the objective of prom oting change compatible with preserving the priority objective of employment and the need for timely information and consultation which is highlighted as a prerequisite for the succe ss of the restructuring and adaptation of undertakings to the new conditions created by gl obalisation of the economy, particularly through the development of new forms of organisation o f work".1 The Directive provides that information and consultation should cover a range of issues, including the situation, structure and probable development of employment within the undertaking or establishment and any anticipatory measures envisaged, in particu lar where 280

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications there is a threat to employment; and decisions likely to lead to substantial cha nges in work organisation or in contractual relations.1 Importantly, Article 1(3) of the Dire ctive provides that: when defining and implementing practical arrangements for information and consul tation, the employer and the employees representatives shall work in a spirit of cooperat ion and with due regard for their reciprocal rights and obligations, taking into account the interests both of the undertaking or establishment and of the employees.1 The Directive also allows Member States to entrust management and employees representatives with defining through negotiated agreements practical arrangemen ts for informing and consulting employees which may be different to those prescribed by the Directive, so long as the principles laid out in Article 4, in particular those of effectiveness, cooperation and reciprocity, are respected.1 In turn, the European Works Councils Directive, which was adopted in 1994 and am ended in 2009, applies to Community-scale undertakings and Community-scale groups of unde rtakings which employ at least 1000 people in the EU and have at least two establishments in at least two Member States, each of which must employ at least 150 employees.1 It provides fo r a transnational forum of information and consultation, to be created without preju dice to existing domestic procedures of representation. Upon a request by employees representativ es or management, provided the thresholds are met, a Special Negotiating Body must be set up which is entrusted with beginning negotiations with management for the establishment o f a European Works Council. Parties have three years to conclude a written agreement determin ing the scope, composition, functions, venue, frequency of meetings, financial and material res ources and term of office of the EWC.1 If no agreement is reached, a compulsory procedure is imp osed on the basis of the Annex to the Directive which lays out a more detailed list of arran gements and issues to be covered. A specific provision of the Directive enabled management a nd labour to conclude agreements for procedures on information and consultation in the years leading to the implementation of the Directive which remain outside the scope of the measure.1 As a matter of fact, two thirds of all procedures at the EU level have been established on this basis. Like the Dir/IC, the EWC places particular emphasis on the principles of partner

ship and cooperation, indicating the wish of the EU legislator to encourage a cooperative approach to industrial relations. This is so not least since the advantages which flow from this in terms of productivity, efficiency, quality of products and worker motivation are consider able.1 Concentrating on the relation between the introduction of flexibility and partne rship in the workplace, an ILO study led by Ozaki notes that: The introduction of flexibility can be smoothly implemented only if workers are associated with the process, and their views are duly taken into account in selecting the f orms of flexibility to be introduced and determining the ways in which the should be int roduced. The critical element for the success of such association is the quality of the relat ionship between the employers and employees. Mutual trust and loyalty, as well as the intensity of consultation between the two parties define the relationship.1 281

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Developing a framework for a successful symbiosis We take the view that there is a considerable scope for a successful symbiosis b etween IM, CSR and procedures for employee involvement stemming from labour law. In particular, the desire for cooperation and the avoidance of costly industrial conflicts is common to al l three concepts. Other relevant common objectives include the improvement of productivity, the su ccessful adaptation of organizations and the enhancing of employee motivation and staff m orale. We propose that IM and CSR can be used as procedures that can encourage and foster employee involvement. Both initiatives encompass the necessary tools and techniques that motivate and engage employees in the development of their employing organisations and their w orking lives. On the one hand, IM is founded on the notions of viewing and treating employees as internal customers , which enables employers to recognise and understand employees needs for example for recognition, empowerment and career progression. In addition, IM use s the 4Ps marketing mix framework to get the desired response from the internal market. Sp ecifically, the product element refers to training and education programmes, internal surveys, and suggestion schemes; the price element is the psychological cost of adopting and implementing new practices which is managed through the use of internal communication programmes that create awareness as to why the new practices may be necessary and help overcome employe e resistance to accepting change; the promotion element refers to internal communica tion, and place to for example meetings and conferences. A mutually reinforcing approach wou ld see practices stemming from marketing perspectives as complementary and reinforcing to procedures set up on the basis of labour law (such as those aiming at employee i nvolvement). In turn, CSR is a process that focuses on the creation of stakeholder engagement that creates the necessary conditions for viewing stakeholders such as employees not as obstacles to business progress but as valuable partners in achieving business success. CSR elements su ch as collaboration, dialogue, understanding/negotiation, ethical behaviour, codes of contact, accountability and ethical values can be developed within procedures of employee involvement at both national and supranational levels. CSR can help to introduce on the agen da subjects

which do not necessarily come under the scope of information and consultation pr ocedures which are set up by the EU Directives. In a similar vein, subjects such as the q uality of work, equality and non-discrimination, provision of flexitime and promotion of career prospects form issues in which IM and CSR have a potentially useful role to play. Moreover, CSR initiatives regarding education and training can be adapted and extended specifically to emp loyee involvement procedures, targeting employees representatives as to enable them to discharge their responsibilities more effectively and in so doing improving the efficiency of the procedures. Best practices in these areas can be developed, exchanged and publicised. In thi s manner a virtuous cycle leading to a qualitative enhancement of the workforce and of the working performance, whilst improving the status of the organization and its positioning in the market can be created. At the same time labour law measures, such as those providing for information an d consultation procedures, can address some of the weaknesses of employer-inspired initiatives, such as those associated with CSR, since their non-binding form makes them vulnerable to econo mic vicissitudes and can raise concerns as to their objectivity, consistency and tra nsparency. In this respect it may be noted that the credibility of CSR initiatives can be enhanced by incorporating internationally accepted standards and principles and by developing independent procedures for their monitoring. To this end, permanent procedures of employee involvement can have a practical role as forums for the evaluation of the efficacy of CSR and the excha nge of ideas for further development of CSR initiatives. In the wider global context CSR and IM initiatives can encourage best practices and a culture of partnership in countries which lack adequate labour standards and in which the p rovisions of EU 282

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Directives do not apply. This issue is especially important for developing and l ess developed economies in light also of the fact that the European Union in trade negotiation s with third countries has shifted to the use of soft instruments for promoting minimum stand ards for its trading partners and fostering progress in the labour and social fields.1 Standa rds which may be developed through CSR and IM initiatives can form the basis for the subsequent d evelopment of a more systemic framework of employee involvement in a more regulated manner whe n political and economic conditions are ripe. In this context the operationalizati on of the potential synergy between the three constructs in question is focused on preparing the gro und for the establishment of employee involvement procedures when the conditions for their f ormation have not matured yet. It is, however, fundamental that IM and CSR initiatives do not supplant or repla ce labour standards, including those deriving from collective agreements, or the role of r egulated procedures of employee involvement. Similarly, information and consultation proc edures should not be subjugated to employer-driven objectives, as this undermines the aim of c onstructing a culture of real partnership and cooperation. In a study of the automobile indust ry Hanck has observed that in many cases management seeks to be constructing the EWC as a mean s of marshalling support for restructuring plans by aggressively promoting discussion of strategic management issues and by presenting painful decisions as the logical outcome of the data presented at the EWC meetings .1 The issue is also highlighted in a report on the external dimension of EU social policy, labour standards and CSR which is currently being debated in the European Parliament an d which supports further development of CSR in a manner which is targeted and which can complement labour regulation and standards rather than replacing them.1 In particular, the Explanatory Statement to the draft Resolution notes that: If a company is to be publicly responsible, it must apply high standards inwardl y, only then outwardly with [external] stakeholders. [This] means: to respect and promote dec ent employment relations, encourage employee participation through consultation and information and through collective bargaining, develop their vocational skills a nd lifelong learning, comply with work safety standards, promote equality of men and women, create a

proper environment for the social partners to anticipate and manage changes that have taken place in the labour market, including restructuring, improve the quality o f work, integrate and protect vulnerable groups of workers, such as young, elderly, disa bled and migrant [workers].1 Ultimately, partnership and cooperation can only be meaningful if the conflict o f interest which lies at the heart of the employment relationship is acknowledged.1 As Collins ap tly observes, far from denying that there is a conflict of interest between employers and employee s, the notion of partnership in fact presupposes that conflicts of interest lie at the heart o f productive organizations .1 Recognising the existence of a conflict of interest does not mean that win-win situations cannot be devised. Employers and workers have a shared interest in ma king their organizations competitive, viable and profitable. The notion of partnership ther efore should be understood as the commitment to developing measures and mechanisms designed to o vercome problems, to arrive at mutual compromises and to avoid industrial conflict and t he related stoppage of the productive process. 1 We are confident that IM and CSR initiativ es can be deployed without undermining the traditional role of labour law and procedures s temming from it. It is paramount though that both IM and CSR are carefully planned, coordinat ed, managed and evaluated to have the desired outcome. A future empirical study can explore how the European business sector integrates IM and CSR elements as the ones indicated ab ove in order to create and enhance employee involvement. Furthermore, a study into the interr elationship of the three concepts in practice may evaluate the need for a certain degree of rea ppraisal and possible adaptation of the methods used by IM or the subjects targeted by CSR bu t also of the 283

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications way in which employee involvement procedures are deployed in order to align bett er the three constructs. Conclusion Admittedly, IM and CSR initiatives on the one hand and measures deriving from la bour law on the other are founded on different theoretical perspectives. The ensuing dichoto my often makes business managers unwilling to recognise the value of labour regulation or labou r standards, while for the majority of labour law academics and trade unionists, initiatives stemming from IM and CSR are seen as heresy and as undermining the case for binding labour standa rds. We believe however that acknowledging this divergence should not prevent us from exploring the case for the development of a conceptual framework in which the three constr ucts coexist in a manner which can maximise positive results both for corporations and their emp loyees. Such a framework can subsequently be empirically tested and potentially operationalized . In doing so, we have taken as an example of labour law measures two EU Directives providing f or procedures of employee involvement. We have sought to elaborate on the various notions, hig hlight some of the commonalities in the subjects treated by IM, CSR and these labour law mea sures and point to some fields in which complementarities can develop. Ultimately all three concepts have a strong common link in striving to foster co nditions of proper organisational behaviour, viability, competitiveness and to avoid industrial con flict. From a conceptual point of view at least we believe that the potential for complementar ity and mutually beneficial coexistence is well demonstrated. At the same time in consid ering further development of such a model it is paramount that structures stemming from labour law are not undermined and that labour standards are recognized as factors which can enhance productivity, growth and competitiveness. We also recognize that this symbiosis may prove more difficult when applied to other aspects of labour law, but again we would l ike to emphasise that apparent contradictions and differences should not foreclose the argument. We take the view that the pressing challenges of the current economic and business environme nt demand new ways of conceptualisation of the various constructs and their development in a manner which acknowledges their respective roles and seeks to build synergies for the b enefit of all stakeholders. With this in mind, it is hoped that this paper has been useful in providing a basis

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Idowu, S.O. and Papasolomou, I. (2007) Are the corporate social responsibility m atters based on good intentions or false pretences? An empirical study of the motivations behind the issuing of CSR reports by UK companies, Corporate Governance, 7(2), pp. 136-147. Idowu, S.O. and Towler, B.A. (2004) A comparative study of the contents of corpo rate social responsibility reports of UK companies, Management of environmental Quality: An International Journal, 15( 4), pp. 420-437. Ishikawa, K. (1985) What is Total Quality Control? The Japanese Way. Prentice-Ha ll Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Kahn-Freund O. (1972), Labour and the Law (Stevens and Sons, London). Kappelman, L.A. and Richards, T.C. (1996) Training, empowerment and creating a c ulture for change, Journal of Empowerment in Organisations, 4 (3), pp. 26-29. Kiriakidou, O. and Millward, L.J. (2000) Corporate identity; external reality or internal fit, Corporate Communications, 5 (1), pp. 49-58. Kotler, P. and Lee, N. (2005) Corporate Social Responsibility: Doing the Most Go od for your company and your Cause, John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY. Lantos, G.P. (2001) The boundaries of strategic corporate social responsibility, Journal of Consumer Marketing, 18 (7), pp. 595-630. Ludlow, C. (1997) The global identity crisis in the airline industry, Journal of Brand Management, 5 (2), pp:85-91. Luo, X and Bhattacharya, C.B. (2006) Corporate Social Responsibility, customer s atisfaction, and market value, Journal of Marketing, 70 (4) pp. 1-18. Metzger, R.O. and Dey, S. (1986) Affluent customers: what do they really value?, Journal of Retail Banking, Fall, pp. 25 35. Miller D. (19990, Towards a European Works Council 5 Transfer 320. Moingeon, B. and Ramanantsoa, B. (1997) Understanding corporate identity: the Fr ench School of though, European Journal of Marketing, 31 (5/6): 383-395. Moir, L. (2001) What do we mean by corporate social responsibility? Corporate Go vernance, Vol 1 No 1, pp. 16-22. Normann, R. (1991), Service Management: Strategy and Leadership in Service Busin ess, 2nd edition, Chichester: John Wiley and Sons. Oxenbridge S. and Brown W. (2002), The Two Faces of Partnership? An Assessment of Partnership and Co-operative Employer/Trade Union Relationships 24 Employee Relations 262. Ozaki M. (ed.) (1999), Negotiating Flexibility. The Role of the Social Partners and the State (ILO, Geneva).

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A., and Berry, L.L. (1988), SERVQUAL: a multiple ite m scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality , Journal of Retailing, Vol 64 No 1 Spring, pp. 1243. Rafiq, M. and Ahmed, P.K. (1993) The scope of internal marketing strategy: defin ing the boundary between marketing and human resource management, Journal of Marketing Management, 9 (3), pp. 219-2 32. Rafiq, M. and Ahmed, P.K. (2000) Advances in the internal marketing concept: def inition, synthesis, and extension, Journal of Services Marketing, 14 (6), pp. 449-462. Saffold, G.S. (1988) Culture traits, strength, and organisational performance: m oving beyond strong culture, Academy of Management Review, 13 (4), pp. 546-558. 285

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Schein, E.H. (1985) Organisational Culture and Leadership, San Francisco, CA. Schmidt, K. (1995) The Quest of Identity: Corporate Identity, Strategies, Method s and Examples, Cassell, London. Segal-Horn, S. (1988) Global service delivery managing the critical interdepende ncies. Proceedings of the Organisations Management: Association Conference, Warwick, pp. 99-128. Siehl, C. (1992) Cultural leadership in service organisations, International Jou rnal of Service Industry Management,3 (2), pp. 17-22. Smith, V. and Langfiord, P. (2009) Evaluating the impact of corporate social res ponsibility programs on consumers, Journal of Management and Organisation, Vol 15 No 1, pp. 97-109. Somerville, I. (2001) Business ethics, public relations and corporate social res ponsibility, in Theaker, A. The Public Relations Handbook, London: Routledge. Tarver, J.L. (1987) In search of a competitive edge in banking: A personnel appr oach, International Journal of Bank Marketing, 5(1), pp. 61-68. TUC (2003a), High Performance Workplaces , 30 August, at http://www.tuc.org.uk/ eco nomy/tuc-6995-f0.cfm TUC (2003b), High Performance Workplaces Response , 25 November, at http://www.tuc.org.uk/law/tuc-7352-f0.cfm Informing and Consulting Employees: TUC

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Generic Medicines: Firms Communication Strategies And Phycisians Attitude.

Despina A. Karayanni. University of Patras, Department of Business Administration, Greece karayan@otenet.gr Christina C. Georgi University of Patras, Department of Business Administration, Greece Constantinos A. Polydoros University of Patras, Department of Pharmacy, Greece Abstract With this preliminary research we made a first attempt to investigate the pharma ceutical companies communication efforts to promote their generic medicines, together with their influence upon physicians attitudes. Towards these ends, we addressed a quantitat ive research instrument to a random sample of 220 physicians located in three big cities of G reece, in which a final sample of 106 responded properly, producing a 48,18% response rate. The re search findings suggest that we may segment physicians into three groups, based on a nu mber of variables, comprising physicians firm s attitudes upon generic medicines, pharmaceutical

communication mix elements influence, key-success factors of generics and generi c deficits. Discussion on the findings, implications and limitations, together with some dir ections for future research are also provided. Introduction From the dawn of the last decade, both pharmaceutical market actors and academic s show an increasing interest in the generic medicines lower price of market. This is primarily due to the

generics as compared to their branded alternatives. In the current economic cris is environment, cost has become a major criterion of decision making, and it may soon become a b arrier to health services for many (Garattini and Tediosi 2000). Thus, certain pharmaceuti cal actors show a keen concern on finding ways to cut back health services budgets, at no expens e of the quality of the provided services. And although drugs account for only 10 percent of the total health care budget in developed countries, in order to control escalation of healthcare cost s, public policies have focused considerable attention on pharmaceutical costs, that have been cons idered as able to be reduced, compared to other cost components such as hospital expenditures ( Garattini and Tediosi 2000). One mechanism for limiting drug expenditures could be the use of a generic formulation instead of a brand name for multisource drugs. Indeed, generic medic ines may contribute significantly, since they are typically less expensive than brand-nam e medicines and prices for generics have historically increased less than those for brand-name m edicines (Haas et al. 2005). Specifically for patients with Medicare and other types of prescripti on drug coverage, substituting generic equivalents for brand name drugs is a safe step toward redu cing out-ofpocket drug expenditures (Murphy 1999). 287

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Regarding the Greek pharmaceutical market, the generics penetration is low, with a small, but growing share of 11.6% and a mean annual growth rate of 12.9% in 2006, which pla ce it among the last in the EU (Tsiantou et al. 2009). This relatively low share may be attr ibuted to either insufficient generics promotion, or lack of price regulation strategy aiming at the creation of a competitive environment between the branded name and generic drug producers, or even to the launch of many new drugs, which are generally branded medicines (Tsiantou et al. 2009; Geitona et al. 2006). Moreover, in Greece, in contrary to other European countri es there are still no specific mandatory rules for generic prescription. However, the above ineffic iencies mandate the need for finding ways of improving generic market indices, which could resul t in important budget savings, while maintaining quality of health care. To this end, the commu nication strategies of the generic drugs producing firms may be an important catalyst for improving sales and growth ratios. Indeed, Hurwitz and Caves (1988) have found that pharmaceutical firms invest hea vily in product promotion, spending as much on marketing as they do on research and development (i.e., promotion-to-sales ratios are among the highest of all manufactured goods). Notw ithstanding, it would be neither congruent, nor applicable, for a generic producing firm, to fol low a communication strategy that is suited to a brand-name medicine-producing firm. S pecifically, generic producing firms have no extensive R&D, since their products are copy-cut s of a referred branded medicine. Furthermore, branded medicine producers essentially would stre ss the brand name and the brand prestige of their prototype brands. On the contrary, generic medicine companies cannot use their product name as a differentiating factor, but rather they should search for other qualities that their buyers, i.e., the physicians, would value, whatsoever. As evident, the physician is the direct communication target group in prescribed me dicines market, since she/he is the one that decides the drug therapy and, in most western count ries, whether the patient will receive a branded drug, or its generic alternative, once generi cs become available in the market. In corollary, generic agents remain relatively underuse d, despite advocacy for the contrary (Fischer and Avorn 2003; Mott and Cline 2002; Alexande r and Tseng 2004). This advocacy is concerned with increasing efforts to promote generic pre scribing through modalities such as formularies and mandatory generic substitution (Malki n, Goldman

and Joyce 2004). As a matter of fact, although that academic literature on branded products and m edicines cites numerous empirical findings, however respective research on generic products and medicines seems to lag behind. Especially as far as the Greek market is concerned, the sce nery seems to be even more fading. With this research we attempt to shed some light upon the subject matter. Specif ically, we make an effort to investigate the perceptions of Greek physicians about generic medic ines, per se, considering factors that may improve generic medicines prescriptability, as well as potential deficits that may lead to adverse effects. Additionally, we explore physicians at titudes upon firm s marketing communication mix elements. The paper evolves as follows. First, we discuss relevant scientific literature upon the generics, the role of physicians in pres cribing generic medicines and their attitudes on the pharmaceutical firms communication mix eleme nts. Next, in the methodology session, we provide details about measurement and sampling, t ogether with some sample demographics. The following session deals with the statistical analy ses applied to the research data. Sequentially, we discuss the findings along with the implicat ions of the research. The paper ends with the limitations and directions for future research . 288

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Theoretical Background Physicians attitudes towards generic medicines A generic drug contains the same active ingredient, as the original brand name p roduct on which is it based. A generic copy of a reference drug must contain identical amounts o f the same active ingredient in the same dose formulation and route of administration, as well as meet standards for strength, purity, quality, and identity (Meredith 2003). Quality requirement s for generics need to be the same as for the reference original branded products. Generics are manufactured after expiry of the innovator company s patent or other exclusivity rights. Pseudo -generics are generic-style drugs produced by the brand manufacturer on the same production li nes as the brand product, using the identical formulation and standards as the brand, but r elabeled under a generic name and priced to compete against other generics (Hollis 2005). A gener ic drug may be marketed either under the approved international nonproprietary name of the acti ve substance, or under a new proprietary brand name chosen by its manufacturer (De Joncheere, Ri etveld and Huttin 2002). Thus, when a pharmaceutical patent expires, generic firms may enter that market and begin selling an exact replica of the original drug. Each potential e ntrant examines the characteristics of the available markets, including those affected by brand behavior such as advertising (Morton and Fiona 2000). Notwithstanding, there is a concern that while bioequivalent, not all generic me dications are clinically equivalent (Sachdeo and Belendiuk 1987; Guberman and Corman 2000). Mu ch agree that many physicians are concerned about the efficacy and safety associated with unrestricted substitution of generic medicines research (Guberman and Corman 2000; Welty et a l. 1992; Wilner 2002; Rosenbaum et al. 1994). Along similar lines, two surveys with paral lel findings suggest a physician discomfort level with generic substitution that cannot be ea sily dismissed, especially in case of more severe illnesses (Haskins, Tomaszewski and Crawford 2 005; Guberman and Corman 2000). In the same vein, Wilner found that both pharmacists and physi cians have concerns about generic substitution (Wilner 2004). Similarly, Heikkila et al (20 07) found that the majority of medical doctors were positive with generics substitution, though ske ptical about their quality, in terms of their efficacy and safety, for some drug categories. Moreover, Hellstrm and Rudholm (2004) observed that when the market share of generic products incre ase, the

number of side effects reported to the Swedish Medical Products Agency (SMPA) al so increase, thus implying that generic medicines may be indeed less safe, or effective, than their reference branded equivalents. The same researchers suggest that if the physician switches to a generic drug which is inefficient or even harmful, the effects on the patient will be ir reversible in the sense that the therapy treatment has no effect and thus postpones the patient s re covery, or through the adverse effects to the patients health, due to the adverse drug effec ts caused by the switch. On the other hand, empirical analysis shows that uncertainty concerning generic drug quality has rather small impact on physician prescription behavior, whilst perceived qua lity differences have a rather large effect (Ganther and Kreling 2000). In a study by Hassali, Ko ng and Stewart (2006), doctors were very skeptical about the bioequivalence of generic drugs, a s well as the impact of generics substitution on the research and development of new drugs and patient compliance and considered lower price of generics as their main advantage. Simil arly, Ljungberg, Lindblad and Tully (2007) found that the doctors had diverse opinions about gene ric substitution. Specifically, some felt that was convenient, as it allowed them to prescribe cheap preparations, whilst others were more skeptical. From another point of view, when patients have either negative attitudes, or mis perceptions about generic drugs, this may also affect generic substitution for branded medic ines. Indeed, prior studies have shown that patients often regard generics as riskier to use t han brand name 289

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications drugs (Ganther and Kreling 2000; Himmel et al. 2005). Thus, most studies deal wi th the generic medicines awareness of doctors and patients, stemming from multiple sources of me dical information, such as publications and companies representatives. As a matter of f act, increasing doctors and patients information about generics is set as a priority for generics market expansion in most countries (Kersnik and Peklar 2006; Hassali, Kong, and Stewart 2006; Barrett, Interactive and AARP 2005; Bower and Burkett 1987). Another reason for the late establishment of generic market is that, patients following a prescription for the first time are not attached to a given therapy and so it is understandable that they would more readily accept a generic medication than patients that have already been treated with a branded medicatio n for some time (O'Malley et al. 2006). On the whole, empirical research on physician prescribing behavior has shown tha t physicians are indeed an important agent in determining whether patients receive generic or brand-name drugs. Because physicians express concern about the cost of medications for thei r patients, one might expect a greater tendency toward use of cost-effective drugs for low-incom e patients, for whom out-of-pocket costs are more burdensome (Glickman et al. 1994; Reichert, Si mon and Halm 2000). For example, Federman et al. (2006) observed such a pattern of gener ic medication use, although the magnitude of the association between income and generic use wa s surprisingly small. On the other hand, doctors do not share in the cost of the p rescriptions they write and thus do not have an incentive to consider the price of different produ cts in making a prescription decision (Morton and Fiona 2000). It should be noted, however, that , at times, physicians may have no preference to either a brand name, or generic drug, but m ay be in the habit of referring to a commonly used drug by its brand name (Federman et al. 20 06). In the same spirit, Hellerstein (1998) found that some physicians were significantly mo re likely to prescribe generics, whereas others were more likely to prescribe brands (though almost all physicians prescribe both versions) and that physicians were indeed important ag ents in shaping the fate of generics. Pharmaceutical firms communication mix elements

A few studies cite that some physicians may prefer using brand name drugs, perha ps due to the

effect of pharmaceutical marketing, or to perceptions about safety and efficacy (Banahan III and Kolassa 1997; Glickman et al. 1994; Kravitz et al. 2005). Another research found that pharmaceutical firms spend as much on promotion of brands, as on R&D. Much of th is promotion was directed to physicians, in order to influence what they would pres cribe (Hurwitz and Caves 1988). The pharmaceutical industry has traditionally focused on rather marketing produc ts, than medicines, according to Moss (2001). Considering the branded medicines, when a b rand loses patent protection, a significant reduction of marketing support has been observe d, in anticipation of significant free riding from generics (Gonzalez et al. 2008). As a result, physicians sensitive to marketing activities switch from the original branded molecule to a nother (branded) non-bioequivalent molecule with high marketing support. Moreover, Gonzalez et al . (2008) cite a few studies reporting that physician habit has a significant influence on gene ric versus brand name choices. Studies have also shown that physicians differ in both their drug preferences and responsiveness to marketing activities and prices, thus making it essential to i ncorporate physician heterogeneity in studying generic adoption (Venkataraman and Stremersc h 2008). A few researchers sustain that marketing strategies directed to physicians by ph armaceutical companies lead doctors to differentiate between alternative medicines, regardles s of whether this differentiation is due to an objective basis or otherwise and probably cont ribute to the belief that the brand-name is associated with better efficacy (Hammersley et al. 2002; Hudson 2000; Peay and Peay 1984; Morton and Fiona 2000). Indeed, empirical studies have repeatedly 290

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications shown that pharmaceutical promotion influence physician behavior (Peay and Peay 1994; Gonul et al. 2001). However, empirical evidence does not provide a clear-cut picture f or the pharmaceutical market. Specifically, some studies find an information effect, ot hers find a persuasion effect, while other studies find both (Leffler 1981; Hurwitz and Cave s 1988; Rizzo 1999; Azoulay 2002; Narayanan et al. 2005). The general finding is that the diff usion rate is positively affected by promotional expenditure and that strong order-of-entry ef fects are present (Lilien, Rao and Kalish 1981; Hahn et al. 1994; Rao and Yamada 1988; Sha nkar, Carpenter and Krishnamurthi 1998). However, later entrants may overcome first-mo ver advantages by increasing their promotional expenditure (Berndt, Pindyck and Azou lay 2003). The finding in Kremer et al. s (2008) meta-analysis is that promotional expenditur es have a significant effect on sales in pharmaceutical markets. The absence of this effec t in generic drugs may be explained by the fact that generic marketing expenditures are much lower than those of branded products, as generics mainly compete on price. The price difference make s generics more attractive than branded products, positively influencing their marketing ef fectiveness. From another point of view, the same researchers cite that manufacturers of bran ded drugs may be over promoting their products (Kremer et al. 2008). Direct-to-physician marketing is one important facet of the promotion of pharmac euticals and is often referred to as detailing. Specifically, detailing means that the pharmaceu tical firm s representative visits a physician in order to advertise a specific drug. It ofte n accounts for 70% share of communication budget, thus detailing prevails upon the communication mi x targeted to the physician (Hurwitz and Caves 1988). Detailing is about content and is often not equivalent across brands or pharmaceutical firms, as each firm will discuss their own drugs . It includes verbal in-office presentations, which are usually accompanied by promotional adv ertising brochures, free medication samples and possibly gifts, such as meals or other pr omotional items. These in-office presentations by pharmaceutical representatives are an im portant method of promotion for pharmaceutical companies (Cardarelli, Licciardone and Taylor 20 06). Their impact is undeniable, as pharmaceutical representatives are most frequently repo rted by physicians as their source of primary information about new medications (Peay an d Peay 1994).

A reasoning for that might be that doctors, in order to keep updated with the li terature, should require time planning, whereas, giving priority to organized activities, such as visits from company representatives, academic detailing, or interactive educational meetings , could find it more effective, and might require less effort, at the same time (Bero et al. 199 8). Along similar lines, Gonzalez et al. (2008) suggested that, detailing seems to significantly a nd positively affect physician-prescribing decisions. Furthermore, Rizzo (1999) found that detailing promotion lowers price sensitivity. The personal interaction between a salesperson and his client in a business-to-business context has two characteristics that set it apart from othe r business interactions: it usually involves both repeated interaction and personal contact between buyer and seller. These interactions involve informal, as well as formal communication and economic, as well as social exchange (Geiger and Turley 2003). Even if the focus remains o n the business side of the relationship, respondents who maintain this type of interaction with their clients still perceive it to be a personal relationship. It is a long-term, personal interaction characterized by mutual knowledge and trust in the other s competence and commitment to the part nership. Additionally, promotion targeted at physicians also includes printed advertising , sponsored conferences, advertising on the Internet, among others. Indeed, Azoulay (2002) i n a research on the diffusion of antiulcer drugs, found that in addition to detailing, promotion and scientific evidence from medical literature affected the diffusion pattern. On the other hand, the ability of communication strategies to affect physicians a ttitudes has received some debate from a few researches. According to the findings of Ljungbe rg, Lindblad and Tully (2007), the pharmaceutical industry was an important provider of educa tion and information about drugs, but some of the doctors cited trying to stay away from marketing 291

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications activities. In the same spirit, Paraponaris et al. (2004) found that physicians who could and wanted to work more, did not consult guidelines, did not have paid subscription to at least two medical journals, did not participate in care networks, did not have a computer, or worked in their private practice exclusively, were significantly more likely to be relucta nt to prescribe generic medicines. As far as the frequency of details visits are concerned, meet ing with many pharmaceutical sales representatives (more than 10 a week) was also associated w ith greater reluctance to prescribe by international non-proprietary name, which stands for generic name. In the same vein, in a survey of hospital doctors in Ireland, pharmaceutical rep resentatives were the second most common source of information, however the last capable to influe nce prescribing a new drug, although that doctors themselves underestimated the infl uence of the pharmaceutical representatives (McGettigan et al. 2001). Moreover, Bero et al. ( 1998) found that doctors admitted the influence of marketing, but claimed that they strove t o be objective. Specifically, the same researchers argued that hospital doctors took patient-spe cific factors and cost into consideration when prescribing, while being informed by different writ ten information sources and commercial verbal information. Another study uncovered the existence of brand equity as a concept among doctors identified four key components of brand equity that exist as brand loyalty, brand name awar eness, perceived quality and other brand associations (Griffiths 2008). Notwithstanding , the same research cites that doctors would be loyal to a brand if they had perceived it a s better than a competitor s and offered more to the patient, despite the external influences impo sed upon them to prescribe cheap generic drugs. As far as the Greek generic market is concerned, the established position of bra nd name drugs and the lack of trust of physicians towards generics are mentioned as the main s ources of ambiguity regarding the generic market share forecasts (Casado, Sagardui and Lac alle 2002; Gonzalez et al. 2008; Tilson et al. 2003). However, Geitona et al. (2006) postul ate that apart from the safety and efficacy of the drug, the prestige and positioning of the company involved in the production of generics, are considered among the comparative advantages in estab lishing generics in the Greek market. Measures And Demographics

The constructed research instrument was developed based on extensive scientific literature research and primary data selected from qualitative research. First we delved in to existing marketing and pharmaceutical literature in the realms of promotion, advertising, branding, sales-force management and generics. Based on this empirical and theoretical evi dence, we constructed a questionnaire with open-ended questions which became the guide of our preliminary primary data collection. Specifically, we personally interviewed a s ample of twenty volunteering physicians, comprising pathologists, cardiologists and pneumonologi sts that were considered as representative for our research, as they treated a large array of common diseases and consequently, they dealt with a large stream of different branded and generi c medicines. The participants expressed their attitudes through open questions. The most freq uently mentioned aspects were then further examined for empirical evidence, or theoreti cal support. The aforementioned procedure resulted in the selection of the quantitative resea rch items which formed the final questionnaire of the main research. The measures comprised six batches of items, namely, marketing communication mix elements, physicians prescribing criteria, key-success factors that may increase prescripti on of generics, possible deficits of generics vs. prototypes, and total attitude towards generic medicines . Our research sample comprised 220 physicians of various specialties and was rand omly selected from the physicians registrars of three major cities of Greece. Totally 120 subje cts responded, resulting in a 54.5% response rate. Due to extensive missing data fourteen quest ionnaires were 292

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications excluded from the sample, thus, the final database used for the statistical anal ysis comprised 106 filled in questionnaires, yielding a final 48.18% response rate. The researc h sample comprised 75.5% males and 24.5% females. An 11.3% were under 45 years of age, an other 34.9% belonged to the age category 46-55, a 14.2% checked the 56-60 age class, w hereas, the remaining 39.7% cited to be over 60 years of age. In regard to specialty, the re search sample comprised 19.8% pathologists, 15.1% cardiologists, 11.3% pneumonologists and 14. 2% other specialties. Finally, in regard to sector of employment, 33% cited to work for t he social security organization (IKA), another 8.5% checked the public hospital option, 17.9% decla red to work for a private hospital, whereas, the remaining 40.6% stated to be private therapists . As a first step to our statistical analyses, we subjected our main research item s to a series of means comparisons, using the demographics, i.e., gender, specialty, age and sect or of employment, as grouping variables. No meaningful differences were found which al lowed us to consider our sample as homogeneous. Analyses Next, we performed two exploratory factor analyses, using the principal componen ts method and Varimax rotation on two batches of research items concerning the firm s market ing communication mix and the physician s favorable attitude towards the generics vari ables, respectively. The procedure resulted into four dimensional primary factors for t he firm s marketing communication mix elements, namely the promotion for the corporate ima ge, detailers efforts, informative promotion and low pricing and one dimensional fact or for the favorable attitude towards generics, respectively. All five factors had eigenval ues greater than one and were able to explain 69% and 63% of the total variance in the two factor analyses, respectively. Sequentially, we subjected the construct items to a series of reli ability analyses, which produced acceptable levels of Cronbach alpha statistics, ranging from 0.61 to 0.74, thus enabling us to sustain that all five constructs were reliable. Next, we explored a series of correlations among the produced constructs, in ord er to scan relationships among the constructs themselves. The results encouraged us to proc eed to advanced statistical analysis, thus we attempted grouping the research participa nts on the basis

of their responses regarding the five produced factors, i.e., the four marketing communication mix and the favorable attitude towards generics constructs, together with the ph ysician s prescribing criteria, the key-success factors of generics and the generic defici ts, applying Cluster analysis. The performed K-means cluster analysis (nonhierarchical) is a commonly used clus tering technique and we employed it in the study (Johnson and Wichern 2002; Punj and St ewart 1983). The cluster analysis resulted in an interpretable solution, producing three clus ters, all of which could be defined uniquely and meaningfully on the basis of all four marketing co mmunication mix constructs, the total attitude towards the generics construct, and the 16 ou t of the 27 remaining research items. Specifically, the results were significant for 3 out o f 5 physician prescribing criteria variables, 8 out of 10 key-success factors of generics and 4 out of 6 generic deficits. The mean cluster center values for the three physician clusters are pr esented on Table 1, together with the ANOVAs of the cluster means and significance levels, which provide support for the discriminant validity of the cluster solution. We named the clusters on the basis of their distinctive measures, as Generic Advocates , Generic Skeptics and Generic Slacks interpret them in the next section. A series of crosstabs analyses between the physician clusters and the study s demo graphics, in regard to gender, age, specialization and type of employer, showed no meaningful differences, thus indicating that the clusters were demographically heterogeneous. 293

and

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 1 294

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Findings And Implications Each cluster had a distinct profile of physician attitudes towards the generic m edicines. The first cluster the t Generic Advocates (n=51, 48%) was comprised of physicians with the mos

favorable attitude towards the generics. The second cluster, named as Generic Skeptics (n=22, 21%), cited to be less favora ble toward. the generic medicines, whereas the rest 31% (n=33) were grouped as the least gen eric favorable, thus we named them as Generic Slacks . Specifically, in regard to firm s communication dimensions, the Generic Advocates scored highest of all three for the total positive attitude towards the generics. This finding compares favorably to the findings of Tsiantou et al. (2009) who found that the opinion o f respondents regarding the quality of generics was in general positive. Considering the firm s communication mix elements, the Generic Advocates showed significantly lower scores for the co nstructs detailers efforts and low pricing. In regard to the key-success factors of generi cs, this physician group scored the highest means on the variables importance of the detailer s perso nality, importance of stressing the generic company s image, importance of generics adverti sement on referred scientific journals. At the same time, this physician group scored lowe st of all three in respect to the key-success variables importance of increased frequency of detail ers visits, and usable webpage with direct access on the generic drugs data. On the other hand, the cluster Generic Slacks, grouped the physicians who cited the highest means on the firm s marketing communication mix elements, i.e., promotion of a com pany s corporate image, detailer s efforts and informative promotion. At the same time, t hey cited the lowest mean among the three physician groups, on considering patient personality as prescribing criterion. In regard to the key-success factors of generics, they sc ored lower than the rest counterparts, in the variables printed advertising with clinical tests of t he generic medicines and product awareness by the detailer. Finally, concerning the possible deficits of generics vs. the prototypes, the Generic Slacks scored a lower mean than the rest two groups, in regard to quality and reliability of generics, which implies that this group doesn t conside

r this variable as an essential deficit. However, they cited significantly higher means than their counterparts, in respect to generics deficits in clinical research and innovativeness. Finally, considering the Generic Skeptics, these scored the lowest mean on the f irm s communication mix elements of corporate image and informative promotion. On the prescribing criteria, the same group scored significantly lower on the promotion for company s name and prestige, though it scored higher than the rest two groups, on the variable low pricing. Considering the key-success factor of generics, the Generic Skeptics have the lo west mean on the importance of the detailer s personality, and the advertisement on referred sc ientific journals. Research finding suggest that the Generic Advocates, i.e., physicians who are th e most likely to prescribe generic medicines are equally concerned about the importance of the co rporate image, as the Generic Slacks, whereas, they cited the lower score on the importa nce of a low pricing policy. Thus, they are the most concerned of all about the generic compa ny s image improvement, regarded as an important key-success factor. Furthermore, the Generic Advocates, although that they cited low scores on the n eed of frequent detailer visits, they cited higher scores on detailer s personality. Fina lly, they showed the highest score on advertisement on referred scientific journals. The implicat ion is that this physician group considers generics as important as the prototype medicines, and considers that the generic companies should focus on revitalizing the corporate image, through advertising on referred journals and through the generic companies le representatives with acceptab

personalities. These findings place additional evidence upon the views of other researchers which sustain that we may consider that corporate image as easier to be consolid ated for a 295

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications company of generic medicines than for a single medicine, taking into account tha t the marketing expenditures per generic medicine is much than for a brand medicine lower (Kreme r et al 2008). In such a case a constant company presence accompanied with a certain product va lue would enforce the future sales of this company s generic medicines. This can be even mor e profound by the fact that the typical pseudo-generics control about 40% of generic sales in the first few years of generic entry, and pseudo-generics sell, all things being equal, the co rporate quality image (Hollis 2005). In regard to the Generic Slacks, their lower score in the low pricing dimension may imply that these physicians consider the role of the generic medicines as necessary for kee ping the prices at lower level, than otherwise. Considering their low score on the generic deficit quality and reliability, in conjunction with their high scores on the generic deficit dimens ions, i.e., clinical research and innovativeness, these physicians would more probably prescribe bran ded medicines. They also appear to have the characteristics of professional innovato rs, which favor to enjoy the security of the company s good-will and prestige promoting a specific brand-name medicine. Finally, the Generic Skeptics are the most unpredictable group of all three. In regard to the firm s communication elements dimensions, the provided the lowest scores on the importa nce of promotion for corporate image and on informative promotion, whereas they cited s ignificantly higher scores on both the necessity of a low pricing strategy, and on the prescr ibing criterion of medicine s price. They also cited low scores on both the detailer s personality and the necessity on advertising on referred journals, whereas their scores on the generic deficit s do not seem significantly different than the Generic Advocates. These physicians appear to p rescribe generics only because they are cheaper than their branded counterparts. In corollary, both Generic Skeptics and Generic Advocates appear similar pattern s at some variables, whereas they differentiate at other ones. Thus, they share the same f eelings in regard to the generic deficits and the all firm s marketing communication mix elements, a s they both valued lower than the third counterpart, i.e., the Generic Slacks. At the same t ime, Generic

Skeptics appear to prioritize the frequency of the detailer s visits, however, may be paradoxically, they valued detailers personality as significantly less important than their coun terparts. The major difference of Generic Skeptics with the Generic Advocates lies on the keysuccess factors of generics, i.e., necessity for advertising on referred journals (Skeptics scor ed lowest) and on the usage of webpage with data on the generic medicine (Skeptics scored the high est). Thus, it appears that this physician group has preference to neither the branded, nor the generic medicines, not even to the detailer s informative ability, but rather on their per sonal instinct, stemming from personal information search (i.e., the highest score on the import ance of usable webpage with direct access on medicine data may be indicative of this assumption ). Limitations And Future Research First, the findings represent a research of a rather exploratory pattern, thus, we should not generalize too far by a single study. Second, we should extend the research sample to other European countries, in ord er to test the validity of our research findings across different pharmaceutical environments. Although that we didn t find any significant variability in the participants ses stemming respon

from different employment fields, one should expect to find such differences amo ng the physicians opinions, according to the occupational sector, i.e., public or privat e hospital, private employment, or employee of social security organizations. Further research shoul d search more thoroughly this issue. Moreover, we should extend the research model, to include not only attitudinal, but also behavioral variables, as dependent ones. In our research, we limited the scannin g of physicians 296

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(6):995-998. 299

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Framing the Corporate World: The Impact of Corporate Social Performance on Media Attention and Prominence of Business Firms

Stelios C. Zyglidopoulos Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom szyglidopoulos@yahoo.com Craig Carroll Lipscomb University, Department of Communication and Journalism craigecarroll@hotmail.com Philemon Bantimaroudis Dept. of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean pbantima@ct.aegean.gr Abstract The current study scrutinizes news selection and framing mechanisms of corporate organizations while correlating Corporate Social Performance (CSP) with media attention and pr ominence. We examine how CSP strengths and concerns are related to media attention and promin ence. Framing, gatekeeping and agenda setting theory are utilized to assess news selec tion and salience mechanisms related to Corporate Social Performance. We used regression analyses to examine panel data on 367 firms for the period 2000-2004, while investigating ho w CSP is related to media attention and prominence. In the process we controlled for seve ral other variables such as the size of the firms and their financial performance. The stu dy concludes that CSP concerns are positively and significantly related to both media attention an d prominence, whereas CSP strengths are either negatively related or not related to both media attention and prominence. Introduction During the past decade, media and business researchers have discovered a common research ground that benefits both fields and promotes interdisciplinary explorations. Co mmunication scholars increasingly scrutinize business organizations and the corporate enviro nment in general as they realize that they cannot neglect significant institutions whose existenc e affects all

aspects of social life, not just social science research. Mainstream media have routinely covered the corporate environment, as a significant source of news consumed eagerly by t he public. A particular aspect of corporate life increasingly scrutinized by the media in rec ent decades because of its broader impact on society is Corporate Social Performance (CSP), which briefly refers to a corporations principles, processes, programs and observable outcomes, as they relate to the firm s societal relationships (Wood 1991, 693). On the other hand, business/management researchers have started paying attention to journalism and mass communication theory traditionally overlooked in their disci plines as they realized that media attention of corporate entities affects not only their financial well-being but their overall survival (Baker, Powell, and Weaver 1999; Deephouse 2000; Fomb run and Shanley 1990). Furthermore, CEOs and managers employ different CSP strategies in order to 300

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications attract positive media coverage and to sustain a positive public image. In both groups, scholars and practitioners, it is commonly understood that the manner in which an organiz ation and particularly its CSP is portrayed affects how different publics perceive that or ganization and its mission and even how public behaviors affect the organization purchasing, invest ing and consumption habits, etc. In the long run, public perceptions of a corporation ca n lead to behaviors which may even influence the very existence of the organization. There by, to some extent, media and business scholars are beginning to converge as they examine me dia portrayals and public perceptions and the interactions between businesses and society at la rge. In this paper, the authors examine content selection and framing mechanisms that media u tilize as they cover corporate organizations and their entrepreneurial processes. Literature Review To assess how media select, process and publicize information derived from the c orporate world, the authors utilized different paradigms, most notably framing and gateke eping theories. The current study does not assess public perceptions of corporate organizations. However, the authors scrutinize content selection and framing mechanisms of corporate CSP inf ormation. Framing is a useful paradigm in media studies, as it can be applied in different symbolic contexts. According to Entman (1993), lity and make to frame is to select some aspects of a perceived rea

them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particu lar problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and /or treatment recommend ation (52). Framing involves salience, as framing effects result from the salient attributes of a media message (Pan and Kosicki 2001, 38). However, it goes beyond that. Frames, accordi ng to Entman (1993), Define problems determine what a causal agent is doing with what costs and benefits, usually measured in terms of common cultural values; diagnose causes identify the forces creating the problem; make moral judgment evaluate causal agents and their effects; and suggest remedies offer and justify treatments for the problems and predict their likely effects. (52) Framing constitutes a form of structural or ideological bias, as frames not only receive attention

/ prominence but also determine the nature of the attention received (Bantimarou dis and Ban 2001). Framing involves a process of selection and exclusion both because of str uctural and ideological causes. Framing resulting from structural / systemic biases deals wi th the nature of the media system professional / operational processes, organizational routines, training / education of workers. One might argue that this type of framing is a systemic at tribute, a byproduct of the institutions. On the other hand, framing derived from ideologic al biases is the product of the cultural environment and collective perceived identities, -langua ge, religion, ethnicity etc. (Davis and Gandy 1999). Framing converges with other media paradi gms such as the gatekeeping (Shoemaker and Vos 2009) and agenda setting theories (McCombs 20 04). As gatekeepers filter media content, they determine not only what content should be come salient but also the framing of the selected content. Shoemaker and Vos (2009) outline f ive levels of analysis through which gatekeepers determine the framing of the message. Such an alyses are conducted at the levels of the individual, communication routines, the organizat ion itself, other social institutions and the social system. Because framing involves salience, fr aming converges with agenda setting as well. Agenda setting pertains to the transfer of salience from the media to the public. Framing studies usually do not examine public salience, but they focus on media salience (attention or prominence) while scrutinizing the attributes / frames th at lead to media salience (McCombs and Ghanem 2001). The interconnection between agenda setting a nd framing became pronounced in the early 1990s, after McCombs and his colleagues d eveloped 301

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications the second-level agenda setting which partially converges with framing as it exa mines the attributes or frames that lead to object or attribute salience. The latter is also k nown as the compelling arguments hypothesis (McCombs 1997; McCombs and Ghanem 2001; McCombs et al. 1997). They developed two dimensions of attribute / frame analysis: The affe ctive dimension involves primarily tone: the positive, negative or neutral media disposition tow ard an issue. In the cognitive dimension, researchers have focused primarily on ideology, qualifi cations and the personality traits, using examples of political personalities (McCombs 2004). Framing Corporate Social Performance The Corporate Social Performance (CSP) of business organizations is a multidimen sional construct that has been defined in a number of ways in the field of management ( Carroll 1979; McWilliams and Siegel 2001; Wartick and Cochran 1985). In this paper, the author s follow Wood s (1991) definition of CSP as the iples of business organization s configuration of princ

social responsibility, processes of social responsiveness, and policies, program s and observable outcomes as they relate to the firm s societal relationships (693). As Dyer and Whe tten (2006) point out, prior research on CSP suggests that firms might be rated as to their d egree of social performance along two dimensions: (1) positive social initiatives (e.g., charitabl e giving), where the firm proactively tries to improve society, and (2) the firm s ability to avoid activities that might prove to be of social concerns (e.g., polluting the environment) (http://www.kld.com) (2006, 786). Following our terminology above, we refer to th ese two aspects of CSP as CSP-strengths and CSP-concerns (Dyer and Whetten 2006). Recently, the salience of corporations and particularly aspects relating to its CSP have been under examination, as the agenda setting theory at its second level has been app lied in the context of organizations and particularly their CSP (Carroll and McCombs 2003; M eijer and Kleinnijenhuis 2006a). For example, Deephouse (2000) assessed media coverage as a reasonable indicator of the public s knowledge and opinions about firms within a f ew months of the publication date (1096). Similar propositions by different researchers recogn ized the usefulness of this particular paradigm for communication (Fombrun and Shanley 19 90; Carroll and McCombs 2003; Carroll 2004; Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis 2006a). Generally, res

earchers have found strong support for the hypothesis that media salience is related to public salience of the organizations under scrutiny. Studies at the second level of the agenda-setting theory are pertinent to the current framing study, as several frames / attributes of firms were measured to assess the role of different frames in achieving salience. For example, the tone of coverage towards a particular firm and the perceived CSP record of a corporation were lin ked to increased public salience (Carroll 2009; Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis 2006b). These studies d emonstrated a strong support for the second-level agenda setting effect, and particularly the so-called substantive dimension of attribute agenda. In the current study, the authors adopt a framing vs. agenda setting perspective (Reese 2007; Scheufele and Tewksbury 2006), as the primary focus is not on public salience. T he authors investigate how media frame the positive and negative aspects of a firm s CSP, but not the mechanisms of media attention or how media frames are formulated. What is at sta ke is how the media, a particularly critical stakeholder of business firms (Henriques and Sadorsky 1999), process different frames pertaining to the organization s positive and negative CS P aspects, given the general dominance of negative news items. Framing the Negative Shoemaker (1996) explains this foundational concern why do media focus so strong ly on negative news? She argues that journalists have undertaken the task of surveying the 302

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications environment and recognizing any potential threats, a surveillance function origi nating in prehistoric societies. In the context of business news, several studies highligh t a predilection toward negative business news. Dominick (1981) reports that business executives often complained about a media bias against American corporations. His content analysi s demonstrated that bad news about business outweighed neutral and positive news. 85). In the same context, Doyle (2006) while analyzing the coverage of Enron, reaches so me interesting conclusions with regard to business coverage. She argues that business news sele ction is governed by the media s need to maintain lay audiences. She argues that as a resul t business news selections are focused almost exclusively on large corporate names: Indeed, so-called financial and business news is, in some cases, so centered arou nd personal dramas (e.g., the struggles and showdowns of ailing or arrogant CEOs or the anguish of fans in relation to acquisition of UK sports clubs by foreigners) it is difficult to be sure whether what is being offered is financial news in the guise of entertai nment or vice versa. (448). Psychological studies demonstrate the human tendency to focus on negative news. As Baumeister et al. (2001) explain, negatively valenced events such as losing mone y and receiving criticism have a greater impact on individuals than positively valenced events s uch as winning money or receiving praise. The Current Study The relationship between media attention and Corporate Social Performance (CSP) efforts advertised by firms is rarely unidirectional. Thus, we should expect changes in the CSP activity of a firm to influence the attention it receives in the media. There are at least t hree reasons for this. First, the media s search for newsworthy stories will direct their attention to CSP activities, since such activities have a broader impact on society and could be considered a s newsworthy from the standpoint of multiple social groups. Second, CSP efforts of major corp orations are (1

often covered because of their relationship with media organizations horizontal and vertical integration. For example, different international conglomerates own, among other types of firms, news media organizations. It may be speculated that this ownership struct ure would affect the coverage of a particular news organization of the conglomerate or oth er affiliated organizations (Altschull 1995). Third, corporate managers engage in public relat ions, attempting to promote their firms and particularly their CSP activities. Should we expect that both aspects of CSP, strengths and concerns, to have simil ar effects on the media attention firms receive? It seems that CSP concerns should have more i nfluence on the media attention a firm receives, as media tend to focus on the negative rath er than positive, unless they are related in terms of ownership with the organization they cover. The authors expect the attention and prominence the media give to both positive and negative aspects of CSP to differ, with the negative receiving greater levels of both attention and prominence in news coverage. Media attention, according to Kiousis (2004), refers to the aware ness of a particular object by the media and is usually gauged by the sheer volume of stori es or space dedicated to topics in newspapers, television news and so on (Kiousis 2004, 74). Regarding CSP, we would expect firms with more negative (concerns) than positive CSP (strengths ) attributes to be noticed more often by the media. On the other hand, media prominence refers to the positioning of a story within a media text to communicate importance this is diffe rent from the attention dimension because placement and position rather than volume are the mo st paramount characteristics (Kiousis 2004, 74). Regarding CSP, we would expect agai n firms with more negative than positive CSP aspects to receive greater levels of prominence in the stories about them. The following hypotheses are under examination: Hypothesis 1A: A firm s CSP concerns have a positive impact on its media attention . 303

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Hypothesis 1B: A firm s CSP strengths have a negative (or no) impact on its media attention. Hypothesis 2A: A firm s CSP concerns have a positive impact on its media prominenc e. Hypothesis 2B: A firm s CSP strengths have a negative (or no impact) on its media prominence. Methodology The authors drew a sample of firms from the S&P 500 US firms, for which the Kind er Lydenburg Domini Analytics Social Ratings Data (KLD) provided CSP scores continuously for the years 20002004. We drew on the KLD database to measure the CSP of firms because not only has it been repeatedly used in the Business and Society literature for such ends (Bansal and Clelland 2004; Hillman and Keim 2001; Johnson and Greening 1999; Mattingly and Berman 2006; Tur ban and Greening 1997; Waddock and Graves 1997), but also because it is considered to be the de facto research standard at the moment for measuring CSP (Waddock 2003, 369). And while the KLD database provided us with data on the CSP strengths and concer ns of firms (our independent variables), the authors drew on Lexis-Nexis and ABI-inform to c apture the media attention and prominence that firms received within a given year. We drew on Mergent Online1 for most of the control variables (firm size, financial performance, ind ustry, long-term risk), with the exception of Tobin s Q (used to capture market performance), which we calculated using data from Datastream2. The sample of firms initially consisted of 367 firms that appeared on the S&P 500 list for all the years between 2000 and 2004 included, a total of 1835 data-points. However, given the integration of data from multiple databases and missing values in some of them, in our regression models, we ended up with a count ranging from 1059 to 778 data-points, depending on which variables were included in each model. Following established practice (Golan and Wanta 2001; Meznar and Nigh 1995; Fiss and Zajac 2006), the authors measured the first focal dependent variable, media attention, by averaging the yearly number of articles mentioning the firm s name in four major US newspape rs: the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Ti mes. We chose the New York Times because it is considered by many as the elite U.S. newspaper (W inter and

Eyal 1981, 379), which other newspapers and media organizations use as a benchma rk (Gans 2005); the Washington Post because it is the second leading US daily next to the New York Times; the Wall Street Journal because it is the major US financial newspaper; a nd the Los Angeles Times because it is the fourth largest newspaper by distribution in the US and is published in Los Angeles, California, which makes it the leading daily published in the west coast. The average of these article counts was deemed an appropriate measure of media a ttention because the four items had high reliability, with a Cronbach alpha of 0.72, and a principal component factor analysis indicated that they all loaded on one factor, with fac tor loadings between 0.74 and 0.86. Drawing on Kiousis (2004), the authors measured media prominence, the second dep endent variable, by averaging the number of stories including the firm s name on the fron t page and front section of the New York Times and the number of stories including the firm s name in the first section of the same newspaper. This method was deemed appropriate because the two counts had a Cronbach alpha 0.71, were highly correlated (p < 0.05) and factor a nalysis showed that they both loaded on one factor with loadings greater than 0.9. The independent variable, which consisted of two aspects of CSP, was measured us ing the CSP strengths and concerns of the S&P firms that the KLD database tracks yearly alon g thirteen 1 Mergent Online is an online database that provides financial information on U.S. public corporations. 2 Datastream is an online database that provides historical economic and market da ta for international companies. 304

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications dimensions. From these thirteen dimensions, the authors selected five community, diversity, employees, environment and product because these dimensions have been repeatedly used in the Business and Society literature (Bansal and Clelland 2004; Johnson and Green ing, 1999; Waddock and Graves 1997). Measuring CSP through the KLD ratings has many advanta ges, including the fact that the firms are being rated through the use of objective s creening criteria, applied consistently across all firms, by knowledgeable individuals working for an independent consulting agency (Johnson and Greening 1999; Graves and Waddock 1994; Turban an d Greening 1997). Following Dyer & Whetten (2006), in measuring CSP-strengths, we added the number of strengths that KLD gave to the companies in our sample for all the fiv e years between 2000 and 2004 for the above five dimensions, whereas in measuring CSP-concerns, the authors added the concerns that KLD attributed to our sample, which yielded an indicator for CSP strengths and one for CSP concerns for each firm for a given year. In addition to the above dependent and independent variables, the authors contro lled for a few variables indicated by previous research. First, the authors controlled for size by using the log of the number of employees of the firm. Second, we controlled for financial perform ance through Return on Assets (ROA), which measures the financial performance of a firm as a ratio of its net stability and comparability ac income over its total assets, because of the ratios ross firms (Kim et al. 1989). Third, we controlled for market-based performance3 by using Tobin s Q, calculated by dividing the sum of a firm s equity value plus the book value of its total debt by total assets (Berrone and Gomez-Mejia 2009; Chung and Pruitt 1994; Makri et al. 2006). The re ason we thought it was necessary to control for market performance in addition to financ ial performance was because while accounting or financial performance measures reflect a firm s pas t performance, market-based measures reflect the present value of *the market s expe ctations regarding the firm s+ future streams of income (Verweire and van den Berghe 2004, 2 1). These expectations of future streams of income could influence the attention the media pay on a particular firm. Fourth, we controlled for the long-term risk of the firm by fol lowing the practice established by Waddock and Graves (1997) through using the ratio of a firm s longterm debt over its total assets. Finally, we controlled for industry effects by using indi cator variables

representing the 2-digit SIC codes of the firms (Fiss and Zajac 2006; Hillman an d Keim 2001). A brief description of the variables used in this study can be seen in Table 1. Table 1: Variables involved in the econometric analysis Dependent Variables Description Source Media Attention A construct denoting the awareness of the firm by the media (Kiousis, 2004: 74). Developed by the Authors, drawing on data from LexisNexis and ABI Inform. Media Prominence A construct denoting the importance of a story within a media text (Kiousis, 2004: 74). Developed by the Authors, drawing on data from LexisNexis. Independent Variables CSP-strengths A construct denoting the positive aspects of a firm s Corporate Social Responsibility. Developed by the Authors, drawing on data from the Kinder Lydenburg Domini Analytics Social Ratings Data. 3 Market-based performance measures differ from financial or accounting performanc e measures because while accounting or financial performance measures reflect a firm s past performance, mar ket-based measures reflect the present value of future streams of income (Verweire & van den Berghe, 2004:21). 305

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications CSP-concerns A construct denoting the negative aspects of a firm s Corporate Social Responsibility. Developed by the Authors, drawing on data from the Kinder Lydenburg Domini Analytics Social Ratings Data. Control variables Size Log of Employees Logged number of employees as an indicator of firm size. Mergent OnlineTM Financial Performance Return on Assets Net Income on Assets. Mergent OnlineTM Market Performance Tobin s Q Developed by the authors drawing on data from Datastream. Long-term Risk D/E Long-term debt on Equity Mergent OnlineTM Industry Type 2-digit SIC code. Mergent OnlineTM Analysis Given that the data consisted of multiple firms (n = 367) over five years, the a uthors used panel regression models having 367 cross-sections (firms) and 5 time-series (years). W e ran two sets of regression models, one set where the dependent variable was media attention and one where the dependent variable was media prominence. In both cases the authors used as i ndependent variables the firm s CSP strengths and concerns for the current year (t) and at (t -1). Moreover, in all cases we used random effects models because of the extensive number (49) of time invariant indicator variables controlling for industry effects, which would have been drop ped from the analysis if we were to use fixed effects models (Baltagi 2005). Findings Table 2 depicts the descriptive statistics and correlations among the focal vari ables of this study, whereas Tables 3 and 4 present the results of the regressions with media attenti on and media prominence as the dependent variables, respectively. 306

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 2: Correlations among focal variables Avg St. Dev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 Media Attention 87.66 9.42 1 2 Media Prominence 2.70 .33 0.58* 1 3 Size Log of Employees 10.70 .07 0.32* 0.27* 1 4 ROA 7.30 .36 0.02 0.01 0.07* 1 5 Tobin-Q 2.34 .06 0.05 0.04 0.12* 0.56* 1 6 DE 1.32 .25 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.00 -0.08* 1 7 CSPstrengths 3.40 .16 0.40* 0.32* 0.29* 0.02 0.05 0.00 1 8 CSPconcerns 1.78 .10 0.23* 0.32* 0.25* -0.12* -0.15* 0.09* 0.26* 1 As we can see from Table 3, hypothesis 1A, which states that the CSP concerns of a firm will have a positive impact on the media attention a firm receives, was supported by our f indings. In both models (MA-1 and MA-2) the coefficient for CSP concerns achieved a high level of significance, p < 0.05 for time t, and p < 0.01 for time t-1. Also from Table 3, hypothesis 1B, which states that the CSP strengths of a firm will either have a negative (or no) effect on the fi rm s media attention was again supported by our findings, as the coefficients in models MA1 and MA-2 were in both cases negative and significantly so in the case of MA-2 (p < 0.001) . Table 3: Results of Random Effects Panel Data Analyses on Media Attention a Variables Size (log (8.85) 44.34*** (8.35) 46.12*** (8.4) Financial (.16) -.18 (.16) -.29+ (.17) Tobin s Q (1.09) -1.68 (1.13) -4.43* (1.78) Long-term (.24) Model MA-0 Model MA-1 Model MA-2 Employees) 44.78***

Performance (ROA) -.20

-1.77

risk D/E .14

.10 (.25) .30 (.27) CSP strengths -1.15 (.79) CSP strengths (t-1) -3.20*** (.88) CSP concerns 1.90* (.82) CSP concerns (t-1) 2.40** (.89) . 99*** 118*** 135*** R2 0.35 0.34 0.33 N 1059 1058 849 a In all models we controlled for industry effects by using 2-digit SIC codes, n ot shown due to space limitations. The table above contains coefficients and standard errors in parenthesis. Note: + Statistically significant at the 0.10 level, *statistically significant at the 0.05 level, ** statistically significant at the 0.01 level, *** statistically significant at the 0.001 level 307

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The findings in table 4 also supported hypothesis 2A, which states that CSP conc erns will have a positive impact on the media prominence a firm receives, as the coefficients of both models MP1 and MP-2, for times t, and t-1, achieved high levels of significance, p < 0.001 and p < 0.05, respectively. Hypothesis 2B, which states that CSP strengths will have a negativ e (or no impact) on the media prominence a firm receives, also received some support in models MP -1 and MP-2. In model MP-1, the coefficient of CSP strengths at time t was negative but insig nificant, whereas in model MP-2, the coefficient for CSP strengths at time t-1 was slightly positi ve but again not significant. Table 4: Results of Random Effects Panel Data Analyses on Media Prominence b Variables Model MP-0 Model MP-1 Model MP-2 Size (log Employees) 2.32*** (.48) 2.04*** (.47) 1.77*** (.45) Financial Performance (ROA) -.03 (.03) -.03 (.03) -.06 (.04) Tobin s Q .25 (.19) .32+ (.19) .44 (.32) Long-term risk D/E -.01 (.043) -.02 (.04) -.00 (.05) CSP strengths -.10 (.11) CSP strengths (t-1) .07 (.13) CSP concerns .44*** (.13) CSP concerns (t-1) .38* (.15) . 68* 93*** 86** R2 0.30 0.35 0.37 N 969 969 778

b In all models we controlled for industry effects by using 2-digit SIC codes, n ot shown due to space limitations. The table above contains coefficients and standard errors in parenthesis. Note: + Statistically significant at the 0.10 level, *statistically significant at the 0.05 level, ** statistically significant at the 0.01 level, *** statistically significant at the 0.001 level Discussion The findings support previous research that usually negative news receives media attention while positive news is largely ignored (Dominick 1981). This is consistent with experimental agenda setting research at the second level, demonstrating that negative attribu te salience of political candidates leads to higher public salience (Kiousis et al. 1999). In t his study, CSP concerns were positively related with the media attention and prominence of the firm, whereas a firm s CSP strengths were either negatively related or not related with firm med ia attention and prominence. What are the implications of these findings for corporate organi zations striving to make a difference in terms of CSP? Does this mean that primarily negative cov erage reaches the public, while positive CSP efforts have no impact on media portrayals of the organization? The current findings, along with accumulated previous research, indicate that ne gative business events will be selected and processed by the media much more easily than positiv e news (Dominick 1981). If this finding applies to corporate entities, executives need to consider different case scenarios that affect negative news reaching the media and how th ey manage crises. It seems that scandals, corruption and mismanagement possess an undisput ed international news value, especially when they originate from the corporate worl d (Carroll 308

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 2010). This established spiral of cynicism, that the contemporary corporate envi ronment is expected to produce more negative news than positive, may be affecting media gat ekeeping patterns and news recycling framing mechanisms. Thereby, the first priority of c orporate executives should take every measure for the reduction of CSP weaknesses before they undertake any initiative for the promotion of a strong CSP record. Sometimes, do ing more right might not pay as much in terms of media attention and framing as doing less wrong. Furthermore, since the size of the firm is linked to media attention / prominenc e, major corporations need to approach their CSP initiatives from a carefully designed pu blic relations perspective while preemptively taking into account crisis management and contain ment strategies. Although the current study confirms previous findings with regard to negative news being selected and processed by the media, it also demonstrates that firms with more CSP weaknesses become more media prominent than firms with more CSP strengths. Theor y wise, this is a useful finding as it pushes the framing / agenda setting envelope with its corporate application (Carroll and McCombs 2003; McCombs 2004; Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis 2 006a). It also offers applied lessons, as corporate executives striving to improve their f irms CSP should bear in mind that they need to establish a holistic public relations campaign fo r the overall promotion of the organization, making CSP a part of it. CSP weaknesses will prod uce media attention / prominence, but the type of framing selected by the media cannot be controlled by the firm. Therefore, it does not seem enough to improve firm CSP alone, but rath er an overall public relations campaign incorporating CSP (Ihlen et al. in press). Despite its limitations, the current study not only confirms previous media rese arch on negative news selection and attention but it specifically makes those findings relevant t o the corporate world. Future research should expand the scope of this research in two different directions. Theoretically, more substantive frames should be developed applied specifically in the context of organizations (Hallahan, 1999). Although the agenda setting/framing literature p resents an adequate depository of substantive frames, suitable for analyzing political pers onalities, --such as the ideology, qualifications and personality traits of political figures, --t here is no similar record of substantive frames suitable for the study of organizations. Expanding the substantive frame/attribute category will supplement the existing framing / agenda setting l

iterature. Thus, new literature will emerge which can be focused on the salience of corporate org anizations and will complement the affective frame category. Second, agenda setting questions w ill emerge, as public salience will be analyzed whether negative frames / attributes of corpora te organizations lead to negative public salience, perception and even behavior. References Altschull, H. 1995. Agents of power: The media and public policy. White Plains, NY: Longman. Baker, H.K., G.E. Powell, and D.G. Weaver. 1999. Listing changes and visibility gains. Quarterly Journal of Business and Economics 38, no. 1: 46-63. Baltagi, H. B. 2005. Econometric analysis of panel data. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons. Bansal, P., and I. Clelland. 2004. Tacking trash: Legitimacy, impression managem ent and unsystematic risk in the context of the natural environment. Academy of Management Journal, 47, no. 1: 93 -103 Bantimaroudis, P. and H. Ban. 2001. Covering the crisis in Somalia: Framing choi ces by the New York Times and Manchester Guardian. In Framing Public Life: Perspective on Media and our Unders tanding of the Social World, ed. S. Reese, O. Gandy and A. Grant, 175-184. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbau m. Baumeister, R.F., E. Bratslavsky, C. Finkenauer, and K.D. Vohs. 2001. Bad is str onger than good. Review of General Psychology 5, no. 4: 323-370. Berrone, P., and & L.G. Gomez-Mejia. 2009. Environmental performance and executi ve compensation: An integrated agency-institutional perspective. Academy of Management Journal 52, no. 1: 103 126 . Carroll, A.B. 1979. A three-dimensional conceptual model of corporate performanc e. Academy of Management Review 4, no. 4: 497-505. Carroll, C. E. 2010. Corporate reputation and the news media: Agenda setting in business news within developed, emerging, and frontier markets. New York: Routledge. 309

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Meijer, M.M., and J. Kleinnijenhuis. 2006a. Issue news and corporate reputation: applying the theories of agenda setting and issue ownership in the field of business communication. Journal of C ommunication 56 no. 4: 543 559. Meijer, M. M., and J. Kleinnijenhuis. 2006b. News and corporate reputation: Empi rical findings from The Netherlands. Public Relations Review 32, no. 4: 341-348. Meznar, M.B., and D. Nigh. 1995. Buffer or bridge? Environmental and organizatio nal determinants of public affairs activities in American firms. Academy of Management Journal 38, no. 4: 975-997. Pan, Z., and G.M. Kosicki. 2001. Framing as a strategic action in public deliber ation. In Framing Public Life: Perspective on Media and our Understanding of the Social World, ed. S. Reese, O. Gandy and A. Grant, 35-66. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Reese, S.D. 2007. The framing project: A bridging model for media research revis ited. Journal of Communication 57, no. 1: 148-154. Reese, S.D., O. Gandy, and A.E. Grant. 2001. Framing public life: Perspectives o n media and our understanding of the social world. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Scheufele, S., and D. Tewksbury. 2006. Framing, agenda setting, and priming: The evolution of three media effects models. Journal of Communication 57, no. 1: 9-20. Shoemaker, P. (1996). Hard wired for news: Using biological and cultural evoluti on to explain the surveillance function. Journal of Communication 46, no. 3: 32-47. Shoemaker, P.J., and S.D. Reese. 1996. Mediating the message: Theories of influe nces on mass media content. White Plains, NY: Longman. Shoemaker, P.J., and T.P. Vos. 2009. Gatekeeping theory. New York: Routledge. Tai, Z. 2009. The structure of knowledge and dynamics of scholarly communication in agenda setting research, 1996. 2005. Journal of Communication 59, no.3: 481-513. Turban, D. B., and D.W. Greening. 1997. Corporate social performance and organiz ational attractiveness to prospective employees. Academy of Management Journal 40: 658-672. Verweire, K., and L. van den Berghe. 2004. Integrated performance management: A guide to strategy implementation. London: Sage. Waddock, S. A., and S. L Graves, (1997). The corporate social performance . financial performance link, Strategic Management Journal 18, no. 4: 303-319.

Waddock, S. A. 2003. Myths and realities of social investing. Organization and E nvironment 16: 369-380. Wartick, S., and P. Cochran. 1985. The evolution of the corporate social perform ance model. Academy of Management Review 10: 758 769. Winter, J., and C. Eyal. 1981. Agenda setting for the civil rights issue. Public Opinion Quarterly 45: 376-383 Wood, D.J. 1991. Corporate social performance revisited. Academy of Management R eview 16: 691-718. 311

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Trust in financial investments Who or what really counts

Sabine A. Einwiller Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Department of Communication, Germany einwiller@uni-mainz.de Christopher Ruppel Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Department of Communication, Germany chrisrup@students.uni-mainz.de The latest upheavals in the financial industry reinforced the debate on the role of trust in banks and the financial system in general. How to gain and regain trust in banks and f inancial markets is a matter of extensive discussions in banking practise. Motivated by these dev elopments, we aimed to explore and analyse the role of trust in the context of consumer financ ial decision making. The following two questions guided the research: 1) Which are the entities of trust that are most relevant in engendering trustin g investment behaviour? 2) Which influencing variables are most relevant in generating trust? To answer these research questions we developed a multidimensional model of trus t in financial decision making drawing on Ajzen s theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen 1991) and pr evious research on trust in electronic commerce (Einwiller 2003). Three objects of trus t were differentiated in the model; 1) the banking system (trust in the system), 2) the bank (trust in the bank) and 3) the financial advisor at the bank (trust in the advisor). As potent ial influencing variables on trust in the bank we tested the reputation of the bank and the fami liarity and satisfaction with the bank. Variables potentially influencing trust in the advis or were the familiarity and satisfaction with the advisor. The dependent variables of trust in the three trust objects comprised the consumer s trusting expectations that the investment decisio n was good, worthwhile and low-risk and his or her trusting behavioural intention to make an investment at the respective bank. In order to test the model, an online survey was conducted between January and M arch 2010 to collect data from private investors. Participants were recruited by tapping pers onal networks and applying a snowball system. Participants were asked to answer the questions

with respect to their latest investment. Of the 247 persons that filled out the online questionn aire, 42 claimed that they had never invested at a bank; additional 60 people said to not have co nsulted with an advisor for making their investment. Those 102 participants had to be excluded f rom the dataset, leaving a total of 145 cases for the analyses. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling with Partial Least Square s (PLS). The results show that system trust only exerts a moderate influence on the trusting expectation and investment decision of private investors. Strong effects, however, originate fro m trust in the bank and trust the bank advisor. While trust in the bank exerts its influence on the trusting intention to invest mainly through the person s trusting expectation, trusting the bank advisor has the strongest direct effect on private investors investment intentions. The v ariable exerting the strongest influence on trust in the bank is the bank s corporate reputation; f amiliarity with the advisor was the variable most relevant for trust in the bank advisor. Additi onal analyses revealed a correlation between the level of trust and information search behavio ur. Trusting investors draw more heavily on information sources provided by the bank while le ss trusting individuals consult to a greater extent with external sources before making an i nvestment 312

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications decision. Among external information sources the internet evolves as the source most important to less trusting private investors. The results show that investing is a very personal business, particularly in tur bulent times. While system trust only marginally influences private investors ng the person decision making, trusti

who advises the investor in his or her decision making is most important. When p rivate investors trust the bank and the advisor they also rely on information materials provided by the bank; however, when trust is rather low investors prefer the internet as a source for information. References Ajzen, I. 1991. The theory of planned behaviour. Organizational Behavior and Hum an Decision Processes, 50: 179-211. Einwiller, S. 2003. When reputation engenders trust: An investigation in busines s-to-consumer electronic commerce. Electronic Markets -The International Journal of Electronic Commerce and Busines s Media, 13, no. 3: 196-209. 313

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Building corporate reputation through the use of Corporate Social Responsibility and Cause Related Marketing: A longitudinal study of consumers perceptions in Cypru.

Ioanna Papasolomou Associate Professor, Head of Marketing Department School of Business University of Nicosia, Cyprus. Papasolomou.i@unic.ac.cy Marlen Demetriou Assistant professor, Department of Marketing School of Business University of Ni cosia, Cyprus Abstract The reputation of the corporation is critical in building both financial and soc ial successes. Corporate reputation depends on how the company conducts or is perceived as cond ucting its business. Today the ability to build a sustainable corporate reputation is more important than ever before as stakeholders are more critical, and more demanding. Government in terference, consumerism and grassroots movement have been on the high. More and more corpora tions are focusing their efforts on gaining a competitive advantage and a strong posit ive reputation by demonstrating a commitment to their responsibilities towards the society. Cause Related Marketing (CRM) has become one of the hottest forms of corporate giving and it i s used by firms in order to build a strong corporate brand. This paper discusses the findings that emerged from a study that was carried out in Cyprus in 2004, 2007, 2009/10, which was aimed at shedding light onto the perceptions held by Cypriot citizens regarding the CSR/CRM activities launched by local businesses and their impact on the reputation of businesses. Introduction Several authors have argued that there is a pressing need to build the corporate brand in order to sustain corporate reputation (Schultz and Kitchen 2000; Kitchen and Schultz 1 999; Kitchen

and Schultz 2001a; Kitchen and Schultz 2001b). Building corporate identity has b een recognized as a source of competitive advantage. Corporate identity is concerned with what an organization is and the various cues it uses to present itself to its various st akeholders. The paper suggests that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and CRM activities are used by local businesses in order to influence positively the perceptions and attitudes held b y stakeholder groups such as customers regarding the corporation s image. Social responsibility is synonym for good citizenship. CSR, according to the EU Green Book on CSR is essentially a concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute t o a better society and a cleaner environment . Being socially responsible means not only fulfi lling legal expectations, but also going beyond compliance and investing more into human capit al, the environment, and the relations with stakeholders (European Commission, 2001, pp. 5, 8). It is important that organisations are committed to fulfilling expectations and moral obligations at the level of society. It means that right conduct takes into account the welfare of the larger society. CRM activities have increasingly become an important element of corpora te marketing strategies and one of the most popular approaches to implementing CSR. CRM has g ained 314

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications popularity among businesses and the existent literature gives several examples o f CRM campaigns that have been implemented successfully for several years. CRM has bee n defined by Varadarajan and Menon (1988) as a program designed to create a partnership betwe en a sponsoring firm and a non-profit cause to raise money through product sales. Adk ins (2005) describes CRM as: using money, techniques and strategies to support worthwhile cau ses whilst at the same time building the business. Cui et al. (2003) defined CRM as: a general alliance between businesses and non-profit causes that provide resources and fun ding to address social issues and business marketing objectives a strategy that links corp orate identity with non-profits, causes, and significant social issues through cooperative mark eting and fund raising programs. The CRM strategy links corporate identity with non-profit organisations, causes, and social issues through fund-raising programmes that are usually based on a partnership between corporations and non-profit making organizations. The term is widely used by practitioners an d others (Business in the Community, 1998; Ellen et al., 2000). Several researchers (Dahl and Lavack, 1995; Ellen et al., 1997; Lafferty, 1996; Webb and Mohr, 1998) support that busi nesses can use CRM strategically in order to enhance consumers d images. perceptions of corporate and bran

There is in fact strong evidence of a wide variety of business and non-profit ca use partnerships in the current literature which points to differences in terms of the type of ca use supported, the geographic scope of the cause, the type of support and the duration of the progr amme. The Theoretical Background of the study The CRM term was coined by American Express. American Express introduced the ter m causerelated marketing in 1983 when it promised to make a donation to renovate the statue of Liberty each time someone used its charge card (Kleppner 2003, p.781). The end r esult was a contribution of $ 1.7 million made by the corporation, but the cause-related cam paign produced a 28 percent increase in card usage. Kotler (2003, p.27) believes that companies

see cause related marketing as an opportunity to enhance their corporate reputation, raise brand awareness, increase customer loyalty, build sales and increase press coverage . Th e Business in the Community Cause Related Marketing Tracker 2003 has found that 58.2 million was raised by over 60 businesses benefiting over 60 charities and good causes through over 80 CRM programs. The CRM tracker was launched by the BITC in 2003 with the aim of ident ifying CRM programs undertaken during 2003 in order to benefit the society. Manakkalathil and Rudolf (1995) found that in evaluating their purchase options, consumers look beyond the attributes and environmental consequences of the product itself into the business background, attitudes and behavior. Today, perhaps more than ever befor e, it has become easier for consumers and other publics to monitor corporations and their socially responsible activities. Studies have showed that consumers are more receptive to wards firms that are proactive regarding environmental and social issues in their business a nd marketing practices (Carlson et al., 1993). Increasingly consumers are becoming more sophi sticated, more critical more demanding with heightened expectations when it comes to assessing a company s position/standing in the society. More and more consumers are expecting that bus inesses will meet their duties and responsibilities towards the society beyond what is requir ed by law. These results highlight the fact that marketing focuses on selling as well as on influ encing and persuading the target customer to buy the product. Corporations are driven by th e human needs of their customers (Kotler and Levy, 1969) and of their internal and external pu blics (Kotler, 1972) both out of obligation towards the society and to achieve positive custome r responses. CRM enables businesses to reach and satisfy their target publics expectations and needs and to help them set the company apart from rival firms through tying the company to co rporate social responsibility initiatives. 315

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Well-implemented and promoted CRM programs have the potential to bring enormous benefits in the partnership whereas an ineffective CRM campaign can backfire and damage t he reputation of the partner organizations and harm the work of the charity or caus e involved. Ross et al. (1990-1991, 1992) and Berger et al. (1996) posit that CRM campaigns have the potential to create favorable consumer attitudes towards the company, its products and a nonprofit cause. Around 80 percent of consumers surveyed indicated that firms that support a caus e generate greater trust, and 85 percent said the company s commitment to a social cause was important when deciding whom to do business with in their local community (Cone Inc., 2004 ). The 2004 Cone Corporate Citizenship study results indicate that eight in 10 Americans say that corporate support of causes gains the trust in the company supporting the cause. 86 percen t of consumers (around 130 million) claim that they will switch brands to a company involved in a charitable cause, if price and quality are equal (Lorge, 1998). Hence, innovation, quality, pricing, technology may not be enough in the eyes of consumers. The Cone/Roper CRM survey (Cone, Inc., 1999) indicates that 94 percent of socially and politically active leaders reported having a favorable image of companies that were committed to a cause. Till and Nowak (2000) indicate that the most popular causes are those that are l inked to the environment and health issues. There is also tendency within the business sector to donate money to the relief effort that follows natural disasters. For example after the tsunami in 2004, the Washington Post published a list of corporations such as Starbucks (that don ated two dollars to disaster relief in Indonesia for each pound of Sumatran coffee purchased) and Avon donated three dollars to the reconstruction efforts for each Heart of Asia pin bought by i ts customers (Cooperman, 2005). According to The 1999 Cone/Roper Cause Related Trends Report (C one, Inc, 1999), Americans are concerned with issues in their local community. Ross e t al. (1990-1991) reported that people were more likely to support causes that had a local focus t han those with a national scope. Undoubtingly, alliances between businesses and charities/good causes are increas ingly becoming an important strategic component of the marketing mix. There is increas ing evidence in the existent literature that cause-related marketing alliances have changed fro m being tactical in nature into being strategic. Traditionally, firms formed alliances w ith businesses in

order to boost sales in the short-run or to create a short-run buzz around the com pany. However, increasingly the campaigns have become more coordinated, holistic and s trategic since they provide the means for potentially motivating employees, strengthening the relationships with marketing intermediaries and other key stakeholder groups and of course, enhancing the image of the brand and the reputation of the company in the market . Dowling (1994) posits that corporate reputation is the evaluation (respect, este em, estimation) in which an organisation s image is held by people. An article published in The Mark eter (November 2010) about reforming reputation suggests that: the way to deal with the many stakeholder audiences facing a company is to identify and communicate an organis ation s essential values, which can then act as a unifying filter for all actions and be havior within the company. (The Marketer, November 2010, pp. 32-33). Social responsibility is often one of the corporate values and CRM can be its manifestation in the society. In this way th e organization shapes its own personality egard it. If and influences the way the various stakeholder groups r

the corporation is highly regarded by for example its customers, shareholders, s taff and financial publics, then they behave in a more favourable way towards the organization, whi ch then drives up its market value. Dowling (2002) suggests that a number of consultants are advising managers that the way to win the hearts, minds, and loyalty of employees and customers is through a CRM campa ign. Why? Because CRM is an image-building tool. If companies and brands are aligned with causes people feel strongly about, then social capital can be created and stronger bonds betwe en companies and various stakeholder groups can be established. Burbury (1999) claims that if a company is 316

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications aligned with a good cause, this can reverse any negative feelings which are foun ded on the luck of trust and cynicism towards businesses. CRM can be one of the platforms on whi ch a business can build its identity. There are many examples in the market place which illust rate this stance: the Sainsbury s and Active Kids scheme which was developed in order to offer schoo ls in the UK the opportunity to claim Active Kids equipment to help inspire school children t o enjoy being more active (http://www.bitc.org.uk), The innocent drinks and the Supergran Camp aign which raised 115k for Age Concern, The McDonald s Roland McDonald House for terminally i ll children, Tesco s Computers for Schools Campaign, Avon and the Breast Cancer Resea rch campaign and many more. The Research Study This research paper is based on the hypothesis that corporations which form part nerships with social organizations and/or causes (CRM) have a higher recognisability among Cyp riots than those that do not form such alliances. The research identifies the changes of th e level of consumer knowledge with regards to companies the past involvement in CRM activities within

six years and examines the value and importance of CRM in enhancing the brand im age. Specifically, the research objectives are: 1. To examine the changes of the Cypriot Citizens attitude towards the need for corporations to be socially responsible. 2. To examine the changes in Cypriot Citizens preferences regarding purchase of Bran ds from companies with a known Corporate Social Responsibility Program. 3. To indicate which corporations Cypriots believe have demonstrated their Social Responsibility. 4. To indicate the social causes Cypriots would like local corporations to give the ir support to. 5. To reveal whether Cypriot consumers believe that local businesses are good corpo rate citizens. 6. To identify the information sources Cypriot consumers use in order to get inform

ation regarding CSR programmes supported by local firms. This longitudinal research uses quantitative approach and comparative analysis. Longitudinal approach is defined as research in which: (1) data are collected for two or more distinct periods (implying the notion of repeated measurements); (2) the subjects or cases analyz ed are the same, or at least comparable, from one period to the next; and (3) the analysis involves some comparison of data between or among periods (Menard, 1991: 4 found it in http://srmo.sagepub.com/view/the-a-z-of-social-research/n62.xml). The data repor ted here is the result of a comparative analysis of three surveys conducted in 2004, 2007 an d 2009/10. The comparative analysis is used to compare and contrast people s attitudes towards CR M efforts of different Cyprus based corporations. Since all surveys were carried out in Nicos ia with a representative sample the comparative analysis allows us to drive trends in peop le s attitude towards CSR efforts and indicate those companies that remained visible among Cyp riots. The three surveys included open and close-ended questions. On the one hand, clos ed-ended questions provided the respondents with all possible answers which allow them to choose from, and on the other hand, open-ended questions allowed responders to use their own words to describe and explain a situation. The sample size of the 2004 survey was 740 res ponders, the 2007 survey 504 responders and 2010 survey 616 responders. We used stratified ra ndom sampling in which the population was divided into three mutually exclusive age g roups (20-35, 36-50, 51-above). All three surveys were interviewer administered and therefore questionnaires were completed by the researchers through face to face and telephone interviews. The analysis of the data collected, was analyzed with the use of SPSS and Excel packages. 317

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The Research Findings Objective 1 The first objective of this survey wanted to examine whether Cypriots expect the corporations to be socially responsible. Table 1 shows that the majority (88%-87%-87%) of consum ers that participated in the study share the view that local businesses must invest money in activities that can potentially improve the society s well-being. It seems that there is a cl ose link between corporate citizenship and customer expectations. The table illustrates that ther e is a steady trend that spans from 2004 to 2010 which highlight the heightened expectations a nd requirements among consumers for socially responsible corporate behavior. Table 1: Cypriots expectations towards CSR programs Consumers expect that local businesses invest funds in activities that can potentially improve the society s well-being? 2004 (%) 2007 (%) 2009/10 (%) Agree 88 87 87 Disagree 6 6 4 Indifferent 6 7 9 Objective 2 The second objective of this research paper is to examine whether Cypriot consum ers are likely to select a brand which is marketed by a corporation which practices CSR (brand B) rather than one which is promoted by a company that is not engaged in CSR (brand A) given th at the brands are similar and have the same price. Table 2 indicates that the majority of resp ondents claimed that they would endorse the company that practices CSR. The 2009/2010 findings c orroborate the findings that emerged in 2004 and 2007. The study s findings also corroborate the findings that emerged from the existent literature which showed that corporations with co mmitment to social responsibility have the potential to encourage consumers to switch betwee n products when price, product and quality are equal. For example the importance of CSR beh avior is highlighted by the findings of the MORI survey during September 2000, MORI (Mark et and Opinion Research International), on behalf of CSR Europe interviewed 12,000 cons umers across 12 European countries on their attitudes towards the role of businesses in today s society. The

survey also revealed that the majority of the European public feel that a compan y s commitment to social responsibility is an important consideration when buying a product or service (70%), and even 1 in 5 (20%) would be very willing to pay more for products that are so cially and environmentally responsible. In addition, 1 in 7 (14%) of the European public ac tively seeks information on ethical activities. Table 2: Consumers preferences in relation to products associated with CSR On the contrary to product A , product B is marketed by a company that practices CSR/CRM. Which product do you prefer? 2004 (%) 2007 (%) 2009/2010 (%) Product A 3 6 6 Product B 88 83 85 Any of the two 9 11 9 318

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Objective 3 The third objective of this research study is to identify the corporations in Cy prus that Cypriot consumers believe they are the most reputable corporations in terms of Social Re sponsibility. Table 3, presents the local businesses that are actively implementing CSR activi ties based on customers perceptions. The first two places are occupied by the two leading retai l banking organizations, namely the Bank of Cyprus and the Marfin Laiki Bank. The Marfin L aiki Bank supports Radiomarathon, a charity that helps children with special needs and the ir families. The Bank of Cyprus supports the local Anti-Cancer Society which primarily raises fun ds to finance the Oncology Department and the Arodaphnousa Clinic which is a palliative hospice fo r cancer patients. The successful social partnerships the two banks have formed with nonprofit organizations is known as Cause Related Marketing Programs (CRM), has undoubtedl y placed them at the top of the list of the most responsible corporations in Cyprus. Thus the research findings suggest that CRM programmes can have a strong positive impact on custom ers perceptions and feelings towards corporations. This finding corroborates the fin dings that emerged from the literature review. In exploring the impact of CRM on businesses and brands, BITC carried out a majo r study in partnership with Research International, LightSpeed and Dunnhumby entitled Brand Benefits . The first part of the study was carried out in 2003 and it involved 6,000 consum ers (4,000 in the UK and 2,000 in the US). The study revealed that CRM campaigns are effective and that they influence brand affinity and in turn brand equity, as well as consumer perceptio n, loyalty and purchase behaviour (BITC 2004). CRM effectiveness is highlighted by the high lev els of consumer awareness of CRM campaigns. When prompted with a list of recent CRM pro grams, 98% of UK and US consumers were aware of at least one up from 88% in 2000. In ca rrying out the second part of the Brand Benefits study, BITC found out that people in gener al are enthusiastic about CRM and they see it as a great way of supporting charities an d good causes. CRM is perhaps one of the hottest forms of corporate giving. Its popularity can only increase as more and more businesses realize its full potential. 319

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 3: The local businesses with the strongest corporate reputation in terms o f CSR/CRM activities 2004 (%) 2007 (%) 2009/2010 (%) Marfin Popular Bank 58 33 39 Bank of Cyprus 57 36 33 Cyta 20 10 18 Hellenic Bank 20 2 0 Lanitis 16 5 6 TV Channels 16 4 5 J & P 19 5 13 AHK 11 5 7 McDonalds 0 0 18 Other 44 26 43 Objective 4 The fourth objective of this research was to identify the social causes Cypriots expect businesses to form social partnerships with in order to help address social problems and is sues. Table 4 shows that Cypriots expect corporations to get involved and form social partners hips with causes/charities that are linked to cancer as well as to the physical environmen t. At this point it needs to be underlined that in the first two phases of the research (2004 and 20 07) Cypriots expressed their concern regarding the increasing problem of drug use by the loca l population. They expected local firms to be concerned and actively involved in addressing an d potentially solving the problem. In the last phase of this research (2009/10) this percentag e has decreased to almost 1/3 and it would be interesting to explore the rationale behind it. Th e table also depicts that there is a significant decrease in the percentage of consumers who believe that local businesses should support charities that promote and protect children s rights. It would also be interesting to uncover the rational behind this decrease. Table 4: The charities/causes that are supported by local businesses 2004 (%) 2007 (%) 2009/2010 (%) Anti-Cancer Society 47 33 35 Protection of Children s Rights 43 5 21 Anti-drug campaigns 38 32 13 Physical Environment 21 25 26 Anti-Leukaemia 18 2 0 Health 17 19 21 Violence in the family 14 3 3 Poverty 0 0 17.2

Education/Culture 1 5 11.60 Objective 5 Table 5, presents the study s findings in relation to whether Cypriot consumers sh are the view that local businesses are good corporate citizens. The majority of respondents ( a total of three hundred and twenty-four respondents) believe that local Cypriot businesses are s ocially responsible whereas, two hundred and ninety-three have a different opinion. It w as not clear from the study whether the negative opinions were due to inadequate promotional activity undertaken by local firms regarding CSR programmes or whether it was due to the fact that local consumers did not see enough evidence of CSR practice by local businesses. 320

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 5: Local businesses as good corporate citizens (2009/2010) Yes 324 No 293 Objective 6 A number of information sources are used by the consumers studied in order to ge t information in relation to the CSR practice pursued by local businesses. The study revealed that the majority of them rely on commercial sources, primarily magazine and TV ads. Word of mouth communication and newspaper ads are also used (Table 7). The literature reviewed suggests that corporations need to be cautious in using marketing communications to creat e awareness and disseminate information regarding their socially responsible activities. If stakeholders view that the corporation is promoting their CSR practices with too much zeal they wi ll contempt them. Table 6: Information sources used by local consumers in enhancing their knowledg e regarding CSR practice by local firms Personal sources 158 Commercial Sources: TV advertisements 394 Commercial Sources Magazine advertisements 201 Commercial Sources: Newspaper advertisements 158 Other 112 It seems that commercial information sources, primarily TV and magazines, are wi dely used among local consumers when it comes to creating knowledge and understanding rega rding CSR activities. It can be suggested that Cypriot consumers want to be informed of CS R programmes a finding which corroborates the findings of the 2004 Cone Corporate Citizenship study according to which an overwhelming majority of Americans wanted companies to tal k more about their cause related marketing efforts (http://www.causemarketingforum.com) . It is vital that the consumer does not think that the firm is exploiting the partnership thr ough excessive promotion. This suggests that companies need to plan their promotional campaign with cautiousness so as not to be perceived by the various publics as cause-exploitiv e. If stakeholders view that the corporation is promoting their CSR practices with too much zeal th ey will contempt them. Research carried out by Landreth et al. (2004) showed that the cr eation of awareness among customers and other publics in relation to the amount of money d onated to

the cause from every purchase and the increase, if any, of the amount donated co ntribute positively to the success of the CRM program. Conclusion and Managerial Implications Corporations need to recognize that stakeholders share the need to know about th e company behind the brands. In fact, this knowledge can influence their perceptions regar ding the brands. There is also growing evidence in that people no longer trust institutions and a re cynical of their marketing practices. However, the study showed that customers expect that busine sses will contribute to the society s well-being. The study revealed that the local business es with the strongest corporate reputations are the two leading retail banking corporations which have demonstrated their commitment to specific causes for nearly two decades. This finding suggests that corporations require more than just the ability to pr esent sustainable corporate reputation stories to stakeholders; they also require proactive planni ng and the ability to adapt to changing and increasing expectations regarding accountability. These businesses appear to have realized that the proactive implementation of CSR/CRM activities enables them to develop favorable word-of-mouth communication, as well as positive perception s and 321

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications attitudes among citizens and consumers. This buzz around their name initiated by k ey stakeholder groups enables them to build and sustain strong corporate reputation s. Proposition 1: The success of the CSR/CRM campaign depends greatly on proactive implementation and long-term commitment by businesses. Managers must see the CSR /CRM campaign as a long-term strategy and not as a tactical ad hoc move. Proposition 2: Successful CSR/CRM campaigns can stimulate consumer generated mar keting and create favourable publicity which contributes to strengthening the corporation s r eputation. Managers should use corporate and marketing communications to create awareness a nd inform target customers of their corporate giving. This however must be done with care in order for the company not to be perceived to exploit the cause for personal gain. The study also showed that Cypriot consumers appear to have developed strong fav orable attitudes towards corporations that have aligned with causes. CRM encourages con sumers to switch between products when price, product and quality are equal. CSR and speci fically CRM can be used to build a public relationship with a cause in order to build the co mpany s reputation. It is vital though to ensure that they associate with causes and/or charities for which stakeholders have favorable perceptions. Local consumers appear to favor chariti es/causes that are closely linked with health and primarily cancer awareness and support of can cer patients as well as with children. Proposition 3: managers should select causes/charities for which consumer hold f avorable perceptions. This will increase the degree of acceptance and support of the CSR/ CRM campaign. Therefore, there is a need to explore customers barking on a CSR/CRM campaign. Corporate images and reputations are driven by the need to offer good value to s takeholders such as (employment, products and services). However, as this study has showed t here is evidence that supports that corporate giving also plays a critical role in build ing the corporate image and as such should be one of the tools used in building corporate identity . Proposition 4: manages should use CSR activities such as CRM as a building mechani perception and feelings before em

sm for creating corporate identity and influencing corporate behavior (the actions of t he organization and its employees). In this way the corporation will be able to positively influ ence the picture that various stakeholder groups have about the company. The study demonstrated that corporations that embrace and practice CSR/CRM have much to gain. Consumers seek information regarding corporate programmes of social respon sibility and use commercial sources. However, managers need to find a balance between giving too much or too little information in order not to be seen to be exploiting the partnersh ip and the cause or not to engage in CSR which could be perceived as a lack of sensitivity or concer n for social problems. Proposition 5: Local firms should use marketing communications in order to educa te target audiences of their CSR/CRM programmes but this must be done with care in order n ot to be counter effective. 322

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications References Adkins, S. (2005) Cause Related Marketing: Who Cares Win, Burlington, MA: Elsevi er Butterworth-Heinemann. Berger, I.E., Cunningham, P.H. and Kozinets, R.V. (1996) The processing of causerelated marketing claims: cues, biases, or motivators? in Droge, C. and Calantone, R. (Eds), AMA Summer Educators Conference: Enhancing Knowledge Development in Marketing, 5 p. 72. BITC (2004) Brand Benefits: How cause related marketing impacts on brand equity, consumer behaviour and the bottom line . Research International, info@crm.org.uk. Bloom, P.N., Hussein, P.Y. and Szykman, L.R. (1997), The benefits of corporate so cial marketing initiatives , in Goldberg, M., Fishbein, M. and Middlestadt, S.E. (Eds), Social Marketing: Theore tical and Practical Perspective, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, pp.313-34. Business in the Community (1998), The corporate survey II , available at: www.crm.org.uk/step1/step2/publications/compsurvey.htm Burbery, R. (2002), The Third Wave of Branding, Australian Financial Review (15 Ma rch 1999), pp. 15-16. 2004, Cone Corporate Citizenship Study, http://www.causemarketingforum.com, Caus e Marketing Forum, (Accessed 10 September 2010). Carlson, L., Grove, S.J. and Kangun, N. (1993) A content analysis of environment al advertising claims : a matrix method approach, Journal of Advertising, 22, September, pp. 3-19. Collins, M. (1994) Global corporate philanthropy and relationship marketing, Eur opean Management Journal, 12 (2), pp. 226-33. Cone, Inc. (1999) The 1999 Cone/Roper Cause-Related Trends Report : The Evolutio n of Cause Branding SM, Boston, MA, 8 March. Cone Inc. (2004) 2004 Cone corporate citizenship study available at: www.mybizwarehouse.com/2ndbusiness/2004ConeCorporateCitizenshipStudy.pdf# (acces sed September 2010) Cooperman , A. (2005) Cause and effect; tsunami aid is goodwill and good busines s, The Washington Post, January 26, p. E01. Cui, Y., Trent, E.S., Sullivan, P.M. and Matiru, G.N. (2003) Cause-related marke ting: how generation Y responds, International Journal of Retailing and Distribution Management, 31(6), pp. 310-3 20. Dahl, D.W. and Lavack, A.M. (1995) Cause-related marketing: impact of size of co

rporate donation and size of causerelated promotion on consumer perceptions and participation, Proceedings of the American Marketing Association Winter educators Conference, pp. 29-30. Dowling, G.R. (1995) Corporate Reputations rand Management, 2 (5), pp. 377-385. the company s super brand, Journal of B

Dowling, G. (2002) Creating Corporate Reputations: Identity, Image and Performan ce, New York: Oxford University Press. Ellen, P.S., Mohr, L.A. and Webb, D.J. (1997) Can retailers benefit from Cause m arketing? Consumer responses to different promotional offers, Working paper, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA. Ellen, P.S., Mohr, L.A. and Webb, D.J. (2000) Charitable programs and the retail er: do they mix?, Journal of Retailing, 76 (3), pp. 393-406. http://www.causemarketingforum.com Kitchen, P.J. and Schultz, D.E. (1999) A multi-country comparison of the drive f or integrated marketing communications, Journal of Advertising Research, 39(1), pp. 21-38. Kitchen, P.J. and Schultz, D.E. (2001a) Raising the Corporate Umbrella: Corporat e Communications in the 21st Century, Palgrave: London. Kitchen, P.J. and Schultz, D.E. (2001b) A comparative analysis of integrated cor porate and brand communications, Journal of Global Competitiveness, 9(1), pp. 438-441. Kotler, P. (1972) A generic concept of marketing, Journal of Marketing, 36 (2), pp. 45-54. Kotler, P. and Levy, S. (1969) Broadening the concept of marketing, Journal of M arketing, 23(1), pp. 10-15. Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. (2001) Principles of Marketing, Prentice Hall Inter national Edition: New Jersey. Lafferty, BA. (1996) Cause-related marketing: does the cause make a difference i n consumers attitudes and purchase intentions toward the product?, Working Paper, Department of Marketing, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL. Landreth, S., Pirsch, J. and Garretson, J. (2004) Cause-related marketing , in Scam mon, D., Mason, M. and Mayer, R. (Eds), Marketing and Public Policy Proceedings, Salt Lake City, UT, pp. 116-118. Lorge, S. (1998) Is cause-related marketing worth it?, Sales and Marketing Manag ement, June, p. 72. Manakkalathil, J. and Rudolf, E. (1995) Corporate social responsibility in a glo

balizing market, Advanced Management Journal, 60, Winter, pp. 29-32. Ross, J.K. III, Patterson, L.T. and Stutts, M.A. (1992) Consumer perceptions of organizations that use cause-related marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 20 (1), pp. 93-97. Ross, J.K. III, STutts, M.A. and Patterson, L.T. (1990-1991) Tactical considerat ions for the effective use of cause-related marketing, Journal of Applied Business Research, 7(2), pp. 58-65. 323

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Ramrayka, L. (2004) Giving is a hard-headed business, The Guardian, November 8, pp.9. Schultz, D.E. and Kitchen, P.J. (2000) Global Communications: An Integrated Mark eting Approach NTC Business Books, Chicago and Macmillan, London. The Marketer (2010) Reforming Reputation, pp. 32-35, November. Varadarajan, R. and Menon, M. (1988) Cause-related marketing: a co-alignment of marketing strategy and corporate philanthropy, Journal of Marketing, 52, pp. 58-74. Webb, D.J. and Mohr, L.A. (1998) A typology of consumer responsesto cause-relate d marketing: from skeptics to socially concerned, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 17, Fall, pp. 226-23 8. 324

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Patients' Satisfaction with Hospital Rehabilitation Services

Maria Pyrgeli Athens University of Economics and Business, Department of Business Administrati on, Greece mariapyrdoc@yahoo.gr George Panigyrakis Athens University of Economics and Business, Department of Business Administrati on, Greece Eleftherios Bakas KAT General Hospital Athens, Physical and Rehabilitation Department, Greece Health care, rehabilitation services are important to patients -customers who ar e in need of services due to medical conditions such as Spinal Cord Injury (SCI), Stroke, Tra umatic Brain Injury (TBI) and other Neurologic, Orthopedic and Rheumatologic conditions that lead to functional impairments. The quality of life for patients -customers in need of these servic es can be improved if they feel they are receiving adequate care and have the ability to e xpress their opinions of these services. Learning from patients themselves brings exciting op portunities to clinicians, researchers, and policymakers for the improvement of healthcare serv ices. The importance of including patients ncreasingly opinions in health service assessment has been i

acknowledged over the past decade and patient satisfaction is now widely conside red a meaningful index of quality of care (Franchignoni, 2002).Patient satisfaction is an attitude about healthcare services, service providers, or patients health status (Raposo et al, 2009). Satisfaction is a complicated multidimensional concept whose measurement and application are not simple. Satisfaction is derived from the Latin satis (enough) and facere (to do or make) . Consequently satisfaction is the judgement that a product or service feature, is provided or is providing a pleasurable level of consumption-related fulfilment, including levels of under-o r over-fulfilment (Moutinho, 2000).Patient satisfaction is an important outcome measure for evalua ting quality of medical care (Martin Stevens 2006). Service quality and satisfaction are distinc t constructs (Zeithaml Britner, 2000; Parasuraman et al., 1994), but patients tend to focus o

n personal aspects of care, for example how comfortable they feel, which may or may not con tribute to improvement of their condition. Satisfaction ratings represent health care clien t reactions to salient aspects of their experience of the service received, but it is not clear how much they reflect other respondents variables (patients preferences, expectations, clinical conditions, etc.) rather than the realities of the care received (type, quality, intensity, etc.) (Andaleeb, 2001). Research also found that emotions unrelated to treatment may color responses to surveys (Zhao et al, 2009). There is evidence indicating patients who are satisfied are more a pt to have continued loyalty toward treatment providers and may be more likely to cooperate with treatment regimens (Pascoe, 1983). Dissatisfied patients tend to seek other prov iders (Zhao et al, 2009). Patient satisfaction is most frequently measured by a questionnaire i n which the respondent checks the extent of satisfaction or renders judgment about the adequ acy of service or outcomes. Level of satisfaction is usually regarded as an outcome measure, that is, as a r esult of services, patients are more or less satisfied. Low levels may be a barrier to future utili zation (Zhao et al, 2009). However, it is possible for satisfaction to be an input variable in which initial satisfaction with health care can result in greater or lesser use of services (Raposo et al, 2009).Health professionals are now learning that those they serve can make important suggesti ons as individuals and provide data about their view of health care services offered. H owever, it is 325

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications questionable whether somebody obtains accurate information from satisfaction sur veys. Surveys may produce widely varying data depending on how questions are framed an d when and how they are asked. There is also uncertainty when comparing data from diffe rent populations of respondents. A person s response may also be influenced by their ex pectations and outcomes. Method Sample and data collection 142 patients (102 males and 40 females; mean age 42 years, 25 -59) took part in this study. They were treated as inpatients, 21 -90 days, in the Rehabilitation Department o f KAT General Hospital of Athens, from December 2006 to October 2009, after SCI (n =45 ), TBI (n = 42), Stroke (n = 37), other Neurologic condition (n = 13), other condition (n = 5). A ll subjects were eligible. They gave written informed consent to take part in the study and the p rotocol was approved by the local ethical committee. The questionnaire was administered to t hem one day before their discharge. Measuring instrument Patients filled in a questionnaire to measure patient satisfaction. There were q uestions modified and translated from the SAT-16, a questionnaire measuring patient satisfaction w ith respect to the perceived quality of care during inpatient rehabilitation that it has been d emonstrated to have content, concomitant and construct validity, and test-retest reliability (F ranchignoni, 1998).The instrument is self-administered and includes 10 closed-ended items pro viding a comprehensive feed-back on the subjective experience and evidencing any single e xpression of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The respondent checks the extent of satisfactio n regarding each item on a 5-level scale (from 1 highly dissatisfied to 5 highly satisfied). The dim ensions of the 10 questions (humaneness, medical and paramedical care, physical surroundings an d accessory services, insurance coverage) are deemed to cover key areas within the patient s e xpectations (Simonet, 2005 and Rubin, 2001).

Statistical analysis Results from the survey were entered into the SPSS 10.0 data analysis spreadshee t tool. Item scores of the questionnaire were transformed so that a high percentage represent s a high satisfaction level. 326

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Findings Table 1. Percentage of satisfaction from the rehabilitation department s services. Satisfaction N(%) Highly Dissatisfied Purely Dissatisfied Dissatisfied Purely Satisfied Highly Satisfied N/A Clinical Attendance 0.7 2.8 8.5 26.1 47.2 14.8 Medical Care 0 0.7 6.3 21.8 57.0 14.1 Nursing Care 2.1 2.8 9.9 30.3 40.8 14.1 Physical Therapies 4.2 9.2 14.1 25.4 33.1 14.1 Accessory Services 3.5 4.2 15.5 31.7 31.0 14.1 Ward Surroundings 16.2 13.4 23.9 14.8 17.6 14.1 P/T Ward 12.7 15.5 21.1 20.4 16.2 14.1 Rehabilitation Program 0.7 7.7 18.3 27.5 31.0 14.8 Patients Interrelations 0.7 2.1 9.9 25.4 47.2 14.8 Insurance Coverage 12.0 4.9 17.6 21.1 26.1 18.3 The mean of satisfaction was 3.805 (S.D. 0.67). Ware et al (1996) have argued th at patient satisfaction and functional health status are the 2 most important outcomes of m edical rehabilitation. Researchers have reported inconsistent results when examining fu nctional performance and patient satisfaction. In our research the correlation of medical diagnosis and satisfaction was statistically insignificant (p=0.213). Conclusions-Discussion A large part of patient satisfaction in this study could be attributed to the pe rception of patient/doctor relationship. These findings support more research results from O tani et al. (2005) and Rao et al. (2006) that point out that doctor s interaction with patient s has a

significant influence on their satisfaction.Though patients were satisfied enoug h by the medical team and the rehabilitation program there was much disappointment from the physi cal surroundings and the technical support and infrastructure of the department, as well as the insurance allowance. Therefore, the information collected by the satisfaction qu estionnaire is of practical relevance for a focused intervention within a framework of continuous quality improvement (Andaleeb, 2001), of the old fashioned and therefore superannuated m anagement of Greek hospitals. Quality systems must be the first step implementing graduall y Total Quality Management in Public Hospitals. Hospital managers should consider patients as th e external clients of a company called hospital References Andaleeb SS. (2001). Service Quality Perceptions and Patients Satisfaction: A St udy of Hospitals In a Developing Country. Social Science and Medicine; 52:1359-1370 Franchignoni F, Benevolo E, Ottonello M, Tesio L, Battaglia MA. (1998). Validity and reliability of a new questionnaire on patient satisfaction in rehabilitative therapy. Minerva Med; 89: 57 64. Franchignoni F, Ottonello M, Benevolo E, Tesio L. (2002). Satisfaction with hosp ital rehabilitation: is it related to life satisfaction, functional status, age or education? J Rehabil Med; 34: 105 108 Martin Stevens , Inge H.F. Reininga, Natalie A.D. Boss, Jim R. van Horn. (2006). Patient satisfaction at and after discharge. Effect of a time lag.Patient Educat ion and Counseling; 60 : 241 245 327

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Moutinho L (2000). Foundation Chair of Marketing University of Glasgow, Scotland Rediscovering Satisfaction Research: Some Key Etymological, Epistemological and Ontological Views .ppt Otani K, Kurz R, Harris L, Byrne F (2005). Managing primary care using patient s atisfaction measures. J Healthc Manag 50:311 325 Parasuraman, Zeithaml, Berry (1994). Alternative Scales for Measuring Service Qu ality: A Comparative Assessment Based on Psychometric and Diagnostic Criteria. Journal of Marketing ;70 (3): 201 -230 Pascoe GC. (1983). Patient Satisfaction In Primary Health Care: A Literature Rev iew and Analysis. Eval. Program Plan, 6, 185-210. Rao K, Peters D, Bandeen-Roche K (2006). Towards patient-centered health service s in India a scale to measure patient perceptions of quality. Int J Qual Health Care 18:414 421 Raposo ML, Alves HM, Duarte PA. (2009). Dimensions of Service Quality and Satisf action in Healthcare: A Patient Satisfaction Index. Serv Bus; 3: 85-100 Rubin HR, Pronovost P, Diette GB. (2001). Methodology Matters. From a Process of Care to a Measure: The Development and Testing of a Quality Indicator. International Journal of Quality in Health Care; 6: 489-496. Simonet D. (2005). Patient Satisfaction under Managed Care. International Journa l of Healthcare Quality Assurance; vol 18, No 6: 424-440 Ware JE, Phillips J, Yody BB, Ademczyk J. (1996). Assessment Tools: Functional Health Status and Patient Satisfaction. Am J Med Qual 11:S50-3. Zeithaml V, Britner MJ.(2000). Services Marketing: Integrating Customer ross the Firm. 2nd ed. Mc Graw-Hill, NY Focus Ac

Zhao M, Haley DR, Nolin JM, Dunning K, Wang J, Sun Q. (2009). Utilization, Cost, Payment and Patient Satisfaction of Rehabilitative Services in Shandong, China. Health Policy 10,1016. 328

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Marketing and Human Resources Management for improving hospital image. The case of the Greek state hospitals. Ioannis N. Bombakos National Technological University of Athens, Athens University of Economics and Business, KAT GENERAL HOSPITAL ATHENS, Greece jbobakos@hotmail.com Abstract In an attempt to identify the image of the Greek state hospitals and how it can change if necessary this paper provides information concerning the image of the Greek stat e hospitals based up on the opinions of the Greek citizens who have used their services. The identification attempts to point the basic factors that are affecting the hospital image and un derlines the importance of the Marketing methods as well as the Human Resources Management in order to create a new identity for the hospitals which can lead to a brand name. The find ings highlight the human resources, the infrastructure, the experience in treatment and the hos pital s reputation as important for the hospital image. These factors are also important hospital choice factors and can help in hatching a new identity if needed for the benefit of the Greek citizens. Key words State hospitals, hospital image, hospital brand name, hospital selection Introduction The market that the Greek state hospitals are put in is a market bordered by the Greek state sector. In such a sector the state services ought to be interested and to work f or the creation of a good image. Globally the state organizations have started understanding the im portance of a good image as a fundamental element of their corporate fund . This contribution to the corporate fund is also used as a tool of reducing the transactional costs as well as the functional cost (Tyler T., 2006).

This image has to be located into specific levels (ideal levels) in order to avo id the high functional cost as well as the cost of mishit in the cases that some service fai ls to deliver the expected (Luoma-aho V.,2005). This will also protect the service s stakeholders wh ich in this case are the employees and the civilians (Vuokko P., 2004). The image has also serious effect on the hospital s product, which is also very im portant in order to determine if the services delivered are a value for money investment (Liaropoul os L., 1995). It is also observed that in western economies public sectors are stated as import ant players who are in the position to provide financial stability through taxation and soci al welfare. Since these services are provided through organizations that are deliberated from polit ical interferences then we can talk about public organizations that are aiming to impr ove the social benefit. This improvement can be affected in the improvement of the citizens trus t towards the state. The objective of this thesis is to detect the image that the Greek citizens have for the Greek state hospitals, with specific measurements and tries to use the results of these meas urements in order to determine and to give proposals for further improvement (Rothstein and Stole, 2002). 329

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications It also intents to provide some current information by examining a number of stu dies in reputation in the public services sector (Da Namara 2008), consumer-patient choi ce behavior (Akinci et al. 2004), branding construction (Petromilli et al, 1999)-(De Vries K . and Mc Keever J., 2008)-(Boscarino, J. & Steiber, S.R.,1982) ,corporate image ( managerial theory strategies in the public sector (Pozser B. and Scmidt W, 1982), reputation management ( Weiss R, 2 009), internal design strategies (De Greeter M., 2009), patient unit design (Bunker-Hellmich, L . PhD, 2010), human resources in healthcare (Rigoli F. and Dussault G., 2003). Research objectives The last years a lot of discussion is being made in the Greek society as well as the Greek scientific community around the image the Greek state hospitals have. How much really the G reek civilians trust them and what are they really offering to them. How much these a spects are affecting their choice factors between state and private hospitals and how much this image is affecting their choice within the state hospitals. There isn t really much researc h up on this section (Akinci et al., 2004) and almost nothing in Greece. In accordance a determination is being given, through the international literatu re, to the factors that affect the image citizens have towards them (Akinci et al., 2004). Four bas ic factors are located. These are the human resources, the infrastructure, the hospital s reputat ion and the experience in treatment. A deep analysis of these factors is being done in order to determine the level of their contribution to the hospital image (Akinci et al., 2004). The Marketing and Human Resources Management sciences are able, with the modern tools that they provide, to contribute importantly in the improvement of this image fo r the social benefit and the employees benefit (Speak K. D. 1996 and Rigoli F. and Dussault G ., 2003). The role of Marketing The Marketing science has the ability to help the determination or the redetermi nation of the position or the identity an organization or a business has. This ability can be applied to Greek state hospitals in order to help them create a new identity as well as a new pos ition in the Greek society. Projecting a new identity can lead to a new brand name an element that

can t be found in any Greek state hospital. This brand name must be the product of re eventing the corporate image. This procedure is extremely difficult to achieve (Speak, 1996) and ought s to have the following destinations: . The reshaping of the perceptions Greek health care consumers have for the Greek hospitals . The reinforcing and the guidance to better ways for the existing identities . To retain the equity as well as the principles already existing and transform th em to levers of building a new identity. . To embody the organizational principles in order to help the employees live the brand. Creating a new brand means that there is a determination between the care provid ed by an organization and those addressing to it. For that reason the goal should be crea ting the difference, creating the opposite of what it is so far believed. In order to ach ieve that, a matrix of communicating the effort, the new identity scope and actions should be created. When the matrix will be fulfilled then the hospitals will be in a position to create a re lationship with its consumers based upon the band name. This brand name must include the characteris tics of willingness, the good personnel s behavior, the good infrastructure s image, charact eristics that create a good identity. This must be taken under serious consideration because t he health consumers are able to find these characteristics elsewhere (i.e. the private sec tor). 330

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The Marketing science should help each hospital find those elements that create uniqueness for each hospital, are people oriented and can be easily maintained. This effort sho uld engage the high levels of management first and then it should be spread to all personnel in order to create an emotional commitment around the brand. The role of the Human Resources Management In order to create as well as maintain the new image, the new brand name, human resources should be highly involved in this. In this research the security feeling that it is proved among the health care consumers, is highly supported by the human resources factor. This s cience is called to manage people whose actions and defaults can (according to this research) aff ect positively or negatively the Greek state hospitals image. The personnel s engagement is not such an easy thing to accomplish. And this is ha ppening because the human resources of the Greek state hospitals are people with low mot ivation. The 40% of those questioned believes that the 30% of the staff is not so dedicated a nd has low willingness. This affects the hospital image. Changing this image means that the culture has to be changed and new training programs should be established towards this change. Being also productive is another element also. But the work produced should be a dvertised in a way that will show the means used as well as the circumstances. The human resources activity should be also people oriented and close to the con sumers demands (as proved from the research) trying to develop a relationship based up on trust between them. It is also true that the existing staff capabilities can be reinforced though th e Human Resources Management procedures. This reinforcement must start from those working in the f ront line of duty giving them the ability to increase their knowledge, reengineer old practic es and attitudes in order to increase the will for work since it is highly suspected that most of them suffer from boredom, alienation and aversion for work. Finally the whole engagement procedure should take the employees as equals: thos e who have a respected opinion, members of the organizational structure, working for the sa me goal: the confrontation of health care problems through a reformed better image of the hea lth care units. In this study the research had also focused on four basic sections: a) the demog raphic characteristics of the research participants, b) the kind of experience with the Greek state

hospitals, c) the factors that are affecting the choice, d) the possible divisio ns of the participants into possible groups for further analysis. This thesis elaborates a sample of 150 people that is based up on questions that have been given in similar researches abroad in the past, who were asked relatively with the hos pital image and the factors that determine it. For the analysis of the results as well as the extraction of useful conclusions, the methods of factor and cluster analysis are being used in order to determine the specific fa ctors that affect the image of the Greek state hospitals on one hand and on the other, to determin e if the participants of this research have some specific characteristics that are able t o separate them into groups. From the analysis it is extracted that, two groups can be mentioned , the group of those who are interested for the health care provision procedure as a whole (gro up 1) and the group of those who are interested for the main entity of the health care procedu re (group 2). There are no distinct confines for these two groups however they meet in many co mmon beliefs proving that those who are using the health care services as consumers have a co mmon culture and common questions for the health provision. For that reason a further analysi s is followed in order to take into consideration other factors such as sex and age. 331

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications From the analysis of the further factors it is extracted that there is a differe nce between men and women towards some specific variables that can be special details considered by women who participated into this research. The same conclusions are met in different a ge groups. As a final result, useful conclusions are extracted and solutions are being prop osed in order to change the image of the Greek state hospitals and for the effort of tracing a ne w identity which will be able to create a new brand name through the Marketing science. The contr ibution of the hospital s human resources under the guidance of the Human Resources Management sc ience can also importantly contribute in improving the hospital image. It can also hel p in the provision of the best under the circumstances services boosting the Greek state hospitals image. Methodology Sample and Data Collection In the first part of this study there was a literature overview of the ideal lev els of functioning for the state services, the importance of a good image and its contribution to the co rporate image of a state service and especially a hospital and to the hospital product. The fa ctors affecting a hospitals image are also overviewed, and also the contribution of sciences such as marketing and human resources. The questionnaires that were used were handed in to 150 Greek citizens aged over 18 years old. The majority of these questionnaires were handed in to citizens living in the At hens metropolitan area. The rest were e-mailed to citizens living in the Greek provin ce. Variables measurements I. Human Resources factor: The human resources factor is defined as a basic fact or affecting the hospital image. The affection of human resources is measured with a five-item sc ale. The items are a synthesis of those used by Acinci et al. (2004), adjusted to the Greek con text. The Greek citizens were asked to indicate their feelings as well as their opinion about th e human resources appearance, their willingness, their communication skills, their ability to work as a team, their devotion, their skills, their interest towards each patients health problem, thei r professional knowledge, their managerial image and their plentitude. The factor analysis is u

sed to homogenize urces

those factors that are affecting the hospital s image from the human reso

scope. The factors that are producing coefficient over .65 were taken into serio us consideration. The measurements presented four factors entitled: i) the medical and nursing per sonnel interest and devotion, ii) the administrative personnel s devotion and willingness, iii) th e personnel s external appearance and iv) the nursing personnel s capabilities and professional knowledge. II. Infrastructure factor: The items that were used to identify the infrastructu re were put in a five-item scale in which the Greek citizens were asked to indicate their attitud es and their opinion about the Greek hospital s accessibility and parking spaces, the distance from their main residence, the internal atmosphere, the cleanliness and the hygiene of rooms, wa iting areas, elevators, toilets, the proper internal structure, the toilets adequacy for outc are patients, the food quality, the procedures support (i.t etc) the medical equipment and the ade quacy in patient rooms, waiting areas, elevators, signaling, public toilets and in out patient ex amining rooms. The factors that are producing coefficient over .65 were taken into serious consider ation. The measurements presented four factors as important: i) the infrastructure for out care patients as well as visitors, ii) the internal spaces adequacy, iii) the infrastructure s clea nliness, iv) the accessibility and distance from main residence. III. Hospital s reputation: The hospital s reputation factor is another contribution to the hospital image. The items that were used to indentify the hospital s reputation were also p ut in a five332

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications item scale were asked to express their opinions about the name of the hospital a nd it s reflection to the services provided, if the patients knew the hospitals medical s pecializations, the frequency that the mass media is mentioning the specific hospital, in the pa rticipants knew that famous, medical personnel was working in a specific hospital, if the partic ipants knew that the specific hospital had scientific cooperation with other hospitals, if the pa rticipants chose the specific hospital because of a doctor who proposed it, if the specific hospital had a quality certification for it s procedures and methods, if the participants were aware of s tories about difficult treatments in the specific hospital, if the hospital is involved in pr eventive health care social events, if a hospital s name is more important than the doctors working in it and finally if the hospital famous allover the country or abroad for it s activity. These questio ns were a synthesis of those given by Acinci et al. he Greek standards. The factors that are producing erious consideration. The measurements presented procedures certification-official co operations, ii) proposal from a (2004) and were properly adjusted to t coefficient over .65 were taken into s three factors such as: i) methods and stories, famous medical personnel and

specific doctor, iii) the response of the hospital s name to the quality of the ca re provided. IV. Experience in treatment factor: The experience in treatment factor is the la st hospital s image contributor factor. The items used to identify the experience in treatment facto r were put in a five-item scale were asked to express their opinions about if the treatment prov ided was covered from more than one medical specialties, if the participants prefer to us e hospitals with more than one medical specialties, if the hospital s personnel had relevant experi ence in treatment, if the patient felt that while staying in the hospital felt like to b e in good hands, if the hospital s personnel was familiar with their health problem and it s confrontation, if the medical personnel accurately diagnosed their health problem and made the proper medical exams in the right time frame, if the hospital s personnel was familiar with the latest evoluti ons in healthcare treatments and was aware of their existence, if the youngest employees were trai ned and had

supervision from older and experienced employees and finally if the care provide d was in high quality. These questions were a synthesis of those given by Acinci et al. (2004) and were properly adjusted to the Greek standards. The factors that are producing coeffic ient over .65 were taken into serious consideration. The measurements presented three factors such as: i) medical and nursing staff s experience and familiarization giving a sense of secur ity to patients, ii) the administrative staff s knowledge about health problems and their familiari ty with these, iii) the incident s coverage from more than one specialties and the hospital s plent itude in medical specialties. Findings The majority of the participants were men (53,3%) and the women were the 46,7% o f the sample. Seventy two (72) of those were aged between 18-35 years old, fifty (50) were aged between 36-55 years old, seventeen (17) were aged between 56-65 years old and el even (11) were aged over sixty five (65) years old (table 1). The 56,0% of the participant s is living in the northern suburbs of Athens, the 20,7% is living in the Athens city center, 4,0% lives in the eastern suburbs of Athens, another 4,0% lives in the southern suburbs of Athens and finally a 15,3% of the participants lives in other area outside the Athens metropolitan ar ea (table 1). From those a 19,3% of men and a 26,0% of women visited the hospital after an app ointment and a 27,3% of men and a 27,3% of women had visited the hospital for emergency reaso ns (table 2).The same percentage of men and women (22,0%) had visited a private hospital i n the past and the 24,7% of men as well as the 31,3% of women hadn t visited a private hospit al in the past (table 2).The 48,0% of the participants are taking care of persons with health p roblems in their family and the 52,0% are not taking care of anyone with health problems in the f amily (table 3). 333

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The majority of the participants (60,7%) are not connected to someone with worki ng in a state hospital but the 39,3&% are connected (table 3). The very impressing thing is th at the 71,3% of the participants are having preventive medical exams frequently in contrast to t he 28,7% who is not having (table 3). From the sample s demographic characteristics it is conclude d that the participants of this research are people who really have an opinion upon the Gre ek state hospitals because of their frequent visits to them. It is also very interesting that the participants aged between 18-35 years old a re having preventive exams more frequently (31,3%) in contrast to the other age groups tha t are not. That could be considered as an important outcome proving in this research that the yo ung aged people are taking into serious consideration the health issues (table 3). In order to confirm if there are any teams extracted from this research the clus ter analysis use showed that that the research s participants are divided into two groups but with not a big distinction between them. Ninety one persons from the 150 questioned belong into the first group and the rest belong into the second. Each variable s means are used in order to extract useful information about the groups and how they can be divided. The results are given into tables that can not be presented in this paper due to spatial reasons. Results w ith means over 3,00 were taken into consideration and are pointed with bold writing. From the variables analysis it is extracted that the first group can be named as the group of those interested for the whole health care provision procedure and the second grou p can be named as the group of those interested for the essence of the health care provisi on procedure . At this point it is very important to note that the phrase whole health care provision procedure includes all these parameters that are composing the health c are provision such as scientific knowledge, experience, accurate diagnosis, devotion , quality, as well as cleaningness, spaces adequacy, hospital s accessibility etc. This group members are also paying attention into distributive elements such as those connected to the healt h problem rehabilitation (people, procedures, infrastructure, equipment) and are also payi ng attention into the psychology factor since it is proved that when they are receiving treatment fr om a state hospital want to feel safe. This safety feeling is also empowered from the fact

that they have heard many stories about the specific hospitals successes. The psychology factor is also important for these group members-because as it is a lso proved from other variables-such as the communication between staff and patients. It is very important to mention the fact that this group members had chosen to receive treatment from a state hospital because they were told to do so from a specific doctor, the believe tha t the state hospitals are more experienced in treating difficult cases and also are capable enough to provide accurate diagnoses and their treatment can be covered from more than one medical specializations confirming the psychology factor. On the other hand the word essence includes the procedure as a result containing t he interest for the outcome, which is the health problem rehabilitation, with every mean or method that can be used. This group members are not paying so much attention in the hospital s infrastructure but are interested for the essence , the health problem s rehabilitati on through the medical and nursing staff s capabilities, their appearance, because in this wa y a level professionalism is presented. They seem to take into serious consideration the m edical and nursing staff s willingness and capabilities as well as their interest for the hea lth problem, the care s coverage from more than one medical specialties and the medical and nursing staff s familiarization in providing treatment. For this group member public hospitals have experience in treatment and experien ce in treating difficult cases. They haven t addressed to them because they were told so from a s pecific doctor neither they are familiar with stories about the hospital s successes in treatment proving that they trust the state hospitals. 334

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications At this point it was important to locate one more parameter through which also u seful conclusions could be extracted for these two groups. This parameter should be co nnected to a kind of experience or knowledge these two group members have about healthcare tr eatment. And the parameter was chosen to be their previous treatment in a private hospita l so they can be able to understand the differences between state and private hospitals. In this measurement the means over 3,00 were taken into consideration and it is extracted that those who hadn t previously received treatment in a private hospital take into con sideration the image a state hospital has which has been created though the mass media . On the ot her hand those who have received treatment in a private hospital in the past take into se rious consideration the distance from residence as a infrastructure element of the state hospitals and also they knew stories about health rehabilitation in the specific hospital as image factors of the state hospital where they received treatment, affecting their choice. In the rest of the variables they present means over 3,00 common between those w ho have received treatment in a state hospital and those who hadn t. This can lead us to t he conclusion that both are looking for the same image between state and private hospitals. Fu rthermore those who have chosen a private hospital in the past have the demand or the expe ctation the image, the staff, the infrastructure and the quality they saw in the private hos pital to be reflected in a state hospital. The common points are the image, the interest and capabilities of medical and nursing staff, the image that the hospital has allover the country, the more than one medical specializations, the famous doctors working in it, the feeling of safety that is given, the staff s experience in treatment and the accurate diagnoses. It is also very interesting to mention the image the state hospitals have which is related to sex. In this case the limit for means over 3,00 is also used. From this analysis it is e xtracted that women are taking into consideration factors such as: rooms cleaningness, food quality, the hearing from the mass media for it, the famous doctors working in it, the relevance between n ame and quality, the knowledge of it s medical specializations and the fact that the hospi tal was proposed

to them from a doctor factors that are not met in men. On the other hand men hav e all the other factors common with men except the ones above. It is also extracted that women are paying attention into specific details. In c ontrast men have with women all the factors that are connected to the medical and nursing staff s i mage meaning the capabilities, the knowledge, the interest, their familiarity with the health problems, the sense of security, and the coverage from more than one medical specialty. The age spectrum of the participants is also giving interesting results to this research. For the extraction of the results the limit of means over 3,00 is also used. Therefore e ach age group is presenting the following: Age group 18-35 years old: From the analysis it is extracted that people aged be tween 18-35 years old are paying attention into variables such as experience, communication, capabilities, willingness, interest of the medical and nursing staff, they are familiar with t he hospital s medical specialties, they are giving a point to the quality of the care provided , they also recognize the administrative staff s contribution, they are interested about an ac curate diagnosis and finally they believe that state hospitals have bigger experience in treating difficult medical cases. Age group 36-55 years old: This age group seems to have the same interests for t he variables concerning the medical, nursing and administrative staff in a bigger degree than the previous age group, but is also interested for the staff s whole organizational image as we ll as the cleaningness, the famous doctor s employment in it, and the medical equipment. The y also believe that the state hospitals have bigger experience in treating difficult ca ses. Age group 56-65 years old: This age group is interested for the same parameters concerning the medical and nursing staff but not so for the administrative staff. They were sen t to the hospital 335

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications because of a specific doctor; they know stories about the hospital successes and are also interested for the food quality. Age group 65 years old and over: This age group is interested for variables such as experience, communication, capabilities, willingness, medical and nursing staff s interest in a bigger degree than the other age groups, they are interested about the food quality, and for t he infrastructure. They are also interested for the room s adequacy, for the waiting rooms adequacy a s well as the signaling. This might be happening because age is operating as an inhibitory fac tor which is strongly affected by the infrastructure. Therefore infrastructure is operating a s a guide or a helpful factor for this age group s members. It is very interesting to mention that the first three age groups are interested for the staff s willingness and the services received from them, their experience, their capabil ities, their devotion and the accuracy of the diagnoses. They also care to be treated from mo re than one specialties if that is a necessity. It is also worth mentioning that people over 56 years old are taking under serious consideration variables such as food quality rooms adequacy , infrastructure cleaningness. They seem to care about for more quality issues. This might be con nected to their health problems that led them in a demand for quality or to the frequency of vis its to the state hospitals meaning that they have an opinion about them. We could say that they b elong to the first group of those who are interested for 1). On the the whole health care procedure (group

other hand younger people care more about the essence of the care provided and n ot so much in infrastructure issues. We could say that they belong in the second group of t hose who care about the essence of the care provided . Because their preference is to receive qui cker services with no waste of time. They focus in the basics of the procedures and not in the infrastructure believing that focusing in the essence can lead to a quicker discharge from the hospital. Conclusions This research is providing useful information about the image the Greeks about t

he state hospitals. But this research wouldn t have a scientific value if it wasn t based upo n the variables analysis, the synthetic factors affecting this image. These variables are met in researches abroad. According to Boscarino & Steiber (Boscarino & Steiber, 1982) variables connected to the general services image such as the distance from residence, the recommendation fro m a specific doctor, the staff s familiarity and the quality of the medical services p rovided. They also mention as important those variables connected to special services such as the doc tor s availability and the level of the medical equipment. Berkowitz & Flexner (Berkowitz & Flexner, 1981) are mentioning as important vari ables those connected to the quality of the services, the infrastructure s cleaningness, the s taff s behavior and the hospital s reputation. According to Daloglou (Daloglou, 1991) variables co nnected to the services quality provided by the staff, the staff s behavior, the food quality, the infrastructure s hygiene, the spaces adequacy and the doctor s availability when needed are mention ed as important in a research held in Turkey. In our research all these variables were used leading in the determination of fo ur factors as important in Greece. Those are the human resources, the infrastructure, the hosp ital s reputation and the experience in treatment. In the Greek research the human reso urces factor includes the following factors as important: the interest and devotion of the me dical, nursing and administrative staff, the nursing and administrative staff s willingness, and the existence of enough employees. In the infrastructure factor the variables that are met are the spaces adequacy, their proper arrangement, their cleaningness, and the distance from main residence. In the ho spital reputation factor the variable that is n common is the recommendation from a spe cific doctor. In 336

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications the factor experience in treatment the variables that are in common are the high quality of care and the coverage from more than one medical specialty. From the above it is concluded that the Greek health care consumers do not diffe r inmost things from those of other countries. We could say that this is happening because the h ealth care consumers have a common culture , common interests and common beliefs. And this is happening probably because the have paid in the past and they are still paying f or healthcare and they want their investments to be trustworthy. This common culture can also provide important information about the way people with health problems think or chose h ospitals. For example the food quality factor for women can lead to the conclusion that women are more details oriented . The age groups of 18-35 and 36-55 it is proved that they are more focused in the essence meaning that this could be the orientation towards which the Greek state service s as well as the hospitals could operate. The functional level of the good-neutral reputation where low maintenance is requested and it doesn t cost too much. In the two other age groups we could say that focusing on details isn t assorted to the ideal level of functioning. For this age group we could say that the healthcare services should operate in a way that could be pay ing attention on details in a way that this can be achieved in the Greek public sector. The factors that are common with the researches abroad are proving that those qu estioned are considering as important, factors that are connected to the human such as commun icationwillingnesscapabilities-confrontation of a health care problem and on the other hand factor s, that are supporting the care provided such as infrastructure and quality. Greek health care consumers are feeling safe while in a state hospital and prefer to be treated fo rm more than one specialties. The factor success stories-famous medical staff-proposal from a spec ific doctor can be a choice factor for hospitals. The point is that there is a gap between what patients are meeting in the Greek st ate hospitals and what they were expecting to meet. There seems to be-from the side of the hos pitals-no effort in retaining a good reputation through the humanistic efforts of doing th is. The healthcare consumers are proving to be interested for the basic, simple and humanistic elem ents of the care provided because they seem to like to be treated as humans and they also ne ed to feel that the money they invest from their income for health care are worth it.

337

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Appendices Table 1: Demographic characteristics of the participants Frequency % Valid Valid 18-35 YEARS 36-55 YEARS 56-65 YEARS 65 YEARS AND OVER Total ATHENS CENTER NORTH SUBURBS EAST SUBURBS WEST SUBURBS OTHER Total 72 50 17 11 150 Frequency 31 84 6 6 23 150 48,0 33,3 11,3 7,3 100,0 % 20,7 56,0 4,0 4,0 15,3 100,0 Table 2: Visiting by appointment and private hospital visiting HOSPITAL VISITING Total PAST PRIVATE HOSPITAL ADMITANCE Total BY APPOINTMENT EMERGENCY YES NO Count % of Total Count % of Total Count % of Total

Count % of Total Count % of Total Count % of Total MALE 29 19,3% 41 27,3% 70 46,7% MALE 33 22,0% 37 24,7% 70 46,7% SEX SEX FEMALE 39 26,0% 41 27,3% 80 53,3% FEMALE 33 22,0% 47 31,3% 80 53,3% Total 68 45,3% 82 54,7% 150 100,0% Total 66 44,0% 84 56,0% 150 100,0% 338

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 3: health problems in the close environment, relation to someone working i n a state hospital, frequency of preventive medical exams. PEOPLE WITH HEALTH PROBLEMS IN THE CLOSE ENVIRONMENT Frequency % Valid YES 72 48,0 NO 78 52,0 RELATION TO SOMEONE WORKING IN A STATE HOSPITAL Valid YES 59 39,3 NO 91 60,7 FREQUENCY OF PREVENTIVE MEDICAL EXAMS Valid YES 107 71,3 NO 43 28,7 Table 4: Age distribution in preventive medical exams AGE Total 18-35 36-55 56-65 65 + YES Count 47 36 15 9 107 % of Total 31,3% 24,0% 10,0% 6,0% 71,3% NOCount 25 14 2 2 43 % of Total 16,7% 9,3% 1,3% 1,3% 28,7% Count 72 50 17 11 150 % of Total 48,0% 33,3% 11,3% 7,3% 100,0% References Ackerman, L.D, (1986): Optimizing Identity: A marketing Imperative for Health Ca re management . Journal of Health Care Marketing. Adams, J. S., Hicks M.(2001): Towards an understanding of inequity . Journal of Abn ormal and Social Psychology, 67, 422 436 Akinci, F. Esatoglou, A.E Telngilimoglou, D. Parsons, A., (2004): Hospital Choice Factors: A case study in Turkey. Health Marketing Quarterly, Vol 22(1) 2004. Antonakopoulou, E.P. (2006): The relationship between individual and organisation al learning: new evidence from managerial learning practices . Management Learning, pp.455-473 Ayhan, Y. & Karatepe, M. (1999): Kourusamiimaj ile imajininnn kurusal kimlikincel emesi (in Turkish). Uhusal Pazarlama Kongresi, 18-20 Kasim 1999, Kemal Universitesi Antakya-Hatay. Bartels,R. (1988): hing Horizons. The history of Marketing Thought . 3nd edition. Columbus Publis

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The intervening role of Organizational Identification on the relationship between Perceived External Prestige and Psychological Empowerment: The case of Greek Citizens Service Centers

Panagiotis Gkorezis Research Assistant, Department of Economics, Aristotle University of Thessalonik i, Greece. pangor3@hotmail.com. Naoum Mylonas Ph.D Candidate, Department of Economics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, G reece Athina Besleme Ph.D Candidate, Department of Balkan Studies, University of Western Macedonia, G reece Abstract The purpose of this paper was to examine the intervening role of organizational identification regarding the impact of perceived external prestige on employees powerment. psychological em

Data from a sample of 159 Greek public employees working in Citizens Service Cen ters (KEPs in the Greek reality) showed that perceived external prestige had an indirect effec t on employees psychological empowerment through its relationship with organizational identific ation. Limitations and future research were also discussed. Keywords: Perceived External Prestige, Organizational Identification, Psychologi cal Empowerment, Citizens Service Centers (KEPs). Introduction Perceived external prestige and organizational identification have received incr eased research attention in the literature. Both constructs have been explored with respect to many organization-related outcomes. Yet, there is a research dearth on their relation

ship with psychological empowerment. Thus, the purpose of this study is to contribute to t his gap by examining the linking role of organizational identification regarding the impact of perceived external prestige on employees psychological empowerment. To achieve this, the pr esent paper investigated the interplay of the above constructs within a prestigious Greek pu blic organization, namely Citizens Service Centers. Citizens Service Centers (the so-called KEPs in Greek reality) are an expression of Greece egovernment policy to modernize public sector and deliver better and direct services to citi zens (Introna et al., 2010). Particularly, KEPs are one-stop shops, introduced at the b eginning of 2000s, which operate across different geographical areas in Greece (Hahamis et a l., 2005). KEPs provide citizens with unified services of different governmental departments in a flexible and direct manner. A typical KEP shop is comprised by two parts: the front office wh ich plays the role of interface between citizens and public administration, and the back office res ponsible to fulfill citizens needs (Petrakaki et al., 2008). Theoretical Background 342

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Perceived External Prestige (PEP) PEP describes the way an employee interprets and assesses outsiders e view about th

organization, based on his or her exposure to information (Smidts et al., 2001; Herrbach and Mignonac, 2004). PEP is similar to other organizational prestige constructs, suc h as perceived organizational identity and corporate reputation. The former is termed as an empl oyees assessment about the things her/his organization represents and stands for , where as the latter is defined as outsiders (people outside the organization) overall view about the o rganization (Carmeli et al., 2006, 92). In contrast, PEP is formed indirectly by the employe es, since they perceive how outsiders understand their organization (Kim et al., 2010). An alternative term to PEP is Construed External Image (CEI), initially used by Dutton et al. (1994). CEI has similar meaning operating as a mirror which gives feedback to em ployees on how the organization and the behavior of its members are likely perceived by outside rs (Dutton et al., 1994). However, Carmeli and Freund (2010) stressed that PEP and organizational i dentification are distinct, and therefore, should not be used interchangeably. CEI refers to t he employee s own perceptions of the way outsiders perceive the organization, whereas PEP is d efined as a judgment or evaluation about the organization s status or image in relation to a s et of favorable or unfavorable evaluative criteria. Organizational identification Organizational identification was introduced by March and Simon (1958) and, late r, Ashforth and Mael (1989) illustrated the importance of these social psychological theories fo r organizational behavior research. Duttton et al. (1994) defined organizational identification a s a cognitive connection of sharing attributes between a person s self-concept and the perceived organizational identity. Moreover, Ashforth and Mael (1989, 34) described it as the perception of oneness with or belongingness to an organization. Riketta, based on O Reilly and Chatman (1986) approach of affective components of organizational identification, underlined that organizational identification can be viewed as the

desire to maintain an emotionally satisfying self-defining relationship with the identification object (2005, 360). Also, research attention should be addressed to the social id entity theory, which is, as Tajfel defined (1978, 63), that part of an individual s self-concept w hich derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership . In other words, organizationa l identification is thought as a combination of both cognitive and affective compo nents (Riketta, 2005). Psychological Empowerment Psychological empowerment has received increased attention in the management lit erature. Compared to structural empowerment that focuses on objective management practice s designed to provide employees with power and autonomy, psychological approach emp hasizes employees personal experiences (Thomas and Velthouse, 1990). In this regard, psyc hological empowerment occurs only when employees perceive themselves as being empowered. Psychological empowerment is defined as intrinsic task motivation manifested in four cognitions: meaning, competence, self-determination and impact. Meaning is perceived as the value of a work goal or purpose, judged in relation t o an individual s own ideals or standards (Spreitzer, 1995, 1443). Competence, or self-e fficacy, is an individual s belief in his or her capability to perform work role activities with skill (Spreitzer, 343

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 1995, 1443). Self-determination is termed as an individual s sense of having choice in initiating and regulating actions (Spreitzer, 1995, 1443). Impact is the degree to which an i ndividual can influence strategic, administrative or operating outcomes at work (Spreitzer, 199 5, 1443). Hypotheses Development Perceived External Prestige and Organizational Identification Prior empirical studies have examined the impact of various organizational varia bles on organizational identification, such as organizational distinctiveness, intra-org anizational competition (Mael and Ashforth, 1992), leadership (van Knippenberg and Hogg, 200 3; Lord and Brown, 2004), justice (Blader, 2007), psychological contract (Epitropaki, 2003; Kreiner and Ashforth, 2004), communication climate (Bartels et al., 2007) and perceived orga nizational identity (Dutton et al., 1994). Similarly, several scholars have indicated that PEP influences organizational identification (Mael and Ashforth, 1992; Dutton et al., 1994; Smi dts et al., 2001; Carmeli et al., 2006; Fuller et al., 2006; Bartels et al., 2007; Carmeli and Fre und, 2010). The impact of PEP on organizational identification was firstly investigated by C ialdini et al. (1976) demonstrating that individuals tend o social to bask in reflected glory (BIRG). According t

identity theory, people aim at defining their self-conception and enhancing thei r self-esteem by belonging to an organization with a positive image (Tajfel and Turner, 1985) or a high prestige (Mael and Ashforth, 1992). Employees the way they positive social identity can be affected by

believe outsiders perceive them due to their membership in a given organization (Dutton et al., 1994; Carmeli and Freund, 2010). Within this context, employees feel very proud to be members of an organization which is characterized by socially valued characteristics (Sm idts et al., 2001). Thus, employees tend to identify with the organization when they feel that outsi ders hold organization in a high esteem (Fuller et al., 2006). Hypothesis 1: PEP is positively related to Organizational Identification. Organizational Identification and Psychological Empowerment Extant research has demonstrated that organizational identification is an import ant predictor of

numerous organizational constructs such as intrinsic motivation (van Knippenberg and van Schie, 2000), job satisfaction and employee well being (Knight and Haslam, 2010), work adjustment (Carmeli et al., 2007), organizational citizenship behavior (Duckerich et al., 2 002), turnover intentions (Cole and Bruch, 2006) and voice behavior (Fuller et al., 2006). Yet, there is a research void regarding the relationship between organizational identification and psycho logical empowerment. Authors (Pratt, 1998; Ashforth et al., 2008) suggested that the process of ident ifying with an organization concerns basic human needs, namely the needs for safety, affiliatio n and uncertainty reduction which, in turn, may enhance self-efficacy (Erez and Earley , 1993). Also, according to social identity theory, the basic rationale for identifying with a group or an organization is the enhancement of one s sense of collective self-esteem (Ashforth et al., 2008). In fact, empirical studies have showed that organizational identification is rel ated to organization-based self-esteem (Bergami and Bagozzi, 2000). Recently, scholars have discussed the relationship between identification and th e meaning of work (Ashforth et al., 2008). In their attempt to search for meaning, individual s focus on experiences around the self, rendering the concept of meaningful work as an esse ntial factor of self-identity and self-worth (Cartwright and Holmes, 2006). Therefore, through o rganizational identification employees may increase their feelings of work meaningfulness, whi ch is one of the key four dimensions of psychological empowerment. 344

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Hypothesis 2: Organizational Identification is positively related to Psychologic al Empowerment. Methodology Sample The research was conducted on KEPs since they are considered by the majority of Greek citizens as the most competitive and modern organization of Greek public sector. The samp le of the study consisted of 159 employees working in Citizens Service Centers. Of the sam ple, 67% were female and 33% were male. With respect to age, the majority (43%) of the respond ents ranged from 31 to 40 years old. Moreover, 42% of the sample held a bachelor degree and 21% held a degree from Technological Educational Institutes (T.E.I.). Of the respondents, 6 3% were married and 44% has worked for the present organization for less than 5 years. Finally, nearly 73% has a permanent employment status. Measures Perceived External Prestige Perceived external prestige was measured using Mael and Ashforth s (1992) items. A n example item for this scale is People think that our organization is a prestigious . The Cr onbach alpha for this scale was .83. Organizational Identification Organizational identification was assessed using the items taken from Mael and A shforth s (1992). An example item for this scale is When someone criticizes Citizen Service Centers it feels like a personal insult . The Cronbach alpha for this scale was .85. Psychological Empowerment Psychological empowerment was measured using Spreitzer s (1995) scale. These measu res comprises four three -item subscales for each of the dimensions of empowerment. Sample items include The work I do is very important to me (meaning), I am confident about my ability to do my job (competence), I have significant autonomy in determining how I do my job (selfdetermination), I have a great deal of control over what happens in my department (impact). The Cronbach alpha for this scale was .87.

Results Means, standard deviations, and correlations for all variables appeared in Table 1. Principal axis factoring (PAF) concluded six factors representing the four dimensions of empowe rment and the constructs of perceived external prestige and organizational identification. All the items loaded significantly on their respective factors with one exception. An item of compete nce dimension (I have mastered the skills necessary for my job) of psychological empowerment demo nstrated a low loading and, thus, excluded from the analysis. This may be attributed to the work nature of our sample. More specifically, KEP recruits employees without asking for special ized job qualifications and, therefore, this is depicted in the respective item. In order to test our hypotheses, multiple regression analyses were conducted. Th e control variables were also entered in the equations. These included gender, age, educat ion, marital status, employment status and organizational tenure. The standardized betas weig hts for both regression models are presented in table 2 and 3. The results indicated that per ceived external prestige was positively related to organizational identification ( = .19, p < .05 ). Also, the latter had a significant effect on employees psychological empowerment ( = .34, p < .001) . Thus, hypotheses 1 and 2 were supported. The present findings suggested that organizat ional 345

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications identification exerts an intervening role in the relationship between perceived external prestige and employees psychological empowerment. Table 1. Descriptive statistics and correlations Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. Gender 1.67 .471 2. Age 2.16 .800 .53 3. Education 2.34 1.030 .10 .96 4. Marital Status 1.63 .485 .10 .45*** .05 5. Employment Status 1.31 .541 .08 -.37*** .07 -.23** 6. Tenure 3.03 1.217 .04 .27** .08 .26** -.72*** 7. 8. Organization al Prestige Organization al Identification 4.90 5.85 1.292 1.037 .01 .07 -.09 .23** .12 .02 .16* .26** -.15 -.21** .10 .14 .23** 9. Psychological Empowerme nt 5.49 .880 .09 .39*** .05

.16* -.31** .22** .06 .41** * *p= .05, **p = .01, ***p = .001 346

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 2. Results of the Regression Analysis Between Perceived External Prestige and Organizational Identification Variables Beta Control Variables Gender .07a Age .12 Education -.02 Marital Status .15 Employment status -.15 Tenure -.06 Main effect Perceived External Prestige .19* Adjusted R2 .11** a Standardized regression coefficients. *p= .05, **p = .01, ***p = .001 Table 3. Results of the Regression Analysis Between Organizational Identificatio n and Psychological Empowerment Variables Beta Control Variables Gender -.12a Age .31*** Education -.08 Marital Status -.09 Employment status -.13 Tenure .04 Main effect Organizational Identification .34*** Adjusted R2 .28*** a Standardized regression coefficients. *p= .05, **p = .01, ***p = .00. Discussion The purpose of our study was to contribute to the literature of organizational i dentification by examining its intervening role in the relationship between perceived external pr estige and psychological empowerment. To achieve this, two hypotheses were developed regard ing this construct. First, the present paper investigated the effect of perceived externa l prestige on organizational identification. Consistent with prior empirical studies (Mael and Ashforth, 1992; Dutton et al., 1994; Smidts et al., 2001; Carmeli et al., 2006; Fuller et al., 2 006; Bartels et al., 2007; Carmeli and Freund, 2010) the results indicated that the specific form of organizational prestige constituted an important predictor of organizational identification.

347

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Also, the present study explored the influence of organizational identification on employees psychological empowerment. The results demonstrated that organizational identifi cation was positively related to employees feelings of psychological empowerment. Despite th e plethora of papers examining the antecedents of psychological empowerment (Koberg et al., 19 99; Dimitriades and Kufidu, 2004; Bordin et al., 2007; Chiang and Jang, 2008), there is insufficient research with respect to its relationship with organizational identification. Co nsequently, the present results offer new insights providing empirical support for the propositi on that organizational identification is a predictor of psychological empowerment. Taken together, our findings suggested that perceived external prestige was related to organizationa l identification and the latter was related to psychological empowerment. Thus, perceived externa l prestige had an indirect impact on employees psychological empowerment through its relationshi p with organizational identification. Limitations and Future Research The present results have some limitations, though. This study, based on data fro m employees working in KEP, allow us to make limited inference to other contexts. Another li mitation concerns the cross sectional analysis of the data which cannot directly assess c ausality. Further, because all constructs were measured with self-report questionnaires fr om the same employees, relationships might be inflated due to common method variance. These limitations suggest directions for future research. The present findings s hould be replicated in other, both public and private, contexts. Also, future studies sho uld adopt a longitudinal design to strengthen the causal relationships examined. Moreover, a n avenue of research is to extend the present model by examining the intervening role of org anizational identification in the relationship between PEP and other organizational construc ts, such as organizational citizenship behavior and organizational commitment. Finally, futu re research should explore the moderating role of demographic and organizational factors, su ch as age, tenure and hierarchical level in the present hypotheses. For example, it may be possible that older or more tenured employees may respond more strongly to the impact of perce ived

external prestige on their perceptions of organizational identification. References Ashforth B.E., S.H. Harrison, and K.G. Corley. 2008. Identification in organizat ions: An examination of four fundamental questions. Journal of Management 34: 325-374. Ashforth, B.E., and F. Mael. 1989. Social identity and the organization. Academy of Management Review 14: 20-39. Bartels, J., A. Pruyn, M. De Jong, and I. Joustra. 2007. Multiple organizational identification levels and the impact of perceived external prestige and communication climate. Journal of Organizational Behavior 28: 173-190. Bergami, M., and R.P. Bagozzi. 2000. Self-categorization, affective commitment a nd group self-esteem as distinct aspects of social identity in the organization. British Journal of Social Psycho logy 39, no. 4: 555-577. Blader, S.L. 2007a. What determines people s fairness judgments? Identification an d outcomes influence procedural justice evaluations under uncertainty. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43: 986-994. Bordin, C., T. Bartram, and G. Casmir. 2007. The antecedents and consequences of psychological empowerment among Singaporean IT employees. Management Research News 30, no.1: 34-46. Carmeli, A., and A. Freund. 2009. Linking perceived external prestige and intent ions to leave the organization: the mediating role of job satisfaction and affective commitment. Journal of Social S ervice Research 35, no. 3: 236 250. Carmeli, A., G. Gilat, and D.A. Waldman. 2007. The role of perceived organizatio nal performance in organizational identification, adjustment and job performance. Journal of Management Studies 44 : 972-992. Carmeli, A., G. Gilat, and J. Weisberg. 2006. Perceived external prestige, organ izational identification and affective commitment: A stakeholder approach. Corporate Reputation Review 9, no. 1: 92-104 . Cartwright, S., and N. Holmes. 2006. The meaning of work: The challenge of regai ning employee engagement and reducing cynicism. Human Resource Management Review 16: 199-208. Chiang, C., and S. Jang. 2008. The antecedents and consequences of psychological empower ment: the case of Taiwan's hotel companies. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research 32, no. 1: 40-61. 348

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Cialdini, R.B., R.J. Borden, A. Thorne, M.R. Walker, S. Freeman, and L.R. Sloan. 1976. Basking in reflected glory: three (football) field studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34, no. 3 : 366-375. Cole, M.S., and H. Bruch. 2006. Organizational identity strength, identification , and commitment and their relationships to turnover intention: Does organizational hierarchy matter? Journ al of Organizational Behaviour 27: 585-605. Dimitriades, Z., and S. Kufidu. 2004. Individual, job, organizational and contextual correlat es of employment empowerment: some Greek evidence, Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Orga nization Studies 9, no. 2: 36-43. Dukerich, J.M., B.R. Golden, and S.M. Shortell. 2002. Beauty is in the eye of th e beholder: the impact of organizational identification, identity, and image on the cooperative behaviors of physicians. Administrative Science Quarterly 47: 507 533. Duton, J.E., J.M. Dukerich, and C.V. Harquail. 1994. Organizational images and m ember identification. Administrative Science Quarterly 39, no. 2: 239-263. Epitropaki, O. 2003. Transformational leadership, psychological contract breach and organizational identification. Academy of Management Best Papers Proceedings: OB: M1-6. Erez, M., and C.P. Earley. 1993. Culture, self-identity, and work. New York: Oxf ord University Press. Fuller, J.B., K. Hester, T. Barnett, L. Frey, C. Relyea, and D. Beu. 2006. Perce ived external prestige and internal respect: new insights into the organizational identification process. Human Relations 59, no. 6: 815-846. Hahamis, P., J. Iles, and M. Healy. 2005. E-government in Greece: opportunities for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of local government. Electronic Journal of e-Government 3, no. 4: 185-192. Herrbach, O., and K. Mignonac. 2004. How organizational image affects employee a ttitudes. Human Resource Management Journal 14, no. 4: 76-88. Introna, L., N. Hayes, and D. Petrakaki. 2010. The working out of modernization in the public sector: the case of an egovernment initiative in Greece. International Journal of Public Administration 33, no. 1: 11-25. Kim, H-R., M. Lee, H-T. Lee, and N-M. Kim. 2010. Corporate social responsibility and employee-company identification. Journal of Business Ethics 95: 557-569.

Knight C., and S. A. Haslam. 2010. Your Place or Mine? Organizational identifica tion and comfort as mediators of relationships between the managerial control of workspace and employees' satisfa ction and well-being. British Journal of Management 21, no. 3: 717-735. Koberg, C.S., R.W. Boss, J.C. Senjem, and E.A. Goodman. 1999. Antecedents and ou tcomes of empowerment: empirical evidence from the health care industry. Group and Organization Managem ent 24, no. 1: 71-91. Kreiner, G.E., and B.E. Ashforth. 2004. Evidence toward an expanded model of org anizational identification. Journal of Organizational Behavior 25: 1-27. Lord, R.G., and D. J. Brown. 2004. Leadership processes and follower self-identi ty. Mahwah: Erlbaum. Mael, F., and B.E. Ashforth. 1992. Alumni and their alma mater: a partial test o f the reformulated model of organizational identification. Journal of Organizational Behavior 13, no. 2: 103 -123. O Reilly, C., and J. Chatman. 1986. Organizational commitment and psychological a ttachment: the effects of compliance, identification and internalization on prosocial behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology 71, no.3: 492-499. Petrakaki, D.I., N. Hayes, and L.D. Introna. 2008. Performance monitoring and ac countability through technology: egovernment in Greece. Paper presented at 41st Hawaii International Conference on System Sci ences. Pratt, M. G. 1998. To be or not to be? Central questions in organizational ident ification. In Identity in organizations: Building theory through conversations, ed. D. A. Whetten, and P. C. Godfrey, 171 2 07. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Riketta, M. 2005. Organizational identification: a meta-analysis. Journal of Voc ational Behavior 66, no. 2: 358-384. Smidts, A., A.T.H. Pruyn, and C.B.M. van Riel. 2001. The impact of employee comm unication and perceived external prestige on organizational identification. Academy of Management Journal 49, no. 5, 1051-1062. Spreitzer, G. 1995. Psychological empowerment in the workplace: dimensions, meas urement and validation. The Academy of Management Review 38, no. 5: 1442-1465. Tajfel, H. 1978. Social categorization, social identity and social comparison. I n Differentiation between social groups: Studies in the social psychology of intergroup relations, ed. H. Tajfel, 61-76. London: Academic Press. Tajfel, H., and J.C. Turner. 1985. The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In

Psychology of Intergroup Relations (2nd edn), ed. S. Worchel and W.G. Austin. Chicago: Nelson-Hall. Thomas, K.W., and B. Velthouse. 1990. Cognitive elements of empowerment: an pretive model of intrinsic task motivation. The Academy of Management Review 15, no. 4: 666-681. inter

van Knippenberg, D., and E. C. M. van Schie. 2000. Foci and correlates of organi zational identification. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 73: 137 147. van Knippenberg, D., and M.A. Hogg. 2003. A social identity model of leadership effectiveness in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior 25: 243-295. 349

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Shopping Centre Environmental Factors: Does Generation Y s Gende. Influence Strategic Marketing Communication? An Australian Exploration

Neesha McCrory Swinburne University of Technology Ann Mitsis Faculty of Business and Enterprise Honours Coordinator Marketing and Internation al Studies Swinburne University of Technology, Australia amitsis@swin.edu.au Abstract Sales at shopping centres in Australia are declining though retail shopping spac e continues to increase, creating the challenge of capturing and retaining a feasible amount of foot traffic, especially with lucrative Generation Y. This exploratory study examined whether Generation Y s perceptions of shopping centre environmental factors and consumption motivations (social or objective) were influenced by gender. Unexpectedly, gender was found to influenc e the shopping centre environmental factors of: layout, desire to stay, excitement and involvement. This paper contributes to the understanding of the Generation Y cohort and ident ifies practical implications for strategic marketing communications. Introduction Shopping centres are facing many challenges as sales continue to decrease (Sulli van and Heitmeyer 2008; Allard, Babin and Chebat 2009). It has been suggested that this decrease in sales can be attributed to: 1) an increasing pressure from online purchasing, ex cess retail space and retail price deflation (Rajagopal 2009; Sit, Morgan and Woodside 2008; Sulli van and Heitmeyer 2008). Creating and maintaining customer loyalty has been recognised a s one of the most significant ways for shopping centre survival in the current retail climate (Chang and Tu 2005; Sit et al. 2008; Wood 2006); 2) the lack of differentiation between shoppi ng centres (Allard et al. 2009); and 3) modern consumers are time poor and find shopping centres le

ss entertaining (Martin 2009; Rajagopal 2009; Sit et al. 2008). Consumer perceptions of shopping centre environmental factors including design, layout, variety and excitement influence consumer perceptions of shopping centre quality (Baker, Grewal and Parasuraman 1994; Mano and Oliver 1993; Wakefield and Baker 1998; Wakefield and Blodgett 1996). Shopping centre la yout and ambience factors including music and lighting have also been established in the literature (see: Chang and Tu 2005; Miranda, Konya and Havrila 2005; Park and Farr 2007; Sirohi, McLaughlin and Wittink 1998) as mechanisms that influence consumer loyalty. As shopping cen tres are facing the challenge of capturing and retaining a feasible amount of foot traffi c within their stores, it is important to identify what factors keep consumers engaged in shopp ing at shopping centres in order to inform strategic marketing communications. Creating a custom er base who are still willing to spend their disposable income at shopping centres is becomi ng increasingly important in order to remain financially viable (Chang and Tu 2005; Sit et al. 2 008; Wood 2006). One consumer group of particular interest to shopping centres and their long ter m survival are Generation Y as they are soon to be the largest and most lucrative segment for r etail spending 352

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications (Consibee and Khoo 2008). Within an Australian context, Generation Y (born betwe en 1977 and 1994/95) account for approximately 25% of the Australian population (ABS 2009), contribute to $40 billion in annual retail spending in Australia (Conisbee and Khoo 2008; Hean ey 2007; Foscht, Schloffer, Maloles III and Chia 2009) and are soon to be the largest retail spen ding group in Australia (Jones Lang LaSalle 2003). The identification of Generation Y s consumption motivations during their retail s pend could significantly impact their perceptions of shopping centre environmental factors (Marin and Turley 2004). Therefore the identification of Generation Y s most prevalent consum ption motivation type (social or objective) may in turn provide some important strateg ic marketing communication implications for shopping centres. This information will assist sh opping centres in maintaining relevance with Generation Y and help to inform their communicatio n strategies. It is well established within the extant literature that creating the right environ mental mix for a shopping centre leads to positive consequences in consumer perceptions through i ncreased patronage and sales (Kotler 1973/1974; Sullivan and Heitmeyer 2008; Ballantine, Jack and Parsons 2010). The Generation Y consumer segment s perceptions of shopping centre environmental factors are under-researched. This study will provide some theoret ical and practical insights for strategic marketing communication targeting this lucrativ e Generation Y consumer segment. This paper explicitly explores two research questions: 1. Do male and female Generation Y consumers perceive critical shopping centre environmental factors the same way? and 2. Are male and female Generation Y consumers likely to be more socially (hedonic) or objectively (utilitarian) motivated when shopping at shopping centres? These research questions will inform shopping centres strategic marketing commun ications within Australia, by providing practical suggestions for marketers to focus thei r efforts on when targeting Generation Y generally, as well as understanding the gender difference s, if any, for specific shopping centre brand positioning. These insights will assist shopping centre management to strategically brand their centres according to what this segment i s looking for.

Literature Review Presently there are over 1300 shopping centres within Australia, employing appro ximately one in twenty people in the Australian workforce and generating over $84 billion in retail sales annually (Rumbold, Leslie and Van Lambaart 2007). Despite what appears to be a s ignificant spend, there has been recorded losses of almost $50 billion in sales in the six year period ending in 2007 (Rumbold et al. 2007). Nevertheless, shopping centres and retail space a cross Australia is increasing, making the industry highly competitive and increasing the need to co mmunicate strategically with its consumers (Martin 2009). Baker, Levy and Grewal (1992) depict the concept of shopping centre design as ho w pleasant the centre looks and layout as how easy the centre is to navigate. Wakefield and Blo dgett s (1996) research identified that the more positive a consumer s perception is about design quality and ease of access through a well planned layout increased the likelihood of consume rs returning to the centre. Baker et al. (1992) note that retailers are aware of the influence o f design and layout and are willing to invest millions of dollars annually on the structure and desi gn of stores in order to differentiate themselves from the competition. However, there is limite d research conducted on the specific environmental mix that suits their consumer base and a s a consequence patrons willingness to buy is not increasing (Baker et al. 1992). The refore in order to increase patronage and enhance the consumer shopping centre experience, it is essential to examine the design and layout factors that appeal specifically to Generation Y. 353

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications An understanding of how the Generation Y consumer segment view and engage with s hopping centre environmental factors is growing in importance for Australia s shopping cen tres to ensure they remain relevant for this important and highly influential consumer group. S pecifically it is beneficial for shopping centres to have an understanding of how Generation Y per ceives the different environmental factors of shopping centres including: design, layout, v ariety, desire to stay, consumption motivation, excitement, involvement and repatronage intention. Often consumers will visit shopping centres and stay for an extended period of t ime because of the centre s excitement and the enjoyment generated from product assortment or sto re variety (Wakefield and Baker 1998). Wakefield and Baker (1998) also identified that the variety or the ability of a shopping centre to provide an array of different products or entert ainment alternatives increased a consumer s desire to stay at the centre. They also add th at shopping centres that provide a large variety of offerings are more likely to attract cus tomers and influence their shopping centre selection. An increased desire to stay at a shop ping centre has been identified by Martin and Turley (2004) as a common retail response from con sumers when they are pleased by the shopping centre visit. Wakefield and Blodgett (1994) cla im that when visiting a shopping centre, consumers are satisfied desire to stay is increased when consumers

with their experience at the centre and perceive it to be of superior quality wh en compared to other centres. In turn, this is also highly likely to result in greater purchase s being made. Finn, McQuitty and Rigby (1994) and Wakefield and Baker (1998) assert that consumers w ill extend their stay at shopping centres far beyond their original intentions if they are enjoying the shopping experience and this is highly related to how positively consumers are p erceiving the shopping centre s environmental factors. These findings suggest that the right mix of shopping centre environmental factors encourages consumers to increase their shopping cen tre patronage times and the amount of stores they visit, leading to an increased pot ential to purchase more goods or services.

Kaltcheva and Wietz (2006) identified that consumers willingness to visit a store and/or make a purchase is by the shopping centre s creation of excitement and arousal. Sit et al . (2008) argue that excitement can play a key role in consumer perceptions of quality, satisfac tion, and impulse purchasing in young consumers and again this is dependent upon the shopping cent re s entertainment and events. In order for shopping centres to create an exciting sh opping centre experience depends upon whether consumers are socially or objectively motivated (Kaltcheva and Weitz 2006; Mano and Oliver 1993). Mano and Oliver (1993) add that excitemen t created by the shopping centre is linked with post purchase satisfaction with the shopping experience. These findings suggest that the creation of an exciting shopping centre atmosphe re encourages repeat patronage. Individual shopping involvement is another important shopping centre environment al factor, in other words, how relevant does the consumer perceive the shopping centre in term s of their values and needs (Zaichkowsky 1985; Wakefield and Baker 1998). It has been ident ified in the literature that the more involvement the consumer exhibits with the shopping exp erience at a particular shopping centre, the more commitment they will display towards that c entre (Zaichkowsky 1985; Olsen 2007; Ballantine et al. 2010). Repatronage intention ha s a direct relationship with shopping involvement, in that consumers who exhibit an endurin g involvement with shopping were more likely to demonstrate shopping centre repatronage (see: Wakefield and Baker 1998; Wakefield and Blodgett 1994). When exploring consumer shopping values, two categories emerge from the literatu re, the first is hedonic value otherwise known as consumer social motivation and the second is utilitarian value or consumer objective motivation (see: Babin et al. 1994; Teller, Reuttere r and Schnedlitz 2007). Consumers motivated by hedonic values see an emotional reward in shopping and enjoy the act itself in terms of social and entertainment value (Babin et al. 1994; Te ller et al. 2007). In contrast to consumer social motivation, consumer objective motivation is charact erised by 354

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications utilitarian values where consumers are primarily focused on the practicality, fu nctionality and the task related aspects of shopping and the shopping experience. As noted by Ba bin et al. (1994) and confirmed by Allard et al. (2009), consumers may fall anywhere betwee n the utilitarian-hedonic continuum, as they may not only see value in product acquisi tion, but in the act of doing so. The Generation Y consumer segment, though a lucrative consumer group, is more di verse than Generation X and the Baby Boomers in terms of their: culture, education, attitud es towards the government and society, and household structures (Wolburg and Pokrywczynski 2001 ; Sullivan and Heitmeyer 2008). This diversity within the Generation Y consumer segment in turn creates a challenge for marketers regarding the construction of effective marketing commun ication strategies which appeal to Generation Y and the creation of loyalty from this co nsumer segment. Therefore in order to effectively engage Generation Y, shopping centres need to understand how consumption motivation influences the retail environment. Allard et al. (200 9) identified that shopping centres that are designed to meet consumers positively consumption motivation

influences their attachment with the centre which in turn encourages repeat patr onage. Babin, Darden and Griffin (1994) identified four ways that motivation and value in shop ping can manifest: value simply in terms of price; value as a cost/benefit analysis; valu e more specifically as a trade-off between perceived product quality and price; and value being an o verall evaluation of the entire shopping experience and not simply the product purchase d. Babin et al. (1994) also note that value is not purely the consumers perception of quality in a product, but that it entails the experience of the purchase. It is the creation of the shoppi ng experience and not simply the purchase that is critical for shopping centres to master in order to remain relevant for the Generation Y consumer segment. The extant literature also reveals that consumer s gender influences their percept ions of shopping centre environmental factors (see: Raajpoot, Sharma and Chebat 2008; Dh olakia and Uusitalo 2002; Laroche, Clevand, Bergeron and Goutaland 2003). Raajpoot et al. ( 2008) and Dholakia and Uusitalo (2002) note differences between males and females with res pect to perceptions of social shopping benefits. Attitudinal and behavioural attitude di

fferences between the genders towards the shopping experiences are also noted by Laroche e t al. (2003) and Raajpoot et al. (2008). Despite gender differences identified in the literat ure associated with consumption, Martin and Turley s (2004) American Generation Y exploration did not identify differences between the genders and their perceptions of shopping centre environ mental factors. Whether gender differences influence the Australian Generation Y consum er segment s perceptions of shopping centre environmental factors is also important for shopp ing centres within Australia given the increasing shopping centre retail space available and the declining sales trend at shopping centres. This information may also assist shopping centr es in targeting their marketing communication strategies more effectively towards the multicultu ral Australian Generation Y consumer segment. Methodology An opportunity sample of 250 Generation Y consumers participated in this study t hrough interviewer administered questionnaires. Participants were asked to respond to a total of 26 consumption motivation questions using a 7 point likert scale where 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. Specifically members of Generation Y responded to: Wakefield and Blodgett s (1996) design and layout scales; Wakefield and Baker s (1998) variety scale; Wakef ield and Blodgett s (1994) desire to stay scale; and Moschis (1978; 1981) social and object ive motivation consumption scales. Participants were also asked to visually indicate their rati ng of 15 seven point scales, between the opposites of different descriptive characteristics, sp ecifically: Mano and Oliver s (1993) excitement scale; Zaichkowsky s (1985) involvement scale; and Ol iver and 355

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Swan s (1989) repatronage intention scale. Demographic characteristics including a ge an. gender were also collected, in order to explore whether Generation Y s gender is a significant differentiator of shopping centre environmental element perceptions. The two research questions specifically explored within this study are: 1. Do male and female Generation Y consumers perceive critical shopping centre environmental factors the same way? and 2. Are male and female Generation Y consumers likely to be more socially (hedonic) or objectively (utilitarian) motivated when shopping at shopping centres? and were operationalised into the following nine hypotheses: H1-9: Generation Y s gender will affect perceptions of shopping centre environment al factors: design, layout, variety, desire to stay, social consumption motivation, objectiv e consumption motivation, excitement, involvement and repatronage intention in tur n. Results The gender balance within this opportunity sample was approximately even with 52 % of the sample being female (132 participants). The majority of participants (92% or 229 ) were aged between 17 and 25 years of age. All of the shopping centre environmental scales used in this study had adequate Cronbach s alpha coefficients. Full scale items for the shoppin g centre environmental scales and Cronbach s alpha coefficients are presented in the Append ix. In order to address research questions one and two, mean scores of shopping cent re environmental factors for both genders were examined; and a series of nine indep endent sample t-tests were conducted. Females had higher mean scores on all nine shoppi ng centre environmental factors as presented in Table 1 below. Table 1 also illustrates th at repatronage intention received the highest mean score for both genders. Social consumption m otivation scored the lowest mean score for females, whereas desire to stay was the lowest mean score for males. A series of nine independent sample t-tests were conducted between gender and th e shopping centre environmental factors: design, layout, variety, desire to stay, social co nsumption motivation, objective consumption motivation, excitement, involvement, and repat ronage intention in turn (see Table 1 below). Table 1 below reveals that five (H2 layou t; H4 desire to stay;

H7 excitement; H8 involvement; and H9 repatronage intention) of the nine indepen dent sample ttests were significant. The Levene s test for hypotheses two, seven, eight and nine resulted in a probabil ity greater than 0.05 which assumes that the population variances are relatively equal, reve aling a significant difference in male and female Generation Y perceptions of the shoppi ng centre environmental factors: layout (t(248) = 2.120, p<0.05); excitement (t(248) = 3.1 22, p<0.05); involvement (t(248) = 5.922, p<0.05); and repatronage intention (t(248) = 2.781, p<0.05). For hypothesis four, the Levene s test resulted in a probability of less than 0.05, wh ich assumes the population variances are relatively unequal. The t-test showed a significant dif ference between male and female Generation Y s perceptions of desire to stay at the shopping centr e (t(245) = 4.426, p<0.05). In contrast to the Generation Y gender differences identified in perceptions of layout, excitement, involvement, repatronage intention and desire to stay, no such gende r differences were identified for perceptions in shopping centre design, variety, social consu mption motivation or objective consumption motivation. Therefore hypotheses one, three, five and six were not supported: H1 design (t(248) = 1.596, p>0.05); H3 variety (t(248) = 0.4 05, p>0.05); H5 social consumption motivation (t(248) = 0.916, p>0.05); and H6 objective consump tion motivation (t(248 = 0.822, p>0.05). 356

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 1: Shopping Centre Environmental Factor Mean Scores Shopping Centre Environmental Factor Female Mean Score Male Mean Score Mean Difference t Sig. Design 4.56 4.32 0.247 1.596 0.112 Layout 4.99 4.66 0.330 2.120 0.035 Variety 4.69 4.63 0.062 0.405 0.686 Desire to Stay 3.86 2.94 0.924 4.426 0.000 Social Consumption Motivation 3.33 3.16 0.164 0.916 0.360 Objective Consumption Motivation 5.05 4.93 0.116 0.822 0.412 Excitement 4.42 3.96 0.460 3.122 0.002 Involvement 4.87 3.94 0.926 5.922 0.000 Repatronage Intention 5.57 5.11 0.451 2.781 0.006 Discussion This study identified that within an Australian context female members of Genera tion Y scored higher mean scores on all nine shopping centre environmental factors than males. These findings are consistent with Martin and Turley s (2004) American Generation Y resu lts. A surprising finding is that social consumption motivation scored the lowest for f emales which is not consistent with the broad literature in the area (see: Seock and Bailey 2008 ; Teller et al. 2007), but was consistent with Martin and Turley s (2004) examination of Generatio n Y in an American setting. All members of Generation Y within this study were identified as more objectively motivated than socially motivated, with males scoring a slightly hig her mean score on this dimension (see Table 1). This suggests that although both genders are objec tively motivated when shopping, male members of the Generation Y consumer group have a tendency t o be more objectively motivated than their female counterparts. The independent sample t-tests revealed that for the Generation Y consumer group within an Australian setting, gender only affected five of the shopping centre environment al factors: layout; desire to stay; excitement; involvement; and repatronage intention; and did not affect: objective consumption motivation; social motivation; design; and variety. In oth

er words, female members of the Generation Y consumer group are more likely to: see the layout of the shopping centre that is an ease of movement around the shopping centre as important; enjo y spending time at the shopping centre; find the shopping centre stimulating and appealing; and more frequently patron the shopping centre than their male Generation Y counterparts. In contrast to these gender differences, both male and female members of Generation Y perceived a shopping centre s architecture and internal colour schemes, store variety within the shoppi ng centre and the stocking of socially acceptable and quality brands similarly. These findings regarding the shopping centre environmental factors of: repatronage intention; objective consu mption motivation; social consumption motivation; design; and variety were consistent w ith Martin and Turley s (2004) American Generation Y examination. Unexpected findings were that Generation Y s perceptions of layout, desire to stay , excitement and involvement were affected by gender. This may suggest that although accordin g to Hofstede s (1980) country cluster configurations based upon cultural similarities place Australia in the same category as America, there are some differences in perceptions betwe en members of the Generation Y consumer group internationally and thus generalisability of results need to be done with caution. Hence it is plausible that different marketing communicati on strategies need to be employed internationally when targeting this lucrative Generation Y c onsumer segment. This study has identified that the Generation Y consumer segment s percep tions appear to be evolving differently within comparable societies like the USA and A ustralia. This 357

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications finding has important marketing communication implications for shopping centre m arketers in adopting effective marketing communication strategies targeting Generation Y, as what is effective within the USA Generation Y market may not be effective in the Austral ian Generation Y market. Conceptually, the Australian and American Generation Y consumer segmen ts share many common traits, however, this research suggests that further research is war ranted to explore the effect of Generation Y s culturally anchored values on shopping centre environmental element perceptions and importance. From a strategic marketing communications perspective it is suggested that shopp ing centres targeting the lucrative Generation Y consumer segment within Australia adopt a m arketing communications strategy with a focus on objective consumption motivations or in other words a utilitarian value focus. These communications are suggested to revolve around sh opping centre practicality, functionality and towards the task related aspects of the shopping centre which is consistent with Babin et al. s (1994) and Allard et al. s (2009) conceptualisations. It is also important for marketing practitioners to be aware of the gender differences in p erceptions of shopping centres neration Y environmental factors. Specifically when targeting the female Ge

cohort it is of importance to focus the marketing communications around ease of navigation within the shopping centre in order to create a more stimulating and appealing p lace to shop. This research has provided an insight into the Australian Generation Y consumer segment generally, and more specifically, how gender influences Generation Y s perceptions of shopping centre environmental elements. This Generation Y gender difference in perception s of shopping centre environmental elements informs shopping centre management and marketing practitioners in the effective development of communication messages. This in tu rn may lead to more effective strategic positioning and branding of shopping centres towards th e environmental elements that are significant to females and males within this imp ortant Generation Y consumer segment. The results within this Australian study are exploratory and need to be replicat ed as this study s findings suggest that Generation Y s perceptions of shopping centre environmental factors

cannot be easily generalised in an international context. Future research includ es: 1) replicating this study s findings in a cross-cultural international context to identify genera lisability of the Generation Y consumer segment; 2) to explore the effect of Generation Y s cultural ly anchored values on shopping centre environmental element perceptions and importance; and 3) conducting in depth interviews with an international Generation Y cohort to gain a fine grained understanding of shopping centre environmental factors and the perceived importa nce of these elements to inform marketing communication strategies. Conclusion Three important practical implications can be drawn from this study for marketer s and those in the retail industry. Firstly that the Generation Y consumer group are diverse in their shopping centre motivations; secondly that the results of this study identified that diff erentiating Generation Y consumers based on their motivations to consume is an effective met hod for strategically targeted marketing communications towards the lucrative Generation Y consumer group in Australia; and thirdly that marketing communication strategies be diffe rentiated based upon gender. It is recommended that marketing communications strategically focus on the task related aspects of the shopping centre, in other words its practicality and func tionality, as the Generation Y consumer group in an Australian setting are objectively motivated t o shop. By marketing practitioners focusing their communication strategies upon this practi cality and functionality of shopping centres it is more likely to result in Generation Y vi siting the shopping centre, stay at the shopping centre for a greater duration and consequently more likely to spend more money at the centre. When targeting the female subgroup of the Generation Y consumer 358

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications group specifically, it is important for marketing practitioners to focus their m arketing communications around the ease of shopping centre mobility in order to create a more stimulating and appealing place to shop. References ABS. 2009. Population by age and sex, Australian states and territories. Canberr a: Australia Category Number 3201.0. Allard, T., B.J. Babin, and J-C Chebat. 2009. When income matters: Customers eva luation of shopping malls hedonic and utilitarian orientations. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 16, no. 1: 40-49. Babin, B., W.R., Darden, and M. Griffin. 1994. Work and/or fun: Measuring hedoni c and utilitarian shopping value. Journal of Consumer Research 20, no.4: 644-656. Baker, J., D. Grewal, and A Parasuraman. 1994. The influence of store environmen t on quality inferences and store image. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 22, no.4: 328-339. Baker, J., M. Levy, and D. Grewal. 1992. An experimental approach to making reta il store environmental decisions. Journal of Retailing 68, no.4: 445-460. Ballantine, P., R. Jack, and A.G. Parsons. 2010. Atmospheric cues and their effe ct on the hedonic retail experience. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management 38, no.8: 641-653. Chang, C.H and C.Y Tu. 2005. Exploring store image, customer satisfaction and cu stomer loyalty relationship; evidence from Taiwanese hypermarket industry. Journal of American Academy of Business, Ca mbridge 7, no.2: 197-202. Conisbee, N and M Khoo. 2008. Y topia; Capturing retailers paradise Advance-Jones L ang LaSalle http://www.joneslanglasalle.com.au/Australia/ENAU/Pages/ResearchDetails.aspx?Ite mID=328&ResearchTitle='Y'Topi a%20%20Capturing%20Retailers%20Paradise&TopicName=<. Dholakia, R-R. and O. Uusitalo. 2002. Switching to electronic stores: Consumer c haracteristics and the perception of shopping benefits. International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management 3 0, no.10: 459-469. Finn, A., S. McQuitty, and J. Rigby. 1994. Residents -multi-mall: West acceptance and use of a mega

Edmonton mall evidence. International Journal of Research in Marketing 11, no.2: 127-144. Foscht, T., J., Schloffer, C., Maloles III, and S.L Chia. 2009. Assessing the ou tcomes of Generation-Y

customers

loyalty. International Journal of Bank Marketing 27, no.3: 218-241.

Heaney, J. 2007. Analysis papers; Generations X and Y s internet banking usage in Australia. Journal of Financial Services Marketing 11, no.3: 196-210. Hofstede, G. 1980. Motivation, leadership and organisation: Do American theories apply abroad? Organizational Dynamics 9, no.1: 42-63. Jones Lang LaSalle. 2008. Gen Y and the future of mall retailing. http://www.us.am.joneslanglasalle.com/Lists/ExpertiseInAction/Attachments/255/JL L-Gen-Y-Mall-Retailing.pdf . Kaltcheva, V.D and B.A Weitz. 2006. When should a retailer create an exciting st ore environment? Journal of Marketing 70, no.1: 107-118. Kotler, P. 1973-4. Atmospherics as a marketing tool. Journal of Retailing 49, no .4: 48-64. Laroche, M., M.Cleveland, J. Bergeron, and C. Goutaland. 2003. The knowledge-exp erience-evaluation relationship: A structural equations modeling test of gender differences. Canadian Journal of Ad ministrative Sciences 20, no.3: 246-259. Mano, H and R.L Oliver. 1993. Assessing the dimensionality and structure of the consumption experience: evaluation, feeling and satisfaction. Journal of Consumer Research 20, no.3: 451-466. Martin, C. 2009. Consumption motivation and perceptions of malls: A comparison o f mothers and daughters. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice 17, no.1: 49-61. Martin, C and L.W Turley. 2004. Malls and consumption motivation: an exploratory examination of older Generation Y consumers. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management 32, no.10: 464-475. Miranda, M.J, L. Knya, and I Havrila. 2005. Shoppers satisfaction levels are not t he only key to store loyalty. Marketing Intelligence and Planning 23, no.2: 220-232. Moschis, G. 1978. Acquisition of the consumer role by adolescents Research Monog raph. Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA: No. 82. Moschis, G. 1981. Patterns of consumer learning. Journal of the Academy of Marke ting Science 9, no.2: 110-126. Oliver, R and J Swan. 1989. Consumer perceptions of interpersonal equity and sat isfaction in transactions; a field survey approach. Journal of Marketing 53, no.2: 21-35. Park, N and C Farr. 2007. The effects of lighting on consumers' emotions and beh

avioural intentions in a retail environment: A cross-cultural comparison. Journal of Interior Design 33, no.1: 1 7-32. Raajpoot, N., A. Sharma, and J-C. Chebat. 2008. The role of gender and work stat us in shopping centre patronage. Journal of Business Research 61, no.8: 825-833. 359

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Rajagopal. 2009. Growing shopping malls and behaviour of urban shoppers. Journal of Retail and Leisure Property 8, no.2: 99-118. Rumbold, S., K. Leslie, and E. Van Lambaart. 2007. Australian shopping centre in dustry; Information update. Prepared for the Shopping Centre Council of Australia by Urbis JHD, http://www.scca.org.au/Pdf%20links/2007PDFs/Update%20Aust%20Industry%20Info%20Ma rch%2007.pdf Seock, Y-K. and L.R. Bailey. 2008. The influence of college students shopping ori entations and gender differences on online information searches and purchase behaviours. International Journal of Co nsumer Studies 32, no.2: 113-121. Sirohi, N., E.W McLaughlin, and D.R Wittink. 1998. A model of consumer perceptio ns and store loyalty intentions for a supermarket retailer. Journal of Retailing 74, no.2: 223-245. Sit, J., M,J. Morgan, and F Woodside. 2008. How do in-mall entertainment events impact on consumers shopping mall behaviours? A model of special event entertainment. Paper presented at the 2008 Global Marketing Conference, 20-23 Mar 2008, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Sullivan, P and J Heitmeyer. 2008. Looking at Gen Y shopping preferences and int entions: exploring the role of experience and apparel involvement. International Journal of Consumer Studies 32 , no.3: 285-295. Teller, C., T. Reutterer, and P. Schnedlitz. 2007. Hedonic and utilitarian shopp er types in evolved and created retail agglomerations. The International Review of Retail and Consumer Research 18, no. 3: 283-309. Wakefield, K and J Baker. 1998. Excitement at the mall; determinants and effects of shopping response. Journal of Retailing 74, no.4: 515-529. Wakefield, K and J Blodgett. 1994. The importance of servicescapes in leisure se rvice settings. Journal of Services Marketing 8, no.3: 66-76. Wakefield, K and J Blodgett. 1996. The effects of the servicescape on customers ehavioural intentions in leisure service settings. Journal of Services Marketing 10, no.6: 43-59. Wolburg, J.M. and J. Pokrywczynski. 2001. A psychographic analysis of Generation Y college students. Journal of Advertising Research 41, no.5: 33-53. Wood, L. 2006. Dimensions of brand purchasing behaviour: consumers in the 18-24 age group. Journal of Consumer Behaviour 4, no.1: 9-24. Zaichkowsky, J. 1985. Measuring the involvement construct. Journal of Consumer R b

esearch 12, no.3: 341-352. 360

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Appendix: Shopping Centre Environmental Factor Cronbach Alphas Shopping Centre Environmental Factor Scale Items Cronbach s Design 1. The shopping centre s architecture gives it an attractive character. 2. The shopping centre is decorated in an attractive fashion. 3. The interior wall and floor colour schemes are attractive. 4. The overall design of the shopping centre is interesting. 0.841 Layout 1. The layout of the shopping centre makes it easy to get to the stores you want . 2. The layout of the shopping centre makes it easy to get to the food areas. 3. The layout of the shopping centre makes it easy to get to the restrooms. 4. Overall, the layout of the shopping centre makes it easy to get around. 0.837 Variety 1. The variety of food offered at this shopping centre is excellent. 2. This shopping centre has an excellent variety of stores. 3. This shopping centre has excellent entertainment alternatives. 0.700 Desire to Stay 1. I like to stay at this shopping centre as long as possible. 2. I enjoy spending time at this shopping centre. 0.910 Social Consumption Motivation Before purchasing a product at the shopping centre, it is important to know: 1. What friends think of different brands or products. 2. What kinds of people buy certain brands or products. 3. What others think of people who use certain brands or products. 4. What brands/products to buy to make good impressions on others. 0.863 Before purchasing a product at the shopping centre, it is important to know: Objective Consumption Motivation 1. About guarantees on different brands. 2. The name of the company that makes the product. 3. Whether any brands are on sale. 4. The kinds of materials different brands are made of. 5. The quality of store selling a particular brand. 0.738 Excitement The shopping centre is: 1. Unexciting/Exciting 2. Dull/Interesting 3. Boring/Stimulating 4. Unappealing/Appealing 5. Monotonous/Sensational 0.906

Involvement In general, going shopping is: 1. Unimportant/Important 2. Unexciting/Exciting 3. Unappealing/Appealing 4. Means Nothing/Means a lot to Me 5. Doesn t Matter/Matters to Me 6. Boring/Interesting 0.932 Repatronage Intention In the future, my shopping at this shopping centre will be: 1. Not at All/Very Frequent 2. Unlikely/Likely 3. Not Probable/Very Probable 4. Impossible/Very Possible 0.936 361

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Examining the effect of gender on motivational factors for visiting shopping malls Evangelia Chatzopoulou University of Macedonia, Department of Marketing and Operations Management, Gree ce echatzop@uom.gr Rodoula Tsiotsou University of Macedonia, Department of Marketing and Operations Management, Gree ce rtsiotsou@uom.gr Kleanthis Sirakoulis Department of Project Management, Higher Technological Educational Institute of Larissa, Greece sirakoul@teilar.gr In a dynamic socioeconomic environment shopping malls have experienced several transformations. Therefore, it becomes essential to gain a better understanding of their customers behaviour and specifically, their motivations. Research shows that effo rts should be concentrated on the examination of customers behaviour and perceptions about thei r experience in shopping malls (Ruiz, Chebat and Hansen 2004). Customers tend to c ombine their shopping motives with pleasure and enjoyable activities and therefore they prefe r the attractive habitat of shopping malls which in turn urges their buying behaviour (Mattila an d Wirtz 2004). Underhill (1999) supports that men and women differ in the way the process infor mation and behaviour. For example, Timothy (2005) reports that men do not spend as much tim e as women do for looking around or for window shopping. Thus, the purpose of the present study is twofold. First, we aim to identify con sumers motives for visiting shopping malls and second we examine the effect of gender on these motivational factors. In order to accomplish the objectives of the study, a questionnaire was used to obtain data from consumers in a large city in Greece. The questions were adopted from t he work of Bloch, Ridgway and Nelson (1991). The questionnaire used a 5-point likert type s cale. Data collection took place between August and September in 2009 and yielded a final u sable sample

of 211. Respondents were asked to give answers according to their overall experi ences within shopping mall s environment. Exploratory factor analysis was employed to identify the major motivational fact ors. The analysis indicated a five factor solution which explained 60% of the total variance. Base d on the related items, the factors were named (1) browsing (2) socializing (3) entertainment (4) eating (5) shopping. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was used to examine the eff ect of gender on all of the above motivational factors. Wilks and Hotellings tests indicated t hat females differ significantly from males in the motivational factors. In order to identify the e xact factors in which the two genders differ, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted. The an alysis results indicated that the significant differences between the two genders were found on motives such as browsing, entertainment, and shopping. Moreover, the results showed that gend er does not influence socializing and eating motives. The study shows that various motivational factors prompt consumers for visiting shopping malls. Some motives are related to shopping such as browsing (window shopping) and shop ping while entertainment motives are also guiding consumers behaviour. In addition, the pres ent research shows that females and males are not motivated by the same factors for visiting shopping malls. Females visit shopping malls mainly for shopping, browsing while males are motiv ated by eating, 362

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications entertainment and socializing factors. However, although eating is significantly different in the two genders, it is a motivational factor where both scored high, indicating the significance of this factor. The results of the present study could provide marketing managers of sho pping malls valuable information for designing their strategies and for segmenting their mar ket. The findings show that consumers have various motives for visiting shopping malls and those m otives are not only shopping related but social and entertainment driven. It seems that gender plays a significant role in distinguishing consumers based on their motives and should b e used as a segmentation criterion in employing a target marketing strategy. The present study has several limitations that need to be mentioned. The size an d origin of the sample constitute a major limitation. Studies of larger samples and in other cit ies in Greece and abroad are needed in order to validate the present findings. More research is ne eded, especially in Greece, to examine the motives of consumers visiting shopping malls and the e ffect of gender. Future research should investigate the hedonic and utilitarian motives of consum ers visiting shopping malls as well as issues such as shopping mall aesthetics, perceived qua lity and constraints. Keywords: shopping malls, gender, consumers References Bloch, H.P., N.M. Ridgway, and J.E. Nelson. 1991. Leisure and the Shopping Mall. Advances in Consumer Research 18: 445-452. Mattila, A.S. and J. Wirtz. 2004. Congruency of scent and music as a driver of i n-store evaluations and behavior. Journal of Retailing 77, no. 2: 273 289. Timothy, J. Dallen. 2005. Shopping tourism, retail and leisure. USA: Channel Vie w Publications. Ruiz, J.P., J.C. Chebat, and P. Hansen. 2004. Another trip to the mall: a segmen tation study of customers based on their activities. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 11, no. 6: 333-350. Underhill, Paco. 1999. Why we buy: the science of shopping. New York: Simon & Sc huster. 363 motivations.

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The Dynamics Of Servicescape As A Customer Relationship Management Dimension In Web Retailing: An Inderdisciplinary Approach Eleni K. Kevork Athens University of Economics and Business, Department of Management Science an d Technology (DMST), Greece, ekevork@aueb.gr Adam P. Vrechopoulos Athens University of Economics and Business, Department of Management Science an d Technology (DMST), Greece, avrehop@aueb.gr Abstract Effects of servicescape on consumer behaviour have been extensively investigated in the context of conventional retailing. However, while Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has p rovided evidence regarding graphical user interface (GUI) and user behaviour causal rela tionships from an Information Systems perspective, little emphasis has been given on testing su ch kind of relationships online through a Marketing perspective. The present study adopts a CRM approach and aims to test e-servicescape effects on consumer behaviour in the context of web banking employing the SOR and the TAM models as the theoretical vehicles towards setting the research design. Specifically, the study aims to summarize servicescape dimensions into a list of underlying factors in the context of web banking in order to test factors predict ing power on consumer behaviour employing, however, different customer clusters as moderating variables. Keywords: Web Servicescape, Electronic Customer Relationship Management, Web Ban king Literature Review and Objectives Bitner (1992) first discussed the concept of servicescape and examined its influ ence on both consumers and employees in the traditional environment. She defines it as (p. 65 ) a total of layout, functionality, signs, symbols, artefacts and ambient cues (cues which in fluence the five senses of people) in a service context and assumes that service is produced and c

onsumed simultaneously where customers and employees interact with each other at the sam e time. Similarly, many other researchers followed this research stream, mainly, by appl ying empirically the S-O-R (Mehrabian and Russel 1974) theoretical model (Kevork and Vrechopoulos , 2008; 2009, Wakefield and Blodgett, 1996; Hoffman et al, 2003; Zeithaml and Bitner, 19 96; Hoffman et al, 2003; Kotler, 1973-4; Chen et al. 2008; Turley and Milliman, 2000; Eroglu et al 2003; Dailey 2004; MacKinney 2004; Bitner, 1992). In the banking sector the research context of this study customers and bankers i nteract each other and both influence the final design of the bank servicescape, a parameter which is important for a company s marketing goals such as relationship building and retain ing (Crosby, Evans, and Cowels, 1990), the core element of Customer Relationship Management c oncept. Horn et al (2005) support that e-servicescape is, among others, a customer relat ionship management attribute of the e business channel (Kevork and Vrechopoulos, 2009) whi ch contributes in creating and retaining customer relationships which, in our days, is imperative for organisations in order to survive. In the web environment, virtual servicescape is defined as the design of the virt ual site that customers encounter in a service setting . Along these lines, Gummerus et al (2004 ) and Semejin 364

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications et al (2005) describe it with the term e scape and define it as the appearance of t he web site, while Zhang et al (2001) support that some servicescape features are important t o some service sectors (e.g. entertainment industry: multimedia, images, little time to downloa d, links and interaction) and less important to others (e.g. online health: current informati on, ability to search, variety of information). However, up-to-date literature concerning onlin e/web servicescape (and its characteristics/attributes) has been already presented and analysed both from Marketing (Kevork and Vrechopoulos, 2008; Wakefield and Blodgett, 1996; Hof fman et al, 2003; Zeithaml and Bitner, 1996; Hoffman et al, 2003; Kotler, 1973-4; Chen et al . 2008; Turley and Milliman, 2000; Eroglu et al 2003; Dailey 2004; MacKinney 2004; Bitner, 1992 ) and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) perspective (Kevork and Vrechopoulos, 2008; Paap, 200 1; Barfield, 1993; Cooper, 1995; Shneiderman, 1998; Mandel, 2003). As a consequence, most of the studies described and analysed web servicescape s only in, mainly, retailing research context use

certain characteristics of the total collected and presented (Kevork and Vrechop oulos, 2008). Moreover, the majority of research initiatives, till now, attempt to examine ser vicescape influences on consumer behaviour adopting the S-O-R theoretical model (Mehrabian and Russel, 1974). The definitions, descriptions and characteristics given, however, have be en provided through a generic manner neglecting the peculiarities and characteristics of eac h sector (e.g. banking vs. tousim) and communication channel (e.g. traditional vs. web retailin g), separately. Indicatively, little evidence exists for virtual environmental cues in the onlin e banking sector and even more limited evidence exists regarding the treatment of web servicescape as a customer relationship management dimension/module. According to Greenland and McGoldrick (2005), there is a body of literature which recognises that the environmental attributes have an impact on people s lives. Actually, according to many researchers (Mummalaneli, 2003; Bak er et al, 1992; Donovan et al, 1994) no matter what the retail store is (traditional or el ectronic), its environmental characteristics affect both the emotions of the customers and thei r shopping behaviour. However, Dailey (2001) supports that there is a limited explanation o f how and why web environment influences consumers. For this reason, according to Turley and M illiman (2000), it is necessary to investigate how these features are affecting them. Mo

reover, little research body of empirical data exists concerning characteristics influence to di fferent clusters of people without giving more details about consumer s profile through sample segm entation. In other words, relevant studies do not pay particular attention on the moderating role of psychographics, demographis and behavioural data on the web servicescape (i.e. w eb site GUI) effects on consumer behaviour. This interdisciplinary research study aims to develop an electronic servicescape (e-servicescape) framework in the context of electronic banking and measure the effects of its determinants/components on consumer behaviour through a customer relationship management (CRM) approach. Specifically, it aims to classify the enriched initia l proposed pool of e-servisecape attributes (Kevork and Vrechopoulos, 2008) to a list of underly ing factors in the web banking sector. Then, the study aims to develop consumer clusters according to the importance consumers attach to each of the resulted e-servicescape factors in or der to investigate whether different consumer types/clusters moderate the e-servicescap e predicting power (i.e. effects) on consumer attitudes, pleasure and behavioural intentions (SOR model: i.e. Stimulus: e-servicescape, Organism: attitude and pleasure, Response: behavioural intention). Finally, the present study aims to investigate whether and how alternative e-ban king web sites differ in terms of the e-servicescape factors in order to employ graphical user interface (GUI) as the manipulated variable of a quasi-experimental design and test corresponding c ause-andeffect relationships between servicescape and consumer behaviour in the context of a conclusive research design. In other words, the objective is to discover potenti al differences among the resulted groups of e-banking web sites in terms of a series of importa nt consumer behavioural dimensions (e.g. ease of use, perceived usefulness, etc.). To that e nd, in case 365

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications significant differences exist among the web banking sites employed by the presen t study, it will be investigated whether and how different servicescape affects consumer behaviou r. Research Design and Methodology The present study employs both a descriptive research design and a conclusive on e. Before that, an initial research was executed as part of an exploratory study em ploying a qualitative research approach (Kinnear and Taylor, 1996, p. 127; Burns and Bush, 2000, p. 132133; Parasuraman et al, 2004, p. 63). Specifically, in-depth interviews with business bank experts were completed in order to a) define Customer Relationship Management philosophy in the banking context and b) enrich the list of bank customer-centered website user in terface characteristics as provided by the interdisciplinary literature review. On the other hand, the main research would be a part of a conclusive research de sign. It would follow a quantitative research approach (Malhotra and Birks, 2005, p. 223), wher e hypotheses would be formed, a questionnaire would serve as the data collection instrument a nd a consumer web-based survey would be adopted. Population targeted would refer to internet u sers while simple random probability sampling will be employed to draw the sample from vari ous databases which will serve as the sampling frames of the present study. Subjects will be asked to visit three major European banking web sites and then fill in the questionnaires . The research design of the above study is described analytically in the followin g paragraphs and it is presented in the Figure 1. Specifically, firstly, an exhaustive list of eservicescape/interface design attributes both through literature review and experts ped. Similarly, interviews is develo

the study proceeds on developing a list of consumer behaviour variables that acc ording to theory are affected by e-servicescape/interface design. Secondly, a consumer sur vey towards classifying these attributes into a set of underlying factors (factor analysis) would be executed. These factors would be employed towards clustering the participated consumers in to distinct groups (i.e. clusters) according to the importance they attach to the e-services cape factors (cluster analysis) and provide evidence regarding the factors that best discrimi nate among the groups (multiple discriminant analysis). To that end, consumers will be asked to visit top three

major European Banks s included in

web sites (Bankers, 2010) and evaluate each of the attribute

the corresponding list. It should be noted that particular emphasis is given to control potential undesired brand effects. Also, it should be underlined that this list of e-servi cescape factors was first discussed by Kevork and Vrechopoulos (2009) and enriched by the present st udy. However, due to size limitations (more than 50 attributes) this list is not included in t he present paper but will presented (also factor analyzed) at the conference in case of paper accepta nce. Thirdly, prediction models equal to the number of the resulted clusters (moderating varia ble) would be developed towards measuring through the SOR theoretical model the predicting pow er of each e-servicescape determinant on attitude, pleasure and behavioural intentions for each cluster separately (multiple regression). Furthermore, potential differences among the i nvestigated web sites as far as the e-servicescape factors are concerned would be investigated ( ANOVA). In other words it will be investigated whether consumers perceive potential differences a mong the investigated web sites as far as the e-servicescape factors are concerned. Then, in case significant differences would be observed between the e-banking sites, the resea rchers will form different groups correspondingly. This implies that the manipulated variable alo ng the different treatments will be the GUI/Servicescape factor(s) that significantly differs amo ng the groups (i.e. simple or factorial design). Finally, the study will investigate (ANOVA or t-Tes ts in case of two or less groups) potential differences between the resulted groups as far as importa nt consumer behavioural dimensions are concerned (e.g. ease of use, attitude, etc.) for each consumer cluster separately. To that end, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis 1989) will be employed 366

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications as a relevant research tool towards testing the predicting power of interface re lated variables to behavioural intentions. Figure 1: Research Design of the Present Study -Attribute #1 -Attribute #2 -Attribute #n e-Servicescape (Interface) Attributes Literature Review In-depth Personal Interviews with Experts Factor Analysis Factor #1 Factor #2 Factor #n . . . e-Servicescape Factors Cluster Analysis Cluster #1 Cluster #2 Cluster #n . . . Consumer Clusters Multiple Discriminant Analysis Variable #1 Variable #2 Variable #n . . . Predictor Variables that Discriminate between the Clusters Quantitative Consumer Survey through Questionnaires for (a) evaluating major e-Banking Sites e-servicescape attribute and (b) measuring the consumers attached importance on each e-servicescape attribute Multiple Regression Model #1 Model #2

Model #n . . . Predictions Models equal to the number of Clusters [Dependent Variables: (a) Attitude, (b) Pleasure Independent Variables: e-Servicescape Factors] Model #1 Model #2 Model #n . . . (a) (b) Model #1 Model #2 Model #n . . . Predictions Models equal to the number of Clusters [Dependent Variable: Behavioural Intention, Independent Variables:Attitude and Pleaure] Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) Model ANOVA tests equal to the number of e-servicescape factors for investigating differences between the e-Banking sites Factor #1 . . . Factor #n Manipulated Variables (if applicable): Factors 1 to Factor n Consumer Behaviour Variables S l i ANOVA or t-Tests depending on the number of groups Moderating Effects Compare Findings Consumer Behaviour Variables (e.g. Ease of Use, Perceived Usefulness, Attitude, etc.) Moderating Effects 367

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Expected Contribution The study could provide, through a customer perspective, a strong verification o f the existing body of literature review of web servicescape in electronic banking context unde r a CRM conceptual framework. It takes into consideration the extensive list of interfac e characteristics (attributes/items) and their influence on certain related consumer behaviour var iables (both from the S-O-R and the TAM models perspective). Furthermore, this on-going study could shed more light on customer profiles by using segmentation techniques (through cluste ring the sample) by measuring the consumers attached importance on each web bank servicesc ape factor. Till now, the majority of the studies follow segmentation techniques mai nly based on demographic data such as gender and level of education and less on the alternati ves above. In other words, while personalization/customization of the servicescape dimensio n is applicable online, the present study aims to provide evidence regarding whether and how dif ferent customer profiles are affected differently by the GUI (i.e. servicescape) of an online retail store. However, since personalization/customization (i.e. one-to-one) is a quite diffic ult, complicated and risky procedure, customizing e-servicescape to a group of customers (instead of single customers/individuals) sounds as a promising first step in the personalization/c ustomization process. Expected Managerial Implications and Future research From a managerial point of view, the results provided by such type of research i nitiatives could offer useful support for designing effective web banking sites interfaces accord ing to consumer needs. Specifically, managers of web banking sites, could exploit the findings p rovided by the present study in the following ways: (a) treat e-servicescape dimensions not as single items but as factors incorporating relevant items which is useful doth for design and comm unication initiatives, (d) obtain evidence regarding e-servicescape predicting power on se veral important consumer dimensions (e.g. attitude, pleasure, etc.) (c) adjust e-servicescape to different customer clusters in case significant differences are observed (i.e. step toward s personalization) and (d) measure the predicting power of their web bank e-servicescape on the beh aviour of their customers by employing/replicating the research models developed by the pr

esent study. Future research should enrich the list of the e-servicescape items by including other CRM relevant ones (e.g. customer service, loyalty programs, pricing schemes, etc.). Specifically, while the present study focuses on GUI issues (that are directly related to e-services cape), future research should investigate the predicting power of GUI on consumer behaviour in the presence of other important variables as discussed above. Also, there is need to execute such empirical research initiatives in different sectors (i.e. vertical approach) and channels (e.g. 3D online stores) in order to provide tailored to the sector/channel characteristics impli cations in the sense that GUI effects on consumer behaviour is moderated by the peculiarities o f different sectors/channels (e.g. web banking vs. web tourism, web vs. mobile). For example , security may be more important for web banking compared to web tourism resulting to a less im portance given to GUI for web banking. Similarly, web banking vs. mobile banking may diff er as far as the GUI/servicescape effects on consumer behaviour are concerned (e.g. location of u ser/consumer as part of mobile servicescape is more important for mobile banking, etc.). 368

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Corporate Social Responsibility Practices in the Retail Industry in Cyprus

Maria P. Michailidis University of Nicosia, MBA Department, Cyprus, michailidis.m@unic.ac.cy Maria Economou University of Nicosia, MBA Department, Cyprus Abstract Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is embracing an increasing number of compa nies. The impact it has on the retail industry, has influenced the need for research. This quantitative study, attempted to examine people s perceptions and awareness of CSR practices in Cyprus . The results revealed that there is no statistical significant differences between me n an women or between the different age groups. A large percentage of the participants are not aware of the existing CSR practices. A great majority view CSR as being positive but illustra te their concern in relation to how far behind these corporations are with reference to CSR practice s existing in other countries. Key words: CSR, Cyprus, Retail industry Introduction Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), is the obligation of the internal corpora te decision makers to take actions that improve and protect the welfare of society as a whole along with their own interests (Davis and Blomstrom, 1975). While CSR does not negate earning a profit , it does require corporations to balance the benefits to be gained against the cost of ac hieving those benefits. CSR means that corporations should be held accountable for any of thei r actions that affect people, their environment and their communities. CSR started in the USA h alf a century ago and during this time until today numerous different principles have come to surface in relation to CSR. For instance, the central themes of social responsibility have been charity, in other words helping the needy, acting as a public trustee and considering all co rporate

stakeholders when making business decisions. CSR is a highly denotable action. S ome might argue that its benefits include discouraging government regulation, promoting lo ng-term profitability for the firm and enhancing the company s reputation. Nevertheless, o thers believe that it lowers efficiency, imposes undue costs and shifts unnecessary obligation s to business (Zerk 2006). Furthermore, at present customers expectation are very high in terms of companies behaving ethically. Ethical behavior and social responsibility are some aspects that infl uence buying decisions of many customers. It is important to the viability of every organizat ion to behave ethically because billions can be saved every year from thefts, lawsuits and set tlements. Additionally, it is also very difficult for organizations to recruit and retain valued professionals if the company has a strong reputation of unethical and uncaring behaviour toward e mployees because employees care about ethics and are attracted to ethically and socially responsible companies (Levering and Milton 2000). When companies behave ethically they can i ncrease sales and market share, strengthen brand positioning, enhanced corporate image a nd clout, 372

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications increasing their ability to attract, motivate and retain employees, decrease ope rational costs and finally increase their appeal to investors and financial analysts (Kotler 2005). CSR Concepts An examination of the various concepts under the broad elow: The stakeholder Concept Stakeholder Theory of the firm, argues that corporations serve a broader public purpose: that is to create value for society. All companies must make a profit for their owners; indeed if they do not, they would not survive long (Lawrence and Weber, 2007). It is tempting to c onsider value simply as a matter of maximizing the short-term financial performance of the org anization. Contending with that value maximization approach is the Stakeholder Theory . Adopti ng value creation as the scorekeeping measure does nothing to relieve companies of the re sponsibility to do all these things and more in order to survive and dominate their sector of th e competitive landscape (Jensen 2000). Corporate Citizenship The media nowadays is bombarding us every single day with the dynamic social cli mate, implementing corporate citizenship activities, corporate citizenship in practice and corporate social performance audits. But what about the citizens? Their involvement and wh at do they expect from the Companies in return? Research studies indicate that both corpora tions and communities benefit from initiatives that contribute in a symbiotic relationship between the two. The results point to Corporate Citizenship as a potentially fruitful practi ce not only for society as a whole but also for the morale and performance of a business (Gillis and Spring, 2001). Corporate Citizenship involves commitment to social and environmental res ponsibility, building positive relationships with stakeholders, discovering business opportun ities that aim into serving the society and transforming a concern for financial performance in to a vision of integrated financial, social and environmental performance. On the contrast of the corporate social responsibility that had its origin back in the 1920s corporate citizenship has its origin back in the 1990s. The principles of corpor ate citizenship are the following: Good corporate citizens strive to conduct all business dealing in an ethical umbrella of CSR is listed b

manner, make a concerned effort to balance the needs of all stakeholders while w orking to protect the environment (Zadek 2001). Corporate Philanthropy CSR has been defined much more in terms of a philanthropic model. One view of gl obal CSR encompasses models of Corporate Philanthropy, corporate partnerships on social i ssues within communities and strategic business interest activities for business development purposes. Corporations today focus their community involvement in areas that draw on the r esources and talents of their everyday business (Gillis and Spring, 2001). A corporation makes a direct contribution to a charity or cause, most often in t he form of cash grants, donations, and/or kind services. This initiative is perhaps the most tradi tional of all CS initiatives and for many decades (Kotler and Lee, 2005:23). Corporate Philanthro py activities may include organized volunteering, fund raising events, cause-related marketing , and social investments as well as donated advertising. Companies that tend to be the larges t givers are those that are achieving results in their communities and adding value to their corporate 373

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications reputations. Corporate Philanthropy has been crucial to the success of education , community development, health and human services, the arts and the environment (Gillis and Spring, 2001). Elements of the Theory of CSR The Triple Bottom Line Sustainability Putting social and environmental responsibility into practice also includes soci al and environmental reporting. When conducting extensive social performance measuremen t some organizations have undertaken the additional action of reporting their efforts t hrough social and environmental reports (Lawrence and Weber, 2007). Part of the social and environ mental reporting is the Triple Bottom line, which can be considered as an approach of r eporting CS performance. Triple bottom Line is when companies report to stakeholders not jus t their financial results but also their social and environmental actions and their impa ct. Financial, social and environmental results, taken together as an integrated whole, constit ute a company s Triple Bottom Line. Environmental Perspectives. The effective management of physical resources so that they are concerned for th e future, is the basic principles of sustainability in the environmental perspective. Because all bio-systems are regarded as having finite resources and finite capacity, human activity must ope rate at a level that does not threaten the health of those systems. These concerns suggest a nee d to address a number of critical business problems like the impact of industrialization on bio diversity, the continued use of non-renewable resources such as oil, steel and coal and of cour se the production of damaging environmental (Crane and Matten 2004). Following there are managing environmental issues that the research needs to con sider and these are in the scope of Corporate Social Responsibility that a company owes to the whole community and to the world at large: The role of government, costs and benefits of environmental regulation, the greening of management and Environmental managemen t as a competitive advantage (Gibson 2006). Economic Perspectives

The concept of economic sustainability focuses on the economic performance of th e corporation itself. The responsibility of management is to develop and produce those product s that secure long-term economic performance for the organisation and focus on those strategie s which lead to a long-term rise in share price, revenue and market share rather than short-t erm explosions of profits at the expense of long-term viability and success. (Crane and Matten 2004). 374

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Social Perspectives Social perspective development on sustainability has tended to trail behind that of the environmental and economics perspectives and remains a relatively new developmen t (Scott et al. 2000). Consumers contradictory expectations

CSR is also about operating a business in a manner that meets or exceeds the eth ical, legal, commercial and public expectations that society has in business. Furthermore, CS R is an issue that encompasses business decision making related to ethical values, legal requir ements, as well as respect for people, communities and the environment (Kotler and Lee, 2005 ). A company s reputation is built by the quality of its products or services, its comm unications, it s marketing and last but not least, its conduct. The management of reputation has become increasingly difficult, due to a combination of increased public scrutiny, expec tations of conduct of faster, more transparent and truly international communications media. Many o f the tools used by individuals and external groups to put pressure on organizations to chan ge their behavior are not new. What is different today is the extent of shareholder activ ism, the increased media and political lobbying skills of pressure groups and the speed w ith which local campaigns against corporate bad behavior can take centre stage internationally ( Joll and Page 2001). CSR and the marketing concept CSR also encompasses the marketing concept philosophy which is based on customer service and mutual benefit but not all companies follow these principles and there are m any that have dubious marketing practices that adversely affect innocent consumers and the wid er society as well. There are citizen and public actions to regulate marketing and promote CSR stand ards with some of the following movements and organisations: Consumerism Environmentalism Environmental Sustainability. CSR and Power Some companies have established CSR initiatives as a reflection of their mission and business core values in response to emerging issues. Their CSR is built into the mission statement from its

inception. Other corporations have developed and redesigned their mission and op erations to include CSR components (Gillis and Spring (2001). Examples of strategies employe d by businesses to transform commitment to corporate responsibility into practical ac tion include: articulating a relevant organizational philosophy and incorporating it into miss ion, vision and values statements, drafting a meaningful code of ethics that is consistently app lied, revising employment strategies and applying strategic philanthropy, employee volunteering and public education programs (Corporate Responsibility Index, 2008). CSR practices in CYPRUS Following the practice in other countries of the European Union, a major number of companies in Cyprus have created and joined the not-for-profit organization Green Dot (Cyp rus) Public Co Ltd with the goal to organize the first collective packaging waste system in the country. The Packaging and Packaging Waste Law (N.32(I)/2002) with its modifications and regu lations, 375

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications defines the responsibilities of companies considered to be responsible for their packaging and the ways and means for the recovery and recycling of their packaging waste. The number of shareholders is currently 84 while the number of members is 311. This number is constantly rising while new Shareholders and Members ccontinue to sign contracts with the S ystem. The System was the first and the only collective packaging waste System to be li censed in Cyprus in 2006, for a six year period. The organization cooperates with the respective system of Belgium, FOST Plus. FOST Plus was chosen by criteria of effectiveness (high perc entage of recovery and recycling) and reasonable cost to the industry. The organization is also a member of the largest global network of collective pa ckaging recovery organizations, of Packaging Recovery Organization Europe stationed in Brussels w hich includes 30 other suchlike systems from all over the world .With the aforementioned parti cipation, the System is sole administrator of the Green Dot mark in Cyprus. Green Dot Cyprus h ad undertaken in 2006 to set-up and manage a WEEE Collective System for the organiz ation WEEE Electrocyclosis Cyprus Ltd. This system was accredited in 2008. In addition, in 2007, it had undertaken to set-up and manage a collective system for the management of househ old dry cell batteries for the organization AFIS Cyprus Ltd. This System was accredited in 20 09, (Green Dot Cyprus, 2010). The promotion of Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER), giving the possib ility of the production of twelve short films, or Public Service Announcements (PSAs), that w ill be shown by Cypriot television stations. This particular initiative constitutes one of the m ore effective ways of promoting the Corporate Environmental Responsibility and gives the opportunity t o companies (that are actively promoting the environment) to show what they have done so far , displaying and highlighting their activities through PSAs. With the projection of PSAs from the Cypriot channels it will be possible to: first, show the way with which the companies in Cyprus contribute perfectly in the protection of environment; second, motivate other co mpanies and the public so that they also contribute actively in the maintenance of environme nt; and third, demonstrate some of the environmental problems that we are currently facing in o ur island. The aim of the PSAs is not to show off companies, but instead to display their e nvironmental activities and sensitivities regarding the common good. Furthermore, within the framework of their CSR contribution, companies such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers (Cyprus); Cyta (a semi-government telecommunications serv

ice); Deloitte; Marfin Popular Bank; Alpha Bank; Hellenic Bank; Bank of Cyprus (BOC) h ave been actively involved in and contribute to society. Additionally, they recognize and embrace their responsibility to act in ways that have a positive impact and try to minimize an y adverse impacts on the environment, which are not fully congruent with their values and ethics. Additionally, they care for their employees, working environment, the protection of the enviro nment and for the social and cultural life of the island of Cyprus. They follow environmental strategies for the decrease of energy and water consumption. They also work for the promotion of re cycling paper, plastic and other material. They all believe in creating and maintaining a sustainable society with equal opportunities for people both today and for future generation s. However, in Cyprus there appears to be a pending need for the corporations but a lso the consumers to act in favour of CSR practices. After all consumers are the ones wh o transform corporations and their ideas, formulate their future in regards to CSR practices and the responsibilities of the corporations. 376

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Method The aim of this research was to investigate the levels of CSR practices of compa nies in the retail industry of Cyprus, as perceived by consumers. The research investigated the CSR activities and the degree to which Greek Cypriots were aware of these CSR practices. Data Collecting Method The exploratory research approach was utilised in order to obtain information wh ich constituted the study s variables. Also, the method of quantitative research was employed in t he form of close and structured questionnaires. Questionnaires were given to a sample size of 220 participants. The convenience sampling method was chosen in order to select the participants who were employees in the retail industry. A total of 110 complete questionnaire s were taken into consideration for the present study, giving a 50% response rate. The Questionnaire The questionnaires were designed by the researchers and they were administered o n a voluntary, anonymous and confidential basis. They were composed of 32 questions on a Likerttype scale from 1 to 5 and a question on giving their comments. The questions were ex amining issues such as business ethics, stakeholder theory, environmental regulations en vironmental management, environmental policies, energy conservation, waste minimization and recycling, pollution prevention, communication practices. A pilot study was performed, and this lead to some rephrasing of the questions. These were then given out to the Human Resourc e Departments of the companies under study for distribution and collection in encl osed envelopes. Statistical techniques The SPSS package SPSS version 17, was used for the statistical analysis. Descript ive Statistics were conducted, Frequencies, and Crosstabs-correlation analysis. Limitations of the research The implementation of this research study has revealed a number of outcomes and benefits but limitations as well which can be further exploited and could provide the basis f or additional research. The length of the questionnaires, since the number of questions proved

to be rather large for the participants, which resulted in a high rate of unreturned, unfille d or partially filled questionnaires (a 50% response rate). Also, the limitations of this study are ma inly related to its scope in terms of the time the researchers had to complete the research work. Th is is because, the findings of the research were the opinions of stakeholders regarding the ret ail industry in Cyprus, however, the sample involved only respondents from one city. In the cour se of this research, the aim of the researcher was to include responses across the country to avoid any bias in results. However, this was not entirely achieved as this would have been costly and time consuming. 377

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Results and discussion Of the participants there were 35 males and 75 females, ages ranged from 18-65+ years old. Cross tabs were performed on all questions with the participants gender and age. From the results it can be concluded that there were no significant differences between t he participant s age or gender related to the CSR issues in question. . As far as the question related to the environmental management offering a compet itive advantage to companies, an equal percentage of males and females (77%) responded positively. The age group 22-34 responded positively (77%) followed by 35-44 age group (76.6 %). . To the question related to good environmental policies as contributors to compan y . success, 88% males and 92% females responded positively. The age groups 55-64 an d 65+ responded positively at 100% followed by 35-44 age group, positively at 95% and 22-34% at 80% positively. . To the question related to good community policies as contributors to company s success, 89% males, and 92% females responded positively. All age groups respond ed positively at 80% and over. . This question asked whether companies in Cyprus have tried to reduce their enter prise s environmental impact in terms of energy conservation 55% of the males responded positively with the remaining 45% who responded that they did not know. The females with ve ry similar responses 57% responded positively with the remaining 43% who responded that the y did not know. As far as the age groups are concerned, with the exception of the 345-44 a nd 45-54 groups who responded positively at 67% and 70% respectively, the rest of the gro ups responded negatively. . This question asked whether companies in Cyprus have tried to reduce their enter prise s environmental impact in terms of waste minimization and recycling, 63% of the ma les responded positively. The females responded with higher positive responses at 70 %. As far as the age groups are concerned all groups responded positively at about 50%.

. This question asked whether companies in Cyprus have tried to reduce their enter prise s environmental impact in terms of pollution prevention (emission to air and water , effluent discharges, noise) both males and females responded positively at 54%. As far as the age groups are concerned, with the exception of the 22-34 age group, who responded negative ly at 52%, the rest of the groups responded positively. . This question asked whether companies in Cyprus have tried to reduce their enter prises environmental impact in terms of protection of the natural environment, both mal es and females responded positively at 57% and 64% respectively. As far as the age grou ps are concerned they all responded positively at over 50%. . This question asked whether companies in Cyprus have tried to reduce their enter prises environmental impact in terms of sustainable (capable of being continued with mi nimal long term effect on the environment) transport options, both males and females respon ded negatively at 63% and 48% respectively. As far as the age groups are concerned, all groups responded with very high negative responses. . To the question related to whether they think that enterprises save money by red ucing their environmental impact (e.g. by recycling, reducing energy consumption, prev enting by pollution), both males and females responded positively at over 60%. . To the question related to whether they consider the potential environmental imp acts when buying new products and services (e.g. assessing energy usage, recyclabilit y or pollution generation) the male participants were split at 50% positive and 50% negative, w hile the female respondents were at 40% positive and 60% negative. Negative were also all age gr oups. . To the question related to whether they consider that Companies in Cyprus supply clear and accurate environmental information on their products, services and activitie s to customers, 378

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications suppliers, local community; both male and female participants responded negative ly with males 70% and females 63%. Equally negative were also the age groups. . To the question related to ways in which enterprises could use the sustainabilit y (i.e. capable of being continued with minimal long-term effect on the environment) of their products and services to gain an advantage over competitors (e.g. recyclability of produc ts, energy efficiency, and e.t.c.); both males and females responded positively at 70% and 57% respectively. The age groups were all equally positive. . In the question whether they are aware of battery recycling, both males and fema les responded positively at over 80%. As far as the age groups are concerned they al l responded positively with the lowest percentages with the age groups of 45-54; 55-64 and 6 5+. . In the question whether they recycle (at your office, home), both males and fema les responded positively at over 80%. As far as the age groups are concerned they al l responded positively with the lowest percentages with the age groups of 45-54; 55-64 and 6 5+. . In the questions as to whether they are aware of Companies (that belong in the hypermarket business area) which provide reusable or biodegradable shopping stor age bags, both males and females responded negatively at over 80%. As far as the age group s are concerned they all responded negatively. . In the question whether they think that most Companies in Cyprus use recycled products whenever possible? (e.g. leaflets), male responded at 67% negatively wi th females at 58% responding positively. As far as the age groups are concerned, they all resp onded more negatively. . In the question whether they consider themselves a stakeholder who has a voice a nd can contribute to enhance a company s corporate social responsibility, both males and females responded negatively at 72% and 75% respectively. All age groups responded negat ively. . In the question whether they think that there is enough communication among the community and companies, both males and females responded negatively at 70%. All age groups responded negatively. . In the question whether they think that Companies in Cyprus have a policy to ens

ure honesty and quality in all its contracts, dealings and advertising (e.g. a fair purchasing policy, fairtrading practices, provisions for consumer protection, etc); both males and females resp onded negatively at over 64%. All age groups responded negatively. . In the question whether they think that Companies have a process to ensure effec tive feedback, consultation and/or dialogue with the customers, male participants res ponded negatively at 72%, and females at 53%. All age groups responded negatively. . In the question whether they have experienced any of the above we have described (consumer with a voice, dialogue with companies, communication-effective feedbac k fair trading practices) only 20% of the male respondents and 13% of the females responded pos itively. All age groups responded negatively. . In the questions whether they think that companies in Cyprus try and purchase lo cally, males at 51% and females at 57% responded negatively. . In the questions whether they think that Companies in Cyprus offer training opportunities to people from the local community (e.g. apprenticeships or work e xperience for the young or for disadvantaged groups, males responded at 63% and 50% responded negatively. . In the question of whether they think that Companies in Cyprus give regular fina ncial support to local community activities and projects (e.g. charitable donations or sponsorship), males responded more negatively at 55%, while females at 64% responded positivel y. . In the question of whether they think that as customers of Companies in Cyprus ( either Public or Limited Companies) they are aware of the Companies conduct, values and rules of

male respondents both males and females responded negatively, at 71% males and 6 3% females. 379

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications . In the question of whether they think that Companies communicate their Company values, to customers and other interested parties (e.g. in sales presentations, marketing material or informal communication), males responded more negatively at 63%, while female s at 50% responded positively. . In the question of whether they think that Companies have made and are making enough effort to communicate their initiatives that help to preserve the environ ment, males responded more negatively at 58%, while females at 54% responded negatively. . In the question of whether they think that the size of a company is related to C SR as it plays a huge role, for both males and females the percentages were split into 54 % positive for males and 50% for females. . In the question of whether the companies in Cyprus can compete with multinationa l corporations in terms of corporate social responsibility, males at 70% , females 60% negative. . In the question of whether there is more that companies could do regarding CSR r ather than just donating money to charities and other organizations, males responded a t 70% positively, while females at 55% positively. Conclusions and Recommendations Based on the research findings presented it can also be suggested that the compa nies should try and communicate their company s values to customers and to other interested partie s and stakeholders. This involves ongoing communication between the community and comp anies in order for the former to be aware of CSR activities used by the various companies in the retail industry. Thus a company might better sustain its competitive advantage and good community policies. These CSR initiatives should of course be properly advertised but also applied, since from the overall analysis the respondents were not satisfied with what they have witness in terms of environmental pollution, energy conservation, waste minimization and re cycling, sustainability, pollution prevention, and protection of the natural environment. Furthermore, as was shown for the present research, companies need to work a lot harder in suppl ying clear and accurate environmental information of their products, services and activities to customers, suppliers, and the local community. Additionally, it can be stated that respondents are in part aware of any CSR act ivities that

companies offer to society while at the same time they realize that both compani es and the society as a whole -all stakeholders could gain from the growth and reputation f or the company itself. However, as the research findings have indicated, the companies should t ake into consideration the low awareness levels of the public of the CSR activities of th e firms and should take immediate action to adjust their CSR initiatives and policies in communicat ing these activities more effectively. From the findings it can be clearly seen that it is very important for business corporations to adopt a socially responsible and ethical attitude towards the community. In addi tion, it is demonstrated that by promoting CSR issues such as giving back to the community this offers a chance for company s growth; since such promotions will have an impact on the bu siness reputation, especially via word of mouth which is extremely important in small c onsumer communities such as the one under study, (essential in gaining good business rep utation and in attracting new customers). It is therefore clear that implementing CSR not only offers a number of company benefits but also has a valuable influence to the society at large. The data analysis and research findings presented show that CSR is an important value that all the corporations need to address and include in their company vision and culture and put into practice by implementing a well-designed CSR policy that responds to the needs o f modern society. In addition, participants irrespective of age or gender, recommended th at companies need to adopt policies that deal with recycling and energy conservation. Accordi ng to their 380

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications proposals, the paper, plastic, and other materials used by the companies should be recycled on a regular basis and furthermore an attempt should be made to decrease water and en ergy consumption by adopting Renewable Energy Sources (RES). Direction for Future Research Overall it can be concluded that CSR is one of the few ways of leveraging compet itive advantage in recession. This concept has been in existence for decades; however is not unt il recently that it is gaining ground and attention within many businesses and countries, and partic ularly in Cyprus. It is recommended to firms especially those in the retail industry to ap preciate and adopt more effectively and extensively, socially responsible behavior. Participants demonstrated their degree of awareness and their own opinions regar ding CSR policies and as stakeholders they ought to be informed from companies on a regul ar basis about the CSR activities and also on the results of such activities. Furthermore, CSR efforts should include not only money donations but also the sponsorship of cultural and social events, philanthropic work, other support initiatives that help to preserve the environm ent. Also, the distribution of company brochures that contain relevant information about green practices and environmental initiatives that advertise the companies activities. Thus companies in Cyprus can compete with multinational corporations as regards to corporate social responsib ility, but they should above all enforce these policies in order to ensure honesty and quality i n all of their contracts, dealings, and advertising. Also, considering the fact that corporate social responsibility is a relatively new concept to companies in Cyprus, future studies should theref ore give more insight to the source and means of exposure of this concept and its acceptance i n organizations. Finally, CSR is a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental c oncerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis. However we believe that voluntary should become compulsory in order for CSR to g row and expand so that companies seriously consider CSR and offer, above all, as much sa tisfaction as possible to their stakeholders who support their industries. References BOOKS Arena, C. 2004. Cause for success: 10 companies that put profits second and came in first: how solving the world. New World Library

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Business for Social Responsibility, Introduction . http://bsr.org/BSRResources/WhitePaperDetail.cfm?DocumentID=48809 Business Link (2008). Central Queensland University (2004). Corporate Responsibility Index. http://www.corporate-responsibility.com.au/ Corporate Social Responsibility and Socially Responsible Investment. http://www. ethicalperformance.com CYTA Annual reports. http://www.cyta.com.cy/pr/annualreport/anreport2006/SocialR esponsibility.html Emerald Journals Website. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1 501959&show=abstract Europa Website. http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sustainablebusiness/ files/csr/campaign/documentation/download/questionaire_en.pdf Green-Dot Cyprus. http://www.greendot.com.cy/default_en.aspx MHCinternational Ltd (MHCi). http://www.mhcinternational.com National Ethical Investment Week (NEIW). http://www.neiw.org PricewaterhouseCoopers. http://www.pwc.com Shell Oil Company. http://www.shell.com Springerlink Books and Publications online Website. http://www.springerlink.com/ content/l3q4070553467457/ Sustainable Development and Technical Regulations. http://www.csr.gov.uk The Free Dictionary, Financial Dictionary The personal website of Mallen Baker, a writer, speaker and strategic advisor on corporate social responsibility and the founding director of Business Respect. www.Mallenbaker.net. University of Edinburgh Careers Services (1999). 383

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Coupon Face Value Framing & The Moderating Role of Stock-up Product Nature

George Baltas Department of Marketing and Communication, Athens University of Economics and Bu siness, Athens, Greece Grigorios Painesis Department of Marketing and Communication, Athens University of Economics and Bu siness, Athens, Greece Abstract The current study tries to find if coupon face value presentation influences the antecedents of behavior and which is the underlying mechanism of their interrelations. The resu lts from a controlled laboratory experiment involving 75 student participants showed that t he extraproduct face value presentation performed better for stock-up products in terms of perce ived transaction value, attitude towards the offer and redemption intention, while no n-stock up ones appeared impervious to this effect. A mediation analysis also indicated that eva luations are formed on the basis of cognitions and intentions on the basis of evaluations. Bu siness implications of the findings for improving coupon campaign efficiency are discus sed. Introduction Coupons are an effective sales promotions tool for businesses of almost every si ze and type (Berdnarz and Bergiel 2001). In recent years, they have become the most heavily utilized promotion vehicle in the retail industry because of their ability to exert a dir ect influence on buying habits (Ben Zion, Hibhoosh, and Spiegel 1999; Neslin and Shoemaker 1983; P apatla and Krishnamurthi 1996), on subsequent purchases (Bawa and Shoemaker 1987b), on the behavior of non-redeemers (Bawa and Shoemaker 1989) and on store traffic and store profits ( Walters and MacKenzie 1988). Moreover, coupons have features that are not met in the other p romotional

activities. Most importantly, they provide consumers not only with economic (uti litarian) benefits, the offered discount, but also with psychological (hedonic) and ego-ex pressive ones such as the feeling of being an efficient and smart shopper (Shimp and Kavas 198 4; Shindler 1989). Nowadays, in view of the decline in coupon redemption rates (CMS 2005), t he intense competition in the retailing sector, coupon cluttering and global financial stri ngency, there is need to efficiently improve the effectiveness of coupon campaigns. The way a cou pon s face value is expressed, known as coupon face value framing, can serve this purpose i n a relative inexpensive way and it remains a neglected issue in coupon design (Baltas, Argou slidis, and Painesis 2009). The current study tries to fill this void in coupon and marketin g literature by examining the impact of three alternative, yet equivalent on a unit-cost basis, coupon face value presentations (50 % off, Buy 1 Get 1 Free and Buy 2 Get 50 % off) which are comm only employed in the promotion of fast moving consumer goods, on cognitions, coupon e valuations and redemption intention. In the following sections we review the literature on coupons and framing, we form our research hypotheses based on the challenging gaps that exis t and we test 384

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications them in an experimental setting. The study concludes with a discussion of its ma in findings and limitations while the managerial implications and future research are highlighte d. Literature Review Coupon Literature Review Coupons are certificates that provide the consumer with an incentive which could take the form of a reduction in the retail price, free extra product, refunds, combination off ers, free samples or other types of promotions to buy a product (Schultz, Robinson, and Petrison 1998 ). Coupon distribution has risen rapidly in the last forty years (NCH 1998) and this popul arity has triggered a strong academic interest (Dhar and Raju 1998). A main stream of coupon researc h includes investigations into the determinants of coupon redemption rate. Coupon face valu e was identified as its most critical determinant (Bawa and Shoemaker 1987b; Chakrabor ty and Cole 1991; Krishna and Shoemaker 1992; Kumar and Swaminathan 2005; Leone and Shriniva san 1996; Mittal 1994; Neslin and Clarke 1987; Raghubir 1998, 2004; Ramasway and Sri nivasan 1998; Reibstein and Traver 1982; Ward and Davis 1978). Despite a wealth of research on the impact of the financial value of the coupon on coupon redemption, very little is known abo ut how different face value statement types (known as coupon face value frames) influen ce coupon attractiveness, coupon evaluations and coupon redemption (Varadarajan 1984; Yin and Dubinsky 2004). The fact that coupon offers are becoming extremely diverse (Ranghubir 200 4; Suri, Swaminathan, and Monroe 2004; Teel, Williams, and Bearden 1980) and the empirica l findings from the discount framing literature, which are presented in the next section, a re strong indicators that the way a coupon face value is presented will have a significant impact on buying behavior and its antecedents. Framing Literature Review The term framing refers to individuals responding differently to the same decisi on problem (Frisch 1993; Li, Shun, and Wang 2007). Thaler (1980), based on the tenets of pr ospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky 1979), found that the structure of the problem (framing) m ay affect consumer perception about the situation which in turn affects choice. Since then framing literature expanded vastly and the framing of alternatives was found to affect c hoices in many

and diverse domains, such as health precautionary behavior adoption (Chandran an d Menon 2004; Maheswaran and Meyers-Levy 1990; Meyerowitch and Chaiken 1987), credit car d usage (Ganzach and Karsahi 1995), product attribute evaluation (Kwong and Wong 2006; L evin and Gaeth 1988), product versus service evaluations (Fortin and Greenlee 1998), indu strial buying decision-making (Puto 1987; Qualls and Puto 1989), donations to non-profit organ izations (Smith and Berger 1995), and new or innovative product adoption (Grewal, Gotlieb, and M armorstein 1994). The application of framing to discount promotions has been the focus of many pie ces of empirical research (Berkowitz and Walton 1980; Chen, Monroe, and Lou 1998; Das 1 992; Della Bitta, Monroe, and McGinnis 1981; DelVeccio, Krishan, and Smith 2007; Gendall et al 2006; Gourville 1998; Kim and Kramer 2006; Lichtenstein, Burton, and Kurson 1991; Lief eld and Heslop 1985), which dealt with the presentation of the savings of promotional offers, a lso known as deal semantics. Coupon framing literature on the other hand appears quite scanty . Diamond (1992a) and Diamond and Sanyal (1990) studied different coupon face value frames but in the former case only in an effort to discover the latent decision rules used and in the latter for a combined offer between spaghetti sauce and rice soup. More recently, Kramer and Kim (2007) proved that processing fluency enhanced evaluations for gain-framed face values (don t pay 20 385

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications % of the final price) and not novelty effects. The current study continues the m omentum towards coupon face value framing studies and tries to prove the existence of fr aming effects in this unique context between monetary (50 % off), non-monetary (Buy 1 Get 1 Free) and mixed frames (Buy 2 Get 50 % off). Primary dependent variables are three interrelated antecedents of behavior (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975), perceptions, more specifically transaction v alue which is stipulated in terms of perceptions of savings, deal evaluations, as expressed by attitude towards the offer and redemption intention that have rarely been considered simultaneous ly in framing literature before. Diamond and Campbell (1989) combined Thaler s (1985) notion that consumers perform mental accounting and Klein and Oglethorpe s (1987) suggestion about the integration of m ultiple attributes of purchases and proved that when promotions are in the same units as the reference price, they will be more easily integrated with it and as a result they will be seen more often as reduced prices and framed as reduced losses. On the other hand, promotions that are expressed in other units than money, they will be difficult to integrate and will be more often considered as a separate gain. Based on this: H1.: The extra-product face value frame Buy 1 Get 1 Free will be perceived as a ga in while the monetary face value frame 50 % off and the mixed one Buy 2 Get 50 % off will be perc eived as reduced-losses. All previous framing studies did not validate this perception although it is the building block for the formation of any hypothesis concerning framing effects. Diamond and Sanyal ( 1990) suggested that promotions framed as gains provide better value than those that a re framed as reduced losses. In addition the extra product face value presentation incorporat es the word free which signals a clear gain, while the mixed one sounds more as a precondition and a hurdle in order someone to be eligible to the discount, causing reactance. For t hese reasons the extra-product face value presentation will outperform the mixed one in all the d ependent variables since they are equivalent in all other aspects (total cost, unit cost, amount of units purchased). The monetary frame (50 % off) is equivalent with the previous two on a unit-cost basis but it results in lower expenditure than the previous two since the consum er has to buy

only one unit. Simultaneously, Russo (1977) found that consumers process price i nformation in an absolute rather than in a unit basis enhancing its favorableness. As a result , it is expected that the monetary frame will perform better than the previous two. Sinha and Smith (2 000) used exactly the same frames in a discount promotion setting and proved that the mone tary frame performed better than the extra-product one, which in turn was better than the m ixed one. Overall it can be said: H2.: Consumers will have higher perceived transaction value, more positive attit ude towards the offer and greater redemption intention when they are exposed to the monetary fac e value frame than in the extra-product one. The mixed face value presentation will have the poorest performance of all in the dependent measures. Litvack et al (1985) developed a taxonomy of stock-up versus non-stock-up produc ts after testing 72 specific branded products, 36 stock up and 36 non-stock-up, using a sample of grocery shoppers. These subjects were asked to answer yes or no to the following questions a bout each product: a) Do you use it? and b) If the price of the this product was reduced substantially for a short period of time would you buy a bit more than usual and stock up? . They found that for products that could be easily stocked, because of little per ishability or large consumption rate, the consumer response to temporary price changes was greater. Sinha and Smith (2000) proved the moderating role of this variable on the perceptions of t ransaction value. It was making the extra-product frame to perform better for the stock-up product s than for the non-stock up since the extra free unit is not so desirable in the latter case. T hus: 386

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications H3.: The stock-up nature of the product will moderate the framing effects making the extraproduct face value frame perform better for the stock-up products than for the non-stock -up ones for all the dependent variables. The interrelationships among perceptions, attitudes and intentions and their tra its as antecedents of actual behavior are well established theoretically and validated empirically in consumer research (Bagozzi 1982; Fishbein & Ajzen 1975). It is expected that in the case of coupon face value framing effects the same pattern will appear, with perceptions influencing cognitions which in turn will influence intentions. More specifically: H4.: Perceived transaction value mediates the formation of attitude towards the offer while attitude mediates the formation of redemption intention. Methodology Pretests The aforementioned research hypotheses were tested by performing a controlled la boratory experiment. Before performing the main experiment, three pretests were conducted . Firstly, a pretest took place in order to specify the stock-up and the non-stock-up product categories that would be included in the experiment. Twenty stock-up product categories and 20 n on-stock-up ones were presented in alphabetical order to 32 respondents using the same quest ions and methodology with Litvack et al (1985). Based on the results of the pretest, liqu id dish detergent was deemed as highly stockable (.2detergent (1, N = 32) = 10.13, p = .001) and b utter as nonstockable respectively (.2butter (1, N = 32) = 21.13, p = .001). A second pretest using 35 subjects took place after that in order to choose fictitious brand names for the two prod uct categories mentioned earlier. The necessity to use brand names stemmed from the need to mak e the whole task more realistic for participants and to overcome the frequent criticis m that when price and price discount are the only information available, subjects naturally overemphasize their importance (Gendall et al 2006). The use of real and established brands in the market was not considered appropriate for the main study since brand effects (prior brand e valuations and knowledge) and loyalty could overwhelm and dilute any framing effects as it has happened in the study of Gendall et al (2006). As a result, fictitious brand names were crea ted and were pretested on their believability and attractiveness. After performing the necess ary paired-t comparisons, the fictitious brand name Shine was the most believable and likeable

of all for the liquid laundry detergent category (p < .05) and the fictitious brand name Pri mo Soft had the same traits for the butter category. A final pretest on 32 different student subjects, verified that the 50 % discount size was more motivating to buy compared with the other d iscount sizes that could be used (33 %, 25 % & 20 %), but it was not considered excessively hi gh in order to generate suspicions about the credibility of the offer. After conducting the pretests, a three (3) (coupon face value statement types) X two (2) (stockup nature of the product category) full factorial between subjects experimental des ign was applied. The data for the empirical study were collected between November and De cember 2010. Participants were business students from two large Business Schools locate d in the city of Athens, Greece. The controlled experiment took place during regularly scheduled class sessions. All participants were volunteers. Subjects were administered a booklet that was consisted of an introduction, a cover story, the stimulus (simulated real coupon) and a question naire in order to provide their responses to the variables of interest. The entire process took ap proximately 10-15 minutes to complete and this was crucial in order to avoid participants fatigue a nd increase the reliability and validity of the provided responses. Neither institution nor clas s session exerted any significant effect on any of the dependent variables (p >.05) and as a resul t the data from each session and institution could be pooled and form a united dataset for analy sis. Seventy five 387

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications (75) students participated in the study and were randomly assigned in the experi mental conditions resulting in at least 10 observations per cell. From their answers on an open ended question of the questionnaire, it was obvious that no one surmised the real purp ose of the study. So, none of them was excluded from the analyses because of courtesy bias and selfgenerated validity (Sawyer, 1975). In addition the vast majority of participants reported having a very recent grocery shopping experience, enhancing the credibility of their answ ers and their suitability for participation. Age, gender and household size also had no signif icant effects on any of the dependent variables (p > .05), validating once more the fact that simple individual demographics are poor predictors of coupon behavior (Bawa, Srinivasan, and Sriva stava 1997; Mittal 1994). As a result these variables were excluded from the subsequent anal yses and they are not mentioned hereafter. Measures Most of the scales used in the study have been validated in previous studies. Th e first dependent measure, redemption intention, was measured by using a nine-point semantic diffe rential scale with endpoints Not at all Likely and Very Likely . The next dependent variable of int erest was attitude towards the coupon offer. It was measured by employing a 3-item nine-po int semantic differential scale (anchored by unfavorable / favorable, bad / good and poor / e xcellent) adapted from Lichtenstein et al (1991) (a = .95). Transaction value, was measured by uti lizing a four-item scale adapted from Yadav and Monroe (1993) (a = .90). All items intended to meas ure the perceived savings (difference between reference and retail price) of the coupon offer, according to Thaler s (1985) definition which distinguishes it from the overall value of the offer (acquisition value). More specifically, the first three items were nine-point Likert style me asures anchored by strongly disagree / strongly agree and were as follows: a) If I redeemed the coup on, I would be saving a lot of money , b) Redeeming the coupon appears to be a good bargain , c) If I redeemed the coupon I would be taking advantage of an attractive price reduction . The final item was a nine-point semantic differential scale anchored very poor / very good with the following phrasing: By redeeming the coupon, the deal I would be getting will be . The subjects

perceptions of the coupon face value frames as gains or as reduced losses were m easured by using a nine-point scale from Diamond and Johnson (1990) with anchors makes me fe el that I am losing less than usual / makes me feel that I am gaining something extra . Final ly, subjects rated with a similar scale also from Diamond and Johnson (1990) if the face valu e presentation was making them feel that they were getting a reward or not. Moreover, because Kim and Kramer (2006) had proved that novel discount presentat ions have more favorable perceived savings and purchase likelihood than conventional ones, respondents assessed the novelty of the coupon face value statement type they saw by employi ng the threeitem nine-point bipolar scale (anchored novel / not novel, unfamiliar / familiar, unu sual / usual) devised by the previous authors (a = .86). Coupon proneness was measured by the eight-item seven-point Likert style (all items are anchored strongly disagree / strongly ag ree) construct developed by Lichtenstein et al (1990) (a = .91). The items of the scale were th e followings: a) Redeeming Coupons makes me feel good , b) I enjoy clipping coupons from various sour ces , c) When I use coupons, I feel that I am getting a good deal , d) I enjoy using coupo ns, regardless of the amount I save doing so , e) I have favorite brands, but most of t he time I buy the brand I have coupon for , f) I am more likely to buy brands for which I have a coupon , g) Coupons have caused me to buy products I normally would not buy , h) Beyond the mone y I save, redeeming coupons gives me a sense of joy . Results Manipulation checks 388

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Subjects indicated in most cases that they would stock-up liquid dish detergent in case of a substantial temporary price reduction (24 yes / 13 no) while they reported a res pective reluctance to adapt such a behavior for butter under the same circumstances (15 yes / 23 no, .2 (1, N = 75) = 4.84, p = .028). As a result this manipulation was deemed successf ul since liquid dish detergent was perceived as a stock-up product and butter as a non-stock-up one. In the case of the framing manipulation, 96 % of those that were exposed to the monetar y frame (50 % off) indicated that the incentive of the coupon was a percentage price reduction , 92 % of those exposed to the extra-product promotion (Buy 1 Get 1 Free) reported that the ince ntive of the coupon was extra product and finally, 92 % of those seeing the third frame (Buy 2 Get 50 % off) also indicated that the incentive of the coupon was a percentage price reduction (.2(2, 75) = 54.82, p = .001). These numbers leave also no doubt about the success of this ma nipulation. Checks for potential confounds Before conducting the main analyses which would test the research hypotheses, so me preliminary analyses were performed in order to rule out the possibility of exis tence of potential confounding effects in the data. More specifically, for both product categories respondents were similarly familiar (M butter = 5.5, M detergent = 5.82, t (66) = -0.61, p = .54) and similarly involved (M butter = 5.14, M detergent = 5.49, t (73) = -0.72, p = 0.47) and indicated the s ame modal and median frequencies of purchase, once in a month. In addition the three used frames were perceived as equally novel (F (2, 72) = 2.50, p = .089) with their means ranging from 5.31 (B uy 2 get 50 % off) to 7.26 (50 % off) and this leads us to believe that novelty effects (Kim and Kr amer 2006) could not be intervening with the framing effects that may be observed in the followin g analyses. In addition, participants perceived both products as equally low priced (Table 1). So, since they perceived them as low priced, the discount in the monetary and mixed frame was c orrectly expressed in relative terms according to the findings of Chen et al (1998) and n ot in absolute ones. Finally, the two fictitious brand names were perceived as believable and a ttractive and their regular prices used and overall coupon offers were also deemed believable since their mean values exceeded the neutral point (Table 1). The two brand names did not di

ffer significantly in any of these dimensions (Table 1). Table 1: Means and t-test values that prove the non-existing confounds Brand Believability t a Brand Attractiveness t a Price Believability t a Overall Offer Believability t a Price Perception t a Primo Soft 5.92 5.83 6.23 6.74 3.38 .17 Shine 5.79 -.33 5.69 -.37 6.01 .57 6.44 .84 3.23 a. All t values mentioned have 73 df and denote insignificant differences at the 5 % level 389

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Analysis The first research hypothesis holds that the non-monetary coupon face value fram e, Buy 1 Get 1 Free , will be perceived as a gain while the monetary and the mixed coupon face value frames, 50 % off and Buy 2 Get 50 % off , will be perceived as reduced losses. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the perception of respondents on the three used coupon face value pre sentations yielded a highly significant effect (F(2,72) = 6.32, p = .003). Post hoc tests u sing LSD method proved that the M = 7.2), Buy 1 Get 1 Free frame had a significantly (p < .05) higher mean (

meaning that it was perceived as a gain, than the other two (M50% off = 5.04, M Buy 1 Get 50 % off = 5.13) while the means of the last two frames did not differ significantly (p > . 05) and as a result they were equally perceived as reduced losses. H1 is thus supported. In order to test hypotheses 2 and 3, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA ) was conducted. There was need to accommodate more than one dependent variable becaus e perceived transaction value, attitude toward the offer and redemption intention, are interrelated measures (Spearman Rho values > 0.7). Coupon face value framing and the stock-up nature of the products were the independent variables. Before performing the ana lysis it was appropriate to check for potential covariates. Brand believability, brand attrac tiveness, offer believability, price believability, familiarity and involvement with the product category were preliminary tested for correlations with the dependent variables giving insignif icant values (Spearman Rho p > .05). Their inclusion in the analysis provided no significant effects so they were excluded. There was also need to control for coupon proneness since it shou ld be viewed as an antecedent of behavioral response to a coupon (Lichtenstein et al 1990). C oupon proneness had significant, and as anticipated, positive correlations with the de pendent variables (Spearman Rho p < .05) while it was unrelated with the independent ones (ANOVA p values > .05). Its inclusion in the analysis strengthened significantly the significance of the effects, the effects sizes and the observed statistical power so its inclusion in the MANOVA as a measured covariate is deemed appropriate (Hair et al, 2006). Furthermore, the test of hom ogeneity of slopes indicated no significant interactions between all the potential covariate s mentioned and the independent factors. For ease of exposition and the sake of brevity, MANOVA

results using the general linear model (GLM) after controlling the effect of coupon proneness, are presented in Tables 3 and 4. The significance of Bartlett s Test of Sphericity was highly si gnificant (p = .001) proving the suitability of the dependent variables for inclusion in a MANOVA ana lysis while the significance of the Box s test (p = .026) implies a multivariate heterogeneity. Th is has minimal impact in the analysis since there is univariate homogeneity of error variances (Levene s Test p > .05) and the groups have approximately equal size (ratio of the greatest group s ize / smallest group size = 13 / 10 = 1.3 < 1.5) (Hair et al, 2006). Because of a violation in the covariances homogeneity and the small sample size, the Pillai s criterion is used because it i s more robust under these circumstances (Hair et al 2006). The observed power of the significa nt effects exceed the value of 0.8 in the vast majority of cases which is the minimum accep ted for a MANOVA analysis (Hair et al 2006). Table 2: The Multivariate Tests Results Effect Pillai s Value F Hypothesis df Error df Sig. .2 Observed Powera Coupon Proneness .256 7.588 3.000 66.000 .001 .256 .983 Frame .341 4.591 6.000 134.000 .001 .171 .985 Stock-up nature .066 1.543 3.000 66.000 .212 .066 .389 Frame X Stock-up Nature .210 2.623 6.000 134.000 .020 .105 .844 aComputed using alpha = .05 390

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 3: Univariate Tests (Between-Subjects Effects) Results Effect Dependent Variable Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. .2 Observed Power a Overall Redemption Intention b 194.550 6 32.425 10.298 .001 .476 1.000 Attitude c 109.299 6 18.216 7.581 .001 .401 1.000 Transaction Valued 98.996 6 16.499 6.998 .001 .382 .999 Coupon Proneness Redemption Intention 70.130 1 70.130 22.272 .001 .247 .996 Attitude 32.283 1 32.283 13.434 .001 .165 .951 Transaction Value 15.248 1 15.248 6.467 .013 .087 .708 Frame Redemption Intention 78.451 2 39.225 12.457 .001 .268 .995 Attitude 55.599 2 27.800 11.569 .001 .254 .992 Transaction Value 51.904 2 25.952 11.007 .001 .245 .989 Stock-up nature Redemption Intention 11.701 1 11.701 3.716 .058 .052 .476 Attitude 6.213 1 6.213 2.586 .112 .037 .354 Transaction Value 7.808 1 7.808 3.312 .073 .046 .434 Frame X Stock-up Nature Redemption Intention 43.089 2 21.545 6.842 .002 .168 .910 Attitude 22.641 2 11.321 4.711 .012 .122 .771 Transaction Value 26.173 2 13.087 5.551 .006 .140 .839 ab2222 Computed using alpha = .05, R= .476 (Adjusted R= .430), cR= .401 (Adjusted R= .3 48)

dR2 = .382 (Adjusted R2 = .347) A highly significant multivariate and univariate effect is observed for the coup on face value presentation. Planned contrasts revealed that the Buy 1 Get 1 Free significantly better (p < .001) than the Buy 2 Get 50 % off variables, frame performed

frame in all dependent

witnessing the existence of framing effects. On the other hand, the monetary fra me (50 % off) did not manage to outperform the Buy 1 Get 1 Free frame in any dependent variable offering partial support for H2. Since there is also a significant multivariate and univa riate interaction effect between frame and the stock-up nature of the product category involved, a large part of the interpretation of the effects presented previously is confounded in this int eraction. Table 5 and Figures 1, 2 and 3 depict the different pattern of the effects on the depend ent variables for each product. 391

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Figures 1, 2 and 3: The effect of face value presentation on the dependent varia bles as a function of the stock-up nature of the product category Table 4: The means for each dependent variable by face value presentation and st ock-up nature. Stock-up Nature Face Value Presentation Redemption Intention Attitudes Transaction Value No 50 % off 6.4 6.43 6.15 Buy 1 Get 1 Free 5.23 5.44 5.15 Buy 2 Get 50 % off 4.77 4.87 4.37 Yes 50 % off 5.15 5.64 5.17 Buy 1 Get 1 Free 8.31 7.67 7.48 Buy 2 Get 50 % off 4.69 4.74 4.67 By performing simple effects analysis, the n for the Buy 1 Get 1 Free face value presentatio

stock-up product performed significantly better in all the dependent variables t han its counterpart in the non-stock-up condition (p < .001) offering support to H3. In addition the simple effects analysis also proved that the Buy 1 Get 1 Free frame had significan tly higher scores than the monetary and the mixed frame for the stock-up product. To test t he meditational hypothesis 4, the method suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986) was us ed. Firstly, the effect of face value presentation and the stock-up nature on the mediator va riable, perceived transaction value, was tested. Then the effect of the same independent s was tested on the dependent variable, attitude towards the offer, with and without the effe ct of the mediator. Since the independent variables exerted significant effects on the med iator as well as 392

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications on the independent variable but the effect of the independent variables (main an d interaction effect) on the dependent became non-significant when the mediator variable was i ncorporated as a covariate (frame: F(2, 67) = 2.484, p = .091, frame * stock-up nature: F(2, 67) = 1.134, p = .328), perfect mediation is demonstrated. By following the same procedure for at titude as a mediator and redemption intention as the dependent non-significance in the main and the interaction effects was observed (p > .05) implying again perfect mediation. Thi s suggests that face value presentation influences the perception of the savings offered by the deal which in turn signals that the deal is good. Finally these evaluations increase redemptio n intention. These results are discussed in the next section. Discussion and Managerial Implications By applying a carefully designed laboratory experiment in the coupon context for low priced grocery products, the study gave answers to some interesting questions. Firstly, it was the first time that a study concerning framing effects, directly measured and validated th e intuition that a non-monetary promotion presentation is perceived as a gain while a monetary on e is perceived as a reduced loss before trying to investigate framing issues. The pre vious research attempts were merely extrapolating this finding based on the studies of Diamond and his colleagues (Diamond and Campbell 1989; Diamond and Johnson 1990) despite the fac t that this perception of consumers is influenced by factors related with the context and th e execution of the promotional programs (Diamond and Johnson 1990) and is the cornerstone for t he formation of any hypothesis about the direction and the dynamics of the framing effects. Secondly, the existence of framing effects between monetary and non-monetary fra mes in a coupon context was supported since the Buy 1 Get 1 Free face value frame outperfor med its in all-terms equivalent Buy 2 Get 50 % off face value frame for all the dependent var iables of interest and regardless of the stock-up nature of the product category involved. In this way, the finding of Diamond and Sanyal (1990) that gain-framed promotions are more attrac tive than equivalent reduced-loss ones is confirmed. Along with the reduced-loss perceptio n, the psychological reactance (Lessne and Venkatesan 1989) that is generated by the pr econdition imposed to buy specific amount of units in order to get the discount may have al so contributed for the low performance of this face value frame. The striking result that contr

adicts previous findings, is that the Buy 1 Get 1 Free frame performed better than the economicall y superior, on a total cost basis, straight price-reduction frame, 50 % off , when the product category could be easily stocked. Many reasons can be found to explain this result. Gain-framed promotions give an undoubted sense of real value, reward, satisfaction and clear gain (Diam ond and Johnson 1990; Diamond and Sanyal 1990) which is more salient for this extra-product fram e because of the word free . Actually a question of the study asked respondents if the face valu e frame they encountered was giving them a sense of reward or not (adapted from Diamond and J ohnson 1990) and the ANOVA results revealed that the extra product frame was clearly se emed to respondents like a reward compared with the other two frames (MBuy 1 Get 1 Free = 7.27, M50 % off = 5,57, M Buy 2 Get 50 % off = 5.62, p = .003) validating the previous argument. T his sense of reward and clear gain probably interacted with the congruent and inherent in coupon use hed onic feelings of excitement and ego-expression (Shindler 1989) amplifying the favorableness of this frame. The highly stock-up nature of the used product and the desensitization of consum ers to deep straight price reduction frames that inundate the market because of the economic crisis, may have also contributed to the observed effect. Finally, the research study also p rovided evidence about the underlying mechanism of the influence that face value frames exert on the antecedents of behavior. It seems that transaction value influences attitude tow ards the offer which in turn has an impact on redemption intention providing interesting and in sightful findings about the impact of coupon face value framing on coupon behavior. 393

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications From the findings discussed above significant managerial implications and typolo gies of action can be derived that lighten the burden of retail managers allowing them to cut t hrough the clutter in an era of fierce retail competition and limited promotional budgets. It is advisable that managers should take the stock-up nature of the promoted product, the presentati on of the face value and the unique context of coupons into consideration each time they f ace the challenge of issuing coupons, since their decisions about these factors influenc e all the stages in the evaluation process. Extra product face values are extremely effective when t he stockability of the product is high and should be preferred over the monetary and the mixed o ne. This frame also facilitates purchase acceleration and clearance sales resulting in increase d consumer inventories that insulate them against competitive activity (Krishna and Shoemak er 1992). It is more appealing for the company and from an economic viewpoint because it gives a n incentive that costs to the company less than its nominal value since the company incurs o nly the production and distribution costs while with monetary frames it pays the whole d iscount size. In addition, because it is seen as a reward, it can be most effective at increasing purchase rates through operant conditioning (Rothschild and Gaidis 1981) while no inferences of reduced quality can be made from repeated use because the internal reference price remai ns unchanged (Campbell and Diamond 1990). As the economic crisis spreads, households will hav e the need to stretch their tight budget and reduce the household s weekly discretionary spendin g. As a result monetary frames may become universally effective and make consumers choose offer s regardless of the used frame. This possibility needs careful attention from rese archers and practitioners. In all cases, mixed face value presentations should be avoided si nce consumers probably feel coerced to buy more units than they would actually want in order t o get the discount and react negatively disregarding the offer. Limitations and Future Research Our findings, presented above, should be interpreted within the context of the s tudy s limitations. Firstly, a relatively small sample size was employed. This resulted in a relative lack in the statistical power of the performed analyses and in the insignificance of som e mean differences. Larger sample sizes will result in more efficient estimation. Secon dly, the student

sample used, secures a homogeneous pool of participants which is appropriate for the purity of the causal effects observed and the minimization of the confounding effects cont aminating the analysis. But this benefit in internal validity is not acquired without a cost i n external validity. The generalizability of the findings should be done with caution since the repre sentativeness of these subjects over the general population has been questioned (Burnett and Dunn e 1986). Thirdly, the controlled environment of the study is also an internal validity ma ximization choice that is done at the expense of external validity since it lacks much of the rich ness and complexities that surround real-world coupon choice. Future research attempts th at will try to investigate coupon face value framing effects in a field experiment seem interes ting and necessary. Finally, the framing effects were validated measuring the impact on t he antecedents of behavior which have close relation with it but do not fully predict it. As a result, future studies should focus on incorporating also actual choice data and investigate how these antecedents correspond to the actual buying behavior of the consumer. In addition to future extensions stemming from the limitations outlined above, s everal more research directions appear rewarding. Studies utilizing different forms of coupo n face value off and different product categories with stock-up and non presentations, 2 for _ , X -stockup nature, even outside the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) spectrum will both re fine and generalize our findings. Further empirical work is also needed in investigating the observed effects for lower levels of discount size (33 %, 25 %, 20 %). It is possible tha t as the promotion depth decreases, and as a consequence the amount of units the consumer will have to buy in 394

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications order to be eligible to take advantage of the offer increases, the feelings of r eactance towards the extra-product and the mixed face value presentation will be amplified. This will probably change the pattern of results in favor of the monetary statement types. This int eresting issue should be analyzed in the future. Finally, the assumption that the amplification of favorableness for the Buy 1 Get 1 Free frame is due to the prevalence of specific hedonic effect s, needs to be further investigated using protocol data since it signals a substantial behavior regarding offer presentation in this new context and will contribute to the better explanation o f the findings of our research. Conclusion Markets for most consumer products are in a mature and saturated stage, with lit tle or no growth in primary demand and lack in product differentiation. Sales promotions g ain popularity under these circumstances and coupons become so prevalent in the marketing mix o f retail firms that consumers are deluged with coupons for virtually every product (Barat and Paswan 2005; Diamond 1992). Declining redemption rates are observed and there is need m anagers to obtain a compass in the tide of economic upheaval to become strategically effici ent and maximize the efficiency of coupon efforts. By cross-fertilizing and intermeshing coupon literature with promotion, framing and consumer psychology literature, useful in sights were obtained and interesting and challenging propositions were formed and empiricall y tested providing normative guidelines to managers and new insights into the determinant s of coupon attractiveness, coupon effectiveness and consumer evaluation. References Bagozzi, R.P. (1982). A field investigation of the causal relationships among co gnitions, affect, intentions, and behavior. Journal of Marketing Research 19: 562-584. Baltas, G., P. Argouslidis, and G. Painesis (2009). Coupon face value framing: a neglected issue. Presented at the 2nd Biennial International Conference on Services Marketing, November 4-6, in Thessa loniki, Greece. Baron, M.R., and D.A Kenny. (1986). The Moderator-Mediator Variable Distinction in Social Psychological Research: Conceptual, Strategic, and Statistical Considerations, Journal of Personality an d Social Psychology 5: 11731182.

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications New Social Movements and Consumer Resistance to Hypermarket Retail in the Czech Republic: Case NESEhnu

Irena Descubes ESC Rennes International School of Business, France irena.descubes@esc-rennes.fr Abstract This paper is focusing NESEhnuti and their campaign m at Zaostreno na hypermarkety (Zoo

hypermarkets). NESEhnuti is a Czech acronym for INdependent Socio-Ecological MOV EMENT and can also be interpreted as Unbowed or Carrying movement . The campaign is ongoing and

aiming at providing information about the negative impact of hyper-and supermark et roll-out all over the Czech Republic, e.g. increasing car traffic, emptying isfactory working conditions of employees, vanishing small size retail ops and consequent increase of unemployment. We present results of observatory non-participative research rocess of gradual change in forms of contention in the above campaigns itutionalization of interaction between these campaigns, the objects of their t stakeholder city centres, unsat

over-the-counter sh that explains the p and successive inst claims and differen

groups. Key words:New social movement, consumer resistant, culture jamming, NESEhnuti Interest in anti-consumption discourses and consumer-resistant movements has gai ned increasing prominence in the worldwide academic marketing literature as well as among the marketing practitioners (e.g. Dobscha 1998; Fischer 2001; Fournier 1998; Zavesto ski 2002a,b). Specific research carried in Central and Eastern European countries, has shown t hree types of consumer-resistant behaviours: consumer resistance emergence of anti-consumption, continued frugality resistance to contemporary throwawayism, and Western Brand Resistance (Albinsson et al., 2010). In this paper, we observe a process of gradu

al change in forms of contention against the rapid development of supermarket and hypermarket distribution system in the Czech Republic. The structural transformation of retail patterns in post-communist Czechoslovaki a (1989-1992) and the Czech Republic (since 1993 after the split between Czech and Slovak Repu blics) has been one of the most liberal in Central and Eastern Europe. Legalization of private o wnership of retail outlets, liberalization of prices and banning of the state monopoly on foreign t rade in the early nineties, resulted in the atomization of the retail network without any vertical or horizontal cooperation (Musil 2002). In the second half of the nineties, a very aggressive entry of supranational retail chains into the Czech Republic has gradually led to their m arket domination. The Czech households have been rather fast in adopting the western consumer beha vioural patterns and adapting to them. They did not realize to what extent the multinati onal retail chains offer would cause disappearance of the over-the-counter and cooperative r etail structures (Ourednicek 2002). Today, Czech Republic is the post-communist Centra l and Eastern European country with the highest number of hypermarkets per capita, i.e. approx . 30 units per million of inhabitants (Stefanec 2010). In 2008, there were 250 operating hyperm arket outlets (2500 5000 sq. meters) and more than 1300 operating supermarket (400 2500 sq. me ters) 398

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications and discount outlets (400 1000 sq. meters) on the territory of Bohemia and Morav ia (Incoma Research 2008), i.e. twice as many as in Hungary and three times as many as in P oland (per number of inhabitants) (ACNielsen 2009). More than 70 per cent of Czech households confess to reading direct marketing le aflets distributed by supermarkets and almost 30 per cent of them to buying advertised bargains (Gfk 2009). However, 81.4 per cent of Czech citizens are against construction of any new hypermarkets, supermarkets, cash carries or discount markets (Respond, 2007). If alive, Moravian born Sigmund Freud would have been probably tempted to study the contro versy between the consumer behaviour and their discourse claims in his psychoanalytica l practice. Within twenty years, Czechs have largely adopted the western lifestyle (Spilkova 2007). However, the increasing environmental consciousness about the ecological footpri nt of globalized consumption, and the growing concern about saving local agriculture, industry and jobs may prepare ground for movements against transnational retail giants in the country. The Czechs are a nation of people easy to bend for a long period of time, albeit able to suddenly spring out like a young branch of a tree (Szczygiel 2006). The civic society has developed slowly in the Czech Republic after the Velvet Re volution of November 1989. Howard (2002, 2003) claims that the chronically low level of popu lar participation in public life in Central and Eastern European (further CEE) count ries is due to (1) legacy of mistrust of organized participation under communist regimes, (2) persi stence of friendship networks, and (3) overall disappointment with post-communist economic and social developments. In our view, Howard has omitted to take into consideration in (1) legacy of mistrust the fact that participation in public manifestations such Labor Day (Ma y 1st) or Great October Revolution in the USSR (November 7th) was compulsory. For children in th e socialist Czechoslovakia, it was obligatory to participate in Socialist Youth Movement. Th ese children are today in their forties and fifties and their common subconscious set of belief t hat we are safe and happy while living hidden is strong. The Czechs appreciate humour in between t he lines , verbal or non-verbal clues one must search for. This is also a heritage from the past when all documents had to undergo a formal process of approval by the Communist party bef

ore getting published. Majority of citizens in CEE countries display a low level of willingn ess to take active part in all types of voluntary organizations. The minority of them have graduall y followed the transformational path leading from radical and direct actions towards more insti tutionalized framework and professionalized managerial structure. The theory of new social movements (further NSM ) (Melluci 1989, 1996; Eder 1993) f ocuses on the role of collec ve iden ty in poli cal mobiliza on (Lara a et al. 1994, Po lleta and Jasper 2000) and argue that it was in the seventies of the past century that the NSMs f reed themselves from the class-based struggle for better material lives. It has been ever since more driven by the desire to express new identities and lifestyles rather than to gain political co ncessions (Polleta and Jasper 2001). In this respect, the theory provided a cultural correction to th e structural and rationalist approaches of resource mobilization theory and opened up space for the conceptualization of the framing processes by which NSMs are rather seen as a locu s of the politics of identity (Snow and Benford 1992). Cisar (2005) claims that NSMs stri ve to anchor autonomous communication and acting spaces outside of political systems. Activis ts of NSMs according to Cisar don t ask for major intervention of the State or a guarantee of safety or prosperity. They rather oppose themselves to any political or administrative int erference with an individual autonomy . According to Melucci (1989) the contemporary NSMs not only a im at political change in their environments, but also strive for a cultural and socia l change. They put in light the power of ties between social, economical and political actors of co ntemporary human societies and advocate for higher level of conscious participative democra tic governance. Therefore, we claim that they show the way to trigger a more massive striving fo r new collective social identity in CEE countries. Cohen and Arato (1992) consider the role of NS Ms to be the 399

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications necessary condition for cultural formation of collective identity in a civic soc iety that is more or less opposed to the establishment of state power. NSMs framing efforts are furthe rmore determined by given political and social context. In order to frame social probl ems and injustice and convince a wide audience of the necessity to collectively address and redres s them, NSMs draw on an array of culturally shared symbols, values and worldviews. Salient cu ltural aspects that resonate with the movement s views and ideas are used to promote NSMs actions. Anti-consumption actions can be viewed as contentious collective action is an ep isodic, public interaction between groups of claimants, who act in the name of new or unaccepte d claims, and the objects of their claims, i.e. elites, authorities, and opponents (Tarrow 199 8; McAdam et al. 2001; Tilly 2004). Especially Sidney Tarrow s Power in Movement: Social Movements a nd Contentious Politics (1998) and his social movement theory (further SMT ) pointed to the emergence of new opportunity structures that can facilitate the emergence of new movements applicable to the contentious movements such as NESEhnuti. These movements face according to Tarrow the challenge of developing d mobilizing structures that would allow them to maintain an

potentially grow the community and its support. The incentives for contentious c ollective action to be launched are provided by institutional conditions and structures in the ex ternal environment. In our case, we argue that the complete change in retail patterns and disproport ionate power of hyper-and supermarket retail chains can be one of them. If the grounded promise of best bargain or lowest price is not withheld by the hyper-and supermarket retail chains, it can offset contentious collective action in motion by giving NSMs the opportunity to gain support of their claims within the public. Therefore, if we apply theories of McAdam (1996, 2001) and those of Tarrow (1998), contentious collective actions such as boycott of hyper-and su permarket retail chains would be conditioned by the interaction between structural factors, embod ied by external political opportunities and internal mobilizing structures of the colle ctive claim-makers,

and cultural factors, denoting meanings and definitions of grievances and claims that people share, as well as their belief in their capability to redress the problem by mea ns of collective action. Mobilizing structures constitute both established organizations and info rmal networks through which people come together and engage in collective action 1997). (McAdam et al.

NSM activists therefore convey different meanings of their actions and goals to antagonists, authorities, bystanders or observers. Specific cultural variables must therefore be taken into account in order to create legitimizing framing conditions for each of these sta keholder groups. For the group of general public considered as bystanders or observers the MSMs m ay for instance wish to opt for public briefings or other ways of transfer of informati on. So that these bystanders would engage in anti-consumption behavioural patterns vis--vis hyper-a nd supermarket retail chains, NSMs may decide to use more radical and disruptive forms of actio n, using the identified salient cultural framework. According to Tilly (2004) the ongoing interaction with different stakeholder groups may lead to borrowing and adapting each other s ideas, personnel, assistance, rhetoric, and models of action , which can ultimately lead to the institutionalization of social movement tactics characterized by establishment o f comfortable relations *of NSMs+ with authorities . The movement s gradual replacement of disrupt ive forms of action with political lobbying, negotiation and compromise can have the conse quences of transforming the movement into a party or interest group (Tarrow 1998). 400

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Methodology Data for this paper was collected (a.) through observant participation in a Zoom at hypermarkets campaign seminar (b.) by conducting two focus groups, each approxima tely 90 minutes long. Respondents were selected among visitors of an ecological educatio nal centre after they have seen the itinerary exhibition explaining negative influence of h ypermarkets. Each focus group was centred on the participants attitude towards hypermarkets and the ir attitude towards active contestation methods. The interviews were conducted in April 2009 . We completed the research by studying the support materials used by NESEhnuti durin g the seminars as well as those available on the www.registr.hyper.cz and www.hyper.cz websites. In order to avoid misinterpretation of gathered information, we interviewed by phon e a founding member of NESEhnuti Milan Stefanec and coordinator of the campaign Zoom on Hypermarkets in January 2010. NESEhnuti was initiated in October 1007 with a goal to highlight ecological and s ocial problems as well of problems linked to different cultures and show their intertwined depe ndence . It started as a grass-root radical movement in southern Moravia and as such lacked any organizational hierarchy. In 1997-1998, they organized mostly street happenings and used guerrilla approach, for example in their action against building the highway R43 or for saving With a growing number of projects and areas of action (human rights, refugees ri ghts, animal rights, etc.), there has been a need to develop a more sophisticated managerial structure that necessarily meant increasing bureaucratization and professionalization of the st ructure. Some radical members of the initial group of activists who could not stand NESEhnuti s decision to follow in the steps of other bureaucratized NGOs lost their interest in the move ment and left. On the contrary, in 1999, two local branches of NESEhnuti were created in Bystri ce and Napajedla (in southeast Moravia). In 1999, the movement claimed that they didn t wi sh to create an organization with thousands of passive members but a true activist mov ement and a network of strong local branches . This wish of democratic and decentralized way o f decisionmaking is also stipulated in the NESEhnuti Founding Principles. In NESEhnuti there is n o such a

thing as classical membership . Only people having a status of a person with a votin g right (further PVR ) can decide about the evolution of the managerial structure of NESEhn uti and its future actions. To become PVR, one must actively take part in NESEhnuti work and the local brach of NESEhnuti must approve his/her voting right. The Board of NESEhnuti is composed of representatives of local branches, all PVRs and four other PVRs and members of N ESEhnuti elected at general assemblies. Three years after the initiation o NESEhnuti, thr ee new local branches were founded, all in southeast Moravia (in Vysok Mto, Kojetn a Boskovice). Zoom on Hypermarkets Zoom on Hypermarkets was initiated in 2000. First, the movement mation leaflet A too expensive bargain in which they explained reasons n to large retail chains in the Czech Republic. A subsequent seminar held at f the renowned Czech sociologists, local deputies, lawyers and architects led to a coverage and allowed for an enlarged legitimacy of NESEhnuti on this issue. developed an infor of their oppositio the presence o increased medi

Rather than the content of A too expensive bargain Jana (35) and Marek (40) apprec iated the content of another leaflet comparing individual European countries politics vis-vis authorisation for building new hyper-and supermarkets (issued for the first time in 2008). They would have appreciated to learn about how in other countries people fight against them . An itinerary exhibition with ten informative panels and web pages http://hyper.c z and http://www.registr.cz were built into the campaign in order to provide informatio n weapons to local civic movements against building further hyper and/or supermarkets. Mar tina (22) and 401

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Petr (23) did not learn much . They would have appreciated getting w to information of ho

shop if there are only supermarkets around within five kilometres from the place where they live . In late 2000, NESEhnuti took active part in the fight against building Plaza sho pping mall in Brno. In 2005, NESEhnuti obtained a grant from the Open Society Fund and the Czech Min istry of Environment for writing and editing the One Flew Over the Hypermarket Nest (the ti tle is inspired by the famous film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest directed by the Americ an director of Czech origin Milos Forman in 1975). The book compiles individual cas es of breaching either ecological, economical or social equilibriums by Retail chain multination al companies with the concourse of the local political authorities. The authors describe in detail unethical behaviour and disastrous consequences these new hypermarkets would have on local inhabitants (Fuchs, 2005).

In 2007 and 2008, NESEhnuti conducted research on environmental outcomes of the expansion of large shopping centres and created a website www.registr.hyper.cz where indiv iduals can consult their locality for information. en years Zoom on Hypermarkets has become over the t

of existence an informational campaign which is using an array of communication tools stemming from the simple leaflet A too expensive bargain (already a forth edition) , the itinerary exhibition Zoom on Hypermarkets , a practical manual How to deal with shop ping centres , different topical seminars proceedings Retail chains New Challenges to a t hirtysecond TV spot. In a legal area, since 2006 NESEhnuti legal department has provided adv ice to local citizen movements opposed to the construction of new shopping centres and malls in other parts of the counry than southeast Moravia and around Brno. For instance, they a dvised local citizen movements in Opava, Valasske Mezirici, Zamberk or Usti nad Labem. In tha t way, they proved to be competent in efficient opposition, using their enemies 45). So weapons (Zora,

far, their biggest legal victory is the cancellation of authorisation to build B auhaus (DIY retail) in Brno-Ivanovice. Happenings, protest postcards sent both to the Municipality depu ties as well as to the Bauhaus top management, e-mail citizen protest campaign and especially ac tive participation of the legal department of NESEhnuti in the court proceedings init iated by the movement led to the victory, i.e. a legal ruling out of the Brno Municipality au thorisation of the construction. Conclusion Contentious movements such as NESEhnuti develop repertoires of contentious behav iour and framings that allow them to mobilize support. Especially the process of framing is not neutral for their development. The contentious movements of the kind face the challenge of developing mobilizing structures operational frame as it nurtures a grass-root support they n eed to confront their opponents. The requirements of organization give rise to a charac teristic set of issues for social movements: how do they sustain themselves over time? What is t he role of leadership? To what extent should the movement compromise with their opponents? Movements tend to endure tensions between bureaucratization and radicalization. The process of increasing political democratization the Czech Republic led to gradual change in the forms of contestation from radical and disruptive actions to political lobbying, cooperat ion with allies in the political system, and systematic co-operation with well-known nongovernmenta l organizations. Zoom at hypermarkets campaign prove that NESEhnuti followed the pro gressive professionalization path leading from disruptive actions to more conventional co ntestation strategies, and finally adopted the institutionalized forms of contestation as w ell as systematic work on projects in a broad coalition with universities, legal experts and using the financial and moral support of wide range of not-for-profit stakeholders. 402

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications This research has explored successive professionalization of NESEhnuti since 199 7 to the present from the viewpoint of theories on new social movement development in post-commun ist CEE countries. It has uncovered fluid constructs and high level of pragmatism at the activist base concerning the evolving hypermarket consumption behaviour in the Czech Republic. Further research might focus on development of the institutionalized forms of co ntention, especially web-based ones such as www.registr.hyper.cz in order to continue the analysis of the process of professionalization of NESEhnuti and other NSMs in the Czech Republic . Also, there is space open for cross functional research of consumer behaviour that is hypothesi sed to be already based on rigid patterns of shopping in hypermarkets and city centre mall s. Participants in both focus groups appreciated information provided by NESEhnuti and their counterbalancing power to those monsters (Eva, 45). The respondents appreciated the

professionalism and at the same time genuine humanity of the Zoom on Hypermarkets coordinators. To conclude with the words of Milan Stefanec: What has not changed ever since NESEhnuti was founded, is the conviction of its members that due to the supranat ional companies, financial institutions and industrial monopolies getting out of contr ol by the successive Czech governments, the capacity of individuals to influence their env ironment is decreasing and that is something we don t want to accept. Bibliography Albinsson, P. A., M. Wolf, and D. A. Kopf. 2010. Anti-consumption in East German y: consumer resistance to hyperconsumption. Journal of Consumer Behaviour 9: 412 425. Cisar, O. 2005. The Left in the Beginning of the 21st Century. In Trajectories o f the Left. Ed. Lubomir Kopecek. Brno: CDK: 11-26. Cimler, P. 1997. Retail Management. Lokalizace a provoz maloobchodu. Praha: VSE. Cohen, J. L. and A. Arato. 1992. Political Theory and Civil Society. Cambridge M A: MIT Press. Eder, K. 1993. The Institutionalization of Social Movement. Towards a New Theore tical Problematic in Social-Movement Analysis ? Florence. European University Institut e. October. Gamson, W. A. 1992. Talking Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Stefanec 2010).

Kozelouh, J. 2008. Environmentln dopady plnovan prostorov expanze velkoplo nho maloobch

du v Cesk republice v roce 2007. Brno: Studie NESEhnuti. Lara a, E., H. Johnson and J.R. Gusfield. 1994. Eds. New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. McAdam, D., J.D. McCarthy and M.N. Zald. 1996. Eds. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings. Cambridge: Cambridg e University Press. Melucci, A. 1989. Nomads of the Present: Social Movements and Individual Needs i n Contemporary Society. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Musil, J. 2002. Co je urbanizace. In: Horska, P., E. Maur, J. Musil. Zrod velkom esta. Urbanizace ceskych zemi a Evropa. Praha-Litomysl: Paseka: 7-53(25) Ourednicek, M. 2002. Suburbanizace v kontextu urbanizacnho procesu. In: Sykora, L . ed.: Suburbanizace a jeji socialni, ekonomicke a ekologicke dusledky. Ustav pro ekopolitiku, Praha: 39-54. Polleta, F. and J.M. Jasper J. M. 2001. Collective Identity and Social Movements . Annual Review of Sociology 27: 283 305. Snow, D. and R. Benford 1988. Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobiliz ation. In Klandermans, B., H. Kriesi and S. Tarrow(eds.). International Social Movement Research. Vol. I, Greenwich, JAI Press: 197-217. Spilkova J. 2007. Changing Face of the Czech Retailing in the Post-communist Tra nsformation. Geografie Sbornik CGS 156 (4): 32-44. Tarrow, S. 1998. Power in Movement. Social Movements and Contentious Politics. N ew York. Cambridge University Press. Tilly, Ch. 1998. Contentious Conversation. Social Research 65 (3): 491 510. http://www.mariuszszczygiel.com.pl/575,pro.../Ce i,-takov-jste [accessed December 1 6th, 2009] http://prenos.gfk.sk/gfkconsumerreporter/GfK_Consumer_Reporter_c4_CZ_Shopping_Pa ttern+Changes_EN.pdf [accessed December 14th, 2009] http://www.incoma.cz/cz/ols/reader.aspx?msg=1052&lng=CZ&ctr=203 [accessed Decemb er 14th, 2009] http://www.mobchod.cz/index.php?itemid=2525 [accessed December 20th, 2009] http://hyper.cz/soubory/vystava.pdf [accessed January 14th, 2010] http://hyper.cz/soubory/Super2007_RESPOND.pdf [accessed December 14th, 2009] th-20th http://www.nesehnuti.cz/cz/info.html#vyr [accessed December 17, 2009] 403

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 3D Retail Store Typology

Ioannis G. Krasonikolakis, Athens University of Economics and Business, Department of Management Science an d Technology, Greece, krasos@aueb.gr Adam P. Vrechopoulos, Athens University of Economics and Business, Department of Management Science an d Technology, Greece Athanasia Pouloudi Athens University of Economics and Business, Department of Management Science an d Technology, Greece Extended Abstract The purpose of the present working paper is twofold. First, this paper studies t he methodological issues of retail typologies in terms of store layout, both in con ventional and online stores. Second, it proposes a robust methodology that should be followed in order to provide a typology of 3D retail stores in Virtual Worlds (VWs). VWs are 3-dimensional environments where users interact simultaneously through a vatars, their in-world representatives (e.g. salesmen). They initially adopted a gaming orient ation but soon retailing activity became a real phenomenon. Some of VWs retain an in-world curr ency and users can buy or sell virtual or real goods. Second Life is considered a leader, a nd user-to-user transactions for the first quarter of 2009 reached 120 million US dollars (Secon d Life blog, 2011). In the extant literature, there are several studies attempting to classify retai l store layouts in traditional and online environments. There is evidence that store layout is an i mportant influencing factor affecting consumer behavior (Levy and Weitz, 2004; Bitner, 19 92). Specifically, Levy and Weitz (2004) describe the three established layout types in conventiona l retailing: free form, grid, and racetrack. However, an endeavor to locate the methodology (liter ature review), through which these layout types have been defined, proved fruitless. An online communication with several academics who all have extensive research work on this topic, confi rmed the lack of such a methodology. Probably, the three layout types stem from business practice .

However, with new environments emerging in the online context, such as VWs, brin ging new features and capabilities in the retail process, we argue that a systematic and robust methodology to classify 3D retail stores is needed. To this end we propose a fou r step methodology. The first step is comprised of three processes that can run in para llel. Specifically, based on a literature review of store layout in traditional and online retailing (i.e. 2D), the relevant characteristics that also appear in VW environments should be gathered. Also, the examination of current business practice will help in order to find the characte ristics of retail stores (in terms of layout) that do not exist in the other two retailing channel s. Lastly, the Delphi technique which relies on a panel of experts can be adopted, in order to find wh ether there are characteristics that do not appear in academic research works and the researcher s did not notice while reviewing current business practice. The outcome of the first step will be an extended list of store layout characteristics in the context of VWs 3D retailing . The second step of the methodology will be to select an adequate number of retail stores in VWs, in order to evaluate these characteristics, based on objective criteria. A scale should be d eveloped for each one of these characteristics. The third step of the methodology will be to adopt marketing research tools such as Cluster Analysis and Multiple Discriminant Analysis (MDA) in order to 404

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications examine if there are different clusters and whether there are significant differ ences among them (i.e. predictor variables derived through MDA). The fourth step will be to ask c onsumers opinion in order to validate that consumers perceive in the same way the various types o f store layout as they derived through the statistical research analysis. Finally, a labeling alon g with a detailed profiling of each cluster will follow. VWs have become an emerging alternative retail channel in recent years. They can adopt all the capabilities that are available in 2-dimensional online environments and also, t hey can simulate processes and features of traditional retail stores (e.g. social interaction thr ough avatars). The influence of store layout in 3-dimensional environments on consumer behavior, ap art from the theoretical contribution, will help managers build their 3-dimensional retail st ores in a way that will meet their customers needs. Acknowledgement This research has been partially funded by the Basic Research Funding Program (B RFP II) of the Athens University of Economics and Business. References Bitner, M.J. 1992. Servicescapes: the impact of physical surroundings on custome rs and employees. Journal of Marketing, 56 (2): 57-71. Levy, M., and Weitz, A.B. 2004. Retailing management (5th ed). New York: McGrawHill/Irwin. Second Life blog. Available at: http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2009/04/16/the-second-life-e conomy--first-quarter-2009-in detail. Accessed at: 13/01/2011. 405

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Consumer Behavior towards Convenience Stores in Greece

George Panigyrakis Department of Business Administration Athens University of Economics and Busines s, Greece. Antonis Zairis Hellenic Retail Business Association, Greece. George Stamatis Marketing & Communication Consultant Purpose Food retailing represents a significant component of the retail industry with ma jor profits universally. A new type of food stores, the convenience stores was created in U. S.A. at the beginning of the 70s based on the necessity to service customers quickly, provid ing mainly daily products (Kirby, 1976, 1986). The definition of convenience stores is based on i ts function way and not on its size as they as easily accessed and the customers shop really fas t (Guberman 1971). Their rapid increase in the past years has aggravated the retailer s necess ity to understand the attributes that affect consumer s behaviour and satisfaction as wel l. The present study examines and evaluates the factors affecting the shopping behavior towards convenience stores on a national level. The acquired data will enrich the limited knowledge on this research field and lay the groundwork for future studies. Design/methodology/approach This study is a part of a larger project aimed at examining Greek consumer s attit ude and behavior related to hyper/supermarket and convenience stores. In the present stu dy, only data linked to the convenience stores are presented. Questionnaires were handed out i n the following hyper/supermarket and convenience stores in Athens, Thessaloniki and P atra: Carrefour, Basilopoulos MEGA, Basilopoulos, Marinopoulos, Sklabenitis, Beropoulo s, .asoutis,

AB City, AB Shop & go, 5. .arinopoulos, Sklavenitis fresh, Bazaar, Market In. Th e questionnaire was concise and contained standard itemised rating scales measuring the signific ance of store characteristics as motives to shop or not from this specific food retail store a nd other basic attributes such as the visit s frequency, the money spent in every visit, the cons umer s satisfaction and the intention to visit this type of store again. 360 questionna ires were collected, from which 304 were finally usable. Findings A general remark that could be made is that consumers consider convenience store s as an alternative form of food market aimed at frequent and rapidly service of their d aily needs. The basic results are summarised below: . The consumers prefer the convenience stores due to the short time spent for shop ping and the short distance from their houses. . The economic, personalized services and time saving related criteria are the mos t important in the convenience store choice selection. 406

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications . The consumers that didn t have visited this kind of stores intend to visit them in the future. . The majority of the sample expressed the dissatisfaction regarding the offered s ervices, though a high percentage expressed satisfaction, respectively. References Kirby, D.A., (1976). The Convenience Store phenomenon: the rebirth of America s sma ll shop , Retail & Distribution Management, 4: 31-33. Kirby, D.A., (1986). Convenience stores. The polarisation of British retailing , Re tail and Distribution Management, 7 12. Guberman, R., (1971). Convenience Stores: Past and Present , Journal of Food Distri bution Research, 36-37. 407

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 408

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Marketing Communications

409

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications An Examination of the Effect of Eco-Labelling on Consumer Behaviour

Georgios Avlonitis Athens University of Economics & Busines, Department of Marketing & Communicatio n, Greece, avlonitis@aueb.gr Erifili Papista Athens University of Economics & Business, Athens Laboratory of Research in Mark eting, Greece, epapista@aueb.gr Although consumers make green products choices based mostly on the traditional d ecision criteria of price, quality and availability (De Pelsmacker, Driessen and Rayp 20 05), product labels provide an informative base for a consumer to make choices. Environmental labels are increasingly being recognised as an important market tool for identification of green products (D Souza, Taghian and Lamb 2006); whereas provision of reliable information about environmental aspects of products can facilitate responsible buying behaviour (C ollins, Steg and Koning 2007). In this research we investigate the consumer comprehension and res ponse to labels, in order to assess the usefulness of environmental communication policie s for businesses. While previous research has provided support for the role of environmental messa ges in advertising and product labelling to green products purchases (De Pelsmacker, Ja nssens, Sterckx and Mielants 2005), consumers often treat environmental claims with scepticism o r even regard them misleading and false (Polonsky et al 1998). This research attempts to measu re consumer credibility toward environmental claims and assess the relative impact of these attitudes towards environmental advertising on green purchase behaviour. Environmental certification is a popular route for companies in order to build c onsumer trust on environmental action and the respective claims; messages on the environmental be nefits of brands may be guaranteed with environmental labelling systems sponsored by indep endent organisations (Montoro-Rios, Luque-Martinez and Rodriguez-Molinas 2008). Yet, we don t know whether the consumer is aware of the different environmental certifications, whe ther this is a criterion taken into account when making purchase decision and ultimately, wheth er

certification can lead to product differentiation. Moreover, consumers lack knowledge on the type of labelling procedures adopted b y companies (D Souza, Taghian and Lamb 2006). Companies may as well invest in adopting environ mentally friendly production procedures or developing green products, yet we don t know whe ther the consumer is able to distinguish a green brand from its competitive. Thus, we lac k insight on the role played by environmental knowledge on purchase behaviour. In addition to labelling information, it is also corporate reputation that lends itself to determining environmental responsiveness of businesses. Even if the consumer is knowledgeable of the environmental action at either the corporate or the product level, attributions regarding the firm s motives for engaging in these activities may inf luence consumer responsiveness (Ellen, Webb and Mohr 2006). Extrinsic motives have the goal of i ncreasing the brand's own welfare (e.g., increase sales/profits or improve corporate image), w hereas intrinsic motives have the ultimate goal of doing good; thus attributions have a positive or negative influence on loyalty behaviours towards green brands (Du, Bhattacharya and Sen 2 007). Summing up, this research attempts to extend previous findings regarding the rol e of ecolabelling, environmental certification, knowledge and attributions on the consumer purchase behaviour, as expressed through purchase frequency, word-of-mouth, willingness t o pay higher 410

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications prices, acceptance of lower product performance and finally, making extra effort in order to buy a green product. In order to test the relative role of each construct on consumer purchase behavi our, a quantitative research was conducted in a sample of 706 Greek consumers. The data were collected by trained researchers of Athens Laboratory of Research in Marketing o f Athens University of Economics and Business using a structured questionnaire administer ed on the phone using CATI data collection services. Regression analysis was conducted examining the effect of each construct on diff erent purchase behaviours in both the total sample of green products buyers and across the diff erent product categories of organic food, detergents and natural cosmetics. Results indicate t hat intrinsic attributions, environmental knowledge and certification exert a different influe nce in the total sample of buyers and per product category. This research is an attempt to study the actual buying behaviour of the environm entally conscious consumer, as it is influenced by several environmental communication p olicies. Thus, this research contributes to existing literature on environmental labelling/adve rtising by validating previous findings in 3 different product categories and studying rese arch questions that lack empirical evidence. Additionally, findings provide practitioners with insights regarding the consumer attitudes towards environmental claims, the awareness of the differ ent certification labels available and the importance that consumers ascribe to cert ification in order to develop confidence for product environmental performance as well as preferenc e. Furthermore, this study highlights the role played by knowledge to distinguish e nvironmental products and intrinsic attributions on purchase behaviour, thus urging for marke ters attention at communicating the companies porate sincere commitment to the environment at both the cor

level through consistent actions and the product level providing ample informati on on its differentiation through advertising. 411

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Relating OTC consumer buying styles with Over-the-Counter medicines marketing communications: Does one size fit all? Despina A. Karayanni Assistant Professor of Marketing, Department of Business Administration, Univers ity of Patras, Greece karayan@otenet.gr Christina C. Georgi PhD. Student of Marketing, in the Department of Business Administration, Univers ity of Patras, Greece. Abstract In this research we identify three distinct over-the-counter (OTC) buying styles ; the OTC brand loyalty , the OTC brand switching for comparison and the OTC brand switching for vari ety seeking and we make an attempt to scan the relationships between them and a set o f OTC marketing communications. The research methodology involved qualitative and quan titative field data collection from a sample of 102 OTC consumers and a series of advance d statistical analyses. Research results revealed some fruitful findings and implications for pharmaceutical companies, in order to differentiate their communication strategies according to either distinct OTC buying styles, or, distinct stages of the consumer life cycle. Directions fo r future research are also discussed. Introduction Several cultural and social trends have led to increased interest among patients in self-care and in control over their medical treatment (Gossel 1991). The availability of drugs on an Over-theCounter basis may increase this trend, as pharmaceutical companies provide infor mation directly to consumers as part of their marketing programs. According to survey d ata, consumers think that some prescription drugs should be made available over the counter and that such switches would result in cost savings. Consumers also believe that over-the-coun ter drugs that were previously available only by prescription are more effective than products that have always been available over the counter (Schulke 1998). The provision by manufacturers o f educational

material and support services, such as those provided with nicotine products for smoking cessation, may improve patients a matter of knowledge and increase compliance (Juhl 1998). As

fact, over-the-counter (OTC) drugs market expands at a compounded annual rate of 7.5%, expressing consumers th 2006). preference over their prescribed drug alternatives (IMS Heal

Moreover, delving into the pertinent literature, we may resemble the OTC medicin e-buying situation to a low price consumable purchase with variable level of consumer inv olvement, depending on how the consumer perceives the product, or the life cycle of the co nsumer buying experience. On the other hand, spending on direct-to-consumer advertising of drugs has incre ased dramatically, whereas, for some drugs, i.e., for the OTC drugs, direct-to-consum er advertising (DTCA) makes up the bulk of promotional spending (Ma et al. 2003). Especially the European Union market is of particular attraction to pharmaceutic al companies, as it accounts for a full one-third of global drug sales, although that, compared t o American consumers, Europeans still have quite limited exposure to pharmaceutical adverti sements (Eagle 412

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications and Kitchen 2002). It is likely that this pressure will continue to expand direc t-to-consumer (DTC) marketing efforts. Indeed, pharmaceutical companies have recently begun to condu ct consumer-targeted campaigns which comply with current restrictions, i.e., the le gal restrictions that prevail upon the European continent (Hone and Benson 2004). It is expected that the European pharmaceutical DTC expenditures will experience rapid growth in the nea r future, as even EU leaders are arguing that legislation on pharmaceutical advertising shoul d be more loose (Newswire 2005). All the above taken into consideration, stress the importance of studying OTC co nsumer buying behavior and attitudes towards OTC brand marketing communication strategies. Thi s research makes an attempt to add a small piece of evidence upon the OTC marketing literat ure, which is largely in infancy, especially as far as the Greek market is concerned. Specifically, the purposes of this study are: a) to identify consumer buying styles, depending on the degree to which they run through all the continuum of decision making combined with the level of involvement in t he OTC purchase, b) to identify appropriate communication elements for marketing an OTC medicine brand and, finally, c) to identify the relationships between the consumer buying styles and the set of the OTC brand marketing communications. The structure of the paper goes as follows: first we present pertinent academic literature upon OTC consumer buying behavior and OTC company communication strategies. Next, we provide information about the methodology, the measures and sampling is sues. Following is the presentation of the analyses and the findings of the study. The paper ends with the discussion upon the implications and the limitations of the study, providing also some directions for future research. Over-the-counter medicines consumer buying behavior. In our research we build upon the attitude-relationship commitment theory of Bea tty and Kahle (1988), which treated consumer buying behavior as a two dimensional problem, i.e ., extend of consumer decision making-degree of consumer involvement. Their proposed hierarch y of decision making model was depicted on a quadrant of four combinations, extended decision making-high involvement (i.e. complex decision making, the consumer will select all possible information and try alternative brands in order to conclude), limited decision m aking-high

involvement (the case of brand loyalty), high decision making-low involvement (l imited decision making, the consumer is a variety seeker) and finally, low decision making-low i nvolvement (the case of inertia). Delving into the existing literature, we may characterize the OTC medicines as c onsumables of low price and high consumer involvement in decision-making. As far as the consum able markets are concerned, Rundle-Thiele and Bennett (2001) sustain that these exhibit the c haracteristics of divided loyalty, which is commonly referred to in marketing literature as mul ti-brand purchasing and enumerate a number of reasons for multi-brand purchase, i.e., the customers may brand switch to seek variety, a sales promotion may alter purchase patterns, there may be lack of availability of preferred brand, the purchase transaction amount is low, i.e., the financial risk of a wrong buying decision is low, the purchaser is other than the end-user of the product and finally, there is low consumer involvement levels in decision making of repe ated purchasing. Considering the OTC medicines, to some extent, these usually mimic bio-equivalen t prescribed medicines that are considered to be safe and effective. At the same time, the co st of such drugs is not usually high. Notwithstanding, consumer involvement in decision making ra nges on a continuum from low to high, depending on the product and the customer per se. Lo w 413

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications involvement goods tend to be packaged goods of a relatively low price, which are purchased frequently by the consumer, and for which consumers require minimal product info rmation. On the other hand, high-involvement goods are those which generally tend to be high er in price, purchased relatively infrequently, and which require extensive information searc hing by the consumer for example, automobiles. Pharmaceuticals, in particular, can be consid ered highly involving because they deal with a consumer s well being. As such, we may postulate that an OTC medicine resembles to a consumable good fo r which the consumer is highly involved about its purchase, thus it rests heavily upon the b randing and communication strategies aiming to build a strong brand and turn its occasional consumers to loyal customers. We named this buying style as nd comparisons . OTC brand switching for making bra

On the other hand, OTC buyers may view medicines as hard to perceive, thus not b een able to get seriously involved in the buying procedure. The buyer would switch among alt ernative brands, since she/he considers them to be more or less alike. These are variety seekers, and we named this buying style as te that to OTC brand switching for variety seeking . We may postula

the extent consumers perceive difficulty and risk in their OTC medicine choices, mainly due to their limited knowledge on the subject matter, they would place increased emphas is on the brand value, since each brand conveys certain qualities and values that a consum er may identify with. Along similar lines, Blackett and Robins (2001) argue that because consume rs are charged with the responsibility of selecting an OTC medicine under significant asymmetry of information involved in the consumption decision, the selection process consequently would p lace great emphasis on the brand. Finally, in this research we also consider a last, but not least decision making -involvement combination, the one of low decision making-high involvement, and we name it as O TC brand loyalty . Loyal customers are less price-sensitive and lower costs are incurred by the provider as the expense of pursuing new customers is reduced (Birgelen, Wetzels, and de Ruyt er 1997). Rowley and Dowes (2000) mention some ways in which customers may demonstrate the ir loyalty. The may choose to stay with a provider, whether this continuance is def ined as a

relationship or not, or they may increase the number of purchases, or the freque ncy of their purchases, or even both. They may also become advocates of the organization conc erned by playing a powerful role in the decision making of others. However, non-loyal to one business may be the actual or potential customers for another business. Marketing opportunities do not only arise from effective management of the organization s own non-loyal, but also from the identification of those hovering i n the no-loyalty category of competitors (Rowley and Dawes 2000). Thus, in our research we scan potential relationships between pharmaceutical com panies communications of OTCs and the three consumer buying styles, in order to identif y relative importance of specific communication elements on different consumer groups, or, stated in other words, in different stages of a consumer relationship. Over-the-counter medicines marketing communications. In OTC brand communications we included such variables as advertising, product p ricing, in store promotion and pharmacist influence, although that the later might be regar ded as independent, unbiased consultant, thus may play the role of opinion leader in a firm s communication strategy. Nowadays, pharmaceutical companies increase emphasis on direct-to-consumer adver tising (DTCA), as a means of drug promotion. Specifically, although total promotional e fforts as a percentage of sales have remained constant, the proportion of sales devoted to D TCA has 414

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications increased and has done so at a faster rate than expenditures for research and de velopment (Gellad and Lyles 2007). This is mainly because surveys have shown that DTCA affects consumers oreover, behavior. M

surveys show that most consumers view DTC ads positively (Weissman et al. 2003). It is generally accepted that the purpose of advertising overall is both to inform (well-informe d consumers are better able to evaluate competing brands particularly among technologically comp lex, expensive, and/or risky product categories, such as the medicines) and to persua de (i.e., building brand demand involves associating a brand with positive attributes and disassoci ating it from negative attributes). Thus, advertising is not about altruism. It is fundamental ly a communications tool used to sell products and services (Coney 2002). Furthermore , the goal of DTC advertising is to create market recognition of a brand (Mintzes 2001). Although that advertising for prescribed medicines has received a good dose of c riticism on whether is it moral to try to pursue consumers to buy more drugs, however, adver tising for overthecounter medicines, though prevalent, has not engendered the same level of contro versy because they are considered safe for consumers self-directed use (Holmer 2002). C alfee ( 2002) provides an excellent review of most of the large-scale empirical studies in thi s area. Taken together these results reveal that consumers today seem to welcome health inform ation particularly on their current medical condition or on something that has been co ncerning them. There is ample evidence of increasing levels of awareness and recall of DTC adve rtising over the past few years, and most consumers report reading or listening to the majority o f most DTC ads, including at least some of the more technical information contained in the brief summary. In 2002, 43% of respondents to the FDA survey reported that seeing a drug advertise ment led them to look for more information about the drug; the majority of respondents (8 9%) obtained information from their doctor, while pharmacists (51%), reference books (40%) an d the internet (38%) also were sources (Aikin, Swasy, and Braman 2004). As far as the advertisement content is concerned, Wolfe(Wolfe 2002) asserts that DTC advertising contains powerful, emotion-arousing images and frequently unbalanced information on safety and effectiveness and vague, qualitative promises rather t han explicit description of benefits. Along similar lines, Hoek and Gendall ( 2002) have foun d that simplified

information is needed for consumers to recall important information in advertising . When Woloshin and colleagues ( 2001) investigated the content of DTC advertising in p opular magazines in the United States, they concluded that 67% made one or two emotiona l appeals to readers. Of headlines, 87% contained vague, qualitative promises rather than an explicit description of benefits. Only 13% of advertisements provided any evidence to sup port claims of benefit. Two examples from New Zealand illustrate that the primary purpose of DT C advertising is to appeal to emotions such as shame and anxiety about social exclusion, rathe r than impart good-quality information, particularly evidence-based information about benefits and risks. In our research we wanted to test this face of advertising content, i.e., using emo tional hints and leaning on believability through attractiveness, i.e., similarity, rather than c onveying information messages of the product details and benefits. Moreover, point-of-purchase displays are an important promotional tool because t hey can help a provider (i.e., a pharmaceutical company) obtain more effective in-store merch andising of products. Consumable goods companies in the United States spend more than 12 bil lion dollars a year on point-of-purchase materials, including end-of-aisle displays, banners, posters, shelf cards, motion pieces and stand-up racks, among others (Belch and Belch 2008). Be cause a pharmacy is primary a store, promotion strategy is evidently coherent with in-ph armacy-store displays of some kind. Furthermore, the OTC product displays may play the role o f sales leads, that is, they may aim at driving the consumer s interest in order to address to th e product expert i.e., the pharmacist, for further information. Notwithstanding, empirical eviden ce upon the effectiveness of this communication element seems to have fallen behind. In this study we made 415

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications an attempt to identify potential influence of in-pharmacy-store promotion upon t he OTC consumer buying behavior. In respect to the role of lower OTC pricing, compared to their prescribed medici ne alternatives may be a powerful communication element of a pharmaceutical company in serving i ts promotion efforts. Indeed, despite the difficulties pertaining to OTC safety and suitability issues and consumers bounded rational decision making, OTC medicines seem to have a few advocates as they may lead to considerable cost savings, in multiple ways, i.e., a) by decreasing the frequency of visits to physicians, b) by the lower price of an OTC medicine as compared to a prescribed one (Temin 1983). Although that there are no data that accurately est imate these factors, and the assessment of costs versus benefits is thus problematic, accord ing to survey data, consumers think that some prescription drugs should be made available over the counter and that such switches would result in cost savings. Finally, although brand advertising and promotion may not use professional endor sement, the verbal endorsement, in the counter selling of one s OTC brand to another switched brand, by the retail professional the pharmacist, that is a trained expert in pharmaceutical p roducts, is not just desirable but essential. Thus, even if consumer advertising, or in-store promoti on, might be the original reason why a consumer seeks out the newly switched OTC brand to try it, he or she will invariably seek the reassurance of the pharmacist as to its efficacy. Indeed, th e role of the pharmacist in helping to cement the reputation of a brand has been inestimable ( Lyon 2001). As such, we included in the research variables in order to test its explanatory pow ers upon OTC consumer buying behavior. Methodology Sampling Methodology of our study involved preliminary qualitative and main field researc h. First we based upon existing literature on marketing communication and pharmaceutical mar keting, as well as upon primary data selected from thirty OTC medicine consumers, that were eager to help us with the formulation of the appropriate variables of the quantitative re search instrument. Our main research was conducted in the city of Patras and the non-pr obability sample comprised 102 respondents evenly sparse along 10 large pharmacies, which consented

to fill in our questionnaire through personal interview . The participants were 45 male and 57 female, accounting for 44,1% and 55,9%, res pectively. Among them, 38 persons were under 25 years old, whereas another 38 respondents c hecked the age class 26-35, both categories equally accounting for 37.3% each, 7 cited to b elong to the 3645 age category, corresponding to 6.9% of the total sample, another 15 respondents cited to be between 46 and 55 years of age, comprising 14.7% of the sample, whereas, the rem aining 3.9% of the sample, that is 4 participants, cited to be over 55 years of age. In regard to marital status, 71 were unmarried and 31 married, reflecting 69.3% and 30.4% of the total sample, respectively. Among the married, 6 had 1 child, 16 cited to ha ve 2 children, and only 2 checked the 3 children category, accounting for 25%, 66.7% and 8.3% of th e married respondents. In respect to employment, 23 cited to be public servants, that is 2 3.5% of the sample, another 14 respondents were working for the private sector, accounting f or 13.7% of the sample, 20 respondents were freelancers, that is another 19.6% of the respon dents, 7 were housewives, reflecting 6.9%, 29 were students, that is 28.4% of the sample, the remaining 9 persons cited to be unemployed, or checked the of the other box, both accounting for 8.8%

sample. A series of t-tests analyses and ANOVAS on the interval scale variable means wer e performed, using the demographics variables as grouping variables. All the above analyses s howed no 416

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications significant differences among the means of the variables ng that our sample was homogeneous and reliable. Measures Over-the-counter medicines consumer buying behavior In our study this variable entailed measurement of consumer habits on OTC medici nes, i.e., whether a consumer purchases the same OTC brand constantly, or, prefers switchin g among competing brands, so we leant upon relative marketing literature pertaining to b rand loyalty. Indeed, this realm of marketing theory enumerates a number of brand loyalty char acteristics and measures in terms of behavioral loyalty, proportion of sole buyers, attitudi nal loyalty and loyalty drivers, as there is lack of a single best approach to defining and meas uring brand loyalty across all markets (Rundle-Thiele and Bennett 2001). Moreover, as Rundle-Thiele and Bennett s (2001) indicate, although all brand loyalty research should incorporate both att itudinal and behavioral measures, as they are both complementary aspects of the one construct , however, due to resource and logistical constraints this is not always possible and only one measure can be included. Leaning upon the aforementioned concept, we used behavioral, though subjective m easures for OTC medicine buying behavior. Specifically, we used three single-item variables, measured on 5 point Likert scale variables, for three distinct buying behaviors, i.e., loyal bu ying , buying for making comparisons and learning , and buying for variety seeking . All three measures shared the same introductive instruction, i.e., having in mind OTC medicines that you bu y more often for you and your family, please cite the degree to which you agree, or disagree, with the following statements ..... . As evidently, we based upon Beatty and Kahle s (1988) involvement-commitment model which examined the hierarchy of the attitude-behavior relationship and we adopted the pertinent decision making-involvement dyads on the OTC consumer buying context, i.e., exte nded decision making-high involvement (i.e., OTC brand switching for comparisons betw een brands and learning), extended decision making-low involvement (i.e., OTC brand switchi ng for variety subgroups, thus indicati

seeking), and finally, limited decision making-high involvement (i.e., OTC brand loyalty). Because OTCs are primarily products incubating high risk, of many types, thus we conside red that the fourth quartile of limited decision making-low involvement dyad of the involveme ntcommitment model was not applicable. The so resulting measures were: I always buy the same OTC brand and never change it , with mean=2.09, st. dev.=1.09, I often switch between OTC brands in order to make comp arisons among competing brands , with mean=2.07, st. dev.=.89 and I often switch between OT C brands, they are all much alike , with mean=2.02. st.dev=.80. 417

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Over-the-counter medicines marketing communications In order to tap the OTC medicines promotion variables we based upon the primary data and the marketing literature of our preliminary research. We thus formulated 26variables , which were used as measures of the consumer attitudes on OTC medicines marketing communicat ions. The purification procedure was based on the guidelines set by Churchill and Iaco bucci (2009) and resulted in the assessment of construct dimensionality. Specifically, the ab ove 26 variables were factor analyzed and factor scores were extracted using the principal compon ents method and orthogonal rotation (Norusis 2002). Following standard practice, we selected factors with eigenvalues greater that unity for further analysis. Table 1 presents the factor analysis, which produced six factors, labeled as pharmacist influence , catchy advertisement , advertising , OTC brand awareness , 418 OTC brand price and OTC product safety .

in-store

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 1: Factor analysis of consumer attitudes on OTC purchases, Factor Loadings and Reliability Alphas Factor Eigen-Cronbach Items Loadings Value Alphas Catchy advertisment The advertisement script with which I may identify with 0,83 I like advertisements that make the product attractive 0,79 3,1 0,81 I like houmorous advetisement content 0,63 Clever signed displays on the pharmacist bench attract my attention 0,60 I ll ask by my pharmacist an OTC brand that I have seen on an advertisement 0,52 Pharmacist influence I trust my pharmacist's advice 0,82 I talk to my pharmacist about any question that I may have 0,78 I buy the OTC medicine that is my pharmacists' first option 0,69 3,0 0,76 I buy the OTC medicine that is the pharmacy consultant's first option 0,66 I bought the OTC medicine that my pharmacist selected 0,57 In-store advertising I like the OTC brochures in the pharmacy front-store 0,86 I like the OTC wall panels 0,85 2,6 0,82 I like the advertisements shown on plasma screens 0,62 I notice the stand-up racks in the pharmacy store 0,57 Brand awareness I take care to be informed of all the OTC medicines that 0,82 The company name is very important criterion for my OTC purchases 0,68 2,5 0,74 I buy OTCs of known companies 0,66 I take care to be informed of the incredients of the OTCs that I take 0,63 Price Usually I buy the cheapest OTC brand 0,80 Price is an important criterion for my OTC purchases 0,79 2,3 0,74 I buy OTCs that my pharmacist makes a price reduction 0,67 OTC safety I prefer the OTC brands with analytical instuctions of use and contraindictions 0,78 I ask my pharamcist about the side-effects and the safety of a specific OTC brand 0,69 2,3 0,45 Total variance explained 68,3% All, but the OTC product safety , item constructs produced Cronbach alpha statistic s that were quite satisfactory, ranging within 0.74and 0.82, as shown on Table 1. Only the OT C product safety item constructs produced a poor alpha statistic of 0.44 which was much low er than the 0.60 acceptable level of achieving reliability, thus was excluded from further a nalysis. 419

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 2 Construct correlationsIntercorrelationsVariables123456781OTC brand loyalty12OTC brand switching for brand comparisons0,00513OTC brand switching for variety seek ing-0,21,500**14Pharmacist influence-0,005,314**0,13815Catchy advertisement-0,05 50,162,316**,442**16OTC brand awareness-0,218*,342**,296**0,167,265**17OTC brand price0,078,213*,339**,385**,455**,262**18In-store advertising0,048,202*,343**,3 59**,577**,337**,390**1** significance at 0.01* significance at 0.05 Analyses and Findings As dimensionality and reliability of the constructs was assessed, we then procee d to advanced statistical analysis, in order to scan the relationships among the OTC buying be havioral variables and the consumer attitudes on OTC medicine communications. To this end, first we performed correlation analysis among the aforementioned variables, which produced quite fr uitful results, as presented on Table 2. Specifically, OTC loyal buyers were unrelated to all, b ut one variable, the OTC brand awareness , which however had a negative sign. The results coincide t o existing literature, which postulates that customers that are loyal to a brand may be rel uctant to try or to be aware of competing brands, and sequentially they are not receptive to OTC com peting companies promotion. As far as the rest two consumer buying variables are concern ed, i.e., the OTC brand switching for making comparison and the OTC brand switching for variety s eeking , both were related to the variables brand awareness , brand price and in-store advertis ing . Furthermore, catchy advertisement was related to OTC brand switching for variety se eking , whereas pharmacist influence was related to OTC brand switching for comparison . As expected, the two OTC brand-switching variables were related to each other, howe ver; this relationship was not large enough to dispute the discriminant validity between t hem. Similarly, the marketing communications variables were interrelated, however, providing no indications against the discriminant validity among these constructs. As a next step, in order to provide stronger support upon the relationships betw een the consumer buying behavior and the marketing communications, we used regression an alysis. Specifically, we regressed each one of the consumer buying behavior constructs, treated as dependent variables, against all five OTC medicine communication constructs, whi ch played the role of independent variables, as shown on Table 3. First, regarding the OTC brand loyalty it appears to be influenced solely by pharm

acist influence. On the other hand, both the pharmacists and the in-store promotion in fluenced the OTC brand switching for brand comparison . Finally, the OTC brand switching for vari ety seeking was related to in-store promotion, OTC brand price and OTC brand awarenes s. 420

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 3 OTC brand switching for brand comparisonOTC brand switching for variety seekingOTC brand loyaltyPharmacist influence0,53** 0,04n.s.0,67** Catchy advertisement -0,13n.s. 0,16n.s. -0,11n.s. In-store promotion 0,03n.s.0,24* 0,21n.s. OTC brand price 0,07n.s.0,23* 0,15n.s. OTC brand awareness0,45** 0,33** 0,01n.s. Overall R2 = 0.870.890,86df = 555F =125,8145,4108,2Sig. =.000.000.000** p < 0.05 *p < 0.1Standardized regression coefficients of OTC medicines communications Discussion On the whole, based on the research findings, we may imply that pharmaceutical c ompanies should differentiate their marketing communications strategies targeting at dist inct consumer groups, on the basis of their decision making-involvement setting. Thus, when ta rgeting to consumers that are variety seekers they should carefully build their promotion s trategies on brand awareness, appropriate pricing and in-pharmacy store promotion. No matter how hard they would try to promote their OTC products, these customers will never become loyal, since loyalty presupposes knowledge and appreciation of the product qualities encompas sed in its brand name. Indeed, low involvement-high decision making consumers would perceiv e the OTC medicines complex enough to thoroughly comprehend, thus they cannot evaluate dif ferences among competing brands. As a matter of course, switching between OTC brands appe ars to be a normal behavior, as they perceive all the brands to be more or less much the sam e. Competitive pricing is also of concern to this OTC consumer group, as our findings indicated , placing additional evidence upon relative prior research on consumer behavior (i.e., Rot hschild 1979). The relationship between this type of OTC buying behavior and brand awareness im plies that consumers that have the tendency to switch among competing brands would prefer t o lean upon well-known brands that may counterbalance the perceived risk of such comple x products, as the medicines are. Finally, in-store promotion appears to be important, as th ese impulse buyers would buy whatever comes to their sight, all others being equal. Carefull y designed instore promotion, i.e., product displays on the pharmacist bench, wall panels, freestan ding racks, or product brochures in the pharmacist storefront would make the difference amon g competing

OTC brands. On the other hand, consumers , which switch among OTC brand medicines with the aim to make comparisons and increase their knowledge about competing brands, appear to be in fluenced by both the brand awareness and the pharmacist opinion. Thus, brand awareness was r elated to both OTC brand consumer switchers. However, both brand price and in-store promot ion, which essentially mirror sales promotion tools don t seem to be able to influence this c onsumer group, as the later would consciously buy the product, whatsoever, in order to test its efficacy. This consumer group appears to follow a cognitive learning approach, by aiming at gai ning control over her/his environment through extant knowledge and experience on both the 421

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications illness/remedies and the respective OTC brands. At the same time, sales promotio ns which match to fast moving consumer goods of low involvement do not appear to be effec tive in the case of OTC buyers that seek for cognitive learning enhancement. The positive re lationship with pharmacist influence may pinpoint the important role of the expert in facilitati ng such customers in their adventure of comparing and establishing attitudes among compe ting OTC brands. As these customers would finally end up to a buy constantly only one bra nd, that would have singled out from their evoked set of alternative brands, pharmaceutical com panies should deploy a communication strategy aiming at long-term results, i.e., not only the trial but also the relationship building with the customer through training and constant acquaintan ce of the product to this consumer group. As pharmacists play an important role, companies should also pursuit pharmacists t group. advocacy, as they appear to be opinion leaders for this targe

Finally, as our findings indicated, OTC brand loyalty was related to pharmacist influence, though unrelated to all the rest company s promotion elements. The implication is that on ce an OTC brand has achieved consumer loyalty, then the other competing companies promotion campaigns may not expect other than only poor results upon them. On the other ha nd, the companies that enjoy their customers loyalty should try to take the pharmacist o n their side, as she/he may influence consumer buying behavior, through instrumental conditioning , i.e., by inducing and praising consumers behavior and reinforcing their loyalty. Limitations-Future research The paper presented a research which was conducted in a rather exploratory patte rn, thus it would not be wise to generalize too far from a single study. First, we need to notice that the means of our OTC buying behavior measures were rather low (i.e., they were between 2.02 and 2.09, which is below the median 2.5 of an 1-5 interval scale), which reflects the research participants perceived difficulty to respond with jus t three single variables about their OTC buying habits, let alone that they might have differen t behavior patterns for different remedy situations. However, as mentioned above, this is a first attempt to deal with the OTC consumer buying behavior and we used the respective measures j ust for

correlation analysis purposes, as our main concern in this explanatory research was to scan possible relationships between companies or, and communication elements and buying behavi

not to establish robust measures for OTC brand loyalty, which might be a topic f or future research. Moreover, we should enlarge our research sample, so as to be able to apply more sophisticated statistical methods, i.e., structural equation modeling, for further examination of both reliability of our research constructs and discriminant validity among them. There are also a a few more variables that might be considered in further resear ch, i.e., consumer psychographic characteristics and OTC brand specific characteristics, i .e., as whether the OTC brand is a prototype, or a generic product. 422

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications References Aikin, KJ, JL Swasy, and AC Braman. 2004. Patient and physician attitudes and be haviors associated with DTC promotion of Prescription Drugs-Summary of FDA Survey Research Results. Final Re port. Washington, DC: US Dept of Health and Human Services. Beatty, S.E., and L.R. Kahle. 1988. Alternative hierarchies of the attitude-beha vior relationship: the impact of brand commitment and habit. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 16 (2):1-10. Belch, George , and Michael Belch. 2008. Advertising and promotion: An integrate d marketing communication perspective: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Birgelen, M., M. Wetzels, and K. de Ruyter. 1997. Commitment in service relation ships: an empirical test of its antecedents and consequences. Blackett, T., and R. Robins. 2001. Brand medicine: the role of branding in the p harmaceutical industry: Palgrave Macmillan. Calfee, JE. 2002. Public policy issues in direct-to-consumer advertising of pres cription drugs. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 21 (2):174-193. Churchill, Gilbert., and Dawn Iacobucci. 2009. Marketing research: methodologica l foundations. Fort Worth (Texas) et al. Coney, S. 2002. Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription pharmaceuticals: A consumer perspective from New Zealand. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 21 (2):213-223. Eagle, L, and P Kitchen. 2002. Direct consumer promotion of prescription drugs: A review of the literature and the New Zealand experience. Journal of Medical Marketing 2 (4):293-310. Gellad, ZF, and KW Lyles. 2007. Direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceutical s. The American journal of medicine 120 (6):475-480. Gossel, TA. 1991. Implications of the reclassification of drugs from prescriptio n-only to over-the-counter status. Clinical therapeutics 13 (2):200. Hoek, J, and P Gendall. 2002. Direct-to-consumer advertising down under: An alte rnative perspective and regulatory framework. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 21 (2):202-212. Holmer, AF. 2002. Direct-to-consumer advertising--strengthening our health care system. New England Journal of Medicine 346 (7):526. Hone, F, and R Benson. 2004. DTC: European style. Pharmaceutical Executive 24 (3

):96-96. Juhl, RP. 1998. Prescription to over-the-counter switch: a regulatory perspectiv e. Clinical therapeutics 20:C111-C117. Lyon, G. 2001. 3 The Rx to OTC switch-creating the climate for change. Brand med icine: the role of branding in the pharmaceutical industry:47. Ma, J, RS Stafford, IM Cockburn, and SN Finkelstein. 2003. A statistical analysi s of the magnitude and composition of drug promotion in the United States in 1998. Clinical therapeutics 25 (5):1503-1 517. Mintzes, B. 2001. Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising: The European Commissions Proposals for Legislative Change. December). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Health Action Interna tional (HAI-Europe). Newswire, PR. 2005. EU leaders argue ban on pharmaceutical advertising should be lifted. New York, February 2. Norusis, M.J. 2002. SPSS 11.0 guide to data analysis. Vol. 637: Prentice Hall Up per Saddle River (NJ). Rothschild, ML 1979. Advertising strategies for high and low involvement situati ons. Attitude research plays for high stakes, J. Maloney & B. Silverman, Chicago: American Marketing Association :74-9 3. Rowley, J., and J. Dawes. 2000. Disloyalty: a closer look at non-loyals. Journal of Consumer Marketing 17 (6):538-547. Rundle-Thiele, S., and R. Bennett. 2001. A brand for all seasons? A discussion o f brand loyalty approaches and their applicability for different markets. Journal of Product & Brand Management 10 (1 ):25-37. Schulke, DG. 1998. American Pharmaceutical Association review of literature on p rescription to over-the-counter drug switches. Clinical therapeutics 20:C124-C133. Temin, P. 1983. Costs and benefits in switching drugs from Rx to OTC*. Journal o f Health Economics 2 (3):187-205. Weissman, JS, D Blumenthal, AJ Silk, K Zapert, M Newman, and R Leitman. 2003. Co nsumers' reports on the health effects of direct-to-consumer drug advertising. Health Affairs:3821. Wolfe, SM. 2002. Direct-to-consumer advertising--education or emotion promotion? New England Journal of Medicine 346 (7):524. Woloshin, S, LM Schwartz, J Tremmel, and HG Welch. 2001. Direct-to-consumer adve rtisements for prescription drugs: what are Americans being sold? The Lancet 358 (9288):1141-1146. 423

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Using Demarketing strategies in tobacco companies to reduce smoking in Jordan

Tareq N. Hashem Philadelphia University of Amman, Marketing Department, Jordan, tareqhashem1975@yahoo.com Abstract The purpose of this study is to identify a main topic which is "using Demarketin g strategies in tobacco companies to reduce smoking in Jordan". To achieve this main goal a self administrated questionnaire was developed and distributed over a random sample o f (500) Jordanian respondents in AMMAN, 406 questionnaires were returned, which represen t (81.2%) of the total sample .The analysis results indicate that there are no significant differences of demarketing strategy impact on smoking according to respondents age, in the same time there are significant differences of demarketing strategy impact on smoking according to gender , income and education level. Key words: Demarketing, Tobacco, Smokers Introduction Worldwide one person dies every ten seconds because of smoking, and this rate wi ll increase in the coming decades. Smoking causes various diseases .Despite all cigarette packe t bears warning describing the bad impact of tobacco on health, but tobacco is still used worldw ide. Governments from all parts of the world developed countries in particular are ex erting their best efforts in order to reduce number of smokers or to prevent new generations from using tobacco. Many regulations were enacted to minimize the impact of tobacco on public health . Demarketing is deemed as one of the most effective strategies to reduce tobacco demand and consumption. Demarketing as one strategy of whole marketing topic refers to the methods that can be used to reduce market demand for a particular item or product. Demarketing involves alterations of marketing mix variables for the purposes of

reducing demand when such demand is difficult to tackle. Demarketing strategy includes a set of procedures that can have a significant role in achieving the goals of reducing s moking, such as: Increasing taxes on tobacco products dissemination of information on adverse aff ects through the existing health warning label on these products, as well as banning advertis ing and promotion of it on special occasions and events, and prevention of smoking in pu blic places. Moreover demarketing strategy involves raising prices, reducing advertising and promotion expenditures, or deleting product benefits. Demarketing strategy may be intended to decrease demand either for a shorter period or forever. Demarketing strategy is able to be implemented in various forms such as keep clo se attention of the time requirements of different customers or clients. Demarketing can be expr essed as a tool to assist you differentiates customers on an equitable basis. The first strategy of demarketing is explained as recommending to customers to utilize a substitute product temporari ly in terms of demarketing. The final demarketing strategy is to divert a customer with a spont aneous need or 424

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications requirement for the item to another customer in which the company or firm has al ready supplied or provided the item recently and who the customer is unlikely to use t he item until a certain period of time in the future. This article presents a conceptual model linking the 4Ps in a demarketing contex t with reducing smoking in Jordan. Research Statement It is worth to mention that there is a shortage of studies in Jordan that tackle the topic of reducing smoking, most of previous studies addressed reasons of smoking and ways of stopping smoking .Therefore this research tries to answer the following questions 1-Do demarketing plays with its tools and methods influential role in reducing s moking? 2-Does the effect of demarketing strategy on smoking differ according to (Age, g ender, education level, and income)? Importance of the study: 1-The importance of this research is that the demarketing is important in societ y effectively, in terms of government's interest in human health. 2-This study is one of the first studies that focus on demarketing is Jordan. 3-This study is conducted in time that smoking is prohibited in public places is Jordan. Hypotheses: 1-H1: There are no significant king due to smokers' age. 2-H1: There are no significant king due to smokers' gender. 3-H1: There are no significant king due to smokers' educational level. 4-H1: There are no significant king due to smokers' income. What is Demarketing According to Kotler and Armstrong, (2007), "marketing is an essential process fo r each company; regardless of its activity". Many marketing strategies have been emerged during the previous decades. One of the main strategies is demarketing. Demarketing is defined as ". .. attempts to discourage customers in general or a certain class of customers in particular on differences in demarketing strategy impact on smo differences in demarketing strategy impact on smo differences in demarketing strategy impact on smo differences in demarketing strategy impact on smo

either a temporary or permanent basis (Kotler and Sidney, 2001). In this context demarket ing is known as a trial to reduce customer's attitude or specific customers to consume a spec ific product on either temporary or permanent (Beeton & I. Pinge, 2003). Moore (2005) reported t hat demarketing prevents consumption or use of a product or service. Wall (2007) def inition confirms the above mentioned definition. He stated that demarketing is the use o f marketing techniques to persuade consumers to change their behavior and habits which relat ed with specific products and services. Beeton &. Pinge (2003) reported that demarketing is a trial to reduce customers ttitude or specific customers to consume a specific product on either temporary or permanen t. In this context (Moore, 2005) illustrated that demarketing is a method for reducing cons umption or use of a product or service. From Wall s (2007) perspective demarketing is the use of marketing 425 a

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications techniques to convince consumers to change their behavior and habits which relat ed with specific products and services. According to Kotler and Sidney (2001), emarketing involves a change in the rever se direction of marketing. Many studies have tackled the demarketing process and its impact on reducing smo king or changing consumers behaviors. Moore (2005) reported that the act of discouraging consumption or use of cigarettes has been a public policy objective for the past 40 years or more. He added that using some of demarketing methods, such as antismoking adver tising campaigns, has contributed in decreasing smokers percent. Demarketing efforts de velop negative stereotypes of smokers. In their study Inness , et al ( 2008) examines the relationship between the de-marketing of tobacco products through provincial-level price incr eases and consumers attempts to quit smoking , they found a positive, one-month lagged eff ect of a price increase of tobacco products on the uptake of tobacco replacement therapie s. They added that such effect dissipates after three months; therefore they suggest that ther e is a critical period for aggressive de-marketing of tobacco products. In the same direction Ed wards et al, (2008) reported that most or even all governments in developed countries are inc reasing their efforts to reduce smoking. To achieve such target governments use demarketing st rategy, through using anti-smoking advertising to highlight the health risks of smoking and regulatory measures to prevent consumers from consuming tobacco. Governments combine anti s moking strategies as part of a demarketing mix Study indicate that the four demarketing mix elements affect smokers' attitudes toward the tobacco industry and smoking, as well as th eir intention to quit over time, but not all four demarketing mix elements are equally effective in inducing consumer behavior change. Types of Demarketing (Beeton &. Pinge, 2003) 1-General Demarketing: General demarketing is divided to: -Temporary Shortage: In temporary shortage many companies have the periodic fortune or misfortune in finding particular product that has excess demand. Managers may underestimate demand imp ortance or overestimate production, or both. -Chronic popularity: There are some situations where an organization face chronic popularity, and has the wish to

reduce the demand to lower level in this case two situations can be distinguishe d: In the first, the product may be seen as posing a serious threat to quality prod uct on the long run. The second situation, popularity is a problem because management dose not want t o be responsible for the whole demand. 426

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 2-Selective demarketing: Selective demarketing refers to a deliberate decision of segments that need to b e avoided, and secondly, a particular way of selection to override the UN required clients. Usu ally for selective demarketing, the company has no choice of refusing the rights of sales; as a res ult, company's tries to figure out ways to discourage demand from the unwanted customers. This can be practiced in a situation when a company focuses its attention to only one group of public sectors. 3-Alleged demarketing: The last or the third type of demarketing is called the alleged demarketing. In such type of demarketing a form or type of refusing a large number of customers hoping that t he product seems to be more valuable than the customers themselves. Most marketers decide u pon the principle or concept that people need what they feel may probably not that easy to achieved or feel happy if they were being ignored by the seller. Methodology The researcher used the experimental methodology, and then deep analytical field study b-Data collection Methods: 1-Primary Data Collection: a questionnaire was prepared and distributed over stu dy's sample subjects in order to obtain the primary data necessary for the study. 2-Secondary Data Collection: books, and scientifically resources that are relate d to the study subject will be used Questionnaire Design Data were collected from smokers in Jordan, using self-administered questionnair es. The questionnaires comprised of two sections. The first section of the questionnaire was developed to collect demographic data from participants, which in turn was used for a dual purposes: creating the sample profile and assessing possible linkages with demarketing str ategy to measure the differences of relative influence of demarketing strategy due to dem ographic data The second section of the questionnaire serves to reflect the degree of impact o f demarketing strategy. Respondents were asked to indicate the extents to which they agree wit h the attitudinal statements on a five-point scale, with (1) strongly disagree and (5)

strongly agree. Higher scores obtained on the scale obtained from the test were interpreted to r eflect the demarketing strategy impact the entire questionnaire was first drafted in Arabic , no translation was made since the all respondents master Arabic Language. Sampling A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed to 500 Jordanian respondents as a random sample which has been selected from citizens in Amman, by distributing the quest ionnaires on smokers who were met in malls and coffee shops around Amman city. 406 questionna ires were returned, which represent (81.2%) of the total sample Validity and Reliability: a. Validity: 427

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The questionnaire has been evaluated by instructors from the Jordanian universit ies. Their remarks and comments were taken into consideration. b. Reliability Cronbanch Alpha was used to test the reliability of the scale and . was (0.814) for questionnaire which is good because it is greater than accepted percent (0.60). (Malhotra, 200 4, p.268) Data Analysis Gathered data was coded and analyzed through using descriptive statistics. t-tes t, t-test for independent sample and one way ANOVA were used to test the hypothesis Analysis and discussion Frequency and percentages were computed for sample's characteristics Table 1: Sample's Distribution According to Demographic Information Category Frequency Percentage% Age less than 25 16. 39.. 25-35 8. 20.. 36-45 8. 21.. More than 45 years old 7. 18.. Total 40. %100.. Gender Male 29. 72.. Female 11. 27.. Total 40. 100% Education High school 4. 11.. Diploma 8. 20.. Bachelor 17. 43.. High studies 10. 25.. Total 40. 100% Income Less than 300 9. 23.. 300-500 13. 32..

501-1000 16. 39.. More than 1000 1. 4.. Total 40. 100% Table above indicates that 39.9% of the sample is less than 25 years old.20.2% o f the sample is between 2. -3. years old. 21.2% of the sample are between 36-45years old and finally 18.7% of the sample are more than 45 years old. The above table also shows that males wer e more than females. They were (294) with a (72.4%). females were (112) with a (27.6%) perce nt. With respect to educational level table shows that High school was (11.6%). Diploma w ere (%20) Bachelor were (43.3%) percent, high studies were (%25.1), while with respect to income table shows that Income Less than 300 were (23.6%). 300-500 were (%32) 501-1000 were ( 39.7%) percent, More than 1000 were (%4.7) . 428

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 2: Means and Standard Deviations for sample's responses toward demarketing strategy and it effect on reducing smoking in Jordan N0. Statement Mean S. Deviation 1. Producing cigarettes alternatives such as Nicotine chewing 3.867. 1.3688. 2. Cigarettes advertisement should be in certain periods 3.709. 1.2840. 3. Linking cigarettes price with Nicotine percent 3.761. 1.1736. 4. Production of unified packing for cigarettes types 3.822. 1.0923. 5. Cigarette distribution in certain areas 3.775. 1.1359. 6. Establishing health seminars, and bangles regarding smoking hazards 3.623. 1.1898. 7. Preventing smoking in public places, working , and governmental department 3.500. 1.1149. 8. Special advertisement for teen ages regarding smoking hazards 4.029. 1.0057. 9. Placing advices and warning on the packet regarding smoking effect 4.061. 1.0812. 10. Preventing cigarettes distribution in closed areas 3.559. 1.5839. 11. Advertisements restriction in certain places 3.536. 1.5258. 12. Reducing number of cigarettes inside the single box 3.625. 1.2853. 13. Reducing Nicotine percentage in the cigarettes 3.642. 1.2969. 14. Increasing cigarette prices through increasing the tax percent 3.694. 1.1156. 15. Preventing cigarettes samples distribution 3.803. 1.2072. 16. Preventing selling single cigarettes or in small packet 3.729. 1.2234. Total 3.733. 0.6362. Table above indicates that means of sample's responses ranged from (3.50-4.06).A ll means are more than the virtual mean ( 3), this means that sample's respondents agrees on all statements

regarding the impact of demarketing strategies on tobacco consumption. Table (2) indicates that placing advices and warning on the packet regarding smoking effect was the main factor used in demarketing for reducing tobacco consumption with a mean ( 4.0616). The total mean also reflects that there are positive attitudes on the effect of demarketing strategi es on tobacco consumption. Hypothesis Test 1-H1: There are no significant differences in demarketing strategy impact on smo king due to smokers' age. Table 3: Test of hypothesis (1) Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig Between groups 1.74. . 0.58. 1.44. 0.23. Within Groups 162.20. 40. 0.40. Total 163.95. 40. One way ANOVA was used to test above hypothesis and it was found that a calculat ed value of (F ) is not significant at (0.05) level. This means that null is accepted, which means that There are no significant differences in demarketing strategy impact on smoking due to smok ers' age 2-H2: There are no significant differences in demarketing strategy impact on smo king due to smokers' gender. 429

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 4: Test of hypothesis (2) t calculated t Sig Mean of Mean of males females -3.752 0.000** 3.6648 3.9152 ** Significant at (0.01) level T test for independent sample was used to test above hypothesis and it was found that a calculated value of (t ) is significant at (0.01) level. This means that null is rejected, which means that there are significant differences in demarketing strategy impact on s moking due to smokers' gender. And this effect increase in the female sample more than male s 3-H3: There are no significant differences in demarketing strategy impact on smo king due to smokers' educational level. Table 5: Test of hypothesis (3) Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig Between groups 7.40. . 2.46. 6.33. **0.00. Within Groups 156.55. 40. 0.38. Total 163.95. 40. ** Significant at (0.01) level One way ANOVA was used to test above hypothesis and it was found that a calculat ed value of (F ) is significant at (0.01) level. This means that null is rejected and the al ternative is accepted, which means that there are significant differences in demarketing strategy impac t on smoking due to smokers' education level. And by using scheffe test this effect increases in the Bachelor degree holders more than others. 4-H4: There are no significant differences in demarketing strategy impact on smo king due to smokers' income. Table 6: Test of hypothesis (4) Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig

Between groups 3.83. . 1.27. 3.20. 0.023* Within Groups 160.11. 40. 0.39. Total 163.95. 40. * Significant at (0.05) level One way ANOVA was used to test above hypothesis and it was found that a calculat ed value of (F ) is significant at (0.05) level. This means that null is rejected and the al ternative is accepted, which means that there are significant differences in demarketing strategy impac t on smoking due to smokers' income And by using scheffe test this effect increases in the sa mple of high level of income (More than 1000JD) more than others. Results and recommendations Based on the above analysis, the research results indicate that demarketing stra tegy does affect smoking in Jordan, since all demarketing mix elements that are used are reducing smoking consumption, taking in consideration that Jordan government is attempting to red uce smoking through many regulations. Moreover, results indicate that there are no significa nt differences in demarketing strategy impact on smoking due to smokers' age; gender, educational level, and 430

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications income. The study suggests that Jordan government can help in this issue by prev enting any kind of tobacco promotion, and tobacco manufacturers should comply with ministry of health regulation by indicated hazards that smoker can face, in addition to restrict sm oking in many public places. References: Beeton, S. and Pinge, I. (2003), Casting the holiday dice: demarketing gambling t o encourage local tourism , Current Issues in Tourism, Vol. 6 No. 4, pp. 309-22. Edward Shiu,, Louise M. Hassan, Gianfranco Walsh (2009 ), Demarketing tobacco th rough governmental policies The 4Ps revisited, Journal of Business Research 62 pp269 278 Inness, M., Barling, J., Rogers, K. and Turner, N. (2008), De-marketing tobacco t hrough pricechanges and consumer attempts quit smoking , Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 77 No. 4, pp. 405-16. Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G., (2007). Marketing: an introduction. 8th ed. New Jers ey: Pearson Prentice Hall Kotler, Philip,& Sidney Levy. (2001). "Demarketing, Yes, Demarketing," Harvard B usiness Review ROBERT S. MOORE (2005), Impact of Attitudes toward Smoking: Secondary Effects of the Demarketing of Smoking, the Journal of Social Psychology, the Sociological, 145(6), 703 718 Malhotra, N. K. (2004), Marketing research, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Wall, A. P. (2007) Government Demarketing as Viewed by its Target Audience Marketin g Intelligence and Planning, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp 123-135 Websites: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/demarketing.html.2007 431

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Innovativeness in SMEs: Exploring the role of Marketing Innovation

Elpida Samara University of Western Macedonia, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mater Lab , Kozani, Greece University of Western Macedonia, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mater Lab , Kozani, Greece University of Western Macedonia, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mater Lab , Kozani, Greece Abstract New products are clearly the keys to corporate prosperity. Innovation by it self can not make businesses blossom since market success is a dynamic and complex process. The im portance of marketing in the innovation process is crucial. Marketing innovation is a broad concept involved in a firm's propensity to innovate. More over, a significant line of research ar gues that cities and regions function as incubators of creativity and innovation. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the distinct role of marketing innovation as a component of innovativ eness. Data was collected using the CIS (Community Innovation Survey) 4 questionnaires and metho dology (2008). The survey was directed to SMEs business managers / entrepreneurs in the Greek region of Western Macedonia. Questionnaires included both open-ended and closed questio ns. The survey s descriptive statistics were generated by the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. Findings suggest that marketing innovation is developed in companies in We stern Macedonia and managers / entrepreneurs are largely aware of its significance bel ieving that it interacts in the development of their business. This study contributes to the ma rketing innovation literature. Grounded in the resource-based view of strategy and organ izational capability theory, this study views marketing innovation as a key resource and c apability that SMEs can use to manage their environment and perform product innovation. Keywords: Innovation marketing, innovativeness, SMEs

Introduction Innovation has been recognized as an important driver of economic growth. Studie s have found that entrepreneurship and innovation are positively related to each other and in teract to help an organization to flourish (Zhao, 2005; Flynn et al., 2003). More over, a signific ant line of research argues that cities and regions function as incubators of creativity and innovati on (Lee et al., 2002 & 2004; Thomson, 1965; Park et al., 1925). Regions are considered to play a cruc ial role in the European Research Area, because they bring policy measures close to the citizens , thereby following the subsidiary principle, and because they bridge the EU level and the local level (CEC, 2001 a, b). In particular, the European Community aims at stimulating innovative enterprises and the relationships within regional innovation networks. Regions can differ su bstantially with respect to their industrial specialization, their connectedness with the nationa l and global level and in particular with respect to their potential to face national and global co mpetition. Therefore, policy measures are best adapted to the region at hand (Sarri et al., 2010) Industrial companies innovate primarily by introducing new products in the marke t and innovating is a way of scoring points against competition. Nevertheless, innovat ion on its own 432

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications can not make a businesses blossom since market success and development is a dyna mic and complex process (Workman, 1993). This paper seeks to examine marketing innovation in a Greek region, the region o f Western Macedonia. Between late 2007 and the second quarter of 2009, the global economy slid deeper and deeper in the midst of an economic crisis. The literature on economic crises highlights the need for better management (Champion, 1999; Goad, 1999) as a survival mechanism. Most of the times marketing innovation can provide a company with quick fix innovative s olutions emphasizing low-risk product modifications, extensions and design changes (Benne tt & Cooper, 1979; 1981). For companies operating in the grips of the current economic crisis , marketing innovation can present an attractive strategy (given its relative affordability) to attempt reversing the flow of declining sales. The logic of marketing innovation emphasi zes sales growth by shifting consumer demand from elastic to more inelastic market segments throu gh the delivery of better value to the consumer (Bennett & Cooper, 1979, 1981; Hurley & Hult, 1998). In this paper first an overview of the current literature is presented and then the conceptual framework is being developed followed by a discussion of research methodology. U sing data from 37 SMEs of a Greek region, this study explores sources and capabilities of their marketing innovation. Finally it concludes with a discussion of the observed findings. Theoretical framework The term "Knowledge-based economy" was created to describe the trend in advanced economies to increasingly depend on knowledge, information and high level skill as well as the increasing need for immediate access to all of the above (OECD, 1996). In a knowledge based economy, innovation is at the forefront (Sarri et al., 2010 ) however, until recently, the complex processes of innovation had not been sufficiently understo od. Nevertheless, for several years now a greater degree of understanding has been a chieved, thanks largely to research (Stoneman, 1995; Rothwell, 1994b; Freeman, 1994). Thi s confirms in a macroscopic level that innovation is a dominant factor in national economic deve lopment and international trade standards, while at the microscopic level (within companies) , R&D (Research & Development) seems to be increasing the ability for firms to absorb and use an y kind of new knowledge, not just technological. The role of innovation as a vital driving force of economic development has been acknowledged

widely. In particular, within the business setting, innovation is often consider ed to be a crucial source of strategic change, by which a firm generates positive outcomes includin g sustained competitive advantage (Damanpour, 1992). Innovation, at an aggregate level, repr esents the successful exploitation of ideas that are new to an adopting organization, into profitable products, processes and / or services (Damanpour, 1992; Johannessen, Olsen, & Lu mpkin, 2001). The list of innovation taxonomies is really broad. It starts from architectural, modular, improving and evolutionary innovations, to radical, incremental, really new, discontinuous and imitative innovations (Garcia & Calantone, 2002). In the literature the two categories of radical and incremental innovations are referred as the most embedded taxonomies (Chandy & T ellis, 2000; Henderson & Clark, 1990; Myers & Tucker, 1989). Radical innovation refers to maj or changes in technology / knowledge that stem from the discovery of something new, while incr emental innovations are major advances to an established technology / knowledge (Garcia & Calantone, 2002). In the marketing literature, marketing innovation has been positioned as a type of incremental innovation (Grewal & Tansuhaj, 2001). Moreover, in the academic busi ness literature, marketing innovation has been the subject of sparse scrutiny (August o & Coelho, 2009). 433

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications There are essentially four types of innovation as identified in the Oslo Manual for measuring innovation: product innovation; process innovation; marketing innovation and org anizational innovation. . Product Innovation, which involves a good or service that is new or significantl y improved. This includes significant improvements in technical specifications, co mponents and materials, incorporated software, user friendliness or other functional characte ristics. In the education sector, a product innovation can be a new or significantly improved cu rriculum, a new educational software, etc. . Process Innovation, involves a new or significantly improved production or deliv ery method. This includes significant changes in techniques, equipment and / or soft ware. In education, this can for example be a new or significantly improved pedagogy. . Marketing Innovation, involves a new marketing method engaging significant chang es in product design or packaging, product placement, product promotion or pricing. In education, this can for example be a new way of pricing the education service or a new admi ssion strategy. . Organizational Innovation, involves introducing a new organizational method in t he firm's business practices, workplace organization or external relations. In educ ation, this can for example be a new way organization of work between teachers, or organizational ch anges in the administrative area. Collecting quantitative data requires a framework, explicit or not, enabling the ir organizing and understanding. This requires some knowledge about the nature of the object to th e basic features and what is important and what is not. There are three main categories of factors related primarily to innovation and f ocus on: . the enterprises, . the scientific and technological institutions, . issues of transport and absorption of technology, knowledge and skills. Moreover, the range of opportunities for innovation is influenced by a fourth se t of factors, the overall environment as represented by institutions, legal regulations, macro-eco nomic arrangements and other circumstances beyond any concept of innovation. These fou r broad categories (or areas) of factors relating to innovation can be presented in a di agram (see Figure

1), highlighting the areas for which there could be an increase in innovation of enterprises through policy interventions, or the factors to be considered when policy initia tives are formed. This is a way to present the scene in a generalized framework of innovation. Alt hough related literature focuses on national systems, it is also clear that in many cases, suc h considerations can be applied locally or transnationally. 434

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Figure 1. The innovation policy terrain. Source: OECD (1997b) The summing chart (Bryant, 1996) of Figure 1, is mapping the above four broad ca tegories for the setting of policy innovation which is being defined by: . Framework conditions of national institutional and structural factors (e.g. lega l, financial and educational), which define the rules and the range of opportunities for inno vation. . Science and engineering base that is the knowledge infrastructure and the scient ific and technological institutions that support business innovation, providing for examp le, technology education and scientific knowledge. . Transfer factors strongly influencing the effectiveness of the interface and the flow of information and skills, as well as the absorption of education essential factors of business innovation. The nature of these factors, which may be represented by individuals , is determined largely by social and cultural characteristics of the population. . Innovation dynamo, refers to the main innovation of enterprises covering the dyn amic factors (internal or external) and directly affecting the ability to innovate For the purpose of this paper we focus on the "Innovation Dynamo" framework, a c omplicated system of conditions determining innovativeness on a business level in the regio n of Western Macedonia. Placing innovation generator in the center of the diagram (see Figure 1) means recognition of the importance of the role of business in an innovative economy. It is therefore important to understand the characteristics that distinguish firms as more or le ss innovative and how innovation is generated in companies. The tendency for a firm to innovate de pends of course on the opportunities presented in the technology field. Businesses, howev er, differ in their ability to recognize and take advantage of technological opportunities: fo r a business to innovate it should have a picture of what these opportunities are, to define a r elevant strategy and have the ability to transform these stimuli into real innovation -all in les s time than its competitors. For a survey to simply make do with the above, would guide to misleading conclus ions. Indeed, many technological opportunities do not appear alone, but are generated by the c ompanies themselves in order to meet a specific strategic goal, for example, to satisfy a n already

435

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications established market requirement. In other words, the ability to innovate on the o ne hand is being consisted of a series of factors that a business may or may not have and on the other hand from effective ways of combining these factors. The technological capability of a company is partly built into its workforce. Th e existence of qualified employees, without which the company can not control the new technolog ies, consists an important advantage. Also, apart from researchers, who must exist, the compan y also needs engineers able to manage manufacturing processes, a sales force capable of under standing the technology (both to achieve sales and to transfer to the business customers stions), and sugge

general managers informed on technology issues etc. The ability to innovate depends also on the firm s characteristics, namely the org anization of the labor force, the infrastructure, the economic structure, the market strategy, co mpetitors, collaborations with other firms or universities, but mainly from the internal or ganization of the company. Of course, many of these are interdependent. For example, a certain kin d of exploitation of the employees skills will need to comply with a certain strategy, specific financial structure, goals etc. The options for a company willing to innovate, that is to change its technologic al advantages, capabilities and production capacities can fall within the following three categ ories: strategic options, options on R&D and options independent from R&D. Strategic choices: Decisions (explicit or not) a company needs to make regarding the type of markets it addresses or will try to create, and the type of innovations which will attempt to introduce, consist an indispensable basis for any innovation activity. Options related to R&D: Some options are associated with R&D, according to the interpretation of the term provided in the Frascati Manual (OECD, 2002) (includi ng experimental development, apart from basic and applied research). More specifically, the comp any may: o undertake fundamental research to foster knowledge on fundamental processes re lated to products, engage in strategic research (ie research with industrial relevance , but without specific practical application) in order to broaden the range of applied project s that can undertake or in applied research aiming to produce specific inventions or modifi cation of existing techniques,

o develop ideas for products to examine whether these are feasible and viable, a stage that includes: i) Original design, ii) development and testing, iii) further research on the mo dification of design or technical functions, Options relevant with R&D: The company may get engaged in activities not directl y related to R&D or not defined as R&D, but play an important role for innovation and business performance. In this context, the company may: -identify new technologies and product ideas: i) Using marketing and relations with customers, ii) identifying opportunities f or commercialization resulting from strategic research, company s own or not, iii) us ing its capabilities to design and implement, iv) monitoring of competitors, v) using pe er counsellors. o create facilities for the pilot and subsequent large-scale production, o purchase technical information, paying fees or royalties for already patented inventions (the adaptation and modification of which usually requires further research and technology), or purchase expertise and skills from expert consultants on design and technology, o develop (through staff training) or purchase (through leasing) human skills as sociated with the production, which may include a tacit and informal learning based on the practice of investing in equipment or intermediate inputs, integrating foreign innovations, a process that can refer to components, machines or entire plants, 436

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications o re-organize the management and the overall production system and its methods, which include new types of inventory management and quality control as well as continu ous quality improvement. To date there have been several attempts to create models that explain how innov ation arises in business and how it is affected by events occurring outside the company. The Chai n Link Model of Kline and Rosenberg (1986) presented below (Figure 2), represents a usef ul approach. Figure 2. The Chain-Link Model, Source: Kline, SJ & N. Rosenberg (1986), op.cit. , Page 289-291. The Chain-Link model gives a theoretical definition of innovation as an interact ion between market opportunities and the combination of capabilities and knowledge base of t he business entity. Each of these broad functions specified by the model contains a number o f sub-processes whose results are not predictable -so the trend does not follow a simple path: t o overcome the difficulties that arise during the development, there is often need to resort to previous stages, which means that there is a need for feedback at any point in the process. The e xtent to which a company manages to maintain effective liaison between the phases of the innovati on process is the key to determining whether an innovation project is successful or not. For e xample, the model emphasizes the central importance of continuous interaction between market ing and design and planning stage (Freeman, 1982; Hansen et al., 1984). According to the Chain-Link model, research is not considered as a source of inn ovative ideas, but a way of solving problems, which can be invoked at any time. If, as expected , problems arise during an innovation process, the company looks back at the background knowledge available at that particular time, which consists of the experience, technique, practice, and results of previous investigations. The research system undertakes the settlement of diffic ulties that can not be solved within the existing knowledge base, and if runs successfully, it e xtends it. Rothwell (1994a) presents a number of other approaches to modeling. Among other he presents parallel models with high levels of functional integration, of which he suggests expansion to "fifth generation" models or models of System Integration and Netwo rking (SIN) to cover the case of a change in the technologies through which technological chang e itself is passed. In this article, our aim is not to present any particular innovation model as de

finitive, especially since there are important questions that remain on all the available models. But we must emphasize one key point: innovation is a complex and multifaceted activity whose parts are in constant interaction, which should be reflected in data sources. Methodology 437

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The authors conducted a case study research based on the CIS 4 questionnaire con cept in one Greek region, the Region of Western Macedonia. The case study describes one of t he four forms of innovation in the region, namely, marketing innovation. To conduct the sample of the analytical research we followed two approaches. Fir st, the empirical, based on the project team s years of knowledge about entrepreneurship i n the region of West Macedonia, industries and businesses with excellence and, second, on the basis of information obtained from a telephone survey. With regard to the first approach, the project team knew for sure the companies which, undoubtedly, innovate and typically indicate very good economic performance and a high index of openness. So a large number of companies were added to the original sample th at was created through a random sampling process. There for the sampling process was no t purely random. Telephone surveying was used as a method to gather information in the fi rst place followed by face-to-face interviews. From the analysis of the data gathered through telephone and face-to-face interv iews the following key point areas were assessed: the number of workers, usually very was small since usually small companies in t erms of employees very rarely innovate, existing or non existing R&D, since such existence stresses innovative policy an d technological development orientation, high proportion of workers tertiary education as a prerequisite for the minimum sufficient level of human resources to manage the innovation process, existence of minimum "digital compliance" with the use of computers and internet , since today no business operates without them not to mention an innovative busin ess, to date and future intended introduction of a new product, service, technology o r organizational innovation, as it highlights an innovative orientation that may h ave existed or has sound foundation for it to grow in the foreseeable future, geographical markets for its products -services, since typically only companies with a supra-range (at least by national and especially international scope) develop or use extensively organizational and technological innovations. The effort to use a multi-criteria evaluation for each criterion (question), was assessed as inelastic in the sense that it removes the value of empirical knowledge on entre preneurship and entrepreneurial activity in the region and instead the empirical and synthetic a nalysis was

preferred, taking into account each and every single criteria -questions with sp ecial reference to the ones highlighted above. This survey was based on the CIS 4 questionnaire 2008 which collects information about product and process innovation as well as organizational and marketing innovation. All e nterprises must respond to all questions. Specifically included the following eleven sections of questions: General information about the company, organizational innovation investigation, marketing innovation investigation, innovation process investigation of, innovative produc ts and services investigation, exploring abandoned innovation activities, exploring activities ( internal, external, etc.) and expenditure related to innovation, inventory information sources and c ollaborative innovation activities, explore the impact -the extent of innovation outcomes, re cording of the factors hampering innovation activities, investigation of requests vesting copyr ight. The CIS 4 mainly provides information on the innovation activities of enterprise s in the EU. One of the goals by the European Union was to raise overall research investment in t he EU from 1,9% of GDP to approaching 3% by 2010. Based on this, in March 2005 the European Coun cil decided to relaunch the Lisbon Strategy with the initiative on growth and jobs. Results and discussion 438

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The authors conducted a case study based on the CIS 4 questionnaire concept in o ne Greek region, the Region of Western Macedonia. The case study describes the sources an d capabilities of marketing innovation of the SMEs of the region. In Western Macedonia, the organizations that can support the regional innovation system are the Western Macedonia Development Agency (ANKO SA), the University of Western Ma cedonia (UOWM) and the Technological Educational Institute (TEI), which has set-up the W estern Macedonia Research Institute. The region s economy is based heavily on the seconda ry sector (Table 1) due to the mining activities, the production of electric power (70% of country s total power is produced in the Region) and the fur-leather sector. Table 1. Western Macedonia GDP and Employment by sector of activity (Source: Gen eral Secretary of Research and Technology), Source: Samara et al., 2010) Regional GDP Employment Primary sector 13.4% 23.5% Secondary sector 47.5% 32.9% Tertiary sector 39.1% 43.6% The concept of innovation is fairly new to the region. The five major strategic priorities for innovation in the region have been developed through the RIS program in 1998. Re gional Innovation Strategy (RIS) programme has been the first attempt to the developmen t of innovation strategies and policies in the region. The next step, RIS+ program ai med to strengthen the regional innovation process, through the implementation of the St rategic Plan for Innovation, developed during the RIS exercise. The RIS+ programme translated the theoretical analysis of RIS into an applied programme, in which specific and concrete action s have been developed. The innovative actions program, named Knowledge clusters in Western Ma cedonia (K-clusters) for the region of Western Macedonia, continued focusing on the prom otion of innovation management, the development of a virtual technopolis, a regional inno vation observatory and finally on the achievement of a regional enterprise benchmarking . During the 3rd Community Support Programme GSRT introduced a special action for the creatio n of spin-off companies called e Capitalist PRAXE . In parallel to PRAXE, an action for the creation of Ventur

was found by 50%, through the New Economy Development Fund (TANEO) in accordance with Law 2992/2002, creating eleven VC companies (AKES,THERMI,IBG,ATTICA VENTURES, AX ON, ALPHA VENTURES, OXYGEN NEOVENTURES, GIVE, PIRAEUS, NEW MELLON, TANEO FG RES FUND ) a total new activity for the Greek financial system (Samara et al., 2010). A str ong point through the implementation of these programmes has been the strengthening of relations i nteractions between the actors of the regional innovation system and to foster innovation in the SME s of the region. Despite the fact that it is a small region in terms of surface and p opulation and one could expect a spirit of solidarity, this did not occur until these programmes c ame into the picture. But still, there is a lack of innovative activities as it is shown by t he research conducted in this article. Conducting analytical research has produced so far 37 completed questionnaires. The minimum number for a sample survey is 30(.p...e. ......af.a ..a a.t.), so the number of questionnaires collected is regarded as statistically adequate for the initial f indings. However, data collection continues to reach 60 to 80 questionnaires for further statistic al analysis and more condensed conclusions to be withdrawn. In this article we present the results related to the exploration of innovative marketing in the region of Western Macedonia. For the investigation of marketing innovation we co nstructed five questions based on the CIS questionnaire as shown below in the graphs. 439

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications In terms of innovation marketing, two out of three companies surveyed implemente d significant changes in product design or service, as well as strategies to attract new custo mer groups, or new market shares, and finally used new distribution channels. Also an important percentage (50%) made use of new technologies or techniques to showcase their products, and implemented new ideas for the positioning and presentation of their products in stores. Figure 3: Marketing innovations As to who helped them develop marketing innovation most of the firms answered th ey did it themselves or in cooperation with other companies and organizations. 440

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Figure 4: Sources of marketing innovations As major outcomes from implementing marketing innovation in terms of priority co mpanies reported sales increase, increase in product recognition, and the strengthening in their relationship with customers, followed by improved customer satisfaction and fina lly placement of their products or services in new markets. Figure 5: Effects of marketing innovations Below we show the importance of the different marketing actions in implementing innovative projects for the companies in the last three years. More specifically maintainin g close relations between the marketing department and the departments or groups of workers involv ed in implementing any kind of innovation, as well as the systematic analysis / evalua tion of the effectiveness of marketing techniques applied, were characterized as of main imp ortance. Whilst a significant proportion of firms characterized the systematic analysis of custo mers needs by the marketing department of the company, as of moderate importance. 441

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Figure 6: Market-related activities The answers to the last question indicate the relationship between marketing inn ovation and product innovation. More specifically, as a significant proportion of firms resp onded that some of these marketing innovations were part of an overall plan of production and ma rketing innovation of a new product (for example a change in design was an important par t of a technological innovation or a new method of marketing was part of an production innovation, and that some of these marketing innovations were necessary to complete the intr oduction of an innovative product in the market. 442

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Figure 7: Marketing-product innovations Conclusions This paper has been motivated by a need to improve our understanding in marketin g innovations. Using the CIS 4 questionnaire to a sample of SMEs, this study has s ought to investigate the sources and capabilities of innovation marketing at the SMEs of a Greek region. Particularly, focusing exclusively on marketing innovation as a form of incremen tal innovation, this study has examined five basic sections about marketing innovation, namely m arketing innovation introductions, sources of marketing innovations, effects of marketing innovations, importance of market-related activities and relationship between product-marketi ng innovations. The key findings emerged are: . Two out of three companies surveyed have implemented marketing innovations (in a ll four forms, design, promotion, placement, pricing). . The basic source for marketing innovations were the enterprises themselves toget her with other enterprises in the region. . The basic effects by implementing marketing innovations were sales increase, inc rease in product recognition and brand name, and the strengthening in their relationsh ip with customers, with a really high percentage. . Maintaining close relations between the marketing department and the departments or groups of workers involved in implementing any kind of innovation, as well as th e systematic analysis / evaluation of the effectiveness of marketing techniques applied, were characterized as of main importance in implementing innovative projects for the companies. . Finally, a great proportion of firms responded for the positive relationship bet ween product and marketing innovations. This article has aimed to make one important contribution. In the literature we find a lot of wellestablished studies exploring innovation as a driver of performance and competitive advantag e (e.g. Butler, 1988, Lengick-Hall, 1992; Porter & Stern, 2001). However, the role of marketing innovation in the innovation process has received less scrutiny (Han et al., 199 8; Hurley & Hult, 1998; Lukas & Ferrell, 2000). This study adds to the marketing innovation litera ture. Grounded in

the resource-based view of strategy and organizational capability theory, this s tudy views 443

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications marketing innovation as a key resource and capability that SMEs can use to manag e their environment and perform product innovations. References Augusto, M., & Coelho, F. (2009). Market orientation and new-to-the-world produc ts: Exploring the moderating effects of innovativeness, competitive strength and environmental forces. Indust rial Marketing Management, 38, 94-108. Bennett, RC, & Cooper, RG (1979). Beyond the marketing concept. Business Horizon s, 22(3), 76-83. Bennett, RC, & Cooper, RG (1981). The misuse of marketing: An American tragedy. Business Horizons, 24(6), 51-61. Bryant K., Department of Industry, Science and Technology (1996). Australian Bus iness Innovation: A Strategic Analysis Measures of Science and Innovation 5, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra. Butler, J. E. (1988). Theories of technological innovation as useful tools for c orporate strategy. Strategic Management Journal, 5(1), 15-29. CEC (2001a): The Regional Dimension of the European Research Area, October, mime o: Commission of the European Communities, Brussels. CEC (2001b): The Regions and the New Economy. Guidelines for Innovative Actions. Under the ERDF in 2000-2006, January, mimeo: Commission of the European Communities, Brussels. Champion, D. (1999, March/April). The Asian crisis: The price of under-managemen t. Harvard Business Review, 77, 14-15. Chandy, RK, & Tellis, GJ (2000). The incumbents curse: Incumbency, size and radi cal product innovation. Journal of Marketing, 64, 1-17. CIS (Community Innovation Statistics), (2008). From today's Community Innovation Surveys to better surveys tomorrow. Damanpour, F. (1992). Organizational size and innovation. Organizational Studies , 13(3), 375-402. Flynn, M., Doodley, L., Cormican, K. (2003). Idea Management for Organizational Innovation. International Journal of Innovation Management, Vol.7, No.4. Freeman, C. (1982). The Economics of Industrial Innovation, 2nd edition, Pinter, London, Chapter 5: Success and Failure in Industrial Innovation . Freeman, C. (1994), .t. The Economics of Technical Change , Cambridge Journal of Ec

onomics, 18 (5), .e.. 463-514. Garcia, R., & Calantone, R. (2002). A critical look at technological innovation typology and innovativeness terminology: A literature review. The Journal of Product Innovation Management, 19, 110-132. Goad, GP (1999, May). Playing by new rules. Far Eastern Economic Review, 162, 38 -40. Grewal, R., & Tansuhaj, P. (2001). Building organizational capabilities for mana ging economic crisis: The role of market orientation and strategic flexibility. Journal of Marketing, 65(2), 67-80. Han, J. K., Kim, N., & Srivastava, R. (1998). Market orientation and organizatio nal performance: Is innovation a missing link? Journal of Marketing, 62(4), 30-45 Hansen, J., A. Lacis, D. Rind, G. Russell, P. Stone, I. Fung, R. Ruedy, and J. L erner, (1984). Climate sensitivity: Analysis of feedback mechanisms. In Climate Processes and Climate Sensitivity, AGU Geophysic al Monograph 29, Maurice Ewing Vol. 5. J.E. Hansen and T. Takahashi, Eds. American Geophysical Union, pp. 130-1 63. Henderson, R., & Clark, K. (1990). Architectural innovation: The reconfiguration of existing product technologies and the failure of established firms. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, 9-30. Hurley, RF, & Hult, TM (1998). Innovation, market orientation, and organizationa l learning: An integration and empirical examination. Journal of Marketing, 62(3), 42-54. Johannessen, J. -A., Olsen, B., & Lumpkin, GT (2001). Innovation as newness: Wha t is new, how new and new to whom? European Journal of Innovation Management, 4(1), 20-31. Kline S., Rosenberg N., 1986, An overview of innovation, in R. Landau, N. Rosenb erg (Eds), National Systems of Innovation . Oxford University Press. Lee, SY, Florida, R., Acs, ZJ, 2004. Creativity and Entrepreneurship: A regional analysis of new firm formation. Regional Studies, Vol. 38.8, pp.879-91. Lee, SY, Florida, R., Gates, G., 2002. Innovation, Human Capital, and Creativity . Software Industry Centre Working Paper, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. Lengick-Hall, C. A. (1992). Innovation and competitive advantage: What we know a nd what we need to learn. Journal of Management, 18(2), 399-429. Lukas, B. A., & Ferrell, O. C. (2000). The effect of market orientation on produ ct innovation. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 28(2), 239-247. Myers, PW, & Tucker, FG (1989). Defining roles for logistics during routine and radical technological innovation. Journal of Academic of Marketing Science, 17(1), 73-82. OECD, 1996. The OECD Jobs Strategy Technology, Productivity and Job Creation, Vo lume 1, Paris. Rothwell, R. (1994a), Successful Industrial Innovation: Success, Strategy, Trends ,

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Communication in a Time of Financial Stringency: Revisiting Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) Lucia Porcu Universidad de Granada, Spain Departamento de Comercializacin e Investigacin de Me rcados Facultad de Ciencias Econmicas y Empresariales, Universidad de Granada, luciapor@ugr.es Salvador del Barrio-Garca Universidad de Granada, Spain Philip J. Kitchen Brock University, Canada and ESC Rennes Business School, France Marketing communication, as the persuasive element between an organization and i ts markets, communicates ideas and seeks to impart particular perceptions of brands, product s and services to stakeholders, customers, and consumers. As Duncan and Moriarty (1998) affirme d, communication is not only generated by marketing activities but is a key element located at the core of organization s functions ( you cannot not communicate ). The variety of promot ional tools available together with the modern-day array of diverse channels can cause wide dissemination of the message. Nonetheless there still remain barriers in achievi ng desired communication synergies. Traditionally, and even today, the literature distinguishes between two types of communication tools: above-(related to mass or conventional media) and below-the-line (related to nonconventional media). Moreover, in recent years, the Internet was first identified as nonconve ntional, but nowadays is considered another conventional media working alongside and often in conjunction with other medias. Hence, today we find the line mentioned ab ove as somewhat irrelevant. Nowadays, dramatic alterations are currently affecting markets, consumers/client s, technologies, media. Among these is the ability to generate, store and manipulat e marketing (i.e. customer and consumer data). These and other phenomena are forcing marketi ng practitioners to change their marketing approaches.In a saturated yet informatio nally enhanced market context, with increasing competition, a new synergistic approach is needed. Since the mid-1990 s, the concept of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) has

come to the fore and attracted considerable attention in the literature. Schultz (1996) in his work titled The Inevitability of Integrated Communications considers that the question of int egration or not is moot (Schultz, 1996, p.139) because in reality, consumers integrate all messag es received from an organization. Schultz and Schultz (1998) consider that technology is dri ving the need and demand for integration of a wide range of activities and functions that infl uence and impact upon dynamic information flows between an organization and its stakeholders. Its main supporters (Schultz, Tannembaum and Lauterborn, 1993; Duncan and Everet t, 1993;Duncan, 2002; Kitchen, 2010; Kitchen and Schultz, 1999, 2000; Schultz, Patt i, and Kitchen, 2011) perceive IMC as a phenomenon that eventually through a series of developme ntal stages has the potential to lead to restructuration of the marketing and communication roles, through the elimination of boundaries between the main areas of marketing communication and between the business units. IMC is first a consumer-oriented perspective and the n represents an alternative that can replace traditional marketing approaches focu sed on transactions to using a relational approach based on communication. 446

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications However, the IMC paradigm is still unclear in terms of its definition and any li mits relating to application, since it is relatively new. Academics and professionals have debate d for over a decade about this concept without reaching a definitive agreement about what it is and what benefits it offers to marketers.The lack of a universally accepted definition is the highest barrier to develop significant tools to measure the degree of IMC implementation and imp act. Indeed, this cannot be measured without specifying what it truly represents within the b usiness, what dimensions form it, and its concomitant affects relative to implementation inter nally and externally. Some authors have observed that IMC is a strategic process associated with brand management (Kitchen, Brignell, Li and Jones, 2004;Kitchen, 2010) and, more specifically, is an integral part of an effective brand equity strategy (Madhaveram, Badrinarayanan and McDonald, 200 5; Schultz, Patti, and Kitchen, 2011). We suggest that successful IMC can potentially make o rganizations more efficient in communicating with target markets, and this in turnmay help th em in achieving significant business and marketing cost-efficiencies, thanks to improved process es and infrastructure which lead to reduced operational costs. As a consequence, the ou tcome is superior financial performance through higher brand equity. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the conceptual debate around IMC and its antecedents and consequences. A new conceptualization of IMC will be proposed to shed light on the current state of play and the role IMC could play in the modern marketing and corporate management. After the identification of IMC dimensionality, we will examine the driving factors and effects of IMC with the aim of setting out a theoretical model about how the IMC process operates.This model is expected to help academics and marketers to understand th e role this new marketing paradigm plays within modern management, in identifying the key va riables that promote or hinder IMC and the benefits derived from its implementation. At the level of business management, identifying the factors that drive the inte gration process may allow managers achieve better administration of resources through the encour agement of practices related to decision-making models, organizational structure, and cross -departmental dynamics. Getting to know elements that positively influence IMC and those which , in turn, hinder implementation, help senior managers become aware of weaknesses to be cor rected with the aim of achieving a greater degree of integration in the organizations t hey manage.

References Duncan, T.; Everett, S. E. (1993), Client Perceptions of Integrated Communication s , Journal of Advertising Research, 32 (3): 30-39. Duncan, T. (2002), IMC: Using Advertising and Promotion to Build Brands, New Yor k, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Duncan, T.; Moriarty, S. E. (1998), A Communication-Based Marketing Model for Man aging Relationships , Journal of Marketing, 62 (April): 1-13. Kitchen, P. J.; Brignell, J.; Li, T.; Spickett-Jones, G. (2004), The Emergence of IMC: A Theoretical Perspective , Journal of Advertising Research, Vol.44, March: 19-30. Kitchen, P.J.; Schultz, D. E. (1999), A multi-country comparison of the drive for IMC , Journal of Advertising Research, 39 (1): 21-38. Kitchen, P.J.; Schultz, D. E. (2000), A response to Theoretical Concept or Managem ent Fashion , Journal of Advertising Research, 40 (5): 17-21. Kitchen, P.J. Editor (2010),Integrated Brand Marketing and Measuring Returns, Pa lgrave-Macmillan, Basingstoke. Madhaveram, S.; Badrinarayanan, V. and McDonald, R. E. (2005). ng Communication (IMC) and Integrated Marketi

Brand Identity as Critical Components of Brand Equity Strategy , Journal of Advert ising, 34 (4): 69-80. Schultz, D.E (1996), The inevitability of Integrated Communications , Journal of Bu siness Research, 37: 139-146. Schultz, D. E.; Schultz, H. F. (1998), Transitioning marketing communication into the twenty-first century , Journal of Marketing Communications, 4 (1): 9-26. Schultz, D.E., Patti, C. and Kitchen, P.J. (2011) Editors, Integrated Marketing Communications in the 21st Century, Routledge: London. In press. Schultz, Tannenbaum and Lauterborn (1993), Integrated Marketing Communications. , NTC Business Books, Chicago, IL. 447

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Integrating Human Resource Management into Strategic Political Marketing Evangelia N. Markaki Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Political Science, Greece Robert P. Ormrod* Aarhus University, School of Economics and Business, Denmark rormrod@econ.au.dk Theodoros Chatzipantelis Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Political Science, Greece Political marketing has developed concepts and tools from various areas of comme rcial marketing to have explanatory power in the political context, but to date there have been few attempts to include a Human Resource Management (HRM) perspective in research. T hus, the motivation for the current working paper is to address this dearth. To do this i t is first necessary to discuss the existing literature on strategic political postures (SPP; Hennebe rg 2006) and political market orientation (PMO; Ormrod 2005; Ormrod and Savigny forthcoming), and how these two concepts can be juxtaposed to form an integrated concept of political marketing strategy (Ormrod and Henneberg 2010). Following this we develop four HRM practic es from the commercial literature to sensitize these to the idiosyncracies of the political context. These key HRM pratices are namely labour relations, HR development and training, performan ce evaluation and rewards. Finally, we apply each of the developed HRM practices to the political marketing strategy concept and demonstrate that they possess both desciptive and disciminatory power in the context of political parties. SPP s can be explained on two continua, namely Leading and Following (Henneberg 20 06). High levels of leading indicate that the political party focuses its strategy around an offering that has been developed from the opinions of party members, whilst high levels of followi ng indicate that the party derives its offering from the expressed needs and wants of external st akeholders, primarily voters. These continua can be mapped on a two-by-two grid, thus giving four general SPP s that can be adopted. The first of these SPP s is the Convinced Ideologist (CI) . This posture

involves high levels of leading and low levels of following: the party develops its offering based on internal opinions and does not listen to voters. The opposite SPP is the Tact ical Populist (TP); scoring high on following and low on leading, this SPP builds its offering on th e expressed needs and wants of voters at the expense of member opinions. The third SPP is the Rela tionship Builder (RB), a SPP that adopts a pragmatic mixture of developing the party offe ring from member opinions whilst taking into consideration the needs and wants of society in general. The final SPP is the Political Lightweight (PL), a SPP that is characterised by low levels of both leading and following, that is, it neither has a well-developed offering nor has organis ational processes in place to uncover and respond to voter needs and wants. Ormrod and Henneberg ( 2010) do not consider this to be a viable SPP and as such it will not form part of our di scussion. The conceptual model of PMO includes a set of constructs that represent the part y orientation towards specific groups of stakeholders in society, for example, voters, citizen s, the media and competing parties (Ormrod 2005). In addition to this, the PMO model also include s four constructs that map the member behaviours that help or hinder information from t he various stakeholders to be utilised in the offering development process: Information Gen eration, Information Dissemination, Member Participation and Consistent Strategy Implemen tation. The 448

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications relationships between each of the stakeholder orientations and the behavioural c onstructs can be juxtaposed onto the viable SPP s, thus presenting three , for a PMO profiles . For example

party adopting a CI posture will concentrate on listening and responding to the needs and wants of party members and selected external stakeholders that have a affinity with th e party; on the other hand, a party adopting a TP posture will focus on voters and the media ins tead. Finally, a party adopting a RB posture will attempt to uncover the needs and wants of the m ajority of stakeholders but will balance external and internal stakeholder opinions when de veloping the offering. The field of HRM encompasses a set of practices and methods that are focused on the individuals who are part of the organisational environment (Urlich 1997). It has long been accepted that commercial and political organisations are fundamentally non-isomo rphic (e.g., Lock and Harris 1996) and therefore we must develop those tools and practices th at comprise HRM to be contextually sensite to the political sphere. We focus our attention o n the four main HRM practices that influence the evolution of members of the party organisation, specifically labour relations, development and training, performance evaluation and rewards. In political parties, these four practices focus on the social context (e.g., inclusion of pa rty members in the offering development process), refer to the nurturing of skills and competencies within the party organisation (e.g., ideological socialisation, training for participation in leg islative bodies), enable the results of activities to be made explicit and evaluated (e.g., held to accou nt by members of the candidate s local organisation) and provide rewards (e.g., reselection of the candidate). We argue that the three PMO profiles have distinct HRM characteristics that can help inform political managers of the most resource-efficient way of structuring the party s H RM practices and methods. For example, the TP prioritises electoral victory as the primary de liverable and so the evaluation of a member s performance can be based on reelection (for a candida te) or the success of support activities (for volunteers); the CI, on the other hand, focus es resources on organisational processes that support member inclusion in the offering developme nt process, with regard to both the breadth and depth of discussion.

References Henneberg, S. C. (2006a), Leading or Following? A Theoretical Analysis of Politic al Marketing Postures , Journal of Political Marketing, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 29-46. Lock, A. and Harris, P. (1996), Political Marketing urnal of Marketing, Vol. 30, No. 10/11, pp. 14-24. Ormrod, R. P. (2005), A Conceptual Model of Political Market Orientation , Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing, Vol. 14, No. 1/2, pp. 47-64. Ormrod, Robert P. and Stephan C. Henneberg (2010) Strategic Political Postures an d Political Market Orientation: Towards an Integrated Concept of Political Marketing Strategy , Journ al of Political Marketing. Ormrod and Savigny (forthcoming), Political Market Orientation: A Framework for U nderstanding Relationship Structures in Political Parties , Party Politics Vol. tbc. Urlich, D., (1997) Human recources Champions: the next agenda for adding value a nd delivering results . Harvard Business School Press. 449 Vive la Diffrence! , European Jo

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Effectiveness of Athlete Endorsement Strategies and Generation Y: An Australian Exploration Ivan Buksa Swinburne University of Technology Ann Mitsis Faculty of Business and Enterprise Honours Coordinator Marketing and Internation al Studies Swinburne Universit of Technology, Australia amitsis@swin.edu.au Abstract This paper examines in an Australian context whether athlete endorsement communi cation strategies influence Generation Y s positive word of mouth behaviours. Specificall y it explored whether Generation Y saw athletes as role models and whether this translated int o positive word of mouth behaviours. External influences including gender, English language enculturation and business acumen were also explored. English language enculturation and busin ess acumen influenced positive word of mouth behaviours. It is recommended that Australian marketing practitioners use athlete endorsement strategies as a strategic marketing commun ications tool and consider the aforementioned external influences in the design of effective s trategic marketing communications. Introduction Charbonneau and Garland (2005) and Stevens, Lathrop and Bradish (2003) note the increased trend of athlete endorsement strategies and that these marketing communication s trategies are effective, profitable and valuable for firms. Athlete endorsement strategies are used by some of Australia s most prominent brands including: Uncle Toby s, a food manufacturer, and Ford Australia. Uncle Toby s has used Australian swimming stars Grant Hackett and Kiere n Perkins to promote their products (see: tobyuncle 2008; phlceci 2008); and Ford Australia h as used a mix of Australia s infamous cricketers in their promotions including: Matthew Hayden, And

rew Symonds and Michael Clark (aussiecricket 2008). The advertising and promotion li terature has also confirmed that athletes are paid large sums of money to endorse brands and products (see: Stone, Joseph and Jones 2003; Sukhdial, Aiken and Kahle 2002). What is less comm only discussed within the literature is whether members of Generation Y relate to ath letes as role models and in turn whether they are influenced to engage in positive word of mou th behaviours (Dix, Phau and Pougnet 2010; Bush, Martin and Bush 2004). Generation Y is commonly identified in the extant literature as the birth years of 1977 to 1994 (see: Wolburg and Pokrywczynski 2001; Bush et al. 2004; Kin, Knight and Crutsing er 2009; Cui, Trent, Sullivan and Matiru 2003; Broadbridge, Maxwell and Ogden 2007), are consi dered to be a vital and highly sought after consumer segment in both the developed and develop ing worlds (Braunstein and Zhang 2005; Greene 2003; Cheng 1999; Fam and Merrilees 2000). Ge neration Y currently aged between 16 and 33 years of age as at 2010 is an increasingly impo rtant consumer segment for marketers and firms alike due to this generation s: spending power (Cu i et al. 2003; Stevens et al. 2003; Wolburg and Pokrywczynski 2001); significant size within so cieties in the developed and developing worlds (Braunstein and Zhang 2005; Greene 2003; Cheng 1 999; Fam 450

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications and Merrilees 2000); ability to act as trend setters (Wolburg and Pokrywczynski 2001; Martin and Bush 2000); potential to become lifetime customers (Wolburg and Pokrywczynsk i 2001; Braunstein and Zhang 2005); and have an influential role on parental and family purchase decisions (Neuborne and Kerwin 1999; Zollor 1995). The Generation Y consumer segment in Australia equates to approximately 25.4% or one in four members of the population (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2009). This Australia n generational consumer segment s size is also representative of the Generation Y population in t he USA (Heaney and Gleeson 2008). The Generation Y consumer segment is and continues to be a significant impact on firms globally and on the marketing communication strategi es of products and services. The Generation Y consumer segment possesses different attitudes to wards the value of advertising, and are resistant to corporate efforts and advertising mes sages due to many years of intense marketing exposure when compared to the Generation X and B aby Boomer consumer segments (see: Wolburg and Pokrywczynski 2001; Bagnall 1999; Bus h et al. 2004). Therefore, the identification of effective marketing communication strate gies targeting the Generation Y consumer segment which result in positive word of mouth behavio urs is highly beneficial to firms. Within an Australian setting there is little research explo ring the influence of athlete endorsement strategies as a marketing communications medium on Generatio n Y s intent to engage in positive word of mouth behaviour and whether other character istics like gender, culture and lifestyle could also influence Generation Y s engagement in su ch promoter behaviours. An understanding of other characteristics that influence Generation Y s perceptions of seeing athletes as role models and Generation Y s engagement in positive word o f mouth behaviours is important to firms. This is important to firms as they invest in a thlete endorsement strategies for their products or services targeting Australia s multicultural Gene ration Y consumers specifically, and for the broader global Anglo Saxon enculturated Gene ration Y population more generally. Surprisingly the effectiveness of this marketing stra tegy in the Generation Y consumer segment is under researched.

This study examines members of the Generation Y population in Australia as to wh ether they perceive athletes to be role models and whether this leads to positive word of m outh behaviours towards the endorsed product or service. This study only explores the Generation Y subpopulation and avoids comparing effects of cross sectional comparison issues that have occurred in previous studies (see: Charbonneau and Garland 2005; Stevens et al. 2003; Stone and Jones 2003). Previous studies have found that this relationship between perc eptions of seeing athletes as role models and positive word of mouth behaviours exist (see: Dix et al. 2010; Bush et al. 2004), however these studies did not investigate the effect of other external influences on Generation Y s engagement with athletes as role models, leading to p romoter behaviours like positive word of mouth recommendation. This study explicitly exa mines the external influences of: gender; English language enculturation (that is English language instruction at 5 to 11 years of age); and business acumen (that is enrolment in a higher education business program). There are two research questions explored within th is study: 1) Do Generation Y s gender, English language enculturation and business acumen influence their perceptions of seeing athletes as role models? and 2) Do Generation Y s gender, English language enculturation, business acumen and perceptions of seeing athletes as role models all influence their willingness to engage in positive word-of-mouth behaviours? Literature Review The process by which a person develops consumer related skills, knowledge and at titudes is defined as consumer socialization (see: Ward 1974; Dix et al. 2010; Ozmete 2009) . Ozmete (2009) also notes that consumer socialization can be used as a mechanism to expl ain how individuals become consumers, which builds on Moschis and Churchill s (1978) model ing 451

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications conceptualization of an individual s thought processes and consumer related behavi our. Historically, Ward (1974) suggested that consumer socialization is the process b y which consumer related thought processes and behaviour are developed through interacti on between the consumer and agents, also referred to as socialization agents. Moschis and C hurchill (1978) claimed that socialization agents transmit norms, attitudes, motivations and beh aviours to learners. Building upon the aforementioned consumer socialization literary found ation, Lueg, Ponder, Beatty and Capella (2006) suggest that a socialization agent can be any person or organization directly involved in the socialization process due to the frequency of contact with the individual. Commonly identified influential socialization agents include par ents, teachers, peers, individuals who are only encountered in the mass media and via television viewing (see: Lachance, Beaudoin and Robitaille 2003; Ozmete 2009; Xie and Singh 2007). Within consumer socialization, role models have been identified as an important factor (Bush et al. 2004). Consumer related role models are classified as any individual who is in contact with and can influence a consumer s decisions and actions (Bandura 1977; Clark, Martin and Bush 2001). Parents, teachers and peers are role models (see: Roper and La Niece 2009 ; Xie and Singh 2007; Ozmete 2009). Bandura (1986) and Clark et al. (2001) add that a role model may also be any individual that appears in electronic or print media that has the potential to influence consumer related behaviour and attitudes despite having little or no direct cont act with the consumer. This is also known as a vicarious role model. Vicarious role models ha ve been defined by Chan (2008) as figures or celebrities who gain popularity among individuals t hrough mass media channels. Based on Chan s (2008) definition vicarious role models can includ e celebrity entertainers and elite athletes. Studies conducted by Dix et al. (2010), Bush, B ush, Clark and Bush (2005), Bush et al. (2004), Clark et al. (2001), and Martin and Bush (2000) identified that vicarious role models act as socialization agents especially in Anglo Saxon soci eties including the USA and Australia. Though the extant literature is well developed, there is stil l limited research exploring the influence of vicarious role models on the Generation Y consumer se gment (Bush et al. 2004).

The consumer socialization process results in outcomes , whereby outcomes rning

are the lea

or consumer acquisition of thoughts and behaviours, in other words consumer skil ls (Moschis and Churchill 1978; and Bush et al. 2004). Behavioural intentions are identified as an outcome of socialization (Bush et al. 2004), and is important to marketers as it results in positive and negative behaviour that a consumer may display towards a brand. Examples of posi tive behaviours may include loyalty towards a brand or the engagement in positive wor d of mouth behaviours. Negative behaviours may include engaging in negative word of mouth, product switching or complaint behaviours. Studies in Australia and in the USA (Anglo Sa xon societies) found elite athletes influenced the behavioural intentions of Generation Y (see: Dix et al. 2010; Bush et al. 2004). In an American context Bush et al. (2004) identified that Gen eration Y were influenced by elite celebrity athletes to engage in positive word of mouth behav iour and brand loyalty. These American findings were supported in an Australian setting by Dix et al. (2010) and added that elite celebrity athletes influenced Generation Y s likelihood to engage in switching and complaint behaviour. This study will suggest that perceptions of athletes as role models are associated with positive word of mouth recommendation behaviours. Neal, Quester and Hawkins (2004) argued that socialization process can be modera ted by external influences (demographics, household structure, reference groups, social class and culture). How these external influences shape the relationship between the perce ption of seeing athletes as role models and positive word of mouth behaviour has been under rese arched with gender being the main focus. Using Neal et al. s (2004) classification of external influences, this study specifically explores whether Generation Y s gender, English language encult uration (English language instruction at 5 to 11 years of age) and business acumen (enro lment in a higher education business program) influence perceptions of seeing athletes as r ole models; and 452

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications whether there is any subsequent association with positive word of mouth behaviou rs associated with the endorsed products or services. Another external influence that may mode rate this relationship is gender. Other influences which have not been previously examined in the literature are English language enculturation and business acumen. One way in wh ich English language enculturation could be operationalised is through English language inst ruction during the formative years of education. A plausible way to explore business acumen cou ld be engaging business understanding through enrollment into a higher education business cours e. Gender roles are defined by culture (Neal et al. 2004; Hofstede 1980; Trompenaar s 1993; 1994; House 2004) and in turn gender roles influence the effectiveness of marketing co mmunication strategies. A clear example of this is the traditional gender marketing communic ation strategies of sports and sports related products primarily towards males (Bush et al. 2004; Dix et al. 2010). Female members of the Generation Y consumer group both in the USA and Australia are an emerging market for sports and sports related products (Bush et al. 2004; Bush e t al. 2005; Dix et al. 2010). Male members of Generation Y in America are less likely to engage in positive word of mouth behaviours about a product or brand that is endorsed by their favourite elite celebrity athlete in comparison to their female counterparts; and that females are more in volved in sports than males and just as likely to be sports fans (Bush et al. 2004). In contrast to Bush et al. s (2004) American study, Dix et al. s (2010) Australian study did not support these findings. Dix et al. s (2010) Australian exploration identified that both genders were just as like ly to engage in positive word of mouth recommendation behaviours about a product or brand that i s endorsed by their favourite athlete. Given the contrasting results between the American a nd Australian studies, this paper seeks to further clarify the influences of Generation Y s gend er on their perceptions of seeing athletes as role models and their subsequent engagement in positive word of mouth recommendation behaviours. Though there is disparity in the literature, most studies suggest that male gender is more likely to influence perceptions of seeing athle tes as role models; this finding will inform marketing communication strategies targeting Ge neration Y. Culture, and the enculturation process, is a key factor which influences people s

perceptions and interpretations including consumer behaviour (Kim, Wen and Doh 2010; de Mooij an d Hofstede 2002). Underpinning culture and cultural interpretations is language (Summers an d Volet 2008; Kramsch 1998; Hinkel 1999; Legoherel, Dauce, Hsu and Ranchhold 2009), and so it is anticipated that English language enculturation, English language instruction during the for mative years of education, is likely to influence behavioural intentions like seeing athletes as role models, engagement in positive word of mouth behaviours, and the effectiveness of athlet e endorsement marketing communication strategies. Australian society is characteri zed by the reinforcement of high individuality and goal driven attitudes, tolerance for inn ovation and perceptions of equality between societal levels (Hofstede 1980), and is comparab le to other Anglo-Saxon countries including the USA, UK, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand. Th is in turn suggests that members of Generation Y that have English language enculturation, like residents of Anglo Saxon countries, may be more critical in their evaluations of a brand, as they are exposed to high individuality goal driven attitudes and have tolerance to innova tion and very low tolerance of inequality which is embedded within the Anglo Saxon education t radition (Hofstede, 1980). It is also plausible to suggest that English language encultur ation influences positive word of mouth recommendation behaviours. There is limited research whic h explores the influence of Generation Y s English language enculturation on their perception s of seeing athletes as role models and engagement in positive word of mouth behaviour. Henc e, this study seeks to provide some new insights in this area. Business acumen is the development of core knowledge and skills in business disc ipline areas as attested to by the Group of Eight research intensive universities in Australia ( see: UWA 2010; UNSW 2010; Monash 2010; UQ 2010; UniMelb 2010; UniAde 2010; UniSyd 2010; ANU 201 0). It is conjectured that critical skill development within the business domain is lik ely to influence 453

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Generation Y s perceptions of seeing athletes as role models and engagement in pos itive word of mouth recommendation behaviours. This knowledge of how businesses operate may create a more cynical attitude towards marketing communication strategies. This conjectur e suggests that higher levels of business acumen are likely to negatively influence both pe rceptions of seeing athletes as role models and engagement in positive word of mouth recommen dation behaviours. This study aims to contribute to the literature by providing new insights into t he effectiveness of athlete endorsement communication strategies within an Australian higher educati on Generation Y context and the role the externalities of gender, English language enculturation and business acumen play in this relationship. Table 1 below presents the two re search questions and their operationalization into eight hypotheses. Table 1: Research Questions and Hypotheses Research Question Hypotheses RQ1 RQ2 Do Generation Y s gender, English language enculturation and business acumen influence their perceptions of seeing athletes as role models? Do Generation Y s gender, English language enculturation, business acumen and perceptions of seeing athletes as role models all influence their willingness to engage in positive word-of-mouth behaviours? Methodology H1: Generation Y s gender (male) is positively associated with perceptions of seeing athletes as role models (athlete role model influence) at the zero-order level. Generation Y s English language enculturation and business

acumen is negatively associated with perceptions of seeing athletes as role models (athlete role model influence) at the zero-order level, in turn. H2-3: H4-5: Generation Y s gender (male) and seeing athletes as role models (athlete role model influence) is positively associated with positive word-of-mouth behaviour at the zero-order level, in turn. H6-7: Generation Y s English language enculturation and business acumen is negatively associated with positive word-of-mouth behaviour at the zero-order level, in turn. Generation Y s gender (male), English language enculturation, business acumen, and seeing athletes as role models (athlete H8: role model influence) will each explain unique variation in positive word-of-mouth behaviour. Interviewer administered questionnaires were administered to an opportunity samp le of 250 cross-cultural members of Generation Y higher education students in Melbourne Au stralia. Respondents age ranged from 17 to 31 years of age, with one quarter (25.6%) of th e participants aged 18 years. Almost three quarters (72.3%) of participants were m ale; 81.6% of participants were English language enculturated; and 43.2% of participants were enrolled in a higher education business course (business acumen). Of the 250 participants, 30. 4% were enrolled in life and social sciences course, 17.2% were enrolled in an engineeri ng and industrial sciences course, 8.8% were enrolled in an information and communication technolo gies course, and 0.4% (one student) was enrolled in a design course. Participants within this study came from 24 different countries: Australia (68.4%); India (8%); China (5.2%); Sri Lanka a nd Vietnam (2.4% each respectively); Malaysia (2%); Indonesia and Thailand (1.6% each respectivel y); Iran, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan and the USA (0.8% respectively); and Bangladesh, Canada, F rance, Germany, Hong Kong, Libya, Peru, Poland, South Africa, The Philippines and Turke y (0.4% each respectively). All participants were asked to respond to Bush et al. s (2004) referentially modif ied versions of Rich s (1997) role model influence scale, whereby reference was made to a favourite athlete ; 454

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications and Zeithaml, Berry and Parasuraman s (1996) favourable word of mouth (positive wo rd of mouth) scales by using a 7 point likert scale where 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. Both the athlete role model influence and positive word of mouth scales had good Cronbach s survey. Table 2: Scale Items Scale Scale Items Role Model Influence My favourite athlete 1. Provides a good model for me to follow. 2. Leads by example. 3. Sets a positive example for others to follow. 4. Exhibits the kind of work ethic and behaviour that I try to imitate. 5. Acts as a role model for me. Positive Word of Mouth The opinions of my favourite athlete influence me to 1. Say positive things about products or brands to other people. 2. Recommend products or brands to someone who seeks my advice. 3. Encourage friends or relatives to buy certain products or brands. Results Three correlation analyses were conducted to address research question one: do G eneration Y s gender, English language enculturation and business acumen influence their perce ptions of seeing athletes as role models? Generation Y s gender (male) was positively associ ated with seeing athletes as role models (athlete role model influence), r = 0.237, p<0.01 , see Table 3 below. Hypothesis one was fully supported. Hypothesis three was only partially s upported as Generation Y s business acumen was positively and not negatively associated with s eeing athletes as role models (athlete role model influence), r = 0.126, p<0.01 (see T able 3). English language enculturation had no association with seeing athletes as role models (r = -0.061, p>0.05), and therefore hypothesis two was not supported. The literature suggests that male members of the Generation Y consumer segment h ave a somewhat greater tendency to see athletes as role models than female members of the Generation Y consumer group. Further examination into gender s influence on seeing

athletes as role models in the form of mean scores and an independent samples t-test further confirmed a gender difference in these perceptions (male mean score = 4.85; female mean scor e = 4.16). The independent samples t-test revealed that the Levene s Test probability was greater than 0.05, which assumes that the population variances are relatively equal. There was a si gnificant difference between male and female Generation Y perceptions of seeing athletes a s role models (t(248) = 3.849, p<0.014), confirming that male members of Generation Y have a h igher tendency to see athletes as role models. These results also suggest that members of the Generation Y consumer segment who have business acumen are more likely to see at hletes as role models, however, the direction of the relationships were positive and not n egative as conjectured. English language enculturation had no effect on Generation Y s percep tions of seeing athletes as role models. 455

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 3: Correlations Table Variable 1 2 3 4 5 1. English language enculturation (Yes =1) ---2. Gender (Male = 1) -.081** ---3. Business Acumen (Business Course = 1) -.065** -.029** ----** 4. Seeing Athletes as Role Models (Athlete Role Model Influence) -.061** -.237** .126** .878** 5. Positive Word-of-Mouth Behaviour -.228** -.089** .371** .182** .915 N = 250; Cronbach s alpha values are presented on the diagonal in italics. *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed); **Correlation is signi ficant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). The second question: do Generation Y s gender, English language enculturation, bus iness acumen and perceptions of seeing athletes as role models all influence their wil lingness to engage in positive word of mouth behaviours? was addressed by conducting a serie s of four correlation analyses and one OLS regression analysis. Generation Y s perception of seeing athletes as role models was positively associated with positive word of mouth be haviour (r = 0.371, p<0.01), and English language enculturation was negatively associated wit h positive word of mouth behaviours, r = -0.228, p<0.01, see Table 3. Hypotheses five and six we re fully supported. Hypothesis seven was only partially supported as Generation Y s busines s acumen was positively and not negatively associated with positive word of mouth behavio urs (r = 0.182, p<0.01), see Table 3. Hypothesis four was not supported as gender was not associ ated with positive word of mouth behaviours (r = 0.089, p>0.05). An OLS regression analysis was conducted to explore the association between Engl ish language enculturation, gender, business acumen, seeing athletes as role models and posit ive word of mouth behaviours. The multiple R (0.442) for the regression was significantly di fferent from zero and the F value, F(4,245) = 14.896, p<0.01. The results suggest that English lan guage enculturation, gender, business acumen and seeing athletes as role models explai ned 19.6% (18.2% adjusted) of the variation in positive word of mouth behaviours (R2 = 0.1 96; adj. R2 = 0.182). Of the 19.6% explained variance, the squared semi-partial correlations f or three betas were significant: seeing athletes as role models, English language enculturation , and business

acumen. Seeing athletes as role models explained 11%, English language encultura tion explained 3.9% and business acumen explained 1.5% of the unique variation in positive word of mouth recommendation behaviour, when all other variables in the equation were controll ed for, see Table 4 below. As a result hypothesis eight was only partially supported. These results suggest that members of Generation Y that have any combination of the following: seeing athletes as role models, English language enculturation or have business acumen are more likely to engage in positive word of mouth behaviours. This relationship ex isted both at the zero-order level and when the unique variance of the other variables were contro lled for. In turn this also suggests that using athlete endorsement strategies as a strategic mark eting communication tool is also effective with these subgroups of Generation Y. Table 4: Positive Word of Mouth OLS Regression 456

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Unstandardized Coefficients B Std. Error Standardi zed Coefficien ts Beta t Sig. Zeroorder Correlations Partial Par t 1 Constant English language enculturation (Yes =1) Gender (Male = 1) Business Acumen (Business Course =1) Seeing Athletes as Role Models (Athlete Role Model Influence) 1.888 0.417 -0.821 0.238 -0.021 0.213 0.404 0.187 0.404 0.187 -0.199 -0.006 0.125 0.125 4.526 3.453 0.097 2.160 2.160 0.0 00 0.0 01 0.9 23 0.0 00 0.0 32 -0.228 0.089 0.371 0.182 -0.215 -0.006 0.347

0.137 -0.198 -0.006 0.332 0.124 Dependent Variable: Positive Word of Mouth Discussion This study explored first, whether the use of athlete endorsement marketing comm unication strategies would be effective with the Generation Y consumer group in Australia as has been found in the USA. Secondly it examined whether Generation Y s gender, English lang uage enculturation and business acumen explained variation in their likelihood of per ceiving athletes as role models and engagement in positive word of mouth recommendation behaviour s. Seeing athletes as role models still explained significant variation in positive word o f mouth behaviours even when external influences like gender, English language enculturation and bu siness acumen were controlled for. The results of this study identified that male members of the Generation Y consu mer group did generally see athletes as role models (r = 0.237, p<0.01; t(248) = 3.849, p<0.01 ). Despite this finding, gender was found not to play a critical role in Generation Y s engagement in positive word of mouth recommendation behaviours (see Table 4), as it had no unique expla natory power. This result is consistent with Dix et al. s (2010) Australian Generation Y findings, and contrastingly different to Bush et al. s (2004) and Bush et al. s (2005) American Ge neration Y results where they identified female gender to play a significant role in positi ve word of mouth recommendation behaviour associated with endorsed products and services; which s uggests that although Australia and the USA are classified as sharing common cultural tr aits (Hofstede 1980), there are some distinct differences between the Australian and American G eneration Y consumer segments. An interesting set of findings is that the external influences of English langua ge enculturation and business acumen both influenced positive word of mouth recommendation behavi our, however the direction of the influences were different. English language encultu ration explained 3.9% of the unique variance in positive word of mouth recommendation behaviours, suggesting that members of the Generation Y consumer group who are non-English language enc ulturated are more likely to engage in positive word of mouth recommendation behaviours ab

out products or services that are endorsed by their favourite elite athletes than En glish language enculturated members of Generation Y. Thereby, English language enculturated mem bers of Generation Y seem to be more skeptical of athlete endorsement strategies than no n-English language enculturated members of Generation Y who seem to be more accepting. It seems plausible to suggest that non-English language enculturated members of the Gener ation Y consumer segment are more likely to use their favourite elite athlete as a way t o minimize any risks associated with purchasing products and services. This is an important fin ding that has not been previously reported in the literature. This relationship between non-Englis h language 457

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications enculturation and positive word of mouth recommendation behaviour is stable even when gender, business acumen and perceptions of seeing athletes as role models is con trolled for. This finding seems to suggest in countries like Australia using elite athletes a s endorsers of products, brands or services is more likely to lead to positive word of mouth be haviour from the Generation Y consumer group. Business acumen explained 1.5% of the unique variance in positive word of mouth recommendation behaviour. This finding was a surprise in terms of its direction, it was conjectured that business acumen would be negatively and not positively associat ed with positive word of mouth behaviours. This suggests that members of the Generation Y segment that are enrolled in higher education business programs are more likely to engag e in positive word of mouth recommendation behaviours. In other words, Generation Y consumers who are being trained in the business discipline are less critical and more willing than non-business trained members of Generation Y to engage in positive word of mouth recommendati on behaviours. Another surprising finding is that business acumen was also found to have a positive association with seeing athletes as role models (r = 0.126, p<0.05). Business ac umen was seen as less critical of marketing, however, could it be that people who study business programs are more likely to see successful elite athletes as role models? Therefore it could be suggested that Generation Y consumers with business acumen are less critical of the use of elit e athlete endorsements as marketing communication strategies than members of Generation Y with no business acumen due to perceiving successful elite athletes as socialization age nts (role models). This study also identified that seeing athletes as role models has a significant association with positive word of mouth recommendation behaviours at both the zero order level (r = 0.371, p<0.01) and in its unique explanatory power (11%). In other words, members of th e Generation Y consumer group are more likely to see their favourite elite athletes as a soci alization agent if they are studying a business course. The finding of a relationship between perceptions of seeing athletes as role mod els and positive word of mouth is consistent with previous North American and Australian studies (Bush et al. 2004; Bush et al. 2005; Dix et al. 2010), however, these previous studies have n ot controlled for external influences like English language enculturation and business acumen. Bot h of these external influences had significant relationships with seeing athletes as role m odels and positive

word of mouth behaviours. These findings contribute to our understanding of how external influences may contribute to the strategic role of seeing athletes as role model s and positive word of mouth behaviours. Therefore it could be suggested that the Australian Ge neration Y consumer group have a tendency to aspire to the way of life of their favourite e lite athlete and are positively influenced to purchase and engage in positive word of mouth recom mendation behaviours of endorsed products or services. Avenues for future research include: 1) the replication of the findings about th e relationship between English language enculturation and business acumen subgroups of Generati on Y s perceptions of seeing athletes as role models and engagement in positive word of mouth behaviours; 2) to explore the influence of gender, seeing athletes as role model s, business acumen and English language enculturation on product switching and complaint beh aviours and brand loyalty and how these may be different in Australian and North American Ge neration Y cohorts; 3) to identify Australian Generation Y s favourite elite athletes in orde r to enhance the effectiveness of athlete endorsement communication strategies; and 4) to explore respondents perceptions of athletes sincerity in their endorsement of a particular product, s ervice or brand as an antecedent to Generation Y s engagement in positive word of mouth behaviours . 458

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Conclusion Stevens et al. (2003), Bush et al. (2004), and other studies have suggested that elite athlete endorsement strategies are a critical component of effective marketing communica tions. This study s findings support this contention and suggest that athlete endorsement stra tegies have a significant impact on the lucrative Generation Y consumer segment in Australia. Members of the Generation Y consumer group were found to perceive athletes as socialization age nts equating to role models. This is a significant finding as athlete endorsement strategies have the ability to influence Generation Y to engage in positive word of mouth behaviours. The contribution to the literature from this study is that there are significant external influences in the form of business acumen and English language enculturation on Generation Y s positive word of mouth behaviours with regards to products/services/brands endorsed by th eir favourite athletes. Unlike previous studies in the USA (Bush et al. 2004; Bush et al. 2005 ) but not in Australia (Dix et al. 2010), gender was found to be an insignificant factor in d etermining Australian Generation Y s willingness to engage in positive word of mouth behaviou rs. The consistency with Dix et al. s (2010) Australian Generation Y study may indicate th ere are systematic differences in the importance of gender for the Australian and North American Generation Y cohorts. It is recommended that Australian marketing practitioners use elite athlete endorsement strategies as a strategic marketing communications tool when targeting the Generation Y consumer segment and that attention to levels of English langua ge enculturation and business acumen is incorporated into the design of strategic m arketing communications. This may assist in making athlete endorsement strategies more ef fective. References ANU. 2010. Australian National University. http://cbe.anu.edu.au/college/documents/CBE-Strategic -Plan_2006-2010.pdf (acces sed 30/11/2010). aussiecricket. 2008. Cricketers and Advertisements Allan Border Medal 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VjiokqL_9E (accessed 24/4/2009). Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2009. Population by Age and Sex, Australian Sta tes and Territories. Canberra: Australia, cat. no. 3201.0. Bagnall, D. 1999. The Y Factor. Bulletin with Newsweek 117, no. 6165: 14. Bandura, A. 1977. Social Learning Theory. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Bandura, A. 1986. Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive T heory. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Braunstein, JR and JJ Zhang. 2005. Dimensions of athletic star power associated

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Unifying Guanxi-Type Relationships and Relationship Marketing: A Conceptual Framework Ahmed S. Shaalan Hull University, Business School, Faculty of Commerce, UK a.s.shaalan@2007.hull.ac.uk Jon Reast Hull University, Business School, Centre of Marketing, Innovations, and Applicat ions (CMIA), UK j.reast@hull.ac.uk Debra Johnson Hull University, Business School, Marketing and Business Strategy department, UK d.johnson@hull.ac.uk Marwa E. Tourky Hull University, Business School, UK, m.e.tourky@2007.hull.ac.uk Abstract Chinese guanxi represents one method of developing relationships from the interpersonal level, whereas relationship marketing, largely a western concept, is used to develop re lationships at the inter-organizational level. Both concepts are well researched individually b ut there is a dearth of critical comparison in prior literature, and there is some evidence to suggest that linkages between these two approaches may be useful to managers. To transfer the personal type of relationship involved in guanxi-type relationships to organizational typ e involved in relationship marketing organizations can use relationship investment mechanisms, consequently increasing customer retention. This conceptual paper critically examines the sep arate concepts of guanxi and relationship marketing, explores the differences between the two a pproaches, and debates the possibility of a useful linkage between the concepts. Building on a review and synthesis of over 300 academic journals and the works of Geddie, DeFranco and Ge ddie (2002, 2005) a novel theoretical framework linking the two concepts is proposed, with t he managerial implication of such a linkage being developed. The paper is of relevance to acad emics studying

relationship networks and marketing practitioners developing marketing and reten tion strategies. Keywords: Relationship Marketing, Guanxi, Personal Relationship, Organizational Relationship, Theoretical Framework, Conceptual 462

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Introduction Establishing strong and quality relationships with customers can be an influenti al element in doing business worldwide, especially in current complex and highly competitive m arkets (Ndubisi and Chan 2005). This article seeks to examine the differences and possi ble linkages between two important approaches used in building relationships: guanxi-type rel ationships and relationship marketing. Guanxi tends to works at the inter-personal level (Fan 2 002; Wang 2007), whereas relationship marketing tends to be operating at the inter-organiz ational level (Gummesson 1996; Morgan and Hunt 1994; Coviello et al. 2002). Guanxi is a Chinese term referring to interpersonal connections that have a sign ificant impact and powerful implications in almost all aspects of relationships (Fan 2002). Gua nxi has been considered as one of the most important success factors in doing business in Chi na and it is believed that having the on and Ai right guanxi could bring a wide range of benefits (Abrams

1999; Fan 2002; Su and Littlefield 2001; Yeung and Tung 1996). Relationship marketing emerged from the field of services and business to busine ss marketing to challenge the traditional marketing approach which was based largely on transact ions and the notion of the marketing mix (Berry 1983; Gronroos 1994; Gummesson 1987; Jackson 1985). Accordingly, relationship marketing was designed as an alternative approach for marketing which is capable of absorbing the dynamics in the customer relationships and int eractions (Gronroos 1994; Kotler 1991). A substantial review of the literature, finds some authors such as Ambler (1994) , Bjorkman and Kock (1995), Lovett, Simmons, and Kali (1999), and Simmons and Munch (1996) usin g the terms guanxi and relationship marketing interchangeably to express the same meaning in academic research, where they suggest that guanxi represents a Chinese version of relations hip marketing. However, Fan (2002), asserts that this is a misunderstanding, with ma ny fundamental differences between the two approaches. In addition, although relationship marketing and guanxi have been studied extens ively and several scholars suggest the importance of a link to transfer guanxi-type relati onships from the interpersonal level to the organizational level (Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie 200 2, 2005; Sabine 2005; Zhang and Zhang 2006), still to date, there is no model to theoretically a nd practically link these concepts.

In this context, this article attempts to fill these gaps in the body of knowled ge through five sections: the first and second sections of this article critically discuss the c oncepts of guanxi and relationship marketing; section three provides a comprehensive exploration of th e similarities and differences between guanxi and relationship marketing; section four proposes a theoretical framework which links guanxi-type relationships and relationship marketing; and section five presents the managerial implications, providing useful insights for both western and nonwestern practitioners about how guanxi-type relationships can be linked with relationshi p marketing in their marketing process in order to build customer retention. Guanxi Background Guanxi is a Chinese cultural phenomenon (Fan 2002, 374) which has multiple meaning s more expansive than its English synonyms relations or connections (Huang 2008, 468). Fan (2002, 372) defines guanxi as a process of social interactions that initially involves t wo individuals A and B. A may or may not have special relationships with B. A asks B for assistan ce (favour) in finding a solution to a problem. B may have the solution at hand, or more often, has to seek further assistance from other connections, i.e. to start another process . Many au thors support and have utilized Fan s definition (Chen and Chen 2004; Luo 2007; Zhang and Zhang 2006). 463

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications In addition, Guanxi is variously conceptualised and has a several important char acteristics as shown in table (1) Table 1: Guanxi Interpretations and Characteristics Conceptualisations Characteristics Social Capital (Butterfield 1983) Reciprocal Exchange (Hwang 1987) Pre-Existing Relationships (Yang 1988) Relationship (Alston 1989) Close-Knit Networks (Yeung and Tung 1996) Interpersonal Connections (Xin and Pearce 1996) Interpersonal Friendship (Ang and Leong 2000) Network (Fan 2002) Tie or Bond (Bian 2006) Guanxi is a Social Network (Bjorkman and Kock 1995) Guanxi is Transferable (Luo 2007; Tsang 1998) Guanxi is Reciprocal (Luo 2007) Guanxi is Intangible (Luo 1997, 2007) Guanxi is Utilitarian (Luo 2007) Guanxi is Personal (Arias 1998) Guanxi is Contextual (Luo 2007) Guanxi is Long-Term Oriented (Bjorkman and Kock 1995) Source: Developed by authors Although, guanxi is considered an important factor for doing business in China a nd is believed to be a necessary condition for achieving business success, it is not felt to be su fficient alone, to make customers buy a company s products (Tsang 1998). Relationship Marketing Background Relationship marketing has been designed as a marketing approach that presents a n alternative to the traditional marketing approach which is capable of absorbing the dynamics in the customer relationships and interactions (Gronroos 1994; Kotler 1991) Berry (1983, 25) defines relationship marketing as attracting, maintaining and en hancing customer relationships . This definition introduces relationship marketing as a ma rketing paradigm with a strategic viewpoint , focuses on the significance of attracting new customers, as a first step in marketing activities (Bruhn 2003, 10), and also st resses the importance of maintaining or retaining customers (Berry 1983; De Burca, Brannick , and Meenaghan 1995).

Gronroos (1990) expands Berry's ideas, stating that relationship marketing aims to find, maintain, and enhance relationships with customers and other partners so that th e objectives for the company and customers and all partners will be achieved by mutual exchan ge and implementation of promises. Moreover, Shani and Chalasani (1992, 34) added that r elationship marketing is an integrated effort to identify, maintain and build up a network w ith individual consumers and to continuously strengthen the network for the mutual benefit of b oth sides, through interactive, individualised and value-added contacts over a long period of time . Furthermore, adopting a relationship marketing approach involves changing the tr aditional ways of managing marketing at the strategic and tactical level (Gronroos 1996). One o f the important strategic issues in relationship marketing is establishing partnerships and a ne twork to be able to handle the whole service process. At the tactical level, there are three typical elements: seeking direct contact with customers and other stakeholders; building a database coveri ng necessary information about customers and others and developing a customer oriented servic e system (Gronroos 1996). Additionally, relationship marketing stresses the building and management of rel ationships in a social context (Gronroos 1994), meaning a change in focus to people and organiza tions as units of analysis rather than products and firms (Webster 1992). As part of the process of bonding with customers, relationship marketing investm ent strategies have been developed in order to increase the ties with customers and therefore m inimise customer loss. Relationship marketing investment means that seller provides extr a effort; adopt 464

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications policies; and provide small favours or considerations, such as meals gifts, or p ersonalized notes, to generate customer gratitude which leads to reciprocal behaviours and customer retention (Palmatier et al. 2009). Generally relationship marketing investment tends to be viewed as having three types of programs: financial, social, and structural (Berry 1995). Social Relationship Marketing Programs include individual treatment, meals, and personalized information (Palmatier, Gopalakrishna, and Houston 2006). It enhances the relati onships, leads customers to repurchase, and ignores the competitive offers (De Wulf, OdekerkenSchroder, and Iacobucci 2001; Palmatier, Gopalakrishna, and Houston 2006). Structural Relationship Marketing Programs include customized order processing s ystems, dedicated personnel, and tailored packaging which increase productivity or effic iency (or both) for customers which in turn become reluctant to switch their business among supp liers. (Berry 1995; Palmatier, Gopalakrishna, and Houston 2006). Financial Relationship Marketing Programs include discounts, free products, memb ership, or other financial benefits that reward customer loyalty. In certain situation, fin ancial programs can provide sufficient returns (Bolton 1998). Generally, all three relationship marketing programs are expected to have a posi tive impact on customers, although the nature and magnitude of effects may vary (Palmatier, Gop alakrishna, and Houston 2006). A Comparison of Guanxi and Relationship Marketing Guanxi and relationship marketing are fundamentally different (Fan 2002, Wang 20 07); however, they still have certain commonalities (Sabine 2005; Wang 2007). Whilst several scholars (Arias 1998; Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie 2005; Sabine 2005; Wang 2007; and Yau, et al. 2000) have considered the similarities and differences between guanxi and re lationship marketing, analyzed them from various perspectives and addressed certain points, to our knowledge no paper directly analyses all of these similarities and differences b etween guanxi and relationship marketing. The next section provides evidence of the major simi larities and differences between the guanxi and relationship marketing from the literature, i n order to comprehensively understand the possible links between them. Table (2) summarizes the similarities and differences, drawn from the literature, between guanxi and rela tionship marketing.

465

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 2: Summary for Similarities and Differences between Guanxi and Relationshi p Marketing Similarities Differences Relationship Marketing Guanxi .Both have the notion of relationship (Alston 1989; Arias 1998). .Both have the same goal long-term relationships (Sabine 2005; Wang 2007). .Both hold mutual understanding and cooperative behaviour (Wang 2007) .Strategic .Organizational relationship .Calculative commitment .Legality and rules .Mutuality .Open system .RM constructs .Transactional basis .Explicit promises .Tactical (Arias1998) .Individual relationship (Wang 2007) .Affective commitment (Sabine 2005) .Morality and social norms(Sabine 2005) .Face-saving (Sabine 2005) .Closed system (Fukuyama 1995) .Guanxi constructs .Relational basis (Sabine 2005) .Implicit promises (Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie 2005) Source: Developed by authors Similarities Guanxi and relationship marketing have several similarities. First, both guanxi and relationship marketing involve the notion of relationship or connection, which is identified as two or more parties bonding (Alston 1989; Arias 1998; Sabine 2005; Xin and pearce 1996). Sec ond, they possess the same goal which is, maintaining long-term relationships with their p artners rather than building relationships based on a single transaction (Sabine 2005). This is referred to as long-term orientation (Wang 2007, 82), where the exchange partners only focus on t he relationship itself, thereby tending to minimise any conflict and create a harmo

nious environment in order to achieve permanent cooperation (Alston 1989; Arias 1998; Xin and Pearce 1996). Third, as suggested by Wang (2007), guanxi and relationship market ing both hold mutual understanding and cooperative behaviour. Differences Strategic vs. Tactical Whilst relationship marketing and guanxi are both concerned with long term relat ionships (interorganizational and inter-personal) the focus of the two concepts are different. Relationship marketing has a strategic vision while guanxi focusing on tactical issues. Many authors (Arias 1998; Bruhn 2003; Dwyer and Schurr 1987; Fredrick 1992) cons ider the key feature of relationship marketing to be a long-term or strategic vision since it covers a whole marketing process, where relationship marketing involves redefining the business as a provider of services or solutions for the customer, and rethinking the whole process of d elivering the service from an integrated process management perspective (Arias 1998, 152). Whilst guanxi represents a long-term relationship between people, it is mostly f ocused on tactical issues and used to solve current problems only (Arias 1998). Tactical i ssues such as getting information on current market trends , business opportunities , import regulati ons , as well as information on government policies (Davies et al. 1995, 210-211). 466

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Organizational vs. Individual Relationship Relationship marketing refers to all types of internal and external relationship s an organisation may have (Morgan and Hunt 1994), thus relationship marketing is impersonal and m ainly works at the organizational level (Wang 2007). Furthermore, exchanging parties in west ern societies tend to have economic and impersonal involvement in networking, and relational n etworking is mainly associated with commercial goals. Guanxi by contrast is typically regarding personal relationships which work at a n individual level (Wang 2007), and guanxi, by definition, is a private personal relationship and a social capital owned by an individual as personal property (Fan 2002). In addition, guanxi is c haracterized by affection which plays a key role in maintaining and enhancing the personal relat ionships and making the impersonal business relationships more personal (Wang 2007). Calculative Commitment vs. Affective Commitment Regarding the differences between guanxi and relationship marketing in terms of the relational exchange patterns, Sabine (2005, 59) argues that the relational exchange partner s in relationship marketing have economic and impersonal involvement in the relationship resulting in calculative commitment which is the commitment based on cost and benefits. It is a rgued that customers become more committed to an organization when they believe that more v alue will be gained from this organization (Mowday, Porter, and Steers 1982). Moreover, th e relational exchange partners in relationship marketing tend to have more explicit role expe ctations than in guanxi (Sabine 2005) By contrast, the relational exchange partners in guanxi tend to have emotional a nd individual involvement which leads to affective commitment (Geyskens et al. 1996). Addition ally, exchange partners in guanxi have a more implicit role than in relationship marketing and this contain reciprocal exchange of favours, mutual protection, and enrichment of social stat us (Sabine 2005). Relationship Marketing Guiding Principles vs. Guanxi Guiding Principles Concerning the guiding principles and motivations for relational exchange in bot h guanxi and relationship marketing, the relational behaviours guiding principles for guanxi are morality and social norms (Arias 1998, Sabine 2005, 59); while those of relationship marketing are legality

and rules (Sabine 2005, 59). Furthermore, the motive of reciprocal behaviour of g uanxi is facesaving whereas that of relationship marketing is to create mutuality in relationships (Sa bine 2005, 59). Open vs. Closed System Wang (2007, 83) asserts that relationship marketing has a universalistic nature wh ere the network is relatively open to any exchange partners as long as one plays by the r ules of the game . This is because in most western societies people can trust each other even though they do not have blood relations and these societies are considered high-trust societ ies (Fukuyama 1995). In contrast, guanxi is a network of social relationships (Ambler 1994; Bjorkman and Kock 1995; Davies et al. 1995) often related to a common background (guanxi base) such as h aving studied together, coming from the same locality, having worked together or having family ties (Bjorkman and Kock 1995). This is because Chinese society is a low-trust culture in which trust is extended 467

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications only to the immediate or the extended family members, and there is a lack of tru st outside of the family (Atuahene-Gima and Li 2002; Fukuyama 1995). Guanxi Promises vs. Relationship Marketing Promises Promises are relevant in the concept and practice of relationship marketing and also in the traditional Chinese guanxi (Arias 1998). The content of promises differs totally between relationship marketing and guanx i where, in relationship marketing the promise concept is a key variable in building marketing

relationships, and lead to maintaining and improving the relationship between bu yer and seller (Calonius 1988, 90). Accordingly, in relationship marketing, the promises are of ten explicit and have an economic nature relating to goods, services, material, financial solutio ns, exchange of information, and a number of future commitments (Gronroos 1990).Moreover, suppli ers provide promises concerning products, services, information, social responsibilities, an d a variety of commitments, and consumers provide some promises relating to their commitment in the relationship with suppliers (Calonius 1988). However, promises in guanxi are often implicit, where, Geddie, DeFranco and Gedd ie (2005) believe that guanxi is established with overtones of unlimited exchange of favou rs and maintained in the long run by unspoken commitment to others in the network which means unwritten code of reciprocity and unwritten promises (Mak 2004). Also, promises in guanxi include more than economic promises, and may include reciprocal personal favours and mutual protection of reputation and social status (Arias 1998). Also the timeframe for fulfilling the promises differs from guanxi to relationsh ip marketing. Promises in relationship marketing usually have a well-defined deadline when the y must be fulfilled (Calonius 1988). On the other hand, in guanxi there is no deadline or time frame for fulfilling promises where favours are banked and create an obligation (promise) of reciprocity (Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie 2005). Relationship Marketing Constructs vs. Guanxi Constructs Regarding the constructs of guanxi and relationship marketing, Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie (2005) and Yau et al. (2000) are identified four key constructs shared between g uanxi and relationship marketing: bonding, empathy, reciprocity, and trust as shown in fig ure (1). Geddie,

DeFranco and Geddie (2005) and Yau et al. (2000) indicates that these four dimen sions are the basic constructs when discussing guanxi and relationship marketing, and it is ne cessary and natural to include all four constructs because they are seen as closely integrat ed in a system 468

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Figure 1: The Shared Constructs between Guanxi and Relationship Marketing RM Constructs Conflict Handling Communication Shared Constructs Bonding Reciprocity Guanxi Constructs Affection Source: Developed from Yau et al. (2000, 20) Although it has been argued that guanxi and relationship marketing share four co nstructs, bonding, trust, reciprocity and empathy (Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie 2005), they are still considered different (Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie 2005; Yau et al. 2000) since t he contents of these dimensions are comparison fundamentally different (Yau et al. 2000). Table (3) shows a

between these shared four dimensions. Table 3: Comparison of the Shared Four Dimensions between Western Relationship M arketing and Chinese Guanxi Constructs Relationship Marketing Chinese Guanxi Bonding . Between consumer and supplier . For desired goal . Blood bases and social bases . For social control and business behaviour Reciprocity . Expect value to be returned in short-term . With specific intention . Converged value . Value returned at time both giver and recipients will benefit . No specific intention . Increased value Trust . People with promised integrity . Build transaction first, relationship

may follow . Based more on the system . Kinship or in-group members . Build trust first, transaction may follow . Based more on personal contacts Empathy . Sender-centred communication . Receiver -centred communication Source: Yau et al. (2000, 20) Relationship Marketing Transactional Basis vs. Guanxi Relational Basis Barton (1999) claims that in relationship marketing the relationship between cus tomer and company develops in stages after the first transaction, with no prior relationsh ip. In the same vein, Garbarino and Johnson (1999) view relationship marketing as a continuum fr om transactional to highly relational bonds in which they point to the development of satisfaction, trust, and commitment to establish future intentions of the customers. While in guanxi, there is a relationship before the transaction (Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie 2002, 2005; S abine 2005), as shown in figure (2). 469

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Figure 2: The Comparison of Relationship Marketing and Guanxi Source: Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie (2005, 628) In both systems, a good transaction strengthens the relationship in a cyclical m anner. Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie (2005) further explains that in relationship marketing, the customer is seen as more of a subset than a merged partner, where the company often tries to help the customers adapt to the company especially by educating them about how to use the product in order to obtain the maximum benefit from it (Bulger 1999). While in guanxi, the company and customer become one cooperative unit adapting to each other (Geddie, DeFranco an d Geddie 2005). However, If the person who brought guanxi leaves the organization there is a pos sibility of losing the organization its connection with the customers because it is common for a pe rson to take his/her personal guanxi connection with him/ her when leaving the organization ( Wang 2007; Arias 1998). In sum, it can be concluded that guanxi and relationship marketing are not the s ame (Fan 2002), but are quite different approaches to building relationships (Geddie, DeFranco a nd Geddie 2005). Guanxi has its own unique characteristics distinguishable from relational exchange in the west (Fan 2002; Lee, Pae, and Wong 2001; Tsang 1998). A Proposed Linkage between Guanxi and Relationship Marketing The previous discussion revealed that guanxi and relationship marketing are two different concepts, where each of them has its own unique characteristics, benefits and pi tfalls (Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie 2005; Lee, Pae, and Wong 2001; Tsang 1998). Founded on prior literature (Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie 2002, 2005; Sabine 2005; Tsang 1998) there is an op portunity to link the two concepts, where relationship marketing is a formal legal contract d efined and protected by the institutional framework, and guanxi is an informal interpersona l relationship involving mutual trust which is not stated explicitly in the legal contracts (Zh ang and Zhang 2006). Accordingly, Figure (3) illustrates the theme behind a novel proposed mod el illustrated in 470

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications figure (4) which links guanxi-type relationships and relationship marketing and their impact on customer retention. Though there are prior works suggesting the link between gua nxi-type relationships and relationship marketing (Bjorkman and Kock 1995; Geddie, DeFran co and Geddie 2002, 2005), surprisingly to date, no studies have linked the two concept s, and a unified model does not exist. Figure 3: The Theme behind the Link between Guanxi-Type Relationships and Relati onship Marketing

Source: Developed by authors from Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie. (2005, 628) 471

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Figure 4: The Proposed Model for the Link between Guanxi-Type Relationships and Relationship Marketing

This model is built on the facts that relationship marketing by definition is att racting, maintaining and enhancing customer relationships (Berry 1983, 25), and relationsh ip marketing goes beyond the scope of guanxi-type relationships (Zhang and Zhang 20 06). Initially, the model assumes that organizations encourage their staff and custom ers to use their personal guanxi (family, friends, class mate, colleague, etc) for organizational purposes (generating business) by rewarding and promoting them through either a commissio n or bonus (Luo 1997). In support, Dunfee and Warren (2001) argue that managers can use gua nxi-type relationships to gain access to new customers. Hutchings and Weir (2006) adds th at, in China and the Arab world, people prefer to deal with others they already know and buil d a trust relationship prior to engaging in business. The relationship between potential customer and the representative of the compan y (staff or customer) develops before transaction (Yau et al. 2000). In support of this, Sab ine (2005) argues that relationships create and develop the transactions in societies such as Asia , Africa and the Middle-East. In these societies, successful business transactions are largely su bject to prior successful established relationships. This confirms that the relationship is bui lt before transactions take place (Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie 2005; Yau et al. 2000). In this case, guanxi-type relationships are used as a way to attract new potenti al customers to the organization and achieving the first element of the definition of relationsh ip marketing and incorporating guanxi-type relationships into the process of relationship marketi ng as a novel means of attracting new customers. Next, after attracting potential new customers who then engage in a first transa ction, the second step of the proposed model will take place. The organization will start t o apply relationship marketing programs (Structural, Financial and Social Programs) with the new customers as a sort of customer relationship investment . Such programs try to tran sfer the guanxi personal relationship between the customer and company representative to organizational relationship between the customer and the organization to maintai n the 472

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications relationship with customer for long time and enhance it. Thus, this step enables organizations to avoid the pitfall of applying guanxi solely, i.e. the possibility of losing the connection with its customers when the person who brought guanxi-based business leaves the organizat ion, because the connections might move with him or her (Arias 1998). In support, the literature reveals that relationship marketing plays a key role in retaining customers through building organizational trust (Tang, Chou, and Chen 2008) and commitment with them (Palmatier et al. 2009). Tseng (2007) adds that the purposes of relati onship marketing programs are to gain the maximal value of customers and keep them, thus contribu ting to the corporation s long term profit. Also, Doney and Cannon (1997) as well as Palmatier , Gopalakrishna, and Houston (2006) demonstrate that building relationships with c ustomers or other organizations is impacted by relationship marketing programmes. Furthermor e, Palmatier et al. (2009, 13) demonstrate that relationship marketing programs positively af fect customers feelings of gratitude which leads to stronger customer purchase intentions. Hence, the model aims to measure relationship marketing (through its constructs) and customer retention in order to ensure the effectiveness of relationship marketing program s in keeping the customers. The model also considers the effectiveness of programmes to transferr ing the personal relationship involved in guanxi to organizational relationship involved in relationship marketing. In addition, the model aims to measure the association between guanxi -type relationships and relationship marketing and their relationship with customer re tention. Since customer attraction is considered, between five and ten times, more expens ive than customer retention (Gummesson 1999). Relationship marketing focuses mainly on in creasing customers retention and recovery before gaining new consumers (Bruhn 2003). The f inal result of the linkage between guanxi-type relationships and relationship marketing is i mproving customer retention. Discussion It is argued that the theoretically derived linkage between relationship marketi ng and guanxitype relationships offers new and valuable insights and benefits for both westerners who are applying relationship marketing only and the non-westerners who are only applyin g guanxi-type relationships (Sabine 2005; Geddie, DeFranco, and Geddie 2005). Relationship mar keting could

work as an extension for guanxi-type relationships to avoid some of guanxi-type relationships pitfalls (Geddie, DeFranco, and Geddie 2005), also guanxi-type relationships bef ore relationship marketing will make relationship marketing more applicable to the less capitalis t economies and adaptable to the non-western culture s characteristics and problems such as lack o f trust in some societies (Gilbert and Tsao 2000; Sabine 2005). For example, the Chinese pr efer to deal with people they know and trust (Sabine 2005) and both Chinese and Arabian peopl e must have acquired knowledge of their business counterparts and built a trusting relations hip prior to engaging in business (Hutchings and Weir 2006). There are many benefits behind the joining of the guanxi-type relationships and relationship marketing concepts. On one hand guanxi-type relationships is able to offer insig hts into the means/ways of implementing relationship marketing (Geddie, DeFranco, and Geddie 2002, 2005) and might play a vital role through the process of relationship marketing where guanxitype relationships can be used as a way to attract new potential customers to the org anization with little cost (Dunfee and Warren 2001). On the other hand, relationship marketing could work as an extension for guanxi to avoid some of the pitfalls associated with this personal business approach (Geddie, DeFranc o and Geddie 2005). For example, organization can lose its guanxi if an individual moves to a different organization or department because the connections move with him or her (Arias 1 998). Thus applying relationship marketing after guanxi will try to transfer the personal t ype of relationship involved in guanxi to organizational type of relationship involved in relationsh ip marketing

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications (Zhang and Zhang 2006), consequently increasing customer retention (Palmatier et al. 2009; Tang, Chou, and Chen 2008; Tseng 2007). Limitations and Further Research This paper is a theoretical and conceptual paper and requires further research t o empirically test the proposed model linking guanxi-type relationships and relationship marketing, and investigate the impact of this link on improving customer retention. Also, the p roposed model is building on the extant literature and may be refined and modified as a result of qualitative research with academics and practitioners in the field of marketing, exploring t he relationship between guanxi-type relationships and relationship marketing. Further, quantitat ive research could be conducted to measure the association between guanxi-type relationships and relationship marketing and their impact on customer retention. Quantitative rese arch might also consider the effectiveness of relationship marketing programs in keeping custome rs by transferring personal relationships to organizational relationships. Managerial Implications This study presents and interrogates literature on relationship marketing and gu anxi. It provides deeper understanding of the two concepts and helps managers to jointly apply the concepts in their organizations by encouraging the staff to use their personal guanxi for or ganizational purposes. Then, organizations might consider using a system of rewards in order to access personal guanxi networks for organizational benefits (Luo 1997). In this case, guanxi-type relationships would be used, formally, as a novel way of attracting potential new customers to the organization, incorporating guanxi-type relations hips into the process of relationship marketing. Next, after attracting potential new customers, the organizations managers could start to apply relationship marketing programs with the new customers in order to build organiz ational relationships with the customers. Such programs would attempt to transfer the pe rsonal guanxi relationship between the customer and employee to organizational relationship be tween the customer and the organization to maintain the relationship with the customer ove r the long term, enhancing it. Thus, this step might enable organizations to avoid the pitf all of solely applying guanxi-type relationships, i.e. the possibility of losing the connectio n with its customers when the person who brought guanxi leaves the organization (Arias 1998).

The proposed model also helps managers to reduce their costs by attracting new c ustomer at low cost and maintaining them, where Rosenberg and Czepiel (1984) argue that the cost of attracting one new consumer is more than five times the cost of maintains one lo yal consumer. This proposed new focus on the use of guanxi type business acquisition processes might change these ratios significantly. In addition, the proposed model tries to improve the customer retention as a fin al result, which offers significant advantages to companies managers (Bruhn 2003; Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman, 1996). Boulding et al. (1993) argue that retained customers might e ncourage their friends and relatives to buy from the company by recommending it to them, and ne ver discourage current or potential clients away from the supplier. This is viewed a s word-of-mouth communication which has been proven to have an indirect impact on profits. Thus, word-ofmouth can lead to gaining new customers while attaining current ones, without any dire ct action from the company. Finally, the managers should train their staff how to build a bond, and trust wi th their customer, and how to show the empathy during handling the customers problems as a way of st rength the organizational relationship with the customers, which help to increase the custo mer bonding with the company (Geddie, DeFranco and Geddie 2005).

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Branding and Corporate Communications

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The war for talent? The relevance of employer branding in job advertisements for becoming an employer of choice

Wim J.L. Elving University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), De partment of Communication /Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR),The Netherlan ds w.j.l.elving@uva.nl Acknowledgements: This paper has been made possible with the help and assistance of Kelta Meeusen, Jorinde Westhof and Jan-Willem Schoonderbeek. This study was financed by NedTrai n, the maintenance organization of the Dutch Railways. Abstract Organizations are in need of high quality employees in order to be able to fulfi l the needs of its stakeholders and to be successful. Employer branding might be powerful tool to a ttract high potential employees. In this paper we will whether Employer Branding is used in the recruitment practice in the Netherlands and the value of Employer Branding within an experim ent. The results show that incorporating Employer Branding might be beneficial for organi zations, but is hardly used in the Netherlands. Keywords: Employer Branding, Corporate Branding, Corporate Identity, Job Adverti sements, Content Analysis, Experiment Introduction The importance of social capital on the effectiveness and the success of organis ations have been shown in many studies from various disciplines (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004; Hah, E wing and Berthon, 2005; Cable and Judge, 1996, de Chernatony and Harris, 2001; Mosley, 20 07). High quality employees are crucial for competitive strength in the global economy bec ause they have a major influence on organisational reputation (Gotsl and Wilson, 2001). Organis ations grasp

that their employees have a big impact on perceptions of the organisation and it s brand, changing employees in a growing number of organisations in onger brand ambassadors . No l

employees are recruited just for their functional knowledge, compatibility betwe en employee and organisation is important as well (de Chernatony and Harris, 2001; Gotsl and Wilson, 2001). The importance of attracting high quality employees to organisations makes it es sential to develop a sound recruitment communication strategy. Finding the desired employee s is not easy because many organisations are looking for the same skills in their employees. R eal talent is scarce. It is important to gain competitive advantage through recruitment commun ication if you want to win the war for talent as organisation (Bhatnagar and Srivastava, 2008). A recent McKinsey (2007) report shows that executives expect and for talent intensifying competition

(p.49). Besides the growing importance of attractiveness for organisations as employer, it is becoming more complicated to attract high potentials as well. Nowadays a job has to creat e meaning and support one s personality (Albert, Ashforth and Dutton, 2000). Especially persons from Generation Y (born after 1980), HR professionals claim these persons demand more flexibility,

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications meaningful jobs, professional freedom, higher rewards and a better work-life bal ance than older employees do. This makes the question relevant how organisations can still employees seduce

to work for them. How do organisations become attractive employers for high pote ntials and how do they implement this attractiveness in a recruitment communication strateg y? Attractiveness of an organisation is related to the perception of job characteri stics and the characteristics of the organisation (Cober, Brown, Levy, Cober, and Keeping 2003 ; Ehrhart and Ziegert, 2005; Judge and Cable, 1997; Turban, Forret and Hendrickson, 1998). Pot ential employees use the perception of these characteristics as a signal to decide how it would be to work for a particular organisation (Ehrhart and Ziegert, 2005; Turban and Greeni ng 1997). Several studies have suggested the importance of the perception of a match betwe en personal and fundamental organisational characteristics and values (Cable and Judge, 1996 ; 1994; Cable and Edwards, 2004; Kristof, 1996). Person-organisation (P-O) fit would, accordin g to these studies, contribute to the attractiveness of an organisation and to the identifi cation process of employees with an organisation. Another vital factor for the attractiveness of a n organisation as employer is its corporate image and employer image (Cable and Turban, 2003; Dutt on, Dukerich and Harquail, 1994; Ehrhart and Ziegert, 2005; Turban and Cable 2003, Turban, et al., 1998). Positive image perceptions lead to a higher quantity and quality of potential em ployees for organisations (Turban and Cable, 2003). Employer branding adapts to the importance of Person Organisation Fit (P-O fit) and image perceptions, by providing (potential) employees a unique and attractive employer brand image (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004). The roots of employer branding can be found in marke ting principles of branding strategy (Ambler and Barrow, 1996; Backhaus, 2004; Cable and Turban, 2001). Employer branding represents a firms efforts to promote, both within and o utside the firm, a clear view of what makes it different and desirable as an employer (Backh aus and Tikoo, 2004, p. 501). Although employer branding is a relative new concept in recruitment communicatio n, there is a growing interest in it. Searching employer branding on Google nowadays shows 470.0 00 hits, which is an enormous growth compared to 3.000 hits back in 2004 (Backhaus and Ti koo, 2004).

However, empirical studies on the topic are still relatively scarce (Backhaus an d Tikoo, 2004; Lievens, Van Hoye and Anseel, 2007; Moroko and Uncles, 2008). In this paper we focus on employer branding in job advertisements that is intere sting because an attractive first impression of the organisation is essential (Cober, Brown, Blum ental, Doverspike and Levy, 2000). Job advertisements can create the foundation for the link betwe en organisation and potential employee (Backhaus, 2004). The right words should be used to get a ttention from desired potential employees and at the same time these words have to stimulate a pplication for the job (Backhaus, 2004). The study starts with an exploratory part to investigate today s recruitment commu nication practice in the Netherlands, by focussing on the corporate descriptions in job a dvertisements. In the second study we used an experiment to test the possible influence of an Empl oyer Branded recruitment advertisement. Theoretical background Brands are one of a firm s most valuable assets. Therefore managing a brand is an important activity in many firms (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004; Cable and Turban, 2001). Brand ing can be applied on several ways and on different aspects of organisations, such as inter nal branding, but also on cities or regions, referred to as city branding, and country branding. B randing seeks to develop or align the expectations behind the brand experience, creating the impr ession that a brand associated with a product or service has certain qualities or characterist ics that make it special or unique. Mainly branding is associated with the development of product s or maintaining the corporate identity.

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Corporate identity refers to an organisation s unique characteristics that are roo ted in the behaviour of members of the organisation (Van Riel and Balmer, 1997, p. 341). Si milarly it can also be described as the projected corporate personality, where corporate person ality is at the heart of the organisation and embodies the corporate mission, corporate philosop hy and core values of the organisation (Stuart, 1998, p. 357). Much of the literature relate d to the management of an organisation s identity and corporate brand suggests that alignme nt and consistency in employee behaviour is an ideal (Cornelissen, 2008). Applying branding on human resource management involves creating an attractive i dentity of the organisation where an individual feel comfort, respect, trust and loyalty. I t also involves active participation, employees who are engaged in the strategy of the firm (Bac khaus and Tikoo, 2004; Barrow and Mosley, 2005; Martin and Hetrick, 2006) and because of t hat engagement they are motivated to deliver the best quality products or services, or become real brand ambassadors. Communication and HRM practitioners have acknowledged employer branding as signi ficant and important in creating successful organisations (Willock, 2005). The term employe r branding, coined at first by Ambler and Barrow (1996), is about the package of functional, economic and psychological benefits provided by employment and identified with the employing company. The concept of employer branding is explored more in depth by Ewing, Pitt, de Bussy and Berthon (2002) and Backhaus and Tikoo (2004). Employer branding is defined as: The proce ss of building an identifiable and unique employer identity and the employer brand as concept o f the firm that differentiates it from its competitors (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004, p 502). Organisational Attractiveness Organisational attraction is defined as an attitude or expressed general positiv e affect toward an organisation, toward viewing the organisation as a desirable entity with which t o initiate some relationship (Aiman-Smith, Bauer and Cable, 2001, p. 221). More specific for an organisation as employer, it has to do with potential employees viewing an organisation as a des ired and positive place to work (Rynes, 1991; Ehrhart and Ziegert, 2005). Individuals have different needs and look for jobs that are able to satisfy thos e needs (Schneider, 1987). Because of this, people will search for different factors if they decide where to work (Aiman-Smith et al., 2001). Potential applicants perception of organisational att

ractiveness is formed by their individual perception of available information, received from jo b advertisements, websites, brand advertising and stories from other people or emp loyees related to the organisation (Brown, Cober, Cober, Keepin and Levy, 2003; Dineen, Ash and Noe, 2002; Lemmink, Schuijf and Streukens, 2003). To influence this perception, organisatio ns use various forms of communication. In this process recruitment communication is leading. Re cruitment is defined as the activities and practices an organisation executed to identify and attract potential employees (Brown et al., 2003). Although there have been various studies on organisational attractiveness, there is still much obscurity about the variables that influence organisational attraction (Lemmink et al., 2003). Consensus however, can be found in the influence of characteristics of job and o rganisation and the perception of these characteristics by employees, resulting in perceptions o f an employee s fit with an organisation and image perceptions (e.g. Aiman-Smith et al., 2001; B ackhaus, 2004; Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004; Brown et al., 2003; Ehrhart and Ziegert, 2005; Judge a nd Cable, 1997; Turban, et al., 1998) Job and Organisational Characteristics and Person-Organisation fit Several theories and studies demonstrate the value of characteristics of job and organisation for organisational attractiveness (e.g. Brown et al., 2003; Lievens et al., 2005; Ry nes and Barber,

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications 1990; Turban and Keon, 1993). Signalling theory provides an explanation for this relationship. Because potential applicants do not receive complete information about an organi sation, they use job and organisational characteristics to form an image of how it would be i f they were part of this particular organisation. The job and organisational characteristics are used as a signal for the working conditions of the organisation (Ehrhart and Ziegert, 2005; Spence, 1 973). Empirical research examined a wide variety of job and organisational characteris tics a supporting work environment, characteristics of the organisation (e.g. ethical standards), salary, career prospects and location, organisation s compensation, culture and developmental pos sibilities contributed to the attractiveness of the organisation as employer (Turban et al, 1998; Brown et al., 2003). Most studies link attraction of organisations to P-O fit (e.g. Cable and Judge, 1994; 1996; Schneider, 1987; Turban and Keon, 1993). P-O fit theory originally stems f rom the personenvironment paradigm. This paradigm is based on the proposition that attitudes and behaviour s are the result of the congruence between attributes of person and environment (S chneider, 1987). In general, empirical studies concerning P-O fit investigate antecedents and consequences of compatibility between a person and organisation (Kristof, 1996). P-O fit occurs if person and organisation possess similar characteristics (e.g. Cable and Judge , 1994; Cable and Edwards, 2004; Judge and Bretz, 1992; Turban and Keon, 1993). To integrate diffe rent research traditions Kristof defines P-O fit as: the compatibility of a person and an orga nisation that occurs when a) at least one entity provides what the other needs, or b) they share simi lar fundamental characteristics, or c) both (1996, p. 4). Several empirical studies contribute to the suggestion that higher levels of P-O fit, lead to more attraction to organisations (e.g. Dineen et al., 2002; Cable and Judge, 1996; Ju dge and Cable, 1997; Slaughter, Zickar, Highhouse and Mohr, 2004; Turban and Keon, 1993). For e xample research of Slaughter and colleagues (2004) suggests that people are more attrac ted to organisations with traits that match the traits they use to describe their own p ersonality. Especially the direct perception of fit by job seekers is suggested to explain o rganisational attraction (Cable and Judge, 1996; Judge and Cable, 1997). To make it possible for employees to establish their degree of fit with an organ isation, organisations need to provide potential employees enough essential information a

bout for example mission, values and achievements in recruitment advertising (Backhaus, 2 004). Communicating about these important issues will possibly lead to more attraction to organisations and moreover, hiring employees with a high degree of fit will lead to positive organisational outcomes (Backhaus, 2004; Chatman, 1991; Cheney, 1983). Corporate Image The awareness of the importance of a good corporate image for organisational suc cess is increasing (Lemmink, et al., 2003). One of the suggested advantages of a good co rporate image is its influence on applicants intentions to look for employment opportunities at a particular organisation (Lemmink et al., 2003). Because potential applicants only have a sm all amount of information about an organisation in early stages of the job choice process, to decide if they want to pursue further contact with an organisation, they rely heavily on genera l impressions of organisational attractiveness; the corporate image (Rynes, 1991). Corporate imag e is defined as the way a company is perceived, based on a certain message and at a certain poin t in time (Cornelissen, 2008, p. 254). Several empirical studies contribute to the notion that a positive corporate image increases organisational attractiveness (e.g. Belt and Paolillo, 1982; Cable and Turban, 2001; Gatewood, Gowan, and Lautenschlager, 1993; Turban and Greening, 19 97). A positive corporate image influences quality and quantity of the applicants (Fomb run and Shanley, 1990; Cable and Turban, 2003). Cable and Turban suggest that positive i mage perceptions increase organisational attractiveness not only because they are a s ignal for positive

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications job attributes, but as well because they affect the pride individuals expect to receive from organisational membership (2003). Employer Image The image of an organisation as a place to work has been treated as a distinct t ype of image in several studies. According to Lemmink et al. (2003) this is useful because peopl e form a general image of a particular organisation (corporate image), that can change if they th ink about this organisation as employer. More important in this last situation is what an organ isation stands for as employer, which possibly influences perceptions of the organisation (Gatewood et al., 1993). This particular image is given different names in literature e.g. employer image (Cable and Turban, 2001), recruitment image (Gatewood et al., 1993) or company employment i mage (Highhouse, Zickar, Thorsteinson, Stierwalt, and Slaughter, 1999; Lemmink et al. , 2003). Especially symbolic image perceptions, defined as the subjective, abstract and i ntangible attributes that convey symbolic company information in the form of imagery and t rait inferences that applicants assign to organisations (Lievens et al., 2007, p. 48), are sugge sted to be very important for organisational attractiveness (Lievens, 2007; Lievens, et al., 200 7; Slaughter, et al., 2004). Certain empirical studies suggest that besides corporate image employer i mage perceptions are important for organisational attractiveness (Gatewood et al., 19 93; Cable and Turban, 2001; Lemmink et al., 2002). For example Lemmink and colleagues focused on different image perceptions and their influence on intentions to pursue further contact wi th organisations (2003). According to their results, corporate images as well as company employme nt image are important. Corporate image even had the strongest relationship with application intentions. They suggest that a positive corporate image is the basis for a positive company employment image. Employer Branding Creating an attractive image of an organisation as a distinct and desirable empl oyer, both within and outside an organisation, becomes possible with employer branding (EB) (Backh aus and Tikoo, 2004). Employer Branding serves as a management framework that can help t o improve recruitment, retention and commitment, increase productivity and focus on priori ties (Ambler and Barrow, 1996).

The EB concept is based on the conviction that an employer can be seen as a bran d (Ambler and Barrow, 1996). Similar to a customer brand, the advantages an employer brand off ers its employees are, functional, economic and psychological (Ambler and Barrow, 1996; Lievens and Highhouse, 2003; Lievens, 2007). Both employer brand and customer-brand value de pend on differentiation from other brands and the visibility of benefits the brand offer s. Because of the several similarities, marketing research and techniques are appropriate for both types of brands (Ambler and Barrow, 1996). To establish an employer brand, an organisation has to build an image in the mind s of the potential labour market that the company, above all others, is a great place to work (Ewing, et al., 2002, p. 12). It is closely related to organisational attractiveness. If or ganisations possess several dimensions of attractiveness, they are most likely perceived to be an at tractive employer. The more attractive they are, the stronger that organisations brand is (Hah employer

et al., 2005). A possible way to apply employer branding to job advertisements, is by incorpora ting dimensions of organisational attractiveness in the advertisement text (Hah et al ., 2005). It is of vital importance that these dimensions should not be made up just to attract peo ple, but should be integrated in the identity of an organisation (Mosley, 2007). Hah et al. (200 5) created a scale for employer attractiveness. This scale consists of 25 items of attractiveness a n organisation can

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications possess and can be clustered into five groups: development, economics, applicati on, social and interest. These groups identify the factors considered important by potential em ployees when working for an organisation and therefore can be important for employer branding . The literature on organisational attractiveness suggests that possibilities for deve lopment and advancement (Hah et al., 2005; Turban et al, 1998), corporate responsibility (Ba ckhaus, Stone and Heiner, 2002; Backhaus, 2004; Turban and Greening, 1997), a positive and sup portive organisational climate (Backhaus, 2004; Hah et al., 2005, Turban et al., 1998), an innovative and creative work environment and a good compensation (Cable and Judge, 1994; Hah et al., 2005) all make an organisation more attractive as employer and contribute to creating a strong employer brand. We started this study by examining recruitment communication practice in the Net herlands, and focused on job advertisements; by an investigation of the way Dutch organization s present themselves in job advertisements. Second we conducted an experiment, in which we manipulated employer branding in job advertisements and examined the influence o n organizational attractiveness and the estimate of P-O fit by our respondents. Al so specific dimensions of attractiveness in job advertisements are investigated in their rel ative importance to organisational attractiveness. This leads to the following research question: What is the contribution of employer branding in job advertisements to organisational attrac tiveness and the estimate of p-o fit? Method To learn more about whether and how employer branding in the Netherlands is cond ucted, this study starts with analyzing corporate descriptions in job advertisements through a quantitative content analysis. Job advertisements are a useful study object to explore more a bout employer branding. They play a significant role in most recruitment strategies and moreov er, corporate descriptions in job advertisements are vital to create the impression of an orga nisation as employer (Cober, et al., 2000). Job advertisements can create the foundation to establish the link between organisation and potential employee (Backhaus, 2004). In order to compose a sound coding scheme to analyze the job advertisements, the first step of this study was emergent coding (Stemler, 2001). We started exploring the content of 20 randomly chosen job advertisements from four different acknowledged recruitment

agencies and established essential descriptors that are used to define corporate informat ion in job advertisements. To compose a valid and various sampling unit, we randomly selected 100 job adver tisements posted in the spring of 2009. They were selected from acknowledged recruitment a gencies in the Netherlands aimed at high-educated graduates and professionals. Twenty job advertisements were randomly chosen from these five recruitment agencies. Important organisational aspects used to establish the degree of fit between per son and organisation, are scarcely mentioned in the analysed job advertisements. For exa mple, only 9 percent of the job advertisements in the sample discuss organisational norms and values, while values are one of the most important elements to establish a P-O fit (Van Vuuren , 2006). Moreover, the organisational culture is mentioned in only 35 percent of the job advertisements, and the vision and or ambition is mentioned in 26 percent of the advertisements. Since a lot of relevant information about corporate identity is missing in most job advertiseme nts, it is hard for an applicant to make a good estimate of a P-O fit (Backhaus, 2004). The fact that only little information discusses important organisational aspects also means that it is difficult for a possible applicant to extract a differentiated employer image . Therefore, we suggest that at the moment in the Netherlands employer branding in job advertise ments is hardly performed. Furthermore the two questions: Does the job ad define the organ isation as an attractive or desirable employer ? and Does the job ad discuss specific advantag es of

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications working for the organisation? are responded negatively in a high percentage (resp ectively 90% and 68%). This contributes to the suggestion that employer branding in job adver tisements in the Netherlands is not a common practice at the moment. After exploring more about current performance of employer branding in job adver tisements in the Netherlands, we continue by researching the actual influence of employer bra nding in job advertisements in an experimental setting. This will be described in study 2. The content analysis showed that in the corporate descriptions of job advertisem ents in the Netherlands employer branding is underdeveloped and not used as a strategy to at tract high potentials. Despite the growing attention and knowledge on branding processes an d the insights that employer branding could be an interesting and valuable strategy to attract high potentials, employer branding is not used. To test the value of employer branding within job advertisements we conducted an experiment where we offered a normal job advertisement to respondents and an employer brand ed version of the same job advertisement to test whether respondents would value an employe r branded advertisement. With the experiment we will test the following hypothesis will be tested: Hypothesis 1: When organisations perform employer branding by using employer attractiveness, potential employees perceive the organisation as more attractive , than without the use of employer branding . Hypothesis 2: When organisations perform employer branding by using employer attractiveness, potential employees can realize a better estimate of a p-o fit, than without the use of employer branding . Respondents This study examined the impact of employer branding on both organisational attra ctiveness and the degree in which a potential employee can estimate its fit with the organisat ion. Two versions of an online job advertisement had been drafted; one with and one without employ er branding. After reading the job advertisement, the respondents had to fill out a survey. Conditions Based on our content analysis, we created a job for a management traineeship pos ition in the experiment. The job was offered in a large non-existing organisation, active in the fast moving consumer goods. It does not necessarily require a specific type of education, bu t requires a certain level of education; in this case a Masters degree. The organisation is a

company where many functions can be carried out, and many disciplines are represented. This re sults in a general job offer and could be interesting for all university students regardles s of their major. The first condition with employer branding (EB) was a job offer filled with the r egular vacancy requirements described by Heneman and Judge (2003), replenished by 25 applied di mensions of attractiveness, as developed by Hah et al. (2005). These items were used as inde pendent variables to measure the employer branding message. The second condition without employer branding (non-EB) contained the job offer, filled with some regular, non-employe r branding, job information. The focus in this second condition is on more formal characteristic s that don t really show the identity or personality of the organisation. This version was inspired on real advertisements . Because of the need for equality in amount of words for both cond itions, the condition non-EB was filled with significant more job information. Although the brand itself is the most important part of the employer branding ac tivity, we chose to exclude the brand. This way the effect of the message itself could be measure d, without being disturbed by positive or negative associations with the brand.

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Variables The survey consisted out of three dependent variables: organisational attractive ness, perception of the organisation and estimate of P-O fit. Before the dependent variables were measured, a control question has been asked to make sure the respondents have read the job o ffer properly. Organisational attractiveness is measured by questioning a scale developed by Hi ghhouse, Lievens and Sinar (2003) to measure intentions of job acceptance. The estimate t o pursue the job gives a good insight in the level of organisational attractiveness (Young, R einhart and Herneman, 1993). The five questions were found strongly reliably (Cronbach s a > . 85), and were asked directly after reading the job offer. The respondents were asked to rate t he five items on a 7-point Likert scale (1= fully disagree 7= fully agree). Perception of the organisation is measured by questioning the applicability of 2 5 characteristics of employer attractiveness (Hah et al., 2005). Respondents were asked to answer to what degree a specific characteristic of attractiveness was applicable to the organis ation in the job advertisement to their perception (1= totally non-applicable 7= totally applicab le). Because the work value scale is applied on Dutch students and applied for this specific rese arch, a factor analysis and reliability test had to be executed to measure the scale s consistenc y and reliability. We did find four reliable (Cronbach s a >.77) factors with (loadings all above .41 ). We did label these factors as: Organisational Climate, Development, Innovation and Compensati on. Estimate of p-o fit is measured by questioning the work value items, developed b y Cable and Edwards (2004). A qualitative pre-test showed that the estimate of items for sec urity and authority were hard to measure when used in combination with the job offer in th is study. These factors were therefore excluded from this research. For this reason the remainin g factors cannot be seen as P-O fit in total and need to be characterized as work values. Respond ents were asked to answer to what extent they could estimate the presence of a specific item in the organisation, after reading the job advertisement (1= totally disagree 7= totally agree). In t he solution, four different factors were found (loadings >.50); all of them were reliable (Cronbac h s a >.85). For all the conditions the items of work value, measured in this study, were ana lyzed by use of a

factor analysis with varimax rotation. This analysis showed that the original sc ale has been influenced by the adjustments and the application on Dutch students. Therefore s ome changes were made to the scale regarding hypothesis 2. The factor analysis resulted in f our factors and these results can be found in table 1. Item gaining respect (12) was removed due to the overall low eigenvalues. At the end of the survey, respondents were asked to give their opinion on the ex tent of realism of the vacancy on a 5-point Likert scale (1= very unrealistic 5 = very realistic ). Both conditions were rated as realistic (non-EB: m=3.6, sd= 1.1, EB: m=3.8, sd=1.1). Next to thi s question an open question was posed to give respondents the opportunity to give their opinion tow ards the study. Results In the period from May 25th till June 9th 2009, an invitation has been send to 1 400 students of the University of Amsterdam by e-mail, with the request to participate in the ex periment. A reminder was sent after a week. Participants were encouraged to join the experim ent by having a chance to win one of the three 100 travel vouchers. A total of 361 respondents positively responded to our invitation and were randomly assigned to one of the two conditi ons, 214 of them completed the questionnaire (25% male, mean age 23.7 years). Hypothesis 1 As expected, the organisation in the condition with employer branding is perceiv ed to be more attractive than the organisation in the condition without employer branding. The results show a positive outcome on hypothesis 1. On a 7-point scale, the organisation s attractiv eness in the job

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications advertisement with employer branding has been rated 4.2 (sd=1.29). The organisat ion s attractiveness in the vacancy without the use of employer branding has been rate d 3.8 (sd=1.20). An independent sample t-test shows a significant difference between b oth averages t(207)= 2.63, p< .05. As stated earlier, employer branding consists of several dimensions to define at tractiveness of an organisation. Table 4 shows the relative influence of the four dimensions rel ated to organisational attractiveness. The dimension Organisational Climate has the high est influence, followed by, Development. Both results are found significant. Compensation and I nnovation did in our study not have a significant influence on organisational attractiveness Table 1: Relative influence of elements of Employer Branding EB dimension (n=119) Organisational Attractiveness Organisational Climate .31 Development .26 Innovation .02 Compensation .06 R2 =.30 Hypothesis 2 The second hypothesis, When organisations perform employer branding by using empl oyer attractiveness, potential employees can realize a better estimate of a P-O fit, than without the use of employer branding , was tested by comparing the means of the work value sca le for both conditions, by use of an independent sample t-test. As can be seen in table 2, t hree out of four factors show a significant difference in average on the estimate of work value b etween the two conditions. Table 2: testing differences between the two conditions Variable Mean Non EB Mean EB T-test Working Climate 4.63 4.03 T= -3.91, df= 212, p< 0.001 Social responsibility 3.24 3.87 T= 3.53, df= 207, p< 0.001 Social Climate 4.40 4.71 T= 1.88, df= 197, p< .05 Compensation 3.68 3.78 T= .58, df= 206, n.s. The average estimate of the factor compensation by potential employees (non-EB: m= 3.68, EB: m= 3.78), does not differ significantly between the two conditions. This means t hat the

employer branding message did not improve the estimate of a potential employee, concerning the organisation s compensation towards its personnel, compared to the condition w ithout employer branding. The average estimate of the factor social climate by potentia l employees (non-EB: m= 4.40, EB: m= 4.71), differs significantly between the two conditions . Because of this result, the employer branding message did improve the estimate of the social cli mate within an organisation, by a potential employee. Discussion In this study we looked into the use of employer branding by Dutch organisations and the value of incorporating elements of employer branding in job advertisements. In our ana lysis of current recruitment practices we scarcely found employer branding elements applied. We d id find it very surprising that many advertisements had the same elements like the wish for superior communicative skills and competencies and the need for at least five years of ex perience. In our view, essential information about organisations in corporate descriptions is min imal and focuses hardly on aspects like organisational culture and values. This does not match th e current shift to

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications a more value-based economy instead of a product-oriented economy. Today it is es sential for organisations to be unique because singularity translates into value, something that will be decisive for success in the future (Kunde, 2000). Not providing important organi sational information also undermines the possibility for employees to estimate their fit with the organisation. After reading the job advertisement the potential employee knows w hat the required skills for the job are and what the job contains but not really if he o r she would match with the organisation and its values. Our experiment showed the potential benefits for organisations, if they perform employer branding in their job advertisements. First of all organisations become more att ractive for potential employees if they create a desirable employer brand. Furthermore study 2 showed that four different aspects respectively contribute to organizational attractive ness if they are discussed in job advertisements: Organisational Climate, Development, Compensati on and Innovation. Finally study 2 showed some positive results regarding the influence of employer branding on an employee s estimate of a person-organisation fit; the estimate of t he items corresponding to the factors social responsibility and social climate by a poten tial employee, based on a job advertisement, are positively influenced by employer branding The estimate of the factor compensation by potential employees did not significa ntly differ between both conditions. This means that employer branding was not substantially of influence on a potential employee s estimate of for example salary and the possibility of a company car. The estimate of the factor working climate did differ significantly but differen t than expected. An employee s estimate of items such as having different tasks and making own decisio ns during work, were rated better when reading the vacancy without employer branding. This study does not take the basic thought of employer branding in to account: t he fact that an employer brand has to be a reflection of the organisational identity. The value proposition an employer brand provides to potential and current employees has to be in line wit h what the organisation really is. Although this study did not use an existing organisation , it explores more about the potential value of creating a strong employer brand. Especially organi sations without an acknowledged image can learn from this study. They can attract people if they show their advantages as an employer in job advertisements. Especially if organisations dis cuss the

opportunity for people to develop themselves personally and professionally and r eveal information about the working climate in organisations.

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Limitations Like all field research, the present study has limitations. One limitation of th is research is the type of respondents. Although the target group has been argued well, it still li mits the generalisation of the results to students. For example job seekers at a senior l evel may have different needs regarding job information compared to students. Closely related to these limitations is the fact that the function traineeship e very global has been used. Because of th

description, according to the qualitative results, not enough job information wa s given. Another constraint is the fact that employer branding is conceptualized as an ap plied phenomenon (Ambler and Barrow, 1996; Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004; Ewing et al., 200 2). Because no brand has been used in this research, due to avoiding the influence of brand associations, the actual influence of employer branding applied on a specific brand could not be i nvestigated. This may explain the overall low averages of the survey scores. Although the employer brand itself is not included in this research (we used a non-existing, virtual organisation), th e significant positive effect of employer branding in this marginal setting can be seen as rem arkable. Therefore, when applying this research on real brands, the outcome is supposed t o be valuable, since the effect of the brand and its associations will be of influence. A last notable limitation is about the application of the scale towards Dutch st udents. Although the results are adjusted to the outcome of the different factor analysis, a sepa rate research for developing the scales would have been fruitful. Presently, this research has cop ed with uncertain influence as a result of these adjustments. Future research Although employer branding has been investigated in different corporate areas, n ot much scientific research has been done in the relation with job advertisements. It is quite curious that such an important encounter as a job advertisement has not been researched broad ly in relation to employer branding, although employer branding is acknowledged as important (W illock, 2005). First of all, research can be extended to other employer branding activities. Th e recruitment process goes beyond job advertisements, for example in job interviews and career pages on websites. It is interesting to learn more about employer branding and its contri

bution to organizational attractiveness when it is performed in other recruitment activiti es. Probably the employer brand will only be stronger and more distinct if activities are integra ted in all recruitment practices. As noted above, applying this research on a real organiza tion can be very valuable. Therefore some scales need to be developed based on the outcome of thi s research. Then P-O fit for example, cannot be seen as one, but should be divided into diff erent work values. Thereby the different items of the employer branding message should be a pplied to the ones that are truly part of the organization, what makes the vacancy more trust worthy. Because of the possibility that different groups of employees have various needs, the wo rk value scale should be tested in the particular country of research as this seems to be subje ct to cultural differences. A final and important overall item should be the multidisciplinary application o f employer branding. Because employer branding can be approached from many different workin g fields (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004), the collaboration on this field of study is importan t. As there is much to investigate regarding the topic of this research, different disciplines (e.g. marketing, HRM, corporate communication) should assemble on the research of employer brandi ng.

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Managerial implications Performing employer branding in job advertisements seems to be a careful approac h. At first, too much rosy information makes the organization less reliable. Therefore the em ployer branding message should be conducted carefully. Only real and accurate informati on should be selected instead of an advertisement filled with false information. Second, the essential information as pointed out by e.g. Heneman and Judge (2003), like job informatio n, labour conditions etcetera, is still a very important aspect of a vacancy and should no t be forgotten. Third, it is necessary to take the length of the job advertisement in to account . Some readers see a large job advertisement as boring and will not read it. Subsequently the emplo yer branding message can be implemented within the job advertisement. The items of organizati onal attractiveness can be of use, if applicable, to bring out the right employer bra nding message. Another important practical implication is seeing employer branding as a three-s tep process: 1. develop value proposition, 2. expose brand externally and 3. integration of bran d promise in the organization s culture. Although the brand itself is not been used in this researc h, the effect of branding the value propositions was of positive influence on the estimate of P-O fit. So when the value proposition matches the exposed brand, the positive effect will presumably become bigger. Implementation of employer branding however, should be based on values co-create d with the employees and management. Communicating the values top-down, and act as these ar e established might be an risky step, since honesty, reliability, responsibility a nd credibility are essential elements of a corporate brand, and should be co-created with the emplo yees to become a high valuable employee, and to prevent discrepancies between the values and the actions and actual behaviour.This is also in line with the concept of corporate identity as pointed out by Cornelissen (2008). Employer branding therefore can be seen as a part of the process of building a corporate identity; communicating and co-creating the organization s ch aracter in such a way that every (potential) employee feels part of that organization and s hares and acts towards the core values of the organization and become ambassadors of the organi zation. The organisation therefore needs to communicate their corporate identity to their pe rsonnel in

order to develop and preserve a well-rooted corporate identity. Being consistent in using the corporate identity within the employer branding message is vital (Sullivan, 1999 ). Employer branding asks for a multidisciplinary approach as postulated earlier. P ractitioners from different disciplines therefore should work together in order to create a stunni ng employer branding strategy. This will result in to a distinctive corporate identity. References Aiman-Smith, L., Bauer, T.N., and Cable, D.M. 2001. Are you attracted? Do you in tend to pursue? A recruiting policy capturing study. Journal of Business and Psychology, 16, no 2, 219-237. Albert, S., Ashforth, B.E., and Dutton, J.E. 2000. Organizational identity and i dentification: charting new waters and building new bridges. The Academy of Management Review, 25, 13-17. Ambler, T., and Barrow, S. 1996. The Employer Brand. The Journal of Brand Manage ment, 4 no 3, 185-206. Backhaus, K.B., Stone, B.A., and Heiner, K. 2002. Exploring the relationshiop be tween corporate social performance and employer attractiveness. Business and Society, 41 no 3, 292-318. Backhaus, K. 2004. An exploration of corporate recruitment descriptions on monst er.com. Journal of Business Communication, 41, 115-136. Backhaus, K., and Tikoo, S. 2004. Conceptualizing and researching employer brand ing. Career Development International, 9, 501-517. Barrow, S. and Mosley, R. 2005. Employer Brand Management: Bringing the Best of Brand Management to People at Work. Sussex: Wiley and Sons. Belt, J.A., and Paolillo, J.G.P. 1982. The influence of corporate image and spec ificity of candidate qualifications on response to recruitment advertisement. Journal of Management, 8, 105-112. Bhatnagar, J., and Srivastava, P. 2008. Strategy for staffing: employer branding and person organization fit. The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 44 no 1, 35-48.

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attractiveness as an employer. Personnel Psychology, 56, 75-102. Lievens, F., Van Hoye, G., and Schreurs, B. 2005. Examining the relationship bet ween employer knowledge dimensions and organizational attractiveness: An application in a military context. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 78, 553-572. Lievens, F. 2007. Employer Branding in the Belgian Army. Human Resource Manageme nt, 46 no1, 51-69. Lievens, F., Van Hoye, G., and Anseel, F. 2007. Organizational identity and empl oyer image: Towards a unifying framework. British Journal of Management, 18, 45-59.

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Martin, G. and Hetrick, S. 2006. Corporate Reputations, Branding and People mana gement. Oxford: Linacre House. McKinsey 2007. Making talent a strategic priority. Retrieved March, 12, 2010 at www.mckinseyquarterly.com. Moroko, L., and Uncles, M. 2008. Characteristics of successful employer brands. Journal of Brand Management, 16, 160-175. Mosley, R.W. 2007. Customer experience, organizational culture and the employer brand. Journal of Brand Management, 15, 123-124. Rynes, S.L. and Barber, A.E. 1990. Applicant Attraction Strategies: an Organizat ional Perspective. The Academy of Management Review, 15 no 2, 286-310. Rynes, S. L. 1991. Recruitment, job choice, and post-hire consequences: A call f or new re-search directions. In M. D. Dunnette and L. M. Hough (Eds.). Handbook of industrial and organizational psych ology (2nd ed.), 2, 399-444. Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press. Schneider, B. 1987. The people make the place. Personnel Psychology, 40, 437-453 . Slaughter, J. E., Zickar, M.J., Highhouse, S. and Mohr, D.C. 2004. Personality T rait Inferences About Organizations: Development of a Measure and Assessment of Construct Validity. Journal of Applie d Psychology, 89, 85 102. Spence, M. 1973. Job market signalling. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87, 355374. Stemler, S. 2001. An Overview of Content Analysis. Practical Assessment, Researc h and Evaluation 7(17). accessed August, 27th 2009 from http://PAREonline.net/getvn.asp?v=7andn=17. Stuart, H. 1998. Exploring the corporate identity/corporate image interface: an empirical study of accounting firms , Journal of Communication Management, 2 No.4, pp.357-71. Sullivan, S. 1999. The changing nature of careers: a review and research agenda. Journal of Management, 25, 457 475. Turban, D.B., and Keon, T.L. 1993. Organizational attractiveness: An interaction ist perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 184-193. Turban, D.B., Forret, M.L., and Hendrickson, C.L. 1998. Applicant attractions to firms, influences of organi zation reputation, job and organizational attributes and recruiter behaviors. Journal o f Vocational Behavior, 52, 24

44. Turban, D.B., and Greening, D.W. 1997. Corporate Social Performance and Organiza tional Attractiveness to Prospective Employees. The Academy of Management Journal, 40, 658-672. Turban, D.B,. and Cable, D.M. 2003. Firm reputation and applicant pool character istics. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24, 733-751. Van Riel, C.B.M. and Balmer, J.M.T. 1997. Corporate identity: the concept, its m anagement and measurement. European Journal of Marketing, Special Edition on Corporate Identity, 31 No.5/6, 340-55. Van Vuuren, H.A.M. 2006. Why work? Enschede: Twente University, PhD thesis. Willock, R. 2005. Employer branding is key in fight for talent. Personnel Today, 17 May, 4. Young, P., Reinhart, J. and Heneman, H.G. 1993. Effects of Job Attribute Categor ies, Applicant Job Experience, and Recruiter Sex on Applicant Job Attractiveness Ratings. Journal of Personnel Eval uation in Education, 7, 55-66.

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Tribal Behaviour and its Effect on Brand Relationships: The View of the More Mature Market

Cleopatra Veloutsou University of Glasgow, C.Veloutsou@lbss.gla.ac.uk Luiz Moutinho University of Glasgow, Moutinho@lbss.gla.ac.uk Abstract The importance of brand relationships is increasingly recognised by academics an d practitioners. In an era where consumers often develop brand communities, it is questionable wh ether the only contributor to the development of these relationships is the brand reputati on itself. Using data collected from 336 respondents, this paper is attempting to explore the imp ortance of the brand reputation and brand communities on the strength of brand relationships. T he findings suggest that brand tribalism is a better predictor of the strength of brand rela tionships than the term brand reputation. Keywords: Branding, Brand relationships, Brand communities, Tribal brands, Brand reputation Introduction Although the concept of relationship marketing was first introduced in the busin ess to business and to the services market where customers were interacting with people who were providing the offer, it is appreciated that the relational approach is a feasible strategy in mass consumer markets (Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995; Christy, Oliver and Penn, 1996; O Malley and Tynan, 1999; 2000). Some of the earlier literature of relationship marketing argued that bran ds are transaction facilitators and cannot really contribute in the development of rela tionships. The branding orientation and the relationship orientation were approached as two end in a continuum, and firms were adviced to choose where in the continuum they would li

ke to position their overall offer (Palmer 1996). Since this early literature it has n ow been acknowledged that in these markets there is a need for a marketing mix base for relationship development (Coviello and Brondie, 1998; Coviello, Brondie, Danaher, and Johnsto n, 2002; Lye, 2002). Brands can be major contributors to relationships in multiple ways. They can create a bond with individual consumers, but they can also act as an agent that is facili tating the interactions of consumers (Veloutsou, 2009). Having lost all faith in unity and totality of achievement, postmodernism has re inforced the importance of living and enjoying the fragmented moments of consumers ences (Firat life experi

and Schultz, 1997). Consumers no longer consume products by their material utili ty but because of their symbolic meaning. The image does not represent the product; it s the prod uct that represents the image (Cova, 1999) and each consumer becomes an illusion consumer that buys images not products (Ellliot, 1999). The relationship with mental images, symbols and objects , can be one of the many aspects that can be used as a basis of a relationship (Gu mmesson, 1994). We now recognise that individuals may develop relationships with specific brands in order to reduce their choice set is possible (Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995).

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications At least at certain environments with high customer interactions, the brands com prise meaning that is originally developed by different sources, mainly from the marketing org anisation and the users or the marketing environment (de Chernatony, 2001). Therefore, other consu mers may influence the strength of the relationship that one forms with a brand. Although this is acknowledged, very little research on the extent of the link between the brand t ribalism behaviour and the strength of the brand relationship that an individual forms ha s been reported (Veloutsou and Moutinho, 2009). This research is mostly focusing on data collect ed from individuals who are in the core of the brand tribes and are often younger and mo re active. The tribalism behaviour of the less committed to the tribe members is not often exam ined. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relative influence of the brand reputation and the significant others in the formation of strong consumer-brand relationships for a durable consumer good product, cars, and for consumers that are over 25 and have the abi lity to buy a product in this category. The paper first reviews the literature on brand relati onship and brand tribalism and it presents the research hypothesis. The methods used to collect a nd analyse the data is then presented and finally conclusions are offered. Brand Relationships Consumers create bonds with specific brands, objects or firms (Daskou and Hart, 2002; Thomson, MacInnis and Park, 2005) to the extent that even store loyal consumers tend to switch stores when they cannot find the product brand they require (Verbeke, Farris, an d Thurik, 1998). Companies have realised the potential of relationships with consumers and often develop relevant customer relationship strategies in an attempt to develop an actively l inked consumer base (Rowley and Haynes, 2005). Relationship marketing in the consumer product context consists of the managemen t of a network of relationships between a brand and its customers (Ambler, 1997). Altho ugh some consumers might be unwilling to accept that they form a relationship with brands when it is described in these terms (Bengtsson 2003), the literature suggests that a brand can be treated as an active contributing partner in a dyadic relationship that exists between the p erson and the brand (Fournier, 1995). Customers want to deal with companies that are innovative , ambitious

to succeed, ingenious and hardworking (Blackston, 1993) and that they expect emo tional benefits from the brands that they are purchasing (Pawle and Cooper, 2006). The perceived personality of brands can influence the strength of the relationship that consum ers form with these brand over time (Aaker, Fournier, and Brasel, 2004), while it has been als o proven that when consumers feel that a brand has the desired attitude towards the issues tha t they perceive as important to their system of values, they tend to support and buy it (Kates, 2000). The brand-consumer relationship might take a number of forms, depending on the p ersonality of consumers and the manner they these individuals develop relationships (Fourni er, 1998). In general they have been described as being in a point in a continuum, having as e xtremes the lower-order relationships and in the other the higher-order (loyal) relationship s. Five potential stages in the friendship have been identified, from potential friends (brand try ing), casual friends (brand liking), close friends (multi-brand resurgent loyalty), best friends (bra nd loyalty) and crucial friends (brand addiction) (Fajer and Schouten, 1995). In a more detailed study of the consumer s perspective, at least fifteen forms of relationship have been identifie d and their labels vary from an arranged marriage and many types of friendships to enslaveme nt, resulting in relationships with different quality (Fournier, 1998; Sweeney and Chew, 2002) . When consumers form strong relationships with certain brand, they have both strong em otional bond with this specific brand and they are eager to receive information about this pa rticular brand (Veloutsou, 2007). The link between the brand followers and their brands could d evelop to the extreme that an individual that it may provoke hysteria or even obsession to cul t brands (Malaer, Nyffenegger, Grohmann and Krohmer, 2010).

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Brands and Tribal Behaviour Clearly there is interrelationship between brands and customers (Jevons, Cabbott and de Chernatony, 2005). Symbols and signs are constantly reconfigured and recombined in a bricolage-manner to fit each specific situation. Thus, in a sense, consumption b ecomes production (Christensen, Torp and Firat, 2005). Consumers team up with other con sumers and interact with them creating a group around the brand that exists because the bra nd exists. The groups of these consumers that interact have been described in the literature as brand communities, brand tribes or brand sub-cultures (Fournier 1998, Fournier and Yao , 1997; Schouten and McAlexander, 2005; Cova and Pace, 2006). However the distinction be tween these terms that have been used to describe the groups of brand followers is not always clear and the terms are often used interchangeably in the marketing literature (Bazaki and Veloutsou, 2010). There are certain occasions that group of consumers that are expressing themselv es around the brand take greater control over the association that characterise the brand rath er than the brand team which actually support the brand (Muniz and O Guinn, 2001), to the exte nd that some discuss about brand hijack (Wathieu, Brenner, Carmon, Chattopadhyay, Werten broch, Drolet, Gourville, Muthukrishnan, Novemsky, Ratner and Wu, 2002, Cova and Pace, 2006). For example, when loyal consumers of Crown Pilot crackers discovered that Nabisco ha d ceased production of their beloved product, citizen lobbying began to pressure the corp oration to reverse its decision. While the passion of campaign organisers and consumers for the cracker was of paramount importance, the analysis also shed light on a complex interplay of factors that coalesced, saving this product from extinction (Hart, Esrock, D Silva and Werking, 2001). Very similar, and probably stronger, support from the customers can be provided when the marketer attempts to discontinue a specific brand or a product. For example, consumers su pported the Apple Newton when it was discontinued (Muniz and Schau, 2005), as well as the Cla ssic Coke when Coca Cola attempted to introduce the New Coke in 1985 (Harley, 1998) to the extend companies were forced to bring discontinued products back to the market. Therefo re it is recognised that brand tribes can eventually work in a manner different of what t he company

that legally owns the brand would expect and are capable of developing potential ly dangerous opposition to the brand (Cova and White, 2010) Postmodern consumers use products and brands for their own purposes as well as a medium which could help them to define themselves and express their identities within t he society (Lannon, 1995). They develop relationships between themselves and the brand, the firm, other consumers and the product in use (McAlexander Schouten and Koenig, 2002). The mo re they participate in group activities around the brand, the more commited they become to the other consumers with the same interests and their interaction (Schouten, McAlexander a nd Koenig, 2007). They seek satisfaction through emotions shared with others, through being with them, not through consuming with them (Cova, 1997) and they engage jointly in group ac tions to accomplish collective goals and/or to express mutual sentiments and commitments (StokburgerSauer, 2010). Often the people who participate in these groups have some degree of awareness that they belong to the group and a sense of obligation towards to the brand com munity (Muniz and O Guinn 2001) and they influence each other (Algesheimer, Dholakia and Herrman n, 2005). Some suggest that sub-cultural groups based on ethnic origin can form brand comm unities (Quinn and Devasagayam, 2005). Brand communities are forming not only in the on line environment or for luxury brands but for all types of brand, even for fast movin g consumer good products (Cova and Pace 2006). Because of their power over the brand, managers o ften try to create or to influence brand communities (Cova and Cova, 2002). Research Focus

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications A lot of research on brand communities and brand tribalism appreciates the role of the on line developments in the facilitation of brand tribalism (Cova and White, 2010). A lo t of research is using data collected from people subscribing in an on line forum or community as sociated with a certain product or service brands (i.e. Muniz and Schau, 2005; Casal, Flavin and G uinalu, 2008; Jae Wook, Choi, Qualls, and Han, 2008; Thompson and Sinha, 2008). It has b een appreciated that the fact that an individual belongs to the on line community in fluences the results, since these individuals are more involved with the brand than the rest of the consumers of the brand (Jae Wook, Choi, Qualls, and Han, 2008). Even in the cases that the data was collected off line, in the majority of the studies consumers who are committed w ith the brand and other consumers around the brand are approached, since data is collected dur ing a gathering of brand community members who get together to interact around the bra nd (i.e. Fller, Matzler and Hoppe, 2008) or with a mailing list collected from such a gath ering or official membership to a club (i.e. Algesheimeret, Dholakia and Herrmann, 2005; Schouten, McAIexander and Koenig, 2007). These consumers are real enthusiasts, in the core of the brand tribe, and often very little information is provided about their profile except of the fact that they participated in this particular gathering or on line forum (i.e. Muniz and Schau , 2005; Fller, Matzler and Hoppe, 2008; Thompson and Sinha, 2008), or when provided it is appre ciated that the respondents are of a certain profile because of the method of their recruitm ent (i.e. Jae Wook, Choi, Qualls, and Han, 2008). Consumers that are using the tribe as a reso urce and are not participating extensively in the groups activities are very rarely approached when studies of this nature are contacted. Furthermore, researchers often target younger custome rs when investigating brand tribalism, because of the nature of the activities associate d with tribalism and the chosen product category (i.e. Cova and Pace, 2006; Jae Wook, Choi, Quall s, and Han, 2008; Veloutsou and Moutinho, 2008), or the data collection methods (i.e. Bergkv ist and BechLarsen, 2010). Very little research has focused on somewhat more mature consumer s, who are not necessarily a part of the core group of followers that interact, but they co uld belong to the wider brand tribe. Therefore, this study is aiming to investigate the wider trib al behaviour of the somewhat more mature consumers who do not necessarily appreciate that they are e

xercising tribal behaviour. From the existing literature it is known that the image and the reputation of a brand play a key role in the development of brand relationships (Esch, Langer, Schmitt and Geus 2 006). Indeed it has been suggested that the brand reputations is a good predictor for building r elationships in the fast moving consumer good market (Veloutsou and Moutinho, 2009). When the ne w active, knowledgeable and demanding consumer is analysed, it has been proven that the product/service perceptions could influence the consumer relationship quality (S tuart-Menteth, Wilson, and Baker, 2006) The two constructs have been studied together in previo us research, but their direct relationship has not always been investigated (i.e. Veloutsou, 2006). However it is well documented that customers tend to be more loyal to brands that they have a good attitude towards them and the brand reputation has been proven to be one of the antecedents of brand loyalty (Chaudhuri, 1999; Gounaris and Stathakopoulos, 2004). The hypot hesis is: H1: The more positive the Brand Reputation, the stronger the relationship with t he Brand. Even early research suggests that consumers are influences by other members of t heir social network (i.e. Stafford, 1966; Park and Lessig 1977; Bearden and Etzel, 1982). St ories about brands are shared amongst consumers as powerful word-of-mouth communications fro m influential or inspirational consumers passing virally around communities (Pawle and Cooper, 2006). A consumer s preference for an offering can be influenced by the preference s of others in many ways, ranging from social identification and inclusion to the benefits of n etwork externalities. Yang and Allenby (2003) introduced a Bayesian spatial auto regres sive discretechoice model to study the preference inter-dependence among individual consumers . The autoregressive specification can reflect patterns of heterogeneity in which infl uence propagates

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications within and across networks. These patterns cannot be modelled with standard rand om-effect specifications and can be difficult to capture with covariates in a linear model . These authors illustrate their model of interdependent preferences with data on car purchases and showed that preferences for Japanese-made cars are related to geographically and demogr aphically defined networks. Recent research suggests that brand relationships may be the result of imaginati on or actual participation in brand communities (Fournier, 1998; Fournier and Yao, 1997). Con sumers report higher brand connections for brands with images that are consistent with the ima ge of ingroup compared to brands with images that are not consistent with the image of an ingr oup (Escalas and Bettman, 2005). The degree to which a brand communicates reference group ide ntity may affect the relationships individuals develop with a brand (Swaminathan, Page and Grgan-Canli, 2007), and brand tribalism has been proven to be significant in fast moving cons umer good products (Veloutsou and Moutinho, 2009), but the link has not been investigated in durable products. It this study it is hypothesised that: H2: The stronger the Brand Tribalism the stronger the Brand Relationship. Methodology The drafted questionnaire containing the developed statements was pilot tested w ith a convenience sample of twenty individuals. This led to the development of the fin al instrument, which used 5 point Likert type scales. In the final instrument Brand Reputation was measured with 5 items. Brand Tribalism was measured with the constructs Degree of fit wit h lifestyle, Passion in Life, Reference group acceptance and Social visibility of brand with 4, 2, 5 and 2 items respectively. These dimensions were proven to be significant predictors of the d evelopment of brand relationships (Veloutsou and Moutinho, 2009) and that is why they were sel ected to be tested in a different context. Although recently, there have been several attemp ts to measure Brand Relationships (i.e. Aaker, Fournier and Brasel, 2004; Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006; Esch, Langer, Schmitt and Geus, 2006; Gaus, Weigerber and Zanger, 2006), it was decided to measure Brand Relationships using the two dimensions introduced by Veloutsou (20 07) to measure the strength of the relationship and used in a similar study (Veloutsou and Moutinho, 2009). The first dimension: the Two-way communications and has six items, while the second is Emotional exchange and has seven items. This is in accordance with the elements

of relationships suggested by social psychology (Hinde, 1979; 1981; Falk and Noonan -Warker 1985; Hinde 1995; 1997). Most research analysing brand communities at present focuses on luxury brands or /and highly products that consumers are highly involved with, such as cars, motorbikes, jeep s, computers or personal digital assistants (Muniz and O Guinn, 2001; McAlexander, Schouten, and K oenig, 2002; Algesheimeret, Dholakia and Herrmann, 2005; Muniz and Schau, 2005; Schouten and McAlexander, 2005), and there is very limited attempt to analyse products that t arget the mass market, such as chocolate spread (Cova and Pace, 2006). Therefore, cars were per ceived as a good choice as the product for this project. In the final instrument, the respon dents were asked to answer all the questions having in mind one specific brand, either BMW or Mer cedes. These brands were selected because they were brands that target in principle the more mature consumers that this study was targeting. It is not uncommon to give a limited li st of brands to chose from in this kind of research settings (i.e. Veloutsou & Moutinho, 2008; B ergkvist and Bech-Larsen, 2010). The primary data collection for this study was conducted over a period of three months in Glasgow. During the first two months, the research instrument was developed and pre-tested, while in the final month the quantitative data was collected, through a self-adm inistrated survey. Student volunteers acted as field researchers to collect the data. They were asked to recruit non-student respondents, who would complete the questionnaire independen tly. Due to

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications the nature of the brands, it was decided though to use only the questionnaires f rom the respondents over 25 for this analysis, which were 336 responses (Table 1). The r espondents were given the product category and they were asked to complete the research ins trument only if they felt comfortable with cars. Therefore, it is not surprising that the maj ority of the respondents are men. Because of the make up of the sample, most of them are work ing, the majority of them have some short of qualification, while a quarter of them are r elatively high earners. What is surprising is that half of them chose Mercedes and half of them chose BMW as the brand that they wanted to think while completing the questionnaire. Table 1. Characteristics of the sample No % No % Gender Male Female 210 62.50 126 37.50 Brand Mercedes BMW 168 168 50.00 50.00 Age 26-30 30-40 41-45 46-50 51-55 56-65 66+ 75 22.32 75 22.32 36 10.71 66 19.64 45 13.39 33 9.82 6 1.79 Job status Full time Part time Student Retired Not working 279 21 9 18 9 83.04 6.25 2.68 5.36

2.68 Personal Income -10 k 10-20 k 20-30 k 30-40 k 40+ k N/A 21 69 93 69 81 3 6.25 20.54 27.68 20.54 24.11 0.89 Education High School HND/HNC BA/MA Post Graduate N/A 111 33.04 51 15.18 99 29.46 69 20.54 6 1.79 Total 336 100.00 Total 336 100.00 Before executing any statistical tests, certain computations were performed and the data was prepared for the rest of the analysis. All the variables of the study were essen tially perceptual and therefore subject to a respondent's filtering process. Thus, Cronbach's Alph a was used to test for internal consistency. The average value reported for each of the variab les was calculated and used for the various tests. In addition to the descriptive statistics, other statistical techniques were used. Due to the exploratory nature of this research, to identif y the variables predicting the dependent variables, stepwise linear regression analysis was appl ied. To control the variables of multicollinearity, the variance inflation factor (VIF) was calc ulated. Results All the constructs of this study had Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficients v ery in excess of .80, or Pearson Correlations in excess of .36 (Table 1), and they are internally cons istent and indeed measure the same construct. The average value of the items describing each one o f the constructs under investigation was used for the examination of the interrelation ships suggested in the proposed model.

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 1. Accompanying Reliability Analysis No of items Mean SD Reliability analysis BRAND REPUTATION 5 .83* Brand Reputation BRAND TRIBALISM Degree of fit with lifestyle Passion in Life Reference group acceptance Social visibility of brand BRAND RELATIONSHIP 3 2 5 2 .83* .38# .79* .36# Two Way Communications Emotional Exchange * Crombach Alpha # Pearson correlation 6 7 .82* .89* For most of the constructs under investigation, the correlation was proven signi ficant in .05 level (Table 2). All the statistically significant correlations are positive, as expec ted, with the exception of the Two Way communication with the Brand Reputation, which is statistically s ignificant and negative. In a similar manner, brand reputation has a negative, but not statisti cally significant link with emotional exchange. These results are somewhat challenging the existin g perceptions of the existing relationship of the constructs. The two dimensions of Brand Rela tionships are also highly intercorrelated, but they are clearly separated in a principal component analysis with varimax rotation. Table 2. Pearson Inter-correlation 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 Brand Reputation Reference group acceptance -0.08 3 4 5

6 7 Degree of fit with lifestyle Social visibility of brand Passion in Life Two Way Communications Emotional Exchange *significant at .05 level 0.22* 0.12* 0.00 -0.12* -0.07 0.42* 0.04 0.10* -0.05 0.10 0.22* 0.11* 0.02 -0.04 0.42* 0.30* 0.34* 0.35* 0.46* 0.72* Although the variables are inter-correlated, regression analysis can be performe d in this data set, since the degree of multi-collinearity is not considered as problematic. Al l variance inflation factor (VIF) values are below 10, the benchmark suggested by Neter, Wesserman an d Kutner (1990). When the regression analysis was performed, only some of the proposed re lationships were not proved to be statistically significant (Table 3), and therefore revised models were developed, where the links among variables not statistically significant at the .10 level were deleted with stepwise regression. Both regression analyses showed respectable ex planatory power, since adjusted R2 was .18 and .22 respectively. For both dimensions of Brand Relationship, it is apparent that the best predicto rs are the Brand Tribalism variables, rather than Reputation. The results suggest that the social visibility and the passion in life are the key factors that one could want to build links with the brands. This result is

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications in line with a previous study, which suggested that these two brand tribalism di mensions are the most influential for building relationships in the context of soft drinks (Velou tsou and Moutinho, 2009). What is particularly interesting is that the stonger the brand reputation the le ss the consumers want to relate with it, both in terms of emotions and in terms of exchanging inf ormation. Therefore it is not what is the overall reputation of the brand and its trustwor thiness that could make an individual develop linkages with the brand, but it is what the significa nt others who are in his environment will consider of his/her interaction with the brand. This res ult is contradicting previous research which found a positive, but relatively weak, link between the two constructs (Veloutsou and Moutinho, 2009). Table 3. Predicting the Brand Relationship Full Model Revised Model st b t Tolerance VIF st b t Tolerance VIF Two-Way Communication BRAND REPUTATION Brand reputation -0.17 -3.16* 0.87 1.15 -0.18 -3.49* 0.95 1.05 BRAND TRIBALISM Degree of fit with lifestyle -0.11 -1.81 0.76 1.31 -0.12 -2.36# 0.97 1.03 Passion in life 0.25 4.22* 0.78 1.28 0.24 4.18* 0.80 1.25 Reference group acceptance -0.04 -0.58 0.72 1.39 Social visibility 0.24 4.18* 0.82 1.22 0.24 4.19* 0.82 1.22 Adjusted R2 .17 .18 F 14.1* 17.6 Emotional Exchange BRAND REPUTATION Brand reputation -0.10 -1.91 0.86 1.16 -0.13 -2.53* 0.97 1.03 BRAND TRIBALISM Degree of fit with lifestyle 0.06 0.98 0.77 1.30 Passion in life 0.36 6.40* 0.80 1.25 0.36 6.43* 0.81 1.24 Reference group acceptance -0.08 -1.41 0.72 1.38 Social visibility 0.19 3.33* 0.77 1.30 0.18 3.16* 0.79 1.27 Adjusted R2 .22 .22 F 18.4 29.9 * Significant at the .01 level # Significant at the .05 level

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Conclusions Brands nowadays are not only a tool that could facilitate transactions, but it c ontributes to the development of long-term relationships with consumers. It is well recognised tha t the success of a specific brand lays on the development of relationships between the brands and the consumers as well as the brand s ownership and consumption experience in informal brand communities, or brand tribes. However these concepts only recently started to be examined in the academic literature and the research attempting to link the two is extremely limited. In this exploratory research, the role of the brand reputation and the brand tribalism i n the development of relationships is examined. The results of this analysis are somewhat surprising. The existing literature ha s examined the development of relationships so far, has established that the brand itself is im portant for the formation and the prosperity of relationships. However, these results indicate t hat the brand tribalism is more important than the brand reputation in the formation of relati onships. It stretches the thinking into the other extreme. The results indicate that the res pondents did not want to develop relationships with brands that are reputable. In fact they would prefer to avoid such a relationship. These negative links could be related with the profile of t he respondents. However, what is really prominent in this research is that is supports the role of brand tribalism in the formation of brand relationships for more mature consumers who do not nec essarily belong to the formal brand community. The brand tribes are more about groups of individuals who develop social networks and influence each other in the evaluation of specif ic offers and possibly on the decision making around these offers. Clearly this study suggests that the tribe influences the way that the individuals at least feel about the brands. This research identifies issues that merit further research. It would be valuabl e to further examine the role of brand tribalism in the development of brand relationships. I t would also be interesting to see whether brand tribalism influences the manner that consumers think and act in relation to their consumption choices and behaviour. References Aaker, D. and Keller, K.L. (1990) l of Marketing, 54 (January), 27 Consumer Evaluations of Brand Extensions , Journa

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Brand Reputation . This brand in trustworthy . This brand is reputable . This brand makes honest claims . This brand is well known . I feel that this brand is one of the leading brands in this product category Brand Tribalism Degree of fit with lifestyle . This brand is right for me . Using this brand does something good for me . This brand fits my image . This brand is related to the way I perceive life Passion in Life . This brand makes a contribution in life . There is something about this brand that goes beyond its tangible characteristic s Reference group acceptance . I would buy this brand because I am sure that my friends approve of it . I am very loyal to this brand because my friends also use it . My friends buy this brand and I buy it too just because I want to be like them . I achieve a sense of belonging by buying the same brand my friends buy . I often discuss with friends about this brand Social visibility of brand . Wherever I go, this brand is present . I know of many people who own/use this brand . I know that people feel good about this brand Brand Relationship Two Way Communications . I want to be informed about this brand . I am more willing to learn news about this brand than for other brands .

I listen with interest to information about this brand . If leaflets are sent to me from this brand, I get annoyed . I will be willing to be informed about this brand in the future . I am willing to give feedback to the manufacturer of this brand Emotional Exchange . This brand means more to me than other brands . I care about the developments relevant to this brand . This brand and I complement each other . I feel comfortable with this brand . This brand is like a person with whom I am close to . Both this brand of lipstick and I benefit from our link . Over time this brand becomes more important to me

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The Impact Of Corporate Reputation On Customer Trust

Bahar Yasin Istanbul University, Faculty of Business Administration, Marketing Department, T urkey Zehra Bozbay Istanbul University, Faculty of Business Administration, Marketing Department, T urkey Abstract Increasing competition in a globalized economy promotes the identification of su stainable competitive advantage drivers in the field of intangible assets. Creating and ex ploiting intangible assets allows companies to drive markets, rather than to be market driven. Recen t literature acknowledges corporate reputation as the most critical, strategic, and enduring intangible asset of the firm. Investigating its consequences is therefore of interest to practice and research alike. This study examines one important customer-related consequence of corporate repu tation, customer trust, for one important stakeholder group, customers, within telecommu nications sector in Turkey. Based on a sample of 580 GSM subscribers, empirical results of the study indicate that corporate reputation contributes to customer trust. Keywords: Corporate Reputation, Customer Trust, Telecommunications Sector, Turke y Introduction In a competitive market environment firms not just compete for customers, they a lso vie for reputational status across their relevant constituent groups (Henard and Dacin, 2010). To be successful, firms must effectively interact with a number of constituents such a s customers as they are one of the most important stakeholder groups for firms because they cre ate revenue streams. Reputation of a firm in view of customers is becoming ever more importa nt because it exerts an influence on both commercial outcomes like profits and non-commercial outcomes like customer trust (Fombrun, 1996; Davies et al., 2002). Reputable companies ar e expected to

behave well and are less likely to engage in negative behaviors, which strengthe n customers' trust in their integrity and reliability (Keh and Xie, 2009). Therefore, the main objective of this study is to determine the impact of custom er-based corporate reputation on customer trust in the Turkish telecommunication sector. As Jin, Park and Kim (2008) suggested, the negative consequences of untrustworthy behavior is perceived to be more harmful for firms that already have a good reputation, so the customers are more likely to trust a firm with a good reputation rather than a firm with a poor or no repu tation. Consequently, reputation is expected to positively affect trust to the GSM opera tor.

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Theoretical Background Customer-based Corporate Reputation Corporate reputation, has critical importance for firms because it provides an o pportunity to reduce transaction costs and influence both financial and customer outcome varia bles positively, such as consumer trust, satisfaction and loyalty (Caruana et al. 2004; Dowling 2 001; Kreps and Wilson 1982; Roberts and Dowling 2002; Rose and Thomsen 2004; Shapiro 1983; Will iamson 1985; Walsh and Beatty, 2007). Weiwei (2007) reports that since the 199O's, repu tation is perceived as a strategic resource for a company that can affect its financial pe rformance. Corporate reputation has variety of definitions from the perspective of each aca demic discipline (Berens and Van Riel, 2004, Chun, 2005, Gotsi and Wilson, 2001). For economists reputation is related to product quality and price (Shapiro, 1983; Wilson, 1985). For organiza tional researchers reputation is part of a social identity and an important and intangi ble resource which may significantly contribute to an organization's performance, and even to its survival (Fombrun and Shanley, 1990; Hall, 1993; Rao, 1994). In marketing, reputation is treated as component of brand equity (Aaker, 1996) and associated with the credibility of t he firm (Herbig et al., 1994). For Bennett and Rentschler (2003) reputation is "a concept relate d to image, but one that refers to value judgments among the public about an organization's qual ities, formed over a long period, regarding its consistency, trustworthiness and reliability." Image of a company can affect its credibility and effectiveness in reaching key intemal and extemal audiences such as clients, employees, and the media (Weiwei, 2007). Marken (2002 ) defined reputation as assets that include "quality of products and services, ability to innovate, value as long-term investment, financial stability, ability to attract, develop, retain t alent; use of corporate assets, and quality of management." According to Yoon et al. (1993), i t is possible to view corporate reputation as a mirror of the firm's history which serves to comm unicate information regarding the quality of its products or services to its target grou ps in comparison with those of its competitors (Nguyen and Leblanc, 2001). Herbig and Milewicz (1 993, p. 18) define reputation as an estimation of the consistency over time of an attribute o f an entity . Wartick (1992) defined corporate reputation as an aggregation of a single stakeho lder's

perceptions of how well organizational responses are meeting the demands and exp ectations of many organizational stakeholders . Although corporate reputation is defined in man y ways there is a consensus (Dowling, 1986) on the concept that it is the result of pas t actions of a firm (Nguyen and Leblanc, 2001). Herbig and Milewicz (1993) suggest that many good transactions over time is need ed to build a good reputation whereas, destruction of it is such easy that a mixed signal to m arkets or a bad action directed at a particular group can cause reputation to go down. The natur e of a firm's reputation depends on the results of its perceived actions. If the firm repeated ly succeeds to fulfill its promises, it will possibly have a favorable reputation; and inversel y, the firm's failure to respect its expressed intentions may create a negative reputation (Herbig and Mi lewicz, 1993). In the literature, like its conceptual definiton, the proposed methods to measur e reputation are not common. The most prominent ways of measuring reputation are based on ranking , rating, and scale-based measures. Ranking measures, employed by Fortune or the Financial Times, provide ordered company listings. They indicate which company is better but not how much better it is. Rating measures ask respondents to rate the reputation of the comp any. They do not enable researchers to compare the reputation of firms within industries or betwe en industries. However, they are effective at capturing situation-specific measures of the perc eptions of the target stakeholders at disaggregated level of analysis (Bontis et al., 2007). Sc ale measures, such as Walsh and Beatty s customer-based corporate reputation scale (CBR scale) are us eful to capture multiple dimensions of the reputation construct (Walsh et al., 2009). In their explanations regarding the originating point of the customer-based corporate rep utation scale

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Walsh and Beatty (2007), argue that a firm can have multiple reputations, with a different set of attributes for different stakeholder groups (Wartick 2002). For instance, custom ers can assess a service firm s community and environmental friendliness and might be able to judge its service quality but they may struggle to judge its use of assets. Thus, the various dime nsions of corporate reputation may be perceived differently by different audiences and dif ferent audiences may attach different weights to these dimensions or even use somewhat different criteria to evaluate a firm. With this point of view Walsh and Beatty (2007) rep ort that specifically customers views of reputation are really important and worth to inve stigate so they developed a corporate reputation scale which focuses only one important stakehol der group, customers. Customer Trust For marketing managers reducing consumers uncertainty is a key task to encourage them in buying the company s products (Sichtmann, 2007). In general, one effective way of reducing a consumer s uncertainty is the trust built by company (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). More recently, Hiscock (2001, p. 1) also has claimed that the ultimate goal of marketing is to g enerate an intense bond between the consumer and the brand, and the main ingredient of this bond is trust . Due to its importance, trust has received a great deal of interest from sc holars in many disciplines such as psychology, sociology, economics, as well as in more applied areas such as management and marketing. This multidisciplinary interest has added richness to the construct, but has also caused difficulties in integrating the various perspectives on trus t and finding a consensus on its nature (Delgado-Ballester and Munuera-Aleman, 2005). Hess (1995) reports that trust reflects customers general belief that the brand is looking out for th em, will do whatever it can to make them happy, and is responsive to their needs. In the stu dy of Hess and Story (2005) previous definitions of trust is mentioned as the confidence in, or willingness to rely on an exchange partner, arising from perceived expertise, integrity, or intentio nality (Moorman et al., 1993; Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Despite the many definitions of the concep t, a careful review of the extant literature reveals that there is a consensus that confident expectations and

risk are critical components of a definition of trust (Delgado-Ballester and Mun uera-Aleman, 2005). In accordance, Deutsch defined trust in 1973 as the confidence that one w ill find what is desired from another, rather that what is feared (Deutsch, 1973). It represents the confidence that the relational party in an exchange will not exploit another s vulnerability. Therefore, to trust a brand implicitly means that there is a high probability or expectancy th at the brand will result in positive outcomes for the consumer. Consequently, a trustworthy brand is one that consistently keeps its promise of value to consumers through the way the product is developed, produced, sold, serviced and advertised even in bad times when some kind of bran d crisis arises (Delgado-Ballester and Munuera-Aleman, 2005). Doney and Cannon (1997) suggest tha t the building of trust involves a calculative process based on the ability of a party to continue to meet its obligations and on an estimation of the costs versus rewards of staying in t he relationship. Therefore, to trust a brand, besides perceiving positive outcomes, customers als o believe that these positive outcomes will continue in the future (Aydin and Ozer, 2005). Sichtman (2007) in his study has summarized research literature on repeatedly me ntioned conditions under which trust develops (Rousseau et al., 1998): First, trust implies uncertainty on the part of the trustor about the motives an d behaviours of the trustee (Arrow, 1973; Lewis and Weigert, 1985). Second, an asp ect of uncertainty is the inability to control the trustee. Trust is based on the expec tation that the supplying firm does not behave in an opportunistic manner even though the consumer cannot control it (Anderson and Weitz, 1992). Therefore, trust is a mec hanism to absorb uncertainty (Ripperger, 1998). Third, the concept is associated with a risk and thus involves the vulnerability of the exchange partner that trusts (Moorman et al., 1993;

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001). In other words, in the event of opportunistic beh aviour by the supplying firm, the consumer will face economic or social damage which outweighs the advantages which would arise from the betrayal of her or his own t rust (Doney and Cannon, 1997). Fourth, both exchange partners can decide whether they want to honour or betray the trust. Thus, trust is voluntary (Ripperger, 1998). Finally, in the literature it is often stated that trust applies to events in the future (Lu hmann, 2000; Mayer et al., 1995) that is, the consumer extrapolates from past experiences to predict the future behaviour of the supplying firm (Weizsacker, 1980). Accordingly, the greater the number of positive experiences with a supplying firm, the stronger the consu mer s trust will be. This study follows Morgan and Hunt (1994) and Doney and Cannon (1997) in focusin g on trust in a corporate brand (GSM operator in this study) which is developed by consumers. Based on the reviewed literature, trust is here defined as the belief of consumers in a purch ase situation characterised by uncertainty, vulnerability and lack of control, on the basis of experiences has been made in the past, a company identified as a corporate brand will deliver se rvice at the quality which the consumer expects. Customer-based Corporate Reputation and Customer Trust Relationship Since the benefits of reputation postulated in the literature are often associat ed with the reduction of uncertainty, it is logical to expect a positive customer-based repu tation-trust relationship (Walsh and Beatty, 2007). Corporate reputation is critical for a co mpany because it helps to reduce transaction costs, and positively influences both financial and customer outcome variables, such as consumer trust and loyalty (Doney and Cannon 1997; Fombrun an d van Riel 1997; Hall 1992; Caruana et al. 2004; Dowling 2001; Kreps and Wilson 1982; Rober ts and Dowling 2002; Rose and Thomsen 2004; Shapiro 1983; Williamson 1985); customer sa tisfaction (Davies et al. 2002; Walsh et al. 2006) and positive word of mouth (Fombrun and van Riel 1997; Groenland 2002). Keh and Xie (2009) report that highly reputable companies can gain customer trus t in three ways. First, valuable role of reputation in reducing the uncertainty stakeholder s encounter when they evaluate firms is undeniable for economic and institutional perspectives (B enjamin and

Podolny, 1999; Rindova et al., 2005), because positive corporate reputation is b ased on superior performance over a certain period of time. As confidence is an important factor in the creation of relational trust (Morgan and Hunt, 1994), high reputation can strengthen cust omers' confidence and reduce risk perceptions when they make judgment on organizational performance and quality of products or services. Thus customers are more likely to perceive companies with highly favorable reputations as trustworthy (Keh and Xie, 2009). Second, customers tend to perceive companies with good reputations as credible, reliable , responsive, and trustworthy (Fombrun, 1996), as well as high quality and prominent (Rindova et al., 2005), which can enhance customers' expectation of corporate capability in providing ex cellent products or services, and integrity in fulfilling formal contracts or announced promise. In particular, during the initial stages of the relationship when there has been no previous transaction between both parties, a good reputation signals the seller's compete nce and/or goodwill (Campbell,1999). As a result, buyers may base their trust on the seller 's reputation to evaluate the cost and benefit of transacting with this seller (Barone et al., 20 04; Keh and Xie, 2009). Finally, corporate reputation is often viewed as a fragile resource, which requires considerable time and investment to develop but is easily destroyed (Hall, 1993) . Thus, reputable companies are expected to behave well and are less likely to engage in negative behaviors, which strengthen customers' confidence in their integrity and reliabi lity (Keh and Xie, 2009).

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications The Impact of Customer-based Corporate Reputation on Customer Trust The relationship between corporate reputation and trust is well established in s everal contexts (Jin et al., 2008). The notion that corporate reputation increases consumer trus t toward the firm has been confirmed in the following situations: such as electronic travel servic es (de Ruyter et al., 2001), financial advisers (Johnson and Grayson, 2005), legal service web si tes (McKnight et al., 2002), and online settings (Jarvenpaa et al., 1999; Koufaris and Hampton-So sa, 2004; Yoon, 2002). According to Chiles and McMackin (1996), a company with a good reputation is tho ught to be unwilling to endanger this valuable asset by failing to fulfill promises and obl igations. Because, the cost of untrustworthy behavior is perceived to be higher for firms that alre ady have a good reputation so, customers are more likely to trust a firm with a good reputation rather than a firm with a poor or no reputation. Smith et al., (2010) states that if a business fir m loses its reputation, it also loses trust, which is fundamental to business activities inv olving the firm s customers, suppliers, lenders, investors, and others. Building on the preceding literature review that supports the relationship betwe en corporate reputation and customer trust it is possible to assume that perceived corporate reputation will impact customers trust on a GSM operator. The following research model in Figure 1 illustrates the effect of corporate reputation and its dimensions on customer trust. Figure 1: Research Model CORPORATE REPUTATION .Good Employer .Reliable and Financially Strong Company .Customer Orientation .Social and Environmental Responsibility .Product and Service Quality CUSTOMER TRUST Following Walsh and Beatty s (2007, p. 129) study of customer-based corporate repu tation, construct of customer-based reputation is defined in this study as the customer s o verall evaluation of a firm based on his or her reactions to the firm s goods, services, communication activities, interactions with the firm and/or its representatives or constituenc ies (such as employees, management, or other customers) and/or known corporate activities . Wal sh and Beatty (2007) view customer-based corporate reputation to be composed of five in formation

content dimensions: The good employer dimension is concerned with customers perceptions about how the

company and its management treats its employees and pays attention to their inte rests, and customer expectations that the company has competent employees. The reliable and financially strong company dimension is about customers perception of the company in terms of competence, solidity and profitability. Moreover, it measures customers expectations that the company uses financial resources in a responsible manner a nd that investing in the company would involve little risk. Customer orientation refers to the customers perception of the willingness of company employees to satisfy customer needs (e.g. Brown et al., 2002). The social and environmental responsibility dim ension captures customers beliefs that the company has a positive role in society and to wards the environment in general. Finally, the product and service quality dimension r efers to 509

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications customers perceptions of the quality, innovation, value and reliability of the fi rm s goods and services. In this study, like previous researchers (Moorman et al. 1992), trust is seen in terms of willingness to rely on an exchange partner in whom one has confidence. Thus, a f irm with a more credible reputation will also be more highly trusted by the customer. Accor dingly, it is proposed that: H1. Corporate reputation has a positive effect on customer trust. H1a: The reputation dimension good employer has a positive effect on customer tr ust. H1b: The reputation dimension reliable and financially strong company has a posi tive effect on customer trust. H1c: The reputation dimension customer orientation has a positive effect on cust omer trust. H1d: The reputation dimension social and environmental responsibility has a posi tive effect on customer trust. H1e: The reputation dimension product and service quality has a positive effect on customer trust. Method Sample and Data Collection Data was collected from mobile phone users in Istanbul in Turkey. A total of 600 mobile phone users were contacted over a two-week period of May 2010 via a questionnaire but 20 questionnaires were eliminated by means of invalid answers. For this reason, the final data set contained 580 GSM subscribers. The data was analyzed using Multiple Regressions Analysis. The sample s distribution on GSM operators (Turkcell, 59%; Avea, 26%; Vodafone, 15%) w as nearly consistent with their real market share (Turkcell, 42%; Avea, 35%; Vodafone, 26% ) based on the 2009 data of Information and Communication Techmologies Authority (ICTA). Sample characteristics appear to be representative of mobile phone users in Turk ey. A total of 51 percent of the sample is female and 49 percent of the sample is male. Most of the respondents were between the age group of 18-24 (40.5%) and the respondents month ly revenue is 1001 and 2000 TL with 35.5 percent. Measurement

Multiple items were used to measure corporate reputation and customer trust. A t otal of 28 items were utilized as five point Likert-type scaled questions with end points r ating from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree. The scale measuring corporate reputatio n was adapted from Walsh and Beatty (2007). Customer trust was measured with eight item scale. Items were adapted from Morgan and Hunt (1994), Doney and Cannon (1997) and Andaleeb (1996) . To ensure that the questionnaire is well understood, it was tested on 30 respond ents to detect the existence of misinterpretation as well as any spelling and grammatical error s. The suggestions were subsequently incorporated into the final questionnaire. A total of 580 valid and complete responses were included in the final analysis out of 600 responses rece ived.

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Results The reliability of each construct scale was assessed by computing Cronbach s coeff icient alpha. Scale reliabilities range from 0.83 to 0.95, indicating that they exhibit an acc eptable level of reliability (Cronbach s Alpha is 0.70) (Nunnally, 1978:10). Cronbach s alpha measure s are 0.95 for corporate reputation, and 0.93 for customer trust. An exploratory principal components factor analysis with Varimax rotation with K aiser Normalization was used to test the dimensionality of corporate reputation. The s cale items loaded onto five factors that collectively explained 67 percent of the variance. The items included in each factor and the factor loadings are reported in Table 1. Factor loadings in the rotated component matrix ranged from 0.52 to 0.84. Factors structures are broadl y consistent with the original corporate reputation scale developed by Walsh and Beatty (2007 ). However, Seems to be well-managed item of Good Employer dimension; Tends to outperform competitors , Seems to recognize and take advantage of market opportunities and Appea rs to be aware of its responsibility to society items of Reliable and Financially St rong Company dimension; Offers high quality products and services item of Product and Service Q uality dimension; Seems to make an effort to create new jobs item of Social and Environme ntal Responsibility dimension were deleted due to the poor factor loadings. In order to assess the dimensionality of customer trust scale, an exploratory pr incipal components factor analysis was performed. As seen in Table 1, eight items formed one factor that explained 67 percent of the variance in the scale. Finally, to test the effects of corporate reputation and its components on custo mer trust, multiple regressions analysis was applied to data.

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table 1: Summary of the Scales Total Factor Variance Construct Measures . Loadings Explaine d CORPORATE REPUTATION * 0.67 0.95 Seems to have excellent leadership .772 Has management who seems to pay attention to the needs .769 of its employees Component Seems to treat its people well .737 1:Good 0.89 Seems to maintain high standards in the way that it treats .724 Employer people Seems to have good employees .661 Looks like a good company to work for .566 Component 2:Reliable and Financially Strong Company Appears to make financially sound decisions .813 Has a strong record of profitability .756 Is doing well financially .740 Looks like it would be a good investment .713 Seems to have a clear vision of its future .604 Looks like it has strong prospects for future growth .591 Treats its customers fairly .780 Takes customer rights seriously .766 Component 3: Is concerned about its customers .695 Customer Has employees who treat customers courteously .662 0.88 Orientation Seems to care about all of its customers regardless of how .635

much money they spend with them Has employees who are concerned about customer needs .630 Component 4: Would reduce its profits to ensure a clean environment .840 Social and Seems to be environmentally responsible .813 Environmental Appears to support good causes .665 Responsibility Component 5: Stands behind the services that it offers .593 Product and Is a strong, reliable company .554 Service Develops innovative services .551 Quality Offers services that are a good value for the money .522 CUSTOMER TRUST * 0.67 0.93 This company can be relied upon. .895 This company has high integrity. .873 I can depend on this company to do the right thing. .863 I tend to trust the company s goods and services .840 I have great confidence in this company. .806 This is an honourable company .799 I trust this company .788 In general, I trust the company s employees that sell .706 something to me * Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. * Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. * Rotation converged in 3 iterations. ** Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Customer-based orporate reputation has five dimensions namely good employer, rel iable and financially strong company, customer orientation, social and environmental respo nsibility and product and service quality. 512

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Good employer dimension of customer-based corporate reputation comprises six ite ms such as Seems to have excellent leadership. , Has management who seems to pay attention to t he needs of its employees. Seems to treat its people well. , Seems to maintain high stan dards in the way that it treats people. Seems to have good employees. and Looks like a good company to work for. Reliable and financially strong company dimension is composed of six items relat ing to Appears to make financially sound decisions , Has a strong record of profitability , Is doing well financially , Looks like it would be a good investment. , Seems to have a clear vision of its future and Looks like it has strong prospects for future growth . Customer orientation dimension includes six items relating to Treats its customer s fairly. , Takes customer rights seriously. , Is concerned about its customers. , Has employees wh o treat customers courteously. , Seems to care about all of its customers regardless of how much money they spend with them. and Has employees who are concerned about customer nee ds. Items regard to social and environmental responsibility is another dimension. It consists of three items such as Would reduce its profits to ensure a clean environment. , Seems to be environmentally responsible. and Appears to support good causes. Product and service quality dimension relates to Stands behind the services that it offers. , Is a strong, reliable company. , Develops innovative services. and Offers services that ar e a good value for the money. Customer trust is concerned with This company can be relied upon. , This company has high integrity. , I can depend on this company to do the right thing. , I tend to trust the company s goods and services. , I have great confidence in this company. , This is an honourable company. , I trust this company. ell something to me. and In general, I trust the company s employees that s

For testing research hypotheses, a regression model including corporate reputati on and its five components as independent variables and customer trust as dependent variable was created. The regression equation derived using enter method is formulated as below: Table 2: Regression Equation CT = -0.8168 + 0.453SER + 0.443PSQ + 0.420CO + 0.309RFSC + 0.253GE CT: Customer Trust CO: Customer Orientation SER: Social and Environmental Responsibility RFSC: Reliable and Financially Stro ng Company

PSQ: Product and Service Quality GE: Good Employer

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Table IV: Regression Results Model Dependent Variable Independent Variables Beta T R2 Adjusted R2 F 1 Customer Social and Trust Environmental Responsibility .453 21.135 * 0.737 0.734 321.005 * Product and Service Quality .443 20.667 * Customer Orientation .420 19.587 * Reliable and Financially Strong Company Good Employer .309 .253 14.441 * 11.790 * *p<0.001 In Table 3, Beta coefficients, the t statistics, R2, adjusted R2, F statistics a nd p values (significance levels) of the regression model are shown. In order to evaluate the effects of c orporate reputation on customer trust, an F test was used. As seen in Table 3, F statisti cs value of 321.005 is significant at 0.001 significance level. In other words, corporate reputation effects customer trust. The adjusted R2 value for the model is 0.734, indicating that the model c an account for 73.4 % of the sample variance in customer trust. Table 4: Summary of Hypotheses Testing Independent Variable Dependent Variable Hypotheses Results GE-CT H1a Supported * RFSC-CT H1b Supported * CO-CT H1c Supported * SER-CT H1d Supported * PS-CT H1e Supported * * p<0.001 CT:Customer Trust CO:Customer Orientation SER:Social and Environmental Responsibility RFSC:Reliable and Financially Strong Company PSQ: Product and Service Quality GE:Good Employer

Finally, Table 4 shows the hypotheses tested and whether the hypotheses are supp orted at .=0.01 significance level. As demonstrated by the regression analysis above, the empirical study shows that components of corporate reputation respectively social and environmen tal responsibility, product and service quality, customer orientation, reliable and financially strong company and good employer would determine the customer trust. Conclusion Customer-based corporate reputation is a key antecedent for customer trust in es pecially service industry where companies offerings are much more difficult to pin-point because o f the service s intangibility. This study has analyzed how customer-based corporate repu tation influences customer trust related to a GSM operator in telecommunication industr y in Turkey. In the study, the dimensions of customer-based corporate reputation are determin ed and the effects of each dimension on customer trust are examined. In order to determine the effects of customer-based corporate reputation on customer trust, a survey was administered to 580 consumers. Customer-based corporate reputation is composed of five dimensions namely social and environmental responsibility, product and service quality, customer orientation, reliable and

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications strong company and good employer. These dimensions are proposed by Walsh and Bea tty (2007). Besides, customer trust is measured uni-dimensionally which is consisten t with prior research of Morgan and Hunt (1994), Doney and Cannon (1997) and Andaleeb (1996). From the data analyzed, it can be concluded that all dimensions of customer-base d corporate reputation effect customer trust. More specifically, social and environmental re sponsibility, product and service quality, customer orientation, reliable and financially stro ng company and good employer dimensions of customer-based corporate reputation have significant effect on customer trust. Based on the studies, customer-based corporate reputation should not be managed just as a whole and a significant consideration must be given to each of the dimensions th at comprise it. It is essential to clearly understand the role played by different dimensions of customer-based corporate reputation, and how trust demonstrated by the customers may vary by th em. From this perspective, findings of this research come from the examination of the rel ative strengths of five dimensions of customer-based corporate reputation on customer trust. Among these five dimensions of customer-based corporate reputation, social and e nvironmental responsibility has the highest effect on customer trust, indicating that social and environmental responsibility is the most important dimension of corporate reputation for custo mers. Customers are highly concerned about the companies corporate environmental consci ousness such as ensuring clean environment in their operations and activities. This resu lt suggests that companies should emphasize their efforts on supporting social and environmental responsible activities like sponsorships of environmental causes. It is clear that customers would be more trustful towards firms that support good environmental and social issues. The results clearly indicated that product and service quality is also explain s ignificant amount of the variance in customer trust. Basically, the customers give importance to comp anies product and service quality. This result is not surprising because of the similarity of product and service quality dimension measurement with SERVQUAL which explaines service quality as a cause of so many crucial outcome variables like customer satisfaction and behavioral intenti on (Zeithaml, Parasuramann, and Berry, 1996). In order to gain customers trust, companies must assure that

they are strong and reliable companies which stand behind their offers. Customer s also evaluate the companies as strong and reliable which provide innovative services at fair p rices. In addition, customer orientation makes a substantive contribution to the varian ce in customer trust. Customers are likely to believe that highly regarded companies act fairly to their customers and consider rights of their customers seriously. GSM customers give i mportance to being treated courteously and equally by employees of companies. The findings su ggest that companies seeking to have a good corporate reputation should note how important to concern customers and their needs in achieving that goal.

According to the findings, being reliable and financially strong company is a ke y factor on customer trust. Customers determine companies as reliable and financially strong if they make good financial decisions and do well financially. Thus, customers perceive compa ny as a good investment with having strong record of profitability. Finally, good employer dimension of customer-based corporate reputation is a sig nificant term in the model but it has the weakest effect on customer trust. In the case of GSM operator, good employer dimension is less important than those of social and environmental resp onsibility, product and service quality, customer orientation, reliable and financially stro ng company. This result shows that external services of GSM operator have more importantance than companies internal services by customers. Companies can benefit by introducing excellent l eadership such as having good employees, concerning their needs and treating them well in order to constitute customer trust especially in the service industry. This finding also demonstrate s that in the eyes of customers, companies offering high standarts for their employees and being a good company to work for are crucial factors for gaining trust.

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Limitations and Implications An insight from this study is customer-based corporate reputation which is a mul ti-dimensional concept effects customer trust. For the purposes of this study, customer-based c orporate reputation is seen as resulting from the assessment made about a company by cust omers over time. By understanding the cues that customers consider in formulating corporate reputation, companies can initiate activities aimed at enhancing their standing with custome rs. Thus, this research provides companies key factors for customer trust by facilitating custo mer-based corporate reputation. Although, this research offers new insights to companies in building effective c ustomer-based corporate reputation for gaining customer trust, there are several limitations t hat need to be pointed out. The findings may be limited to the sample and the GSM operators inv estigated in the research. In this study, 580 respondents were surveyed and major GSM operato rs in telecommunication industy in Turkey, are investigated. Further research can veri fy whether these findings hold for other samples and other companies in different industrie s. In addition, there are limitations resulting from employing customer trust as a consequence of customer-based corporate reputation rather than antecedent. Although there is ex tant evidence of customer-based corporate reputation effects customer trust, examining effects of customer trust on customer-based corporate reputation requires additional research. On th e other hand, beyond customer-based corporate reputation, future research can incorporate othe r antecedents or factors influencing customer trust. As many other studies, the current study has some theoretical and practical impl ications. Findings of this research are important for researchers dealing with customers tr ust behaviour by understanding customer-based corporate reputation. Research findings have als o some practical implications such as understanding the factors that impact customer tr ust is a vital issue for practitioners in their corporate strategies. To sum up, it is hoped th at this study will stimulate further research on customer-based corporate reputation and customer t rust literature to provide valuable insights for both academics and practitioners. References Aaker, D.A. 1996. Managing Brand Equity. New York: The Free Press. Andaleeb, S.S. 1996. An experimental investigation of satisfaction and commitmen t in marketing channels: The role of

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16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications Athens University of Economics and Business, MBA Programme, Department of Busine ss Administration-Department of Marketing Communication George Panigyrakis, Prokopis Theodoridis and Anastasios Panopoulos (Eds.) The New Knowledge Globalization Era: Future Trends Changing Corporate Marketing Communications 16th International Conference on Corporate Marketing Communications (CMC 2011) Athens, 2011 Conference Proceedings ISBN: 978-960-9443-07-4

16th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications