Guest editorial

Citation

Wickens, C.S.a.E. (2014), "Guest editorial", Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 32 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/MIP-03-2014-0052

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Volume 32, Issue 2.

The current economic and social crisis has affected many aspects of contemporary business life. Marketing, as the cornerstone function of a firm, has also been dramatically affected. Marketing strategies and practices adopted by enterprises in the present contemporary environment have been altered and tend to be adapted to the conditions emerging in the new economic, social and technological environment.

A new scenery is developed in the business world by the change in the characteristics and features of marketing variables and tools, such as product and brand, pricing, distribution channels and logistics, communication and advertising means, marketing research as well as in other marketing issues such as family business (FB) role, cause-related marketing (CRM), environmental issues, B2B marketing or in business sectors such as tourism and hospitality. This special issue centers on the marketing responses and adaptations to the current economic crisis, within the context of the contemporary environment, and the marketing strategies and practices that proactive organizations formulate in order to effectively manage their way through the existing problems. We believe that this special issue enriches the marketing literature by exploring existing and new research issues from the perspective of the rapidly changing economic, social and technological environment. It is hypothesized that the contemporary environment demands different ways and logics of analyzing business and particularly marketing problems as well as the formulation of creative and innovative strategies, practices and tactics by the firms in order to solve the problems and contribute to value creation.

This special issue presents six papers, four of them coming from the 1st International Conference of Contemporary Marketing Issues (ICCMI), held in Thessaloniki, Greece, between 13-15 June of 2012 and jointly organized by Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki and Bucks New University of UK. Two, out of a big number of papers submitted, came from authors who were not able to attend the conference. The main aim of ICCMI 2012 was to thoroughly examine contemporary marketing issues and discover new perspectives in the field of Marketing within the globalized, cooperative contemporary environment. The papers coming from the conference were enhanced and upgraded by over 50 per cent and all papers were handled through the journal’s online and peer-review manuscript submission system, ScholarOne Manuscripts. All papers included in the special issue proposed new insights and perspectives in tapping and solving urgent marketing problems.

The first paper by Jaywant Singh, Stavros P. Kalafatis and Lesley Ledden, titled “Consumer perceptions of co-brands: the role of brand positioning strategies”, deals with a recent trend in brand management which is brand alliance or cobranding. The study investigates a research gap in brand management, namely, the impact of perceptions of parent brands positioning on consumers’ perceptions of cobrand positioning. By employing a quasi-experimental design, which created cobranding scenarios in three product categories, the study found that positioning perceptions of partner brands are positively related to cobrand positioning perceptions. Moreover, it was found that pre- and post-alliance positioning show a significant relationship confirming that cobranding could be a viable strategy for partner brands. A major research proposal is for studies involving differential brand equities, while findings could help enterprises to more effectively design appropriate positioning strategies for cobrands.

The second paper, titled “Pro-environmental purchasing behaviour (PPB) during the years of economic crisis”, by Irene Tilikidou and Antonia Delistavrou, investigates the number and size of relevant consumer segments and identifies the factors able to describe the segment of frequent pro-environmental purchasers. The authors investigate PPB as a multi-item variable, disclose its components and focus on the frequent purchasers. Two components of PPB were identified, namely, conservation and purchase. One of the three clusters of purchase, i.e., frequent pro-environmental purchasers, are positively affected by locus of control over politics and universalism and negatively affected by environmental unconcern attitudes and materialism. Future research could be directed to evolutions in pro-environmental post-purchasing or non-purchasing behaviours during the years of economic crisis, while a practical implication is that fewer consumers would buy ecological products if these were not comparable enough, in terms of price and efficacy, with the conventional products.

The third paper titled “Product innovation and cause-related marketing success: a conceptual framework and a research agenda” by Michael Christofi, Demetris Vrontis and Erasmia Leonidou is a conceptual paper. Its aim is on the one hand the identification of all the product and brand related factors that promote CRM success and on the other the undertaking of product innovation theory application into the context of CRM and the proposition of an integrated framework of CRM success. After a very systematic and creative review of the related literature the authors develop and propose an integrative framework and a propositional inventory representing a consolidated foundation for the systematic development of a theory for successful CRM strategies. Moreover, product innovation is integrated within the field of CRM. The paper poses research directions enabling scholars to further advance the integration of product innovation and CRM from both problem-driven theory development as well as theory-driven practice management perspectives.

The fourth paper titled “Family business internationalisation through a digital entry mode” by Emmanuella Plakoyiannaki, Aikaterini Kampouri, Georgia Stavraki and Iordanis Kotzaivazoglou deals with the emerging literature stream of FB internationalization. Its purposes are to provide empirical evidence on the motives, facilitators and obstacles for FB internationalization and to contribute in the understanding of different pathways and entry modes of FB internationalization. By employing a multiple case study design that examines eight Greek companies in the apiculture sector the study discloses various motives, facilitators and obstacles to FB internationalization in Greece. Furthermore, the study fleshes out the “e-born global FB” that employs a digital entry mode and heavily relies on new technologies in order to identify international opportunities, reduce information asymmetries in foreign markets and thus achieve a speedy entry to foreign countries and compete in geographically distant markets. A practical benefit of this study is that its findings may assist governments in adopting policies for stimulating outward activities of domestic firms.

The fifth paper titled “Evaluating the performance of destination marketing systems (DMS): stakeholder perspective”, by Marianna Sigala, synthesizes research from DMS, inter-organizational information systems (IOIS) and from collaborative practices with the purpose to investigate the perceptions of various tourism DMS stakeholders about the evaluation of DMS performance. Through a nation-wide survey measuring the perceptions of various tourism DMS stakeholders in Greece it was shown that the public and private stakeholders held different perceptions about the roles of DMS. Similarly, different perceptions existed as to the metrics that need to be used for evaluating DMS performance. Another finding of the study was that stakeholders’ perceptions about the roles of the DMS, influence their perceptions about the performance evaluation of DMS. The author proposes conducting the research in other social/environmental contexts and maintains that the performance and success of DMS and of IOIS projects require a collaborative culture.

The sixth and final paper titled “Damaging brands through market research: can customer involvement in prediction markets damage brands?”, by Christian Horn, Alexander Brem and Björn Sven Ivens poses the following research question: “ Does taking part in prediction markets influence customers’ brand perception? Is there a danger of damaging a brand through this tool?” The authors, by employing five short-term and five long-term experimental on-line prediction markets, found that prediction markets can be used by marketing researchers without the danger of damaging the brand of the products that are the subject of the prediction markets, although customers are being integrated to improve the markets’ forecasting accuracy. It is proposed that this type of study should be extended to other categories of products and managers are encouraged to use this new tool, known as prediction markets.

We wish to thank each one of the authors of this special issue for their significant and creative contribution on exploring very interesting marketing issues existing in the present contemporary environment. Our thanks are extended to each one of the reviewers for their valuable comments and for their patience.

Finally, we express our gratitude and special thanks to Professor Gillian Wright and the Marketing Intelligence & Planning Editorial Board for giving us the opportunity to manage this special issue.

Christos Sarmaniotis
Department of Marketing, Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

Eugenia Wickens
Department of Tourism, Buckinghamshire New University, High Wycombe, United Kingdom