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This paper aims to investigate the extent to which wine tour-operating companies are successfully using their websites to communicate persuasive and meaningful differences to customers in their quest to clearly position their product offering.

Text data are collected from 250 websites that promote wine tourism in five different countries’ winescapes. Lexical, regression and hierarchical clustering analyses are used.

Lexical analysis using DICTION can distinguish among websites from different countries’ winescapes, and French wines obtain the best mean review scores from customers, while US, Napa Valley, websites obtain the lowest scores. DICTION dimensions allow for meaningful clusters and can also predict TripAdvisor’s mean review scores.

There is a need to pay better attention in the development of website content and the critical role that both syntax and semantics can play in facilitating the use of a firm’s website, specifically in terms of clear positioning.

The study uses lexical analyses of website narratives to understand the current positioning of firms.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how brand personality and its dimensions can be applied to wine tourism, and how a content analysis of the text taken from a wine estate’s website can be used to derive a snapshot of how brand personality is communicated.

The paper uses the text analysis software DICTION to identify the extent to which each estate’s website communicates the brand personality dimensions of excitement, competence, ruggedness, sincerity and sophistication, and then agglomerates the scores of individual estates within a region to overall scores for the country or wine region in which they are located.

Major findings are that the southern hemisphere producers, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, communicate all five brand personality dimensions to a greater extent than do the northern hemisphere regions of Bordeaux and Napa. Furthermore, while the levels of brand personality communication may differ, all countries and regions seem to follow the same pattern, or stated differently, emphasize the same brand personalities as their international counterparts. Excitement is the main dimension communicated, and then sincerity. Ruggedness and competence are communicated to a lesser extent and sophistication is hardly communicated at all.

The countries/regions selected for the study are among the most popular tourist destination wineries within five of the world’s prominent wine producing countries and regions. However, this selection is arbitrary and were also carefully chosen merely by the simplicity and convenience afforded by a Google search. The results are also an aggregation of the wineries within a region and does not give any indication of the brand personality of a single website for a winery with in a region, which might be very different from the aggregation.

Wine tourism is a big business for many wine estates as well as regional and national economies, generating huge potential for economic growth and job creation above and beyond the production and sale of wine. The paper offers a practical insight for wineries that want to portray themselves to the world and especially to their target customers. At a general level, the approach illustrated here provides a way for those who manage wine tourism at the national, regional and estate levels to gauge whether the personality of their brand is being communicated online as they intend it to be.

Wine tourism is very social in nature, and the findings in this study offers a unique understanding of how customers could perceive their destination especially where they are looking to experience the wine estate among similar minded people. A wine estate marketer might wish to be conveying a personality of sophistication and competence, and then be informed by a study like this that the brand is instead being communicated as exciting and sincere.

The paper illustrates the use of powerful content analysis software, DICTION, to determine the extent to which this text specifically communicates dimensions of brand personality, and in broader terms gives a feel for the tone of text. Regular use of the technique helps wine marketing decision makers to track their own brand’s personality as well those of competitors over time.

The study explores the dynamics among communal-brand connections, corporate reputation, customer satisfaction and their collective influence on service loyalty within the retail customer segment of commercial banks.

Hypotheses are proposed for a parallel and serial-mediated model, in which corporate reputation and customer satisfaction mediate the influence of communal-brand connections on service loyalty. Data are collected from a sample of retail customers of commercial banks in a European country.

Findings indicate that individuals who perceive a strong affiliation with a brand that emphasises community engagement are more likely to demonstrate loyalty to that brand. Results highlight the need for managers allocate resources to cultivate community initiatives that foster communal-brand connection in their drive to improve service loyalty.

A non-representative sample was collected, with a focus on a limited set of variables and employing a unidimensional measure of service loyalty. Additionally, the significance of communal-brand connection may vary across brands, warranting replication studies among smaller banks.

Recognition of communal-brand connection as an important driver of customer loyalty suggests that customers are motivated by intrinsic positioning factors related to the community. As part of their positioning, commercial banks can leverage their marketing and communication efforts to foster community development, thereby enhancing customer identification, connection and narratives that foster belongingness among customers.

The model of direct and mediated model of communal-brand connection on service loyalty has not been previously explored. Moreover, the research is conducted among retail bank customers that representing a context seldom considered in the domain of brand communities.

This study aims to explore if and how business-to-business (B2B) companies can use social media to influence the buying process.

The study uses an exploratory approach into the existing literature related to the B2B buying process and its relationship with social media.

The study shows that companies in a B2B context can use social media as a means of influencing the stages of the buying process by means of using one or more of the seven functional blocks of social media.

The findings demonstrate the relation that exists between each stage of the buyer process in a B2B organization and the functional blocks of social media. This study opens the door for further research into the influence of each of these blocks on the buying process stages and the roles involved.

This study identifies how social media’s blocks influence the different stages and how organizations can use that to their benefit.

Few studies have investigated the use of social media in a B2B context. However, not many have looked into the influence of social media in the B2B buying process and buying center. This study looks into the relationship between the buying process stages and social media’s functional blocks as related to the different roles of the buying center.

This paper aims to classify and investigate customer attitudes toward luxury wine brands in the USA (a developed market) and South Africa (a developing market) by using an aesthetic and ontological framework.

Using recognized scales, consumers’ ontological and aesthetic orientation and attitudes toward luxury wine brands as part of a product category are measured. Data for the USA sample were collected using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform, whereas the South African sample data were collected from a sample of Generation Y consumers. Using the two orientation scores, it was possible to create a 2 × 2 matrix with low and high scores for the two countries investigated. To determine the relationship between the resultant groups and attitude toward wine, ANOVA was performed. Differences among the groups were identified via a comparison of means.

The results suggest that the use of aesthetics and ontological orientations enables the identification of different luxury wine consumer modes in the two countries studied. In addition, these demonstrate significantly different attitudes toward luxury wine brands as part of a product category.

The samples for both countries were collected using a non-probability sampling method, and any generalization to the greater populations must be undertaken with caution.

The findings demonstrate a unique approach that provides an alternative form of segmentation for luxury wine brands. Recommendations to target the different identified modes and how these impact attitudes toward luxury wine brands as a product category in the two countries are made.

The study contributes to the literature by providing a unique and alternative method of market segmentation and shows how this affect attitudes toward luxury wine brands as a product category.

Adult Playfulness with advertising can be described as the way individuals derive enjoyment during their interaction process with advertising. It is an area that has received little attention in the literature. The study adopts an interactionist approach to playfulness that recognises the role of both trait and state theory. It investigates the correlations among the dimensions of adult playfulness and those on the Viewer Response Profile and considers whether the level of adult playfulness impacts on viewer response to different advertisement execution. Findings indicate that advertisement executions are not equally effective at reaching individuals with higher levels of playfulness. Implications for theory and management are discussed, limitations are noted and directions for future research indicated.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the issue of perceived ease of use of a web‐based customer relationship management system and consider the role of organizational commitment as a possible antecedent.

Data for this study were collected from among managers of a major player in the community banking sector within the EU. A total of 274 valid responses were obtained from 398 managers.

Results have been mixed and partially conditioned by service providers’ willingness to leverage the possibilities that the technology can provide.

The study was limited to a single organization and consequently the results should be generalized with caution. Replication studies with improved measures, in other countries and contexts are desirable.

The results can be useful for management, since Web‐based customer relationship management systems have been adopted by many service providers in their quest to offer better one‐to‐one marketing possibilities to their customers.

This paper demonstrates the importance of fostering a sense of organizational commitment amongst key service providers, as this in turn seems to enable them to overcome many impediments pertaining to technology use.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to understand service providers and their intentions to use their organization's customer relationship management (CRM) technology. The paper identifies perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use as key elements that are critical in encouraging service providers' intention to use CRM systems.

The research is grounded in the theory of reasoned action and the technology acceptance model. These are used as a basis for developing hypotheses of the relationships between the variables pertaining to the intention to use CRM systems, among a sample of service providers. Data are collected from a sample of managers in a community bank.

Results indicate that the higher the perceived ease of use, the greater the perceived usefulness and the higher the intention to use CRM. Moreover, perceived usefulness is also found to act as a partial mediator between perceived ease of use and intention to use CRM.

The study was limited to a single entity and consequently the results should be generalized with caution. Replication studies, that could possibly include additional variables, across other countries and contexts are desirable.

The effect of Perceived Ease of Use on employees' intention to use CRM is supported, highlighting the need for management to devote adequate resources toward developing this aspect. This study is also helpful because it highlights the need for senior management to create the right environment to enhance systems adoption.

This paper investigates the interaction among these key elements and their effect on CRM systems adoption within a banking context, thereby contributing to better understanding of the underlying links.

This paper seeks to examine the effect of behavioural inhibition and behavioural activation systems on users' intention to adopt customer relationship management (CRM) applications.

Data for this study were collected from among managers of a major player in the community banking sector within the European Union. A total of 274 valid responses were obtained from 398 managers.

The results indicate that individuals with different combinations of BIS‐BAS levels demonstrate varying degrees of willingness in adopting and contributing towards the CRM system.

These results can be useful for human resources managers, who can screen individuals for positions requiring customer interface and effective use of CRM systems. The need to align employees' characteristics with CRM goals and strategies is critical to the successful application of CRM systems but has often not been given sufficient attention.

This paper demonstrates that individual behaviour can be attributed to different personality traits, which in turn can be traced back to physiological as well as psychological origins.

This paper seeks to consider a significant market misconception and related errors commonly made by valuers, financial decision makers, and other users of valuation services. Its purpose is to focus on the importance of relating the explicit requirements of market value and fair value definitions to the evidence required for a supportable opinion of either.

The paper provides conceptual foundations for the terms “market value” and “fair value” and reviews their meanings and applications in a historical context. Business cycles and the recent recession are used as foundations for illustrating how prices, such as for real estate, vary with cycles, but are not always directly indicative of either market value or fair value. The latter term has a long history, but has undergone recent definition and revision by the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) that are shown to closely align fair value with market value. A current controversy over the use of transactions as prima fascie, or perhaps the only indication of market value is discussed and the “market” of “market value” is examined.

The paper offers a new look at market evidence concepts that are time‐honored, yet have been largely lost or forgotten. The principal finding is that duress is not consistent with conventional definitions of market value or fair value, yet significant market evidence exists that duress is often ignored or improperly considered in valuations and financial decisions. The paper also concludes that the FASB's focus on “market participants” (sellers and buyers) as the prime source of Fair Value evidence is akin to the rules which have applied to market value for many decades. The paper concludes with a discussion of why transactions may be evidence of “a market,” but are not necessarily representative of the “market” or of fair value.

Market Value is a market protection against fraud, misrepresentation, and misunderstanding. Valuations must be performed in accordance with that definition – not as it is interpreted for personal gain or for any other interpretations of convenience, misunderstanding, or special purpose.