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Powerful emerging technologies, fierce competition in the marketplace, more sophisticated consumers and the relentless drive for higher corporate earnings are at the root of online consumers’ information privacy concerns. The issue of consumer privacy could be a defining element in the battle for the ownership of online consumers. Businesses have a choice in how they respond to this matter. They can see it as a threat and simply react defensively. Or they can treat this as an opportunity and be proactive in maximizing the gains. Clearly, businesses that add value to their offerings by leveraging Internet technology in coordination with a proactive policy to preserve consumer privacy will be the success stories of the future. The goal of this research is to identify the strategic and tactical opportunities created by online consumers’ privacy concerns. Approaches to treating the privacy concerns as a source of competitive advantage are clearly discussed.

Recent advances in product design and manufacturing technologies allow for high levels of product variety at low cost, leading to economies of scope. Economies of scope allow for multiple product operations without the cost penalty of traditional economy‐of‐scale‐based technology. Examines the implications of flexible manufacturing for marketing strategy and organization. Shortening of product life cycles, re‐acceleration of product differentiation strategies and more customer involvement in the entire manufacturing‐to‐marketing process are some of the effects of advanced manufacturing technology on the marketplace.

Changes in market conditions and trends often point to the need for changes in the marketing approaches being used. Current market trends such as fierce competition and increasingly demanding customers bring into glaring focus the shortcomings of marketing approaches and vehicles developed in and for earlier times. Corporations are being forced to re‐examine and redefine their marketplace. The need for innovative ways of reaching the customers has never been greater. Such changes call for the development and use of newer sales and marketing tools. Call centers belong to a new breed of potent technology‐driven business tools that evolved in direct response to the changes in today’s business environment. Being rooted in a technological foundation, call centers have superior attributes. They offer more flexibility and simultaneously lower the costs of meeting customer needs. They bring businesses much closer to their customers by establishing a two‐way interactive link with the marketplace. Compared to traditional marketing approaches call centers are designed and developed for the contemporary business environment. They are an ideal tool for today’s rapidly changing global markets.

The main objective of this study is to identify the determinants of TV ads avoiding behavior between light and heavy avoiders in greater Cairo. To achieve the study objective, five hypotheses have been developed and tested by such statistical techniques as discriminant analysis, t‐tests, MannWhitney tests, and Chi Square tests. A questionnaire has been designed to collect data from a systematic random sample of adults in social clubs and shopping centers in greater Cairo. The number of usable questionnaires in data analysis was 364. The study findings show that all respondents except 3 were doing one or more of TV ads avoiding behavior. Cognitive avoiding represents the most frequently used avoiding behavior by light and heavy TV ads avoiders. The results also demonstrate that perceptions, attitudes toward advertising, and some motives were determinants of TV ads avoiding behavior. On the other hand, it was found that all demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, except types of channels, were not determinants of TV ads avoiding behavior between light and heavy TV ads avoiders. The study concludes with a number of academic and practical recommendations.

Asserts that there are two forces at work in the business environment that are requiring organizations to rethink their business models: the power of customers and changes in technology. Suggests that companies are moving away from customer‐relationship‐management to customer‐managed relationships. Discusses how successful manufacturing businesses adapt to “high pressure” markets. These organizations leverage advanced manufacturing technologies, such as flexible tooling, computer‐aided design and computer‐integrated manufacturing control systems, to significantly improve their strategic marketing capabilities.

Call centers are growing at unprecedented rates, yet relatively little is known about customer satisfaction with this method of service delivery. Therefore, a review of the advantages and disadvantages of call centers is provided before reporting on a study carried out with users of a very large human services call center network. The results indicate that customers have slightly higher satisfaction levels with in‐person services than with call center services. Although it was predicted that older customers might be more dissatisfied with call centers than younger customers, this was not borne out by the data. Attributes of a best‐in‐the‐world call center operation are provided to guide those who design and manage call center services.

This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of the Marketing Intelligence & Planning is split into seven sections covering abstracts under the following headings: Marketing Strategy; Customer Service; Sales Management/Sundry; Promotion; Marketing Research/Customer Behaviour; Product Management; Logistics and Distribution.

Points out that numerous studies have attempted to understand the behavior of television viewers. Gone are the days when the entire family gathered around the television, paying rapt attention to the programming. Suggests that the television as “family hearth” has been replaced, as viewers are more aptly characterized as “nomadic”, wandering from channel to channel, from room to room, and from activity to activity. Reports on an in‐depth study of the activities, patterns of behavior, locations of viewing, and attitudes of everyday consumers toward television in the 1990s. Multiple observational methods were used, ranging from unobtrusive observation of viewing, sketches made by viewers of their television viewing location, and focus group interviews. Findings suggest that advertising not only competes with other television shows for the consumer′s attention, but also competes with a multitude of activities, interruptions, and even other televisions within the same or adjacent rooms. Such findings pose a much more complex picture of “cutting the clutter” than that which is traditionally assumed; suggests managerial implications and recommendations for further understanding the complexities of viewer behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects gender, age, income and employment status on consumer response to short message service (SMS)‐oriented direct‐response requests or a call‐to‐action tactic in a television advertisement or program, consumer's participation in SMS sweepstakes or other competitions, and consumer uptake of mobile services such as ringtones, logos, screensavers and wallpapers ordered by SMS message.

The data used in this study were collected via an online survey. A total of 4,062 consumers responded to this survey. Cross‐tabulation and binary logistic regression were used to examine the associations between the explanatory variables and responses to mobile advertising campaigns.

The results suggest that women are more active than men in their responses to SMS call‐to‐action campaigns. In addition, the results indicate that mobile advertising is not only for teenagers. For instance, consumers in the 36‐45 age group were most likely to respond to SMS calls‐to‐action in a television program and participate in SMS sweepstakes and other competitions. However, the youngest consumers most actively ordered mobile services using SMS. In addition, it was found that employment status had a substantial impact on consumers' SMS campaign activity.

Self‐report survey data are the bases of the findings discussed in this article. Substantial evidence exists in previous research that many respondents are inaccurate in reporting their own attitudes and past behavior. Thus, additional research relying on, for instance, SMS delivery measures (e.g. number of messages sent, number of replies, and – where an identifiable offer is promoted via mobile phone – the exact purchase rates), should be executed. Such experiments go beyond consumer reports by providing useful estimations of the impact of SMS text advertising based on customer inquiry and actual behavior.

This study clearly demonstrates the prevalence of SMS advertising campaigns and provides important insights into consumers' engagement with SMS advertising activities. Basic demographics such as gender, age, income, and employment status are useful in modeling and predicting consumer behavior in relation to SMS call‐to‐action campaigns. Thus, the findings reported in this paper should help marketers to design campaigns that focus more closely on the target audience.

While building on and maintaining continuity with extant work, this paper provides results that do facilitate research efforts focused on mobile media and aid practitioners in their quest to achieve mobile advertising success.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of relationship marketing in a Thai context by gathering both quantitative and qualitative data.

This research adopts a multi method approach. A preliminary model is developed from existing literature, and then tested with data collected from a mail survey completed by 166 salespeople in 30 steel pipe firms in Thailand. Finally, to better understand the quantitative results from a different perspective, in‐depth interviews with 15 sales managers are undertaken and the model further refined.

The quantitative findings indicate that from the perspective of industrial sales people, the key success factor of relationship marketing is trust. However, the results of the in‐depth interviews with sales managers did not support the views of the salespeople. The sales managers endorse four variables: bonding, empathy, reciprocity, and trust, as affecting the success of relationship marketing. Further, company image, information exchange, and time are identified as key factors that contribute to the building of these variables, which in turn contribute to performance.

The data are gathered from one industry in one country only, hence future research could extend these findings to other industries and countries to test their general application.

The key implications of these findings for marketing managers include support for the use of relationship marketing programs at a strategic level as well as suggestions for successful implementation of these programs. These findings suggest that the existence of needs analysis and response adaptation characteristics in salespeople have a strong, significant, and positive association with buyer‐seller relationship development.

This paper contributes to relationship marketing research because a scarcity of empirical research still exists in this field, particularly in emerging markets such as Thailand.