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A proliferation of private labels in European food retailing has been evident for several years now. Against this background, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of competition between national brands and private labels on product variety, prices and turnover.

Within the empirical study, a product group from the ready‐meals category is analysed over a total period of six years (between 2000 and 2005) based on scanner data from different German outlet formats. The empirical study contains time series as well as regression analyses.

The empirical results indicate that, in all studied outlet formats, there is evidence of decreasing product variety and increasing prices over time. Moreover, the results show that the turnover in the supermarkets and especially in the hypermarkets is in decline. A positive turnover trend can only be found in the discount stores.

This empirical study is the first that covers such a long period of time (six years) and several outlet formats. Previous studies have mostly been static or short‐term and predominantly only covered one outlet format.

This article aims to close some research gaps by differentiating between brand types and price tiers. Many consumers perceive high prices as signals of high quality, yet researchers tend to find only low average correlations between price and objective quality. Previous studies do not account for market shares and paid prices though.

A German consumer panel with more than 30,000 households reveals market shares and paid prices. Combining these data with product test ratings, the authors evaluate price-quality relationships with Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients and distinguish food from non-food products, national brands and private labels and three price tiers.

High price-quality correlations for national brands and non-food private labels indicate that a higher price signals greater product quality. For food private labels, negative correlation coefficients inhibit the use of price as a quality indicator. The price-quality relationship for food private labels implies strong competition among brand owners, based on the price and quality of their products.

This article investigates price-quality correlations by accounting for paid prices and product market shares; it also reveals differences across food and non-food products, national brands and private labels and different price tiers against the background of competition strategies. By addressing when consumers use price as a quality indicator, it outlines important managerial implications for manufacturers, retailers and consumers.

The study contributes to our understanding of search engine advertising in two main ways. Firstly, we analyze the comparative effectiveness of its campaign parameters. Secondly, we examine the effect of print advertising on search engine advertising

Based on advertising data for a three-year period, we test the hypotheses by means of a path model with the aid of partial least squares.

The advertising budget and the degree of keyword matching yield the greatest effect on the number of signed contracts. The click-through rate and the bid amount contribute, to a lesser extent, to explaining this financial target variance. The number of keywords had no significant effect. The study did not yield significant evidence of print advertising, directly affecting the number of search engine advertisement impressions, but showed an indirect effect of print advertising on the number of conversions, induced directly by search engine advertising.

The multichannel relationship of print and search engine advertising, including its campaign parameters, provides a starting point for future research to provide a coherent methodology for capturing the necessary data, processing the underlying information and evaluating the advertising effects.

The multichannel effect needs to be quantified and taken into account when evaluating print advertising and search advertising campaigns and the future advertising mix is planned.

The study extends the field of search engine advertising in the direction of multichannel effects. In comparison to previous research, empirical evidence on the multichannel usage of print advertising and search engine advertising, related to an overall economic target, is provided.

The purpose of this paper, building on the media richness theory (MRT), is to propose that while communicating product information via streaming video should enhance outcome measures, such an enhancement will be evident mainly for users with equivocal, latent goals (i.e. recreational browsing) rather than for those with less equivocal, concrete goals (i.e. the search of a specific product).

The experiment involved 337 potential online consumers in Canada, and had full factorial design with four conditions (two methods to communicate product information: textual vs streaming video, and two goals: product searching vs recreational browsing). Analysis of covariance was used to test the hypotheses.

The results lent support to the hypotheses. The perceived information quality, trusting competence, and arousal for participants with recreational browsing goals were significantly affected when product information where communicated using streaming video. For participants with concrete goals (product searchers), the traditional textual method was as effective as the streaming video method.

The findings entice practitioners to use rich media such as the streaming video method to communicate online information predominantly for users with experiential browsing goals, and to use lean media for users with less equivocal, concrete goals.

The results contribute to the sparse literature that underscores the key role of user goal in shaping the effectiveness of online information. The results provide empirical support to the prediction of MRT that the use of rich media to communicate information is advantageous for users with latent, equivocal goals.

One of today’s major problems in the field of e‐learning is that the creation of high‐quality content is still rather time consuming and expensive. In the past, many efforts have been made to produce educational content on the fly, but the results were mainly static blocks of recorded lecture lacking sophisticated navigation facilities. Facing this challenge the authors developed the concept of hyper‐presentations. During the live presentation content‐ and time‐based metadata is captured and stored in a lightweight and player‐independent format. With this metadata powerful navigation facilities like real time navigation and full text search in audio or video data can be generated automatically. This improves flexibility and interoperability of technical solutions, which are both key factors in the emerging rapid e‐learning market.

According to Head (2008), wicked problems are not just wicked problems in the sense of complex challenges, but situations that are confusing, unique, diffuse, without clear responsibilities or accountabilities, and difficult to resolve. These problems stand out for their uncertain nature, lack of clear solutions and possible irreversible consequences of attempted interventions. Recognising the pertinence of wicked problems in contemporary public policy discourse, this chapter aims to explore and better understand political decision-makers’ handling of these issues, in a tourism-specific context. The discourse on wicked problems, in accordance with 10 characteristics outlined by Rittel and Webber (1973), remains relevant when examining policy responses to mega trends, such as indigenous disparities, sustainability, digital transformation and demographic change. Against this backdrop and positioned within current academic discourse, this introductory chapter briefly foreshadows the volume’s various contributions by academics from around the world who present a wide range of wicked problems in tourism from their respective perspectives and contexts.