This thesis reports on research into the measurement of emotion in advertising. Its hypothesis is "the presence of three precognitive stimuli - voice, music and face - in adverts will cause a corresponding emotional effect in viewers‟. This thesis attempts to find a replicable and reliable way of counting the presence of these three stimuli posing a new model of testing adverts for emotional content and responses. The model proposes that adverts are tested from an encoding and decoding perspective and suggests a four-stage process of interview, content analysis, biofeedback test (using electromyography (EMG), heart-rate and skin conductance) and self-report test (using Feeltrace). This model is explained in this thesis then tested using an example of place adverts. Interviewers of some of the encoders of place adverts indicated that eliciting hedonic emotions were one of their aims which was tested by a content analysis which confirmed the presence of voice, music and faces which expressed hedonic emotion. 20 subjects volunteered from the University of Leicester to undergo the biofeedback and self-report experiments, watching 20 adverts for places. The results showed that the stimuli had a hedonic effect on the biological and cognitive aspects of emotion but there was no significant correlation between the level of hedonic stimuli in the adverts and the responses.

This thesis investigates diversity of marketing practices across firms operating in the same market. It develops a novel conceptual framework, the Marketing Configurational Framework, and proposes a typology of Configurational Profiles of Marketing Practices. The literature review reveals a diversity of marketing practices. Mainstream marketing thinking adopts a contingency rationale to explain this plurality. However, several studies have contradicted the contingency hypothesis and invited further research to this issue. These observations form the background of the formulation of the central research question of this study. The thesis integrates theoretical insights from marketing, organisational theory and strategic management. The interdisciplinary approach allows identifying an alternative rationale for understanding diversity in marketing practices, the configurational approach. This perspective develops multivariate frameworks, adopts a holistic stance, proposes that key forces/imperatives form configurations and accepts diversity of configurational profiles in a given context. Diversity is limited by the coherency principle, i.e. only a few configurational profiles are viable. The literature review identifies three imperatives that interact to form viable configurational profiles of marketing practices. These are managers’ frame of reference, conceptualisation of the environment, and marketing practice. Each of the proposed configurational profile represents a different way of relating to the market. Two case studies are conducted adopting a mixed method approach. The findings from the case studies correspond with the conceptual framework and supply evidence of the existence of diverse, yet viable, configurational profiles in the same market. The value of this thesis is that the Marketing Configurational Framework and the Configurational Profiles of Marketing Practices accept diversity and suggest a rationale for understanding its occurrence. From the configurational perspective, the diversity of marketing practices is inter-related to the diversity found in the other two imperatives. Diversity is acknowledged, however, diverse marketing practices are viable only when they integrate a coherent configurational profile.

The name of the American economist and social analyst Thorstein Veblen has been inextricably linked with the term “conspicuous consumption” referring to the competitive consumption practices and leisure activities that aim to indicate one’s membership in a superior social class. However, the ‘classical models’ of consumer behaviour face difficulty in accommodating and understanding the nature of conspicuous economic display and a serious study of Veblen’s arguments on the consumption practices of the ‘nouveau-riche’, non-utilitarian and status-directed behaviour has been noticeable only through its absence. This Thesis suggests and encourages a rereading of Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class through a critical examination about the adoption and discussion of his work. Thereupon, it argues that although many marketing theorists and consumer researchers will be aware of some of the terminology popularized from his book, surprisingly little attention seems to have been paid to the substance of Veblen’s arguments and ideas. Also, via a series of existential phenomenological interviews and employment of vignettes, this study sought to draw broader conclusions about how ostentatious consumption activities and ‘status consumption’ are perceived nowadays by adult middle-income British consumers. Overall, the findings suggested that the notion of ‘achieved status’ receives a more intangible and honorable connotation compared to the excessive features of luxurious products and services and participants’ accounts indicated that conformity and individual’s need for a socially acceptable identity can be viewed as the primary motivations behind conspicuous consumption practices. In conclusion, it is argued that negative connotations associated with ostentatious economic display necessitate the reappraisal of Veblen’s accounts about consumer’s rising expectations and desires together with further research as regards the ‘taboo’ and sensitive issue of upward social mobility via consumption.

Marketing and consumer research scholars have paid little attention to the contemporary Indian consumer landscape, with even less focus on the particular experiences of female consumers in this context. This thesis contributes to a partial redress of this parochial and Eurocentric status quo in consumer culture research by presenting the voices and critically exploring the lived experiences of consumer culture of a sample of young female Indians. A selective review of the multidisciplinary literatures on globalization, consumer culture and India is used to develop a conceptual framework for this thesis, and to situate the research aims in contemporary and relevant scholarship. The aims of the research are to understand and describe the meanings, values and lived experience of contemporary consumer culture of a sample of young female Indian consumers; to establish the extent to which, and describe how, global flows of culture serve to hinder, propagate or catalyze markers of distinction between rural and urban consumers; and to establish whether and how traditional belief systems and practices influence young consumers’ identity projects in contemporary Indian society. In addressing these aims, the thesis documents the design and execution of a two month multi-method interpretive research study of twenty three young urban and rural women living in New Delhi and at its fringes. Through coding and categorisation, a reading of the data presents three key findings. Firstly, that media is an important medium through which notions of urban and rural identity and difference are constructed. Secondly it demonstrates how the body, as site of consumption, becomes tempered through Vedic ideals of womanhood. Thirdly, it presents a context specific understanding of consumer culture in the East which previous research has masked. Additionally, a data-driven framework for understanding the consumer experience of the sample of respondents is also presented.

The first essay studies the effects of exogenous and endogenous shocks on output sustainability in Central Eastern Europe and Russia during the 2000s. It expands traditional vector autoregressive model to a multi-country model that relates bank real lending, the cyclical component of output and spreads and accounts for cross-sectional dependence across the countries. Impulse response functions show that exogenous positive shock lead to a drop in output sustainability for nine over twelve Central Eastern European countries, when the endogenous shock is mild and ambiguous. Moreover the effect of the exogenous shock is more significant in the aftermath the crises. The second essay investigates variation in entrepreneurial activity, as proxied by the rate of self-employment, across 374 European cities during the period of 1989-2010. While controlling for various spillover effects across cities we find that the rate of self-employment is largely explained by the level of education, urbanisation economies, institutional environment and industrial structure of a city. Self-employment rates are higher in agriculture and fishing industry; trade, hotels and restaurants industry; meanwhile mining, manufacturing and energy sector with higher positive effect of scale abandon self-employment. At the same time a U-shaped relationship per resident income determines existence of both necessity driven and genuine self-employment. The third essay explains variation in entrepreneurship across cities of Commonwealth of Independent States during 1995-2008, utilizing a unique database and employing dynamic panel data analysis. The findings suggest that banking reform facilitates entrepreneurship, whereas the size of the state discourages it. A U-shaped relationship between per capita income and entrepreneurship is confirmed. It‘s established that a city with a higher concentration of universities is likely to have higher entrepreneurial entry that provides some evidence for the importance of agglomeration economies in terms of knowledge concentration which leads to intensified exchange of ideas and drive knowledge-based entrepreneurship.

The use of words and images which explicitly or implicitly convey sexual meanings in selling messages has been commonplace in the recent history of the advertising industry. Many brands, such as Calvin Klein, Guess, and Victoria’s Secret, have set a high bar for provocative nudity and sexual fire (Reichert, 2003). The manner in which sex appeals are presented in television advertising has received some attention (Downs & Harrison, 1985; Lovdal, 1989; Lin, 1998). This thesis will investigate the use of sexual themes in television advertising in Britain and China. Sexual themes have featured as an important aspect of advertising since the earliest days of media advertising in the 19th century (Reichert, 2003).These themes have continued to be used and their use in advertising has expanded and diversified. Whilst sexual themes in television advertising have been studied in Britain previously, there is little research of this kind in China. The use of sexual themes in Chinese advertising has risen along with economic growth; however, no systematic research has yet been carried out into the ways these themes are deployed in advertising in China. This thesis attempts to gain a comprehensive understanding of what ‘sex’ in advertising is, how it is represented in Chinese advertising, and how it works to affect audiences or even the whole Chinese society. This thesis also contributes to an understanding of the differences and similarities in how sex appeals are presented in China and Britain.

No description available.

The research aims to investigate why firm’s employees cultivate interpersonal relationships with their customers, and identify the drivers for their relational behaviours. In the preliminary study, two performance-based defence equipment provision contracts were investigated in an attempt to understand the role of interpersonal relationships between individual service providers and customers in a maintenance, repair and overhaul environment where firms need to deliver outcomes jointly with the customer. Through two years of field work using in-depth interviews, the study uncovered two types of interpersonal relationships between service providers and customers; exchange and communal. Both strongly promoted cooperation at the individual level. In exchange relationships, service providers and customers cooperated reciprocally whilst in communal relationships, they shared a common group identity and cooperated communally towards the attainment of group goals. Specifically, individuals’ perceived reciprocity from the customer and communal orientation have been identified as drivers for relationship development. The relationship drivers were discovered through qualitative data and were matched with extant academic literature, after which several hypotheses and a measurement instrument were developed. The hypotheses and instrument were then validated through a quantitative study using exploratory factor analysis and regression analysis. Data was collected from a sample consisting of 224 Chinese salespeople dealing with business customers in manufacturing as well as service industries. The findings were used to develop a theoretical framework which showed that cognition (e.g. perceived consequences), affect (e.g. liking) and specific personality traits (e.g. communal orientation) were drivers for relational behaviours. In particular, communal orientation, perceived reciprocity from the customer, and a liking for the customer positively affected relational behaviours, while exchange orientation had a negative impact on those behaviours. This research provides a generic theoretical model of firm’s employees’ relational behaviours in the service provision and marketing context, filling in the gaps found in previous relationship marketing research by studying relationship drivers for individual-level customer relationships.

No description available.

"To position the product in the mind of the prospect," this statement is very simple and straight forward, but the actual practice is complicated and profound. By adhering to the positioning concept and through the study of a children products store, this thesis investigates how people interpret positioning, studies the impact of positioning strategy on the designated store, reviews the retail market in China, tries to explain the influence of positioning on the customer shopping components, and looks at ways to revitalize the store business. As a staring point, the background of the positioning concept is studied. By reviewing articles from both marketing and retailing perspectives, the nature of positioning concept is clarified and the conceptual framework for the positioning strategy process is also established. To make the investigation of the Wuhan Wing On Children Shopping and Amusement Centre Company Limited, an overview of the retail market situation of the People's Republic of China is done. The China market has good potential but, to get rewards from such a market, foreign retailers should be patient and have long term plans. Wuhan has potential for further growth too, but many foreign retailers might have overlooked such an emerging market. As a joint venture company, Wing On was established in late 1992 by the Hong Kong and China parters. Positioning itself as the most modem and largest children products store in both Wuhan and China, Wing On made breakthroughs in the Wuhan retail industry in terms of openrack display system, goods retur guarantee, service quality, computerisation, etc. Through such right positioning, the sales result was excellent. However, because of the 'follow the wagon' effect, the store floor area ofWuhan doubled in 1996. Even then such a change did not affect Wing On very much, until the emergence of the new major competitor, Children World, which also positioned itself as the market leader. Then Wing On suffered. Through the survey research with the customers and Wing On employees, and by analyzing the different groups of respondents, it is found that Wing On is lagging behind Children World in terms of overall attitudes measurement. Even for the foureen store attribute comparson, Wing On is also at a disadvantageous condition, especially for the store facilities. Multiple regression analysis was used to trace the relationships between the background, shopping criteria, beliefs, and action of the frequent customers. In view of the adverse situation, it is recommended that Wing On should reposition itself in order to revitalize its business. Under this circumstance, the relevant positioning statement and positioning strategy guidelines are suggested. Through this study, it is found that the nature of positioning concept is segmentation, target marketing, and differentiation. Moreover, for better market performance, when applying the conceptual framework of the positioning strategy process, both the positioning statement and positioning strategy should be taken into consideration at the corporate management leveL. Also, there is a close linkage between marketing and positioning. On the whole, it is envisaged that the positioning/repositioning concept wil be more important and popular in the days to come.