<p> A majority of marketers plan to increase their investment in online marketing messaging to reach an expanding population of potential consumers using online social networking platforms. The problem addressed in this study was a marketer&rsquo;s inability to determine the most effective video advertising in a social networking site to increase consumer attitude and engagement. A non experimental quantitative survey study was used to gather data to test a unique hypothesized structural equation model based on the theory of advertising involvement and the affect transfer theory. The purpose was to examine the relationships among the factors of consumer attitude, defined as attitude toward the advertising and attitude toward the brand, the second order construct of advertising involvement, and the consumer engagement behaviors of sharing intention and purchase intention. Participants were recruited from the student body of a community college located in a major metropolitan city in the southwest United States. Data analysis consisted of summary descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modeling (SEM). The objective of the research was to contribute to the theoretical body of knowledge by demonstrating the generalizability of the theory of advertising involvement to video advertising. The measurement model was a good fit to the data, CFI = 1.00, RMSEA = 0.000. Findings indicated that the theory of advertising involvement, first validated in the context of static advertising, is useful in understanding the relationship of the factors in the context of video advertising. </p><p> Attitude toward the advertising played a significant mediating role between advertising involvement and the two factors, attitude toward the brand and sharing intention. Attitude toward the brand played a significant mediating role between advertising involvement and the two factors of sharing intention and purchase intention. Attitude toward the advertising had no significant influence on purchase intention. The structural model can serve as a useful tool in evaluating video advertising in a social networking site. Future research with the model should be conducted with different types of products, different types of videos, and different consumer populations.</p><p>

<p> Mobile marketing is a marketing technique which uses established systems that give businesses the ability to communicate directly with customers through smartphones or other mobile devices. Small businesses lack experience in developing and using mobile marketing strategies to increase sales. The fundamental idea of mobile marketing is to improve the business marketing performance to maximize profits. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how five small business marketers successfully created and implemented mobile marketing strategies to increase brand awareness and sales. The research focused on successful, small, independent businesses that have successfully used mobile marketing. This study is motivated by two research questions: (1) How are successful mobile marketing strategies created to increase brand awareness and sales? (2) How is mobile marketing used in the small business marketing communication mix? Participants were the primary people in charge of creating and implementing mobile marketing strategies for the small businesses. Data was obtained from semi-structured interviews with small business marketers, collection of mobile marketing documents, observation of mobile marketing processes and mobile marketing platforms. The six themes that emerged were: thinking strategically, identifying mobile channels for consumer engagement, analyzing the purpose of mobile marketing, developing mobile marketing objectives, evaluating the use of SMS/MMS, and measuring the value of mobile marketing strategies. The findings of this study may help small business marketers gain insight into planning and implementation of mobile marketing strategies that can be used to influence consumer acceptance and use of mobile marketing. Also, understanding how mobile channels are used in the sales funnel, from the initial contact, to the final purchase, and measuring the value of mobile marketing strategies may help marketers create and implement the strategies needed to increase brand awareness and sales.</p><p>

This thesis consists of three essays and one literature review. The thesis examines theoretically the effects of Low-Price Guarantees (LPGs), which are increasingly common in retail markets and goods industries. Although the essays in this thesis share a common theme, they can be read independently without impeding the readers' understanding of the issues discussed in each. The first essay studies the effects of LPGs in the search model of Salop and Stiglitz (1977). This model provides a general framework for the comparison of Matching Competition Clauses (MCCs) and Beating Competition Clauses (BCCs): The number of firms in the market is determined by free entry and consumers have incomplete information about prices and differ in their search costs. It is shown that MCCs have stronger collusive effects than BCCs, however, these effects evaporate with the introduction of an arbitrarily small hassle cost. The second essay extends the Milgrom and Robers model (1982) to study the entry deterrence effects of LPGs. In this model, the potential entrant has no complete information about the true unit cost of the incumbent. It is demonstrated that under certain conditions, the high-cost incumbent can imitate the behavior of the low-cost one and deter entry even in situations where this would not be possible in the absence of a price guarantee. Therefore, the corresponding policy suggestion is to prohibit this pricing behavior when it is exerted by a monopolist. The third essay studies LPGs in a partial equilibrium model, where consumers can search for lower prices but search takes time and thus delays consumption. A price guarantee to match any lower price offered by the retailer allows a consumer to purchase and consume now while keeping the option of reaping the benefit of a lower price that he may find later in time. The analysis demonstrates how the following two factors, the variability of market prices and the percentage of bargain hunters, affect the decisions that a firm needs to make in setting its price and the duration of its price guarantee in a competitive environment.

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The goal of this research is to develop a socio-cultural approach to studying situations in marketing as an alternative to the previously explored methods. In marketing research the situation has been treated as a means of predicting product choice, attitude, preference, and satisfaction. The socio-cultural approach proposed and empirically tested in this research posits that the situation can be characterized by the people who are present, the place they are in, and the products that are nearby. When these situational elements are incongruous with one another, individuals experience a cognitive, emotional, and behavioral response. Empirical findings indicate that the tripartite definition of the situation is feasible for conducting situational research and that products can serve as stimuli to behavior. The personal care product category serves as the research venue and several implications concerning the marketing and advertising of personal care products are drawn from the research results.

<p> Inadequate resources, poor market strategy, competition, contract regulation, and disparate performance outcomes are issues small business owners face while competing for government contracts. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the market orientation-business performance relationship and the influence of market factors among veteran-owned small businesses competing for government contracts in the United States. A survey with adapted MARKOR and Government Regulation Lassez-Faire scales was administered to 203 veteran-owned small business owners. Resource-advantage theory served as the theoretical foundation for this study. The results of the multiple linear regression were significant, suggesting that market orientation relates to firm performance and total contract revenue. However, the regression models had a poor fit, with R² values ranging from .019 to .094, suggesting that significant results of this study lacked the power to conclude predictive accuracy. Market orientation did not significantly relate to contract bid to win rate and number of years in the government market. The PROCESS moderation analysis provided mixed results for market factors&rsquo; influence on the market orientation relationship with business performance outcomes. Study participants were market-oriented, with few seeing corresponding success. The introduction of new variables is necessary to make future models useful. Implications for positive social change include guidance for better-fitting models, ones that will inform the efforts to improve the survivability of small businesses in the B2G market. Veteran-owned small business owners should not waste resources on market orientation as a sole strategic focus for capturing and winning government contracts.</p>

This investigation sought to bridge the communication and marketing fields by applying schema theory (Bartlett, 1932) to advertisement information processing. A theoretical framework was developed which described how television commercials are remembered. Specifically, the theory hypothesized that: (a) recall of product brand will be significantly higher in the sample of participants who are exposed to the commercials emphasizing brand early on in their format, than the participants who view the commercials stating the product's brand name in the latter half of the commercials, and (b) individuals who see the brand name formatted commercials will have significantly higher levels of commercial information recognition than the individuals exposed to the commercials that do not state the brand name at the onset. The results of the study provided intial support for the proposed framework and suggested that brand name formatted commercials will generally enhance recall and significantly impact recognition.

Rarely are messages devoid of visual information. Yet, theoretical explanations for the effect of visual elements on persuasion is limited. Marketers have shown that incongruent visual elements in advertisements can affect memory outcomes. This study bridged communication and consumer behavior research to develop a theoretical framework to explain the affect of incongruent visual elements on (1) attitude toward the ad, and (2) purchase intention. The results of this study provided limited support for the proposed framework. Findings indicated that relevant pictorials will yield more positive evaluations and purchase intentions than irrelevant pictorials. Expected pictorials were also found to impact evaluations. Several moderating variables are speculated to explain the impact of visual elements in an advertising context.

The impetus for the current study was to provide empirical verification for the supposition that firms which exhibit high levels of market-orientation are the better performing firms. Prior to this study only one investigation empirically supported the relationship (Narver and Slater 1990). The current study also uses a broad sample of both consumer and industrial goods companies. Previous works have mostly emphasized a single firm or industry (c.f. Chaganti and Sambharya 1987, Narver and Slater 1990). The current study finds that market-orientation is significantly and positively related to business performance, thus providing empirical verification for the long-standing theory. / Additionally, the current study advances previous works by controlling for the major strategic variables (structure, strategy, and environment) both as predictors of performance and as moderators of the market-orientation and performance relationship. Regarding any moderating effects of the strategic variables, none were evident in the current study. Also, of the strategic variable main effects, only organizational structure (formalization/integration) significantly impacted performance, with the relationship positive in nature. / Finally, the current study investigates the relationship between market-orientation and organizational structure, an area which is not precisely defined in the literature (c.f. Drazen and Van de Ven 1985, Kohli and Jaworski 1990). As mentioned previously, no interactive effects are evident in the relationship with performance. Also, the true directionality of the relationship was not addressed in the current study. However, the empirical findings indicate a significant and positive relationship between organizational structure (formalization/integration) and market-orientation. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-07, Section: A, page: 2649. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.

Marketers today are currently being challenged to understand the complexities of ethnic markets as their numbers grow throughout the United States and have an increasing interest in determining how ethnic consumers respond to sales promotion efforts. Of particular interest to marketers is the determination of the extent to which ethnic consumers utilize coupons. Prior research suggests that in comparison to their white counterparts, most African-American consumers are light users of coupons. Demographic factors such as education, income, and family size have largely been used to explain differences between these groups of consumers. The current study attempts to look beyond demographics and examines potential motivational factors that may account for differences between blacks and whites in coupon redemption. / This study will test how differences in motivations between African-American and White-American consumers affect their propensity to use coupons. These motivations include value consciousness, time value, perceived image of coupon use, and brand loyalty. In addition, the current study examines specific barriers to coupon use commonly faced by the ethnic consumer, including media use and the perceived availability of coupons. / This study also looks at factors beyond race that may serve as covariates in the determination of coupon use among black and white consumers. These factors include store patronage, frequency of patronage, product category purchases and size of package purchased. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-07, Section: A, page: 2653. / Major Professor: Richard W. Mizerski. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.