Relationship marketing is emerging as a major theme in the marketing literature. Its central focus is the establishment, development, and maintenance of relationships between exchange partners (Morgan and Hunt 1994). The relationship definition of marketing states that the goal of "marketing is to establish, maintain, enhance, and commercialize customer relationships so that the objectives of the parties involved are met" (Gronroos, 1990). It is believed that good quality relationships improve the chance that relationships continue (Crosby, Evans and Cowles, 1990). This study investigates the antecedents of good relationships and the role relationship quality plays in determining whether relationships will continue. It also examines the determinants of relationship importance and its effect on the likelihood of continued interaction. Three major research questions are posed: In what types of buying situations are relationships important to the customer? What determines the quality of buyer seller relationships? and Is the role of relationship quality in determining the likelihood of continued interaction moderated by the importance of the relationship between buyer and seller? Using constructs from existing literature, a model is developed to address these questions. A mail survey instrument measures each of the constructs in the model and is sent to buyers and purchasing agents in industrial firms. This study provides many interesting results. Inherent risk factors, such as financial risk and termination costs, are the most influential determinants of relationship importance, while additional situational measures may be needed. In terms of relationship quality, a number of factors are significant determinants, some attributed to the characteristics of the salesperson and others attributed to the relationship itself. The likelihood of continued interaction is strongly influenced by relationship quality and enhanced by the addition of relationship importance. These results in terms of marketing theory suggest that relationship importance should be included in models that investigate relationship quality and that there are many dimensions of relationships that influence whether relationships continue. For managers, these results suggest the salesperson's ability to develop and maintain strong customer relationships improves the chance that relationships continue. Relationship importance also influences the appropriateness of relationship marketing strategies.

As a social phenomenon, the elitist, snobbish and conspicuous nature of luxury in Europe and early America, described in Veblen's (1899) "Theory of the Leisure Class," has transcended into a democratized new luxury in the United States. This new luxury empowers a larger portion of the population to fulfill their consumption fantasies. The most extraordinary change is from conspicuous consumption to ubiquitous inconspicuousness. This and other changes are continuing to impact marketing strategy, brand management, product development and the retail environment, presenting opportunities for marketing researchers. A Hermeneutic examination, using Seidman's (1998) three-interview series model, was conducted among consumers of the iconic New Luxury (Fiske and Silverstein, 2002) brand, Victoria's Secret. This examination aims to describe a slice of life, as opposed to a slice of science, and allow a better understanding of what it is like to form brand attachment and loyalty in the context of New Luxury. Women, who have been working more, earning more, and marrying later in life, provide an appropriate participant pool to demonstrate how the concept of "old" luxury has changed in contemporary America. This examination presents five dimensions of consumers' meaning-making processes. These afford Victoria's Secret a unique position in the market, as well as in consumers' lives. In the market, it is perceived as prestigious and commands a significant premium despite being ubiquitous and accessible to all. In consumers' lives, it takes a unique position of an emotional brand that is highly functional, thereby differentiating itself from both categories simultaneously. The study's findings point to the obsolescence of "Luxury" in contemporary markets and research contexts, and suggest future reexamination of luxury in light of paradigm shifts among markets, consumers, and marketers. This research describes and discusses the advantages of qualitative methods in marketing research and consumer research. Specifically, issues of researching female consumers not as prey for marketers but as an influential market player, and the implementation of hermeneutics in consumer research (Arnold and Fischer, 1994) are addressed and encouraged. Finally, this research urges conducting academic research geared toward application by practitioners in addition to developing, classifying and testing theoretical concepts.

A cross-cultural study was conducted during the summer of 1985. Data concerning American values, roles, and consumption patterns were collected in the Hartford area, Connecticut. The Chinese data were collected in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. The theoretical framework is one in which the constructs of value internalization and role-enactment are posited to influence patterns of consumption behavior. Preliminary results show significant variations between the two cultures; but not significant when compared among individuals within each of the two cultures. Recently developed computer program, LISREL, was then used to isolate the direction of influence between the theoretical constructs of value internalization, role-enactment, and consumption pattern. The hypothesized model that value internalization affects consumption behavior as well as role-enactment, and that role-enactment further affects consumption behavior, has been shown to be invariant for the two cultures. In other words, while the expressions of values, role-expected behaviors, and consumption patterns may be different between the U.S. and China, the motivating forces or the direction of influence between such constructs are the same. The aim of this study is to compare and understand the prevailing forces that motivate consumption patterns in two cultures quite different in their socioeconomic structures. The study also delineates various inventory of cultural and social issues as they relate to consumption in the U.S. and in China. Some basic marketing guidelines are generated that may be of use to American marketers doing business with China.

Exposición en el marco de la "Segunda exposición GameLab" de desarrollo de videojuegos, llevado a cabo el 02 de Junio en la Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (UPC), el Campus Monterrico. Lima, Peru. / El tema del desarrollo de videojuegos, en la actualidad peruana, esta muy marcado, pero, los estudios y las personas no tienen claro como ofrecer su producto o a ellos mismos. Es por eso, que los temas de marketing, viralizacion, distribucion y exposicion son muy excasos; sin embargo, varios de los estudios tienen una historia que contar y pequeños trucos que pueden ser de mucha utilidad para las personas que comienzan y quieren generar ingresos con el desarrollo de videojuegos.

Relationship marketing provides a new foundation for thinking, genuine change in values and ethics and a new logic that sees consumers as the prime drivers of the value creation process. It seems to have a lot to offer to social marketing, however, despite its potential, the social marketing field is responding slowly to relational thinking. This research demonstrates that relationship marketing helps social marketing and that its absence seriously undermines the field. Our examination is critical because it de-constructs the transactional paradigm and shows how its logic is incapable of responding to the complexities of contemporary pluralist societies. From the literature, we have identified the principles, processes and constructs of relationship marketing that are transferable to social marketing. Further, we have identified the challenges and implications of that transference, given the particular characteristics of social marketing. To empirically examine the potential of relationship marketing in social marketing, we have conducted a process evaluation and developed a specific framework that incorporates and reflects relationship marketing principles, processes and constructs. This research makes an important methodological contribution because it goes beyond current frameworks and suggests alternative evaluation components. The process evaluation was applied through an explanatory, holistic and single case-study design. The case was a parent drugs prevention programme and to examine it we have predominantly used a mix of qualitative methods and a research design which enabled triangulation. Through the application of process evaluation to the case we have de-constructed the dominant paradigm of the programme and examined its consequences. The findings indicate that the programme did not widely applied the principles, processes and constructs of relationship marketing. Despite having successfully applied relationship marketing in specific parts of the programme, these correspond to technical rather than strategic aspects of relationship marketing and worked as isolated parts rather than as a whole. More fundamentally, rather than seeing consumers as partners, the programme saw consumers as targets, not recognizing them as the main drivers of the value creation process. The programme was therefore shaped by a transactional perspective which affected its assumptions and undermined its design and implementation. The main conclusion is that, despite its theoretical potential, it is challenging and difficult to transfer relationship marketing to real live social marketing programmes. In particular, social marketing needs to be more reflexive and self-critical in order to de-construct its prevailing paradigm and start re-constructing an alternative. This demands not only a new attitude, new values and new assumptions but also a focus on resources, competences and new and more flexible organizational structures.

<p> Subjective norms (family members and close friends) between the ages of 18 and 34 who were part of the SurveyMonkey Audience were part of this quantitative study. The study examined those more likely to share/retransmit the belief-based informational advertisement related messages of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), consumer health, and politics with/to college students between the ages of 18 and 24. For organizations to more efficiently and productively target college students with their informational advertisement related messages, they must gain a better understanding of the types of messages more likely to be previewed and shared/retransmitted by subjective norms. This study examined (a) the frequency in which subjective norms utilized Facebook to communicate with college students, (b) willingness of subjective norms toward previewing certain types of informational advertisement messages on Facebook, and (c) willingness of subjective norms to share/retransmit certain types of informational advertisement messages on Facebook. An online survey was administered utilizing a SurveyMonkey audience platform. A total of 173 participants volunteered to complete the online survey. The results indicated that the strength of the relational tie of a subjective norm was not significantly correlated to their willingness to share/retransmit informational advertisement messages. Gender of the subjective norm was a better predictor of who is more willing to share/retransmit certain types of informational advertisement messages with/to college students on Facebook. This study concluded with implications for practice and future research recommendations.</p>

Thèse (PH. D.)--Université Laval, 2007. / Bibliogr.: f. 254-273. Publié aussi en version électronique dans la Collection Mémoires et thèses électroniques.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Psychological and Brain Sciences, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on May 13, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-08, Section: B, page: 5101. Adviser: Edward Hirt.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, 2007. / Adviser: John Fraedrich. Includes bibliographical references.

Celebrity endorsers are featured in 10 to 20 percent of commercials in the United States (Agrawal and Kamakura, 1995). While firms have invested significant capital in celebrity endorsers, they traditionally shy away from those who have been involved in illegal or immoral acts (Briggs, 2009; Creswell, 2008). However, the rules of endorser selection appear to be changing. Recently, a new type of endorser whose celebrity is built in part upon criminal activity or violent history has emerged. These celebrities, often rappers, successfully endorse major brands such as Vitamin Water and Chrysler. They are frequently described as having another form of credibility--street credibility (Spiegler, 1996). Patrick (2005) suggests that the street credible celebrities will replace athletes as the most important product endorsers. Therefore, it is important to determine the nature of street credibility, who has it, and how is it gained. As well, we need to understand how diverse consumer groups relate to these endorsers. The first essay of this dissertation develops a definition for the construct of street credibility, outlines its antecedents, and investigates its attraction to different consumer groups. To do so, existing ethnographic, anthropological and sociological studies regarding street culture (i.e. Bourgois, 2003; LeBlanc, 2003) are consulted. A modified form of grounded theory using "extant theory and ethnographic studies" is employed to build a foundation for this emerging construct (Burton, Cherlin, Winn, Estacion, and Holder-Taylor, 2009). Next, theoretical sampling (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) is used to select interview respondents in two U.S. communities. The first community represented inner-city consumers and the second represented consumers outside the inner city. The results from this study indicate that street credibility is based on one's ability to thrive within the streets' culture of terror with street smarts and the creation of a tough persona. This form of credibility is increased as one gains financial, physical, and sexual power within street culture's context. This study suggests that the inner-city consumers' affinity toward the street credible celebrity is rooted in their similarity to the endorser while non-inner city consumers' affinity is based on the celebrities' ability to evoke fantasy. A second set of in-depth interviews with respondents who were inner-city minorities, inner-city non-minorities, non-inner city minorities, and non-inner city non-minorities were conducted. The purpose of this study was to buttress the findings from the earlier studies, further delineate how diverse populations view street credibility, and to gain insight as to which products and brands are best represented by these endorsers. The findings here were in line with the previous interviews and also indicated that non-inner city minorities are attracted to these endorsers based on their shared histories as minorities. Additionally, in terms of product match, street credible celebrities were reported as being able to endorse non profits as well as low priced "street" themed or high price-premium products, but not those products that are mid-tier. The second essay of this dissertation provides a review of literature on endorser credibility, endorsers as reference group members and source persuasion. This essay then provides evidence that consumer affinity for the street credible endorser, in spite of his or her association with negative information, is inconsistent with the "traditional" models of credibility and endorser effectiveness. Building on McCracken's (1989) Meaning Transfer Model, this essay posits that consumer affinity for the street credible endorser is based on his or her meanings and uses. This is further delineated in a proposed model of "Relationship, Feelings and Fantasy and Experiential Consumption Model." This model posits that consumer affinity for street credible endorsers is based on the endorser's ability to provide the consumer escape from the stress of daily life through transformational fantasy. Here, street credible endorser's association with certain scandals authenticates their street credibility and in doing so adds to the fantasy these celebrities evoke. This model resolves the anomaly of affinity for endorsers tied to negative information. Moreover, this model answers Amos, Holmes, and Strutton's (2008) call for research that provides insight into attraction to celebrities who are bankable endorsers despite their negative actions. The purpose of the third essay of this dissertation is to provide further understanding the role that fantasy plays in consumers' affinity for street credible endorsers. As scale measures for neither the construct of street credibility nor that of fantasy type has yet to be developed, a series of studies using Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis are first conducted. These studies yield two separate reliable and valid scales, one for each construct. Next, the basic assumptions of the Relationships, Feelings, and Fantasy and Experiential Consumption Model are tested. Here, Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis indicate that the brand personality scale (Aaker 1987) accurately measures celebrity brand personalities. The relationships between celebrity type and fantasy generation are explored using MANOVA. Results from these studies indicate that street credibility and cool are different constructs. In addition, an analysis of the data suggests that street credible endorsers are less cool and hold brand personalities that are less sincere and exciting than traditional endorsers. However, street credible endorsers are more able to evoke transportation fantasies and less able to evoke identify fantasies than their traditional counterparts. We find that each endorser group's ability to evoke fantasy is mediated by the consumer similarity to the endorser. In agreement with the model, these findings suggest that the exotic nature of street credible endorsers do indeed contribute to this his or her ability to evoke transportation fantasies.