The world of Marketing is a multifaceted broad discipline and over recent years it has fundamentally changed. Marketing is consistently evolving and many authors are calling for a new definition. A shift in thinking is necessary in order to identify new opportunities and re-examine the conventional models. The recent Contemporary Marketing Practice series of research has looked at describing Marketing practices within the marketing context. This programme analyses the multiple disciplines within marketing. It does not, however deconstruct or examine marketing practices. It merely examines the multiple marketing activities but does not consider practice theory. The social theory of practice provides an opportunity to examine Marketing using a ‘practice lens’. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to investigate Marketing practices using the theory of social practice. This theory defines practices as understanding, procedures and engagement and these three components have been applied to the marketing context. This research uses case study methodology in a large financial services organisation to explore marketing practices in more detail. This provides a deeper understanding of these components within the marketing department. It was found that the social theory of practice provides a rich exploration into the field of marketing highlighting a new way to describe marketing. The practices etymology and terminology have been explored using the anatomy of practices as defined by the social theory of practice to ensure construct validity and a common platform for academics and practitioners. The report provides a framework that aims at describing and optimising marketing practices and concludes with recommendations and future research. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Advancement of eco tourism with the building of a wellness centre. Consideration to indicators in strategies to build the new brand in order to maximise ROI / The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the health spas embark on marketing strategies and how they will deal with the increased consumer demand. On the one hand, a case study of two recognised health spas will illustrate how the spas integrate marketing strategies to build credible relationships with their customers and will demonstrate successes and failures of each health spa. On the other hand, an exploration of the market dynamics will present a consciousness of the customers’ expectations and suggest whether the level of service quality in the health spa is adequate to meet these needs. The practical implication of the study will assist in the design of a proposed model with best marketing practices for the sustainability of this competitive industry.

Advancement of eco tourism with the building of a wellness centre. Consideration to indicators in strategies to build the new brand in order to maximise ROI / The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the health spas embark on marketing strategies and how they will deal with the increased consumer demand. On the one hand, a case study of two recognised health spas will illustrate how the spas integrate marketing strategies to build credible relationships with their customers and will demonstrate successes and failures of each health spa. On the other hand, an exploration of the market dynamics will present a consciousness of the customers’ expectations and suggest whether the level of service quality in the health spa is adequate to meet these needs. The practical implication of the study will assist in the design of a proposed model with best marketing practices for the sustainability of this competitive industry.

Background In Sweden almost 90% of businesses are micro in nature which plays a pivotal role in the economy by generating employment opportunities as well as serving a source of instilling entrepreneurial spirit and innovation. Due to their invaluable contributions to the economy, their survival through revenue generating marketing practices has become an area of much more interest than ever realized before. A common misconception prevalent is that marketing in micro businesses is just a miniature of larger enterprises. This is why earlier researchers have paid scarce treatment to marketing practices in micro businesses as evident from the scant published material on the topic, making it an intriguing area to study. Currently much hype has been created about social media applications like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc and their marketing value for small businesses. It is therefore, in this thesis we study social media and prevalent marketing practices in the context of micro business. Purpose Micro firms are often cash-strapped which limits their revenue generating ability through prevalent marketing practices which are resource intensive. In the back drop of all the hype about social media as a marketing tool we got the clue to find the right marketing approaches for these businesses regarding the choice of prevalent practices and social media as a new marketing tool. To achieve this purpose, we have formulated the following research questions.RQ1.Which of the two types of marketing is more effective in terms of targeted segment coverage and expenditures? RQ2.Which marketing approach enables micro firms to maintain better relationships with customers? RQ3.Whether or not it is the right time for micro firms in Sweden to adopt social media marketing practices? Method A qualitative approach has been used to achieve the exploratory purpose of the thesis. Overall; eight micro firms were chosen from a convenience sample, representing different regions and industries of Sweden. In the first phase, two pilot semi-structured interviews were conducted to attain a better understanding of the phenomenon under study. Later, six more semi-structured interviews were carried out from micro businesses representing different sectors in Skövde, Mariestad and Jönköping Counties. Conclusion This thesis suggests that micro businesses are mostly marketing weak organizations (MWO) as they are sales oriented and see marketing as more of a luxury. Micro businesses in the sample reveal a tendency to carry out marketing activities in a haphazard manner which limits their likelihood of achieving their targets. It has also been indicated that conventional approach to reach target segments, still has a strong effect on micro firms in Sweden and is therefore more appropriate for them as majority of their customers are geographically concentrated as well as a major strata of these are yet to start active participation on the social media landscape. In terms of costs social media Given, the small population of Sweden, it has also been showed that micro businesses are keeping good customer relationship with customers via word-of-mouth marketing which is considered as instrumental for success of majority of micro business. At the same time, this finding does not indicate any clear picture as to which form of marketing is doing better for these businesses. In terms of social media adoption the findings indicate that micro businesses see social media as a great marketing opportunity in which micro businesses can compete on a level playing field with their larger counterparts. This study also concludes that social media is in infancy stages of its development in Sweden as people though they are present on the social media landscape, but have not yet, thought of it as a mainstream marketing channel. Therefore, it is suggested that micro firms in Sweden need to adpot a (high volume, low expense) is more effective only when used in tandem with conventional marketing (low volume, high expense) approaches. It is therefore suggested that micro businesses can use a blend of social and conventional marketing practices till the time that the social media network externalizes to a greater extent. wait and see approach for the time being and start preparing to capitalize on social media soon when it becomes ripe and ready for marketing.

<p><strong><p>Background</p><p>In Sweden almost 90% of businesses are micro in nature which plays a pivotal role in the economy by generating employment opportunities as well as serving a source of instilling entrepreneurial spirit and innovation. Due to their invaluable contributions to the economy, their survival through revenue generating marketing practices has become an area of much more interest than ever realized before. A common misconception prevalent is that marketing in micro businesses is just a miniature of larger enterprises. This is why earlier researchers have paid scarce treatment to marketing practices in micro businesses as evident from the scant published material on the topic, making it an intriguing area to study. Currently much hype has been created about social media applications like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc and their marketing value for small businesses. It is therefore, in this thesis we study social media and prevalent marketing practices in the context of micro business.</p><strong><p>Purpose</p><p>Micro firms are often cash-strapped which limits their revenue generating ability through prevalent marketing practices which are resource intensive. In the back drop of all the hype about social media as a marketing tool we got the clue to find the right marketing approaches for these businesses regarding the choice of prevalent practices and social media as a new marketing tool. To achieve this purpose, we have formulated the following research questions.RQ1.Which of the two types of marketing is more effective in terms of targeted segment coverage and expenditures? RQ2.Which marketing approach enables micro firms to maintain better relationships with customers? RQ3.Whether or not it is the right time for micro firms in Sweden to adopt social media marketing practices?</p><strong><p>Method</p><p>A qualitative approach has been used to achieve the exploratory purpose of the thesis. Overall; eight micro firms were chosen from a convenience sample, representing different regions and industries of Sweden. In the first phase, two pilot semi-structured interviews were conducted to attain a better understanding of the phenomenon under study. Later, six more semi-structured interviews were carried out from micro businesses representing different sectors in Skövde, Mariestad and Jönköping Counties.</p><strong><p>Conclusion</p><p>This thesis suggests that micro businesses are mostly marketing weak organizations (MWO) as they are sales oriented and see marketing as more of a luxury. Micro businesses in the sample reveal a tendency to carry out marketing activities in a haphazard manner which limits their likelihood of achieving their targets. It has also been indicated that conventional approach to reach target segments, still has a strong effect on micro firms in Sweden and is therefore more</p><p>appropriate for them as majority of their customers are geographically concentrated as well as a major strata of these are yet to start active participation on the social media landscape. In terms of costs social media</p><p>Given, the small population of Sweden, it has also been showed that micro businesses are keeping good customer relationship with customers via word-of-mouth marketing which is considered as instrumental for success of majority of micro business. At the same time, this finding does not indicate any clear picture as to which form of marketing is doing better for these businesses.</p><p>In terms of social media adoption the findings indicate that micro businesses see social media as a great marketing opportunity in which micro businesses can compete on a level playing field with their larger counterparts. This study also concludes that social media is in infancy stages of its development in Sweden as people though they are present on the social media landscape, but have not yet, thought of it as a mainstream marketing channel. Therefore, it is suggested that micro firms in Sweden need to adpot a</p>(high volume, low expense) is more effective only when used in tandem with conventional marketing (low volume, high expense) approaches. It is therefore suggested that micro businesses can use a blend of social and conventional marketing practices till the time that the social media network externalizes to a greater extent. wait and see approach for the time being and start preparing to capitalize on social media soon when it becomes ripe and ready for marketing. </strong></strong></strong></strong></p>

A framework for a strategy fit with national and organizational culture holds several implications for multinational business managers. First, culture is a critical variable in the strategy process and it should be explicitly examined as a part of the process. Second, culture might encourage and support organizationally a particular business level strategy and may affect marketing practices. This approach views transactional and relational practices as part of a continuum. This study has examined over 250 firms in the United States and the Cote d’Ivoire on the dimensions of their organizational culture, national culture and contemporary marketing practices. In essence, this is a test of the convergence theory versus cultural specificity debate. The study first establishes a model in the US of the relationship between organizational culture and contemporary marketing practices and then tests it in Cote d’Ivoire. Lisrel is used to examine the goodness of the fit of the model. Results indicate that differences in national cultures call for differences in marketing practices since the US model does not fit in Cote d’Ivoire. The differences between the two models and implications for a new Ivorian model are discussed.

Purpose: To describe the Relationship Marketing and Guanxi practices of a western company in China, and to create an understanding regarding the interconnection of Guanxi and Relationship Marketing as the foundation of such practices. Method: The research is qualitative with an inductive relation between theory and the empirical findings. With the research design of a case study of the western business-to-business service company ChinaNetCloud. The empirical material was collected through five semi-structured interviews done in China, with influencing persons of the case study organization ChinaNetCloud. Conclusion: Guanxi should be used to facilitate things and should not be established with anyone. To establish relationships are taking more time and will require many activities to maintain them. Relationship Marketing should be used to target other targets than the bases for Guanxi. The relationship are in China based on already existing connections and it is important that the western company is aware of that the relationship are in some cases of more importance than the product or service.  Face-to-face meeting should be used in order to establish relationships in the best way. Trust and commitment are also important dimensions in the relationships. A western company should use Guanxi and Relationship Marketing since it is important for both survival and success in China.

Submitted by Filippo Ricci (filoricci@hotmail.it) on 2013-12-04T18:18:20Z No. of bitstreams: 1 FilippoRicci-Tese FINAL.pdf: 3291691 bytes, checksum: fcbe485c408e56346c91db5e79abaf25 (MD5) / Rejected by Luana Rodrigues (luana.rodrigues@fgv.br), reason: Prezado Aluno, Por gentileza, substitua o arquivo da "ficha catalográfica" enviado pela Biblioteca Digital, na página 4. No arquivo anexo, este encontra-se na 1ª página. Atenciosamente, Luana on 2013-12-04T19:29:04Z (GMT) / Submitted by Filippo Ricci (filoricci@hotmail.it) on 2013-12-04T19:34:45Z No. of bitstreams: 1 FilippoRicci-Tese FINAL.pdf: 3289784 bytes, checksum: c68f65c049e57bd4fd27575350b0fec7 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luana Rodrigues (luana.rodrigues@fgv.br) on 2013-12-04T19:54:51Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 FilippoRicci-Tese FINAL.pdf: 3289784 bytes, checksum: c68f65c049e57bd4fd27575350b0fec7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-12-05T11:56:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 FilippoRicci-Tese FINAL.pdf: 3289784 bytes, checksum: c68f65c049e57bd4fd27575350b0fec7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-11-04 / The digital age saw the rise of the consumer focused-enterprise. Every day brands and products are the subject of millions of conversations in which consumers exchange views, opinions and information before making the purchase decision. Marketers understood the importance of word of mouth as a new strategic communication channel and started to anchor word of mouth techniques to the overall marketing strategy. Advertising has become a conversation business: the new marketing challenge is to create an engaging and sharable content that could expand and resonate within consumers’ networks. The more people talk about your brand, the more the likelihood to win harsh competition and increase sales. But how word of mouth marketing works? What make a marketing campaign a viral success? This work aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of word of mouth marketing theory and further investigate the key variables of viral marketing. Following the research question 'how companies design efficient viral campaigns?' the underlying dissertation adopts a descriptive model and a multiple case study approach (Coca Cola Zero and Dove) in order to provide insights and suggestions for viral marketing practices. Considering the findings of the research, a new framework is presented in order to show the most important stages that affect the creation, development and outcome of viral campaigns. / A era digital viu a ascensão da empresa focada no consumidor. Todos os dias, marcas e produtos são objeto de milhões de conversas em que os consumidores trocam pontos de vista, opiniões e informações antes de tomar a decisão de compra. Os profissionais de marketing entenderam a importância do boca a boca como um novo canal de comunicação estratégica e começaram a ancorar técnicas de boca a boca à estratégia de marketing global. A propaganda tornou-se um negócio de conversa: o novo desafio do marketing é criar um conteúdo envolvente e compartilhável que possa expandir e ressoar dentro de redes de sociais de consumidores. Quanto mais as pessoas falam sobre a sua marca, mais a probabilidade de ganhar a competição dura e aumentar as vendas. Mas como o boca a boca funciona? O que faz uma campanha de marketing um sucesso viral? Este trabalho tem como objetivo fornecer uma análise abrangente da teoria de marketing de boca a boca e usa um modelo descritivo para investigar as variáveis-chave de campanhas bem-sucedidas de marketing viral, a fim de proporcionar insights e sugestões para as práticas de marketing viral.