Competition and its influence on consumer decision making in social marketing

This paper extends the largely conceptual understanding of competition in social marketing by empirically investigating, from a consumer perspective, the nature of competition and its influence on decision making at the individual level. Two phases of qualitative inquiry in Australia, comprising 30 and 20 semi-structured interviews respectively, examined the role of competition in young adults’ decision to adopt and maintain help-seeking for mental ill-health. The findings from thematic analysis suggest that competition operates at both the behavioural and goal level to influence consumers’ decision to perform behaviour and that the types of competition in operation may vary from the adoption to the maintenance of behaviour. The findings are integrated into a framework that social marketers could employ to identify, analyse and address competition.

The marketing blog competition: Integrating educational blogging and analytics in the classroom

How should marketing educators teach today’s technologically savvy college students the latest knowledge as well as relevant soft and hardskills for employment in a world of Web 2.0? The changing environment requires the development of innovative pedagogical approaches to enhance students’ experiential learning. Recent research has focused on the idea of implementing technology and the adoption of educational blogging in the marketing curriculum. This paper outlines a semesterlong marketing blog competition, in which students had to (1) create and maintain a marketing blog and (2) apply web analytics to analyze, manage and improve their blog performance based on key performance indicators. This article offers a detailed discussion of the design and implementation as well as the outcomes based on quantitative and qualitative student feedback.

Competing in the new economy through large scale collaborative ventures (LSCV): a strategic marketing approach based on a study of the multifunction polis.

This paper draws on a study of government initiat ives aimed at facilitating economic development, specifically the Multifunction Polis Feasibility Study involving the governments and business enterprises of Australia and Japan (1987-1991). Large scale projects that involve collaboration between gove rnment and business (termed: large scale collaborative venture LSCV)are identified as one aspect of competing in the new economy . The study pursued the research propos ition that a LSCV can be effectively facilitated by following a theory based process similar to those in corporate practice. An approach to managing such ventures is outlined, based on strategic marketing theory that may enhance their success and thereby help countries part icipate more successfully in global competition through such ventures.

A strategic marketing approach to national development initiatives involving large scale collaborative ventures (LSCV)

This paper relates to government initiatives which aim at advancing their country’s economic development and investor attractiveness. It identifies large scale projects that involve collaboration between government and business (termed: large scale collaborative venture – LSCV) as one aspect of competing in the new economy. The study pursued the research proposition that a LSCV can be effectively facilitated by following a theory based process similar to what is used in corporate practice. An approach to managing such ventures is outlined, based on strategic marketing theory applied to a major project, the Multifunction Polis. It is proposed that such an approach may enhance the success of a collaborative venture and thereby help countries participate more successfully in global competition through such ventures.

The ‘Get Marketer Challenge’: Engaging first year students in an introductory marketing course

Research on student engagement suggests courses that involve students in challenging, authentic tasks linking students to their peers and educators are associated with high levels of engagement. This paper presents an assessment innovation within a first year marketing course that was designed to promote student engagement. Currently in its pilot stage, the ‘Get Marketer Challenge’ is a constructively aligned, authentic assessment task; requiring student teams to solve a real-world marketing problem as part of a course-wide competition. Student enrolment data suggests the Get Marketer Challenge is an attractive assessment option that encourages students to enrol in the Marketing course. Educators have been surprised by the consistency and high level of effort expended by student teams. Students report the Get Marketer Challenge is an enjoyable assessment task that helped them to understand some of the challenges faced by marketers.

The Get Marketer Challenge Innovation: Challenging students using a tournament style competition

This paper presents an assessment innovation which used a tournament style competition to challenge and engage first year marketing students. The course-wide competition required student teams to solve real-world marketing problems for industry sponsors. Student feedback reflects enjoyment of the task and the competition, with students welcoming the opportunity to put theory into practice. Student attendance in the lectures and tutorials involving team presentations was improved. This structure can be adapted for any course with large enrolments. We recommend that instructors adopting a tournament structure consider grading mechanisms that promote equal effort and additional rewards, such as bonus marks, for teams progressing in subsequent rounds.

The Google online marketing challenge and research opportunities

The Google Online Marketing Challenge is an ongoing collaboration between Google and academics, to give students experiential learning. The Challenge gives student teams US$200 in AdWords, Google’s flagship advertising product, to develop online marketing campaigns for actual businesses. The end result is an engaging in-class exercise that provides students and professors with an exciting and pedagogically rigorous competition. Results from surveys at the end of the Challenge reveal positive appraisals from the three—students, businesses, and professors—main constituents; general agreement between students and instructors regarding learning outcomes; and a few points of difference between students and instructors. In addition to describing the Challenge and its outcomes, this article reviews the postparticipation questionnaires and subsequent datasets. The questionnaires and results are publicly available, and this article invites educators to mine the datasets, share their results, and offer suggestions for future iterations of the Challenge.

Action learning of online marketing via a global contest

Introduction: The Google Online Marketing Challenge is a global competition in which student teams run advertising campaigns for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) using AdWords, Google’s text-based advertisements. In 2008, its inaugural year, over 8,000 students and 300 instructors from 47 countries representing over 200 schools participated. The Challenge ran in undergraduate and graduate classes in disciplines such as marketing, tourism, advertising, communication and information systems. Combining advertising and education, the Challenge gives student hands-on experience in the increasingly important field of online marketing, engages them with local businesses and motivates them through the thrill of a global competition. Student teams receive US$200 in AdWords credits, Google’s premier advertising product that offers cost-per-click advertisements. The teams then recruit and work with a local business to devise an effective online marketing campaign. Students first outline a strategy, run a series of campaigns, and provide their business with recommendations to improve their online marketing. Teams submit two written reports for judging by 14 academics in eight countries. In addition, Google AdWords experts judge teams on their campaign statistics such as success metrics and account management. Rather than a marketing simulation against a computer or hypothetical marketing plans for hypothetical businesses, the Challenges has student teams develop and manage real online advertising campaigns for their clients and compete against peers globally.

Consumer acceptance of m-wellbeing services : a social marketing perspective

Purpose This study aims to employ the Model of Goal-Directed Behaviour (MGB) to examine the consumer acceptance of technology-based self-service (TBSS) for a credence service instrumental to a social goal. Credence services are increasingly delivered via self-service technology and in social marketing, the achievement of social goals can be contingent on consumer acceptance of these services. However, little is known about the determinants of acceptance and extant marketing literature fails to account for emotional and goal influences which are likely to be important. Design/methodology/approach The authors interviewed 30 young adults with self-reported stress, anxiety or depression as potential users of a self-help mental health service delivered via mobile phone. The data were analysed deductively and inductively with the assistance of NVivo. Findings The findings generally support using the MGB to enhance understanding of consumers' acceptance of TBSS. The paper also found evidence of the importance of maintenance self-efficacy, the self-evaluation of the ability to continue using the service, and a previously ignored element of consumer level competition that arises between alternatives that achieve the same goal. Originality/value This study is the first to examine factors that influence consumers' acceptance of TBSS for credence services aimed at achieving a social goal. It builds on understanding of consumer decision making in social marketing, particularly the influence of self-efficacy and competition. It also contributes to attitudinal research by providing initial evidence for deepening and broadening the MGB in the context of TBSSs.

Friendship group motives for alcohol consumption: A midstream social marketing approach

Alcohol has been estimated to cost Australia $36 Billion per year, almost double that of all illegal drugs combined. This thesis uncovered seven friendship group-level motives for alcohol consumption, these motives were: Competition, Copying, Commitments, Conformity, Winding down, Play, and Confidence. These motives were then measured and their correlation with self-reported alcohol consumption was assessed. Using these results will allow social marketers to design targeted programmes that achieve meaningful behaviour change that goes beyond merely informing or raising awareness about the dangers of alcohol.

The Google Online Marketing Challenge: A Transnational Comparison of Classroom Learning with Real Clients, Real Money, and Real Advertising Campaigns

In 2008, a collaborative partnership between Google and academia launched the Google Online Marketing Challenge (hereinafter Google Challenge), perhaps the world’s largest in-class competition for higher education students. In just two years, almost 20,000 students from 58 countries participated in the Google Challenge. The Challenge gives undergraduate and graduate students hands-on experience with the world’s fastest growing advertising mechanism, search engine advertising. Funded by Google, students develop an advertising campaign for a small to medium sized enterprise and manage the campaign over three consecutive weeks using the Google AdWords platform. This article explores the Challenge as an innovative pedagogical tool for marketing educators. Based on the experiences of three instructors in Australia, Canada and the United States, this case study discusses the opportunities and challenges of integrating this dynamic problem-based learning approach into the classroom.

A Lidl bit of grocery competition could cause a Coles rethink

Australian shoppers have inadvertently invited global discount grocers to our shores by demonstrating their readiness to adopt private labels. In 2001, German discounter Aldi opened its first store in Sydney. The impact this business format would have on the Australian grocery sector was underestimated.

Visitor Relationship Management (VRM) - Repeat Visitation Opportunities for Destination Marketing Organisations

In competitive tourism markets the consumer-traveller is spoilt by choice of available destinations. Successfully differentiating a destination and getting noticed at decision time is arguably the focus of activities by destination marketing organisations (DMOs). In pursuit of differentiation, three emergent themes in the marketing literature during the past decade have been branding, integrated marketing communications (IMC), and customer relationship management (CRM) a fundamental goal of each being stimulating customer loyalty. However there has been little attention given to destination loyalty in the tourism literature. The purpose of this paper is to report an exploratory investigation of visitor relationship management (VRM) by DMOs. Based on interviews with the management of 11 regional tourism organisations (RTO) in Queensland, Australia, the opportunities for, and immediate challenges of, VRM are discussed. While each RTO recognised the potential for VRM, none had yet been able to develop a formal approach to engage in meaningful dialogue with previous visitors from their largest market.