Building online brand communities : exploring the benefits, challenges and risks in the Australian event sector

The Internet has impacted the tourism sector and tourists substantially. Yet, very little information is known about how tourism organisations are using the second generation of the Internet, Web 2.0, and its various social media platforms in relation to their marketing activities. This article explores ways in which events, as an integral part of the tourism sector, are using Web 2.0 tools to build their online brand communities. While the qualitative analysis highlights benefits for events, it also identifies the risks and challenges that events face in using Web 2.0. These include the capacity to resource this aspect of marketing and the ability to protect their brand from the advent of counter- and alter-brand communities when online brand community building activities are not fully effective.

The Pharmaceutical Industry and Access to Medicines in India

Pharmaceutical policy in India as elsewhere is shaped by conflicting economic and social interests and opposing values and priorities. Tensions can be understood as revolving around the contradiction between use value and exchange value in the production of medicinal drugs as commodities, as per Marx’s original analysis. The use value of medicines – if safe and efficacious, of good quality, and prescribed and consumed appropriately – is the prevention, cure or alleviation of ill-health and disease. Health policy is – or should be – aimed at optimising the use value of medicines. For this purpose government agencies administer regulatory oversight of the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of medicines. Drugs made available to patients are expected to meet adequate safety, quality and efficacy standards, but regulation to ensure such standards is subject to controversy in most countries. This is a domain where definition and interpretation of scientific-technological principles and criteria is infused by partiality and bias grounded in social and material interests, as evidenced by recurrent debates about industry ‘capture’ of regulatory agencies, including the world’s most regulator, the US Food and Drug Administration (Angell 2005; Law 2006). In India, a Parliamentary Committee Report in 2012 depicted the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) as dysfunctional and influenced inappropriately by the exchange value perspective of manufacturers (Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Welfare 2012). The clash between use and exchange value perspectives is starkly illustrated by cases of products known to cause more harm than good, particularly common in poorly regulated markets such as India’s, as shown by Srinivasan & Phadke.

EPODE approach for childhood obesity prevention : methods, progress and international development

Childhood obesity is a complex issue and needs multistakeholder involvement at all levels to foster healthier lifestyles in a sustainable way. ‘Ensemble Prévenons l'ObésitéDes Enfants’ (EPODE, Together Let's Prevent Childhood Obesity) is a large-scale, coordinated, capacity-building approach for communities to implement effective and sustainable strategies to prevent childhood obesity. This paper describes EPODE methodology and its objective of preventing childhood obesity.

At a central level, a coordination team, using social marketing and organizational techniques, trains and coaches a local project manager nominated in each EPODE community by the local authorities. The local project manager is also provided with tools to mobilize local stakeholders through a local steering committee and local networks. The added value of the methodology is to mobilize stakeholders at all levels across the public and the private sectors. Its critical components include political commitment, sustainable resources, support services and a strong scientific input – drawing on the evidence-base – together with evaluation of the programme.

Since 2004, EPODE methodology has been implemented in more than 500 communities in six countries. Community-based interventions are integral to childhood obesity prevention. EPODE provides a valuable model to address this challenge.

Investigating the media power of a population health monitoring survey: case study of the NSW Schools Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey (SPANS)

Objective
To examine the extent and nature of news coverage of a government-funded population monitoring survey of children and the potential implications of this coverage for public health advocacy.

Methods
Case study of the NSW Schools Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey (SPANS), a population monitoring survey of school-aged children's weight and weight-related behaviours, conducted in 1997, 2004 and 2010. Printed news items from all Australian newspapers between January 1997 and December 2011 mentioning the survey findings were identified from the Factiva database and a descriptive analysis of the content conducted.

Results
Overall, 144 news items were identified. The news angles focused mainly on physical activity/sedentary behaviour; overweight/obesity and nutrition; however these angles changed between 1997 and 2011, with angles focused on physical activity/sedentary behaviour increasing, compared with overweight/obesity and nutrition angles (p=0.001). Responsibility for obesity and weight-related behaviours was most frequently assigned to parents and food marketing, and the most common solutions were policy strategies and parental/child education and support.

Conclusions
Population health surveys are newsworthy and when coupled with strategic dissemination, media can contribute to communicating health issues and interpreting findings in ways that are relevant for consumers, policy makers and stakeholders.

Implications
This case study emphasises the news value of government-funded population surveys, while providing a cautionary note about media focus on individual studies rather than a larger body of research evidence.

Practitioner prognostications on the future of online marketing

In arguably the most dynamic period in the history of marketing, and in particular the management of marketing communication, the challenges and opportunities presented by online marketing are both immense and unprecedented. In an effort to understand how these challenges are perceived at the ‘coal face’, this paper solicits and longitudinally compares senior marketing practitioners' perceptions and perspectives, both recently (late 2008) and five years prior (2003). Due to the rapid evolution of online marketing and its impact on both consumer behaviour and marketing strategy, a longitudinal qualitative research design was employed to track changes in senior marketers' perceptions. Findings are presented and discussed within the context of six recurring themes: interactivity, personalisation, integration, evaluation, agency structures, and capabilities. The paper concludes by examining the utility of integrated marketing communication as a marketing management framework for online marketing strategy.

Understanding culture, motivation, and ethnic consumer behavior

Understanding ethnic consumer behaviors through a case study of good practice and their innovative marketing strategies to ethnic consumers is important. Surprisingly, little has been done to discuss which practices and strategies may work best when marketing to ethnic consumers. This chapter presents a case study of the Immigration Museum (Melbourne, Australia) and how the organization uses strategies to promote their products and programs to ethnic consumers. The case study and in-depth interviewsare the methods used. In this chapter, the authors argue that a combination of Alferder’s and Schwartz’s theoretical frameworks help museum marketers understand behaviors of ethnic groups, thereby using appropriate marketing strategies in encouraging their consumption. This chapter extends current marketing literature on consumers’ motivation, drive, and needs, and non-profit marketing, and validates selected motivational theories. It also provides practical implications for marketers of non-profit organizations.

Social change models in social marketing

'This is essential reading for social marketing practitioners, researchers and students. the book describes a comprehensive range of behavior change theories of relevance to social marketing and is complemented with illustrative case ...

Disciplining the discipline: understanding postcolonial epistemic ideology in marketing

In this study, conducted in two top ranked business schools in India, we examine pedagogy and doctoral research in marketing and show that the discipline is characterised by dependency on the West. We offer an understanding of postcolonial epistemic ideology that is contributing to the creation of unreflexive and dependent subjectivities in the discipline. We show that the marketing discourse in postcoloniality is characterised by mimesis of the West and silencing of local subaltern stakeholders. We further show that epistemic ideology disciplines through the deployment of devices developed in the West to create a compradorian theatre.

Green marketing strategies

This chapter presents the fundamentals of “green” marketing by drawing on traditional marketing theory as well as researchfocused on green marketing context. It discusses five critical areas in green marketing. The first critical area stems from green marketingtheory and practice that examines the logic for reducing the environmental impact of value creation and exchange. The second criticalarea highlights green marketing strategy that focuses on achieving organizational goals in ways that can reduce or eliminate negativeimpacts on the natural environment. The third critical area examines the green marketing mix that accounts for green products, greendistribution, green pricing, and green promotion. By using traditional marketing concepts, the chapter identifies how the entiremarketing mix elements should consistently provide a complete green product offering. Green products and processes need to beresearched, designed, and manufactured to include environmentally safe ingredients and components. Products need to be strategicallypriced to reflect their green values, distributed in the green chain channels and displayed effectively to highlight their status, and accuratelycommunicated to consumers and stakeholders. The fourth critical area illustrates governance and control. It shows how theholistic transformation toward greening the organization requires organizational culture change to gain support within and outside thefirm to ensure environmental issues are appropriately considered. These can be assessed by using existing management mechanisms,such as environmental management systems and/or triple bottom line management, which ensure best practice and continuousimprovements to occur. Lastly, the chapter discusses the future of green marketing and the direction that businesses need to take if theyseek to be sustainable.

Efficient and effective change principles in active videogames

Active videogames have the potential to enhance population levels of physical activity but have not been successful in achieving this aim to date. This article considers a range of principles that may be important to the design of effective and efficient active videogames from diverse discipline areas, including behavioral sciences (health behavior change, motor learning, and serious games), business production (marketing and sales), and technology engineering and design (human–computer interaction/ergonomics and flow). Both direct and indirect pathways to impact on population levels of habitual physical activity are proposed, along with the concept of a game use lifecycle. Examples of current active and sedentary electronic games are used to understand how such principles may be applied. Furthermore, limitations of the current usage of theoretical principles are discussed. A suggested list of principles for best practice in active videogame design is proposed along with suggested research ideas to inform practice to enhance physical activity.

Awareness of nutrition problems among Vietnamese health and education professionals.

Professionals who provide nutrition education and consulting to the public are encouraged to take into account the health, environmental and social contexts that influence health-related attitudes and behaviours in the population. This paper examined the awareness of shifts in population health outcomes associated with the nutrition transition in Vietnam among university nutrition lecturers, health professionals and school education professionals. Most of these professionals held accurate views of the current population health issues in Vietnam. However, they differed in their awareness of the seriousness of overweight and obesity. Although the majority indicated that the prevalence of obesity and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) had increased, nearly half believed that the government should complete its attempts to control undernutrition before trying to control obesity. More health professionals believed that food marketing was responsible for the growing prevalence of children's obesity, and more of them disapproved of the marketing of less healthy food to children. In contrast, the university nutrition lecturers were least aware of food marketing and the seriousness of obesity. Of the three groups, the university nutrition lecturers held less accurate perceptions of nutrition transition problems and their likely drivers. There is an urgent need for greater provision of public nutrition education for all three groups of professionals.

History of marketing in India

Contemporary concepts and practices of marketing, and the ideologies which impel these, originate from the social and economic contexts of the West, particularly the United States and Europe (Ellis et al., 2011; Eckhardt et al., 2013). As a consequence of this Western dominance, the marketing discipline became permeated with values such as individualism and rationalism (Ellis et al., 2011). The Eurocentrism of much of marketing theory has resulted in knowledge pertinent to contexts such as India being overlooked (Varman and Saha, 2009; Varman and Sreekumar, 2015). In an early paper that appeared in the Journal of Marketing, Westfall and Boyd, Jr. (1960) suggested that marketing practices in India were not sufficiently ‘developed’, and called for a ‘modernization’ of marketing in India. In response to such criticism, marketing academics in India adopted theories and practices of marketing from the West, especially the US. Not surprisingly, these theories and practices were often far removed from the realities of the Indian economy and consumers (Varman et al., 2011). This is particularly ironic because India, like many other parts of the world, has a rich history of markets and marketing. There is clearly a need to bridge this gap in our knowledge and understanding about the rest of the world. This chapter on history of marketing in India addresses this lacuna in the discipline

Enviropreneurial marketing in greening corporate activities: Evidence from four Chinese green firms

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the enviropreneurial marketing approach used by firms in China and its impact on the success of green marketing actions, with the aim of drawing useful lessons from the literature and successful green firms. Design/methodology/approach: This study follows the inductive case study approach, and the qualitative data come from a study of four firms engaging in enviropreneurial marketing activities. Interview data were triangulated with qualitative data from other sources. Findings: The evidence from this study indicates that enviropreneurial marketing plays a central role in developing innovative product or services, adopting an innovative and pragmatic green marketing mix that differentiates and creates changes within industry and markets. Research limitations/implications: The main limitation of this study is that data samples are from successful firms labelled as “green” by the Chinese authorities, based on winning “official” awards. These do not necessarily represent the opinions of a cross section of firms within China with respect to enviropreneurial marketing. Future studies should include a mixed population of firms. Practical implications: Policy makers and marketing practitioners need to consider drivers to ensure that Chinese firms integrate enviropreneurial marketing activities, which need to complement the delivery of functional value. Social implications: Green initiatives/changes within the firm seem to be partly driven by the environmental orientation of these firms’ founders, thus, developing an environmental orientation in managers may be important to drive enviropreneurial marketing activities. Originality/value: This study contributes by confirming the current literature on green marketing and examining the positive impact of enviropreneurial marketing on firms’ performance in the context of marketing in emerging markets.

The sport spectator satisfaction model : A conceputal framework for understanding the satisfaction of spectators

Customer satisfaction is associated with numerous positive business outcomes and is recognised as an important field of study. However, only limited research has addressed the satisfaction of sport spectators, with even fewer studies examining the determinants of this satisfaction. Yet an understanding of how spectators arrive at evaluations of satisfaction or dissatisfaction provides a useful insight for directing marketing and operational efforts. The Sport Spectator Satisfaction Model (SSSM) is an extension of the Disconfirmation of Expectations Model (DEM) accommodating unique aspects of the sport product, as well as accommodating the core and peripheral dimensions of the spectator service. The SSSM depicts club identification and the win/lose phenomenon as considerable influences on the satisfaction spectators derive from the game and its peripheral services. The SSSM integrates marketing theory, social identity theory and sport marketing theory to broaden our understanding of spectator satisfaction and provide a platform for further research.

Consumers' health perceptions of three types of milk: a survey in Australia

A survey was conducted among 345 randomly selected shoppers in Melbourne, Australia, to identify their perceptions of the healthiness of whole milk, reduced fat milk and soy milk and to investigate demographic influences on health perceptions and types of milk consumption. The survey revealed major differences in shoppers' perceptions of the three types of milk along the themes of bone health, weight control, disease prevention, and, allergy and disease causation. Generally whole milk was perceived more negatively than soy or reduced fat milk. There were few demographic differences in the shoppers' perceptions of the three products. Reported consumption of reduced fat milk was more frequent among women and elderly people, and whole milk consumption was positively related to parenthood. The findings suggest that previous marketing and education campaigns have been effective but the widespread uncertainty and erroneous beliefs about milk products suggest that many consumers have not assimilated new findings about milk products. This represents a challenge for industry and public health practitioners.