Brand affinity and consumer repurchase behaviour : an empirical analysis

This research established a construct termed brand affinity, comprising the measures of anticipation of usage, social attraction, commitment, loyalty, and trust. In the context of a highly uncertain, intermittently available service, it was found that brand affinity had greater influence over consumers' repurchase intentions than the typical antecedents of overall and attribute level satisfaction.

Defining and operationalising brand salience

Consumers make decisions using the information that is available to them most readily. This thesis examined the determinants and consequences of top-of-mind consumer brand awareness for fast-moving consumer goods, services, and durables. The findings have implications for marketers with regard to the design of their brand communications.

Influences on organisational performance : marketing research, market environment and orientation

Findings demonstrated a strong association between market orientation and organisational performance. However, other associations were marginal with no direct relationship between marketing research utilisation and organisational performance, although this was positively mediated by market orientation. The implications being, organisations need to be market oriented and utilise research information to remain competitive.

Firm survival through a crisis : the influence of market orientation, marketing innovation and business strategy

As an outcome of the economic crisis, the global manufacturing sector is collapsing. Focusing on Chinese manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs), this study investigates whether marketing innovation, defined as improvements in the marketing mix, can assist in withstanding the challenges of operating under the current economic conditions. A conceptual model linking market orientation, marketing innovation, competitive advantage and firm survival is tested using structural equation modelling. Three key findings are derived. First, the examined Chinese manufacturing SMEs had a greater perceived likelihood of survival had they developed and sustained a competitive advantage. Second, marketing innovation assisted in developing and sustaining competitive advantages based on differentiation and cost leadership strategies. Third, marketing innovation capabilities improved when the examined manufacturing SMEs were competitor oriented and had good inter-functional capabilities.

Media pressures and corporate disclosure of social responsibility performance information : a study of two global clothing and sports retail companies

This paper investigates the social and environmental disclosure practices of two large multinational companies, specifically Nike and Hennés & Mauritz. Utilising a joint consideration of legitimacy theory and media agenda setting theory, we investigate the linkage between negative media attention, and positive corporate social and environmental disclosures. Our results generally support a view that for those industry-related social and environmental issues attracting the greatest amount of negative media attention, these corporations react by providing positive social and environmental disclosures. The results were particularly significant in relation to labour practices in developing countries - the issue attracting the greatest amount of negative media attention for the companies in question.

Robust ODF smoothing for accurate estimation of fiber orientation

Q-ball imaging was presented as a model free, linear and multimodal diffusion sensitive approach to reconstruct diffusion orientation distribution function (ODF) using diffusion weighted MRI data. The ODFs are widely used to estimate the fiber orientations. However, the smoothness constraint was proposed to achieve a balance between the angular resolution and noise stability for ODF constructs. Different regularization methods were proposed for this purpose. However, these methods are not robust and quite sensitive to the global regularization parameter. Although, numerical methods such as L-curve test are used to define a globally appropriate regularization parameter, it cannot serve as a universal value suitable for all regions of interest. This may result in over smoothing and potentially end up in neglecting an existing fiber population. In this paper, we propose to include an interpolation step prior to the spherical harmonic decomposition. This interpolation based approach is based on Delaunay triangulation provides a reliable, robust and accurate smoothing approach. This method is easy to implement and does not require other numerical methods to define the required parameters. Also, the fiber orientations estimated using this approach are more accurate compared to other common approaches.

The dynamics of brand equity, co-branding and sponsorship in professional sports

Globalisation has been one of the most significant determinants of growth in the sports industry worldwide, especially with the increasing importance of brand creation, brand awareness, brand image, brand identity and brand equity. Professional sports teams have become top sports brands through leverage with major company sponsors. Sports marketers have had to become much more entrepreneurial to create competitive advantage for sports organisations and deliver relationship value to consumers. Company sponsorships are prominent drivers of brand strategy around the world. They help create an extended consumer experience and are becoming a strategic vehicle for creating co-branding partnerships between sports organisations and multinational companies. This study reports data from a survey of the top marketing and communications executives in sports and company organisations in New Zealand and as well as a qualitative content analysis of core documents and websites. The study provides insights for sports marketers seeking to: use sponsorship as a prominent driver of brand strategy; employ co-branding as a strategy to create an extended consumer experience; build strong brands through efficient co-branding articulation strategies. The study also provides recommendations for sports organisations and companies to formulate their marketing communications and brand strategies from the perspective of a co-branding relationship.

Marketing planning : operationalising the market orientation strategy

Despite strong empirical validation of the relationship between market orientation and business performance, the literature is inconclusive on the implementation of the strategy. This paper reviews the implementation of market orientation, and investigates the associations between market orientation and marketing planning and their associations with business performance. A survey of 216 Australian larger business organisations was conducted to find evidence of these relationships. The results highlight a close association between market orientation and marketing planning, with virtually the same level of association between them, and the business performance measures used. This evidence suggests that they arguably represent the same domain. The results suggest that marketing practitioners may use the marketing planning technique as an intangible productive resource to operationalise the market orientation strategy, and use it to design a specific style and magnitude of market orientation suitable for an organisation.

Brand salience for fast-moving consumer goods : an empirically based model

Brand salience, or the prominence of a brand in memory, has been linked to brand choice and purchase by consumers. The research reported in this paper proposed and tested a model of brand salience for fast-moving consumer goods, which incorporates knowledge, media consumption, and brand image as antecedents. A quasi-experimental method was utilised, where 270 respondents undertook a free recall exercise using category cues, and then completed multiitem measures of brand knowledge, brand associations, and purchase likelihood. Analysis of the data using SEM found support for an empirical model of brand salience where there was a relationship between brand salience and purchase likelihood. The empirical evidence supports building a brand in a primary category, in order to build the depth and breadth of the brand’s associations in consumer memory.

An exploration of the propensity of consumers to recall brand associations for fabricated brands

This conceptual paper discusses the investigation of the recall of brand associations of consumer for brands of high and low salience, as well as for fabricated brands. There has been research on brand associations for "fake" or counterfeit brands, and also for brands with low residual awareness, but there has been little research on the role of brand associations for fabricated brands. This study will investigate the role of brand associations and the propensity of consumers to recall brand associations for brands that do not exist. It is proposed that consumers may revel1 to recalling associations for the product category when they are confronted with a brand name that does not exist. It is proposed to test this with an experimental method, utilising high salience, low salience and fabricated brands from a fastmoving consumer good and a service category. This study will have implications for the manner in which respondents utilise information related to a brand, and also the manner in which marketers advertise their brands, in order to differentiate the brand from others.