A strategic approach to target marketing-choosing the preferred generic customer : a model of shareholder value performance

In recent years the contribution of the marketing function has changed and interest now centres on its contribution to a firm’s financial performance. The Marketing Science Institute in the USA has stated that it is the number one marketing issue facing corporate America. The Australian Marketing Institute is promoting a set of marketing metrics that will help Australian firms measure the function’s contribution to shareholder value creation. Much of the literature relates notions such as customer satisfaction and other marketing activities with a firm’s profit. A missing link appears to be the choice firms make in terms of which customer groups to target and the resultant impact on shareholder value performance. The generic customer groups comprise: existing customers, former customers and prospects. A review of the literature reveals that marketing costs and benefits vary across these groups. The challenge for management is to determine which group represents the best target and to allocate scarce marketing resources accordingly. The task is made even more challenging because the economic value of members within each group also varies and some product lines may be unprofitable and therefore, may not be worth pursuing. To generate superior shareholder value it may not simply be the case of acquiring the maximum number of new customers from any source but to find the appropriate mix of the generic customer groups and manage the individual customer relationships accordingly. This paper seeks to firstly summarise and review the recent literature on marketing and its relationship to shareholder value and secondly to propose a model for allocating marketing resources across generic customer groups in order to generate improved shareholder value performance. Importantly, the model not only covers increasing business with customers but also shedding customers or shedding the extent of business conducted with customers as means of generating shareholder value.

Volvo Australia's new "masochistic" marketing approach

The ‘masochistic marketing’ approach applied by Volvo in Australia is a challenging and demanding marketing process, because it plays on the humiliation of the corporate image itself. Masochistic marketing should not be used as a common approach, unless a series of events has turned the corporate image in the marketplace into something that is highly undesirable.

Research data in marketing journals

Our objective is to assess the geocentricity of research data in a selection of continentally based leading academic marketing journals. The assessment considers a six-year period, namely 2000-2005. The content analysis consisted of 811 published contributions. The empirical findings may be illustrative to other academic journals in the field of marketing. The assessment is summarised on an aggregated level and per journal title. The journal sample consists of the Australasian Marketing Journal (AMJ), the European Journal of Marketing (EJM) and the Journal of Marketing (JM) – a cross-continental assessment. We contend that the selected journals should not be considered to be dramatically different in any particular sense in the area of academic marketing journals. On the contrary, together they may be quite representative of several others as well.

Is there a Pareto Effect in top marketing journals? An exploration

Pareto’s Law refers to the theory that a small percentage of a total is responsible for a large proportion of the total outcome. It is commonly known as the 80/20 law or principle. The objective is to explore whether there is a ‘Pareto Effect’ in the distribution of crucial research and journal criteria in top marketing journals. The authors provide an exploration based upon previous research on top marketing journals. For this purpose, the Pareto Effect concept is introduced, based upon a set of research and journal criteria. The exploration of research and journal criteria in top marketing journals generated an extremely skewed outcome. When it comes to the criteria, the top journals in marketing tend to be governed by narrow concerns of research rather than broad concerns.

Stem cell research and ethics : a socio-economic and marketing perspective

This paper addresses the ethical and moral issues surrounding stem cell research (SCR) and development within the socio-economic and macro marketing environments. A two dimensional conceptual framework is developed towards broadening the understanding of the complexities of these issues in an international context. The conceptual model captures the two dimensions of narrow moral/ethical to broader imperatives and the cost-benefits realm of SCR. Four quadrants emerge within these two dimensions which are likely to help identify the dominant views and the people associating themselves with these views in terms of their demographics and psychographic characteristics. These findings have important socio-economic and marketing implications which are highlighted in the paper.

Employer (dis)satisfaction With Australian marketing graduates: the development of a research framework

The gap between the skills and competencies of graduates on finishing their degrees and those required by employers is well documented in the literature with the development of educational curricula in business, and particularly marketing, being the subject of much research and debate over the past two decades. Nevertheless no comprehensive model appears to have been developed or tested within the Australian education sector to ensure the provision of adequate information on which to base decisions in this field. This paper attempts to contribute to this research area by presenting preliminary investigations into the needs of Australian businesses mainly in relation to marketing skills of graduates. Using a mail survey to collect data from 194 Australian businesses, a Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to investigate the significant differences between the importance and satisfaction levels placed by employers on various graduate attributes. Findings of this research show that marketing skills appear to be valued at a lower level than general graduate attribute skills and that marketing programs may need to focus on basic marketing skills, more general skills and personal attributes rather than the higher level marketing skills that we currently teach at Australian universities.

Strategic sport marketing

"Strategic Sport Marketing is a comprehensive text for sport management students as well as practising sport administrators. Integrating the unique product characteristics of sport with traditional marketing theory, it presents a strategic sport marketing model that recognises the diverse markets for sport: participants, sponsors, spectators at the event and lounge-room fans." "Case studies and sportviews selected from international sports and media illustrate the unique features of sport marketing. With detailed examples and step-by-step processes, Strategic Sport Marketing is a practical tool and theoretical guide to sport marketing internationally." "The second edition of this widely used text is fully revised and updated. It includes two new chapters: 'Customer satisfaction and service quality' by Linda van Leeuwen and 'Sport and the Internet' by Daniel Evans. There is also an increased focus on sponsorship and the role of services theory in the delivery of sport."

Marketing

The most comprehensive and authoritative introductory marketing text available for Australian students. The new edition has been completely updated to reflect recent changes in marketing theory and practice caused by new technologies and new ways of organising. Three Australian authors.

Essentials of marketing research : an applied orientation

A lively, practical and concise text suitable for a one-semester course course in marketing research this book presents marketing research concepts in a highly applied and managerial way. Two of the authors are from Australian universities.

Marketing research : an applied orientation

The content of this 3rd edition marketing research textbook is practical and up to date and is based on an applied and managerially focused approach. Australian an New Zealand research and examples have been thoroughly intergrated into every chapter.