Frank Alpert

An application of Keller’s brand equity model in a B2B context

Purpose – The importance of branding in industrial contexts has increased, yet a comprehensive model of business‐to‐business (B2B) branding does not exist, nor has there been a thorough empirical study of the applicability of a full brand equity model in a B2B context. This paper aims to discuss the suitability and limitations of Kellers customer‐based brand equity model and tests its applicability in a B2B market.Design/methodology/approach – The study involved the use of semi‐structured interviews with senior buyers of technology for electronic tracking of waste management.Findings – Findings suggest that amongst organisational buyers there is a much greater emphasis on the selling organisation, including its corporate brand, credibility and staff, than on individual brands and their associated dimensions.Research limitations/implications – The study investigates real brands with real potential buyers, so there is a risk that the results may represent industry‐specific factors that are not representati...

Total customer engagement: designing and aligning key strategic elements to achieve growth

Purpose – Businesses today face a number of difficult challenges that make customer engagement more important than ever. The usual way in which businesses operate makes it difficult to achieve high levels of consumer engagement. Perhaps the main problem with all the bits and pieces of ideas that would promote customer engagement – branding to consumers, internal marketing within the company, and service delivery – is how to fit all these together. The way to implement such models throughout the company is not clear and not easy to understand.Design/methodology/approach – The total engagement model puts everything together into an efficient and effective system. The key is focusing on aligning all activities of the company on a unified plan for customer engagement, including advertising, service, products and the internal culture. An important benefit of the total engagement model is the synergy through total brand strategy alignment throughout the company: the whole (through integration) is greater than t...

The web motivation inventory: replication, extension and application to internet advertising

The Web Motivation Inventory (WMI) is used in internet advertising research, and is frequently used and cited in advertising, marketing and communication literature. Investigations of the robustness of the WMI have been somewhat limited. Additionally, new uses of the internet are not accounted for by the WMI since its publication in 2002. This paper replicates and extends the original WMI using participants in the US, UK and Australia and includes internet motives not previously examined. The results show that the four-factor WMI remained reliable and valid for all three samples. Findings suggest the extended WMI may be broken into 12 sub-scales that represent the original fourfactor measure.

Retail buyer beliefs, attitude and behavior toward pioneer and me-too follower brands - A comparative study of Japan and the USA

One potential source of pioneer brand advantage is retail buyers’ preference for pioneer brands. A model of pioneer brand advantage with retailers developed in the USA was tested in Japan, as a replication and cross‐cultural extension. This provides the first empirical study of Japanese retail buyer beliefs, attitude, and behavior toward new offerings, and the first direct statistical comparison of US and Japanese retail buying behavior in the marketing literature. Similarities and differences in pioneer brand advantage with retailers between Japan and the USA are discussed. Results from a survey of buyers from Japan’s largest supermarket chains suggest that pioneer brand advantage is about as strong for them as for their US counterparts, though for somewhat different reasons. The survey’s results were analyzed in two ways (through a multi‐attribute attitude model and a PLS causal model), with results that complement and corroborate one another. Data were standardized to deal with potential extreme response style bias.

Internet motives of users in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Korea: a cross-cultural replication of the WMI

ABSTRACT The Web Motivation Inventory (WMI) is used in academic research and is cited in the academic Internet advertising literature. To date, the scale has only been tested on U.S. consumers. This research replicates the WMI using consumers from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and South Korea. Our findings revealed the same four-factor structure for three of the four countries, providing evidence of the scale’s global stability. However, the four motives--research, communicate, surf, and shop-differed significantly among the countries.

Perspectives on Academic Publishing: Advice for Those Just Starting☆

Abstract Advice on academic publishing is offered for those just starting their research careers. Themes include: how to link teaching, administration and consulting to research; the benefits and challenges of co-authorship; how to develop a publication strategy; ways to develop a publication portfolio and how to target journals; and how to deal with comments from reviewers and the rejection of a paper.

Measuring reference price perceptions for new product categories: which measure is best?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance within the reference price literature by investigating which is the best measure of reference price for the, as yet, unstudied context of new product categories. The paper also intends to examine another reference price issue for the new product category context: whether greater price uncertainty in this context makes it worthwhile to measure consumer confidence in reference price perceptions.Design/methodology/approach – This research uses the experimental method to determine which measures of reference price are best suited to the new product context, by removing all other confounding influences.Findings – The findings confirm that consumers tend to evoke the fair price concept for new product categories and the expected price concept for existing categories. The paper also finds that confidence in reference price measures, while theoretically useful, does not add to the understanding of reference price effects in new product categories, probabl...

Entertainment software: Suddenly huge, little understood

Purpose – In less than three decades the entertainment software industry has emerged as a huge industry, with sales larger than Hollywood movie box office sales. Yet, little is known about this industry. Stereotypes about the industry may not be correct. This paper seeks to address this knowledge gap.Design/methodology/approach – The paper identifies what is known, and what needs to be known. The paper reviews the literature and adds data from the most recent reports available.Findings – The literature has been slow to address this industry. It has not even been clear what to call this industry. (Some people still call it the video game industry.) The most basic marketing issues still need to be researched, i.e. customer benefits sought and segmentation. A typology of game genres is proposed.Originality/value – This paper is the first overview of the entertainment software industry from a marketing perspective.

Independent and Interactive Effects of Exposure Sequence, Pioneership Awareness, and Product Trial on Consumer Evaluation of a Pioneer Brand

Prior theoretical research has established 3 sources of pioneer brand advantage: exposure sequence, product trial, and pioneer status. Researchers have studied only 1 source at a time and have not differentiated among the sources. Therefore, the question as to whether these sources contribute additively or nonadditively to the pioneer brand advantage is still an unanswered question. Moreover, this question increases in importance in proportion to the degree to which consumers are able to identify which brand is the pioneer in a given product class. This research presents the results of 2 studies using an experimental design and survey research approach, respectively, to examine the issues just discussed. The main finding of the 1 st study is a moderating effect of exposure sequence and trial on the impact of pioneership labeling in terms of sales expectations. Providing pioneer awareness positively affects sales expectations when a pioneer brand receives 2nd exposure to consumers as opposed to 1 st exposure. However, when both products have been tried, the trial experience tends to dominate the benefit of the pioneer label cue. The main finding of the 2nd study is that consumers are typically unaware of which brand is the pioneer in a given product class. These findings suggest managers of pioneer brands should consider including the brands pioneer status in marketing communications, particularly under the rather common occurrence when consumers have already been exposed to other brands and might be unaware of the pioneers true status.

Who are 'innovators' and do they matter? A critical review of the evidence supporting the targeting of 'innovative' consumers

Purpose – This paper aims to bring together and evaluate the reasons that have historically been advanced to justify the heavy emphasis on innovative consumers within the general context of the adoption of products and services, and to assess the strategic benefits to be gained from targeting such market segments.Design/methodology/approach – The approach is critical review and analysis of the published literature.Findings – This paper finds that, although the benefits of identifying innovative early adopters are not as strong and clear‐cut as is often claimed, they are still sufficient to warrant further research into methods that will accurately identify them and predict their purchasing behaviour.Practical implications – Targeting strategies should distinguish carefully between truly innovative consumers and other early adopters. The costs of identifying them in a particular market need to be weighed against the potential benefits.Originality/value – Although many studies have attempted to address the ...