Marie-Louise Fry

E-trust: the influence of perceived interactivity on e-retailing users

E‐retailing has received considerable attention in recent years, especially with the help of consumer behaviour concepts and tools. This particular paper focuses on e‐trust and its antecedents. Special attention is given to the proposition that the more a site is perceived to be interactive, then the greater the trust that users attach to that site. Previous research has demonstrated this relationship with respect to a particular site. The current paper re‐examines this relationship with respect to another site. More importantly, the paper tests whether the nexus between interactivity and e‐trust applies to both pure “click” and “brick and click” e‐retailers.

Examining the unintended consequences of marketing

While many firms engage in successful marketing activities with outcomes beneficial for both the firm and its stakeholders, a number of situations occur where these successful outcomes impact in an unanticipated negative fashion on consumers, society and other stakeholders. This article examines the importance of firms evaluating the entire network of exchanges. Such evaluations of the firm and other stakeholders are steps toward ensuring that any unintended consequences of marketing activities are not only considered but are also appropriately addressed.

The Harm Chain A Public Policy Development and Stakeholder Perspective

This article introduces the concept of a ‘harm chain’ as a mechanism tofurther broaden the way in which firms and public policy makers consider potential negative outcomes from marketing activities. The purpose of conceptualizing a ‘harm chain’ is to examine specifically the creation of harm within networks of marketing exchanges that might occur throughout pre-production, production, consumption and post-consumption activities. The authors suggest that addressing issues where harm occurs allows both firms and policy makers to identify whether exchanges bring about harm and how relevant parties can address the core cause of harm, as well as how those who are harmed can be protected.

Social marketing’s consumer myopia: Applying a behavioural ecological model to address wicked problems

Purpose Addressing calls for broadening social marketing thinking beyond “individualistic” parameters, this paper aims to describe a behavioural ecological systems (BEM) approach to enhance understanding of social markets. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual framework – the BEM – is presented and discussed within a context of alcohol social change. Findings The BEM emphasises the relational nature of behaviour change, where individuals are embedded in an ecological system that involves the performances of behaviour and social change within historical, social, cultural, physical and environmental settings. Layers of influence on actors are characterised as macro (distant, large in scale), exo (external, remote from individuals), meso (between the individual and environments) and micro (the individual within their social setting). The BEM can be applied to guide social marketers towards creating solutions that focus on collaboration amongst market actors rather than among consumers. Practical implications The BEM contributes to a broader holistic view of social ecologies and behaviour change; emphasises the need for social marketers to embrace systems thinking; and recognises that relationships between actors at multiple layers in social change markets are interactive, collaborative and embedded in dynamic social contexts. Importantly, a behavioural ecological systems approach enables social marketers to develop coherent, integrated and multi-dimensional social change programmes. Originality/value The underlying premise of the BEM brings forward relational logic as the foundation for future social marketing theory and practice. Taking this approach to social market change focuses strategy on the intangible aspects of social offerings, inclusive of the interactions and processes of value creation (and/or destruction) within a social marketing system to facilitate collaboration and interaction across a network of actors so as to overcome barriers and identify solutions to social problems.

Rethinking social marketing: towards a sociality of consumption

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how members of an online alcohol reduction community learn, construct and engage in alcohol reduction consumption consistencies. Design/methodology/approach – Blog data from 15 individuals participating in the online community of Hello Sunday Morning were collected and analysed. Informants also participated in a series of in-depth interviews to gain a self-reflective perspective of alcohol reduction action, activities and interactions. Findings – The findings indicate learning of new alcohol reduction consumption consistencies occurs through three modes or learning infrastructures: engagement, imagination and alignment, enabling a collective sense of connection in the creation of new alcohol-related rituals and traditions, competency of practices and transmission of values and norms beyond the community. Research limitations/implications – The results underscore the need for social marketers to recognise learning of alcohol reduction behaviour is continual...

Discourses of Consumer's Alcohol Resistant Identities

This study examines how abstinence from excessive drinking is meaningful to young people. By rejecting the dominant norm of intoxication young people engage in anticonsumption practices that involve degrees of antichoice (Hogg et al., 2008). In this context, resistance is viewed as a source of innovation where consumers produce and co-produce a value paradigm that is oppositional to the “dominant norm” of excessive drinking. Conceptualizing alcohol consumption as a performance inclusive of different degrees of antichoice contributes to a more nuanced view of how rejection operates alongside excess. Importantly, viewing alcohol consumption through a resistance lens reconsiders exploration of youth binge drinking beyond a dominant health paradigm of “at-risk” behavior with an understanding of value and the co-creation of value by consumers within a broader consumption environment.

Alcohol consumption in young adults: the role of multisensory imagery.

Little is known about the subjective experience of alcohol desire and craving in young people. Descriptions of alcohol urges continue to be extensively used in the everyday lexicon of young, non-dependent drinkers. Elaborated Intrusion (EI) Theory contends that imagery is central to craving and desires, and predicts that alcohol-related imagery will be associated with greater frequency and amount of drinking. This study involved 1535 age stratified 18-25 year olds who completed an alcohol-related survey that included the Imagery scale of the Alcohol Craving Experience (ACE) questionnaire. Imagery items predicted 12-16% of the variance in concurrent alcohol consumption. Higher total Imagery subscale scores were linearly associated with greater drinking frequency and lower self-efficacy for moderate drinking. Interference with alcohol imagery may have promise as a preventive or early intervention target in young people.

A Structural Overview of Undergraduate Marketing Education in Australia: Implications for Defining Core Competencies

This paper examines the structure and curricula of marketing educational programs on offer in Australian Universities. This paper reveals that there may be an identity crisis of the marketing degree programs in Australia, as there is little consistency across degrees. Although not the primary objective of the exercise, some limited comparisons are made to marketing programs in the United States and patterns similar to those in Australia are identified. Overall, the paper raises the important speculation of what core competencies define a marketer. There is a lack of consistency amongst marketing offerings. This may be a result of efforts to cater for divergent market needs and if this is the case the marketing discipline may require less coherent and definable core skills for it to constitute a profession.

Social change design: disrupting the benchmark template

Purpose This paper aims to propose a new ecological systems-driven framework, underpinned by a relational marketplace lens, for social marketing practitioners to consider when planning and designing programs. The authors contend that behavioural change does not occur in a vacuum and, as such, point to an ecology in which the individual is but one participant in a broader scope of social change activities. Design/methodology/approach The paper is conceptual and presents the Indicators for Social Change Framework. Findings The Indicators for Social Change Framework puts forward a series of “must-have” indicators to consider when designing and planning social marketing programmes. Across identified indicators, the Framework delineates types of marketing actions to consider when planning for individual-oriented change and those required for wider systems-oriented change. Originality/value This paper contributes to the broadening and deepening of the social marketing argument that reliance on individual behaviour change perspectives is not sufficient to resolve complex social problems that are inherently influenced by wider social forces. In transforming social change design, this paper transitions towards a logic view of social marketing that encourages and supports social change planners to be inclusive of interactions, processes and outcomes of value creation across the wider social marketing system.

Case Study: Hello Sunday Morning! – towards ‘practices’ of responsible drinking

While Australian alcohol consumption continues to remain high by world standards (WHO, 2011), recent national statistics show a polarisation in drinking patterns. Australians overall are drinking less in 2010 as compared with 2007 and young Australians, particularly those under the legal drinking age, are choosing to delay onset of their first alcoholic beverage (AIHW, 2011a). Nonetheless, these positive trends are accompanied by continued high levels of sessional consumption. The number of Australians consuming alcohol in risky quantities has increased from 3.5 million in 2007 to 3.7 million in 2010, with one in three 18-29 year olds more likely than other age categories to drink at risky levels regularly (AIHW, 2011b). Male risky drinking outnumbers that of females (i.e.: more than 2 standard drinks a day), however risky drinking behaviour among young adult females is trending upwards (AIHW, 2011b). Consequently, alcohol consumption among Australians, particularly young adults, remains a key concern for public health, policy makers and researchers. Extant literature discusses the problematic associations of binge drinking, the normalised practises around heavy drinking, and the extent to which binge drinking is prioritised as a consumption experience among young adults (Hutton 2012; Lyons & Willott 2008; Szmigin et al., 2008). Less well understood within alcohol research are the contexts and consequences that influence young adult preferences for drinking responsibly. Critically, little attention has been directed towards understanding how individuals transition from risky drinking to responsible levels of consumption. Through the lens of social practice theory the objective of this case study is to leverage insight into approaches and practices consumers engage to co-create their own responsible drinking, and the role of the social collective in sustaining behaviour change practices. The context is Hello Sunday Morning (HSM). HSM is an online community space originating in Australia where individuals share, through blogging, their experiences of enacting behavioural change and responsibility for changing their own drinking behaviour.