Sonia Dickinson

Buy, boycott or blog: Exploring online consumer power to share, discuss and distribute controversial advertising messages

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the concept of consumer power, in particular the power or bloggers in the online environment and how this might be applied to the regulation of advertising.Design/methodology/approach – Utilising Denegri‐Knotts (2006) four on‐line power strategies, a content analysis of weblogs of Tourism Australias “Where the bloody hell are you?” advertising campaign is undertaken. Blogger behaviour towards this controversial campaign is documented and consumer power strategies are examined.Findings – This study reveals that bloggers are circumventing the traditional self regulatory process by distributing information, opinion, and even banned advertising material, thereby forming power hubs of like‐minded people, with the potential to become online pressure groups, augmenting the traditional powers of consumers in the self regulatory process.Research limitations/implications – Limitations include a single case context and its exploration of a single media tool (weblog...

Understanding the emotional and coping responses of adolescent individuals exposed to threat appeals

Social marketers continue to incorporate threat appeals into their advertising campaigns. By understanding how both type, and level of threat, as well as individuals’ emotional response impacts on their coping response, health communicators can become knowledgeable about how to generate health message acceptance. Coping responses are of interest to researchers because they have social implications, and influence whether or not an individual actually takes on a desirable or undesirable behaviour. That is, after deciding on their coping response, individuals then proceed to develop attitudes that lead to behavioural decisions. Therefore, this research provides an improved understanding of threat appeal effectiveness, through an experimental design where the relationship between ‘type of threat’, and ‘level of threat’, an individual’s emotional responses, and their subsequent coping response are examined.

Agency-Generated Research of Consumer-Generated Content: The Risks, Best Practices, and Ethics

ABSTRACT The current study investigated the interactive relationship of social-media conversation and brand television advertising during the 2011 and 2012 U.S. National Football League Super Bowl championship games. The Super Bowl often is the most-watched yearly U.S. television broadcast. Results indicated that pre-game and game-day social-media conversations for advertised brands enhanced audience engagement. Television advertisements played a significant role in amplifying social-media conversations about the advertised brands. Overall, the study found evidence that the relationship between traditional television advertising and online social-media conversations was reciprocal, with both media platforms working in tandem to enhance brand engagement.

Cooperative brand alliances: how to generate positive evaluations

This paper examines consumer evaluations of cooperative branding alliances (co branding) in a consumer marketing context. These co branding alliances are described as the pairing of two or more brands to form a separate and unique product, with their success being reliant on producing positive consumer evaluations. Data was gathered from 194 respondents with qualitative and quantitative findings showing that in order to achieve positive consumer evaluations of co branded offerings, brand partners independently require positive parent brand attitudes as a precondition. Furthermore, high levels of perceived parent brand fit is also a requisite for creating favourable co brand evaluations, albeit the moderating influence of ‘parent brand fit’ on how consumers evaluate co brands received mixed results.

Threat appeal communications: The interplay between health resistance and cognitive appraisal processes

The successful use of threat appeals is largely determined by how an individual copes with the threat being communicated, and their level of health resistance. This study explores the relationship between coping response and attitudes towards the undesirable behaviour of smoking, and also investigates the moderating influence of health resistance on this relationship. Using an experimental design and responses from 353 respondents, findings indicate that social threats create the strongest in adaptive coping response among adolescents which in turn create negative attitudes towards smoking and acceptance of anti-smoking messages. Health resistance does however moderate this relationship where the higher the level of health resistance, the less likely an individual will continue to have a negative attitude towards smoking messages. The confirmed influence of health resistance on cognitive appraisal processes is an important consideration for any social marketer and we discuss implications and recommendations for further research regarding these issues.

A web analysis of sustainability reporting: an oil and gas perspective

ABSTRACT Businesses going online now have a range of communication tools to interact with stakeholders and establish positive dialogue with those audiences. This article focuses on the role of the internet as a channel for triple bottom line or sustainability reporting. This study is significant for three main reasons. Firstly, it expands our understanding of the extent to which companies use corporate websites to disclose triple bottom line (TBL) or sustainability information. Secondly, this study also improves on the methodology of data processing by automating the web content analysis process, unlike previous studies which used the manual approach, therein enhancing speed and accuracy. Finally, we are able to provide suggestions regarding website content, to improve firm dialogue with multiple stakeholders, and enhance corporate reputation.

Patterns of Cooperative Marketing in Australian Organisations

Abstract In today’s contemporary business environment, gaining competitive advantage continues to be the focus of most firms. Strategy alternatives that can provide new ways of achieving strategic advantage are gaining increased attention. Cooperation is an example of such a strategy. Specifically, cooperative marketing (co-marketing) is one of many cooperative strategies alternatives that is gaining increased consideration as a strategy alternative that has the potential to make an enduring and practical contribution to organisational performance Despite increased interest in cooperative marketing, there is little research relating to classificatory frameworks, patterns of cooperative marketing strategy use and the basic performance outcomes that result from its implementation. By building on literature in the field or study, a classificatory discussion provides clarity regarding cooperative marketing, while empirical findings allow conclusions to be drawn and future research directions to be outlined.

Towards a global framework for advertising self regulation

One of the forces which has indelibly shaped marketing is the internet. It has not only changed the way we communicate, but our marketing practices and our advertising self-regulation process (Kerr, et al 2012). Most advertising self-regulatory frameworks are country specific and typically an artefact of culture and the national regulatory environment (Boddewyn 1989; Rotfeld 1992). The importance of protecting consumers from deceptive advertising is universal, and in trying to regulate a global medium, we need to integrate national concerns into global guidelines and international best practice. Currently there is no global framework for advertising self-regulation, even though there is an urgent need to both protect consumers in this unregulated environment and ensure marketers’ obligations for legal, decent and truthful advertising are met.