Terrence H. Witkowski

Food Marketing and Obesity in Developing Countries: Analysis, Ethics, and Public Policy

Obesity and the chronic diseases with which it is associated constitute a serious global health problem that will rapidly worsen given current trends. This article introduces a model of how development processes, biological factors, and food marketing practices are influencing the human energy equation in the less affluent world. The discussion then turns to an ethical analysis of food marketing and obesity and to a formulation of broad ethical guidelines derived from marketing theory. Finally, alternative public policy and social marketing strategies are considered.

Personal Bonding Processes in International Marketing Relationships

Abstract Personal bonds, an important component in many buyer–seller relationships, are crucial in international marketing. Many societies stress personal relationships in business, and, when firms operate globally, close ties are useful for overcoming inherent time, distance, language, and cultural barriers. This research uses qualitative methods to investigate personal bonding processes as experienced by 20 small-to-medium-sized business owners and key managers engaged in international marketing. The findings describe four preconditions for personal bonding (reputation, shared expectations, foreign language proficiency, family and ethnic ties), two types of bonding interactions (communicating at a distance, visiting), and three meanings of personal bonds (friendliness, comfort level, trust), and how these meanings evolve. Implications for relationship marketing theory and research are also discussed.

Fair Trade Marketing: An Alternative System for Globalization and Development

Fair trade marketing gives consumers the option of paying higher prices for imported goods so that developing world producers can have a decent standard of living. This article conceptualizes the fair trade movement as a system for globalization and economic development different from that carried out by the conventional marketing of multinational corporations. It investigates the philosophical principles of fair trade and compares them to the ideologies of antiglobalization, marketing management, ethical sourcing, and ethical consumerism. The article also describes the institutional networks of fair trade marketing and explores some implications of this system for producers, consumers, and companies.

Cross‐cultural influences on brand identity impressions: KFC in China and the United States

This research measured and compared the brand identity of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in China and the United States. Brand identity was defined as the customer impressions of four different KFC identity elements – properties, products, presentations, and publications. A survey of young consumers in the two countries (n = 795), showed that the Chinese respondents were more apt to eat within KFC restaurants, and spend more time doing so, than the Americans. The Chinese also had much more positive impressions of KFC than their US counterparts. Brand identity impressions were correlated with overall customer satisfaction and with future patronage intentions for both groups, but much more so for the Americans. These findings support a model where differences in cultural frames of reference lead consumers to actively localize the brand identity of this nominally globalized product.

A brief history of frugality discourses in the United States

Public discourses advocating frugal consumption have had a long history in the United States. This study provides a brief account of six different periods of such anti‐consumerist thought and rhetoric: colonial, antebellum, Gilded Age, early twentieth century, World War II, and late twentieth century. The final section uses history to better understand the religious, political, and societal tensions that have characterized American frugality discourses.

The early American style: A history of marketing and consumer values

Since the 1876 Centennial, furniture companies, decorators, and home builders have incorporated early American designs into their products. This article recounts the marketing history of this style and some clusters of consumer values—the search for authenticity, status presentation and ethnic identification, nostalgia and tradition making, domesticity and femininity, and aesthetic conservatism—with which early American objects and architecture have been associated.

The marketing discipline comes of age, 1934‐1936

Purpose – The marketing field established important institutions – college courses, teachable texts, professional associations, and regular conferences – during the first three decades of the twentieth century, but did not fully mature as a scholarly discipline until the first specialized journals were launched in the mid‐1930s. The aim of this paper is to better understand the marketing discipline during this crucial formative period, especially the structure, presentation, and content of marketing knowledge.Design/methodology/approach – The primary sources are The American Marketing Journal and the National Marketing Review, the two predecessor journals that combined to form Journal of Marketing in 1936. They are examined for publishing data and content areas, article format and authorship, and the topics and methods constituting marketing knowledge.Findings – The scholarship published in the first marketing journals was written by single authors who only infrequently cited other works. A wide range of ...

The Early Development of Purchasing Roles in the American Household, 1750 to 1840

This article investigates American household purchasing roles from the late colonial era to the mid-nineteenth century. Issues examined include marital authority versus the real balance of power, home production and the gendered division of labor, and family decision-making influences and purchasing behaviors. The article points out historical changes and continuities as well as some social class differences. The concluding section suggests implications for marketing and consumer history as well as some limitations of the research.

Convergent, Contrasting, and Country-Specific Attitudes toward Television Advertising in Germany and the United States

Abstract In recent years, German television (TV) has become increasingly Americanized in terms of the number of available channels, types of programming, and system financing via commercial sponsorship. To investigate whether the outlook of the German audience also has begun to resemble its American counterpart, this study collected data on attitudes toward TV advertising from 582 respondents in the Frankfurt area and from 436 respondents in southern California. The findings suggest that attitudes toward TV advertising in Germany and the United States are largely convergent when taken as a whole, but cultural differences do remain and there are two noteworthy country-specific segments.

Re‐gendering consumer agency in mid‐nineteenth‐century America: A visual understanding

The re‐gendering of consumer agency in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, from being a male to an increasingly female prerogative and responsibility, marked an important milestone in the history of American consumer culture. Art from this period can provide a visual understanding of this ideological and social transformation. Accordingly, this paper examines the lives and selected works of two intriguing genre painters, Francis W. Edmonds (1806–1863) and Lilly Martin Spencer (1822–1902), using concepts and methods from art history, visual culture, and postmodern theory. Implications for household consumption history and theory are also discussed.