In recent years marketing has taken a “cultural turn” toward promoting locally produced crafts, art, music, clothing, active engagement in cultural events and other one-of-a-kind experiences as part of a worldwide rise of the cultural economy. These activities typically emerge in communities where clusters of creative people live, work and engage in producing a lively cultural scene of mutual support and learning. All to often when these communities are discovered by large-scale commercial interests they soon begin to decline as attention shifts from the production of cultural experiences and artifacts to their consumption, with shops replacing artists’ neighborhoods, imported mass produced simulations replacing genuine products, chain shops filling spaces with unrelated products, and the conviviality of the community is lost to overt commercialization. In this way, marketing ends up “killing the goose that lays the golden eggs” as the district’s creative scene becomes one of countlessly contrived and repetitive “geographies of nowhere”. This presentation focuses on the ways in which filmmaking can be used in support of a responsible approach to marketing by focusing on the people of creative communities rather than simply their products as commodities to be marketed. Marketing and markets can thrive by contributing to authentic place-making, rather than simply place-marketing, through compelling stories of the importance of the people and their communities in the products or experiences being marketed. The emphasis here is on creative communities that are not just sites of consumption, but are living communities that create unique events, experiences and artifacts. By helping to contribute to the understanding of the vitality and social worth of these communities, marketing can more responsibly reflect the values and importance sustaining their way of life. Markets then become more sustainable as well. The presentation will give examples of approaches to filmmaking for responsible marketing. Character driven, place-based stories that are uplifting without being promotional on naive, with people speaking in their own voices are some of the key elements. Examples of possible places for responsible marketing in Asia will be given to anchor the conversation in the real world.

Scientific evidence indicates that a significant human contribution towards the world’s climate change. Human lifestyles and behavior need changing to reach the goal of environmental sustainability. Previous studies indicate that fear or threat appeals in advertising campaigns can lead to changes in attitude and, subsequently, behavioral changes. The main aim of this study is to examine the impact of viewing different degrees of fear appeals of climate change on an individual’s intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior. In addition, the possible factors influencing an individual’s intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior may vary after viewing narratives of different degrees of fear-inspiring climate change are also examined. A total of 217 undergraduate students were assigned to one of the experimental conditions: no fear appeal, low-fear appeal, and high-fear appeal. The fear manipulation check results are consistent with the prominent hypothesis of the drive theory model, an inverted-U-shaped response pattern to increasing levels of fear. The results of ANOVA tests indicate that the participants who view the no-fear appeal text will have more intention of engaging in pro-environmental behavior than their counterparts, those who view the high-fear appeal text. The results of multiple regression equation analysis reveal that an individual’s moral obligations play an important determinant of his/her intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior across both conditions. But in the high-fear appeal condition, an individual’s perception of collective efficacy also plays an important determinant. Practical implications for pro-environmental behaviors are also provided.

The environmental consequences of consumerism are starting to demand change on the part of consumers, businesses, and the public sector. As consumer activity has been found to be a primary cause of environmental degradation and natural resources depletion, consumers need to become educated and involved in sustainability efforts (Sheth et al., 2011). In the current marketplace, however, consumers generally make purchase decisions without considering the environmental impact of those choices. This paper examines a sustainability claim, which allows consumers to consider the negative consequences of their decisions. Additionally, the consequences are communicated using message framings varying between the personal impact and company impact framing. This paper also considers differing levels of a consumer’s environmental involvement. Consistent with the theoretical concepts of social judgment, in conjunction with self-determination, the findings from this research offer an important expansion on prior work: here, the level of EI determined a boundary condition for the effects of sustainability labeling and message framing. While both groups of consumers evaluated the ad containing full information more favorably than the one with partial information, high-EI consumers preferred the ad focusing on the company’s impacts regarding the environment. Arguably, presenting the responsibilities of the company clarified and justified the use of the claim. However, extrinsic rewards and self-enhancement motives may not be key motivators for high-EI consumers. In fact, asking high-EI consumers to conserve nature and minimize their environmental impacts may be ineffective, since they typically respond more to their personal beliefs. Conversely, extrinsic rewards and recognition seem to be prime motivators for low-EI consumers. To encourage consumers to make more mindful consumption decisions, a communication tool that incorporates sustainability labeling and environmental impact framing seems to offer much promise. Indeed, the ability to connect environmental impacts with consumer choices appears to be an important determinant of the effectiveness of sustainability communication. If an ad fails to clearly convey to consumers the environmental impact of purchasing specific products, the provision of sustainability information on product packaging is of no practical value. A more transparent approach of presenting sustainability information may prove helpful to both consumers and the environment.

Will information from astroturf organizations affect people’s trust toward overall nonprofit organizations and willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors? Astroturf organizations are defined as “fake grassroots organizations animated by a clever public relations campaign and a huge budget” (Hoggan and Littlemore 2009). In other words, an astroturf organization hides its true identity by using rhetorical language to convince the public. It can be inferred that large corporations sponsor astroturf organizations to employ deceptive and fraudulent tactics as propaganda. Prior research on astroturf organizations for climate change shows that people exposed to information from astroturf organizations denying global warming tend to become more uncertain about climate issues (e.g., causes of global warming or the existence of global warming) than people exposed to information from grassroots organizations (Cho et al. 2011). We propose that information from astroturf organizations may affect not only relevant issues or organizations, but also nonprofit organizations in general, which can then lower people's willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors (e.g., donations and volunteering). Darke and Ritchie (2007) found that deceptive advertisements engender distrust and undermine the trustworthiness of subsequent advertising. The process of defensive stereotyping can explain how initial deception activates general skepticism regarding advertising. Based on such an explanation, we suggest that exposure to astroturf organizations can make consumers more logically defensive and can decrease their trust toward messages from other nonprofit organizations. Therefore, we hypothesize that people who read messages from astroturf organizations will be more distrustful toward nonprofit organizations and will display lower willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors than people who read messages from grassroots organizations. To test this hypothesis, we conducted an experiment. We used a one-factor design with two levels of organization types (astroturf vs. grassroots). Participants (N = 72) were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions. Participants were told that they would read a message captured from a website of an organization (astroturf vs. grassroots) working on global warming. After viewing the advertisement, participants completed a questionnaire measuring their trust toward nonprofit organizations in general and willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors. We assessed whether viewing the advertisement from the astroturf organization had an impact on participants' trust toward nonprofit organizations and their willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors. An analysis of variance (ANOVA), with trust toward nonprofit organizations as the dependent variable and the type of organization as the independent variable, yielded a significant effect (F = 4.38, p < .05). The results showed that participants who viewed the advertisement from the astroturf organization were more likely to be distrustful of nonprofit organizations than those who viewed the advertisement from the grassroots organization (Mastroturf = 4.14, SD = 1.48 vs. Mgrassroots = 4.80, SD = 1.16). Thus, astroturf organizations may not only confuse people about a specific issue that the respective astroturf organizations aimed to attack, but they can also significantly weaken people's trust toward nonprofit organizations in general, which suggests severe detriment for the entire society. In addition, exposure to the message from an astroturf organization appeared to have an impact on people's willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors (F = 4.77, p < .05). To be specific, people who viewed the advertisement from the astroturf organization indicated that they were less likely to engage in prosocial behaviors, compared to those who viewed the advertisement from the grassroots organization (Mastroturf = 3.11, SD = .63 vs. Mgrassroots = 3.48, SD = .77). Taken as a whole, this research suggests that messages from astroturf organizations can frequently engender people’s distrust toward nonprofit organizations and can lower their willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors. Our results extend prior research demonstrating that information from astroturf organizations affects people’s trust and certainty levels regarding one specific issue (Cho et al. 2011) and suggest that the effects of exposure to astroturf messages are not limited to a specific issue. Rather, the effects can be far-reaching and diverse, since such messages can evoke skepticism toward benign intentions and programs of nonprofit organizations. Given that the insidious use of astroturf organizations is growing in popularity, this research provides meaningful insights into the influence of fake grassroots organizations and can forewarn the public of their undesirable effects on the community.

The cross-sexual movement in ads implies that a gender role stereotype that was not easily changed in society has been steadily changed lately. In general, changes happen after a phenomenon. If the cross-sexual trend in ads brings about changes in the society of eastern culture where a gender role stereotype is relatively stronger than western culture, the social impact of cross-sexual advertising will be quite influential. From such perspective, this study attempted to empirically validate the effect of cross-sexual advertising which many companies are now utilizing increasingly. Specifically, this study was intended to identify the boundary conditions for the effect of cross-sexual advertising. This study validated the moderating effect of consumers' self-construal and need-for-uniqueness on the relationship between the ad type and the consumer evaluation. Furthermore, it clarified what the underlying cognitive mechanism was for the effect of cross-sexual ads.

For retailers price promotions are an important instrument to increase store visits. Building on prior research on the role of emotions in decision making processes we show a strong mediating effect of both valence and arousal on store visit intentions. Therefore, managers should be aware of emotional responses when planning their price promotions.

This study examines the effect of SPA store experience on formation of customer equity. Here we distingush dimension of store experience to sensory, affective, behavioral, intellectual, and relational experience and dimension of customer equity to value, brand, relationship equity. To verify relationship between dimension of store experience and customer equity, as well as loyalty, we use structural equation modeling. As a result, relationship between variables have a significant effect on each other exclude hypotheses such as relationship between affective experience and value equity and relationship between behavioural experience and relationship equity. The result indicates that reinforcing SPA store experience likely to have positive impact on formation of customer equity and loyalty strength.

This paper is exploring the role of market orientation adoption by the Sales managers in the creation of effective cross functional relationship between Marketing and Sales and in company performance. Based on data collected from both Marketing and Sales managers in 132 consumer packaged goods companies, the study shows that higher levels of market orientation by the Sales managers are reducing the level of Marketing-Sales conflict as perceived by the Marketing managers and enhancing important performance metrics. The implications of the study for both theory and practice are discussed.

This exploratory study conducts the difference of e-business implementation of each industry in Japan. According to factor analysis, 9 e-business contents are classified into four factors. Then, as a result of cluster analysis using the four factors, industries are classified into five clusters according to the grade of execution of e-business, and the contents of execution. Online networks including internet have given rise to the digital economy to support electronic business (e-business) activities. But it varies according to a type of industry because how enterprises perform e-business. The purpose of working on e-business is also the same. This study shows that the implementation status of e-business of each industry. E-business using online networks are various, such as not only e-commerce but also activities inside the company. The former examples are sales or purchase trading, and the latter examples are activities of a direct department called production or physical distribution, and a back-office section called accounts or personnel. In addition, purposes of enterprises perform e-business may be various, for example sales expansion, and cost reduction, information sharing. In Japan, before the Internet known as an open online network spreads, former closed online network such as VAN; Value Added Network has been popular to companies in 1980’s. Therefore, companies could use e-business in internal business process integration or to specific partners. The examples are Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). But in fact, e-commerce is more popular than other e-business. That may be why effects come out of e-commerce in the short term, such as reduction of office work cost, improvement in customer satisfaction, or the reduction of an input cost. Iacovou et al(1995) recommends the development of successful EDI partner expansion plans, which include EDI initiators pursue promotional efforts to improve partners’ (especially small partners’) perceptions of EDI benefits, provide financial and technological assistance to partners with low organizational readiness, and carefully select and enact influence strategies to reduce resistance. Fisher(1997) concludes the effectiveness of SCM varies according to the matrix of product properties and purpose of SCM. From the viewpoint of marketing partnership, Doney et al(1997) shows that supplier size and supplier's willingness to customer have a positive impact on buyers’ trust. Chatterjee et al(2002) shows that companies structuring e-commerce platform should have top management championship, strategic investment rationale, and extent of coordination. According to these studies, the effectiveness of e-business changes in the factor inside and outside the company such as the relations with a type of industry and the trading partner. MTI(2006) shows the result of a questionnaire companies of Japan and USA why to introduce e-commerce. According to this survey, Japanese companies think as important cost reductions, such as a request from a customer, and increase in efficiency of ordering business, to the USA companies think as important sales expansions, such as new customer acquisition and expansion of a sales channel. SMEA(2009), belongs to MTI, shows SMEs which consider “reduction of trading costs” to be a benefit are greatest in number, but when looked at in terms of employee size, the smaller the enterprise, the larger the number citing that it is “easy to acquire new customers.” These suggest engaging e-commerce actively is important as a means of acquiring customers for small companies as well. MIC(2012) shows the result of an annualy mail survey with about 2,000 enterprises; 87.5% of companies have built a company communication network such as internet, the percentage of businesses using e-commerce (procurement/sales via the Internet) is 44.5%, and the percentage of businesses using at least a part of a cloud computing serviceis 21.6%, which is 7.5 percentage points more than the 14.1% rate at the end of 2010. This study conducts a statistical secondary analysis using large-scale survey. The original survey is “Results of the Basic Survey of Business and Activity on March 31, 2009” provided Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Japan. The survey is somewhat old because they survey each 5 years. The survey is a mail on self-declaration forms given to enterprises which engaged in business with both a minimum capital of 30 million yen and 50 or more employees. Questions include size and profit of enterprises, online network usage and e-business implementation. It covers over 28,000 enterprises which operate mining, manufacturing, and wholesale and retail trade, and eating and drinking places. This study analyzes the semi total data for every 103 types of industry because the reply for each enterprise is not disclosed, and conducts descriptive statistics. An exploratory factor analysis revealed 4 factors from 10 variables on a sample of 103 industries. Table1 shows that pattern matrix after Promax rotation with Maximum Likelihood extraction. As the factor loadings of Sales, Inventory and Distribution are high, 1st factor can be named as “Sales division”. Like the following, 2nd factor is “In-company management”, 3rd factor is “Procurement” and 4th factor is “Manufacturing”. e-business implementation can be classified into “Sales division”, “I n-company management”, “Procurement” and “Manufacturing”. This suggests the priority matter of each enterprise is reflected. First, a type of industry to suffer from the competition with others by sales markets to work on customer satisfactions or marketing tackles “Sales division”. Second, “In-company management” could be important for a type of industry to push forward information integration and employee management in the enterprise or the cost cut of the indirect section. Third, Industries which work on cost reduction with strong bargaining ability to the supplier could be tackling “procurement” e-business. And some manufacturing industries work on “manufacturing” e-business. In order to classify 103 industries according to e-business implementation, cluster analysis is conducted with factor scores observed the analysis. Figure 1 is a result of hierarchical cluster analysis applying the Ward Linkage method. It is divided into five clusters. Table 2 is average factor score & characteristics of each cluster. The analysis shows the characteristic of the type of industry to perform e-business. Cluster 5 which contains only electricity is firstly classified as other types of industry. The cluster has the highest score except “Sales Division” than other clusters. Cluster 3 and 4 work on e-business more positively than Cluster 1 and 2. Cluster 1 has very low score especially “Sales division” and “In-company management”. The reason may be why it has traditional manufacture such as mining and wood manufacture. Cluster 2 has also low score especially “Manufacturing” because it has traditional distributor sector such as apparel, agricultural or furniture wholesales. Therefore, “Sales Division” is performed better than other e-business. On the other hand, Cluster 3 has high score other than manufacturing because it has non-store retailer and electrical or motor wholesales. Many of them work on e-commerce because they satisfy customers and compete with others, and procure products to reduce costs. And Cluster 4 has major manufacture industries such as electronic, motor vehicles and communication, which work on e-business totally. In conclusion, the difference of e-business implementation of each industry reflects on market structure. This study has two limitations. First, as the data used for this analysis is already totaled for every type of industry, the reply situation for each company is not reflected. Though the government statistics are collecting data comprehensively, it is very rare to have released each data because of privacy. After taking into consideration in a respondent's privacy, an indication of individual data is desired. Second, the purpose or attitude companies work on e-business are not taken into consideration though analyzed based on the implementation rate of e-business. Not only action data but attitude data and consciousness data are important. The future research should analyze why companies work on e-business through an interview or questionnaire survey.

This study develops a model of the market life cycle of package tours, explaining that such tours inherently have low tourist satisfaction which results in a decrease in market share. The model is based on the proposition that tourist satisfaction depends on the extent to which their preferences are fulfilled at the destination, which in turn is determined by their knowledge of its attributes. An analysis of data on China’s outbound tourism market from 1993 to 2010 shows that as tourist satisfaction at the destination increases, the market share of inclusive package tours declines. This suggests that tourist satisfaction can predict tourists’ subsequent choice of a package tour. As tourist satisfaction increases due to the improved information in the market, such package tours will be gradually substituted for independent travel or entirely new packages, or replaced by travel to a new destination.

This study focuses on Singaporeans’ perceptions of ecotourism products. Singapore is a highly urban country with very little green areas. Most of Singapore’s green spaces are man-made. Because of the lack of natural environment as compared to other Asian countries, such as Taiwan, Japan and China, Singaporeans generally have very little exposure, understanding and appreciation of eco-products. This study attempts to add knowledge to the understanding of urban residents’ (such as Singaporeans) attitudes towards ecotourism products so that marketers are able to better develop or customize their ecotourism products to better meet the needs of these potential customers. A survey was conducted in high traffic areas throughout Singapore, such as train stations, bus interchanges and shopping malls. Convenience sampling was used because the study is exploratory. Interviewers were instructed to survey people aged 20 and older, an age group when people make their own vacation choices. The survey was divided into five parts: travel motivation, vacation choices, environmental consciousness, vacation selection and demographic profiles. Respondents were asked to rank their travel motivations, similar to the ones used by Eagles (1992). Respondents were classified as “ecotourists” or “mainstream” using the criteria of Litvin (1996) and Litvin and Chiam (2014). Respondents were asked to rate a series of statements pertaining to their perception of new ecotourism products. For vacation choices, the respondents were asked to rate a series of statements related to their leadership abilities to influence others on ecotourism products and their knowledge about tourist products, especially those related to ecotourism. In the section on environmental consciousness, respondents were asked how their attitude towards environmental issues influences their purchasing decisions when they are on vacation. Data was analyzed using the t-test to determine if there was any significant difference between the ecotourists and the mainstream tourists. The respondents were then given two vacation choices, an ecotourism product and a mainstream tourist product. They were required to select one of them for their vacation.The last section collected demographic data, such as age, education, household income as well as their marital status. A total of 333 adults participated in this study, 60% female, most younger than 40 years old and single. More than half of the respondents had completed their post-secondary education and belong to middle-income households. About a third of the respondents were classified as “ecotourists” and the rest as mainstream tourists. The average age of the ecotourists was slightly lower than the mainstream tourists (34.19 as compared to 36.93). More than half (55.6%) of the ecotourists have at least a university degree, while the rate of this for mainstream tourists was slightly lower (42.9%). More mainstream tourists (81.6%) see themselves as belonging to upper- and middle-income households than do ecotourists (79.6%). Both the ecotourists and mainstream tourists selected “having fun and being entertained” and “being together as a family” as their top two motivations for travel. Not surprisingly, the desire to be in the wilderness and undisturbed nature and visiting national and state parks appears to be more prominent among the ecotourists than among the mainstream tourists. When the respondents were asked to choose between a pair of vacation packages, one mainstream and one ecotourism, the results were not surprising. More than half (54.8%) of the ecotourists chose an ecotourism package, as compared to only 30.5% of the mainstream tourists. The ecotourists tended to be more knowledgeable about travel destinations and were more proactive in searching for information on new vacation destinations. They were more willing to try new and even unknown vacation destinations. For example, using a Likert scale of 1 to 5, with 1 signifying “strongly disagree” and 5 “strongly agree,” ecotourists were more willing to go to a new destination even if they had not heard about it (3.29) than were mainstream tourists (3.15), Using a Likert scale of 1 to 6, with 1 signifying “strongly disagree” and 6 “strongly agree,” the ecotourists were more environmentally conscious than mainstream tourists. For example, they were willing to pay extra for eco-friendly travel products (4.13) than were mainstream tourists (3.87). The ecotourists were also more likely to consider environmental issues when making their tourism purchases (3.97) than were the mainstream tourists (3.79). The results show that there were significantly more ecotourists among this adult sample (34.8%) than among Litvin’s (1996) sample of students (26%). There are several possible explanations for this phenomenon. For instance, an adult population might be more aware of ecotourism and more conscious of environmental conservation. The ecotourists tend to be younger and have slightly lower income than mainstream tourists. In order to incentivize this younger population to consume ecotourism products, marketers will have to source more value-for-money eco-destinations for these cost-conscious tourists. This could be done through using the existing facilities used by the locals and authentic experiences could be created by lodging and eating with the locals using local produce found in the same vicinity. This study also found differences based on nationality. The top two motivations among the Singaporean ecotourists are (1) have fun and being entertained and (2) being together as a family, whereas the Canadian ecotourists ranked (1) wilderness and undisturbed nature and (2) lakes and streams as their two top motivations for travel. These differences can be attributed to national values (Asian vs. Canadian) as well as differences in exposure to eco-sites. Asian families value being together. Therefore, when they go overseas for a holiday, they like to go as a family, viewing vacation as an opportunity for bonding among the family members. The results seem to reflect that Singapore is a city, and most of the livable space is filled with concrete buildings and structures. Most of the limited green space in Singapore is man-made, with the exception of a few eco-sites. In contrast, many western countries offer vast natural sites such as mountain, streams, parks and wilderness for the locals to use for their leisure activities. Therefore, the urban Singaporeans might choose to spend leisure hours in activities that are not available at home, such as wild water rafting, trekking in the wilderness and camping next to a lake. What can marketers do to market ecotourism products to Singaporeans? Since being with family for holiday and having fun with each other are deemed important to Singaporeans, marketers may want to develop ecotourism products that are suitable for families. In these packages, this could include some fun activities such as staying in a log house next to the lake where they can enjoy meals cooked from produce found in that location and also learn about conservation of the environment. Since Singaporean ecotourists are environmentally conscious, marketers may want to sell ecotourism products that have an environmental conservation message. For instance, they might create programs whereby, for every dollar spent in each of these ecotourism products, a certain percentage will be donated to conservation programs. By educating the Singaporean travelers, more mainstream travelers may be made aware of these travel options and may want to try these ecotourism products. To attract ecotourists, marketers may want to strengthen their ecotourism product offerings to give these travelers more vacation options.

During the past 40 years a huge number of studies investigated destination positioning and images from the tourists’ perspective, but by far fewer studies have been conducted from the destination managers’ perspective. In addition, few articles benchmark image positions between multiple destinations and their projections on marketing material. In order to generalize the results to larger geo-scopes, it is important to include a substantial number of destinations for analysis and take the influences of geography into consideration. The current study focuses on exploring positions of intended (planned) destination images. The primary aim is to compare the intended tourism image that is originally developed by destination managers of the sub-provincial districts in China and identify patterns of similarity and uniqueness behind. The research findings are expected to: (1) inform local destination managers in China about the current status of their destination tourism image positions compared with other destinations; and (2) give suggestions to the tourism administrations of both sub-provincial level and higher levels on how to better understand and coordinate the districts under their authorities and how to develop effective image positioning and projection strategies. In China, substitutability among tourism destinations like cities is growing, which is more obvious among those having same regional contexts, source markets and similar tourism products (Han & Tao, 2005). One remedy against this tendency is the development of strong image positions that are distinctive from other competing destinations. However, Chinese destination managers are facing several problems regarding positioning and marketing their destination images. First, the existing image positions of many destinations are unclear (Chen, 2008). Han and Tao (2005) point out that tourism images of many city destinations − in particular the mid-sized and small cities − are still on the organic stage and lack of systematic planning. What is more important is that many destination managers have not recognized the importance of image positioning and the benefits of induced image (Chen, 2008; Han & Tao, 2005). Second, some destinations have unrealistic image positions because they neglected market research opportunities and carried out positioning in a blind way (Chen, 2008). For instance, many destination managers think that destination image is the same as creative initiatives or slogans rather than the rational result from a systematic positioning process (Han & Tao, 2005). In China, DMOs are government departments traditionally. In other words, China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) is the DMO for whole China; Provincial Tourism Administrations (PTAs) manage provincial-level destinations and Municipal or County Tourism Administrations (RTAs) are the DMOs for sub-provincial districts (Feng, Morrison & Ismail, 2003; Li & Wang, 2010). In this study, when talking about China, “DMO” is exchangeable with “tourism administration”; and “destination manager” refers to the “senior officer working in the tourism administration”. District, province and region are three spatial levels frequently and consistently used in this study. In terms of the size, region is the largest whereas district is the smallest. A region contains one or several provinces. A province has several districts under its authority. In this research, the unit of analysis is sub-provincial districts that belong to provinces. The provinces are sorted into different geographical regions that are characterized by different categories of endowed tourism resources. This study adopts the most recent scheme developed by Song (1994). He classifies the tourism destinations in China into 10 TRG Regions and 77 sub-TRG Regions. TRG Regions consist of complete provinces. While the sub-TRG Regions focusing on market appeal may contain districts across provinces. Table 1 summarizes the features of the 10 TRG Regions and their included provinces; the regions names are the abbreviations of their included provinces. This research investigates intended image positions from the destination managers’ perspectives for sub-provincial districts in China. There are 27 provinces1 and 365 sub-provincial districts (SP Districts) in China. The 365 SP Districts are classified into 9 groups according to the scheme of tourism resources geographical regions (TRG Regions) reviewed before. Due to the different administration systems, the 10th region including Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau is excluded from this research. 122 out of 365 SP Districts are selected. The sampling method combines multistage sampling, stratified sampling and simple random sampling. For only 83 districts (68%) relevant documents could be retrieved online. 48 documents represent the “Tourism Development Master Plans” and 35 documents the “12th Twelve-Five Year Tourism Development Plans”. Six districts did not mention any type of intended image positions in their development plans. The content about intended destination image position(s) – i.e. the most essential image position(s) for a district as a whole destination to differentiate itself from others – are identified from the tourism plans. The extracted content about image positions often appears in the formats of short sentences or phrases that contain more than one concept. Thus, the original extracted content is processed to identify all included image concepts that are distinct from each other. The content analysis yielded a spread of 164 different image items with only 189 occurrences for a total of 77 districts. So, on average, there are not more than about 2.5 image positions that can be identified in the tourism master plans or development plans of the sub-provincial districts. 20% of these plans use only one image concept; 38% two items, 26% three different items, 12% four and only 5% are using five items. To make this list more comprehensible the items were aggregated in two steps to 48 image factors. In almost each tourism master or development plan which discusses positioning of the district through promoting destination images cognitive or functional terms are used. About one third of these documents uses affective or psychological features. Yet, two thirds of the intended district images are completely lacking any affective element that could help identifying appealing spots on the touristic map among the functionally loaded clutter. Reviewing the coverage of intended image items through the conceptual lenses proposed by Tapachai and Waryszak (2000) it becomes evident that only functional, emotional and epistemic aspects can be found as targeted image elements. Travellers, though, are also using social and conditional criteria when it comes to destination choice (Zins, 2010; Zins & Prompitak, 2010). Despite the relatively scarce usage of intended image positions for each Chinese sub-provincial district it is worthwhile to condense the image profiles of these 77 districts further. The 2-way profile data of 48 image factors for 77 sub-provincial districts were subject to a non-hierarchical cluster procedure to identify similarities among the districts. Considering both, the homogeneity gain of additional clusters and the relative simplicity of interpretation (expressed by the wSSI) a solution with ten different groups of districts was accepted. A sketch of the main characteristics is depicted in Table 2. The largest image profile group pools 24 different districts (31%) from 7 different TRG regions. The other larger groups (number 10, 4, 5 and 2 in descending order of similarity to number 7) do not exhibit one single lead region which means that the TRG regions share a multitude of targeted image positions. The larger TRG regions with quite a number of districts (BTHS, GFH, SJZAJ and YGG; together 49 out of 77 districts) show some gravity into the profiles 7, 4 and 5 (cf. Table 2). However, the frequency is not large enough to claim that a particular region is uniquely represented by one of the identified condensed image profiles. The majority of districts within one TRG region shows targeted image positions that are more common with districts of other TRG regions. Overall, the geographic spread of relatively similar district images is larger across provinces than across regions, which appears plausible. Destination managers may perceive threats from their neighbouring districts that share similar context images and source markets. This drives them to develop differentiated positions in order to prevent direct competition. Officially, higher-level DMOs like provincial tourism administrations have to coordinate the tourism planning of the lower-level districts (Tourism Law 2013; GSTP, 2003).

All aspects of individual consumer as well as situational affecting on decisions are influenced by the social and cultural structure in which the consumer is embedded. Recently, there has been a growing worldwide phenomenon whereby tourists visit an attraction or destination as a result of that place being portrayed or represented in the popular cultural forms of the media that are not directly related with tourism promotion or marketing. A number of studies have suggested that such portrayals and features of mass media can act as powerful forces that stimulate tourism demand (Beeton, 2001). Representations and images of tourist destinations constructed by popular cultural forms of media such as films, television and literature play a significant role in influencing people’s holiday decision-making process (Iwashita, 2006). Where trade in images, expectations, dreams, and fantasies are made in tourism (Selwyn, 1996), those media representations and images of tourist destinations play a significant role in influencing people’s decision-making process. The tourism industry also is increasing appliance of images that are drawn from popular culture associated with places to promote tourist destinations and to distinguish themselves from each other. While these researches contribute to the understanding of the influence of pop culture on tourism phenomena, only few studies have investigated on the actual linkage between the pop culture and tourism perceptions/behaviors. The reason why pop culture involvement can be related to the actual intention to visit is due to the fandom created relating to the pop culture. The notion of fandom has been put forward in order to understand the link in between the pop culture and the mass audience in diverse realms (Couldry, 2007). Fandom in recent years have been understood to dismiss the negative view of pathological and the stem for alienating qualities of modern society, and accepted as a phenomena widely spread in post-industrial societies (Jenson, 1992). It is then when transitional moment takes place, in the head and heart of the fan or tourist, that the fascination begins which provides the motivation to visit the locations (Reijnders, 2011). With such cultural industries in modern society constantly produce countless contents that can be utilized as objects of fandom, resulting in actual visit to a place associated with a specific destination serving as an effective strategy for building popular cultural capital in modern society. It was therefore decided to investigate this phenomenon in more depth through empirical research to investigate how and to what extent popular cultural forms of the media (those not directly associated with tourism and destination marketing) have an effect on international tourism, and future, to identify what roles they play in influencing tourists from emerging market in terms of their travel destination image and their perception about places to visit within the chosen destination. The phenomenon in this study focuses on the Korean wave, so called Hallyu, as it is one of the pop culture phenomenon that has gained much recognition across not only within Asian countries but also recently in Western countries via pop songs, soap operas, movies, and other forms of mass media entertainment. In this study, diffusion model suggested by Rogers (1995) was used. The diffusion of Rogers’s innovation framework is proving flexible enough to conceptualize many kinds of social change, including change through processes of public dialogue and civic participation, change within organizations, as well as change through public agenda setting and media effects. Many studies have incorporated diffusion theory to explain such cultural phenomenon to gain more enrich result, however, no other studies have looked into the degree of diffusion stage in a macro level according to the regions. However, to obtain the overall view of the diffusion of such pop culture, it is needed to see the diffusion process proceeding globally as even the same fandom may differ in characteristics based on not only the diffusion stage but also its distinctive characteristics of social system. As a result, according to the diffusion stage of Hallyu, it is expected to differ in formation and perception on destination image. Previous studies identify destination image into cognition and affect which are two conceptually different, yet highly correlated components (Lee, 2008). The cognitive component leading to some internally accepted attributes, a more or less derived from factual information. On the other hand, the affective component relates to a diffusive feeling, which can become important when a decision to travel is actually considered (Russel, 1980). Such image constructed by tourists contains an individual or group perception of a particular place (Fakeye and Crompton 1991). It is expected that the image construction will vary according to the stage of the diffusion. This study incorporates diffusion theory to develop a better understanding of the diffusion process and the current situation of the Korean Wave globally to see whether such diffusion process varies according to region. Then, the effect of such difference in diffusion stages on the intention to visit the destination country was investigated. Thus, preliminary research was conducted first to see the Korean Wave phenomenon globally. In order to analyze the diffusion stage thoroughly, three regions of Asia, America, and Europe were selected. According to the diffusion degree of the Korean wave, seven representative countries were elected regarded to the regions. Along with literatures, in-depth interviews were conducted. The semi-structured form with an interview guide method was presented with reflexive interviewing techniques in order to ensure comprehensiveness (Athos & Gabarro, 1978). Then, a survey was conducted to examine the effect of pop culture involvement on formation and perception of destination image in China and Russia. Choice of countries is not only resulting from recognition as the potential future powerhouse in industry, but because it is the two countries take place as one of the highest increase in the number of tourists visiting Korea recently (KCTI, 2013). In addition, most importantly, China represents to be in the highest stage of diffusion of Korean pop culture, and Russia as one of the lowest. Additionally, the moderating effect of travel intention and travel behavior was preceded. From this, it aims to provide deeper understanding implications for targeting tourists. The hypotheses were tested with a data set developed from field survey using only online survey. Of the 265 samples collected, 8 were returned incomplete. An additional 18 samples were deleted for further analysis, as the answers were unusable. In total 239 samples – 120 and 119 samples from China and Russia respectively – were subjected for final analysis. The result in Study 1 revealed some commonalities and differences among regions. Overall, uniqueness was what made people first be interested. It was mostly pursued by young women yet those who are sometimes extremist. Thus, being open-minded to other cultures was found to be important when accepting other cultures. Moreover, it revealed that it impacts on national image to be more positive as it replaces the negative image related to war and North Korea. However, despite some commonalities, distinctive differences were disclosed among regions, especially between Asian countries and Western countries. In terms of Asia, it was found that cultural similarities have influenced the early acceptance of Korean pop culture. It has been spread since 1997, through television mostly with sensuous contents that were unique in other countries. The contents were mostly appealing to women as the characters shown in soap opera were different to others. This is very different to Europe of America where the diffusion starting in the mid 2000 through the Internet. Uniqueness captured consumers, yet in a different way from Asian countries. The easy going and entertaining aspect was the appealing factor, with word of mouth and human power was what influenced in introduction of Korean pop culture. In addition, those who were into Japanese culture were easily approached to Korean pop culture. The diffusion stage was considered to be less than 10%, with very young women interested with comparison with Asia where it was about 70%. Moreover, it was found that Asian consumers are interested in Korean brand products, such as cosmetics and clothing, and Western consumers are more interested in culture and food. Then, on the survey proceeded where China and Russia was chosen based on the preliminary qualitative research as a two different stage of diffusion according regions/countries, t-test provided evidence to support the claim that depending the diffusion stage of pop culture, the effect on formation and perception of destination image differs. A significant differences were obtained in pop culture involvement, destination image (cognitive and affective), and on visit intention. Based on the t-test statistics for Korean pop culture involvement (t = 8.491, p < .000), the cognitive image (t = -3.341, p < .001), the affective image (t = 2.050, p < .05), and visit intention (t = 2.072, p < .05) were significant. Thus, when highly involved in Korean pop culture, rather than cognitive image, consumers are more likely to be involved with affective image which relates to the actual visit intention. The results corroborated several hypothesized relationships, popular culture involvement in accordance to nation affect the destination image and perception. When more highly involved, more positively it relates to affective image and the visitation intention. The findings reported in this study have managerial implications. One is that as the relation differs according to the diffusion stage, spreading pop culture may not yield visible output instantly, yet as it relates to the actual visitation intention, international pop culture activities should be supported. Second, as shown from the diffusion process globally, distinctive characteristics of each culture should be considered more when spreading such sub-culture. Lastly, therefore, it can be suggested, that according to the countries, different approach should be made in order to induce tourist from other countries. However, this study focuses more on the macro level of the phenomenon. Therefore, future research is needed to provide more evidence on the micro level and more in-depth research. In addition, this study precedes empirical study only in China and Russia. Therefore, more diverse countries should be explored and compared.

This study aims to investigate the antecedents to customer retention and brand loyalty of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Thailand. Overall service quality of an ISP is determined by network quality, customer service, information support, privacy and security. The findings reveal that the positive relationships between service quality and consumers’ affective evaluations (satisfaction, trust, commitment, and value) were revealed. Overall customers’ satisfaction and commitment were positively associated with both attitudinal and behavioural loyalty. However, surprisingly, there was no support for the hypothesised positive association between customers’ trust and value with attitudinal and behavioural loyalty. Practical implications that can be drawn from this research will form a foundation for service providers in the home ISP to develop new retention strategies. By making customers more central in company operations, these strategies can potentially reduce the expenses associated with acquiring new customers.

This study investigates the factors that influence brand loyalty in the airline industry. A survey using a sample of 106 travelers was conducted. Results of statistical analysis show that the influence of perceived quality and brand association on brand loyalty was mediated by brand equity. Brand satisfaction and perceived value were also found to have a direct influence on brand loyalty. The research findings provide valuable information for marketers, academics and practitioners for investigating brand loyalty of customers.

The strategic orientation of a firm contributes positively to its business performance. However, there are still many unexplored facets of strategic orientation of a firm and its antecedents, thus preventing researchers and practitioners from fully understanding how this contribution takes place. Strategic orientation assumes corporate-level perspective, where differences in perspective can be expected between marketing-driven and finance-driven organizations. If strategic orientation is placed in the context of today’s Big Data era, marketing analytics becomes an increasingly important tool in shaping strategic orientation. Hence, this paper has two objectives: (1) to investigate how marketing-driven and finance-driven organizations achieve long-term strategic orientation and (2) to examine the role of marketing analytics for long-term strategic orientation. The participants in a quantitative survey were managers responsible for marketing from a cross-industry sample. The results indicate that marketing-driven organizations achieve long-term strategic orientation indirectly through marketing analytics. Finance-driven organizations are not significantly related to long-term strategic orientation. Authors confirm a positive relationship between long-term strategic orientation and business performance.

To clarify the nature of the effect of collaborative communication on marketing performance, this study draws on the opportunism theory in order to develop a conceptual framework for investigating how a marketer’s opportunism moderates the relationship between collaborative communication and marketing performance. Empirical findings indicate that a marketer’s opportunism negatively moderates the relationship between collaborative communication and customer cooperation performance, whereas it positively moderates the relationship between collaborative communication and financial performance.

Prior research has investigated the consumer effects of cash and card payments in service settings, but the growing trend of innovative payment with a mobile device hasn’t been considered in the literature so fare. This article represents one of the first studies that considers the adoption of mobile as a new payment method and investigate how the ‘checkout’ phase affect the shoppers’ overall price image of retail stores (OSPI). Results from our studies show that the ‘checkout’ phase is the ‘moment of truth’ for shoppers judging OSPI. We investigate the effects of cash, card, and mobile payments and show that the less transparent a payment method, the lower OSPI judgments of shoppers. In particular, favorable comparisons of basket prices to shoppers’ mental budgets trigger lower store price perceptions. Subsequently, these results have major implications for retailers aiming to lower their OSPI in customers’ minds.

Intrigued by the recent emergence and success of low-cost airlines, which use the additive option price framing (as opposed to the subtractive option price framing used by the traditional full-service airlines), we attempted to develop and empirically test a theoretical model that can help better understand the success of this innovative pricing practice for optional services. Drawing on the prospect theory and the loss aversion and endowment effect theory, we argue that option price framing affect customer responses such as perceived risk, perceived price fairness and affect. Further, we propose interaction effects between option framing and product type (utilitarian vs. hedonic) on perceived risk. Using a quasi-experimental design, we constructed four scenarios (2 option price framings x 2 product types). We administered the scenario-based survey among part-time MBA students (full-time managers). Analysis results of 132 responses demonstrated that customer responses in perceived risk, perceived fairness and affect were more favorable in the additive option framing, which in turn led to higher purchase intention. Further, these effects were stronger for utilitarian products. For hedonic products, no difference in perceived risk was observed between the two option price framings. Consequently, our study offered an explanation for when and why the additive option price framing might work better.

Every company is buzzing “innovation” these days, while continuously developing and launching new products. However, empirical research points to high failure rates of innovations, indicating that most new products fail as they are rejected by consumers due to their resistance to innovation. Using a scenario-based experiment, we show that innovation resistance evolves from individual’s inclination to resist changes (cognitive resistance) and status quo satisfaction (situational resistance), inhibiting new product adoption. While consumers high on cognitive or situational resistance were shown to exhibit negative effects, that were similar in their magnitude, consumers high on both dimensions show the strongest predisposition to resist innovations. Thus, these consumers represent the most crucial segment when it comes to new product launches.