Political conflicts and trade tensions affect entrepreneurial activities. This paper qualitatively evaluates the success factors of a B2B company’s marketing management strategies within the context of trade policy changes. Results indicate that a strong brand, personal ties to customers, retailers and competitors, and international manufacturing sites reduce the risk. Companies not only face the challenge of disruptive innovation caused by global digitalization activities. In addition, disruptions in the macro-environment are actually increasing. One example that impedes the growth of industrial activities is the current, still escalating, US-China trade war. Unusual forms of marketing coalitions and networks in trans-organizational systems are considered key constellations to ensure future company success (Achrol, 1991). What are the success factors for a B2B company’s marketing management strategies within the context of disruptive economic market and industry conditions, e.g., international trade policy changes?

As cryptocurrencies continue to gain viability as an asset class, institutional investors and publicly traded firms are beginning to enter into positions in digital currencies. While generating profits may be the primary purpose, corporations also wish to advertise to their stakeholders that they are keeping up-to-date with latest technological developments, trends, and cutting-edge investment opportunities in enhancing the wealth of the shareholders. The marketing and financial signals with the involvement in blockchain platforms and digital currencies intend to demonstrate the efficiency of corporate operations, and the agility in the utilization of the retained funds. What firms may not be considering however, is the effect these assets may have on their risk profiles. This paper aims at measuring the effect of digital currencies on the risk and returns of publicly traded companies, deciphering the motives behind holding a cryptocurrency as an asset, and determining whether one reason for holding is more impactful than another. Four largest publicly traded holders as well as four of the most prominent digital currencies are explored. The findings from the study contribute to the literature in corporate risk reporting, in marketing and financial motivations of digital currency holdings, and in digital currency risks. The conclusions of the study also make a case for firm transparency through detailed reports of the risk effects of digital currency holdings.

This study empirically analyzed the influence of fashion brands’ marketing issues on actual sales and consumer preference—focusing on evaluation trends of brands over time by using the theoretical background and big data provided through literature. This study examined the influence of three fashion brands (Balenciaga, Vetements, and Off-White) that have recently seen a drastic increase in the number of searched volumes through social networks. To identify the consumer-brand evaluations and trends and the marketing issues, the time period was divided into Groups A and B, which are from 2014 to 2015 and from 2016 to 2017, respectively. This study analyzed the frequency of overlapping keywords by using the R program to graphically visualize the changes over the timeline. Specifically, this analysis extracted data mainly related to bags, wallets and accessories for 2014-2015, but in 2016-2017, all four brands saw a vast increase in the frequency of searching product keywords related to clothing and footwear, and newly extracted ones were the top keywords. When analyzing the big data with these keywords as indicators, I confirmed that the products related to bags, wallets, and accessories were shifted to those related to apparel and footwear. Consumers previously recognized luxury brands such as Balenciaga as accessoriesoriented brands that were focused on handbags and sunglasses, but now they are gaining popularity and recognition among consumers as a fashion brand.

The practice of relationship marketing strategies is the core of the success of marketing for any kind of organizations. The study develops relevant research issues and propositions for empirical investigation based on the strategies of relationship marketing offered by Berry (1983) such as core service strategy, customization strategy, augmentation strategy, relationship pricing strategy, and internal marketing strategy. Relating to relationship marketing theory, agencies and clients are aware of in providing and taking core services, Agencies customize the relationship and augment the services to satisfy and retain their clients. Considering the account size and length of relationship agencies offer relationship pricing. All agencies maintain strong interaction among the employees and different departments as a part of their internal marketing practice.

The main purpose of the research is to examine how to evaluate good governance, capacity-building, marketing communication strategy, performance measures based on the empirical results. Related literature is reviewed for building the indicator of the research construct. The paper examines the global platform for interface marketing and management for the city context. Governance dimensions include antitrust, liability, consumer protection and intellections. Capability consists of transportation, manufacturing and communication facilities. Performance measures include economic performance and welfare indicators. The research employs the mail survey and interview research methods to collect data from 172 government officers. Good governance, capacity-building strategy, marketing communication strategy, performance measures were reviewed and provided an adequate model for improving policy performance. A city owns good governance and capacity-building, this can attract more business investment for maintaining unique characteristics and competitive advantages. A set of city marketing activities could be an effective policy instrument to achieve the goal of sustainability development and better performance for communicating city citizens. The research also applies the case study and questionnaire survey for examining the research issues empirically. Tainan and Kaohsiung City in Taiwan were selected for research subject for building the measurement indicators. The study tests the predictions of relationships by using mail survey data from chain store and franchise firms and employ structural equation modeling (SEM) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze the research questions. Results show that governance, capacity-building, citizen communication strategies are key factors in reinforcing cities performance. This research suggests the authority governance and capacity-building systems regularly. Meanwhile, the main issue is how to implement good governance, capacity-building, citizen communication strategy toward sustainability development and performance. This research suggests policy assessment, policy recommendation, policy alternatives and city marketing implications in the future. The study ends with a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications.

This conceptual paper is motivated by personal industry experience from over 100 customer-purchasing decisions from the machine tooling industry. The insights suggest that the customer’s ability to pay (ATP) constitutes a key deal-breaker criterion for value-based decision making that up to date has been overlooked in research. Customers may be willing, but unable to pay for the offering with the highest perceived value, simply because they lack the financial resources. The traditional view on value-based marketing strategies proposes that firms must provide offerings that create value for their customers (premise 1: customer need perspective) and that the value created must be superior to competition (premise 2: competitor perspective) while generating profits (premise 3: firm’s perspective). Customers will estimate which offering provides superior value, and they will choose the offering that delivers the highest value. I introduce the customer’s ability to pay as an additional foundational premise suggesting that the firm’s offering must also be within the customer’s budget (premise 4: customer budget perspective). I propose that frontline employees must not only develop a high degree of customer need knowledge, but they must also build-up a high level of customer budget knowledge. I conclude by deriving operative and strategic management implications supported with empirical evidence from the Australian machine tooling industry.

This study confirms that the shopping experiential values perceived by Chinese tourists affect their product and store attitudes through the emotions of entertainment and escapism. It is particularly notable that this study verifies diverse roles of different emotions such as entertainment and escapism in the context of tourist shopping. This study employs empirical analysis on tourists, and provides practical implications including the importance of shopping experiential values for developing retail strategies. The summary of the main results is as follows. First, the results of image attribute on each cultural marketing communication pattern, uniqueness on cultural communication and public interest on cultural sponsorship had the most positive responses. Second, the analysis on the relationship among brand attitude, artist attitude and purchase intention showed that aesthetics and communicativeness positively influenced both brand attitude and artist attitude. Also, both brand attitude and artist attitude had a positive effects on purchase intention. Third, the differences between lifestyle brand and high, low fit artist, aesthetics and public interest showed positive effective relationship toward brand attitude while nobility and communicativeness showed positive effective relationship toward artist attitude as far as artist fit is high. The notable result of the analysis on relationship among the cultural arts lifestyle groups are as follows. Aesthetics to artist attitude, uniqueness to brand attitude were found to have highest response from mass culture enjoyers group, while proponents of high culture group showed greatest response to nobility toward artist attitude. The analysis of the relationship differences in patterns, the effect on nobility to artist attitude, brand attitude to purchase intention for cultural communication displayed highest. For cultural sponsorship, communicativeness to brand attitude, brand attitude to artist attitude to purchase intention showed the most positive effect, while, in cultural corporate image pattern exhibited a great response aesthetics toward brand attitude and communicativeness toward artist attitude, the second strongest effect on brand attitude to artist attitude to purchase intention. The implication of the study is that it demonstrates the relationship of image attribute specifying each pattern from the previous studies and investigates the difference in the relationship of brand attitude, artist attitude and purchase intention among image attribute. In addition, by demonstrating the difference in the relationship among the cultural arts lifestyle groups, as well as the high and low fit between lifestyle brand and artist, the study provides an insight and a specified path for marketers as they plan out ways to utilize cultural marketing communications. Finally, by verifying the relationship among patterns, our study offers useful points of reference also for artists or art foundations who plan it with lifestyle brands using strategic approach to consumers by specified means.

Nearly 70% of the Swiss luxury watch market is represented by major groups, bringing together worldwide well-known brands. In order to stand out from concurrence and to get a place in this highly competitive market of reference, independent (often unknown) companies have to find other vectors of marketing differentiation.

The catching-up process of the emerging economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) towards the average income level in Western Europe has driven the marketing strategies of Western multinational companies (MNC) so far. Particularly, the boom years from 2002 to 2008 with an average GDP growth for the region of more than 6% (Becker et al., 2010) fuelled the notion that soon a large European market with similar demand and market structures will exist that will allow Western MNCs to sell their international brands in a highly standardized way in the whole region. The Great Recession of 2008-09 stopped this convergence process and highlighted the still existing differences in consumer behavior (Schuh, 2012). The recessionary developments in the aftermath of the crisis have shown that this is more of a structural problem than a temporary one (Labaye et al., 2013). The Western firms now have to acknowledge that many product markets are not “structural twins” of Western markets with a strong upper- and mid-price segment but that CEE markets are rather shaped like bottom heavy pyramids. By just transferring brand strategies developed for high-income economies to emerging markets they ignore large segments of the mass market. To tap these market segments MNCs have to think how they can make their products affordable to these lower-income consumers, i.e. bring-ing the purchase of a product within the financial means of a consumer or household. The neglect of low-income segments may be either a deliberate decision based on the well-proven inherent business logic of Western branded good marketers (“stick to our success-ful way of doing business”) or a blind spot in the strategic approach to emerging markets (Sheth, 2011). The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, a case is made for the relevance of affordability concepts to CEE markets; second, three case studies of affordability initiatives of leading fast-moving consumer goods companies are analyzed in order to get a better understanding of how these firms approach the affordability issue and what are the success factors of such strategies in CEE. Most of the existing emerging market literature is dealing with very low income consum-ers in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa earning less than US- 2,500 p.a. (Prahalad, 2005; London & Hart, 2011; Khanna & Palepu, 2010). While the coverage of the “bottom of the pyramid” is regarded as an extreme stretch for most Western firms, more attention is paid to the growing middle class in the emerging markets (Court & Narashimhan, 2010). The steady growth of the middle-class in the emerging economies is promising rising sales for the future and at the same time supporting the notion that West-ern MNCs can continue with their business model and just have to “wait for the market”. The rapidly growing middle class consumers in emerging markets include almost 2 billion people with a total spending of US- 6.9 trillion annually which will expand to US-20 trillion within the next decade (Court & Narasimhan, 2010). Surprisingly, lead-ing Western MNCs approach the affordability issues in the context of CEE rather defen-sively and reluctantly (Schuh, 2012). This may be resulting from the belief that the eco-nomic catching-up process will bring CEE consumers to a similar standard of living as in the “old” EU and any investment in products for the lower-segments would be only of temporary value. Therefore, CEE countries are not seen as the typical candidates for affordability strategies. This may be partly true for the most advanced Central European countries and Russia with rapidly rising household incomes in the last decade. But the economic downturn and the following recessionary development has shattered the consumption model that was based to a high degree on credit financing in those markets too. Moreover, studies show that there exists a high share of low-income households and price-sensitive consumers in CEE. According to the “Life in Transition” survey the mid-dle-class ranges from 4% in Albania to 27% in Slovenia – in between you can find Poland with 16% and Russia with 18% (EBRD, 2007). Pfeifer, Massen and Bombka (2007) estimate that 56% of the consumers or 57 million people, in Eastern Europe are low-income consumers (< 10,000 in PPP per year). In addition, in Russia and Ukraine 70% of the populations are falling in this category. A study of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants (2008) on “Consumer Archetypes in CEE” identified seven basic consumer types in CEE. Three out of them – the “self-centered consumers” (18% of population), “minimalists” (14%) and “rationalists” (12%) – can be classified as highly price-sensitive. Together, these three highly price-conscious consumer types make up 44% of the CEE market. What is more, other identified consumer types with less distinct price sensitivity could be taken into account as well. In total, these consumer types whose purchasing behavior is influenced predominantly by affordability amount to 56% of all CEE consumers. Summing up, the studies provide divergent figures of the size of the middle class and low-income segment in CEE. Different methodological approaches, classifications, and data bases are the reasons for these variations (Kharas, 2010). However, the findings show that the market below the middle class in CEE is a large one, accounting for more than 60% of the population of a country. The strategies that are used to address low-in-come consumers are described by the so-called “4 A’s”: affordability, acceptability, availability and awareness (Anderson & Markides, 2007). Affordability as a strategy con-cept can be defined as all measures of a company that aim at bringing the purchase of a product within the financial means of a consumer or household (or business). In the literature you can find different approaches towards this goal. Firms typically start with marginal changes in their marketing strategy (e.g., different packages, single portions). However, to tap the lower-end of these price-sensitive mass-markets and to reach non-consumers of your products changes have to go beyond rebranding and adapted market-ing elements. New business models with deeper and more comprehensive changes in product development and architecture of the supply-chain are needed to be successful in this segment (Johnson, Christensen & Kagermann, 2008). The purpose of the empirical part of this study is to get a better understanding of motives, goals and success factors of affordability initiatives addressing the countries of CEE. A case study approach is the best way to learn about underlying assumptions and considera-tions of managers involved in the decision-making process (Yin, 2009). The cases consist of two parts: a) a general company profile describing businesses, geographic presence and goals; b) the role of affordability for tapping emerging markets and the description of affordability initiatives in CEE countries. Globally active consumer goods companies in the food sector from USA and Western Europe were chosen as target firms: They ex-panded strongly into emerging markets and CEE in the last years, play a pioneer role in tapping low-income markets and exemplify the sought-after strategic constellation for this research, i.e. an MNC expanding from a traditional “premium-position” into lower-price segments. In addition, food companies serving broad segments of the population are faced with social responsibility issues, namely if they legitimately can deny people access to their products. So far three cases of Western companies with an extensive presence in emerging markets are available (see overview in Table 1). The results show that affordability is part of the marketing strategies in CEE of all these selected companies. A considerable share of the product portfolio and overall sales vol-ume in their CEE country organizations stem from affordable products. Higher growth rates of this segment than the overall market prove that there is a demand for this type of products. And it seems that these companies don’t see an insurmountable conflict in pursuing the two-pronged approach as indicated in the literature. All affordability strate-gies are run under a business perspective. They have to contribute to the growth and profitability goals, although social motives are mentioned as strong arguments too. The case of company A nicely shows how the affordability initiative started as a CSR project and then evolved into a business project. During this process they learned that they can make a “sustainable business case” out of it. This step was a break with so far existing concepts in the company, as it involved product development targeted to the demand and financial conditions of low-income households. Country organizations decide individu-ally if and to what degree they use affordability initiatives. In our cases Russian, Polish and Romanian subsidiaries were interested in the introduction of affordable products and looking for support within the group. The establishment of competence centers for affordability initiatives at global headquarters is a clear indication that a central hub is needed which provides basic strategy guidelines, offers assistance in the introduction of such initiatives and spreads best practices in the group. However, differences can be found in the market and branding strategy. While company A is using local brands in combination with the company brand, company C is using a strict two-tier strategy. Inter-national brands are sold parallel to local/regional ones which are used for the entry into the lower-income segment. Company B is covering all price points within a category with the international brand. So the brand stretches from the super-premium, premium and mainstream to the affordability segment. 4,000 “good value for money products” are sold worldwide today, in CEE the affordable category accounts for 25% of total turnover and grows twice as fast as the whole zone Europe. The differences can be explained via the basic approach towards branding: are they following a House of Brands or a Branded House architecture. As far as success factors are concerned all three cases show that the successful introduction of an affordable product range is based on (a) a commitment of the organization to the development of affordable products; (b) deep understanding of consumer behavior, buying patterns, and market situation; (c) utilization of synergies with higher priced brands; (d) focus on volume and scale via covering a large consumer base and (e) radical cost cutting along the whole value chain. In our ongoing research we try to increase the number of companies which run affordability initiatives to be able to cover a greater variety of industry and company types. Our research shows that multi-tier and affordability strategies can be found in other consumer and industrial markets in CEE too. This research shall help to clarify for which type of company it makes sense to ex-pand to lower-income segments. While so far the internal perspective was in the center of our research attention, market and competitive constellations should be covered in the future too.

This study examined how fit between marketing capabilities and exporting marketing strategies affects high growth exporting manufacturing firms’ performance. The result indicates that the marketing infrastructure of high growth exporting firms affects marketing capabilities, the selection of exporting marketing strategies, and high performance. High growth exporting firms in this research belong to machinery, steel, vehicles, electronics & electricity industries. High growth firms by the OECD-Eurostat Manual on Business Demography Statistics (2007) achieve annual average sales or employment growth over twenty percent each year, during a three-year period, and to employ ten or more workers from the first observation year. High growth firms can be considered to have more appropriate marketing capabilities fit with efficient exporting marketing strategies. Barbero et al. (2011) indicated that high growth is based on market expansion and innovation, which is highly related to marketing capabilities. Vorhies & Morgan(2003) addressed that marketing organization fit with strategies affects positively marketing performance. Thus the purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between marketing infrastructure and marketing capabilities, to identify the influence of marketing infrastructure on marketing capabilities and the choice of marketing strategies, and to analyze the effect of fit between marketing capabilities and exporting marketing strategies on superior performance. The performance of high growth exporting firms can be obtained in various ways. Marketing capabilities can explain most the selection of strategy for performance (Barbero, Casillas, and Feldman 2011). Morgan, Katsikeas, and Vorhies(2012) addresses that architectural marketing capabilities influence directly export venture financial performance and that specialized marketing capabilities affect directly export venture market performance. The important role of marketing capabilities is positively associated with a more appropriate fit between identifying customers’ needs and implementing marketing strategies to achieve high performance (Barbero, Casillas, and Feldman 2011). Katsikeas et al.(2006) indicate that fit between marketing strategies and marketing infrastructure is a core factor on the performance of exporting firms. Vorhies and Morgan (2003) indicate that marketing capabilities fit with strategy is a vital engine of marketing performance. Although marketing strategy alone is not related to marketing performance (Barbero et al,2011), marketing organization fit with marketing strategy is positively related to marketing performance (Vorhies and Morgan, 2003). Katsikeas, Leonidou, Morgan(2000) analyzed export performance measures based on various primary data and indicated that the interrelation of export performance measures are considered. Vorhies and Morgan (2003) used the concept of ideal marketing organization profile and measured the relationship between fit of marketing capabilities and marketing strategies. Especially Shoham (1998) indicated that sales-related measures can be more reasonable for exporting firms at early stage, while profit-related measures can be more for export-experienced firms. These findings posit that to achieve high performance, high growth exporting firms understand the importance of fit between marketing capabilities and marketing strategies.

베트남은 영세농 위주의 농업 구조로 기계화 등이 미흡하고 농산물의 품질표준화, 등급화 등이 미흡하며, 도로, 창고, 항구 등 농산물 유통관련 사회간접자본이 부족하여 물류비가 높게 발생하고 있다. 농촌에 저장고, 선과장, 도정공장 등 유통시설이 부족하여 포장의 수준이 낮고 상품화가 미흡하며, 냉장유통체계 미비로 위생관리가 취약하다. 농산물 가격 풍흉에 따라 심하게 변동됨에도 불구하고 농촌에 커뮤니케이션 매체가 부족하여 가격 등 유통정보의 공급이 미흡하다. 베트남 전역에 63개의 도매시장이 운영되고 있으나 대도시 도매시장들은 공간이 협소하고 혼잡하여 위생 관리에 문제가 많고 도시 팽창에 따라 도시민에게 농산물을 효율적으로 공급하는데 제약이 크다. 또한 도매시장 내 거래가 소규모 영세 상인에 의해 불투명하게 이루어짐으로써 상인들의 불공정 거래를 관리할 수 있는 체제가 미흡하다. 농산물 유통개선은 농가소득 증대 및 소비자 후생 증대를 위해 필수적이며, 농업 및 국가전체발전을 위해서도 중요하다. 한국의 개발 경험에 기초하여 베트남 정부가 우선적으로 고려해야 할 농산물 유통 분야의 개선사항은 하노이를 중심으로 한 대도시 지역 도매시장 현대화, 저온저장고, 산지유통센터와 같은 산지유통시설의 건립, 등급화 및 표준화, 식품안전성 검사, 유통정보 등 유통조성 기능 확대, 농산물 유통 기본법 제정, 생산자조직 육성 등이다.

This study was an exploratory research to classify the types of green fashion marketing of the fashion companies in South Korea and analyse the present cases of each type. To analyse the current cases of green fashion marketing strategies, we researched all sorts of newspapers, magazines, publications of fashion companies, and web sites from 2008 to 2009. As a result, we categorized 5 types of green fashion marketing as follows ; eco-friendly fabrics (natural fabrics, recycled fabrics, biodegradable fabrics), re-use or re-form(reuse after cleaning and/or repairing and reformation through transformation and combination of raw materials), green certifications(ISO 14001, GOTS, OES, etc.), eco-friendly management and operation, and green marketing promotions. Based on the results, we proposed the green marketing strategies for fashion companies to progress toward the proper direction of green marketing. First of all, companies should escape from the narrow view point limited to the product itself. Then they have to focus on developing and execution of sustainable merchandising, manufacturing, logistics, and waste strategies.

범주화는 제품디자인에 있어서 매우 중요하다. 범주화의 유형에 따라 소비자의 감성이 다르고 감성의 차이에 따라 디자인 컨셉이 다르며 이에 따라 디자인요소가 다르게 배합되어야 하기 때문이다. 특히 요즘처럼 제품라인이 확대되어 제품의 차별화가 모호한 경우에는 범주화과정이 필요하다. 즉 감성의 유사성 정도를 바탕으로 정확한 범주를 정하고 컨셉화하여 소비자 지향적인 디자인을 제공해야 하는 것이다. 본 연구는 특정의 제품범주(장류) 안에 유사한 하위범주(고추장, 된장, 청국장, 쌈장, 간장)를 구성하고 있는 각 제품에 대한 소비자의 감성이미지를 추출하고 그 유사성정도를 바탕으로 범주를 결정하여 디자인방향을 어떻게 결정해야 할지를 제시하는 데 목적이 있다. 본 연구를 통해 살펴본 결과, 장류는 선호하는 이미지로부터 차별화되어있지 않다는 것을 알 수 있다. 장류에 대한 감성 이미지 조사에서, "웰빙의", "감칠맛나는"의 감성 이미지는 선호에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 반면, "지저분한", "냄새나는"의 감성 이미지는 선호에 부정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 따라서 우리는 장류제품을 개발할 때 "감칠맛 나는"과 같은 긍정적인 감성이미지는 부각시키고, "지저분한" 이미지와 같은 부정적인 감성이미지를 제거할 수 있는 디자인 및 마케팅 전략을 제안한다. 본 연구는 학문적 측면과 실무적 측면에서 제품디자인에 대한 다양한 통찰력을 제공할 것이다.