Marketing managers must strategically decide which markets they will serve and which ones they will not serve. This means marketers must strategically discriminate among markets and market segments; this is the logic that underlies segmentation, targeting and positioning. Although such strategic use of discrimination is considered acceptable in marketing, it can also sometimes lead to consumer backlash and criticism. When is strategic discrimination acceptable and when is it deemed unacceptable? Using six domains of marketing practice, this paper seeks to examine the fuzzy boundary of acceptable strategic discrimination—often labelled as ‘exclusive’— and unacceptable strategic discrimination—often labelled as ‘exclusion’— as well as offer suggestions to marketing managers and policy makers to navigate it.

The purpose of this study is to assess the role of marketing to the area of strategic alliances. We suggest that marketing capability – the ability to deploy resources to serve customers better- is a key determinant that facilitates value creation in strategic alliances. Specifically, we investigate the interaction effects of marketing capability on performance of strategic alliance experience and types of strategic alliances (introducing three types: SI-SF alliance, AI-SF alliance and AI-DF alliance), and whether these interaction effects are moderated by high vs. low technological industry. This study analyzed the panel data from 39 international firms and their 2,158 alliances during the period 1994 - 2014, 21 firms from computer industry (high-tech industry) and 18 firms from food industry (low-tech industry), respectively. The results indicate that the contribution of marketing capability on the relationships between alliance experience, types of strategic alliances and firm value varies with environmental contexts. First, when a firm has strong marketing capability, the effect of strategic alliance experience on firm value is greater than those of firms with low marketing capability. Also, the strength of its interaction effect is lower in high-tech industry than low-tech industry. Second, when a firm has strong marketing capability, the effects of three different types of strategic alliances on firm value are greater than those of firms with low marketing capability. However, their interaction effects to firm value were significant only in high-tech industry. Specifically, when a firm has strong marketing capability, the stock market reacts most favorably to the AI-DF alliance than those of SI-SF alliance and AI-SF alliance in high-tech industry. In contrast, even a firm has strong marketing capability, the stock market reacts favorably only to AI-SF alliance in low-tech industry. In sum, our research suggests that the interactive performance impact of marketing capability to the strategic alliance experience and the types of strategic alliances can be obtained in particular environmental contexts.

The advanced information technology leads to network age, making existing competitive advantages such as differentiation and cost leadership powerless in B2B context. The competitiveness of individual firm plays a significant role in enhancing the competitive advantage of a business network that a firm belongs to. The competitiveness of a business network depends on value co-creation, the interaction among firms in a network. Value co-creation has desirable and risky aspects. The increases in profits, brand reputation, and time and cost efficiency, client and supplier learning, etc. are positive aspects. But role conflicts, role ambiguity, and tension, etc. are negative outcomes. How can the industrial firm succeed in value co-creation with its partners in B2B context? The study focuses on the firm’s strategic marketing orientations as an antecedent of value co-creation. Strategic marketing orientations as the values and beliefs of the firm affect the collaboration with other firms during value co-creation. Previous literature assumes that a firm pursues one single strategic orientation. However, the study assumes that an industrial firm has entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation, long-term orientation, and relationship orientation. The study mostly focused on the relationships among those strategic marketing orientations. Based on these inter-relationships, the study proposed a set of value co-creation activity criteria such as information seeking, information sharing, personal interaction, responsible behavior, feedback, helping, advocacy, tolerance. Value co-creation has been evaluated by relationship performance such as trust and commitment. The study examined the relationships between strategic marketing orientations and value co-creation. Data was collected from 159 Korean manufacturers in B2B context and analyzed through structural equation modeling. The study provides evidence that entrepreneurial orientation affects market orientation positively and market orientation has positive effects on long-term orientation and relationship orientation, and long-term orientation and relationship orientation influence value co-creation directly. Value co-creation has a positive effect on relationship performance. The results of the study provide valuable implications to the mangers of industrial firms in B2B context. To succeed the value co-creation, the firm first has to look at the difference between strategic marketing orientations that the value co-creation partners pursue. In terms of selecting value co-creation partner, industrial firm with long-term orientation and relationship orientation will be more effective. Six activities of interactions during value co-creation play an important role in enhancing trust and commitment. The study contributes to the value co-creation literature by identifying strategic marketing orientations as independent variable influencing the value co-creation in B2B context. The study has several limitations that call for future research.

Global depression has brought the Korean economy into the period of low growth. The notion of lifetime employment has long crumbled, while economic recession is gradually taking away quality jobs. Furthermore, the average lifespan for the population has neared 100, while baby-boomer retirement is swinging into high gear. The simultaneous inrush of social and economic problems is threatening our wellbeing. However, there has been insufficient amount of research conducted on the factors that influence the satisfaction with lectures in lifelong education designed to address the problems. If we look at the earlier studies, most of them are on the satisfaction with lectures in regular courses. Our society demands that jobs be created for retirees including the baby boomers and that quality jobs be provided for those who want to go back to work after they have withdrawn from previous employment. In this light, the current study aims to bring light on the causal relation between the influential factors and variables involved in the satisfaction of lectures of non-degree programs with a view to solving those problems, and suggests the need to draw up marketing strategy that uses it. Specifically, the purpose and method of this study are as follows. First, to develop variables to be used in this study through in-depth interviews with field staff in the industry and training staff. Second, to identify predisposing factors that influence the satisfaction with the lectures of non-degree programs. Third, to identify the variables mediating predisposing factors and satisfaction with lectures. Fourth, to propose marketing strategy for non-degree programs using the results of the study. As identified through this study, the influencing factors for satisfaction with lectures are physical environment, composition of contents, and instructor ability and attitude, while mediating variables are interaction and immersion in lectures. If these factors are reflected in education, a higher level of satisfaction with lectures will be ensured for business starting youths, retirees, and those who want to have some other job after withdrawing from their previous ones. Educational institutions will be able to use it in ensuring stabler recruiting of trainees and establish a more efficient guidance and marketing strategy. Reflecting the results of the study in education will contribute to heightening educational sustainability, social sustainability, and economic sustainability.

Launched in 2008 and 2010 respectively, Instagram and Pinterest are two of the fasted growing social media platforms with 220 million users combined (Leverage 2014, Techcrunch 2014, Loren & Swiderski 2012). Their success is due to their simplicity and a focus on visuals rather than text, furthermore they are described as platforms with strategic potential for fashion brands (Wired 2012). Despite this, many fashion brands have been slow to engage with them. However the Huffington Post (2012) suggests that the visual social media has a wide appeal with respect to both brand positioning and increasing awareness. Recent research by Mashable (2014) highlights that referral traffic and spend is higher from Pinterest users than Facebook users, and this contributes to the rationale for study. The aim of this reseach is twofold, firstly it is to explore the reasons for the utilisation of visual social media platforms within a fashion brands marketing planning cycle, and second it seeks to identify the strategic and operational ways in which fashion brands can use them. For the purpose of this paper only Instagram and Pinterest are investigated. Using a qualitative and inductive approach, the study will use in-depth elite interviews with 6 UK fashion brands (2 Luxury, 2 mid-market, 2 value) alongside content analysis of their platforms. This will enable the research to also consider how each platform can be harnessed at different levels of the market therefore contributing to the lack of empirical applied research in this area.

A well-known dilemma in strategic marketing is whether a firm can be simultaneously both efficient in its existing business and innovative in creating new business (Atuahene-Gima 2005; Christensen 1997). Beleaguered companies such as AOL, Kmart, Motorola, Nokia, Polaroid, and Sears are examples that were once highly efficient in serving customers, but partly due to that efficiency in their existing business, paradoxically failed to introduce innovations. The potential tension “between innovation and efficiency—is one that’s bedeviling CEOs everywhere” (Hindo 2007). Two questions regarding the efficiency–innovation tradeoffs are especially intriguing to researchers and managers alike. First, to what extent are such tradeoffs driven by efficient firms’ lack of eagerness or willingness to innovate in the first place, or lack of ability to innovate and promote innovations? Second, can certain strategic marketing factors mitigate the tension of such tradeoffs? Indeed, anecdotal evidence indicates that not all firms that are efficient in their current business (e.g., Charles Schwab, Capital One) lack innovative thrust. In fact, efficient firms may actually be eager to innovate: Nokia, for instance, originally innovated an online “app store” service as well as touchscreen smartphones and Internet tablets in the 1990s and 2000s, much earlier than Apple (Ben-Aaron 2009; MobileGazzette 2008). Similarly, Polaroid was originally a pioneer in developing digital cameras and imaging services in the 1980s (Tripsas and Gavetti 2000). The eventual failures of Nokia’s and Polaroid’s innovation efforts, thus, do not seem to be due to their lack of eagerness to innovate, but perhaps the inability to manage the efficiency–innovation tension. In contrast, other companies seem to be able to manage this tension. For instance, in financial services, Charles Schwab is often commended both for its efficiency and its innovativeness, and the firm itself feels the “need to invest in innovation to maintain a competitive edge” (Gilson 2012). Against this backdrop, we focus on two questions: (1) What exactly are the tradeoffs and tensions between a firm’s existing efficiency, innovativeness in its new offerings, and new offering performance? And (2) how can strategic marketing assets such as customer base and advertising intensity mitigate the tradeoffs? Should such assets help to alleviate the inherent tension, they would give executives tools to pursue both efficiency and innovation at the same time and succeed with their new innovative offerings. Empirically, we focus on the service sector, whereby the actual technical development of innovations is not very costly in tangible financial terms (Crawford and di Benedetto 2008; Droege et al. 2009; Thomke 2003)―making the intangible firm capabilities most likely determinants of (innovation) performance rather than tangible resources (cf. Vorhies, Morgan, and Autry 2009). Therewith, we examine our research questions with a comprehensive census dataset of all new service introductions (n≈500) in one national market: The Finnish mutual funds industry (1997–2010). The sector of financial services is especially relevant for the efficiency–innovation tradeoffs because in this sector, many firms are compelled to engage in both efficient operations and effective (financial) innovations. Our empirical focus on all firms in one market precisely identifies and measures the efficiency levels of all competing firms, relative to the best-performing competitors, as well as innovativeness (earliness) in introducing new services compared to all rivals. For a marketing perspective, we focus on firms’ existing customer-perceived service efficiency (over the entire portfolio of existing services, i.e., funds)—defined through the ratio of output value that customers obtain from the firms’ current services to the (customer) cost inputs. We also carefully delineate between (a) innovativeness of a new service introduction and (b) its performance. Doing so can reveal the potentially contradictory effects of existing efficiency on new service innovativeness (willingness to innovate) vis-à-vis new service performance (ability to make innovations succeed). As our key results, we firstly identify and explicate the baseline efficiency–innovation tradeoffs. Specifically, our results suggest that while existing service efficiency increases the innovativeness of new services introduced by the firm, it simultaneously (1) leads to decreased business performance for the new services introduced and (2) diminishes the positive influence of innovativeness on performance. In sum, these findings imply that on the baseline, highly efficient service firms may be too eager to innovate, considering the sub-par performance they are likely to receive for those innovations. Secondly, our results reveal two strategic marketing factors, which have the potential to mitigate the tradeoffs. We find that the firm’s (a) focused customer base and (b) high advertising intensity can nullify the negative effect of existing service efficiency on innovativeness and the negative moderating effect of efficiency on the innovativeness–performance link.

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.

Global strategic marketing planning has become increasingly important with the advent of worldwide competition and the growing rapidity of change in the international marketplace. In this article, research and commentaries from the strategic management and international marketing planning literatures are synthesized into a model examining what factors influence global strategic marketing planning formality, and what direct and indirect benfits accrue from the process. Responses from 90 multinational corporations were subjected to a LISREL analysis and correlation analyses. Organizational climate, supply chain element, foreign regulations and competition were identified as key determinants of global strategic marketing planning formality. Considerable direct: and indirect benefits also accrue as planning formality increases.

본 연구는 연속식 결정화기에 대한 디자인 전략 컨설팅을 통해 연속식 결정화기의 경쟁력 강화와 혁신적인 기술 방안을 제시하고자 하였다. 이러한 연구목적을 달성하기 위해 본 연구에서는 1991년부터 비파괴 검사업을 모태로 사업을 시작한 수진기업의 사례를 살펴보았다. 기존의 결정화 기술은 플랜트 개념의 탱크혼합형 결정화기가 보편화 되어 있으며, 동물성 사료와 같은 저가 제품에 한정되어 있다. 따라서 디자인 전략 컨설팅을 통해 개발한 연속식 쿠에트테일러 결정화 기술은 기존의 결정화 기술에 비해 새로운 콘셉트의 제품 창출과 고부가가치 전략 추진이 가능하다. 이러한 디자인 컨설팅을 통한 결정화 기술은 판매 촉진 및 소비자들의 신뢰도 증대와 그에 따른 기업의 이미지를 향상시킬 수 있는 시너지 효과를 기대해 볼 수 있다.