Australasian Marketing Journal

The availability of automated citation counting software has made it easy for citation metrics to be used in the performance appraisal of many academics. This is most evident in decisions about promotion, research funding and salary supplementation. At present, many marketing academics seem to have only a passing interest in how their citations may impact on these decisions. Notwithstanding their limitations, citations can play an important role in building a case for the career advancement of most academics. The questions addressed in this paper are twofold. First, is seeking more citations a somewhat distracting game to be played across one's career or do they provide a reasonably valid measure of research recognition? Second, given that their use is becoming more widespread, how can a scholar's citation profile be linked to their research strategy so that it enhances rather than obscures their contribution? In the language of branding the task is how best to use citations as a point-of-proof of research contribution. Data from the Australian marketing community is used to illustrate how this can be achieved.

The majority of current product placement research is predicated on a cinema setting and assumes a rather captive audience. Little is known, about the effect of audience multitasking on product placements. As multitasking activity is most prevalent in the home, an understanding of this activity is critical to developing product placement techniques. This initial study investigates the effects of multitasking on both subtle and prominent product placements. The results indicate that less familiar, prominently placed brands suffer from significantly less recall and valuation within multitasking situations. Product placement within a multitasking situation serves to devalue the placed brand, as the placement is perceived as a distraction from other tasks being performed.

The main goal of the present research was to determine the influence of switching barriers on service recovery evaluation in order to explore ways in which banks can improve their recovery performance. The research develops and tests two scales that measure service recovery and switching barriers and uncovers the existence of a six-factor structure measuring service recovery (reversing bank mistakes, customer compensation, customer time and effort, treatment of customers, complaint handling time and power of bank employees to make decisions). The investigation also confirms the existence of a five-factor structure measuring switching barriers (organizational credibility, value congruency, relational value, difficulties of switching banks and lack of attractive banking alternatives). In addition, the study shows that the dimensions of organizational credibility, value congruency and relational value relate positively to service recovery evaluation, while the dimension concerning difficulties of switching banks is negatively related to service recovery evaluation.

Present copyright laws do not protect Indigenous intellectual property (IIP) sufficiently. Indigenous cultural artefacts, myths, designs and songs (among other aspects) are often free to be exploited by marketers for business’ gain. Use of IIP by marketers is legal as intellectual property protection is based on the lifetime of the person who has put the IP in tangible form. However, Indigenous groups often view ownership in a very different light, seeing aspects of their culture as being owned by the group in perpetuity. Misuse of their cultural heritage by marketers in products often denies the Indigenous group a monetary benefit from their use and is frequently disrespectful. This article discusses ethical insights that might shed moral weight on this issue.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the issue of regional cultural differences within China and their potential impact, if any, on consumers’ purchasing decisions. It examines, firstly, if there are any significant cultural differences among Chinese consumers in different regional locations in China. Secondly, it examines if there are any significant differences in product evaluation behaviours among these groups, and, thirdly, it examines whether these differences, if any, in product evaluation behaviours, can be linked to regional cultural differences. The study reports a survey of consumers in three regional Chinese cities (Shanghai, Chongqing and Hong Kong) and measures of differences in cultures and product evaluation behaviour. Results indicate that, for the product bundles studied, groups of Chinese consumers displaying differences in Hofstede's cultural dimensions do not differ significantly in their product evaluation processes.

Above and beyond the casual relationships that are present with everyday consumption, collected objects that are consciously and purposely chosen indicate that a relationship exists between individuals and the objects. Drawing on in-depth interviews conducted with collectors who share a strong interest in what could be considered, in a monetary sense, low value objects, this research finds that culture and its presence in society play a strong role on influencing collecting decisions and can determine what objects hold more meaning than others.

Compared to a framework consisting of four retro-branding constructs of allegory (brand story), aura (brand essence), arcadia (idealised community), and antinomy (brand paradox) (Brown et al., 2003), data reveal that an additional construct, which is termed ardour, could be added. Ardour greater construes the passion and enthusiasm that collectors feel for a brand, principally because of its relation to their own country, through the symbolism of the designs, and essentially the brand's ethos.

Assessing customer's vulnerability to competitive offers and separating loyalty owned by employees versus company-owned loyalty are strategically important for a firm's survival. This paper investigates gender differences in the willingness to forego a more attractive alternative to stay loyal to a particular organisation or employee. Across three experimental studies the results suggest that female and male consumers are willing to forego a more attractive alternative, yet for different objects of loyalty. Whereas females tend to be loyal to individual employees; males concentrate their loyalty at the level of organisations. The paper concludes with several strategic implications for marketing managers with respect to strategic recourse allocation and relationship marketing.

Many Boards and CEOs of nonprofit organisations face a dilemma in today's increasingly competitive market, that of introducing cultural change by forcing adoption of a market orientation to improve performance. The problem lies in that employees and managers misunderstand or have serious apprehensions towards marketing. In extreme cases, employees call it “going to the darkside”. Via an in-depth case study, the tension-filled process by which management introduced market orientation into a charity is examined. The benefit of the paper is that it forewarns managers of what to expect regarding potential employee resistance. We identify and provide solutions for senior managers considering cultural change towards greater emphasis on marketing activities. The paper advances academic knowledge regarding use of market orientation in charities, with a unique contribution being examination of the change process, managerial experiences and reaction of employees.

Three surveys, each covering two categories, were used to investigate the decay in WOM output after product experience. The categories were restaurants, fashion stores, hotels, holiday destinations, mobile phones and films. Data were gathered in the UK and Thailand, resulting in a total of 548 usable responses.

Word-of-mouth (WOM) output decays rapidly after product experience and then flattens. There is substantial variation by category. The decay rates of positive and negative word of mouth (PWOM, NWOM) are much the same, indicating that ratio measures of the volumes of PWOM to NWOM will be largely independent of the interval over which they are measured.

This evidence on WOM decay is useful to those estimating the financial return from new customers and indicates that incentivised referral should be concentrated in the short interval after product experience if it is to draw advantage from the high rate of WOM found at this time. More generally, it is argued that decay in the output of WOM must be studied by consumer researchers if the effect of WOM is to be properly measured and modelled.