Purpose: This paper presents a comprehensive exploration of the theoretical underpinnings of influencer marketing, with a particular emphasis on identifying and elaborating on key research ...opportunities in the field. As influencer marketing continues to evolve, understanding these critical research areas becomes imperative for scholars and practitioners alike.
Design / Methodology / Approach: Utilizing a synthesis of existing literature, critical and in-depth analysis, this paper examines seven distinct research opportunities within influencer marketing. These opportunities address pressing questions surrounding the measurement of influencer impact, content strategy formulation, platform selection, personal brand alignment, AI integration, influencer-content creator distinctions, and considerations of cultural and generational differences.
Findings and Implications: The research uncovers critical insights into the evolving landscape of influencer marketing, applying qualitative research in order to advance theory and unravel intricate relationships in this field. It highlights the need for nuanced measurement metrics beyond mere follower counts, underscoring the importance of influencer-consumer alignment. Additionally, the study emphasizes the critical role of authentic content narratives and platform-specific strategies. The integration of AI and the emergence of AI-powered influencers present a transformative shift, necessitating further investigation.
Limitations: As a qualitative research endeavor, this paper acknowledges the constraints of limited generalizability inherent in this methodology. The findings may be contextually bound, and further empirical studies may be necessary for broader applicability. The qualitative nature of this research may provide rich insights, but lacks the statistical robustness associated with quantitative approaches.
Originality: This paper stands out by placing the spotlight on seven vital research opportunities within the domain of influencer marketing. It recognizes these opportunities as the crux of the field’s evolution, offering valuable insights for practitioners, researchers, and policymakers.
Hospital healthcare service quality measurement represents an important approach for advancing healthcare systems. This paper presents preliminary results of a research on the quality of healthcare ...services provided by a large, public, university hospital centre in Croatia, based on the Gaps Model of Service Quality and the SERVQUAL instrument. The importance of particular service quality dimensions was analyzed, as well as the gaps between patient perceptions and expectations of healthcare services provided by 18 departments of the university hospital centre. Results revealed the gaps that exist at the level of the university hospital centre as a whole, showing the size variations in different service quality dimensions. The management of the university hospital centre should improve healthcare service quality in all dimensions by paying particular attention to the 'responsiveness' and 'tangibility', where the largest gap was identified.
•The most important driver of OPC is desire for information control.•As a result of OPC, tendency to fabricate personal information increases.•As a result of OPC, the willingness to share information ...decreases.•OPC does not influence online purchases directly, but through attitudes.•Attitudes drive online purchases.
We present a model that links individual factors and government regulation with online privacy concerns (OPC) and examines consumer responses to privacy threats in Croatia, the newest European Union (EU) member state, where privacy is still an under-explored issue. The proposed hypotheses are tested using structural equation modelling (SEM). The sample includes 1990 Internet users. The results show that respondents would like to have more control over their personal information and that government online regulation is perceived as weak and increases OPC, while previous experience and demographics are less important or even insignificant. This study empirically confirms that OPC is positively related to personal information fabrication and negatively affects willingness to share information. In addition, the results show that there is no direct relationship between OPC and online purchases. OPC does, however, affect attitudes towards online shopping, which drive online purchases.
This paper examines the impact of perceived consistency in marketing communications on customer–brand relationship outcomes. The perception of consistent message and image through different marketing ...communication tools is one of the basic principles of the integrated marketing communications (IMC) approach. Although literature suggests that IMC might have an influence on customer–brand relationship outcomes, empirical evidence that supports this assumption is still weak and inconclusive. Three main brand relationship outcomes are established for the purpose of the study, i.e. trust, commitment, and loyalty. The relationships between perceived communication consistency and brand outcomes are examined in a hospitality context on a sample of 452 respondents who had to evaluate fast-food brands. Structural Equation Modelling was employed as the main technique for data analysis using Partial Least Squares (PLS). Results reveal that communication consistency has a strong direct impact on brand trust and brand loyalty. Although its influence on affective brand commitment is found to be positive, it is not statistically significant. The interrelationship between three brand relationship outcomes is also corroborated. The study contributes to our understanding of the role of IMC in the relationship marketing paradigm and provides deeper insights into the impact of communication consistency on different relationship outcomes with fast-food brands.
Extensive usage of the Internet as a marketing tool began approximately fifteen years ago, resulting in the development of the Internet marketing as a distinctive field within marketing theory and ...practice. Since then, the Internet usage and its technological properties have evolved substantially, and have in turn led to a fast development of new marketing methods and techniques that can be applied within the electronic environment. Doing marketing on the Internet is posing a number of new challenges for marketing managers. One of the challenges lies the need to know and understand the breadth of Internet marketing activities. The purpose of this paper is to give an insight into the current landscape of Internet marketing activities and to propose a conceptual framework for managing those activities. The paper presents the development of the Internet marketing and defines the main concepts. The new role of the consumer is emphasized in order to identify potential new tasks for marketing managers. Current Internet marketing activities are observed in the context of the traditional marketing mix. Finally, based on the literature review and the analysis, a set of elements that could form a modified framework for the Internet marketing mix is proposed.
The impact of globalization on consumer behavior across demographic cohorts remains important for international marketers balancing standardization–adaptation challenges. The purpose of this paper is ...to compare young-adult consumers in the Western Balkans (Slovenia, Croatia, and Macedonia) and China. The study focuses on consumer innovativeness and consumer ethnocentrism, as two critical aspects for marketers catering to young-adult consumers (18–30years). Despite cultural differences, young-adult consumers in all four markets display high levels of consumer innovativeness and low levels of consumer ethnocentrism. The results show a weak but significantly positive pair-wise correlation between consumer innovativeness and consumer ethnocentrism in Slovenia and Macedonia, contrary to empirical evidence from adults. The study offers theoretical implications related to Global consumer acculturation theory and Social identity theory, as well as implications for marketers seeking to utilize growing China–CEE cooperation.
Marketing aspects of the Internet can be examined through a great number of researches on marketing practices conducted via the Internet. A number of authors consider the Internet as new marketplace ...(marketspace), where the exchange of both traditional and new values (i.e. digital products and services) takes place. The Internet supports almost all aspects of a company’s business activities and can be applied with respect to all the elements of marketing mix. The subject of this paper is the role of adoption and use of the Internet as a new communication, retail and distribution channel for young consumers. The research was conducted in January 2006 and included 869 students from nine faculties at the University of Zagreb. Students represent an important marketing segment for Internet marketing activities since they are considered to be advanced users of the Internet. The relevance of students’ Internet adoption and use is determined by the following reasons: students are consumers; senior students will soon become young employed professionals with their own income (their spending will increase rapidly); in the near future, senior students will, to some extent, be decision makers on the implementation of business activities via the Internet. Research results show that students actively use the Internet, primarily as a communication channel. The student use of the Internet for purchasing tangible products is rare but their use of services via the Internet is considerable. Students find using the Internet to be a non-complex activity. There is no significant difference in the perception of complexity of the Internet usage among respondents with different computer and English language skills or with respect to their majoring fields (Arts, Biomedicine, Biotechnology, Engineering, Humanities, Natural and Social Sciences). A perception of the complexity of product purchase and service usage via the Internet is influenced by the experience that respondents have with those activities. It seems that the potential of the Internet as a new channel for selling tangible products is low. On the other hand, students consider the Internet to be important as a new channel for selling and distributing services.
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