Most micro-business managers in Nigeria do not see the adoption of digital marketing technology (DMT) as vital for business. Many consider it as a precondition to support managerial or operational ...activities, not as a tactical and/or strategic tool. Although most studies focused on large organisations, the outcome of such research may not be appropriate to micro-businesses. This is informed by the negligence of micro-businesses' idiosyncrasies and their thought of digitalization as a precondition for managerial activities without considering the value small businesses attached to these devices in terms of aiding the use as strategic tools. This renders micro-businesses' digitalization an under-reflected phenomenon. Yet, studies spend less on examining the factors that specifically stimulate the value micro-businesses attach to these applications, leading to constant adoption and usage. Hence, there is a need for a thorough exploration of the factors that shape the value of digital marketing applications in micro-businesses in Nigeria. The study is qualitative in nature and interviews (unstructured and semi-structured) were carried out with 26 micro-businesses which was drawn purposefully from the online database and underpinned by Technology, Organisation and Environment (TOE) framework. The study revealed eleven (11) critical success factors stimulating value micro-businesses attribute to digital marketing technology (DMT) adoption. These factors include long-term functional capacity, integration capacity, expansion capacity which are related to technology context. Collective capability, collaborative experience are linked to the organisation context while adaptive training, service delivery, customer fulfilment are linked to environmental context. The study also unveiled expectancy context which is linked to budget, growth and profitability and aid in the extension of the TOE framework. This study will be of importance to academics and practitioners because it provides further awareness into DMT adoption framework, factors critical to the DMT adoption and may assist in reducing the number of resources spent in search of information aimed at helping DMT adoption by micro-businesses.
This research examines the effects of hyper-contextual targeting with physical crowdedness on consumer responses to mobile ads. It relies on rich field data from one of the world’s largest telecom ...providers who can gauge physical crowdedness in real-time in terms of the number of active mobile users in subway trains. The telecom provider randomly sent targeted mobile ads to individual users, measured purchase rates, and surveyed purchasers and nonpurchasers. Based on a sample of 14,972 mobile phone users, the results suggest that, counterintuitively, commuters in crowded subway trains are about twice as likely to respond to a mobile offer by making a purchase vis-à-vis those in noncrowded trains. On average, the purchase rates measured 2.1% with fewer than two people per square meter, and increased to 4.3% with five people per square meter, after controlling for peak and off-peak times, weekdays and weekends, mobile use behaviors, and randomly sending mobile ads to users. The effects are robust to exploiting sudden variations in crowdedness induced by unanticipated train delays underground and street closures aboveground. Follow-up surveys provide insights into the causal mechanism driving this result. A plausible explanation is mobile immersion: As increased crowding invades one’s physical space, people adaptively turn inwards and become more susceptible to mobile ads. Because crowding is often associated with negative emotions such as anxiety and risk-avoidance, the findings reveal an intriguing, positive aspect of crowding: Mobile ads can be a welcome relief in a crowded subway environment. The findings have economic significance because people living in cities commute 48 minutes each way on average, and global mobile ad spending is projected to exceed $100 billion. Marketers may consider the crowdedness of a consumer’s environment as a new way to boost the effectiveness of hyper-contextual mobile advertising.
Data, as supplemental material, are available at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2015.0905
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Extant scholarly inquiries focused predominantly on the influence of demographic physiognomies of SMEs' owner-managers on MMT adoption, with dearth recourse to how the proxies of location factors ...such as workforce diversity and knowledge centres moderate and describe such relationship. To bridge that void, opinions of 345 SMEs' owner-managers in five industries situated in the state capital and commercial nerve cities of three Geo-political zones of Nigeria were purposively sampled. The analysis involved hierarchical regression and its outcome showed that diversified workforce and enhanced knowledge centres critically moderated the extant relationship between the demographic composition (age, gender, education and experience) of owner-managers and MMT adoption. Hence, location factors are moderators of the relationship between owner/managers' demographic composition and MMT adoption. Implicit is that understanding the demographic composition of owner-managers provides industry players with strong basis for competitive advantage, as well as opportunity to proactively and tactically make decisions that relate to MMT adoption.
Food and beverage cues (visual displays of food or beverage products/brands) featured in traditional broadcast and digital marketing are predominantly for products high in fat, sugar and/or salt ...(HFSS). YouTube is hugely popular with children, and cues featured in content uploaded by YouTube video bloggers (influencers) has been shown to affect children’s eating behavior. However, little is known about the prevalence of such cues, the contexts in which they appear, and the frequency with which they are featured as part of explicit marketing campaigns. The objective of this study was to explore the extent and nature of food and beverage cues featured in YouTube videos of influencers popular with children. All videos uploaded by two influencers (one female, one male) over a year (2017) were analyzed. Based on previous content analyses of broadcast marketing, cues were categorized by product type and classified as “healthy” or “less healthy” according to the UK Nutrient Profiling Model. Cues were also coded for branding status, and other factors related to their display (e.g., description). In total, the sample comprised 380 YouTube videos (119.5 h) and, of these, only 27 videos (7.4%) did not feature any food or beverage cues. Cakes (9.4%) and fast foods (8.9%) were the most frequently featured product types, less frequent were healthier products such as fruits (6.5%) and vegetables (5.8%). Overall, cues were more frequently classified as less healthy (49.4%) than healthy (34.5%) and were presented in different contexts according to nutritional profile. Less healthy foods (compared with healthy foods) were more often; branded, presented in the context of eating out, described positively, not consumed, and featured as part of an explicit marketing campaign. These data provide the first empirical assessment of the extent and nature of food and beverage cue presentation in YouTube videos by influencers popular with children. Given the emerging evidence of the effects of influencer marketing of food and beverages on children’s eating behavior, this exploratory study offers a novel methodological platform for digital food marketing assessment and delivers important contextual information that could inform policy deliberations in this area.
In this digital era, marketing theory and practice are being transformed by increasing complexity due to information availability, higher reach and interactions, and faster speeds of transactions. ...These have led to the adoption of intelligent agent technologies (IATs) by many companies. As IATs are relatively new and technologically complex, several definitions are evolving, and the theory in this area is not yet fully developed. There is a need to provide structure and guidance to marketers to further this emerging stream of research. As a first step, this paper proposes a marketing-centric definition and a systematic taxonomy and framework. The authors, using a grounded theory approach, conduct an extensive literature review and a qualitative study in which interviews with managers from 50 companies in 22 industries reveal the importance of understanding IAT applications and adopting them. Further, the authors propose an integrated conceptual framework with several propositions regarding IAT adoption. This research identifies the gaps in the literature and the need for adoption of IATs in the future of marketing given changing consumer behavior and product and industry characteristics.
This in-depth analysis provides insight into the evolution and trends in marketing communication research using data from the Web of Science database. The study reveals a steady annual growth rate of ...6.09% in publications, with the United States, China, and the United Kingdom as leading contributors. The field is characterized by its collaborative and interdisciplinary nature, with 71,630 authors contributing significantly. The thematic evaluation highlights the shift to contemporary themes like social media, digital marketing, and ICT. Advanced concepts like blockchain and artificial intelligence suggest future research directions. Keyword analysis highlights the prevalence of digital technologies. IEEE, Elsevier, and Springer Nature are found to be the most productive publishers. Influential authors, including Bacik, Radovan, Fedorko, Richard, and Gil Saura, provide insights into the field’s key contributors. This study offers significant insights for academics, professionals, and policymakers to comprehend the historical, current, and prospective marketing communication pathways.
Bu derinlemesine analiz, Web of Science veri tabanındaki verileri kullanarak pazarlama iletişimi araştırmalarındaki evrim ve eğilimler hakkında bilgi sağlamayı amaçlamaktadır. Yayınlarda ABD, Çin ve Birleşik Krallık’ın temel olarak katkıda bulunduğu yıllık %6,09’luk istikrarlı bir büyüme oranı ortaya koymaktadır. Alanın iş birlikçi ve disiplinlerarası doğası, katkıda bulunan yazar sayısının 71.630 olmasından anlaşılmaktadır. Tematik değerlendirme, sosyal medya, dijital pazarlama ve BİT gibi çağdaş temalara geçişi vurgularken blockchain ve yapay zekâ gibi gelişmiş kavramlar gelecekteki araştırma yönelimlerini göstermektedir. Anahtar kelime analizi, dijital teknolojilerin yaygınlığını vurgulamaktadır. IEEE, Elsevier ve Springer Nature en üretken yayıncılar; Bacik, Radovan, Fedorko, Richard ve Gil Saura gibi etkili yazarlar, alana katkıda bulunmaktadır. Çalışma; akademisyenlere, profesyonellere ve politika yapıcılara tarihsel, güncel ve ileriye dönük pazarlama iletişimi yollarını anlama konusunda önemli bilgiler sunmaktadır.
In business markets, firms operating in developing economies deal with burgeoning use of the internet, new electronic purchase methods, and a wide range of social media and online sales platforms. ...However, marketers are unclear about the pattern of influence of firm-initiated (i.e., paid media, owned media, and digital inbound marketing) and market-initiated (i.e., earned social media and organic search) digital communications on B2B sales and customer acquisition. We develop and test a model of digital echoverse in an emerging market B2B context, using vector autoregressive modeling to analyze a unique 132-week dataset from a Brazilian hub firm operating in the marketplace. We find empirical evidence supporting our conceptual framework in emerging markets. Underscoring the importance of a market development approach for emerging markets, the findings show that owned media and digital inbound marketing play a bigger role in influencing customer acquisition. Impressions generated through earned social media complement owned media, but not paid media. These insights highlight the notion that while sources of digital echoverse may remain the same across countries, its components exert a particular pattern of influence in an emerging market context. This is expected to encourage managers to rethink their digital strategies for B2B customer acquisition and sales enhancement while operating in emerging markets.
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