More Cost-Effective but Confusing Advertising Options

Since 2006, American newspapers have lost nearly two-thirds of their advertising revenue, and a similar tipping point has now hit broadcast and cable television. In 2016, digital advertising expenditures in the U.S. surpassed TV advertising for the first time, and by 2021, digital is expected to surpass all traditional forms of advertising combined. Traditional advertising is dying, and the battle between the digital competitors is heating up, leading to diverse and rapidly changing advertising opportunities. And yet, marketing executives say they are confused and frustrated by all the changes. This chapter documents the new and continuing trends that are reshaping the advertising landscape.

How executives talk

Purpose This paper aims to explore how chief executive officers (CEOs) and C-suite marketing executives (chief marketing officers [CMOs], chief customer officers [CCOs], chief branding officers [CBOs], etc.) talk about marketing concepts to better understand how marketers can more effectively articulate their value and increase their strategic influence within the firm. Design/methodology/approach Artificial intelligence-enabled computerized text analysis was used to identify and weight keywords from 266 CEO and C-suite marketing executive interviews. Custom marketing concept dictionaries were used to gauge overall marketing focus. Findings The analysis revealed opportunities for C-suite marketers to align specific marketing concepts with that of CEOs for increased strategic influence. Comparisons between C-suite marketing roles showed that CMOs are more focused on marketing strategy than specialized C-suite marketing positions, such as CCO and CBO. This points to a potential decrease in strategic impact for marketing executives dependent on the specialization of their position. Research limitations/implications Using IBM Watson’s black-box artificial intelligence may limit the ability to replicate results from the content analysis; however, the results identify important ways that marketing executives can use to increase their ability to articulate their value within the firm. Practical implications C-suite marketing executives who want to increase the strategic alignment of their role with their firm must pay close attention to the marketing concepts they talk about, and how those align with their CEO’s marketing knowledge. The creation of specialized C-suite marketing roles may unintentionally limit the strategic thinking and firm-level impact of marketers. Originality/value This paper represents the first use of artificial intelligence-enabled computerized text analysis to explore and compare executive speech acts to help increase marketing’s influence in the firm. It is also the first to explore differences in marketing concept use between C-suite marketing roles.

Brand Positioning Practices in Services Sector

During 1980s the strategic relevance of brand positioning was recognized and service organisations are now identifying their key market segments and determining how they wish consumers to perceive their company and its products/services. Positioning is of particular significance for services as it places an intangible service within a more tangible frame of reference. This chapter examines and compares the brand positioning practices in services sector with reference to banks. It proposes a model for positioning of brands in services sector. The findings are based on an exploratory study; empirical data is collected from customer respondents (1800) and marketing executives of the banks. Six banks are studied, two each from public, private sectors and foreign banks. The study would help banks to acquire, retain and satisfy their customers by positioning their brand as it suggests a model that concentrates on internal and external facilitators, sources of growth, designing the service offer and differentiating it from competitors and delivering the service successfully.

Can revenue management be integrated with customer relationship management?

Purpose The purpose of this study is to understand how and to what extent Hong Kong hotels have integrated customer relationship management (CRM) into their revenue management (RM) practices at individual customer level. Method Semi-structured interviews were used to gather information from experienced interviewees holding hotel RM- and marketing-related executive positions. In total, 11 revenue and 9 marketing executives were interviewed in 2016-2017 over a period of 13 weeks. The data were transcribed and then Nvivo was used for data organization and analysis. Findings The hotels do not systematically segment customers by value because of restraints on the RM systems’ capabilities and the industry’s conventional segmentations. The revenue and marketing executives’ attitudes toward integration, IT system infrastructure support to enable integration, loyalty and membership programs as a means for integration and executive management level support for integration influence the hotel’s potential for RM and CRM integration. Research Limitations/implications Only the perspectives of revenue and marketing executives were considered. Incorporating the insights of different parties may achieve a more comprehensive result. In addition, because it seems that there is no systematic RM and CRM integration within the Hong Kong hotel industry, relevant decision-makers’ opinions toward the practice may change once they evaluate the performance of the pioneering practitioner. Originality This study reveals what has been done in practice to integrate RM and CRM compared with the theoretical approach, proposes an integration framework and discusses the potential for further development together with the challenges to integration.