The Impact of Celebrity Endorsement on Millennials’ Purchase Intention towards Local Health and Beauty ProductThe Impact of Celebrity Endorsement on Millennials’ Purchase Intention towards Local Health and Beauty Product

The growth in the local beauty and health products in Malaysia have surged rapidly, so does the trend in using celebrity endorsements making this study is crucial to help determine its success due to the large investment involved. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examines the extent at which millennials has been impacted by celebrity endorsement on their purchase intention for local health and beauty products. Quantitative method has been used and 313 data were collected among millennials in Selangor, Malaysia. The result of the study revealed that celebrity attractiveness has a high impact on respondents in developing their purchase intention for local and health beauty products. Meanwhile celebrity credibility shows the moderate impact on millennials. The result of this study offer valuable insight for marketing practitioner in regards to the use of celebrity as endorsers that may or may not trigger millennial’s in the product use.

Marketers are consumers too: integrating consumer-self in potential value creation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which a marketer’s own priorities as a consumer infiltrate workplace decision-making and how this contamination influences the creation of potential value for the end consumer. The “black box” of the organisation is opened to investigate potential value creation at an individual/manager level of analysis. Design/methodology/approach The authors gathered in-depth qualitative data from amongst marketing managers and directors in the UK, Australia and the USA. The authors theorised these data through boundary theory to develop an integrated producer-as-consumer potential value creation model. Findings The paper reveals the dynamic interplay in marketing/production decision-making between the individual’s consumer-self, manager-self and the external interface with the organisation. Research limitations/implications The producer-as-consumer potential value creation model illuminates the complex role of the firm and its individual managers in the creation of potential value and identifies contingencies that result in a spectrum of possible potential value creation outcomes. These contributions are positioned within the marketing value creation and co-creation literatures. Practical implications Marketing organisations/managers may find this research useful when considering the benefits and drawbacks of integrating managers’ consumer-self insights into workplace decision-making and the creation of potential value for the end consumer. Originality/value This paper moves value creation/co-creation theory forward by revealing the dynamic potential value creation process and presenting a fluid representation of producers-as-consumers, at individual manager level. This paper is of interest to academic and marketing practitioner audiences.

Unmanageable multiplicity: consumer transformation towards moral self coherence

Purpose – This study aims to explore: consumer experiences of intense moral dilemma arising from identity multiplicity conflict, expressed in the marketplace, which demand stark moral choices and consumer response to intensely felt moral tension where their sense of coherent moral self is at stake. Design/methodology/approach – The authors gathered ethnographic data from amongst ethical consumers, and theorised the data through theory of life projects and life themes to explain how multiplicity can become an unmanageable problem in the midst of moral dilemma. Findings – The authors reveal that in contrast to notions of liberating or manageable multiplicity conflict, some consumers experience intense moral anxiety that is unmanageable. The authors find that this unmanageable moral tension can provoke consumers to transform self and consumption choices to construct a coherent moral self. The authors identify this transformation as the meta life project. Research limitations/implications – This work contributes to knowledge of multiplicity, consumer life themes and life projects, moral dilemma and ethical consumption by showing that some experiences of moral anxiety arising from multiplicity conflict are unmanageable, and these consumers seek moral self re-unification through the meta life project. Practical implications – This study provides practical guidance to companies, marketers, public organisations and activist groups seeking to understand and harness consumers’ moral codes to promote ethical consumption practices. Originality/value – The authors extend current theory of multiplicity into the moral domain to illustrate limitations of framing consumer experiences of multiplicity conflict as being either liberating or manageable when consumers’ sense of moral self is at stake. This article is of interest to academic, marketing practitioner and public policy audiences.

On corporate social responsibility and Islamic marketing

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and explore its connection to Islamic marketing with the view of providing the basis for an integrated framework of the two which corporations could use to market worldwide and not only to Islamic consumers. Furthermore, the study explores the connection between CSR and Islamic marketing using the tenets of the Qur'an. Design/methodology/approach – The study critically reviews the literature on CSR and links it to the Qur'anic teachings. Findings – The study concludes that Islamic marketing will be richer in scholarship and practice if dialogue is established, and areas of commonality between Islamic marketing and CSR are explored. Research limitations/implications – This is a theoretical paper that needs to be empirically validated in further studies. Practical implications – The study has several practical implications on how corporations, entrepreneurs and the marketing practitioner could conduct transactions that are consistent with the principles of CSR and the Qur'an. Originality/value – The study is creative and uses original arguments based on the review of the literature and the Qur'an.

An Absence of Voice: Web Information Architecture in Small and Medium Enterprises

Practice narratives of web information architecture (IA) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are investigated. Although web-based information delivery is ubiquitous, research and practice remains focused on larger organisations. This research attends to SMEs, revealing that the dominant voice in practice belongs to the communications and marketing practitioner, not the information professional.Sont investiguées les pratiques d'architecture de l'information Web dans les petites et moyennes entreprises (PME). Même si la prestation de services d'information sur le Web est omniprésente, la recherche et les pratiques demeurent centrées sur les grandes entreprises. Cette étude cible les PME, révélant ainsi que la voix dominante dans la pratique appartient aux praticiens des communications et du marketing et non aux professionnels de l'information.

Getting the Most Out of Image: An Example from the Fast-Food Industry

Using a fast-food industry example, this study was designed to illustrate how a marketing practitioner might use a model of the brand choice process to identify a brand's optimal image, that is, an image which would be expected to maximize that brand's share. 219 upper-divisional college students expressed their beliefs about three fast-food restaurants, plus their preferred restaurant, and what constituted their ideal restaurant on 15 attributes. Also, they indicated the relative importance of each attribute. Using their image data, we then chose a brand-choice model to identify those changes in image that would be expected to maximize (and minimize) each restaurant's share of market.

Human capital investment: Higher educational and on-the-job training of the marketing practitioner

Human capital theory postulates that investment in people represents an investment in their productive capacity, whether it be in the form of formal educational training or on-the-job training. Today few, if any, occupations require no investment in human capital. An example is marketing practitioners working in the marketing departments of businesses active in the formal sector of the economy. In this empirical research study, the relationship between the formal training that marketing practitioners receive at higher educational institutions and on-the-job training they receive from businesses employing them, are analysed in terms of their job functions and job specifications. Finally, conclusions regarding this specific relationship are made.

The Marketing Practitioner as Political Actor

In recent years, managers have been confronted with an increasing number of public attacks on their marketing practices. This paper describes a managerial approach for anticipating and coping with such attacks. Further, some observations are offered about general trends affecting the public arena of marketing and the implications of these trends for marketing research, education, and practice.