Consumers' perception of organic food products and organic labels in Serbia

The relevance of the market of the organic products is constantly on the rise, however, consumers' awareness on this matter is still understudied. Aiming to bridge this gap, we conducted ethnographic research within 6 households in three different locations in a period of 12 months. The sample units have been selected as multi-person households in accordance with previously set criteria, including age, gender, geographic and socio-economic characteristics. Qualitative analysis as well as quantitative content analysis using NVivo software package have shown that organic has been among the most frequently mentioned words in the context of food labels, and it has been mostly taken into consideration when speaking about diary, fruit and meat products. The informants have shown high level of trust in organic labels. In line with that, we further discuss the importance of customer awareness with regard to labeling organic food products as well as positive attitudes toward labels in general, their readiness to read the labels, trust in labels and pay a higher prices when comparing with the conventional food products. Finally, we provide managerial implication of our findings and recommendations for further research.

The role and importance of value-based segmentation on the cohort of millennials: Case study Serbia

The paper deals with the value-based segmentation conducted on Millennials generation in Serbia. It presents the research findings of the five segments of the Serbian Millennials according to their values and life style. The subject of defining the set of segments was processed by conducting a cluster and factor analysis on the representative national sample of Millennials in Serbia. Once the cluster analysis discovered the segments, the next step was to understand the essence of the clusters or segments. The sample is consisted of 1000 respondents, reflecting the population structure of the Serbian generation Y according to gender, age, region and type of settlement (urban / rural). The analysis showed some quite interesting and in some parts contradictory results. The results of this survey are relevant for sociologists, strategists, communications professionals and managers who are interested in this generation of voters, consumers, employees, leaders and entrepreneurs.

Development and expansion of born global firms in Serbia

Early internationalization has been widely recognized as an important research topic since 1990s when the term "born global firms" was for the first time introduced. Although there is significant research interest for early internationalization in developed and developing countries, in Serbia and Western Balkan this topic has not received considerable attention from the scientific community. At the same time, early internationalization of small and medium-sized firms is present and can not be neglected in the region and Serbia. This paper aims to identify the main prerequisites for the development of born global firms, and to identify and analyze small and medium-sized firms from Serbia with international business orientation from their founding. The analysis will be conducted based on literature review and available secondary data on small and medium-sized firms and their export. In this way, the early-internationalized small and medium-sized firms from Serbia will be mapped. As there are no available databases, this research will provide first insight into the extent of early internationalization and emergence of born global firms, and their characteristics, regarding industry, location, number of employees, business experience, and export expansion. The results would be discussed in regard to the studies conducted in developed countries. Some policy implications in the area of export promotion will be recognized.

Commercial aspects of personal branding of athletes on social networks

The subject of this paper is the influence of social networks on the personal branding of athletes. The goal is to point out the importance of social networks in the process of personal branding of athletes. A responsible personality marketing management enables athletes to continue their successful careers even after the end of their engagement in sport. Social networks have an increasingly important role in this because they are also a measure of the influence of athletes, which can be quantified by the number of followers on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Some athletes earn more from their sponsorship agreements and activities on social network sin which they promote a certain brand than from professional contracts and salaries in their clubs. In the context of the topic of this paper, social networks can be viewed in two ways, as a means of improving the image of athletes, and as a tool that athletes use to promote brands. In the first case, the basic outcome is their higher commercial value, while in the second, the commercial effects are reflected in the earnings from brand promotion. This paper shows the connection between social networks, famous athletes, marketing tools applied in personal branding and commercial effects on that basis. The basic assumption that the commercial effects of personal branding of athletes can be successfully realized in the environment of social networks is confirmed.

Cognitive biases in marketing communication: Influence of anchoring and message framing on consumers' perception and willingness to purchase

While in the theory of rational decision making, it is considered that people's choices remain consistent and predictable even in cases when same information is presented in different ways, in real situations consumers' decisions are affected by their personal characteristics, habits, norms and past experience, as well as limitations of human cognitive mechanisms. In general, heuristics can be perceived as fast cognitive processes in decision making which can sometimes lead to the occurrence of biases which shape the final decision. In marketing communication, the general capacity of people to make cognitive errors encourage the application of certain principles in formulation of messages in order to instigate recipients to make predictable cognitive errors when making decisions. The subject of the research is to determine how the encouragement of cognitive biase sin marketing communication can affect decisions of messages recipients. The research included the application of two research methods observation and experimental method. In as many as 80% of the observed advertisements, the encouragement of at least one cognitive bias was registered. In both experimental situations, it was shown that the willingness to pay for a product depends on the way the promotional message is formulated.

Determinants of the bank clients satisfaction with the internet banking services in Serbia

This paper analyzes the satisfaction of bank clients with the internet banking services in the Republic of Serbia. The aim of the research is to measure the actual level of satisfaction of the domestic banks clients with the internet banking services and to determine the connection between satisfaction and internet banking and its main determinants. The research was conducted through a questionnaire, and 193 respondents took part. The obtained answers were processed using descriptive static analysis, reliability analysis of research variables, correlation analysis, and multivariate regression analysis. By analyzing the relevant literature, efficiency, safety and privacy, accessibility, response and costs were determined as independent variables, while satisfaction was used as a dependent variable. The research results show that the strongest influence on the bank clients satisfaction has the efficiency factor, followed by the response, security, and privacy, while accessibility and costs do not have a statistically significant impact on the internet banking users satisfaction.

Consumer lifestyle before and during COVID 19 virus pandemic

The proclamation of the COVID 19 virus pandemic has changed the way people live in almost all parts of the world. Due to the pandemic, consumers are adapting to the new circumstances not only by respecting epidemiological measures but also by changing their habits in everyday life. The aim of this paper is to identify changes in consumer lifestyle as a consequence of the current COVID 19 pandemic. The research was conducted on a sample of 153 respondents by observing their eating habits, travel, use of electronic shopping and payment channels and healthy lifestyle. Based on the analysis of the collected primary data in the SPSS program, the results indicate that lifestyle related to travel, use of electronic shopping and payment channels and healthy lifestyle significantly differs, while eating habits also changed but in lower degree. The conducted research contributes to the generation of useful knowledge in order to better understand the COVID 19 virus, which is still unknown to the scientific community and various market actors, as well as its effects on everyday life of people.

Marketing focused on the online brand community: The example of Zara

Nowadays, expansion in the technological achievements domain is increasingly faster and big changes have been made in people's interconnectedness and communication with the introduction of the Internet in our everyday lives. People started connecting online. Online communities have emerged as a network of the people gathered around the same interests, no matter whether such interests are private or business interests, through specific online media, thus creating a vast platform for the exchange of information, experiences and knowledge that transcends all geographical, social and temporal barriers. As a new information exchange platform, online communities also represent a new channel through which companies promote their business and their products, and provide new points of contact with their customers, who have increasingly greater power, the availability of and access to information. Marketing aimed at online consumer communities is analyzed in the paper on the example of Zara.

Personality traits and choice of studying digital marketing

The Big Five model of personality traits has already been used in a number of studies in the context of comparing students from different study programs. In this research, the elements of the mentioned model (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness) were used as potential predictors of the intention to enroll in the study program Digital marketing. The primary research included 89 students of the Faculty of Economics in Subotica, in which from the next school year will be offered, among other, a new accredited master's study program Digital marketing. The research was conducted in June 2021. In addition to descriptive statistics, a questionnaire was tested and structural equation modelling was used. At the level of descriptive statistics, the results show that the following characteristics are the most pronounced among surveyed students, in order: conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, openness (for all these characteristics, the average grade of items related to them is closest to number 4 - "I agree" at five-point Likert scale), while neuroticism is not pronounced (average score lower than 3). When it comes to the model, the traits of openness and conscientiousness have positive and significant, while the trait neuroticism negative and significant (at p<0.10) influence on the intention of enrolling in the master's program Digital marketing. According to the authors' knowledge, this is the first research that relates the mentioned personality model and the choice of digital marketing studies.

Country of origin image and consumer xenocentrism in the context of forming consumer attitudes and loyalty to foreign brands: Moderating effect of cultural intelligence

Due to the process of globalization, consumer attitudes are formed under the influence of numerous factors, which are not analyzed significantly when it comes to the company's business in the domestic market, but can have important implications when the company's management decides to internationalize the business. Country of origin information is an important indicator of product quality, superiority and reliability. Also, within the process of globalization, ethnocentric consumer tendencies are becoming an important and crucial factor for multinational companies operating outside their domestic market. On the other hand, a certain number of consumers have dilemma whether to support the national economy by buying domestic products, or to decide to buy better quality foreign products. The high degree of consumer xenocentrism, as well as the high degree of development of cultural intelligence and global consumer culture, implies preferences towards foreign brands in relation to domestic ones. The research was conducted in order to determine whether the image of the country of origin (cultural heritage, fashion capital, technological progress) and consumer xenocentrism have a positive impact on consumer attitudes towards foreign brands, as well as whether the formed positive consumer attitude affects their loyalty to foreign brands. Also, the research examines the moderating effect of cultural intelligence (metacognitive, cognitive, motivational and behavioral factors) in relation to these variables. Empirical research has been conducted. Statistical analysis was performed on a sample of 318 respondents from the territory of the Republic of Serbia. The results showed that these variables have a positive impact on consumer attitudes and loyalty to foreign brands, so the study offers important practical implications.