Issue #4 (Volume 15 2019)

A comprehensive study of the consumers’ needs and demands, the patterns of their social and cultural behavior are essential to the success of the modern luxury companies in their market activity. The purpose of research is to study the possible differences and similarities in the perception of luxury and motivation to purchase these goods by consumers in different parts of the world and selection of acceptable marketing tools. The study is built on the results of analysis of cultural values in some countries using the country comparison tool developed by Hofstede and the results of analysis of scientific articles on the behavior of luxury goods consumers in different countries. The methodology approach – Hofstede’s model of national culture and scientific studies belonging to cultural impacts on luxury consumers’ behavior – is applied to explore cross-cultural differences in luxury consumption behavior. The findings of the study are as follows: consumers from countries with high power distance, collectivism, and masculinity, long-term orientation, and low indulgence primarily perceive social values in consuming luxury goods and are sensitive to conspicuous luxury-status. In cultures with high individualism, masculinity, indulgence, and low power distance, consumers display to perceive individual and functional values and are sensitive to “emotional hedonistic luxury.” The consumption of luxury goods in the Asian region is characterized by significant focusing on social values and status consumption, more than in the rest of the world. The motives of achievements in the form of self-realization and self-actualization are among the main reasons for the luxury consumption of European Union consumers.

This study aims to determine and analyze the role of perceived value in influencing political marketing mix on voting decision for Head of Region in the Election of Governor and Deputy Governor of Banten in 2017. The population of this study involves people who have the rights to vote in Banten and are kept on the permanent voter list. Sample of this study consists of 664 respondents, in which most of the respondents include casual workers, outsourcing, casual daily laborers, housewives, and workers who do not need special skills. The proportional random sampling technique was utilized in determining the number of respondents. SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) was conducted by applying WarpPLS 6.0. The results of the study indicated that there is a positive and significant relationship between political marketing mix and perceived value concerning the voting decision, as demonstrated by positive and significant effect on perceived value. The findings confirmed that political marketing mix influenced the decision to elect a Head of Region mediated by perceived value. To improve the decision to vote, the researchers believe/suggest that providing attention to political products such as branding of political candidates, is thus deemed necessary.

The purpose of study is to examine the factors behind the purchase intention for counterfeit luxury goods in Bangladesh using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). This research also sought to measure the effect of product attribute, brand image, level of income, price, and gender regarding the purchase intention for counterfeit luxury goods. Data were gathered from a sample of 242 individual respondents living in different areas of Dhaka city who had experience of purchasing various counterfeit luxury goods. A structured questionnaire was used to obtain survey data through a personal interview. Descriptive statistics, reliability statistics, one-way ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis have been used to analyze the collected data. The results show that among five factors, only three of them, such as product attribute, brand images and level of income, are more influential predictors in purchase intention for counterfeit luxury items than price and gender. The findings of the study show a better understanding based on a developing country on how these factors affect purchasing intention of counterfeit luxury items. Thus, the study intends to identify different socio-demographic and behavioral predictors in terms of counterfeiting luxury goods. The result depicts that comparing to original products, Bangladeshi consumers are more prone to use counterfeit luxury items to maintain social values and status. Finally, limitations and managerial implications of the study, along with future research avenues, have been discussed.

Green marketing is becoming a trend, and many companies have implemented it as a strategy for winning the market. However, attention to the importance of green marketing strategies has been relatively limited compared to its importance as a viable strategy, and this happens, particularly, in developing countries. As a result, the green marketing strategies of companies in developing countries are not yet fully recognized. So, this study is intended to explore marketing practices of the selected companies in Indonesia. The research is a case study of three selected companies producing herbal medical drinks, natural spa-related beauty products, and natural coloring fabric. They were selected for several reasons: producing of green products, conducting of green practices, and marketing the products abroad. In-depth interview of the owner or in-charged manager of each company was used to obtain the data about its marketing practices. The data were then classified into four Ps of marketing mix, and interrelationship concepts generated from the data were systematically identified using NVivo to get clear picture of their marketing strategy. The results indicated that the companies undertook only quasi green marketing: dealt with green product and conducted green practices but did not apply green pricing, green distribution, and green promotion. This brings implication for companies marketing a green product to take advantage by differentiating their product based on the green characteristics of the product. This study also contributes to knowledge about green marketing strategy in a developing economy that is still limited.

Traditional accounting has divided costs into variable and fixed costs, with changes made according to production levels, consequently, the cost behavior changes according to changes in the volume of production activity. Therefore, it has become necessary for successful management to understand cost behavior to face market changes and to adopt strategies that increase sales volume.
The study period covered 12 years between 2006 and 2017. The study population was from Jordanian industrial shareholding companies. Using the regression models, the main results indicated that sales expenses could not explain changes in sales revenue in Jordanian companies; there was a significant relationship between sales expense changes and sales revenues, with sales expense changes having incremental information content over sales expense levels in explaining sales revenues. There was also no significant relationship between sales expense levels, sales expense changes, and sales revenues. The study suggests that future researches should be made in order to obtain business-oriented and specific information on how the decisions affect sales behavior. Overall, the study findings enhance our understanding about companies’ cost behavior and provide useful insights into financial and management accounting literature.

The impact of readers as target audiences of publishing houses in Ukraine on PR communication is not clearly understood. The goal of this research is to examine the role of readers in the communication process between publishing houses and customers. The readers become an important source of information about the events of the book publishing market and book novelties. The article shows the results of the poll of visitors of the largest book festivals in Ukraine – Book Arsenal Festival in Kyiv and Book Forum in Lviv for 2017–2019. These respondents (200 interviews per event) are not only the main consumers of book products publishing houses, but also they are the source of information about new books and activities of Ukrainian publishing houses themselves. According to the results of the poll, visitors of book fairs pay attention to the advice of their colleagues and friends, which are an important source of information about the events of the book publishing market and book novelties. Almost 50% of respondents create and distribute user-generated content about the events of the book publishing market. This activity is explained by the lack of information about the book market news of more than half of visitors. The results of the research confirm that readers are important publishing communications subjects, consumers are active advocates of the publisher’s brand, friends and colleagues actively create the content about the events of the book publishing market in Ukraine.

The study was conducted by collecting the data from 608 customers of migrant retailers working in the retail industry of Pretoria West in South Africa in order to identify socioeconomic factors that affect customer loyalty. Data was collected from eligible respondents by using a pre-tested, validated and standardised questionnaire of study that was self-administered by respondents. The study found that about 69% of customers were loyal to their retailers. About 68% of customers had a favorable attitude towards their retailers. About 68% of retailers used appropriate promotional measures for marketing their goods to potential customers. About 69% of retailers provided their customers with satisfactory quality of services. About 67% of customers were loyal to their retailers’ brands. Factor analysis was used for extracting 3 influential predictors of customer loyalty. These factors were entrepreneurial skills, marketing skills, and selling price. The percentage of variance explained by the 3 extracted factors was equal to 92.58%.

The main goal of the article is to study the features of film marketing and distribution of film products in Ukraine and to determine what kind of marketing tools are appropriate to be used within a cinema network to ensure their competitiveness in the national film distribution market.
This article determines the characteristics of the movie market services and their compliance with modern consumer requirements, outlining the directions for increasing the usefulness of cinema-related services to consumers and developing a set of marketing tools to ensure the competitiveness of the cinema market.
The results of the assessment of the impact of competitive forces revealed that intra-industry competition has the strongest impact on private cinema networks, the consumers of film distribution services and potential competitors have the moderate influence, the suppliers and substitute services have a low level of influence.
According to the results of the survey, it can be concluded that cinemas are worth reducing the cost of tickets (this can be done by introducing the promotions and discounts for regular customers), since the solvency of a larger population does not correspond to the level of ticket prices. Also expanding the range of products will allow the consumers to spend more time in the cinema, which will lead to an increase in the value of the average check. Cinemas are quite realistic to open their own pizzerias or bars to add value to their customers.

Nowadays, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) play an important role in different functional areas of marketing. Starting from this assumption, the main objective of this theoretical paper is to better understand the relationship between Big Data, AI, and customer journey mapping. For this purpose, the authors revised the extant literature on the impact of Big Data and AI on marketing practices to illustrate how such data analytics tools can increase the marketing performance and reduce the complexity of the pattern of consumer activity. The results of this research offer some interesting ideas for marketing managers. The proposed Big Data and AI framework to explore and manage the customer journey illustrates how the combined use of Big Data and AI analytics tools can offer effective support to decision-making systems and reduce the risk of bad marketing decision. Specifically, the authors suggest ten main areas of application of Big Data and AI technologies concerning the customer journey mapping. Each one supports a specific task, such as (1) customer profiling; (2) promotion strategy; (3) client acquisition; (4) ad targeting; (5) demand forecasting; (6) pricing strategy; (7) purchase history; (8) predictive analytics; (9) monitor consumer sentiments; and (10) customer relationship management (CRM) activities.