Volume XXXVIII • Number  10 • October  2008

Measurement and Validity of Jennifer Aaker's Brand Personality Scale For Close-Up Brand

Throughout the past two decades, the development of new products has been a popular marketing strategy for many firms. According to the trade publication New Product News, consumer-product companies launch nearly 20,000 new products each year (compared to only 2,689 in 1980) and supermarkets carry an average of 30,000 products compared to 13,067 in 1982 (as cited in Belch & Belch, 2001)1. Because of an increase in marketplace competition, this newfound brand proliferation threatens the survival of other recent brands. Brand differentiation is now becoming an important tactic for combating competition in this hostile marketplace. A viable solution for establishing the distinctiveness of a brand is through brand personality. Attaching personalities to brands contributes to a differentiating brand identity, which can make brands more desirable to the consumer.

Dr.P.C.Sekar
Reader
Madurai Kamaraj University
Madurai
Tamil Nadu
 

Application of Retail Services Quality Scale to Sri Lankan Supermarkets: An Empirical Study

Supermarkets are considered to be the major form of retailing all over the world. Moreover services quality has being long regarded to be a critical element in enhancing the perception of overall merchandise quality in supermarkets. Services quality excellence has been shown to assist in both the retention and expansion of the existing customer base. But only few studies have attempted to identify key dimensions of services quality as well as to investigate the prevailing services quality in the supermarket industry, thus this study attempts to fill this gap by examining the key dimensions of retail service quality across the supermarket industry in Sri Lanka as well as to test the most commonly used scale to measure retail service quality; The Retail Services Quality Scale. Survey method was employed for the study and a structured questionnaire was self-administered among a sample of 300 respondents who were selected from customers who are visiting Cargills Supermarket representing Western & Southern provinces including all six districts, prior to them entering to the supermarket. Cargills supermarket was selected as the research site due to the fact that it is the only supermarket with island wide presence, having 108 supermarkets in Sri Lanka. The questionnaire was based on Retail Service Quality Scale (RSQS) which incorporates five dimensions, namely Physical aspects, Reliability, Personal interaction, Problem-solving & Policy, most commonly used scale in measuring services quality. Thirty questions were developed and used to cover above five areas. Mean comparison and factor analysis techniques were used to analyze data. Study founds out that among all districts higher mean score has being recorded for reliability. When it comes to physical aspects, Southern province records a comparatively higher mean score comparing with western province. Again in Personal interaction and Problem solving Southern province Supermarkets records comparatively high mean score. Policy aspect records comparatively higher mean score among both provinces. Factor analysis identifies six major factors against the five factors identified in the scale.

The espousal of information technology is indispensable in the era of global competitive economy for the competitive advantage. The study addresses the extent of usage of Information Technology (IT) and its impact on the performance of business enterprises operating in Jammu industrial clusters. The relevant data was collected through structured questionnaire from 20 SMEs. On the basis of study results, the four distinct stages through which firms appeared to pass during the adoption of IT were identified. The firms in the first stage found to adopt IT tools, with focus on data processing using office automation tools & e-mails; the second stage firms in addition to first stage IT tools, were found to develop websites for promotional purposes; the third stage firms were using websites to communicate electronically with their business trading partners & customers and the last, fourth stage firms were using advance e- commerce software’s like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). Overall, the study found that espousal of technology is low in Jammu SMEs, as majority of them are falling in infancy stage.

Social & Economic Implications of Universal Service Obligation Fund

The Government of India is committed to provide access to all people for basic telecom services at affordable and reasonable prices. Keeping in view the development of telecom facilities in rural areas, the universal obligatory fund had been established. The resources for meeting the USO would be raised through a 'universal access levy' which would be a percentage of the revenue earned by all the operators under various licenses. The percentage of revenue share towards universal access levy would be decided by the Government in consultation with TRAI. The implementation of the USO obligation for rural / remote areas would be undertaken by all fixed service providers who shall be reimbursed from the funds from the universal' access levy. Other service providers shall also be encouraged to participate in USO provision subject to technical feasibility and shall be reimbursed from the funds from the universal access levy.

Brand management holds the key in the modern markets, particularly in Indian markets, because Indians are very traditional. India’s traditional dress is Dhoti but gradually, people transmitted into tailor made dresses. Due to the globalization process, Indians are getting attracted to readymade dresses, particularly multinational brands. In the world where products are available with almost similar features like name (with some letters change), package, color of package etc., management of brands is critical for the survival of the products, as well as the companies making them and it is difficult to select the product by the customers.

Changing Consumer Behaviour and Soft Drinks Marketing In North-Goa, A Case Study

Consumer behaviour has an important bearing on the sales of a product. Behavioral patterns change depending upon a number of variables, such as, mindset of a consumer, climate, level of income, taste, expectations and environment in which he makes his decisions. In a Global context of market-oriented economies, consumer has become the king. He operates through his sovereign power. He enjoys lot of freedom in designing his decisions. Markets have no longer remained “sellers markets”. They have obviously turned in “Buyers Markets”.

Soft drink industry is one of the biggest industries on the Industrial horizon of Goa. Its support to tourism industry, liquor industry and hotel industry is un-imaginable and non-measurable. It also meets to a major extent the grave unemployment problem in the area. In the case of consumer convenience product soft drink, marketer witness a often change in the consumer behaviour as the product unit price is low, substitute brands are many, closely located and easily accessible dealers, and most cases different roles of purchase unit are performed by a single individual.

From the study it is noticed that, the behaviour of consumers consuming soft drinks shows changes due to climatic variation and consumer behaviour doesn’t show a marked changes with a change in price of a product.

The health communications field has been rapidly changing over the past two decades. It has evolved from one-dimensional release on public service announcements to more sophisticated approach, which draws from successful techniques used by commercial marketers, termed “social marketing”. Rather than dictating the way that information is to be conveyed from the top-down, public health professionals are learning to listen to the needs and desires of the target audience themselves, and building the program from there. This focus on the “consumer” involves in-depth research and constant re-evaluation of every aspect of the programme. In fact, research and evaluation together form the very cornerstone of the social marketing process.