Volume XXXIX • Number 12  • December 2009

Brand Ambassadors And Their Impact On Consumer Behavior : A Case Study of Mobile Companies in India

A brand ambassador is a well-connected person or a celebrity who is used to promote and advertise a product or service. He/She is a diplomat, a representative of an organization, institution or corporation that best portrays the product or service. Brand ambassadors are the face and fingers of the brand; everything they touch, the brand is touching. Brand Ambassadors form the public image of brands and are the humans companies use to deliver their message to the public. Non-traditional marketing companies utilize Brand Ambassadors in campaigns to answer questions, engage the audience, and increase brand awareness. Using reputable firms to supply this type of staff allows companies to maintain a high quality of applicants that mirror the target demographic to reach consumers in the most effective manner.

A Qualitative Study on Branding of Steel Products in India

Branding which has traditionally been the forte of B2C products has of late assumed lot of relevance and importance even for B2B products, in the changing global business environment.

Steel, one of the core sectors of our economy, has been a highly commoditized product prior to liberalization of Indian economy. With the opening up of the economy and entry of a number of private players, customization and differentiation through strategic brand management has become the “mantra” for growth and survival.

Professor Shailendra Dasari
Marketing Faculty and Examination Coordinator
ICFAI Business School
Bangalore

shailendra.dasari@gmail.com
 

India, with diverse and significant mineral resources, is the leading producer of some of the minerals. Of the 89 minerals produced in India, 52 are non-metalic, 11 metallic, 4 fuel minerals and 22 minor minerals. The share of the mineral sector in the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country is around 3.5 per cent while accounting for 10 per cent share in the index of industrial production. Though 80 per cent of the mines are in the private sector, yet 91 per cent of the production in terms of size comes from the government owned mining ventures. Mining employs over 8 lakh persons.
India is the largest producer of mica blocks and mica splitting; ranks third in the production of barites and chromites; 4th in iron ore, 6th in bauxite and manganese ore, and 10th in aluminum and 11th in crude steel. Iron- ore, copper-ore, chromites, zinc concentrates, gold, manganese ore, bauxite, lead concentrates and silver account for the entire metalic production. Limestone, magnesite, dolomite, barites, kaolin, gypsum, apatite and phosphorite, stealite and fluorite account for 92 per cent of non-metallic minerals.

Consumer Beliefs and Attitudes Towards Advertising Media : A Study of Indian Women

Advertising is the most visible and noticeable component of the communication mix (Coulter, Zaltman and Coulter, 2001) but marketers, policy makers, academics and executives continue to debate its merits (Macias and Lewis, 2003). It has been evidenced that attitudes toward advertising in general is a major determinant of brand attitudes and purchase intentions (Mackenzie and Lutz, 1989, Ashill and Yavas, 2005).Thus, advertising has long been used to influence customers towards consuming brands and to develop perceptions of the consumers towards advertised brands thus influencing brand attitudes (Teng et al, 2007, Till and Baack, 2005). According to Smith and Swinyard’s Integrated Information Response Model (1982) (cited in Smith and Swinyard, 1983), advertising as an information source affects product trial purchase and post trial advertising has a higher impact on information acceptance leading to repeat purchase (thus affecting both purchase decision and post purchase behavior).

Electronic Customer Relationship Management (E-CRM)

CRM is the seamless co-ordination between sales, customer service, marketing field support and other customer- touching functions. It integrates people, processes and technology to maximize relationship with all customers and partners, e-customers, distributional channel numbers, internal customers and suppliers. CRM results in a number of benefits to an organization like increased margins improve customer satisfaction ratings and decrease administrative costs.
The phenomenon of building a relationship with customers via the internet is known as electronic CRM (e-CRM). The objective of the CRM and e-CRM are the same- the difference is the medium used for providing services to the customer. E-CRM focuses on electronic channels mainly on the internet and on technologies that enable automated and electronic management of customer relations. E-CRM is a multi-faceted strategy that helps companies understand, anticipate and manage customer needs. A major thrust of it involves segmenting customers and offering appropriate and differentiated services for each of these levels. It mainly uses the electronic media to integrate and simplify customer-related business processes, drastically reducing costs of customer-facing operations while achieving CRM’s primary goal to enhance the customer experience

Prof.V.Sudhakar
Professor
Sri Kaliswari College
Sivakasi,Tamil Nadu
simmah1968@yahoo.co.in
 

Knowledge is one of the most cited topics in management literature in recent years. Innovations and Knowledge Management (KM) play key roles in managing and increasing competitive advantages of organizations (Porter, 2001). Knowledge is an organization’s only enduring source of advantage in an increasingly competitive world (Birkinshaw, Holm, Thilenius, and Arvidsson 2000). Knowledge Sharing (KS) plays a critical role in KM because KM improves and strengthens by being shared with others. Although there is huge body of knowledge available on KM but enough information is not available about KS and studies about Marketing Knowledge Sharing (MKS) are scarce. The main reason for searching for effect factors in MKS is this statement from Drucker: every company has only two functions: innovation and marketing. Marketing is a boundary spanning function in a company and relates a company with his customers, competitors and other market elements. Marketing knowledge is a new area in marketing and there have been nascent developments in this stage. In this paper, the authors try to explore factors affecting MKS at a personal and micro level in two selected industries in Iran (including food and home appliance). These two industries are highly competitive in Iran. The authors investigate what personal factors affect KS.

Mohammed Reza Hamidizadeh
Associate Professor of Business Admin
Faculty of Management and Accounting
Shahid Beheshti University
Tehran,Iran

Everyone who spends money to buy goods and services from the market is a buyer, but a buyer who makes use of goods and services for his / her living to maintain a good physical and mental health is a consumer. A common man as a consumer has a wide range of expectations such as price, correct weight and measurement, purity or genuiness, packaging, service during and service after the sale.

Dr.P.R.Sumangala
Professor of Family Resource Management
University of Agricultural Sciences
Dharwad,Karnataka
 

Agriculture has always been the backbone of the Indian economy. It provides employment to around 60 per cent of the total work force. Agricultural growth has direct impact on poverty eradication. The change in the agricultural sector, whether positive or negative, will have a multiplier effect on the entire economy. Besides, the allied sector like horticulture, animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries have an important role in improving the over all economic conditions of rural India. To maintain the ecological balance, there is need for sustainable and balanced development of agriculture and allied sectors. From our first plan onwards, planners have given priority to allied sector for the economic development of the rural sector. Dairy farming is described as a small industry which provides gainful employment opportunities. It comprises of about six per cent of the national income.