Research
Recent and current areas of research among the Marketing Faculty include:
Brands: brand extensions, line extensions and brand portfolios; measuring and managing brand equity and brand loyalty; drivers of brand equity; brand equity segments; brands as assets; the employer brand.
Competitive Strategy: strategic alliances; strategic management accounting; strategic investment decisions and the links with finance.
Consumer Behaviour: patterns of brand- and store-choice; consumer attitudes; taste formation; belief coherence and preference; the basis of decision-making; consumer involvement in brands and categories; consumer motivations for boycott participation; the erosion of repeat-purchase loyalty; the home environment as a sales forum.
International Marketing: overseas market entry; international business and the multinational enterprise; international brand alignment; corporate emigration; marketing in China.
Management Processes: strategic decision-making processes; techno-logical innovation and continuous improvement; aligning the organisation to the market.
Marketing Analytics: customer base analysis; new product sales forecasting; "market response models", "development of "simple" models", "probability models", and "judgement-based models"
Marketing Communications: the effects of advertising; "real people" vs actors in advertisements; effects of price promotions; sales-force adoption of innovations; network marketing. Using neuroscience to study ad effects and buying decisions.
Marketing Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility: integrating social initiatives and (global) marketing strategy, ethical decision making in marketing, consumer boycotts, socially responsible pricing, deception in consumer research, commercial bribery, product recalls.
Marketing Expenditure Trends: global trends in total marketing expenditure and how it is allocated between traditional media advertising, sales promotion, brand PR/sponsorship, direct mail and interactive marketing.
Marketing Metrics: originally launched in 1997, the measurement of marketing performance has now become a major issue worldwide. More recently the focus is on metrics used in planning and as top management "dashboards."
Media: TV viewing patterns; personal video recorder (PVR) adoption, usage and the potential impact on advertising; digital television; consumer responses to interactive television; public service broadcasting; interactive marketing; mobile advertising.
New Products: technology adoption and diffusion; how to accelerate market penetration; new product forecasting; market responses to new product introductions; the diffusion of successive generations of techno-logical innovations.
Services Marketing: service quality and customer satisfaction; inter-personal factors in service encounters; impression management; backstage marketing; trust.
"Simply Better": what matters most to customers – the basics (generic category benefits) versus unique, brand-specific features/benefits ("unique selling propositions" or USPs); customer dissatisfaction with brands and categories; finding out about customer needs; innovating to improve the offer and drive the market.
For full details of publications, working papers, research grants, contracts and case studies, see Marketing Faculty Research
