Marketing

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of marketing mix strategies used by travel agencies in Mauritius during off peak seasons, in order to determine how to stimulate demand for international travel services and thus maximise the organisation’s revenue. This study explores the impact of off peak season on marketing mix strategies of travel agencies in Mauritius. The researcher adopted a quantitative research method. The target population comprised of 91 licensed travel agencies in Mauritius and the factor analysis carried out in the survey enabled the identification of latent factors that could affect the performance of travel agencies. The results of the findings led to the development of a marketing framework that travel agencies could consider in order to maximize their profitability during low seasons.

Marketing and advertising experts seek for novel methods and intelligent means to attract consumers and customers. Subliminal messages can play crucial role in attracting consumers in the branding world. The important task in advertising is to find novel techniques for convincing the consumers to use the products and services. The first impression of the word “advertising” is the publicities on posters and via public media which are in fact audio and visual media. However, advertising industry affects the behaviors of consumers unconsciously with the aid of the tools they use via promoting the emotions followed by changes in their purchase decisions. Utilization of subliminal stimuli is among the new methods deployed by marketing specialists for sales of products aimed at persuading the customer and changing their minds in purchase process. The present study proposes role of subliminal perception in effectiveness of non-personal advertisements. The model is researcher-made and derived from literature review. Having reviewed historical background of the respective research and codifying the objective relationships between variables within a theoretical framework, subliminal perception was tested using three indexes namely, personal factors, stimulus-related factors, and attention to stimulus. Personal factors were analyzed using three components (perceptual consciousness, acceptance, and experience) and stimulus-related factors were taken into account using four components (color, freshness, size, and situation). The data were collected via codification of a structured questionnaire with 5-choice Likert scale consisting of 4 general and 33 specialized questions. The questionnaire was distributed among the sample members after checking its reliability and validity levels. Kolmogorov–Smirnov test was used to verify normality of data distribution. The results corroborated normality of data distribution. Statistical parametric test was also applied to analyze and test the research hypotheses. The data were analyzed using LISREL software. Based on the results of structural equations method and confirmatory factor analysis, personal factors influenced effectiveness of non-personal advertisements with a value of 0.52%. The respective values for stimulus-related factors and attention to stimulus were respectively equal to 0.45% and 0.67%. Furthermore, the independent variable of subliminal perception influenced effectiveness of non-personal advertising with a value of 0.33%.

The concept of customer loyalty has received much consideration and attention from both academics and practitioners in different industries. In increasingly competitive markets, being able to build consumer loyalty is seen as the key factor in winning market share and developing a sustainable competitive advantage. Banking industry is no exception as it has high interaction with the customers, so managers must understand the factors which influence the loyalty of the customers towards their respective banks. The purpose of this research is twofold: 1.examine the impact of competency, ability to establish communication, commitment, ability to solve customers’ problems, trust and quality of relationship on customer loyalty. 2. Presenting an integrated model for bank customers. Data obtained from 178 survey questionnaire were analyzed using the structural equation modeling (SEM). The results revealed that competency has a significant positive effect on customer loyalty. Ability to establish communication has a significant positive effect on customer loyalty. Commitment has a significant positive effect on customer loyalty. Ability to solve customers’ problems has a significant positive effect on customer loyalty. Trust has a significant positive effect on customer loyalty and quality of relationship has a significant positive effect on customer loyalty. In addition results show that Ability to solve customers’ problems was the best predictor of their loyalty.

The research is an attempt to analyze the essence of experiential marketing in marketing communication through the consumers of shampoo, an FMCG with stiff competition where ‘experience’ of the consumer influences his loyalty towards the brand. From the study it was found that experiential marketing plays a vital role in marketing communications.

This paper aims to examine drivers and its moderating variable that influencing consumers’ purchase intention on green personal care products. Total of 137 completed and usable set of questionnaires was obtained from white collars employees that having knowledge about the availability of green personal care products that working in Penang, Malaysia. Data were analyzed by employing multiple regression analysis on testing on the independent variables (drivers) to dependent variables (purchase intention) and hierarchical regression analysis for moderating relationship between the drivers and purchase intention. The results revealed that environmental attitudes and self efficacy were found to be the factors that drive the purchase intention of consumers on purchasing of green personal care products. In addition, it was found that willingness of consumers to pay more on green personal care products was moderating the relationship between environmental attitudes and purchase intention. The findings created an understanding on what are the factors that influencing consumer purchase intention on green personal care product and serve as the information for marketers to plan for the marketing program that able to enlarge the market size of the said products.

Telecom industry is rapidly growing in Pakistan; number of telecom users is increasing day by day. This study focused on exploring the factors which impact on satisfaction of telecom user. In order to meet the objective of the study, there were 550 individuals were selected by using simple random sampling techniques and structured questionnaire is used as data collection tool. Descriptive analysis, Correlation analysis and regression analysis were used for analysis purpose. Findings of the study revealed that customer expectation, perceived value and corporate image were the significant factors which impact on customers’ satisfaction. This study is very informative and helpful for managers and policy makers of telecom sector.

The growth of complexity of the business environment in which firms operate, calls for more effective tools, able to consider the effect of the strategic choices of the actors of the market and to supply information useful for managerial decision process. Game theory seems to be an ideal candidate for this scope. Nevertheless, because of its axiomatic approach, its validity to highlight and define marketing issues has many critics. This paper analyses the main literature about the use of game theory for marketing management decisions and highlights its limits in this field in order to answer to the question: Can game theory be an effective marketing tool?

The study assesses long and short run dynamics between nonperforming loans and macro economic variables covering the period from January 2002 till December 2011 belongs to commercial banks in Pakistan. Macroeconomic variables include inflation, exchange rate, interest rate, gross domestic product and money supply. A long run relationship is found among the time series of variables under studied by employing Johansen and Juselius multivariate co integration while pair wise bivariate co integration reveals pair wise long run relationship between nonperforming loans with Money supply and interest rate. Granger causality test is used to evaluate the cause and effect relationship within the sample and is found that inflation and exchange rate granger cause Nonperforming loans. Short run dynamics is explored by vector error correction model provides that weak short run relationship exist between Nonperforming loans with inflation and exchange rate. Macro economic indicators are the sizeable determinates of non performing loans is a contribution of this research also assists policy makers to keep in attention the impact of aggravating economy on non performing loans consequently hurts profitability and overall health of financial system while formulating fiscal and monetary measures.

Retailing is an interface between manufacturer & consumer, who insures the easy flow of goods to the customer. Retailing is one of the largest sectors in the global economy and is going through an evolutionary stage in India. Retail is currently a flourishing sector of the Indian economy. The Indian Retail industry has grown at a 14.6% CAGR during FY 07-12. This growth can be directly credited to the emergent Indian economy as well as increase in Private Final Consumption Expenditure (PFCE) and bring revolution in Indian peoples’ consumption pattern. This tendency is expected to continue for at least the next two-three decades, magnetizing huge attention from entrepreneurs, business heads, investors as well as real estate owners and builders segments of the economy. Consumers’ perceptions about these retailers are determined by number of factors like format or size, proximity, varieties available as well as intangible factors like the store atmosphere, complaint handling, etc. It is essential to examine perceptions of unorganized retailers on organized retailers because most of unorganized retailers and unorganized retailer’s forums argue against organized retailing. This study is an attempt in this regard.

The Study is mainly done to find out the relative effectiveness of celebrity endorsed advertisement, non-celebrity endorsed advertisement and advertisement with no endorsement in influencing the purchase intention of consumers. Further, the Study is done for the Same Product and for the low involvement Product especially personal care product. Given the purpose of the study, the descriptive research technique is used. In the Study, low-involvement non-food Product Category is considered and three type of endorsed advertisements (Celebrity, Non-Celebrity and No Endorsement) are used and the study is done on 200 Consumers. Three Print advertisements are used as stimuli. The study suggest that for low-involvement personal care product category especially in case of Print media, advertisements endorsed by Celebrity has more favourable/positive impact in influencing the Purchase intention of consumers as compared to advertisements with non-celebrity endorsement and advertisements with no endorsement at all. A major implication from the findings for the managers or advertising agencies is that the impact of advertisement has more favourable impact on consumers’ purchase intention when it is endorsed by celebrity especially for Print media.The contribution of the study is in addressing an area that has not been very well researched yet, and in addressing a research question that has not been investigated properly.