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PurposeThis methodological paper demonstrates how service firms can use digital technologies to quantify and predict customer evaluations of their interactions with the firm using unstructured, qualitative data. To harness the power of unstructured data and enhance the customer-firm relationship, the use of computerized text analysis is proposed.Design/methodology/approachThree empirical studies were conducted to exemplify the use of the computerized text analysis tool. A secondary data analysis of online customer reviews (n = 2,878) in a service industry was used. LIWC was used to conduct the text analysis, and thereafter SPSS was used to examine the predictive capability of the model for the evaluation of customer-firm interactions.FindingsA lexical analysis of online customer reviews was able to predict evaluations of customer-firm interactions across the three empirical studies. The authenticity and emotional tone present in the reviews served as the best predictors of customer evaluations of their service interactions with the firm.Practical implicationsComputerized text analysis is an inexpensive digital tool which, to date, has been sparsely used to analyze customer-firm interactions based on customers' online reviews. From a methodological perspective, the use of this tool to gain insights from unstructured data provides the ability to gain an understanding of customers' real-time evaluations of their service interactions with a firm without collecting primary data.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the growing body of knowledge regarding the use of computerized lexical analysis to assess unstructured, online customer reviews to predict customers' evaluations of a service interaction. The results offer service firms an inexpensive and user-friendly methodology to assess real-time, readily available reviews, complementing traditional customer research. A tool has been used to transform unstructured data into a numerical format, quantifying customer evaluations of service interactions.

Study level/applicability The primary target audience for this teaching case is postgraduate business students, especially students of digital marketing, strategy and e-commerce, social media marketing, entrepreneurship and sports marketing. This teaching case is intended to be used as a case study in postgraduate business programmes such as Master of Business Administration, a specialist masters programme such as MM (entrepreneurship), postgraduate diploma in management, as well as selected executive education programmes. Subject area This case can be used in the subject areas of digital marketing, strategy and e-commerce, social media marketing, entrepreneurship and sports marketing. Case overview This case looks at South African fitness Instapreneur Candice Bodington and how her business trajectory unfolded at the same time of the successful Australian Kayla Itsines. The case begins with Bodington considering options for her brand in January 2020. Following her business, Candibod’s, fast initial growth via Instagram, the case tracks its development while also glancing at the enormous success of Itsines and her Sweat with Kayla app. However, as Bodington faces her own health care, the future and next steps of a brand built on social media becomes less certain. The case ends just a few months later with the unfolding effects of Covid-19 and a whole new host of uncertainties, especially in the fitness industry and Bodington having to reconsider her brand’s options. Expected learning outcomes The learning outcome of this paper is as follows: to understand the challenges of building an online brand. To evaluate the effect of brand communities as a growth strategy. To analyse the impact of social media platforms as a brand-building tool. To critically assess the effect of changing industry dynamics and technology on consumer behaviour. To evaluate how brands can navigate the negative implications of social media. To understand brand differentiation. To understand the strategic decisions associated with brand repositioning. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS 8: Marketing. Keywords Digital marketing, Brand building, Social media marketing, Strategic marketing

Purpose This paper aims to explore, using the employee lens of business-to-business firms, word use through brand engagement and social media interaction to understand the difference between employees who rate their employer brands highly on social media and those who don't. Design/methodology/approach We conducted a textual content analysis of posts published on the social media job evaluation site glassdoor.com. LIWC software package was used to analyze 30 of the top 200 business-to-business brands listed on Brandwatch using four variables, namely, analytical thinking, clout, authenticity and emotional tone. Findings The results show that employees who rate their employer’s brand low use significantly more words, are significantly less analytic and write with significantly more clout because they focus more on others than themselves. Employees who rate their employer’s brand highly, write with significantly more authenticity, exhibit a significantly higher tone and display far more positive emotions in their reviews. Practical implications Brand managers should treat social media data disseminated by individual stakeholders, like the variables used in this study (tone, word count, frequency), as a valuable tool for brand insight on their industry, competition and their own brand equity, now and especially over time. Originality/value This study provides acknowledgement that social media is a significant source of marketing intelligence that may improve brand equity by better understanding and managing brand engagement.

Obesity has a significant impact on public health (Redondo et al. 2018). The widespread obesity problem is attributed to the increase in the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) among consumers (Malik et al. 2010). This is particularly prevalent in South Africa, with the average consumption of SSBs by consumers in the country estimated to be over 200 ml per day (Tugendhaft et al. 2016). Despite the implementation of a Sugary Beverage Levy in South Africa, effective as from the 1st of April 2018, there is a lack of communication on the part of the South African Department of Health (Scott et al. 2017) which may be used to supplement the imposition of this Sugary Beverage Levy (Manyema et al. 2014).

The literature as to what makes marketing communication for hi-tech products more effective is an area of interest for marketers. This study compares story-based reviews with technical reviews and tests narrative paradigm theory (NPT) (Fisher 1984, 1987) and its constituent of narrative believability in the context of smart TVs. The choice of this sector is driven by the hi-tech nature of this industry, its rapid market growth, and an expanding market as customers increasingly switch to smart TVs. Product characteristics (Floyd et al. 2014) and price (Bodur et al. 2015) are known to impact the need and intensity of Internet search behavior conducted by customers before purchase. Given these features, customers purchasing a smart TV undertake considerable Internet search. Various websites exist that host reviews for different smart TVs in the market. This study departs from the idea that a narrative-based review of a durable product has a stronger impact on narrative persuasion and purchase intention than an argumentative-based review that makes use of highly technical language. An experimental format is adopted where subjects, receive as treatment, review with either an argumentative or story-based content. The experiment reveals that narrative believability for a story-based narrative is higher than that for an argumentative review, but the effect of narrative believability on purchase intention exhibits no significant difference for the two types of content. Implications for management are discussed, limitations are noted, and directions for future research are indicated.

Marketers often depend on third parties to do the work for them, such as advertising or research agencies and distributors of goods and services (Bergen et al. 1992). Agency theory provides a strong and apposite conceptual framework to understand and explain these associations. In these relationships, a party called the principal assigns work to another party called the agent, who then does the work (Eisenhardt 1989). For example, salespeople and their managers share an agency relationship, where the manager is the principal and the salesperson is the agent. As agency relationships prevail in real-world marketing issues (Bergen et al. 1992), a better understanding of the role of agency theory in marketing is important to marketing scholars and is valuable to practitioners.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the impact of editorial policy towards being both inclusive and international on the quantitative metrics of the journal. Design/methodology/approach – A bibliometric analysis was performed. Findings – The chief areas of impact, along with trends in methodologies and international contribution and collaboration are discussed. Originality/value – A review of the British Food Journal over the past ten years.

How do marketing campaigns encourage a majority group of consumers to support a minority group of consumers’ opinion? Why do consumers change their opinions? Why do consumers do what they do? Conve ...