Increasingly, consumers interact through the Internet to share their knowledge, experiences, and opinions. Consequently, 'word-of-mouse' has become a significant market force that influences consumer decision-making. On the basis of extensive quantitative and qualitative research, the authors sketch how consumers make use of virtual communities as social and information networks, and how this affects their decision-making processes. We present three studies that address (i) determinants and effects of virtual community influence on the consumer decision process; (ii) virtual community participation patterns; and (iii) discussion practices of the most active community members. Key implications for managers, marketers, and market researchers are discussed.

Virtual communities: A marketing perspective

Online retailing as a mode of transaction has been dominating the market through web-based advertisements since the beginning of the 21st century, replacing the role of mass media. India, being a p...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23311975.2021.1876545

Exploring the opinions of the YouTube visitors towards advertisements and its influence on purchase intention among viewers

The novel coronavirus, COVID-19 has affected the advertising industry in India. This study tries to gauge the purchase intention towards hygiene products during the ongoing pandemic with reference to smartphone advertising. The purpose of the study is to explore the features of smartphone advertisements like advertising value perception, context awareness value and brand attitude, pertaining to COVID-19 hygiene-related advertisement narratives. To serve the purpose, two-wave shortitudinal study was conducted at time T1, that is, lockdown period and T2, that is, unlock period in India with the help of non-probability snowball sampling. The total numbers of respondents at T1 were 311, while for T2 the total 160 respondents were contacted through online mode. At T1, the relationship between perceived advertising value and purchase intention was not established, which depicts the pandemic effect. At T2, the relationship between context awareness value, brand attitude and purchase intention was established. Further, at T1, the brand attitude did not show a mediating effect on purchase intention, but at T2, it was found to have a mediation effect on purchase intention. The study has important implications as ongoing pandemic has altered the way of living. This also has significantly impacted the advertising industry especially the hygiene products.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/09722629211043954

Linkages Between Advertising Value Perception, Context Awareness Value, Brand Attitude and Purchase Intention of Hygiene Products During COVID-19: A Two Wave Study

The relationship between sport and entrepreneurship is an emerging but constantly evolving research field, especially in recent years. This is an extremely important topic considering its positive impact on public health, social inclusion, economic development, and the promotion of intercultural exchange. This study has carried out a comprehensive and systematic review of literature on entrepreneurship and sport as tools for implementing social change. We used several bibliometric indicators in order to understand the current state of the literature, and scientific mapping analysis (keywords co-occurrence) to interpret the main theoretical areas of scientific interest. By searching the Scopus database, a total of 239 peer-reviewed articles were analyzed. The results showed the identification of six major recurring themes in the literature. For the purposes of our contribution, the recently developed line of research which considers sport as a tool for solving social problems through social change appears to be of particular importance. These data allow us to conclude that it is a highly multidisciplinary and active field. Suggestions for future lines of research and methodological limitations are discussed.

https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4720/pdf

Entrepreneurship and Sport: A Strategy for Social Inclusion and Change.

Sports watching both through offline as well as online mode has always been fancied by the sports lovers. We investigate the explicit use of social media by sports enthusiasts to show their support and solidarity for their favorite sports team or a particular sportsperson virtually i.e., via e-participation. For experimentation, we have considered the fourth Test match played between India versus Australia from 15–19 January, 2021 during Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2020–2021. During these five days period, a total of 69,965 tweets on Twitter were collected by us favoring both teams. Various statistical techniques coupled with social media analytics such as polarity and emotion analysis have been applied on the collected data to get valuable insights for our results. Our experimental results unambiguously indicate that sports enthusiast globally is using social media as important alternate media to show their support towards their favorite sports team virtually, via e-participation. The emergence and amalgamation of social media and marketing has provided newer horizons to various stakeholders i.e., both viewers and broadcasters to maximize e-participation.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on E-participation of Fans in Sports Events

Non-cricket sports leagues are rapidly rising in an emerging market like India. With the advent of web 2.0, sports marketers are using social media platforms to popularize these sports leagues. How...

Exploring the Role of Social Media Communications in the Success of Professional Sports Leagues: An Emerging Market Perspective

Consumption of video content is rising as internet data becomes more affordable. Online video sharing companies like YouTube are trying to leverage the power of short storytelling by offering non-skippable six-second advertisements (bumper ads) on its platform. This paper identifies the type of bumper ads, which lead to higher message involvement among the consumers, leading to attitude towards the brand and further purchase intentions. The study was conducted using the survey method. Data were collected from 287 respondents. The results established informative bumper ads to be the most involving. Further, the mediating role of involvement and attitude was empirically validated.

Amit Kishore

Papers

Exploring the Role of Social Media Communications in the Success of Professional Sports Leagues: An Emerging Market Perspective

Wooing the consumer in a six-second commercial! Measuring the efficacy of bumper advertisements on YouTube