Guest editorial

Citation

Harridge-March, S. (2010), "Guest editorial", Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Vol. 4 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jrim.2010.32504aaa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Volume 4, Issue 1

About the Guest Editor

Sally Harridge-MarchSenior Lecturer in Marketing at Oxford Brookes University and a member of the Academy of Marketing. She was the Chair of the Special Interest Group for E-marketing of the Academy for two years. Her research interests include direct marketing, online branding and marketing, trust online, wine marketing and the use of social networks for marketing purposes. She is very interested in the practical application of technology in marketing and has supervised a very successful Knowledge Transfer Partnership (rated as outstanding). She also undertakes consultancy and commercial research.

I was delighted that Amanda Broderick, Editor of this journal, agreed to my Guest Editorship of this special issue. The topic of interactive and computer-mediated communication is one that is close to my heart and I am very pleased to introduce the papers showcased in this edition.

With today’s techno-savvy consumers, it seems that marketers are being challenged to both provide information in a digital format and encourage interaction with stakeholders. They may also need to respond to consumer comments whatever the channel of communication used. Customers and other stakeholders are, increasingly, taking charge of the virtual environment in terms of posting thoughts and attitudes towards brands and organisations. Often this is achieved by using a personal web log, or “blog”. The verb resulting from such activity is “blogging” and our first paper from Boram Park, SooKyoung Ahn and HaeJung Kim, looks at the motivations behind blogging behaviour. An interesting suggestion resulting from their findings is that e-marketers should take a different approach towards those who blog and those who read blogs. This paper provides the basis for further research in this area and I fully expect to see many more articles about blogs and bloggers in the future.

Our second contribution is from Carol Kaufman-Scarborough, Maureen Morrin and Eric Bradlow. This paper explores the interesting idea of using customers to predict sales forecasts through the use of interactive technology. Whilst “crowdsourcing” is becoming increasingly popular in terms of new product development (e.g. Walkers Crisps Do us a Flavour campaign in the UK and PepsiCo’s DewMocracy campaign for Mountain Dew), this research outlines a novel approach to determine whether customers will be able to predict the popularity of a product as well as or better than a professional retail purchaser. The results suggest that retailers should employ a panel of “expert customers” to help them predict potential sales volumes. This has implications for increased levels of profitability and better stock management.

The third paper, from Áine Dunne, Margaret-Anne Lawler and Jennifer Rowley, concerns the use of social networks by young people. The authors adopt a “uses and gratifications” perspective to explain why young people (in this case girls of 12-14) involve themselves with social networks. The paper presents some insightful findings about the type of gratifications sought and obtained which may be helpful for marketers targeting users of such sites. It may also be useful for marketers to be aware of the brand-related discussions and interactions that “tween” users are engaging in through social media.

The final paper in this issue is one from my research partner Sarah Quinton and Sally Harridge-March. This paper is also about the use of social media but this time focuses on contributors and relationships between members of forums devoted to the discussion of wine. The paper concludes that there is an increased importance of peer-to-peer recommendations based on trust established through the online relationships developed within the social networks. As a result, marketers need to be alert to the conversations that customers are having in forums about products and brands.

This special issue aims to provoke discussion about the use of interactive tools and media from a marketing perspective. All four papers centre on the greater participation of consumers in the conversations taking place in the interactive environment. These conversations might be encouraged by marketers, or indeed take place without marketers’ knowledge. These contributions suggest that marketers have much to do in utilising social media for different areas of marketing but first they need to understand how and why consumers want to involve themselves with interactive media, if they do at all.

Sally Harridge-MarchGuest Editor