Decision Science News

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN MARKETING (IJRM): SPECIAL ISSUES ON DIGITAL BRANDING, ENTERTAINMENT

The International Journal of Research in Marketing ( IJRM ) announces two special issues:

IJRM Special Issue on BRANDING IN A DIGITALLY-EMPOWERING WORLD
Guest Editors: Tulin Erdem (New York University), Kevin Lane Keller (Dartmouth College), Dmitri Kuksov (University of Texas at Dallas) and Rik Pieters (Tilburg University).

The International Journal of Research in Marketing invites submissions for a special issue on Branding in a Digitally Empowered World. The last decade has seen technological developments that have transformed markets and marketing. Both consumers and firms have new capabilities that they could not have even dreamed of a few short years ago (see below). Empowered consumers are meeting equally empowered firms as both groups have access to increasingly detailed information about just about anything or anyone. Consumers can choose to become as involved as they want with a brand, with their influence ranging from just posting comments and evaluations at one end of a continuum to actually determining the nature and direction of a brand at the other end. Similarly, firms can choose to become as involved as they wish with consumers, from hosting a brand web site at one end of the continuum to actively engaging and interacting with consumers in product and brand development at the other end. Many of the rules of branding are changing and many new rules are being introduced in this new digital era. This special issue of IJRM will focus on the latest thinking and research in branding that reflects the enhanced consumer and firm capabilities in a digitally-empowering world.
New consumers capabilities enable the consumers to:
Use the Internet as a powerful information and purchasing aid
Collect fuller and richer information on products, services, brands, and firms
Search, communicate, and purchase on the move
Tap into social media to share opinions and express loyalty with others
Interact actively with firms
Digitally receive ads, coupons, and other marketing materials
Easily compare prices and seek discounts

New firms capabilities enable the firms to:
Use the Internet as a powerful information and sales channel
Collect fuller and richer information about markets, customers, prospects, and competitors
Reach consumers on the move with mobile marketing
Tap into social media to amplify their brand message
Facilitate and speed external communication among customers
Send targeted ads, coupons, samples, and information to customers
Dynamically set prices to reflect different levels of supply and demand

This special issue aims to capture and publish the latest thinking on Branding in a Digitally Empowered World. Without limiting the scope of the papers to be submitted, we encourage original empirical, behavioral, analytical, or managerial work studying the following:

• How much control do firms have over their brands in this environment? How much control should they exert over their brands when consumers may want to redefine the brand? Are some of the brands really owned by the consumers and if so, what does it mean in terms of brand management?
• How should firms develop fully integrated channel and communication strategies to best reflect the wide variety of digital options? How to evaluate the consistency of messages across so many touch points in this environment? How to measure the effectiveness of an integrated branding communications campaign?
• How to capture the dynamics of brand evolution in such an environment?
• What factors affect consumer’s sense of empowerment and level of engagement with brands in general or for any particular brand?
• What are the optimal metrics and response strategies that firms should employ with social media?
• How are ads, promotions and other communications processed by consumers differently digitally as compared to their traditional counterparts?
• What are the costs and benefits of firms adopting yield pricing strategies to optimize supply and demand?

The deadline for initial submission to this special issue is March 31, 2014. The review process will feature a maximum of two rounds and final decisions will be made before April 2015. Given the limited time-window for revising papers, the editors’ aim in most cases is to make a decision on the first round. It is therefore important that submissions are as polished as possible. When submitting a paper (http://ees.elsevier.com/ijrm), authors should mention that the paper should be considered for this special issue. Inquiries can be sent to editor-ijrm@idc.ac.il.

IJRM Special Issue on THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY
Guest Editors: Jehoshua Eliashberg (University of Pennsylvania), Thorsten Hennig-Thurau (University of Münster and City University London), Charles B. Weinberg (University of British Columbia) and Berend Wierenga (Erasmus University Rotterdam).

The International Journal of Research in Marketing invites submissions for a special issue on The Entertainment Industry. Although early academic research on the entertainment industry focused on the TV and movie industries, recent work has expanded to consider such fields as home video, games, music, performing and visual arts, sports events, books, and apps. In this special issue we take a broad approach to the entertainment industry, which is characterized by three elements: it is creativity-driven, its products are experiential in nature, and, marketing has played an increasingly important, but sometimes controversial, role in research and practice.
There are many reasons for an increased interest in the entertainment industry. First, the industry has high economic importance in the global economy, with global entertainment industry revenues exceeding US$ 1.7 trillion in 2012. Second, technical innovations have changed the dynamics of traditional industries and led to the development of new ones, making entertainment a hotbed of innovation in both content creation and distribution. Technology has also dramatically changed the market scope and competitive structure from largely being locally based to now often being globally oriented, and presenting new challenges such as piracy. Third, digitization of the media has also influenced the way people consume entertainment; the industry has to adapt to consumers becoming increasingly active and networked. For example, many consumers now multi-task, use multiple platforms, and use multiple media formats (e.g., movies, games, and social media) interdependently. Fourth, the entertainment industry has high social and cultural significance. The tension between “mass culture” and “high culture,” and between global markets and local tastes, and claims such as the “internet is free” are only some of the sources of controversy and research attention.
This special issue of IJRM will focus on the latest thinking and research in the field of entertainment. Our goal is to be broad in terms of the research questions and methodologies employed and in the range of topics to be studied. In this special issue, we anticipate providing researchers with an editorial team of expert reviewers passionately devoted to the entertainment industry and readers with a focused place to find the most creative research in the field at the highest level of research quality. While we invite a broad array of research approaches and topics, as indicated above, we are particularly interested in high-quality research that has an impact on practice. Examples of topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
• The role of creativity in generating new products and distribution mechanisms
• Products and product development for entertainment
• Distribution channels, including digital channels
• Diffusion and adoption of entertainment goods, including the role of social media
• Consumer behavior, demand prediction and advertising for entertainment media
• Business models and pricing in the entertainment industry
• Managerial, organizational, and institutional issues
• Marketing across entertainment types and media formats
• The influence of mobility on entertainment
The deadline for initial submission to this special issue is May 31, 2014. The review process will feature a maximum of two rounds and final decisions will be made before November 30, 2015. Given the limited time-window for revising papers, the editors’ aim in most cases is to make a decision on the first round. It is therefore important that submissions are as polished as possible. When submitting a paper (http://ees.elsevier.com/ijrm), authors should mention that the paper should be considered for this special issue. Inquiries can be sent to editor-ijrm@idc.ac.il.