Marketing PhD Abstract Samples
Dr. Russell W
Topic: Social Media Influencers’ Impact on Consumer Buying Behaviours in the Post-COVID Era: A Systematic Analysis
Long-term lockdowns and evolving consumer tastes have substantially altered the marketing approaches of modern firms as shown by a wide range of analysed secondary literature. At the same time, the relative recency of these events limits the number of systematic analyses in this sphere conceptualising the global changes in it and suggesting new and practical strategies for professionals. This study sought to appraise the changing impact of social media influencers on consumer buying behaviours in the post-COVID era. It utilised a systematic literature review combined with quantitative customer surveys and qualitative interviews with 7 marketing specialists to address this knowledge gap. The findings strongly suggest that the scope of influencer marketing has increased after the pandemic. Instrument-wise, emerging collaboration methods included live streams and challenges as opposed to content marketing and brand campaigns utilised before the pandemic. As stated by the interviewed specialists, the increased effectiveness could also be attributed to the rise of TikTok and other new platforms that offered new influencers and communication formats and allowed many emerging brands to reach their audiences more effectively. With that being said, a larger analysis may be required to ensure that the formulated recommendations could be generalised to all industries since the sample was mainly composed of retail companies and did not represent all marketing segments.
Topic: Big Data Analytics in Predictive Marketing: Evidence from UK Manufacturing Firms
The current study sought to explore the increasing utilisation of big data analytics by manufacturing firms. This instrument allows them to predict future customer needs and develop more effective promotional strategies to reach targeted audiences with their product range and communication methods. The analysis involved case studies of several manufacturing firms utilising big data to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. The author had direct access to selected marketing performance documents in these companies as an industry professional with a history of collaboration with them in the past. This allowed them to apply statistical analysis methods to quantitative sales data and explore how the utilisation of big data analytics affected different performance indicators including sales figures, customer online engagement, and positive word-of-mouth. The findings strongly suggest that the analysed instrument has a highly positive effect on customer segmentation and targeting effectiveness while also demonstrating a mildly positive impact on several sales and engagement indicators. With that being said, the focus of the study was limited by the case study perspective with analysis primarily relying on quantitative data supported by several interviews with marketing managers from these firms. These considerations could potentially limit the generalisability of the findings to all UK manufacturing firms and inform the need for follow-up research in this sphere.
Topic: Factors Influencing Consumer Trust in e-Commerce: A Saudi Arabian Fashion Retail Perspective
The global pandemic and increasing digitalisation of fashion retail imply that many consumer relationships are mainly developed in the online domain. This changes the strategies required to build consumer trust and substantiates the need for a new holistic framework of factors influencing this process. This study sought to identify the key factors influencing consumer trust in e-commerce. Its analysis was mainly based on the surveys of Saudi Arabian fashion buyers conducted online. The design of the study can be qualified as a mixed-methods one with interviews with 5 luxury retail experts being used to adjust the model developed on the basis of secondary literature and refine the survey forms. Key insights produced by the analysis include the high identified relevance of perceived customer service, perceived quality of the provided information, perceived quality of user interface, prior experience of online purchases, and high perceived standards of privacy and security. The reputation and popularity of brands/stores were found to be a mediating factor in several explored relationships, which substantiates the need for further investigation of this element. This thesis may be recognised as a pioneer study in this sphere that can be expanded with further mixed-methods design projects expanding its scope and addressing its potential limitations.
Topic: The Use of Augmented Reality in Luxury Marketing: Perceptions of European Customers
This study sought to provide a systematic analysis of the strategies utilised in the luxury marketing segment to promote premium products using augmented reality (AR) technologies. While more and more brands and retailers embed it in their smartphone apps and website functionality, the evidence regarding the effectiveness of this communication tool and customer perceptions remains fragmented, which formed one of the research gaps this study sought to address. The analysis was based on consumer surveys of 207 European customers from several demographic groups purchasing luxury products. The findings suggest that AR technologies were effective in the cases where their utilisation enhanced usability and ease of use and supported the traditional perceptions of luxury brands such as exclusivity, uniqueness, and innovativeness. At the same time, the positive influence across the studied variables remained moderate, which implies that augmented reality marketing should be viewed as a supporting instrument in the promotion of products and services rather than the centre of modern marketing strategies. These identified implications were transformed into practical recommendations that could be potentially generalised to other contexts. With that being said, the study has also identified some gender-specific and demographics-specific moderating influences that were reflected in recommendations to practitioners.
Topic: Ethical Considerations of Marketing Personalisation and Consumer Reactions to It: Evidence from UK Customers
As GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018, and other regulations impose strict rules related to customer data handling and utilisation, more and more marketers conclude that ethical communication with consumers must go beyond these obligatory provisions to ensure customer satisfaction and avoid negative reactions to personalised communication. This study sought to identify how such strategies are perceived by UK consumers and what practical recommendations can be provided to professionals in this sphere to avoid the aforementioned adverse outcomes. The thesis relied on a mixed-methods design where survey forms were developed based on best industry practices and standards as well as several tested frameworks developed by earlier secondary studies. The final suggested model was revised using a qualitative sample of marketing experts and tested using a pilot group survey to confirm its validity and reliability and a full-scale follow-up survey including 402 UK customers. The results suggest that positive response can be obtained in cases where such communication is based on the customer-centric approach, provides full clarity regarding consumer data protection and privacy precautions, and avoids excessive personalisation that may be deemed offensive and increases the risks of technology-related failures. The latter implications strongly suggest that the current utilisation of still imperfect AI systems for marketing personalisation may not be recognised as a positive practice, which was reflected in the formulated recommendations.
Topic: Exploring Brand Loyalty Antecedents in the Post-COVID Era: A Comparative Study across Three Industries
As noted by multiple studies, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to major shifts in consumer preferences across different industries. These changes include the increasing preference for online shopping, the growing significance of digital branding, and the greater significance of two-way digital communication that affects the mechanisms of brand loyalty formation. With this sphere changing in multiple ways, new companies seeking to build a strong online presence and achieve superior customer commitment and trust lack recommendations on how these results can be achieved. Moreover, evidence varies across different contexts and industries, which further increases the complexity regarding the universal methods of brand loyalty formation that can be utilised by most brands in the post-COVID era. This study sought to address these knowledge gaps by identifying specific antecedents leading to these desired outcomes to construct a framework reflecting these relationships that can be utilised by contemporary organisations to improve the effectiveness of their branding efforts.
To address the posed research questions, the author of this thesis reached 507 customers from three different industries, namely food retail, hospitality, and electronics. The questionnaire was based on established frameworks and theories in the field including Kapferer’s brand prism and Keller’s brand equity model. The findings suggested that loyalty in the post-COVID period was primarily influenced by such factors as digital engagement, emotional connection, and perceived social responsibility that had a statistically significant impact in all three industries. The author utilised these insights to create a revised branding model that was offered to several partnering organisations reporting positive results in the two months following its practical application.
Topic: Analysing Consumer Behaviour towards Subscription-Based Services: A Cross-Generational Study of UK Customers
Subscription-based models of service provision have been developing in the previous decade at an ever-growing pace in multiple spheres ranging from office software such as Microsoft Office to entertainment platforms such as HBO and Netflix. On the one hand, these strategies are perceived as a way of making the use of certain offerings a low-involvement decision due to reduced costs of ownership and the ability to easily stop using them at any moment. On the other hand, multiple past studies identified increased risks associated with this vision since customers could cancel their subscriptions with zero switching costs, which increased their interest in competitor offerings and made it difficult to retain the existing customer database in the long-term perspective. As suggested by the author of this study, some of the differences in consumer behaviours could be explained by their demographic differences including age. Hence, this thesis aimed to analyse how four generations of UK customers perceived subscription-based services and how their attitudes influenced their customer behaviours including the adoption of such offerings and their loyalty towards them.
A mixed-methods explanatory sequential approach was selected to answer these questions. First, the author collected data from 597 UK customers belonging to Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, and Generation Z groups. Their perceptions were explored as dependent and independent variables within linear regression models as a part of the quantitative data analysis. Second, 20 participants (5 from each group) were selected on the basis of their willingness to join the second phase involving qualitative interviews clarifying additional psychological aspects of the studied behaviours. The findings suggest that older customers generally demonstrate greater reluctance to accept new subscription-based services while staying loyal to them after such adoption. On the contrary, Generation Y and Z consumers were more open to experimentation and were more difficult to retain. These considerations informed the recommendations to marketers provided in the concluding sections of this thesis.
Topic: Assessing the Effectiveness of Content Marketing Strategies on Customer Retention Rates in Saudi Arabian Luxury Retail
Content marketing is a powerful instrument of pull-based promotion drawing customers towards brands and maintaining their loyalty by continuously offering new valuable information and building strong emotional connections with them. While its effectiveness was confirmed across a variety of industries, the existing evidence regarding its utilisation in the luxury segment of Middle Eastern countries remains limited. These states represent rapidly developing markets and are characterised by an increasing interest in premium purchases, which informs the need to suggest viable marketing to ensure good retention rates. This thesis aimed to address this gap by exploring the impact of different content strategies, types of content, and culture-specific communication elements on the analysed dependent variables. To answer these questions, the study utilised an explanatory sequential design combining quantitative data collected from 318 Saudi Arabian customers with 14 follow-up qualitative interviews.
The performed statistical and thematic analyses revealed that luxury consumers from this region expected value alignment, culturally relevant storytelling techniques, high-quality materials, regular updates, personalised content, and several other antecedents in order to develop brand loyalty and long-term interest. In most cases, these elements were expected as a prerequisite for physical contact with specific products in stores and the emergence of purchase decisions according to interviewee statements. These considerations suggest that luxury brands interested in the Saudi Arabian context need to incorporate such content strategies into their marketing campaigns to ensure superior retention and brand loyalty.
Topic: Exploring Strategies for Enhancing Employee Engagement in Hybrid Work Environments: Comparative Analysis of Three UK Information Technology Companies
The popularity of hybrid work environments has substantially increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic forcing millions of workers to remote and hybrid schemes and giving a lot of companies the opportunity to test them in practice. With this trend being supported by legislators, many firms have to accept the new status quo and adjust to the challenges and opportunities associated with it. One of the main challenges in this sphere is linked with employee engagement described by such established theories as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the Kahn Model, and the Job Demands-Resources model. Unfortunately, evidence related to hybrid work environments and strategies that can be utilised to achieve positive results in this scenario remains limited with recent studies providing contrasting statements reflecting both positive and negative aspects of such work arrangements. This thesis utilised a case study approach based on an embedded design to explore how three UK information technology companies implemented hybrid work environments, what strategies they used to stimulate employee engagement, and how these tools influenced the engagement levels of their workforce.
The sample of this project included 508 staff members who were asked to appraise their lived experiences related to hybrid work schemes and the strategies used by their organisations to help them adjust to this concept. At the same time, 5 interviews per company were conducted with human resource management specialists to obtain a more balanced understanding of the problems emerging during such transformations. The findings revealed a number of specific strategies including personalised recognition, the elimination of technology access disparities, and social isolation reduction that contributed to employee engagement levels in all three companies. The substantial sample size and similarity of evidence from the participating organisations suggest that these results may be generalised to other information technology organisations.
Topic: Analysing the Influence of Transformational Leadership on Individual and Collective Innovation in Medium-Sized Firms: Towards a New Conceptual Model
Transformational leadership is widely acknowledged as one of the best leadership styles for ensuring superior staff performance and other positive organisational outcomes. With that being said, the evidence exploring the impact of these practices on individual and collective innovation remains inconsistent. On the one hand, some scholars associate it with the cultivation of innovative cultures that have many shared elements with transformational leadership. On the other hand, the direct contribution of specific practices such as trust-building, promotion of authenticity, personal recognition, inspirational communication or intellectual stimulation remains largely overlooked in existing research. Moreover, no direct comparisons between the impact of these instruments on individual and collective innovation in medium-sized firms have been performed before this study. Its author aims to develop a new conceptual model reflecting these complex relationships that can be applied by such organisations to ensure superior organisational outcomes.
This study adheres to an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design where 304 specialists taking part in an online survey were asked to answer questions related to their perceptions of transformational leadership in their medium-sized organisations and their innovative activities. This data was processed using structural equation modelling (SEM) to identify statistically significant relationships between these independent variables and individual and collective innovation as dependent variables. 13 follow-up interviews were used to gain further insights into these links. The findings suggest that the majority of the analysed transformational leadership practices had a strong positive effect on individual innovation. However, only two elements, namely inspirational communication and supportive leadership influenced collective innovation. The revised conceptual model was offered to three partnering organisations for two-month testing with generally positive results, which suggests its potential generalisability to other medium-sized firms.
Topic: Examining the Resilience Strategies of UK-Based Family-Owned Businesses: Lessons from COVID-19
Business resilience has been a highly popular topic in light of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting most industries and exposing thousands of firms to unprecedented systemic risks. While these studies provided multiple unique insights into the ways how these companies handled uncertainty and major challenges, there exists a research gap associated with family enterprises. As noted by multiple scholars, these firms are especially vulnerable to large-scale market crises due to their limited resources, reduced capability to diversify into multiple spheres, risks of internal conflicts between relatives, and more complex roles and structural hierarchies. These factors can hinder the development of organisational resilience and make it more difficult for such companies to survive major crises. This study aimed to investigate how family-owned businesses in the UK handled the pandemic and what lessons they could share to help other practitioners build stronger preparedness for such challenges.
From a methodological standpoint, the study relied on qualitative data collected from 19 business owners and managers of family-owned businesses. Their insights were processed using thematic analysis. The key identified resilience strategies involved strong interpersonal relationships in both internal and external dimensions, transparent communications with employees and customers, the presence of strong family values shared by all team members, and the availability of resources reducing short-term threats to firm survival. Since the sample size of the study may be viewed as limited, the formulated recommendations may be generalisable to other UK family-owned companies operating in the same regulatory and market environment.
Topic: Understanding the Role of Marketing Communication in Shaping Consumer Attitudes towards Wearable Technologies from a Fitness Enthusiasts’ Perspective
With wearable technologies gaining popularity among thousands of fitness enthusiasts, more and more firms seek to enter this lucrative market. This involves the use of marketing communication forming attitudes towards brands and the products they offer. However, there exist several gaps in modern research related to how such companies can specifically target fitness enthusiasts as a particular customer group highlighting its unique needs and motivations and how promotional messages impact customer attitudes towards wearable technologies. Established theories in the field such as the technology acceptance model (TAM) or the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) primarily focus on the dissemination of innovation and product features leading to large-scale adoption and purchase decisions. Yet, they fail to conceptualise the impact of marketing communication on attitudes towards wearable technologies, which represents another gap this study seeks to address. This study aimed to analyse the strategies used by brands targeting fitness enthusiasts to identify the most effective instruments for shaping positive perceptions of the analysed products.
To address the posed research questions, the thesis employed an explanatory sequential design where 298 fitness enthusiasts were asked to assess their attitudes towards different wearable technologies and share their responses to different types of marketing communication strategies via an online survey. This quantitative data was processed via statistical analyses to identify correlations between specific instruments and the analysed outcomes. Afterwards, 20 follow-up interviews with members of this sample were conducted to expand the understanding of such relationships. The findings suggest that such techniques as influencer endorsements, community-based marketing, and social media success stories and reviews produced the best effects from the standpoint of forming positive attitudes among the targeted audiences.