Browsing by Subject "Corporate image"
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Item A content analysis of animal spokes-characters in print advertisement(Texas Tech University, 2003-08) Stallard, Tiffany DawnWe are all familiar with spokes-character advertisements. Our mothers fed us baby food from bottles featuring the Gerber Baby, and we now eat foods promoted by the Keebler Elves and the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Spokes-characters, also referred to as trade characters, have been used in advertising in the United States for over 100 years. These colorful characters help customers remember advertisements and branded products, thereby creating a relationship between advertiser and consumer. Spokes-characters are a little researched genre of advertising. There is even less research that exists on the use of animal spokes-characters. Because so many spokes characters are animals, this research study will analyze those characters by type and purpose.Item The effects of advertising and publicity on corporate reputation and sales revenue: 1985-2005(2007) Kim, Kyung-ran; Drumwright, Minette E.With the increasing call for accountability of significant marketing communication spending, quantifying and measuring the contribution of marketing communication to market performance is increasingly a requirement for sustainability in all management practices. In addition, the resource-based view (RBV) suggests that a firm's marketing communication creates intangible market-based assets and that these assets strengthen a firm's market and financial performance. Recent developments of the market-based assets theory focus on corporate reputation as an intangible market-based asset, suggesting that a favorable reputation is an intangible asset that increases a firm's performance. This study examined the effect of advertising and publicity on corporate reputation and market performance and hypothesized that a firm's advertising and publicity generated favorable corporate reputations and high levels of sales revenues in certain firms. Hypotheses were tested by a time-series analysis using the panel data of 18 companies over a 21-year period from 1985 to 2005. The results indicated that advertising and publicity have significant effects on corporate reputation for certain companies. Other variables, such as a firm's dividend yield to investors, market value, diversification, and profitability were significantly related to assessments of corporate reputation for certain companies, but the direction of the relationship varied from company to company. For example, as expected, low dividend yields induce high assessments of corporate reputation for certain companies. A firm's current market value also affects assessments of a firm's reputation. More diversified companies yield lower corporate reputations for certain companies. Regarding the relationship between marketing communication and sales revenues, advertising and publicity have significant effects on sales revenues for some companies. A firm's R&D expenditures, the focus of the firm, and firm size also showed a significant positive relevance to sales revenues for certain companies.Item How the mass media influence perceptions of corporate reputation: exploring agenda-setting effects within business news coverage(2004) Carroll, Craig Eugene; McCombs, Maxwell E.This dissertation investigates the broad assertion that agenda-setting theory can explain corporate reputation as a media effect. First, the study examined the impact of media visibility on name recognition of firms. The firm’s appearance in the news had a stronger effect on the firm’s standing among the public than either advertising expenditures or the news releases. Second, the study examined the impact of the favorability of news coverage on the public image of the firm, revealing that the two are correlated. Third, the study examined the impact of specific topics that co-occurred with the firm in the news on the topics that the public associate with the firm cognitively. The amount of media coverage devoted to an attribute was correlated with the attribute being one about which respondents said they were highly knowledgeable. There was a direct correspondence between the amount of media coverage devoted to executive performance and workplace environment and the use of these attributes by respondents for describing the firm’s reputation. In the case of social responsibility, the relationship was negative. The study also identified two other types of corporate associations within the news: the one-to-many and the many-to-one. The 'one-to-many' association was when news coverage concentrated on one particular attribute, yet respondents formed a number of other reputation associations about the firm. The 'many-to-one' effect was just the opposite. It occurred when there was a high degree of news coverage related to a number of reputation topics, yet the public’s description of the firm converged on another attribute. Fourth, the study examined the impact of how the favorability of these topics – discussed in the context of news about a specific firm – affected the public’s feelings about these aspects of the firm. This hypothesis was not supported. A final hypothesis concerned priming, which has been generally regarded as a consequence of the media’s agenda-setting. The study examined the degree to which the overall agenda of reputation topics emphasized in the news prime the public to structure definitions of corporate reputation in general. This hypothesis was not supported.Item When others control your reputation: outsourcing organizational impression management(2003) Dickson, Kevin Eugene; Davis-Blake, AlisonThis study examined the relationship between the outsourcing of organizational impression management activities and the effectiveness of this work. Organizational impression management work, as defined in this study, was work that sought to improve the reputation of the organization. The study examined several possible indicators of the effectiveness of organizational impression management work: changes in reputation, the flow of key organizational resources, and the client’s (outsourcer’s) perceptions of outsourcing effectiveness. Data were collected on private colleges using several archival sources and a survey of chief public relations officers. This research focused on two factors that are likely to influence outsourcing effectiveness: the nature of the task that is being outsourced and the nature of the relationship between the client and the agency (provider of outsourced services). The study hypothesized that when the task was strategic in nature, outsourcing would be less effective than completing the task internally. This hypothesis was partially supported. The study hypothesized that when the task was tactical in nature, outsourcing would be more effective than internal completion; this hypothesis was also partially supported. The study also hypothesized that outsourcing would be more effective when there were long relationships between clients and agencies, clients used limited number of agencies simultaneously, and outsourcing intensity was low. The hypothesis for the duration of relationships between clients and agencies was supported. However, the hypotheses for the number of agency partnerships and the outsourcing intensity were generally not supported.