Legal immigration decisions in the current political climate are a quagmire. Rising tensions and changing policies around immigration in Canada have created an environment of heightened uncertainty and information gaps. Immigrant influencers represent a mechanism to overcome some challenges faced by potential migrants; however, they remain under-researched. This paper describes the professionalization journey of immigrant influencers in Canada. Using an interpretative phenomenological approach, twenty-one semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with Canada-based Latin American immigrant social media influencers. Their cultural rationales and outlooks provide evidence to construct a professional marketing journey. Implications, institutional impacts and future research are discussed.

This paper explores an authentic way for brands to connect with the non-binary community, an understudied and underserved audience. With a call for better representation, this study is the first to investigate what role non-binary social media influencers (SMIs) may play in filling this gap. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, non-binary social media users were interviewed on their perceptions, thoughts, and feelings of non-binary SMIs. Three superordinate themes were discovered: (1) Motivations for following non-binary SMIs, (2) Popularity Factors of non-binary SMIs, and (3) Representation of the community through non-binary SMIs. The findings may be paired with existing literature to provide a basis for future research on influencer marketing to the non-binary community.

While there is a fair amount of research on consumer disposal, there is scant research on value in disposition and a need for more research on the role of social media in the consumer disposal decision-making process. This research provides insights into how consumers create value-in disposal through social media 'closet cleanout' pages on Instagram. Through a grounded theory approach, interviews with Instagram closet cleaners reveal how value-in disposition is enacted using Holbrook's (1998) classification of value. The findings show the multidimensional nature of value in digital disposal and empirically substantiate the enduring nature of Holbrook's (1998) value conceptualization.

Social media influencers (SMIs) are immensely popular and act as cultural gatekeepers for beauty. While advertisers commonly believe that "beauty sells," this study asks (1) what types of beauty do SMIs depict and how does it compare to that portrayed in fashion magazines over thirty years ago? (2) as cultural gatekeepers what cultural values do SMIs depict and how are they related to the types of beauty? And (3) what are Generation Z's (Gen Z) perceptions of the types of beauty depicted by beauty SMIs? These questions are answered through a content analysis of the top-100 beauty influencers and interviews with 20 Gen Z consumers analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis The study found that standard beauty ideals are still valuable when used by SMIs, but the weight of each type is more fluid and SMIs can flow between more than one. SMIs are also helping to grow new or nonstandard beauty ideals, categorized as "other." The study proves extant knowledge evolves and adapts to this new revolutionary digital format and highlights future possible paths for the future of Gen Z beauty advertising.

This paper serves to understand the influences of parents’ strategies on children’s e-commerce purchase influence via co-shopping and consumer socialization. As children are the original and perhaps most powerful online influencers understanding children’s influence is paramount to a successful e-commerce business. An exploratory qualitative study of 20 North American mothers with children between the ages 11–16 was conducted and data was analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Parents strategize children’s influence on e-commerce co-shopping through the techniques of promising, negotiating and educating and each approach has its own sub techniques such as wish lists, half and half purchasing and personal credit cards. This study shows the unique ways in which parents influence their children's e-commerce research and extends the findings on co-shopping from physical stores to the virtual arena. This study reveals valuable insights into how e-tailers can harness the influence of children on e-commerce purchases and mothers’ responses to them. This is the first study analyse parental strategies to children’s e-commerce purchases in the modern Internet arena.

Purpose The relationship between musicians and the music industry has often been depicted as a dichotomy between creativity and commerce with musicians conflicted between their roles as artists and their roles as marketers of sound. Recently, marketing researchers have problematized this dichotomy and suggested musicians perceive these roles as inevitable and indivisible. However, the processes of how musicians market their sound to the industry gatekeepers remain unclear. This study seeks to find the key industry gatekeepers for musicians and how musicians sell their personal sound to them. Design/methodology/approach Using an interpretative phenomenological approach, ten interviews with professional musicians across different music genres provided insight into the strategies musicians use to market their sound to industry gatekeepers. Findings In total, three key gatekeepers and the five strategies that musicians use to sell their sound are identified. The gatekeepers are record labels, other musicians and consumers. Musicians sell their sound to these gatekeepers through the externally directed strategies of using social media to build relationships, defining their personal sound through genre and creating a unique sound, and through the internally directed strategies of keeping motivated through sound evolution and counting on luck. Research limitations/implications The findings are limited by the small number of musicians interviewed and the heterogeneous representation of music genres. Originality/value The study contributes to theoretical understandings of how musicians as cultural producers market their sound in a commercial industry.

Academics' use of social media platforms is widely recognized and often understood as an extension of traditional academic practice. However, this understanding does not account for academics' use of pseudonymous Twitter accounts. We used a combination of computational and human-driven methods to examine the activity of 59 anonymized, self-identified academics on Twitter. Our computational analysis identified five broad topics: discussing academic life, discussing British news and affairs, discussing everyday life, surviving lockdown, and engaging with academic Twitter. Within these broad topics, we identified 24 more specific codes, most of which were concentrated in individual topics, with some cross-cutting codes. These codes demonstrate how the pseudonymous accounts considered in this study can be considered "authentically academic" even if they do not conform with widespread expectations of academic social media use.

For both marketing professionals and researchers, what is shiny and new continues to captivate. The latest ‘it’ thing that marketers are gravitating towards is shoppable video where brands and retailers emphasize, entertain and engage consumers with mobile content that is directly ‘shoppable.’ In this new temporal and spatial interactive context, this study dissects the informative content of shoppable videos to develop an initial and comprehensive understanding of mobile shoppable videos. A content analysis of 200 shoppable videos utilizing emotional soft-sell type appeals, utilitarian hard-sell type appeals and humor appeals indicates that utilitarian-focused hard-sell shoppable videos dominate this new landscape thus creating a mobile shopping experience that relies on a hard-sell approach. Under an evolutionary perspective, the content of mobile shoppable videos or ‘digital direct-response ads’ was then compared to the content of direct-response infomercials to account for the modernization bias of digital marketing and explore how the informativeness of shoppable videos evolves and adapts over time. Findings suggest that mobile-designed creative executions adapt the hard-sell standard and feature significantly fewer mentions of price, special offers and guarantees, new ideas, and company research as they contextually adapt. It shows in the future-obsessed digital arena, old and dreary formats can conceptually and practically inform ‘next generation’ ‘revolutionary’ formats, which provides a foundation for future research into mobile shoppable video and updates marketing best practices.

Purpose Luxury brands seek to differentiate themselves from competitors by engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. Although many luxury brands participate in CSR activities, it is unclear if luxury brands communicate these CSR activities to consumers. Therefore, this study aims to explore two questions: are luxury jewelry brands communicating CSR (including women’s empowerment) in their advertising? And how should luxury jewelry brands communicate CSR messages in their advertising? Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a content analysis of luxury jewelry print advertisements and in-depth interviews with 20 female jewelry consumers analyzed using grounded theory to construct the luxury brand CSR advertising strategies theory. Findings Very few (3%) of print advertisements contain CSR messages, including femvertising and the theory presents four paths for brands to consider when promoting CSR practices, namely, ethical sourcing, cause-related marketing product, a signal of product care and quality and signal of an authentic relationship with the consumer. Practical implications The model provides four potential CSR advertising strategies and guidelines luxury jewelry brands can use to create successful advertising campaigns. Originality/value Luxury jewelry advertising has not been empirically examined and the study fills gaps in the understanding of luxury brands’ communication strategies. It adds to the knowledge and theorizing of the use and appropriateness of CSR appeals in a luxury brand context.

Purpose This study aims to explore the perceptions and reactions of men, who participate in a female-dominated online consumption space. It looked at the process of men, (re)negotiating their digital gendered identity on Pinterest. Design/methodology/approach A grounded theory-light approach was taken. Data were collected through 21 one-on-one semi-structured interviews with male Pinterest users. Subsequently, data were extensively coded and analyzed for the key themes and patterns. Findings Three core categories emerged, which speak to the ways men account for their practices on Pinterest as autonomous online agents. These categories were: awareness of Pinterest as a feminized digital space; limited sociality due to the solitary use of Pinterest (the exception being when collaborating with an intimate partner); and performed identities (k = 4) serving to justify the men’s activities on a female-dominated social networking site. Research limitations/implications The findings establish a firm theoretical basis for understanding male Pinterest users as autonomous online agents. However, reflective of this relatively small, exploratory qualitative project, the process-based interview questions did not render, particularly, long or rich narratives. Future qualitative research might endeavor to ask deeper, more open-ended questions. Originality/value This is an original study of men’s use of Pinterest. Research on the identity projects of men entering fields traditionally occupied by women and coded as feminine is established, there is a lack of understanding of how gender identity is (re)constructed digitally, especially on social media.

Scholarly inquiry within the domains of social commerce has grown rapidly and seems destined to be a goldmine of future research opportunities. However, it is now time to reflect and assess these independent and spiraling contributions using a meta-theoretical approach. This captures and establishes the similarities occurring concurrently within the domains and highlights the linkages between them. This produces a firmer conceptual underpinning for future first-order theory building in social commerce and highlights the need to rethink fundamental concepts, definitions, and traditional research approaches.

The evolutionary perspective is applied to e-tailing in an attempt to capture and assess its past and projected future evolution. In the dynamics of e-tailing's evolutionary change, a four-phase pattern of process is uncovered. It shows the e-tailing 'revolution' was part of a longer evolutionary process. The findings and implications are integrated and applied with the evolutionary literature to offer insights into e-tailing's future development, practical implications for each phase, its effect on the wider distribution channels and future research possibilities.

Attempts to break new ground by examining the motivations, obstacles, various organizational and decision‐maker traits associated with internationalization, and factors aiding retailers′ performance in overseas markets by interview survey in 42 companies. Investigates possible inter‐relationships between the factors promoting retailer internationalization. Results show the structure of the proposed determinants is more complex than that suggested in previous studies. The findings represent an initial starting‐point for theorizing and suggest many areas for future research.

This paper aims to draw together the largely non‐empirical and fragmented literature on motives for retailer internationalization (RI), introduce new empirical data based upon a survey of UK‐based international retailers, and examine the underlying structure of RI motives. Four factors were identified and those relating to the perceived international appeal and innovativeness of the retail offering and growth orientated and proactive motives were found to be the most important. Analysis revealed a more complex structure than previous dichotomous motive groupings and similarities with those found in export marketing studies. This, and the subsequent implications, are useful to both academics and retail practitioners.

Retailer internationalisation (RI) is lacking in detailed empirical research. What is available ignores the critical factors important to the success of retailers operating internationally. Consequently, this exploratory study attempts to unearth various factors, labelled Differential Firm Advantages (DFA), vital to the smooth performance and competitive differentiation of international retail operations. The nature and attributes of DFAs, with specific reference to retailing, are reviewed and subsequent survey results reveal certain DFAs can be regarded as prerequisites for retailers operating in international markets. The underlying structure of differential advantages is also examined, giving the study a further unique dimension. Performance in international markets appears to depend upon the balanced integration of various compatible DFAs. Indeed past experiences show certain UK‐based international retailers have had problems in achieving this equilibrium.

Between 1900 and 1920, postcards were produced and sent for almost every kind of promotion. Postcards were delivered rapidly — often on the same day within London and in many other urban centres. The ephemeral nature of postcards means that many varieties have disappeared, but enough examples remain from the millions produced and sent to show how postcards were used for business promotions. There is also evidence of the fashions and tastes of advertisers of a vast range of products and services.