Professional Market Research Articles

Designing and communicating higher education DEI strategies and tactics in a polarised political landscape

The ideas inherent in and about diversity, equity and inclusion philosophies have reached a fever pitch within and outside the halls of the academy. In some institutions, they seem like a template for reform of higher education recruiting, hiring, training and communicating practices with various audiences and stakeholders that is long overdue. In other contexts, they are an embodiment of a ‘woke’ culture that continues to espouse perspectives from left-leaning constituencies that may have ignored ordinary citizens. Unfortunately, few in-between positions seem appropriate. This paper examines the conditions that led to this stalemate and how universities and colleges are delineating their positions and communicating accordingly. We close with implications for university marketing professionals who must craft messages for internal and external audiences.

Research on Marketing Strategy of Huishan Dairy Group under the Digital Background

With the advent of the digital age, the wide application of its technology has a profound impact on the traditional marketing methods, so the marketing strategy that ADAPTS to the market has become more and more important in various industries. As an enterprise with a good reputation, Huishan Dairy Group's products are loved by the majority of consumers, but in order to occupy its own market share in today's market environment undergoing major changes, it needs to continue to carry out in-depth optimization. This study takes Huishan Dairy Group as the research object, uses SWOT analysis to discuss the group's marketing strategy under the digital background, and points out the existing problems of enterprise marketing, such as lack of digital marketing concept and system, low Internet penetration rate of digital marketing platform, and lack of digital professional marketing guidance. In addition, it puts forward optimization countermeasures and suggestions such as establishing a perfect digital marketing system, making full use of diversified digital marketing platforms, training digital marketing professionals, etc., in order to promote Huishan Dairy Group to grasp the opportunities of digital background, keep pace with The Times, and develop stably and continuously.

Educational and training innovation opportunities in the aquaculture and fisheries sector of Hungarian secondary agricultural education

Among the challenges of the aquaculture sector, the present study tries to focus on the necessary modernisation and innovation of the Hungarian sector education by strategically outlining the possibility of a niche secondary-level fisheries PILOT (experimental) training. It is obvious that the “launching” of such a shortage training level is a very complex and long-term task, but in our opinion not unfeasible. To this end, we are considering the development of a multi-stage action plan, the first milestone of which will be a thorough situation survey of the aquaculture education community. The study applies a deductive approach to specific areas of education and training within the general trends in aquaculture, covering the main traces of PILOT training in fisheries as a niche discipline. Our first paper, targeted at educators, focuses on the results of a questionnaire survey of 94 educators. Our main objective was to assess the presence of aquaculture-related knowledge content and associated methodologies in the classroom and the general digital literacy of educators. Our objectives also focus on the general digital readiness of vocational trainers and on the patterns of “professional marketing” opportunities that aquaculture professionals can express.

On the issue of designing educational programmes of applied Bachelor's degree in the Republic of Kazakhstan

Relevance. The study is relevant due to the ongoing modernization of the vocational education system in Kazakhstan, which forms the foundation of the national educational framework. Educational institutions must cultivate a skilled workforce to drive the country's economic development. The Ministry of Education has set clear requirements for educational outcomes and organizational conditions. Graduates need a comprehensive set of knowledge and skills for professional growth and market demand. Purpose. This article aims to substantiate the process of designing educational programs for applied bachelor's degrees in Kazakhstan. It focuses on creating programs that meet the Ministry's standards and prepare graduates with the necessary skills for the labour market. Methodology. The study uses methods of analysis and synthesis, classification, deduction, generalization, and comparison of approaches. These methods help identify and address key issues in designing and implementing applied bachelor's degree programs in universities. Results. The article describes the specific features and benefits of applied bachelor's degrees, analyses their impact on economic development, and identifies implementation challenges. It highlights the importance of targeted graduate training, compares different program aspects, and offers recommendations for improving professional training quality. Additionally, it discusses the legislative framework, differences between applied bachelor's degrees and technical vocational education, and presents a developed program aimed at three qualification levels. The research results provide insights into the effectiveness of these programs. Conclusions. The findings are valuable for students, educators, and policymakers, offering practical and theoretical insights to enhance teaching quality through new methods and technologies. The study supports the implementation of applied bachelor's degrees, emphasizing their role in meeting educational standards and labour market needs. Keywords: educational programme; education; applied bachelor's degree; professional competencies

Artificial Intelligence-Generated Social Media Content Creation and Management Strategies for Plastic Surgeons.

Social media platforms have come to represent integral components of the professional marketing and advertising strategy for plastic surgeons. Effective and consistent content development, however, remains technically demanding and time consuming, prompting most to employ, at non-negligible costs, social media marketing specialists for content planning and development. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the ability of presently available artificial intelligence (AI) models to assist plastic surgeons in their social media content development and sharing plans. An AI large language model was prompted on the study's objectives through a series of standardized user interactions. Social media platforms of interest, on which the AI model was prompted, included Instagram, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter). A 1-year, entirely AI-generated social media plan, comprising a total of 1091 posts for the 3 aforementioned social media platforms, is presented. Themes of the AI-generated content proposed for each platform were classified in 6 categories, including patient-related, practice-related, educational, "uplifting," interactive, and promotional posts. Overall, 91 publicly recognized holidays and observant and awareness days were incorporated into the content calendars. The AI model demonstrated an ability to differentiate between the distinct formats of each of the 3 social media platforms investigated, generating unique ideas for each, and providing detailed content development and posting instructions, scripts, and post captions, leveraging features specific to each platform. By providing detailed and actionable social media content creation and posting plans to plastic surgeons, presently available AI models can be readily leveraged to assist in and significantly alleviate the burden associated with social media account management, content generation, and potentially patient conversion.

AI Changing Marketing for Marketers

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming various industries including marketing. The use of AI in marketing has made it more efficient and effective than ever before. However, there is a growing concern that AI may soon replace marketers altogether. This research aims to investigate the impact of AI on the marketing profession. Using a qualitative research approach, data was collected through in-depth interviews with marketing professionals and experts in the field of AI. The findings reveal that AI has already had a significant impact on marketing, particularly in the areas of data analysis and personalization. AI-powered tools and algorithms can analyse large amounts of data and provide insights that marketers would not have been able to uncover otherwise. Additionally, AI can create personalized content for individuals based on their preferences and behaviours. However, the research also found that AI is not yet advanced enough to fully replace marketers. While AI can assist with certain tasks, such as data analysis and content creation, it cannot replace the creativity and human touch that marketers bring to the table. Furthermore, there are ethical concerns around the use of AI in marketing, particularly with regards to privacy and bias. Keyword- Artificial Intelligence; Marketing

Occupational Licensing and Minority Participation in Professional Labor Markets

ABSTRACTWe examine the staggered adoption of additional educational requirements (“150‐hour rule”) for Certified Public Accountants (“CPAs”) to understand the effects of occupational licensing on minority participation in professional labor markets. The 150‐hour rule increased the educational requirement for CPAs from 120 to 150 credit hours, effectively adding a fifth year of study. We find a 13% greater entry decline following the requirement's enactment for minority than nonminority CPA candidates. Our analyses of parental income and financial aid availability point to a socioeconomic status channel explaining the differential entry declines. Studying exam passing patterns, professional misconduct, and job postings we find a deterioration, or at best, no change in CPA quality following enactment.

Academic dishonesty: motivations of accounting students

Purpose: Understanding the motivations for the occurrence of academic dishonesty in university Accounting students.
 Methodology: Applying a survey based on the research by Ives et al. (2016) on 83 Accounting students from Rio de Janeiro. The Kuder-Richardson test was applied to verify the instrument's internal consistency. Subsequently, Pearson's chi-square test was performed.
 Results: The results indicate that age and gender have little influence on dishonesty, while the period students are studying has an influence; that is, the longer the length of stay, the greater the dishonesty. It is also noteworthy that the students confessed to having seen more dishonest acts than they practiced, demonstrating that it is easier to admit that they have seen other people being dishonest than to confess their dishonesty. The biggest motivations for dishonesty were the need to get good grades, fear of failing, and lack of understanding of the content and methodology used by professors.
 Contributions of the Study: This paper advances the literature and brings contributions on the subject, as it helps to understand academic dishonesty better. Observing the main motivations of students to commit dishonest acts is important for educational institutions and teachers since it helps to understand some motivations that induce students to be academically dishonest. With such knowledge, faculty, and universities can develop and implement policies and methods that encourage fairer procedures, discouraging dishonesty in the academic environment. Consequently, it will improve the quality of teaching and learning and the training of more qualified and honest workers in the professional market.

The Role of Social Media Marketing in Shaping Educational Institution Branding

This study explores how social media platforms such as Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok shape educational institutions’ branding efforts. With the rise of digital marketing, institutions increasingly rely on social media to communicate their values, enhance visibility, and engage with students, alumni, and prospective enrollees. This study analyzes how these platforms influence brand identity, credibility, and student decision-making. The methodology involves a mixed-method approach that includes case studies of renowned educational institutions in Bangladesh, such as Dhaka University, BRAC University, and North South University. Social media analytics tools such as engagement rates, impressions, and follower growth were used to measure branding success. Surveys and interviews were also conducted with marketing professionals and students to gain insights into content strategies, platform effectiveness, and engagement levels. The findings reveal that Instagram is particularly effective for visual storytelling, LinkedIn for professional networking and academic credibility, Facebook for community building, and TikTok for reaching younger audiences. However, challenges such as managing negative feedback and ensuring consistent messaging across platforms were identified as significant limitations. This study contributes to marketing and education by providing actionable strategies for educational institutions to leverage social media in branding. It offers insights for educational marketers, administrators, and researchers seeking to understand the evolving role of digital platforms in higher education branding.

Occupational Licensing and Minority Participation in Professional Labor Markets

Occupational Licensing and Minority Participation in Professional Labor Markets

Research on Image Analysis and Dynamic Early Warning Mechanism of Power Marketing Operation Site Based on SSD Networks

Abstract Safety production is an important way to ensure the personal safety of workers and the safety of national property. This project focuses on addressing the safety generation problem in the power marketing profession, designing a set of intelligent dynamic warning systems for power marketing operations. MobileNetV1 is used as the backbone feature extraction network of SSD to create a lightweight target detection network, and it is combined with OpenVINO and NCS2 neural computation bars to construct an image analysis and dynamic warning model for power operation based on the SSD MobileNetV1 algorithm. We use the images of power marketing operation sites in a city as a dataset to test and compare the constructed model with other target detection algorithms, analyzing its dynamic warning effect on power operations and exploring the effectiveness of the model’s practical application. The results show that the SSD network model can significantly improve the detection efficiency and accuracy of the dynamic early warning system for electric power operations, and its accuracy is 15.15% and 18.82% higher than that of the Faster⁃RCNN algorithm and the YOLO algorithm, respectively. The early warning system reduced the irregular behavior of electric power marketing operations by 135.71%, demonstrating the effectiveness of the SSD model in detecting and warning electric power targets. This model not only meets practical requirements but also effectively reduces the irregular production behaviors of electric power marketing operations, thereby enhancing the safety coefficient of marketing field operations.

Factors Influencing Consumer Purchasing Decision Behavior: A Case Study of Starbucks

By analyzing the influencing factors of consumer purchasing decision-making behavior, brand enterprises can gain a deeper understanding of consumers' purchasing needs, thereby better formulating and developing marketing strategies. This article defines consumer purchasing decision behavior and points out that the notification of consumer purchasing behavior under the current new situation includes strong information collection ability, personalized consumption presentation, and high consumer initiative. Taking Starbucks as a case study, the influencing factors of consumer purchasing decision behavior are analyzed. They are economic factors, social factors, organizational factors, and individual factors, and targeted marketing strategies for enterprises under the new situation are proposed, including strengthening brand image construction, improving product personality level, enhancing online marketing capabilities, and cultivating professional marketing teams.

Delivering Agile Marketing Projects: A View from Practice

Successful marketing projects are vital to most organisations to ensure their survival. The paper advocates an 'agile approach' in creating effective marketing initiatives. It underscores the necessity of clearly defined objectives and internal efficiency, addressing power issues for optimal resource allocation. Brand definition, understanding the customer base through profiling, and implementing a differentiated, segmented approach are crucial aspects. The paper recommends data gathering for analysis and leveraging technology to support these projects, all encapsulated within the 'agile approach.' The research methodology involved a survey of literature, complemented by a semi-structured group interview with experienced UK-based marketing professionals. Inductive analysis was applied to the gathered data, extracting principal themes. The outcome of this research proposes a framework for delivering 'Agile marketing projects' based on a project management 'learning' model. This structured approach contributes valuable insights for organizations seeking success in their marketing endeavors. Keywords: Marketing project, Agile approach, SMART objectives, Brand definition, Customer focus, Market segmentation, Leveraging technology

Models of Ethical Marketing Force in Indonesian Islamic Bank

This research illuminates the ethical standards governing marketing professionals within the Islamic banking sector, focusing on discouraging unethical practices for personal gain. We objectively depict the prevailing ethical landscape using field research and descriptive methodologies. Our investigation reveals that the largest Islamic Bank in Indonesia, Bank Syariah Indonesia (BSI), has instituted a comprehensive ethical framework for its marketing personnel. This framework transcends mere guidelines, embodying an ethos deeply ingrained in their professional conduct. Marketing strategies, underpinned by Islamic ethics, are guided by the tenets of faith: Shiddiq (honesty), Amanah (responsibility), Fathanah (wisdom), and Tabligh (communicative). This study offers a unique insight into the ethical marketing practices within the Islamic banking industry, contributing to the discourse on ethical standards in financial services marketing.

Quality management system in hotels

The article examines the strategic use of real estate leasing in the hotel business as an effective tool for not only providing the necessary premises, but also optimizing costs and time, contributing to the sustainable development of the hospitality industry. Special emphasis is placed on key elements of quality management such as bank guarantees, insurance, and lending, providing marketing professionals with new insights for effective advertising campaigns and customer acquisition.

From Museology to the Anthropology of Things. Training Personnel for Cultural Institutions in the Poznań Ethnological Centre

The Author briefly presents the history of the establishment and functioning of the Poznań ethnological centre from 1919 to the present day, indicating the place of museology in the curricula. Using the example of her own teaching activities, she shows how this content can be integrated into the teaching of various subjects (compulsory, optional, and projectbased courses). She describes the classes conducted and briefly presents selected projects implemented in cooperation with museums and with the participation of students. She also confronts three perspectives that are important for the preparation of future museum professionals. The first concerns the interests of students and their needs in terms of acquiring knowledge about museums, their activities, and ways of organisation. The second concerns the preparation of didactic proposals by the IAiE employees. The third is related to the needs of the professional market regarding the training of future museum employees. The article concludes with reflections on the ways and directions of training future museum staff, which should be done in consultation with the museum community to jointly plan the path of professional training in the field of museology.

Do Visual Perspectives Matter? The “Matching” Between Visual Perspectives and Psychological Distance Improves Hotel Evaluations

The present research explores the interplay of visual perspectives and psychological distance in consumer hotel evaluation. Across three studies, the results indicated that if consumers perceive a hotel to be psychologically distal, they process the hotel information more fluently and consequently evaluate the hotel more favorably when exterior pictures are provided than when interior pictures are available. On the contrary, if consumers perceive a hotel to be psychologically proximal, this effect would be reversed. The effect is driven by a “matching” between consumers’ psychological distance from the hotel (i.e., proximal vs. distant) and the types of information available (i.e., interior vs. exterior pictures) that generates a high level of processing fluency. Our findings provide actionable suggestions for hotel marketing professionals concerning how to display a hotel product with different pictures depending on its specific distance attributes.

The Agitator Supplies What the Base Demands: Trumpism Before and After Donald Trump

The fierce loyalty of Donald Trump’s base has long mystified his critics. For 8 years now, they have expressed puzzlement that his followers support him ‘despite everything’—despite his incendiary rhetoric, his misogyny, his racial prejudices, and his authoritarianism. In this paper, I argue that, in fact, Trump’s hectic agitation is precisely what his base wants. My reading of the data—including data I gathered with my collaborator, Eric Hanley, in 2016—is that Trump owes his demagogic success to the fact that he says what his followers want him to say and acts accordingly. Donald Trump, today’s agitator par excellence, supplies what his base demands. Trump, in short, is less an architect of Trumpism than its reflex. However effectively he performs in the public arena, he remains an emissary, personifying a social movement that preceded him and will survive him. And that movement, I will argue, is authoritarian in a very specific sense—driven by a wish for a domineering leader who is loyal to his partisans and hostile to their adversaries. Analytic insight into this phenomenon is drawn, below, from a range of authors, including marketing professionals and critical theorists including Erich Fromm and Theodor W. Adorno.

Assessing Treatment Burden in Pediatric Hemophilia: Validation of the Observer-Reported Child Hemophilia Treatment Experience Measure (Child Hemo-TEM)

Background: Despite treatment safety and efficacy advancements for children with hemophilia (CwH), home treatment can be complicated and burdensome. Treatment burdens are major contributing factors to adherence issues. The Child Hemo-TEM is a patient-centric outcome measure developed following the United States (US) Food and Drug Administration guidance for patient-reported outcome measure development. Designed to assess the treatment burden for CwH, the measure is a caregiver observer-reported outcome (ObsRO) measure where questions are answered by the caregiver about the child's treatment experience based on what the caregiver has seen, heard, or been told by the child. Aim: The purpose of this study was to psychometrically validate the Child Hemo-TEM ObsRO. Methods: Data was collected through a cross-sectional, web survey from a population of caregivers of CwH aged 2 to < 12 years in the US. The survey consisted of the Child Hemo-TEM, sociodemographic items, child's hemophilia medical history, and supporting items/measures required to assess the measure's psychometric properties. The survey took up to 45 minutes to complete and was administered at a single time point. To be eligible for the study, caregivers needed to be: aged ≥ 18 years; a caregiver of a male child with a diagnosis of severe to moderate hemophilia A or B, with a factor level of < 2%, with or without an inhibitor, and currently receiving either prophylactic or on-demand treatment; and living in the same residence as the child over the past 2 weeks. Recruitment was conducted by a patient advocacy group and a professional market research firm. Recruitment quotas were targeted to ensure a diverse population and mix of frequency of prophylactic treatment(s) and treatment administration type. All psychometric analyses were conducted following an a-priori statistical analysis plan, which included examination of measurement characteristics, item reduction, factor analysis, measure scoring, internal consistency, reliability, and validity. Results: Caregivers ( n=187) of CwH completed the web survey. The respondents were, on average, 37.8 years of age, mothers (84.0%), and predominantly White/Caucasian (74.3%). Twelve items were dropped from the validation-ready, 19-item measure: 5 items due to high ceiling effects at baseline (>50%) mirrored by the Rasch results and 1 item as it was highly correlated with a retained item. Further, as there were only a small number of children who self-injected, 6 items designed to assess child self-injection were removed. The remaining items underwent further psychometric testing. An exploratory factor analysis generated a single, 7-item factor. The Child Hemo-TEM was found to be internally consistent with a Cronbach's α of 0.855. A-priori validity hypotheses were adapted to match the final factor structure. Hypothesized associations were predominantly confirmed with a few exceptions. For convergent validity (Pearson's r significance set at α = 0.05), a few of the associations, although significant, were below 0.30 (Table 1). The Child Hemo-TEM was able to discriminate between levels of self-complaining about their infusions (p < 0.001), psychological stress reported by parent (p < 0.001), and ease/difficulty of their medication in its current form, among other variables. Based on psychometric findings and taking into consideration learnings from the concept elicitation during measure development, the brief, 7-item Child Hemo-TEM was finalized with 1 domain capturing information from all the hypothesized concepts of treatment concerns (3 items), adherence (1 item), physical impact (1 item), and interference with daily life (2 items) (Figure 1). A five-point Likert response scale with ranges from “Never” to “Always”, or a “Don't know” option, is used. Conclusion: The Child Hemo-TEM ObsRO has been found to be conceptually sound with adequate evidence to support its reliability and validity. Incorporation of the measure into both clinical and research settings will help assess the pediatric patient's experience of living with hemophilia as well as aid clinicians in tailoring treatments to patient characteristics and situations. Future studies are needed to assess test-retest reproducibility, sensitivity to change, and meaningful change thresholds of this new measure.

Untangling the association between COVID-19 health literacy, trust in the pandemic response, and mental distress, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland: a repeated cross-sectional study

BackgroundThe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rates of mental distress is well described. However, the contribution of poor health literacy and low levels of trust in state institutions to mental distress is less well defined. This study aimed to assess the impact of COVID-19 health literacy and trust in the pandemic response (Trust) on mental distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland. MethodsWe did this nationally representative cross-sectional survey of adult Irish residents during three study periods: from May 26 to June 17, 2020 (n=947); from July 1 to July 23, 2020 (n=995); and from Sept 5 to Sept 28, 2020 (n=972). Participants were contacted using random-digit-dialling and interviewed by a professional market research organisation (Ipsos MRBI’ about 80% via mobile phone, 20% via landline). Mental distress was assessed by the Patient Health Questionnaire Anxiety Depression Scale (PHQ-ADS), for which a score of 10 or higher indicated mental distress. Heath literacy and trust were each assessed with three questions, which defined three categories: low, moderate, and high (appendix). Descriptive analysis and multivariate (MVA) Poisson regression were conducted in STATA17, Incidence Rate Ratios (IRR) are reported. Findings2914 participants completed the survey across three study periods (median age 46 years, 1510 [51·8%] women, 1401 [48·1%] men, three [0·1%] non-binary). 804 (27·6%) of 2914 participants experienced mental distress (n=804). More women experienced mental distress than men (508 [34%] of women vs 294 [21%] of men). Mental distress was inversely associated with age (from 43% in those aged <30 years [n=232/539] to 19% in those aged >70 years [n=66/349]). Most participants had high health literacy (n=2,530, 86·8%). While health literacy was positively and significantly associated with trust, it was not associated with mental distress and it was therefore excluded from the MVA. Level of trust was captured for 2693 adults; 42·2% participants reported low trust (n=457) or moderate trust (n=679). The prevalence of mental distress was inversely associated with trust; increasing from 24% in those with high trust (n=374/1557), 30% in those with moderate trust (n=202/679), to 36% in those with low trust (n=166/457). In MVA higher rates of mental distress were associated with low trust (IRR 1·45, 95% CI 1·20–1·75; p=0·000) and moderate trust (IRR 1·24, 1·04–1·47, p=0·016) compared with high trust when adjusted for age, sex, employment status, and income,. InterpretationIn Ireland, low levels of trust in the COVID-19 pandemic response were associated with higher levels of mental distress. Although poor health literacy was associated with low levels of trust, it was not independently associated with mental distress. Inference on the nature and direction of causal effects must be cautious given the cross-sectional study design. FundingHealth Research Board.