Research

Global marketing confronts the digital age: Beedie research

Oct 24, 2012

In March of 2011, in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan, Atlanta-based insurance giant Aflac Inc. was forced to confront a marketing fiasco with global implications. The voice of their famous Aflac duck, comedian Gilbert Gottfried, had used his Twitter account to make tasteless jokes about the natural disaster that wiped out entire cities on Japan’s northeast coast. The online backlash against Gottfried’s social media outburst – and ultimately Aflac […]

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Social media? Get serious!

Jun 29, 2012

Understanding social media ecosystem top priority for middle managers. Time-crunched middle managers and dismissive executives should take note: Deferring social media to your organization’s marketers or techies will soon become a relic of the past. At companies large and small, social media is expanding beyond the jurisdiction of the communications, marketing or IT departments. It requires corporate level strategic attention. For that reason, according to Beedie researchers, social media sites — including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn […]

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Academic award toasts SFU branding research

Apr 28, 2012

New marketing research from SFU professor Leyland Pitt, focused on the relationship between luxury wine branding and social media, has been awarded the Outstanding Paper prize for 2012 by the Emerald Literati Network. The article, entitled “Luxury wine brand visibility in social media:  An exploratory study” and published in International Journal of Wine Business Research, garnered the top billing as part of the Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2012.

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