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Rural revitalization refers to systematically promoting products and services to individuals residing in rural regions for marketing. It is a branch of marketing that specifically targets those living in more remote places. An organization’s data-driven insights, collaborative culture, adaptive systems, and developing technology may all be a part of a digital fusion strategy, which is an all-encompassing approach. A digital strategy outlines the company’s steps to adopt and use digital technologies to achieve its objectives. Data Fusion Marketing leverages data from several sources depending on the campaign goal. The challenging characteristics are water pollution caused by agricultural production, animal manure affecting the quality of rural water resources in rural revitalization and lack of collaboration among different organizations related to planning for development strategy in marketing. Hence, in this research, the Digital Fusion-enabled Internet of Things (DF-IoT) has been designed to help the marketing of development strategy in driving rural revitalization through the information age. Global economic integration cannot exist apart from national economic development integration, and developing marketing in economic integration cannot live apart from the composition of the rural revitalization unit. Economic integration and development in DF-IoT must be improved to prioritize rural regeneration and push for multi-cell integration of regional growth in marketing and domains of development strategy, with the expectation that they would serve as models for top-notch growth and suggestions for future strategic routes for rural revitalization. The experimental analysis of DF-IoT outperforms the development strategy for rural revitalization in terms of performance, accuracy, error rate, classification error and efficiency.

The traditional Sznajd model, as well as its Ochrombel simplification for opinion spreading, is applied to marketing with the help of advertising. The larger the lattice, the smaller the amount of advertising is needed to convince the whole market.

In the context of an extension of Axelrod's model for social influence, we study the interplay and competition between the cultural drift, represented as random perturbations, and mass media, introduced by means of an external homogeneous field. Unlike previous studies [J. C. González-Avella et al., Phys. Rev. E72, 065102(R) (2005)], the mass media coupling proposed here is capable of affecting the cultural traits of any individual in the society, including those who do not share any features with the external message. A noise-driven transition is found: for large noise rates, both the ordered (culturally polarized) phase and the disordered (culturally fragmented) phase are observed, while, for lower noise rates, the ordered phase prevails. In the former case, the external field is found to induce cultural ordering, a behavior opposite to that reported in previous studies using a different prescription for the mass media interaction. We compare the predictions of this model to statistical data measuring the impact of a mass media vasectomy promotion campaign in Brazil.

Australian government offered a number of commercialization grants to businesses from 2009 to 2014. The grants were to support companies and innovators during the commercialization phase of their products and ideas. Focussing on the small firms that are supported by the program, we find that the grant recipient firms tend to invest in capital and research and development (R&D) in larger amounts than a similar comparison group. These firms also experience a faster growth in turnover and a higher probability of exporting, patenting and registering for trademarks. Overall, the program seems to have had a positive impact on firm productivity and innovation activity.

In many rural and remote communities, residents have traditionally relied on jobs in natural resource-based industries. Over the years, employment has been steadily reduced due to changes in these industries. Both the communities, faced with declining populations as a result, and the residents are examining the potential of small business to create economic development. However, these locations create challenges for small business operators. Some communities experience accessibility and transportation issues and often lack standard business infrastructure. At the same time, the very nature of these rural areas can become components of a marketing strategy. This paper will examine three conceptualizations of rural and the commodification process and propose a framework for positioning the concept of rural as part of a marketing strategy. Three case studies from a rural region in Canada will be presented and analyzed within this framework. The paper concludes with recommendations for rural businesses, communities and governments and other interested parties within the context of rural economic development.

This study explores gendered lending and marketing practices of start-up capital to women entrepreneurs in South Africa. A multi-method research design, comprising of 6 in-depth interviews with experts, and a survey of 50 women entrepreneurs was adopted using convenience and snowball sampling techniques, respectively. The findings revealed that women entrepreneurs are experiencing gendered discriminatory practices embedded in lending practices used by financial institutions, thereby discouraging them to venture into non-traditional industries. Whilst financial providers may know their products well, many emerging women entrepreneurs in South Africa may find it difficult and costly to obtain information on the thousands of financial products available. Hence, women entrepreneurs resort to taking greater risks than necessary in order to get their businesses off the ground. Educating women on financial matters is extremely important if South Africa is to benefit fully from the untapped entrepreneurial talent that women possess. The study adds voice to the discriminatory lending practices faced by women entrepreneurs in developing countries. Future research could explore the feasibility of establishing a financial institution which caters specifically for the needs of women.

This case deals with the strategies adopted by CavinKare Private Limited to serve the low income consumers in India. Chik brand of CavinKare established its leadership in rural markets and emerged as the second largest selling shampoo brand. The factors contributing to the success of CavinKare were (a) keen understanding of rural markets, (b) focus on innovation, (c) development of affordable products, (d) low cost operations, and (e) extensive distribution and access. The study of CavinKare highlights the business strategies organizations can use for the successful exploitation of opportunities present in the low income markets.

Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes: Current Asian Perspectives.

A Crisis in the Development of Antibiotics.

The Marketing of Unapproved Stem Cell Products: An Industry-wide Challenge.

Draining the Goodwill of Science – The Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing Industry in East Asia.

Biodiesel – From Lab to Industry.

The Appearance and Development of Commercial Laboratories in China.

Cord Blood Banking – To Go Public or Stay Private.

Open Source – The Future of Drug Discovery.

VACCINES – Where are we headed?

Leveraging on External Expertise.

InDex Pharmaceuticals granted Japanese patent for novel treatment of steroid-resistant inflammation.

RCC announces marketing partnership with ViruSure for India.

InteRNA Technologies receives notice of allowance for miRNA sequences of its lead pre-clinical product.

Mederi Therapeutics signs exclusive agreement with Farouq, Maamoun, Tamer & Co. to distribute the new Stretta(R) and Secca(R) Systems in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

BAC and GE Healthcare collaboration wins industry award.

AUSTRALIA – HIV trial validates novel drug mechanism.

SINGAPORE – IBN engineered artificial human livers for drug testing and discovery.

SINGAPORE – Scientists at A*STAR's Genome Institute of Singapore catch evolving germs and cancer cells early.

SINGAPORE – DocDoc and Chatter Buzz Media enter strategic partnership to launch Asia's first healthcare Content Marketing Network.

UNITED STATES – New method developed to expand blood stem cells for bone marrow transplant.

UNITED STATES – Fibrocell/UCLA study on human skin cells yields promising results.

UNITED STATES – Metal stents are effective treatment for blocked bile ducts.

UNITED STATES – Pain drug may prevent preemie lung damage.

UNITED STATES – Gene x3 helps corn grow in acidic soil.

UNITED STATES – Cancer Genetics selected by Gilead Sciences, Inc. to provide clinical trial services for chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

UNITED KINGDOM – DaTSCAN™ SPECT imaging demonstrates impact on the diagnosis of patients with clinically uncertain dementia.

AFRICA – Failing vaccine strategies need to be revamped.

AFRICA – RegeneCure's membrane implant shows 40% accelerated healing time of severe bone fractures.

Suzhou Amerigen Pharmaceuticals Co., enters into a marketing and distribution agreement with Sinochem Jiangsu Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

Japanese Encephalitis vaccine achieves WHO prequalification.

Hutchison MediPharma enters cancer therapy collaboration with Lilly.

Miraculins to negotiate licensing rights for diabetes test in China.

Pall opens new Life Sciences Centre of Excellence in Shanghai.

Guo Guangchang enters the field of medical tumour treatment.

WuXi AppTec receives CLIA certification for its genomics clinical laboratory.

Agilent Technologies Thought Leader award supports Dr Guibin Jiang, Chinese Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences.

The literature on advertising and promotions can be divided in two categories. A first group of models assume that promotion contributes (positively) to the goodwill towards the product, and a second group assumes that promotions reduce that goodwill. In this paper we build a differential game model where the impact of promotion on goodwill is endogenously determined. We conduct a comparative dynamics exercise. An unexpected result is that an increase in the sensitivity of sales to goodwill can lead to a decrease of the equilibrium level of sales.

The aim of the paper is to study some important differences between (classical) non-cooperative and (modern) cooperative supply chain management. For this purpose, the paper develops a differential game model involving operations and marketing activities that are performed by a manufacturer and a retailer in a simple two-member supply chain. We consider a particular single brand of the manufacturer. The manufacturer decides on production volume, production process improvement and national advertising efforts, while the retailer decides her purchase volume by the manufacturer and her pricing policy toward the final consumers. A revenue sharing contract is employed in the non-cooperative setting. Among the issues addressed on the manufacturer side are the trade-off between production and process improvement activities, the path of inventory over time, and the trade-off between attracting new customers and improving the loyalty of current customers. For the retailer we study the inventory and price evolution over time.

The objective of the paper is to study how wholesale price and revenue sharing contracts affect operations and marketing decisions in a supply chain under different dynamic informational structures. We suggest a differential game model of a supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a single retailer that agree on the contract parameters at the outset of the game. The model includes key operational and marketing activities related to a single product in the supply chain. The manufacturer sets a production rate and the rate of advertising efforts while the retailer chooses a purchase rate and the consumer price. The state of the game is summarized in the firms’ backlogs and the manufacturer’s advertising goodwill. Depending on whether the supply chain members have and share state information, they may either make decisions contingent on the current state of the game (feedback Nash strategy), or precommit to a plan of action during the whole game (open-loop Nash strategy). Given a contract type, the impact of the availability of information regarding the state of the game on the firms’ decisions and payoffs is investigated. It is shown that double marginalization can be better mitigated if the supply chain members adopt a contingent strategy under a wholesale price contract and a commitment strategy under a revenue sharing contract.

Aiming at forming dynamic optimal integrated marketing policies, we build a budget allocation model considering both current effects and sustained ones. The model includes multiple time periods and multiple marketing tools which interact through a common resource pool as well as through delayed cross influences on each other's sales, reflecting the nature of "integrated marketing" and its dynamics. In our study, marginal analysis is used to illuminate the structure of optimal policy. We derive some analytical results which have managerial implications and give strong supports to empirical actions in marketing. Our results are consistent with those in some resource allocations problems, but different from those in the others. We illustrate the application of our model by demonstrating a case of a beauty salon in Xi'an, China. We show how to optimally allocate budgets between different sales promotion components so as to maximize the profits of beauty product and service companies.

Purpose — The emergence of social media and digital technologies has reformed the competitive aspect for firms that quickly acknowledged the increasing relevance of social media platforms for business purposes social media is emerging as an important part of our lives. Luxury brands are gaining popularity as the customers are getting richer. In this paper, we did an extensive review of the research papers to understand the applications of social media for luxury brands management. We also studied the data analysis techniques used in those research papers.

Methodology — The papers related to the applications of social media for luxury brand management were collected using related keywords. We searched the papers with the keywords such as “Social media marketing” and “Luxury brands”, “Social media consumer engagement” and “Luxury brands”, “Social media consumer response” and “Luxury brands” and “Social media communication” and “Luxury brands” in Scopus database.

Findings — Marketing and customer response are the two main categories of the applications of the social media for luxury brand management. Regarding data analysis techniques, traditional data analysis models such as structural equation modelling, regression, etc. have been used more as compared to data mining, text mining, etc. process.

Originality — We propose a new categorisation of different research papers related to applications of social media for luxury brand management. We also did an extensive study of the data analysis techniques to conclude that traditional data analysis models have been mostly used in this research area. The recommendations to social media marketing professionals related to luxury brands have been presented to improve the effectiveness of social media campaigns for luxury brands. We also suggest challenges and future research directions in this area.

PINO is a small-sized, low-cost humanoid robot developed for research. The salient feature of PINO is the use of low-cost components, extensive esthetic design, the disclosure of technical information under GNU General Public Licensing, the use of evolutionarly computing methods to generate stable walking patterns, and numerious commerical developments. In fact, PINO is the first biped humanoid robot that was sold as a commercial product. Currently, PINO-II is on the market with various improved aspects of PINO. This article describe ideas behind PINO, and how it was developed and transferred into the industrial sector.

The development and rapid consumer adoption of energy efficiency products and renewable energy systems are key elements of the UK and the EU carbon reduction strategies to meet the challenge of climate change. Many such technologies are available for domestic use, but despite government incentives to meet carbon reduction targets consumer adoption has been slow. This Open University research with 111 in-depth interviews plus an on-line survey with nearly 400 responses, investigates consumer adoption, non-adoption and use of these technologies. Results show that it is important to research consumer use experiences, problems and requirements when designing and developing "green" technologies. With results tailored to each technology, this study shows that user-centred improvements are required to improve functionality, ergonomics, inter-connectedness with other systems and symbolic value, and to reduce cost and payback. User-centred research supports new product/system design and development to promote more rapid adoption and carbon-saving use of energy efficient and renewable technologies in homes.

Prior literature suggests that dynamic capabilities enable, on the one hand, firms to respond successfully to the changes in the markets, and on the other hand, to embrace firms’ ability to shape their business environments. However, existing studies have not fully considered how some firms within the same industry are able to shape markets, and why others need to adapt to these changes in a Kirznerian manner. We make an attempt, based on contemporary literature on the microfoundations of dynamic capabilities, to explain how resource allocation between marketing and R&D function — as one of the microfoundations and as a central contributor to innovation — influences the sustainability of competitive advantage and, consequently, a firm’s ability to create or respond to exogenous shocks. Findings from our multiple-case study on internationalizing SMEs indicate that investments in marketing and R&D functions per se are a necessary though not sufficient condition for building dynamic capabilities and competitive advantage. Rather, the extent to which companies are able to follow their own strategies is closely tied to the microfoundations of dynamic capabilities.

A considerable number of studies have been assembled over the last decade on the management of the R&D/marketing interface in product innovation. Most of these studies focus on the R&D/marketing interface as a self-contained unit of analysis, offering little explanation of the interface's contribution to a firm's competence building in ways essential to innovation success. This paper is based upon research that demonstrates that the importance of the R&D/marketing interface lies in its dynamic capability in influencing the direction of product development projects towards enhancing existing, or building new, competencies. The case study results show that the shared tasks performed by R&D and marketing departments are concentrated in three areas, i.e. corporate conceptual development (CCD), product conceptual development (PCD) and project implementation (Ip). The results reveal that the performance of the cross-functional team in general, and the R&D/marketing interface in particular, during a project's implementation, is heavily dependent on earlier activities in the areas of CCD and PCD. The former usually involves a sustained period of company-wide strategic preparation, which may or may not be directly targetted at a specific project, whilst the latter refers to previous co-operative experience at the project level. The evidence shows that, even when top management attempts to build an instant platform (e.g. by means of heavyweight project management), in the absence of such earlier activities, the effectiveness of this kind of platform has been far from satisfactory, thus pinpointing the vital importance of learning-before-doing in the innovation process.