FY2012 Report

CBSIG FY2012 Budget Proposal
Annual Report prepared by Angeline Close

A. Key Deliverables and Activities for FY2011

We provided value to CBSIG members last year, as evidenced by the following:

  1. We retained membership to remain one of the largest SIGS with 349 paid members last year, and are now the largest SIG with 443 paid members.
  2. We met our goal of synergizing with other SIGS. For instance, in Winter 2010, we hostessed a co-sponsored session and reception with Retail SIG.
  3. We established and maintained communication with our members by doing an overhaul of cbsig.org. We had 3,788 (up from 2,343 in Feb 09 and 3,788 in Feb 10) unique visitors to the site since. The most popular pages include the events, links to the CBSIG Quarterly, and photos of past events. Cbsig.org is a communication tool for members and non-members alike, so as to increase awareness of AMA and CBSIG.
  4. For something exclusive members, we shared the CBSIG Quarterly (example attached) as a newsletter that we emailed to members. In 2009, we began a member news section in the CBSIG Quarterly as a way to involve member-generated content.
  5. To become transparent in member-generated content, we openly advocated and encouraged content (on the website, newsletter, sessions, and symposiums) from members. As a result, we had sessions resulting from calls for papers or sessions from cbsig.org.
  6. We have increased awareness and interest by adding creativity to our sessions and receptions—with unique venues, themes, and timely topics.
  7. Last, we enhanced our brand equity by creating a logo, and established a sense of brand community with a facebook group “The CB Geek Squad”, with 115 members.

B. CBSIG’s Goals 2010-2011

  • Establish a board of directors to consist of ex-cbsig officers in order to serve as a resource for current and future cbsig leaders.
  • Seek an established professor to join our leadership (we are all assistant professors).
  • To focus on scholarly content and thought-provoking, theory based sessions that spark a contribution to marketing knowledge and practice.
  • Develop the existing network, resource, and community for consumer behavior scholarship.
  • Encourage networks with related organizations devoted to consumer research (e.g., Association for Consumer Research).
  • Encourage relationships with other SIGS.
  • Spark interest in doctoral students and DocSIG graduates that are in search of joining their first content-related SIG.
  • Have an online presence at cbsig.org and online community to supplement the relationships developed at the educators’ conferences.
  • Continue to improve a member newsletter, CBSIG Quarterly (example attached)
  • Establish sustained leadership for CBSIG—soliciting interest for the next team of volunteers and training them to make the transition smooth.

Activities Planned for 2010 – 2011

Summer 2010 (Symposium, Session Welfare, Reception)
Winter 2011 (Co-sponsored session and reception with DocSIG)

1. Scholarly Programming
To coincide with our overarching goal of providing a platform for generating thought-provoking theoretical contributions, we propose three scholarly sessions for the 2010-2011 academic year.

1a. Summer 2010: Proposed session on Consumer Welfare
The Consumer Behavior Special Interest Group is proposing a special session which will be of interest to our members. Using data from around the world: Africa, Latin America, Asia, and North America, four papers broadly address the global interconnections between marketing, consumption, and consumer welfare. Each paper takes an innovative approach to making a difference in communities, whether through improving female educational opportunities by providing adequate sanitary care, coping with housing-induced vulnerabilities, understanding occupant satisfaction in sustainable housing, or corporate support of community social causes and healthy lifestyles.

1b. Summer 2010: Proposed Pre-conference symposium on Online Consumer Behavior/Social Networking
The CBSIG is proposing a pre-conference symposium which will be of interest to our members. Social marketing and online consumer behavior are continuing to exponentially grow as relevant and timely topics of interest to consumer scholars and practitioners interested in connecting with their consumers. These timely topics should generate interest to scholars interested in consumer behavior, technology, new products, strategy, and e-services/e-tail. Other indicators of interest in the topic include: standing room only at the social marketing session at ACR, eighteen papers on the topic sent to AMS’s new track on the topic, a rise in interest from doctoral students on dissertation topics in the area, a match with the conference theme of creating customer value, and an increasing interest from practitioners. Thus, social networks and online consumer behavior are cutting-edge topics in the professional application of consumer behavior theory and scholarship.

1c. Winter 2011 Idea: Proposed Session for Doctoral Students with an interest in Consumer Behavior: “Consumer Behavior Dissertations: Topics and Trends”
Many doctoral students are interested in CB topics, or a CB dissertation, but have not solidified a topic. We contacted DocSIG and invited them to co-host a session discussing consumer behavior dissertation topics and trends in cb dissertations. The idea will be to bring in dissertation chairs who are experienced in chairing cb dissertations, to provide expertise to doctoral students and junior faculty. Then, we propose to continue these discussions with a joint reception with Doc-SIG, and invite the dissertation chairs to meet with our field’s newer scholars-in-training in a more casual setting.

Budget for Scholarly Programming:
$1200- 2010

Summer AMA Proposed pre-conference symposium on “Advancing Knowledge and Theory in the Context of Social Marketing and Online Consumer Behavior”. This budget would cover refreshments (coffee, snacks, and water) and the room/av for the symposium, and printing. We feel that charging to come to the symposium reduces the participation, and we want to promote an open platform for idea development. Also, during Summer AMA, interviewing prevents some from coming to the whole symposium, so a fee would not be reasonable to those AMA members.

2. Member Meeting/Receptions

To encourage networking among consumer scholars, we propose to hold events for members and prospective members at the Summer Educator’s Conference and Winter Educator’s Conference. We will offer a reception at each conference. To leverage the cost and meet our goal of establishing relationships with other SIGS, we are co-sponsoring the Winter 2011 reception. Also, to add value to the members and a special touch to these receptions, we are planning them outdoors with a theme that matches the local culture.

Budget for member meetings/receptions:
$1750- 2010 Summer AMA
$1250 Winter 2011 AMA Reception (invited co-sponsorship with DocSIG)

2. Communications: Website Development and Upkeep Stipend & CBSIG Quarterly

We propose to continue to pay a stipend to a student to help maintain our website for CBSIG. This person would work with Charlie Hofacker, as the SIG leadership memo suggests, by making sure the site is linked to ARC and is accessible to all online visitors of AMA, regardless of SIG membership. This budget is mainly a maintenance expense. Anything left over could be put towards our other communication goal of the CBSIG Quarterly, enabling us to print color copies to hand out at our receptions.

Budget for Communications:
$535

3. Collaboration with ACR

Also in line with our increasing awareness to AMA and CBSIG objectives, we aim to attract more interest among consumer researchers in North America and abroad we would like to continue our collaboration with ACR. We would sponsor a coffee break 2010 ACR conference. There is cross-fertilization among the groups, and current members will benefit at the event. Also, this is a minimal investment that should bring awareness to consumer behavior researchers that are potential future members; and increasing AMA/CBSIG membership just by a few people would enable the sponsorship to more than pay for itself.
In return, ACR will provide these deliverables of value added for the target market of consumer behavior researchers:

  • Documentation of CBSIG sponsorship in the conference program
  • Documentation of CBSIG sponsorship on the website
  • Signage, with the AMA/CBSIG logo, at the member reception

Budget for Collaboration with ACR:
$500

Total Proposed Budget (2010 – 2011)

1. Scholarly Programming $ 1,200
2. Receptions $ 3,000
3. Communications/CBSIG.org Maintenance $ 535
4. Sponsorship at ACR $ 500

Total $ 5,235
(Equals the allocated budget of $5,235 based on the membership of 349)

D. CBSIG Long-Term Planning

In the future, we hope to sustain the above deliverables if they prove successful and contribute to the membership base and subfield. Ideas for future years include a semi-regularly pre-conference event with a consumer behavior focus, as our last event on CB and Sports Events was well attended and high interest, and had an outcome of a book based on the symposium. Thus, we proposed a symposium again for 2010. Other long-term ideas include practitioner-scholar jointly sponsored sessions, and other joint sessions with other SIGS. We continue to have a scholarly focus, while allowing for socialization and networking among scholars interested in consumer behavior topics.