FY2013 Report

CBSIG FY2013 Budget Proposal
Annual Report prepared on behalf of CBSIG officers by Angeline Close

This report consists of a) key deliverables from last year, b) our goals for FY13, c) itemized budget with proposed deliverables, and d) long-term plans.

A. Key Deliverables and Activities for FY2012

We provided value to CBSIG members last year, as evidenced by the following 6 areas of: growth, SIG synergy, doctoral student collaboration, communications, programming, and member-generated content.

  1. GROWTH~ Since our leadership and rebranding efforts, we have grown CBSIG significantly. We retained and grew membership from a relatively inactive SIG to 349 paid members for 2011, to 443 paid members for 2012, to 601 paid members currently. While this growth may be a change of how AMA members choose their SIGS, there has been significant growth each year since our leadership board has come together. The board worked hard to promote CBSIG, brand it, include members in decision-making, and offer value to members in academic programming and networking. So, this growth is in part to such efforts and member inclusion and we are proud of such.
  2. SIG SYNERGY~ We synergized created synergy with other SIGS in through joint sessions and co-sponsored special sessions.
  3. DOCTORAL STUDENT COLLABORATION~ CBSIG reached out to doctoral students. We invited the DocSIG to join in the receptions, and this may help towards our goal of bringing new scholars into CBSIG. We sent a welcoming letter to doctoral students with an interest in consumer behavior.
  4. COMMUNICATIONS~ We maintained communication with members via cbsig.org. 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. For members only, we emailed the CBSIG Quarterly as an e-newsletter. 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 in FY2011, 193 as of Feb, 2011 and 200 plus currently.
  5. PROGRAMMING~ We have increased interest by adding creativity to sessions and receptions—with unique venues, themes, and scholarly topics. We sponsored a special session at the AMA 2011 Winter Educator’s Conference “Understanding Emotions in Consumption Experiences: A Cognitive Appraisal Approach”, (Winter AMA 2011, chaired by Barry Babin). We held a dinner for members at Summer AMA 2011 in San Francisco, which members enjoyed.
  6. MEMBER-GENERATED CONTENT~ To become transparent in member-generated content, we openly advocated and encouraged content (on the website, newsletter, sessions, and symposiums) from members. An outcome of this was the Winter 2011 emotions session. We also generated a call for ideas for Summer AMA 2012, which resulted in 2 session proposals.

B. CBSIG’s Goals FY13

Many of our goals are similar to past goals, and are to:

  • Add to a board of directors to consist of ex-cbsig officers in order to serve as a resource for current and future CBSIG leaders.
  • To focus on scholarly content and thought-provoking, theory based sessions that spark a contribution to marketing knowledge and practice in CB.
  • 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.

C. CBSIG Budget FY13:
$9,015 (Membership=601) 15$ a member

Activities Planned for 2012 – 2013
~Summer 2012 (2 Special Sessions, Member Reception & Social)
~Winter 2013 (Special Session, Member Reception)

1. Scholarly Programming
To coincide with our overarching goal of providing a platform for generating thought-provoking theoretical contributions and conversations in consumer behavior, we propose two scholarly sessions for the academic year.

• Summer 2012 (Chicago): Sessions on a) Social Justice and CB and b) Sponsorship and CB (accepted 4-16-12)

There are two, in-part member generated special session proposals in process.

a) One is a roundtable “Social Justice and Sustainable Business Practices: Indispensable and Inseparable”, chaired by Jose Antonio Rosa at Wyoming. It will be co-sponsored with Marketing and Society SIG. Some of the questions that panel members will be addressing include:
~How can companies partnering with subsistence consumers in the development and distribution of products for emerging economies channel the innovativeness of the poor while minimizing the risk of exploitation and a widening of the income distribution gap?
~What level of social justice is required for the maintenance of consumer dignity?
~How does the marketplace – and its diversity of actors and actions – contribute to, promote, or diminish perceptions of dignity?
~What is the relationship between economic, social, or ecological well-being and consumer dignity?
How do services in developed and developing economies influence social structures and social systems to promote social justice and preserve consumer well-being?
~How much and in what ways does movement between the consumers’ cultural worlds and the cultural worlds of services undermine the sustainability of socially responsible businesses?

Members of the panel include:
Laurel Anderson – Arizona State University
Stacey Baker – University of Wyoming
Ronald Hill – Villanova University
Marlys Mason – Oklahoma State University
Jose Antonio Rosa – University of Wyoming
Julie Ruth – Rutgers University
Madhubalan Viswanathan – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

b) The second is a 3 paper and discussant format session on sponsorship fit and consumer behavior. This will be co-sponsored by Sport SIG. Sport sponsorship is an important and increasingly popular method for firms to build awareness for their brand as well as position their brand in the mind of their targeted consumer. Evidence has emerged in the academic literature suggesting that when sponsoring brands “fit” with the event being sponsored they are more effective (e.g., brand recall, event attitude, and stock price). In the marketing and sport sponsorship literature, the fit or congruence construct has been defined in numerous ways (e.g., functional based, image based, historical relationship based, etc.). Additionally, a variety of theoretical perspectives (e.g., schema theory, attribution theory, etc.) by which fit/congruence is proposed to influence sponsorship effectiveness have been offered. As such, there is an opportunity to more finely conceptualize the fit construct and its associated theoretical rationale as it relates to sponsoring brands and events. It may be that different types of fit are more effective in some circumstances and/or that differing theoretical perspectives apply only in specific contexts.

This proposed session is chaired by Colleen Bee (Oregon State University), and the discussant is Karen Becker-Olsen (College of New Jersey). Three complementary papers are: an experiment by Kevin Gwinner (Kansas State University), a field study by myself (Angeline Close, (Texas Advertising) and Russell Lacey (Xavier), and a survey study by Joe Cronin (FSU).

• Winter 2013: Proposed Session for Doctoral Students with an interest in Consumer Behavior

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:
$80 (Copies of handouts/folders at session for doctoral students & events)

2. Member Meeting/Receptions

To encourage networking among consumer scholars, we propose to hold or subsidize 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.

For Summer AMA, The VP Member Programming is looking into a member social via boat tours for the Chicago River. Wendella Boat Tours got good reviews, they pick up off of Michigan Avenue. On Sat evening August 18 at 9:00 pm we will hostess a member 2 hour Firework cruise. If that is too late, another option is the Chicago at Sunset Cruise (7:30) immediately after the reception. The only issue may be dinner, and if the cruise sells food. We may do more food vs. alcohol at the reception to account for this concern. The source is http://www.wendellaboats.com/experience/fireworkstour.aspx

We will send an evite and make it required that they are a current CBSIG member to RSVP and attend. The cost is $28 adults, $26 seniors, plus City of Chicago Amusement Tax. So this is $32 a person approx. including tax, limited to 75 CBSIG members. Members must pay $10 to register with AMA to hold their boat tour spot. If we buy online or in bulk, there is a 7% savings. The phone is (312) 337-1446.

Budget for member meetings/receptions:
$1,500- Summer 2012 AMA Reception
$2,225-Summer 2012 Member Social Boat Tour on Chicago River (30$ per member; can bring 75 members.
$1,500-Winter 2013 AMA Reception

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

This budget is mainly a maintenance expense for the domain and upkeep of CBSIG.org. A main goal is to help CBSIG members with current information on CB jobs, journal calls, etc. A student can receive a stipend of for the semester to maintain and post relevant things to the site. Anything left over can be put towards our other communication goal of the CBSIG Quarterly, enabling us to print and mail color copies to hand out at our receptions. This includes any and all communications expenses and promotion for the SIGS (e.g., lanyards, pens, etc.).

Budget for communications:
$1,970 (includes 2 $500 stipends to pay online copywriters/ webmasters to manage and upkeep CBSIG.org (total $1000) FOR TWO YEARS. The additional $1000 is to pay domain/server fees, promotional items such as pens and lanyards, printing costs, any costs the webmasters may need reimbursing for, printing, and other approved communication expenses.)

4. CBSIG Awards

We propose to set funds aside for plaques/awards. A subcommittee has been formed to determine awards to be given. The awards, their criteria, and judging standards will be set prior to ensure transparency and fairness.

We propose a two awards- a lifetime achievement award and for the best consumer behavior papers submitted to the conference with a doctoral student as the first author. We propose that the lifetime achievement award recipient receive a plaque and a cover story on cbsig.org and CBSIG Quarterly. For the doctoral student paper award, the recipient will also earn a plaque and a feature of the research in the member newsletter. Winners could be, but are not limited to submissions from the CB or doctoral student tracks.

Budget for awards:
$225 (includes plaques and checks for the both awards)
-CBSIG Lifetime Achievement Award Plaque (125$)
-CBSIG Doctoral Research Award Plaque (100$)
*NOTE: Previous version had $1000 cash awards; removed per AMA policy; thank you; ac

5. Collaboration with other SIGS and 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 other SIGS and ACR. We would sponsor a coffee break at the 2012 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 other SIG and ACR collaboration:
$1500 ($500 to ACR; $1000 to other SIGS-for instance CBSIG donated to Marketing and Society’s upcoming Doctoral Symposium at Public Policy)

Total Budget (2012 – 2013)*
Based on budget of 15$ a member (601 paid members), our budget is $9,015.
This leaves a small contingency line of $20
1. Scholarly Programming $80
2. Member Receptions (2) @$1,500= $3,000
3. Member Experience (Boat Tour) 74 tickets @ $30= $2,220
4. Awards (2) $225
5. Communications/CBSIG.org Maintenance/Marketing $1,970
6. SIG Sponsorship/ ACR $1,500
Total $8,995

*We aim to use member funds in ways that best serves the majority of members. We are open to adjustment as AMA and members recommend.

D. CBSIG Long-Term Planning

Ideas for future years include a semi-regularly pre-conference event with a consumer behavior focus, as our last event in 2008 on CB and Sports Events was well-attended and high interest, and had an outcome of a book based on the symposium. 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. Last, we are hoping to grow our small board of directors, and seek senior leadership to join our leadership team.