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This paper examines the service experience in an online support community of consumers to understand the nature of social support and how it is experienced and enacted by vulnerable consumers. Design/methodology/approach: A netnographic study was conducted to examine vulnerable consumers' participation in an online support group for weight management. The Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) program was used and additionally data were coded using open coding. A hybrid approach to data analysis was undertaken using inductive and deductive methods. Findings: The findings suggest online social support groups can be used as an online "third place" to support vulnerable consumers, with vulnerable groups engaging with the online support group differently to those in the normal weight group. Social support was also found to be bi-directional in nature. Research limitations/implications: This study only investigates one online support group. To gain deeper insights other support groups should be examined over a longer period of time. Practical implications: This paper demonstrates that transformative services have the hidden capacity to optimize their services to enable vulnerable consumers to co-create social support in a safe place, thus providing a non-judgmental environment with the end goal of improving their health and wellbeing. Social implications: Findings reveal how services can enable marginalization and stigmatization to be overcome and inspire social action through the use of online support groups. 2 Originality/value: This research is unique in that it used a netnography approach to examine how vulnerable consumers such as the overweight and obese interact in an online service setting, reducing self-report bias and allowing for a natural research setting.

A systematic review assessing the extent of social marketing principle use in interventions targeting children (2000-2014) 1 Atlantis, E., Salmon, J., & Bauman, A. (2008). Acute effects of advertisements on children's choices, preferences, and ratings of liking for physical activities and sedentary behaviours: A randomised controlled pilot study.

BackgroundBreastfeeding is recognised as the optimal method for feeding infants with health gains made by reducing infectious diseases in infancy; and chronic diseases, including obesity, in childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Despite this, exclusivity and duration in developed countries remains resistant to improvement. The objectives of this research were to test if an automated mobile phone text messaging intervention, delivering one text message a week, could increase “any” breastfeeding rates and improve breastfeeding self-efficacy and coping.MethodsWomen were eligible to participate if they were: over eighteen years; had an infant less than three months old; were currently breastfeeding; no diagnosed mental illness; and used a mobile phone. Women in the intervention group received MumBubConnect, a text messaging service with automated responses delivered once a week for 8 weeks. Women in the comparison group received their usual care and were sampled two years after the intervention group. Data collection included online surveys at two time points, week zero and week nine, to measure breastfeeding exclusivity and duration, coping, emotions, accountability and self-efficacy. A range of statistical analyses were used to test for differences between groups. Hierarchical regression was used to investigate change in breastfeeding outcome, between groups, adjusting for co-variates.ResultsThe intervention group had 120 participants at commencement and 114 at completion, the comparison group had 114 participants at commencement and 86 at completion. MumBubConnect had a positive impact on the primary outcome of breastfeeding behaviors with women receiving the intervention more likely to continue exclusive breastfeeding; with a 6% decrease in exclusive breastfeeding in the intervention group, compared to a 14% decrease in the comparison group (p < 0.001). This remained significant after controlling for infant age, mother’s income, education and delivery type (p = 0.04). Women in the intervention group demonstrated active coping and were less likely to display emotions-focussed coping (p < .001). There was no discernible statistical effect on self-efficacy or accountability.ConclusionsA fully automated text messaging services appears to improve exclusive breastfeeding duration. The service provides a well-accepted, personalised support service that empowers women to actively resolve breastfeeding issues.Trial registrationAustralian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry: ACTRN12614001091695.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to: first, illustrate how market segmentation using two-step cluster analysis can be used to identify segments in the context of physical activity; second, identified segments are used to offer practical implications for social marketers working in the area of physical activity. Design/methodology/approach -A total of 1,459 respondents residing within 20 kilometres of the Melbourne Central Business District participated in an online survey. The questions in the survey included items relating to respondents' health perceptions, health knowledge, attitudes, intentions to start a new physical activity, demographics, place of residence and self-reported physical activity. Two-step cluster analysis using the log-likelihood measure was used to reveal natural groupings in the data set. Findings -This research has identified four distinctive segments in the context of physical activity, namely: Young Disinteresteds, Successful Enthusiasts, Vulnerables and Happy Retirees.Research limitations/implications -The study was conducted in March and some sports were not in season at the time of the study, therefore future research should extend the current sample to take seasonality and geography into account and to ensure the clusters are fully representative of the Australian population. Originality/value -This paper contributes to the literature by outlining a two-step cluster analytic approach to segmentation that can be used by social marketers to identify valuable segments when developing social marketing programmes.

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Social marketing by Western governments that use fear tactics and threatening information to promote anti-drinking messages has polarized 'binge drinking' and 'moderate drinking' through a continuum that implies benefits and harms for both individuals and society. With the goal of extending insights into social marketing approaches that promote safer drinking cultures in Australia, we discuss findings from a study that examines alcohol consumers' moderate-drinking intentions. By applying the theory of planned behaviour and emotions theory, we discuss survey results from a sample of alcohol consumers, which demonstrate that positively framed value propositions that evoke happiness and love are more influential in the processing of an alcohol moderation message for alcohol consumers. The key limitations of this study are the cross-sectional nature of the data and the focal-dependent variable being behavioural intentions rather than behaviours. Research insight into the stronger influence of positive emotions on processing an alcohol moderation message establishes an important avenue for future social marketing communications that moves beyond negative, avoidance appeals to promote behaviour change in drinkers. These research findings will benefit professionals involved in developing social change campaigns that promote and reinforce consumers' positive intentions, with messages about the benefits of controlled, moderate drinking.

Using the Use and Gratifications Theory (UGT), this paper explores how the social impact of Digital Content Marketing (DCM) in food tourism leads to electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) communication. Specifically, this paper investigates how DCM can generate social impact, and in turn, it explores how this social impact can lead to e-WOM. A sample of 707 Chinese tourists completed an online survey. The data was analysed using structural equation modelling. Positive associations were found between content entertainment (CE) and Informational Social Impact (ISI) and between self-expression (SE) and Normative Social Impact (NSI). Content information (CI) and social interaction (SI) had a positive relationship with both NSI and ISI. NSI and ISI positively influenced e-WOM. Social impact played a mediating role between DCM and e-WOM. This study provides a theoretical basis for further investigation of DCM in food tourism, adds to the literature on Social Impact Theory, and will likely drive further research into e-WOM in food tourism.