Exam Cram Sheet — Readings

Fast-recall layer for all 17 exam readings. Each block: thesis → key points → terms/acronyms → likely exam angle. Full detail lives in the linked note. Acronyms have their own sheet: _Acronyms & Key Terms. Hub: Digital Marketing.

[!warning] Exam reality check The exam is 25 MCQs, no open question. It tests: best definition of a term, acronyms, advantages/disadvantages/characteristics of a model, and scenario-matching. Past papers show most questions come from the presentations, not these papers — only ~2 of 17 MCQs per past paper traced to reading-list articles. Use this sheet to lock down the readings; treat the presentation decks as the main event.

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Topic 1 — Marketing 101 & Shift to Digital

Kariv et al. (2025)

Thesis: What turns entrepreneurial intention into action is the marketing "content" of feasibility and desirability — i.e. perceived marketing capabilities — plus the right stakeholder support.

• Marketing capabilities (Vorhies & Morgan): market information management, marketing communications, market planning, product development.
• Feasibility = "can I?" (self-efficacy); Desirability = "do I want to?" (attractiveness). Built on TPB (Ajzen) + EEM (Shapero & Sokol).
• Stakeholder support 2×2: bridging vs buffering × people vs institutions.
• Core finding: marketing/psychological content separates action from non-action; stakeholder support separates intenders from non-intenders. Mediation MF→MD→propensity.
• Terms/acronyms: TPB, EEM, Market Feasibility (MF), Market Desirability (MD).

Exam angle: definition of marketing capabilities; feasibility vs desirability; what distinguishes "doers" from "intenders".

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Topic 2 — Media Strategy, Platforms & Channels

Buhalis & Volchek (2021)

Thesis: A five-dimensional taxonomy to consistently name any marketing-attribution method; even "advanced" methods still miss the context of decision-making.

• Five dimensions: (1) single vs multi-touch, (2) fractional vs incremental, (3) cross-digital/platform/channel, (4) rule-based vs data-driven, (5) standardised vs custom.
• First-click / last-click = simplest single-touch; U-shape & time-decay = classic rule-based weightings.
• Single-touch is biased on long journeys (ignores timing, sequence, causality).
• Key limitation: no method models the context of decision-making.
• Terms/acronyms: attribution, touchpoint, customer journey, multi-touch attribution (MTA), data-driven attribution.

Exam angle: match a weighting rule (U-shape/time-decay/last-click) to its description; the five dimensions; why single-touch fails.

Moorman, Ryan & Tavassoli (2022)

Thesis (HBR): Traditional advertising is rebounding; the future is traditional + digital together, not one vs the other.

• Seven drivers: (1) breaks through digital clutter, (2) builds trust, (3) third-party cookie decline, (4) rise of podcasting, (5) traditional lifts digital performance, (6) brand-building fit, (7) scepticism about digital effectiveness/fraud.
• Source = The CMO Survey (Christine Moorman, Duke). Reversal led by digital-native firms (+11.7%).
• Terms/acronyms: ad fatigue, digital clutter, ROI, ad fraud, CMO.

Exam angle (✓ directly tested in 2024-A): which factor explains the resurgence of traditional advertising? → ad fatigue / breaking through clutter.

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Topic 3 — Formation of Campaign Strategy

Hong et al. (2021)

Thesis: A brand story told by consumers beats one told by the firm on brand attitude, via a dual mechanism (cognition + emotion).

• Three constructs: brand story (firm, controlled, one-to-many) vs consumers' brand storytelling (consumer-created) vs WoM (broader, not necessarily a narrative).
• Dual mediation: consumer storytelling → deeper cognitive processing AND stronger positive emotions → better attitude.
• Why it works: similarity → self-referencing, narrative transportation, perceived authenticity, less bias, more shareable.
• Method: 2×2 between-subjects experiments + PROCESS mediation.
• Terms/acronyms: WoM, narrative transportation, self-referencing, CGC/UGC.

Exam angle: consumer vs firm storytelling; the dual cognitive+emotional mediation; advantage of UGC-style storytelling.

BrandFusion Ch4

Thesis: Durable strategy aligns purpose (why), value proposition (promise), and positioning (place in the mind); the shift is from shareholder primacy to stakeholder capitalism.

• Distinguish all five: Purpose = why · Mission = what (now) · Vision = where (future) · Value proposition = promise · Positioning = place in the mind.
• Shareholder primacy (Friedman) → stakeholder capitalism ("shared value", Porter & Kramer).
• Positioning statement = target + frame of reference + point of difference + reason to believe.
• Purpose pays: Stengel 50, Cone stats, Unilever Sustainable Living brands. Sinek "people buy why"; Drucker profit = oxygen.
• Terms/acronyms: STP, USP/UVP, similarity vs typicality.

Exam angle: distinguish purpose/mission/vision/positioning; shareholder vs stakeholder; identify a positioning-statement component.

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Topic 4 — Brand Identity & Storytelling

Salzer-Mörling & Strannegård (2004)

Thesis: Brands are silent — they show through images (feeling, immersion), not tell through narratives; meaning is co-constructed by consumers, not owned by the firm.

• Contrast the sender→message→receiver model with the double-agency / co-construction view.
• Brands communicate via figural images (sensation) not discursive stories (meaning/persuasion).
• Examples: Fred Perry / skinheads (uncontrolled appropriation); adbusters / culture jamming (subversion).
• Aaker's four brand-equity assets used as the model being critiqued. "Meaning is an effect, not a starting point."
• Terms/acronyms: brandscape, mediascape, aesthetic reflexivity, brand equity.

Exam angle: define brandscape; "silent" brands thesis; meaning as co-created vs firm-controlled.

Aimé (2021)

Thesis: Brand storytelling is not a single unified message — internal stakeholders each perform their own version, and digital touchpoints fragment it; co-creation extends inside the firm.

• Case: Petit Bateau, 18 interviews → internal "schizophrenia" / polysemous brand.
• Brand performativity exists within brand management itself.
• Digital ecosystem multiplies touchpoints → threatens consistency.
• 3-step framework: write the story → common strategy → channel synergy. Manager as conductor; react, not control.
• Terms/acronyms: co-creation, brand performativity, 360° content.

Exam angle (✓ tested 2024-A Q9): the foundational practice for long-term co-creation → strong brand personalities + adaptable story universe.

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Topic 5 — Content Marketing

Ebrahim (2020)

Thesis: SMM drives brand equity and loyalty mainly through brand trust — trust is the focal mediator.

• Causal chain: SMM → Brand Trust → Brand Equity / Brand Loyalty.
• Full mediation of SMM→equity by trust; partial mediation of SMM→loyalty; no direct SMM→equity.
• Five SMM dimensions (entertainment, interaction, trendiness, customisation, WOM) — but only the last three loaded here.
• Method: online survey, n = 287, Egypt telecom, SEM (structural equation modelling). Social media = pull, vs traditional interruption.
• Terms/acronyms: SMM, CBBE (customer-based brand equity), behavioural vs attitudinal loyalty.

Exam angle (✓ tested 2024-B Q12): what is crucial to SMM's impact on equity/loyalty → the role of trust.

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Topic 6 — Marketing Challenges / Startups

Cillo & Rubera (2024)

Thesis: GenAI's distinctive power is creating novel + appropriate content; mapped across a four-stage innovation process, it may both empower and erode marketing's value contribution.

• GenAI = "feeling/creating" AI, distinct from mechanical and thinking AI. Self-supervised learning + Transformer + scale → foundation models.
• Creativity = novel and appropriate; limits = hallucinations, weak causal reasoning.
• Four-stage circular innovation process: developing → testing → communicating → engaging.
• Tensions: AI-conformity vs diversification; algorithm aversion vs disclosure; psychological ownership vs reach.
• Terms/acronyms: GenAI/GAI, LLM, foundation model, market-based assets, algorithm aversion.

Exam angle: what makes GenAI different (novel+appropriate); the four innovation stages; algorithm aversion.

BrandFusion Ch17 (Dell)

Thesis: Corporate brand identity and personality create value even in rational B2B, by balancing functional (tangible) and emotional (intangible) value.

• B2B specifics: derived demand, concentrated buyers, DMUs, longer pathway — branding still creates value.
• Branding Triangle = customer + company + collaboration → customer-company fusion.
• Value exploration → creation → delivery (Kotler & Pföertsch). CDJ / loyalty loop replaces the linear funnel.
• Case: Dell ↔ BP, ~100k users; ~60% / ~$30m saving per refresh cycle. Founder personality (Michael Dell).
• Terms/acronyms: B2B, DMU, CDJ, tangible vs intangible value.

Exam angle: B2B branding characteristics; tangible vs intangible value; CDJ vs sales funnel.

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Topic 7 — Trends: Mobile / Voice / Location

GenAI in Marketing (2024)

Thesis: Marketing is the function most positively transformed by GAI; top uses are personalization, insight generation, content creation; GAI augments rather than replaces humans.

• Top three applications (BCG 2023): personalization, insight generation, content creation.
• Facilitators: ease of use, trialability, low cost, tool variety, fine-tuning. Barriers: cost for SMEs, data privacy/security, transition cost, culture, job-loss fears.
• Five propositions → more personally relevant content + higher efficiency/productivity + better lead generation.
• Personalization at scale needs CRM/marketing-automation integration.
• Stats: 73% US adoption (Mar 2023); ~5 hrs/week saved; 5–15% spend saving (McKinsey).
• Terms/acronyms: GAI, CRM, BCG, SME.

Exam angle: name the top-three GAI applications; facilitators vs barriers; augments-not-replaces.

Iglesias et al. (2020)

Thesis: Corporate brand identity is not fixed/top-down — it's fluid, polysemous and co-created via four stakeholder performances; managers shift from guardian to conductor.

• Traditional (stable, top-down) vs emerging (dynamic, multi-stakeholder co-created) view.
• Four performances: communicating, internalizing, contesting, elucidating (define each).
• Identity stems from founders' values but is a temporary outcome of ongoing co-creation.
• Manager role: brand custodian/guardian → brand conductor.
• Method: multiple-case study, 5 B2B SMEs, 37 narrative interviews (performativity / Goffman lens).
• Terms/acronyms: corporate brand identity, co-creation, B2B, SME, boundary spanners.

Exam angle: the four stakeholder performances; guardian→conductor shift; dynamic vs static identity.

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Topic 8 — Deepfakes & Manipulated Advertising

Campbell et al. (2022)

Thesis: Ads are moving to synthetic (AI-generated) form; sophistication raises verisimilitude & creativity (boost persuasion) but can trigger awareness of falsity (dampens it).

• Three generations: analog → digital → synthetic (know examples + what defines each).
• Deepfakes (autoencoders, edit existing media) vs GANs (generator/discriminator, generate new media).
• Three mechanisms: verisimilitude, creativity, awareness of falsity (falsity sits at the centre).
• Hyperpersonalisation + covert customer surveillance → privacy concerns, reactance ("advertising calculus").
• Terms/acronyms: GAN, deepfake, synthetic advertising, verisimilitude, persuasion knowledge.

Exam angle: deepfakes vs GANs; the analog/digital/synthetic spectrum; verisimilitude definition.

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Topic 9 — Same Content Diff. Platforms / AI in Advertising

Rodgers (2021)

Thesis (editorial): Defines AI advertising and gives a classification schema; frames the field as promises vs perils, with algorithm bias/transparency as the central concern.

• Definition: "brand communication using machine functions that learn to carry out tasks with intent to persuade, with human/machine input."
• Schema: AI type (narrow/general/super) × AI function × learning type.
• "Promises and perils" framing; examples incl. AI influencers.
• Closing concern: algorithm bias + algorithmic transparency; AI is not value-neutral.
• Terms/acronyms: AI, narrow/general/super AI, ML, algorithmic transparency.

Exam angle: the AI-advertising definition; narrow vs general AI; transparency/bias as the key peril.

Lee & Theokary (2021)

Thesis: For influencers the persuasion routes reverse: linguistic style + emotion become central; content/production expertise becomes peripheral.

• Theories: ELM (framework) + LET (linguistic style) + ECT (emotional contagion); contrasts the PKM.
• Reversal of the ELM: style is central, expertise peripheral (a mediator only).
• Four linguistic-style dimensions — preciseness is NOT significant.
• Emotional contagion has no direct effect — fully mediated by expertise.
• Method: 27 YouTube auto channels, speech-to-text + survey + Social Blade, PLS-SEM.
• Terms/acronyms: ELM, LET, ECT, PKM, SEM.

Exam angle: what drives influencer success (style/emotion, not expertise); the ELM reversal; theories used.

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Topic 10 — Optimization, Data & Measurement

Kumar et al. (2019)

Thesis: AI enables personalized engagement marketing via curation; consumers are in a "Wave 3" journey; predictions vary by time and economy.

• Personalization (firm-controlled) vs Customization (customer-controlled) — know the difference.
• Three waves; Wave 3 emerges from the paradox of choice / digital cognitive load. Curation = machine-driven selection of the mix.
• Four CE dimensions: CLV, CRV, CIV, CKV (CKV matters more in an AI world).
• Predictions across time (short/long) × place (developed/developing) over the three CRM pillars (acquisition, retention, growth).
• Retention challenges: uncanny valley, algorithm aversion.
• Terms/acronyms: CLV, CRV, CIV, CKV, CE, CRM, AI.

Exam angle: personalization vs customization; define curation; the CLV/CRV/CIV/CKV set; uncanny valley.

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Topic 11 — Social & Public Campaigns / CSR

BrandFusion §3.13

Thesis: Brand strategy is increasingly socially driven; social marketing applies marketing techniques to achieve behaviour change for social good.

• Definition: systematic application of marketing concepts/techniques to achieve specific behavioural goals for a social/public good — core = behaviour change.
• Intervention levels: upstream (policy) / midstream (community) / downstream (individual).
• Six core social-marketing concepts (esp. explicit goals + metrics, citizen orientation, competition/barrier analysis).
• "The meaning of marketing is the marketing of meaning"; shareholder → social value. Social conscience = 1 of 8 elements of Social-Dominant Logic.
• Cases: Dove, Always #LikeAGirl, Libresse #BloodNormal, TOMS, Absolut; also the Fearless Girl style move.
• Terms/acronyms: CSR, social marketing, social-dominant logic, purpose-driven branding.

Exam angle (✓ scenario style — cf. the "Fearless Girl" example in the exam doc): match a purpose-led PR stunt to social marketing / cross-platform POEM; define social marketing; upstream/mid/downstream.

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30-Second Self-Test

Cover the sheet and answer:

• Difference between personalization and customization? (Kumar)
• The seven drivers of traditional advertising's return? (Moorman)
• Deepfakes vs GANs? (Campbell)
• The four stakeholder performances of brand identity co-creation? (Iglesias)
• Purpose vs mission vs vision vs positioning? (BrandFusion Ch4)
• What mediates SMM's effect on brand equity? (Ebrahim → trust)
• The ELM reversal for influencers? (Lee & Theokary)
• The five attribution dimensions? (Buhalis & Volchek)