Purpose – There is a plethora of research which has dealt with service quality issues in various service organizations. But a few researchers have presented state of service quality from a cultural perspective, especially within an Asian cultural context. The purpose of this paper is to measure service quality of Pakistani Islamic banks through validating a culturally sensitive scale: PAKSERV. Furthermore, the path from service quality to customer loyalty has been presented through applying PAKSERV service quality scale. Design/methodology/approach – Following a positivist tradition, the service quality to loyalty path in Islamic banking sector of Pakistan is established. A self-administered survey was conducted to approach 300 Islamic bank customers in major cities of Pakistan. The respondents were purposefully selected based on their extent of using the retail banking services. The data were analysed through employing various quantitative measures such as correlation and structural equation modelling employing AMOS. Findings – The findings reveal that Pakistani Islamic banking customers are satisfied with the service quality offered. All the dimensions of PAKSERV are found to significantly contribute towards customer satisfaction and loyalty. However, major focus of customer is on the dimensions such as responsiveness and sincerity which are understandable in high-risk avoiding and moderately power-oriented Pakistani society. Originality/value – The research has been first of its type to present the validity of PAKSERV scale in a collectivist cultural context of Pakistan. Furthermore, the path from the customer satisfaction to loyalty by employing PAKSERV scale has been presented for the first time.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop guidelines for the selection of a female advertising spokesperson and brand position regarding the selected spokesperson in the context of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) advertising. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents findings using both neuromarketing and traditional marketing research methods. Findings The findings are based on the results of P300 event-related brain potentials, eye-tracking experiments and a questionnaire research. It was concluded that a famous female spokesperson indeed has a significant effect on FMCG advertising effectiveness. Practical implications The selection of a female celebrity spokesperson when seeking FMCG advertising effectiveness depends on the primary determined aim of marketing communication. If the aim of the advertising campaign is to form attitude, then selecting a celebrity as the FMCG advertising spokesperson is recommended, but if the aim of the FMCG advertising campaign is to enhance brand awareness, it is recommended to select a non-celebrity spokesperson. Furthermore, the brand should be presented at the top of the advertisement’s layout, particularly when a celebrity is chosen as a spokesperson because this allows lowering the possibility of the “vampire effect” occurrence. Originality/value As a study on the effect of a female spokesperson on FMCG advertising effectiveness, this research will be of academic interest, integrating both marketing theory and neuroscience to analyze and evaluate consumer behavior. This research is also relevant to businesses, because it provides guidelines for the selection of female advertising spokespersons in the context of FMCG advertising.

The scientific problem analysed in the article focuses on identifying the differences in the marketing communication process in a framework of business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets. The results show that although it may seem that the process itself is the same in both situations, however, it has many differences as well as many aspects in common.

In prevailing competition-based market economy

Despite several neuroscience tools existing, electroencephalography (EEG) is the most used and favoured tool among researchers because of its relatively low cost and high temporal resolution. Our study aimed to identify the global academic research trends of the empirical EEG studies in neuromarketing. This paper adopted the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol to identify relevant articles. A bibliometric analysis software (VOSviewer) was used to evaluate thirty open-access articles found in the Scopus database between 2016 and 2020. We found that the USA is the most productive country with five research articles that used the EEG tool in marketing studies, followed by Australia, Italy, and Malaysia with three articles each. According to the most prolific journals in neuromarketing, it has been found that Frontiers in Neuroscience journal (CiteScore 5.4) is the most prolific journal with two articles and 25 total citations, followed by Scientific reports (CiteScore 7.1) with two articles and eighteen total citations, which lead us to infer that the publications’ number does not necessarily reflect the citations’ number. The study provides a profound and comprehensive overview of academic research that used EEG in marketing research.