Digital Media as a Game-Changer in B2B Buyer-Vendor Relationships

Purpose:The article examines the role of digital and,in particular,social media in business-to-business marketing in the international software industry.The authors responded to calls for empirical research on how these media impact buyer-vendor relationships and the conjunction of the marketing and sales processes,particularly the distribution of complex software solutions.This paper develops a digital framework and discusses the managerial consequences.Design/methodology/approach:The model arises by merging themes derived from literature,experts,and job descriptions.Mixed Methods included conducting semi-structured interviews across marketing,business development,and sales executives from buyers,vendors,and third parties of various industries,supplemented by a survey of 530+executives.Findings:Multinational companies secure competitive advantage through agile business processes to improve buyer-vendor relationships in the digital era.Digital media enable vendors to interact continuously with buyers,gather intelligence,and foster mutually beneficial,trustworthy,long-term relationships.The objective is to prompt transactions and secure revenue streams.Research limitations/implications:The outcomes of this research center on North America,Western Europe(including the UK),and DACH(Germany-Austria-Switzerland),affecting the generalizability.Originality/value:The research is novel and bridges several gaps concerning industrial relationships in digitalization:it merges buyer,vendor,and third-party’s perspectives on an international scale.It provides deeper insights into existing and new relationships by identifying relevant digital/social media platforms,the underlying usage motivation,and fundamental B2B processes.Finally,it equips practitioners with metrics to improve performance.

Digital Social Connectedness as a Lifeline for Older People: Use and Non-use of VinclesBCN During the Pandemic

This article presents the results of a study that evaluated VinclesBCN during COVID-19. This digital-based public social service aims to prevent loneliness and isolation in +65-year-old adults living in Barcelona. Through service user(N = 12) and professional(N = 6) interviews and a questionnaire with service users(N = 255), we demonstrate the pivotal role of digital connectedness in transforming VinclesBCN into a lifeline during the pandemic. The analysis revealed the importance of sociability, social support, and, especially, entertainment in coping with pandemic fatigue and facilitating social connectivity and support among users. Users engaged in activities such as sharing images, songs, memes, and daily greetings to provide proximity, sociability, and care among users, whether they belonged to preexisting groups or were newly introduced to the platform. It also facilitated the identification of individuals who needed companionship, comfort, or more specialized support. The findings emphasize the significance of entertainment as a resilience-building strategy during times of uncertainty. Despite the positive impact, not all users equally used the platform. Non-use was strongly associated with being a woman, having a low educational level, having preexisting social relationships, less time of enrolment in the platform, as well as a high perception of loneliness, poor self-reported health, and low mood. The article underscores the need for further research into older adults' digital engagement during crises, its role in building resilience, and advocating for inclusive digital interventions that take into account diverse older adults' needs and experiences in crisis contexts.

Centrum Multivitamin Content Analysis—Over the Counter—OTC Medicine on Facebook

Medicines advertising can be discussed from several perspectives. The study can be directed to its informational content, current legislation, characteristic (persuasive, informative) and the use of euphemisms. In this paper, the authors indicated the values present in the advertising content of the Centrum brand, classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as Over the Counter—OTC Medicine, based on the content analysis [1] of whose evaluations will be based on advertising objects published on Facebook.

KnowU social teleprompter:Interaction design applied to intervention therapy for language decline in early AD patients

Art therapy as an intervention has been shown to alleviate social impairment in people with AD.Meanwhile,digital technology(DTS)has been shown to perform well in different degenerative dementias through mobile devices and apps.However,it is unclear whether digital art creation therapy has an impact on the speech function of people with early AD.Therefore,the aim of this study was to confirm whether digital art creation therapy has an ameliorating effect on language decline in AD patients through the KnowU social teleprompter.This study was a controlled trial in which 16 patients with early AD worked with us and were divided into a paper-based art creation therapy group(control group)and a KnowU social teleprompter therapy group for a 6-week intervention.In the digital art creation intervention group we introduced the KnowU digital kit,consisting of a creation plug-in for the Procreate app on a tablet and a wearable device and its app.The entire treatment process is recorded and combined with a quantitative analysis of the McNemarχ^(2)test to analyze the differences in outcomes of verbal communication function in early AD patients after different therapies.Ultimately,it is shown that early AD patients utilizing the KnowU social teleprompter are more effective in the intervention treatment of language decline in the real social domain compared to the paper-based art creation therapy group.The discussion further demonstrates that DTs and art therapy can provide a better social experience,creative approach and emotional recall of language loss in early AD patients,as well as increase the collaborative relationship between early AD patients and their caregivers.