bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Predicting Behavior from Intention-to-Buy Measures: The Parametric Case
Authors: Bemmaor Albert C.
Published: December 2018

The author develops a probabilistic model that converts stated purchase intents into purchase probabilities. The model allows heterogeneity between nonintenders and intenders with respect to their probability to switch to a new “true” purchase intent after the survey, thereby capturing the typical discrepancy between overall mean purchase intent and subsequent proportion of buyers (bias). When the probability to switch of intenders is larger (smaller) than that of nonintenders, the overall mean purchase intent overestimates (underestimates) the proportion of buyers. As special cases, the author derives upper and lower bounds on proportions of buyers from purchase intents data and shows the consistency of those bounds with observed behavior, except in predictable cases such as new products and business markets. However, a straightforward modification of the model deals with new product purchase forecasts.
Modeling the Response Pattern to Direct Marketing Campaigns
Authors: Basu Amiya K. , Basu Atasi , Batra Rajeev
Published: December 2018

The authors propose a new model of response pattern to a direct marketing campaign. They estimate their model and four competing model forms using a new maximum likelihood procedure for response data from four different campaigns. Their proposed model fits the data very well. The authors then offer a method to use the model to estimate the eventual number of responses to a campaign using early return data and knowledge of past campaigns. Finally, the authors suggest an application to predicting returns to mail surveys.
Contractual Arrangements in Franchising: An Empirical Investigation
Authors: Agrawal Deepak , Lal Rajiv
Published: December 2018

The authors use primary data to empirically test several hypotheses about business format franchising on the basis of the theoretical model presented in Lal (1990). They find support for the hypothesis that royalty rate balances the incentives to the franchisor to invest in brand name with those to the franchisees to invest in retail service. Also consistent with the mixed strategy equilibrium, the authors find that royalty rate positively affects monitoring frequency, and that monitoring costs negatively affect service level. However, contrary to the theory, the authors find that monitoring costs inversely affect monitoring frequency among franchisors. They analytically extend Lal's model to incorporate heterogeneity in monitoring costs among franchisees belonging to the same franchisor and find strong empirical support for the hypothesis that monitoring costs inversely affect monitoring frequency within a franchise system.
Advertising Strategies in a Dynamic Oligopoly
Authors: Erickson Gary M.
Published: December 2018

The author uses a dynamic model of oligopolistic advertising competition, in which competitors are assumed to make a series of single-period advertising decisions with salvage values attached to achieved sales in each period, as the foundation for empirical analysis of the competitive situation involving the three largest ready-to-eat cereal manufacturers, Kellogg, General Mills, and the Post Division of Philip Morris’ General Foods. The primary insight of the author's empirical analysis is that General Mills places a higher future value on achieved sales than do the other competitors in the market.
Making the Cut: Modeling and Analyzing Choice Set Restriction in Scanner Panel Data
Authors: Siddarth S. , Bucklin Randolph E. , Morrison Donald G.
Published: December 2018

The authors develop an approach to determine and analyze choice set restriction on the basis of secondary source information on consumer purchase histories. Individual-level choice sets are estimated using a Bayesian updating procedure in conjunction with the multinomial logit model. The authors apply the procedure to scanner panel data for the liquid laundry detergent category. An analysis of estimated choice sets across panelists reveals that market share does not “go hand-in-hand” with choice set share (the percentage of choice sets in which a brand is a member). Examining choice set membership patterns, such as the cooccurrence of brands in the same product line, also provides insight into sister-brand cannibalization. Estimation results also show that promotions can expand choice sets, providing excluded brands a means to gain entry and long-term sales benefits.
“Sweet Lemons”: Illusory Quality, Self-Deceivers, Advertising, and Price
Authors: Parker Philip M.
Published: December 2018

The author's study suggests that competition can lead to low-quality advertisers competing against and gaining market shares from lower-priced, high-quality non-advertisers. Evidence in support of this market outcome comes from optometry, a service that has experienced advertising deregulation over the past two decades. The author discusses various explanations of this outcome, including the possibility that self-deceiving consumers relying on “illusory qualities” believe they can judge product quality as measured by the firm, though they cannot. Thus, those consumers are ultimately satisfied with low-quality products at high prices—“sweet lemons.”
Double Couponing and Retail Pricing in a Couponed Product Category
Authors: Krishnan Trichy V. , Rao Ram C.
Published: December 2018

A common practice in many supermarkets is double, and in some cases, triple couponing. Retail managers adopting this policy react emotionally to couponing by manufacturers: They “won't tolerate dumping in this marketplace by manufacturers who run 25 cents coupons elsewhere, but 50 cents coupons [t]here.” How justified are retail managers in their claims? Does it really benefit manufacturers to do this? How is the retail pricing of the category affected by the double-couponing policy? And, what happens to the competing retailer that does not double coupon? The authors provide answers to these questions. They use a game theoretic model to (1) study the effects of double couponing, (2) derive the equilibrium level of couponing by manufacturers, and (3) derive the double-couponing retailer's retail pricing of brands in the category, as well as the pricing of the competing retailer that does not follow the double-couponing policy. The authors then test their results using primary data on retail prices.
Product Development Cycle Time and Organizational Performance
Authors: Ittner Christopher D. , Larcker David F.
Published: December 2018

The authors develop and test a simple conceptual model linking product development cycle time to organizational performance. Using data from two industries (automobile and computer) and four countries (Canada, Germany, Japan, and the United States), they find that faster cycle time alone is not associated with higher accounting returns, sales growth, or perceived overall performance. Stronger support is found for the hypothesis that some product development practices, such as cross-functional teams and advanced design tools, interact with accelerated product development to improve performance, whereas other practices, such as reverse engineering of competitors’ products, suppress the potential benefits from lower cycle times. Finally, interaction effects for other organizational practices, such as customer involvement in the product development process and the extent to which new technology is obtained from external sources, appear to vary by industry.
The Effect of Project and Process Characteristics on Product Development Cycle Time
Authors: Griffin Abbie
Published: December 2018

As global competitive pressure increases and product life cycles compress, companies are trying to shorten product development cycle times. The author investigates the relationship between the actual length of product development cycle times (in months) and several basic product development project strategy and process characteristics. The research quantifies how product development cycle times increase with increased product complexity and with product newness, how using a cross-functional team interacts with product newness in the way it acts to reduce cycle time, and how using a formal product development process interacts with product complexity in the way it acts to decrease cycle time. The findings suggest that using cross-functional teams is more important in projects in which less of the design is a carryover from a previous generation. Teams then had a large impact in reducing product development cycle times. In contrast, implementing a well thought-out process is more important in firms (or divisions of firms) developing complex products or services. The more complex a product, the more time a formal process eliminates from the development cycle.
Too Little, Too Early: Introduction Timing and New Product Performance in the Personal Digital Assistant Industry
Authors: Bayus Barry L. , Jain Sanjay , Rao Ambar G.
Published: December 2018

The authors address the following key questions: (1) When should a firm introduce a new product? (2) What should its performance level be? and (3) How do the decisions of a competing firm affect a firm's timing and product performance decisions? The authors present a detailed case study of the initial competitors in the personal digital assistant (PDA) industry on the basis of which they construct a stylized game-theoretic model of entry timing and product performance level decisions in a duopoly. Situations in which the duopolists are symmetric as well as asymmetric in terms of their estimates of market size and product development capabilities are considered. When firms are symmetric, the authors show that an equilibrium exists when the firms enter at different times with different performance levels. In the asymmetric cases, the firm that has a higher estimate of market size enters first, as does the firm with a superior development process. The performance level decisions, however, depend on the sensitivity of demand to this variable. The results provide one explanation for empirical observations that market pioneers maintain their leadership in some cases, and later entrants eventually dominate in other cases. The authors then relate the model results to actual decisions in the PDA market, finding that Apple's Newton was “too little, too early.”
An Exploratory Investigation of Organizational Antecedents to New Product Success
Authors: Ayers Doug , Dahlstrom Robert , Skinner Steven J.
Published: December 2018

The authors present a model that suggests that integration between marketing and research and development (R&D), managerial controls, and relational norms influences new product success. The model is tested with a sample of 115 engineers and marketing personnel involved in 19 new product projects for a multinational computer manufacturer. The results indicate that managerial controls influence integration, relational norms, and perceived effectiveness. Integration between marketing and R&D fosters stronger relational norms, perceived effectiveness, and new product success. Relational norms enhance perceptions of effectiveness, yet they have a negative influence on new product success. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for best practice in new product research and application.
Some New Methods for an Old Problem: Modeling Preference Changes and Competitive Market Structures in Pretest Market Data
Authors: Böckenholt Ulf , Dillon William R.
Published: December 2018

Despite the enormous amounts of resources devoted to concept and product testing and the continued use of pretest market (PTM) modeling procedures, estimates of new product failures are still alarmingly high. The primary objectives of PTM modeling are to forecast the market share/sales volume of a new product and to determine the sources of new product share at the aggregate market level. The authors describe a new approach that is designed to provide a parsimonious description of competitive changes before and after a new product is introduced by identifying latent segments (i.e., groups of consumers) that vary in size and composition with respect to the relative preferences for a set of brands before and after a new product is introduced. Each latent segment represents a particular preference state characterized by a set of segment-level choice probabilities. The modeling framework is based on a class of dynamic latent class models that explicitly recognize two major types of preference heterogeneity: (1) heterogeneity caused by before-after changes in latent preferences for the brands (i.e., time-varying relative choice probabilities) and/or (2) heterogeneity caused by consumers changing their latent preference segment in response to a new product (i.e., time varying latent segment probabilities). As is demonstrated in the empirical application, the dynamic latent class models provide a comprehensive framework for understanding how a new product changes the competitive landscape.
Information Acceleration: Validation and Lessons from the Field
Authors: Urban Glen L. , Hauser John R. , Qualls William J. , Weinberg Bruce D. , Bohlmann Jonathan D. , Chicos Roberta A.
Published: December 2018

There is strong management interest in the use of multimedia stimuli to gather data with which to forecast consumer response to really new products. These vivid methods have high face validity and are attractive to top management, but they have only begun to be tested for validity. The authors evaluate one virtual representation called information acceleration (IA) that has been applied eight times to consumer and business-to-business products. They report on three tests of validity—two internal and one external. The first internal test compares the ability of IA to represent a physical automobile showroom and salesperson. The second internal test compares the ability of IA to represent the interpersonal interaction of a medical technician with a physician when evaluating a new medical instrument. The external test compares forecasts, made in 1992 for a camera launched in 1993, with actual sales for 1993 and 1994. The authors also compare actual sales to forecasts modified for the actual marketing plan and for an unforeseen negative Consumer Reports article. Using real-world applications of IA as a basis, the authors conclude with a summary of the lessons that have been learned during the past five years.
Resources for Research and Pedagogy on New Product Development Processes
Authors: Rao Vithala R.
Published: December 2018

The author's purpose is to review various recent sources available for teaching and research on new product development (NPD) processes and identify some research and writing opportunities. For the educator, he identifies various sources to consult while designing a course on NPD, and for the researcher, he identifies emerging themes in the broad area of NPD. He focus on selected books and monographs in this area.
Patterns of Affective Reactions to Advertisements: The Integration of Moment-to-Moment Responses into Overall Judgments
Authors: Baumgartner Hans , Sujan Mita , Padgett Dan
Published: December 2018

The authors develop several hypotheses regarding the integration of moment-to-moment emotional responses into overall ad judgments, using the psychological literature dealing with people's preferences for sequences of hedonic outcomes, and they conduct three studies to test these predictions. The results of Study 1 indicate that consumers’ global assessments of extended affective episodes elicited by advertisements are dominated by the peak emotional experience and the final moment of the series and also are correlated with the pace at which momentary affective reactions improve over time. Ad duration is related only weakly to overall ad judgments, though longer advertisements have an advantage as long as they build toward a peak emotional experience. In Study 2, the authors replicate these findings under more realistic viewing conditions and demonstrate that the results cannot be attributed solely to memory artifacts that are based on recency. Study 3 implicates adaptation as a possible explanation for the preference for delayed peaks and high ends and further explains the weak effects of ad duration by showing experimentally that longer advertisements can both enhance and depress ad judgments depending on how duration affects the peak emotional experience and the final moment.
The Moderating Effects of Problem Characteristics on Experts’ and Novices’ Judgments
Authors: Spence Mark T. , Brucks Merrie
Published: December 2018

A growing body of literature suggests that experts are little if at all better than novices in terms of the quality of decision outputs. To explain this counter-intuitive finding, the authors propose a conceptual framework that focuses on initial problem structure as a key moderator of the effect of expertise on performance. Specifically, they argue that the expert–novice performance differential should be greatest at moderate levels of problem structure and weakest at both extremes. To examine this central hypothesis, the authors conduct a controlled experiment that compares experts with novices when solving a complex problem that had characteristics of a moderately ill-structured problem. Relative to novices, the authors find that experts select fewer, but more diagnostic, information inputs and are more consistent when evaluating nonquantified inputs. As a result, they make more accurate and tightly clustered judgments than do novices, and also are more confident in their decisions. To examine the moderating influence of problem characteristics, certain task variables are manipulated to increase or decrease initial problem structure. As hypothesized, the benefits of expertise are less pronounced when solving a problem with increased initial structure.
Reliability Assessment and Optimization of Marketing Measurement
Authors: Finn Adam , Kayandé Ujwal
Published: December 2018

Different purposes of measurement reflect corresponding differences in marketing problems underlying the need for measurement. Reliability assessment in marketing, which is based on classical reliability theory, continues to focus on scaling of individual respondents and ignores other purposes of measurement. Besides the shortcomings in reliability assessment, the academic literature does not make any recommendations for efficiencies in scale usage by marketing firms in applied settings. Generalizability theory has long been identified as an alternative psychometric approach that can be applied to design efficient measurement and can explicitly take into account differences in the purpose of measurement. The authors take a generalizability theory perspective to (1) reiterate the rationale for taking into account the purpose of measurement when assessing reliability, (2) propose a general method to optimize the design of marketing measurement in applied studies, and (3) conduct an empirical study on service quality measurement that illustrates the dual advantages of optimizing measurement and the generalizability approach to marketing measurement.
Surprising Robustness of the Self-Explicated Approach to Customer Preference Structure Measurement
Authors: Srinivasan V. , Park Chan Su
Published: December 2018

The authors introduce customized conjoint analysis, which combines self-explicated preference structure measurement with full-profile conjoint analysis. The more important attributes for each respondent are identified first using the self-explicated approach. Full-profile conjoint analysis customized to the respondent's most important attributes then is administered. The conjoint utility function on the limited set of attributes then is combined with the self-explicated utility function on the full set of attributes. Surprisingly, the authors find that the self-explicated approach by itself yields a slightly (but not statistically significantly) higher predictive validity than does the combined approach.
Interpreting Consumers: A Hermeneutical Framework for Deriving Marketing Insights from the Texts of Consumers’ Consumption Stories
Authors: Thompson Craig J.
Published: December 2018

The author describes and illustrates a hermeneutically grounded interpretive framework for deriving marketing-relevant insights from the “texts” of consumer stories and gives an overview of the philosophical and theoretical foundations of this approach. Next, the author describes a hermeneutic framework for interpreting the stories consumers tell about their experiences of products, services, brand images, and shopping. An illustrative analysis demonstrates how this framework can be applied to generate three levels of interpretation: (1) discerning the key patterns of meanings expressed by a given consumer in the texts of his or her consumption stories, (2) identifying key patterns of meaning that emerge across the consumption stories expressed by different consumers, and (3) deriving broader conceptual and managerial implications from the analysis of consumer narratives. This hermeneutic approach is compared and contrasted to the means—end chains laddering framework, the “voice of the customer” approach to identifying consumer needs, and market-oriented ethnography. The author concludes with a discussion that highlights the types of marketing insights that can result from a hermeneutic interpretation of consumers’ consumption stories and then addresses the roles creativity and expertise play in this research orientation.
Can Advertising Copy Make FSI Coupons More Effective?
Authors: Leclerc France , Little John D. C.
Published: December 2018

Packaged goods manufacturers distribute cents-off coupons in freestanding inserts (FSIs) in newspapers. Free-standing insert coupons are typically composed of two parts: the coupon per se and a print advertisement. Using two laboratory experiments and a separate analysis of coupon measurements from scanner panels, the authors investigate whether the content of the print advertisement influences the effectiveness of the coupon. Theoretical arguments suggest that the impact on consumer attitudes will depend on the executional cues of the copy, the brand loyalty of the consumers, and the consumer's involvement with the product category. The results support the theoretical framework and suggest that it is possible to make FSI coupons more effective by choosing appropriate executional cues for their advertising copy.
A Parametric Multidimensional Unfolding Procedure for Incomplete Nonmetric Preference/Choice Set Data in Marketing Research
Authors: Desarbo Wayne S. , Young Martin R. , Rangaswamy Arvind
Published: December 2018

Multidimensional unfolding (MDU) is one of the most powerful conceptual and methodological tools used in marketing for product positioning analysis. Unfortunately, the majority of the commercial software programs available for performing such analyses (especially nonmetric analyses) suffer from serious limitations including degenerate solutions, interpretation difficulties, lack of supporting statistical inference and model selection procedures, excessive number of parameters to estimate, requirements of full data sets, and difficulties with local optima. The authors propose a new parametric approach to nonmetric unfolding (PARFOLD) to extend methodological developments in the econometrics and marketing science arenas. The authors develop the technical aspects of the proposed procedure, including options for accommodating incomplete rank orders, constraints, and reparameterizations. Two marketing-related applications are provided: one deals with preferences for snack food items involving complete rank orders, and the second involves incomplete data in which students rank order Master of Business Administration schools in their consideration/application sets. Comparisons are made with existing nonmetric MDU procedures including ALSCAL, PREFMAR and KYST with respect to several newly proposed diagnostic indices of solution degeneracy and positioning implications. Finally, the authors summarize limitations of the proposed model and offer directions for further research.
Coupon Attractiveness and Coupon Proneness: A Framework for Modeling Coupon Redemption
Authors: Bawa Kapil , Srinivasan Srini S. , Srivastava Rajendra K.
Published: December 2018

The measurement of consumers’ coupon proneness and the prediction of their redemption behavior is important to the evaluation of marketers’ couponing programs. Although considerable attention has been paid in the couponing literature to the identification of factors that influence coupon usage behavior, relatively little work has been done to develop models that can help managers predict consumer response to specific coupons and design effective coupon promotions. The authors propose a model of coupon redemption that extends previous models of coupon usage by considering the joint effects of coupon attractiveness and coupon proneness on redemption, and does not require explicit measurement of these variables. Empirical application of the model shows that it correctly predicts redemption intentions for nearly 90% of consumers in a holdout sample and substantially outperforms a logit model that includes traditional measures of coupon proneness, coupon characteristics, and demographics. The proposed model also provides insights into consumer response to coupons that are not provided by the logit model. Overall, the model shows considerable promise as an aid to managers in designing coupon promotions and developing precision targeting strategies.
Estimating Irregular Pricing Effects: A Stochastic Spline Regression Approach
Authors: Kalyanam Kirthi , Shively Thomas S.
Published: December 2018

Markets respond to prices in complex ways. Multiple factors such as price points, odd pricing, and just-noticeable differences often cause steps and spikes in response. The result is market response functions that are frequently nonmonotonic. However, existing regression-based approaches employ functions that are inherently monotonic, which thereby limits representation of important irregularities. In this article, the authors use a stochastic spline regression approach in the framework of a hierarchical Bayes model that permits the estimation of irregular pricing effects and apply the approach to data sets from several product categories. A simulation study indicates that the stochastic spline approach is flexible enough to accommodate irregular response functions. The empirical results show that there are irregularities in own-price response for most of the brands examined and that there are important profit implications of these irregular response functions in pricing decisions. The authors find that the irregularities in the response functions include sales increases associated with odd prices in the range of 12% to 76%, flatness at the extremes of the range of observed prices, and kinks in the response function that are consistent with segmentation effects.
Is a Company Known by the Company it Keeps? Assessing the Spillover Effects of Brand Alliances on Consumer Brand Attitudes
Authors: Simonin Bernard L. , Ruth Julie A.
Published: December 2018

The authors examine the growing and pervasive phenomenon of brand alliances as they affect consumers’ brand attitudes. The results of the main study (n = 350) and two replication studies (n = 150, n = 210) together demonstrate that (1) consumer attitudes toward the brand alliance influence subsequent impressions of each partner's brand (i.e., “spillover” effects), (2) brand familiarity moderates the strength of relations between constructs in a manner consistent with information integration and attitude accessibility theories, and (3) each partner brand is not necessarily affected equally by its participation in a particular alliance. These results represent a first, necessary step in understanding why and how a brand could be affected by “the company it keeps” in its brand alliance relationships.
Late Mover Advantage: How Innovative Late Entrants Outsell Pioneers
Authors: Shankar Venkatesh , Carpenter Gregory S. , Krishnamurthi Lakshman
Published: December 2018

Although pioneers outsell late movers in many markets, in some cases innovative late entry has produced some remarkably successful brands that outsell pioneers. The mechanisms through which innovative late movers outsell pioneers are unclear. To identify these mechanisms, the authors develop a brand-level model in which brand sales are decomposed into trials and repeat purchases. The model captures diffusion and marketing mix effects on brand trials and includes the differential impacts of innovative and noninnovative competitors’ diffusion on these effects. The authors develop hypotheses on how the diffusion and marketing mix parameters of the brands differ by market entry strategy (pioneering, innovative late entry, and noninnovative late entry). The authors test these hypotheses using data from 13 brands in two pharmaceutical product categories. The results show that an innovative late mover can create a sustainable advantage by enjoying a higher market potential and a higher repeat purchase rate than either the pioneer or noninnovative late movers, growing faster than the pioneer, slowing the pioneer's diffusion, and reducing the pioneer's marketing spending effectiveness. Innovative late movers are advantaged asymmetrically in that their diffusion can hurt the sales of other brands, but their sales are not affected by competitors’ diffusion. In contrast, noninnovative late movers face smaller potential markets, lower repeat rates, and less marketing effectiveness compared with the pioneer.
Market-Level Effects of Information: Competitive Responses and Consumer Dynamics
Authors: Moorman Christine
Published: December 2018

Information flowing into a market from firms can stimulate competitive activity and consumer dynamics that ultimately improve the functioning of that market (e.g., improve product quality). However, prior research has provided limited empirical evidence regarding the conditions under which (1) information confers such benefits on the market, (2) firms make strategic use of such information flows, and (3) consumer behavior influences the achievement of these market effects and strategic benefits. The author performs a longitudinal quasi-experiment to investigate these issues using the introduction of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) as a research context. Results indicate that information did promote consumer dynamics that may have fostered competitive activity among firms. Specifically, marketers changed the quality of base brands and their brand extensions in unique and opposite ways that enabled brands to occupy distinct strategic positions in the market. Market information also influenced the nature of competitive rivalry by shifting price promotion levels depending on the healthy positioning of firm brands. Such approaches were speculated to provide firms with a means of coping with the uncertainty of competitive and consumer reactions to the NLEA, extending theories of the market-level effects of information to include the strategic use of such information by firms.
A Relationship between Market Share Elasticities and Brand Switching Probabilities
Authors: Bucklin Randolph E. , Russell Gary J. , Srinivasan V.
Published: December 2018

The authors derive a theoretical relationship between the aggregate market share elasticity matrix and the aggregate brand switching matrix on the basis of a logit model of heterogeneous consumers choosing among competing brands in a product class. Aggregate cross-elasticities are shown to be proportional (through a single scaling constant) to their corresponding aggregate row-conditional brand switching probabilities. Aggregate own-elasticities are shown to be proportional (through the negative of the same scaling constant) to one minus their corresponding aggregate row-conditional repeat purchase probabilities. An empirical analysis conducted on household scanner panel data in the liquid laundry detergent category shows that the theoretical correspondence holds as a very good approximation. An illustrative use of the relationship in estimating aggregate (store-level) models of market share indicates that the relationship helps improve predictive validity in a holdout period.
A Meta-Analysis of Relationships between Ad-Evoked Feelings and Advertising Responses
Authors: Brown Steven P. , Homer Pamela M. , Inman J. Jeffrey
Published: December 2018

The authors conduct meta-analyses of relationships involving positive and negative ad-evoked feelings to determine (1) whether the effects of positive and negative feelings on advertising responses are symmetrical or asymmetrical and bipolar or bidimensional; (2) whether study design characteristics influence the strength of effects of positive and negative feelings on ad and brand attitudes; (3) whether moderator effects are differential for positive and negative feelings; and (4) whether relationships are generalizable across different study designs, product types, and media. Using the aggregated data, the authors assess competing predictions of three alternative theoretical perspectives: bipolarity, generalized asymmetry, and contingent asymmetry. Analyses indicate that positive and negative feelings have contingently asymmetrical effects on advertising responses. Study conditions related to subjects’ cognitive processing sets moderated the effects of negative feelings on ad and brand attitudes but generally did not moderate the effects of positive feelings. The authors also demonstrate the utility of bootstrapping as an advantageous new way of conducting moderator analyses in meta-analysis.
Consumers’ Perceptions of the Assortment Offered in a Grocery Category: The Impact of Item Reduction
Authors: Broniarczyk Susan M. , Hoyer Wayne D. , McAlister Leigh
Published: December 2018

Grocery retailers have been informed that, to remain competitive, they must reduce the number of stockkeeping units (SKUs) offered, in line with consumer demand, or, in other words, adopt “Efficient Assortment.” Retailers have resisted this principle on the basis of a fear that eliminating items would lower consumer assortment perceptions and decrease the likelihood of store choice. In two studies, the authors examine how consumers form assortment perceptions in the face of SKU reduction with a particular emphasis on two heuristic cues: the availability of a favorite product and the amount of shelf space devoted to the category. Results indicate that retailers might be able to make substantive reductions in the number of items carried without negatively affecting assortment perceptions and store choice, as long as only low-preference items are eliminated and category space is held constant. Thus, the potential risk inherent in item reduction might be more limited than initially thought. The authors then discuss the implications of these findings for retailers, as well as additional measurement considerations.
An Integrated Approach toward the Spatial Modeling of Perceived Customer Value
Authors: Sinha Indrajit , DeSarbo Wayne S.
Published: December 2018

The authors present a new measurement methodology of perceived value, based on latent structure multidimensional scaling, that derives simultaneously the underlying dimensions of the perceived value of various brands and market segment heterogeneity in terms of how such value evaluations are made. This latent structure, ordered probit, multidimensional scaling (MDS) based methodology improves on existing industry techniques of illustrating perceived customer value because it enables researchers to infer the underlying dimensions of perceived value from the data without specifying these a priori, as is common in existing methods. The authors compare the proposed model against more traditional MDS approaches in an empirical illustration involving the perceived value of compact cars. Finally, the authors discuss managerial implications of this technique and provide directions for further research.
Information Asymmetry and Levels of Agency Relationships
Authors: Mishra Debi Prasad , Heide Jan B. , Cort Stanton G.
Published: December 2018

Many marketing exchanges are characterized by an information asymmetry between suppliers and customers. Specifically, customers are faced with both adverse selection and moral hazard problems that involve, respectively, uncertainty about supplier characteristics and the risk of quality cheating. Drawing on prior research, the authors propose that agency problems in a customer relationship can be resolved by means of customer bonds and price premiums, which serve as signals and supplier incentives, respectively. The authors also propose that adverse selection and moral hazard problems exist in relationships between suppliers and their employees. Similar to the customer relationship, these problems can be addressed with signals and incentives of various kinds. The authors present hypotheses regarding the agency problems in both of these relationships and test them empirically in the context of automotive service purchases. Data obtained from 287 service managers support the hypotheses. The data also suggest that institutional differences across service outlets (e.g., ownership structure and size) influence how the two types of agency problems are managed.
Seasonal Marketing and Timing New Product Introductions
Authors: Radas Sonja , Shugan Steven M.
Published: December 2018

Virtually every product is seasonal; seasonality often dictates business strategy. In this article, the authors (1) show how to add known seasonal patterns to any dynamic model parsimoniously and without changing the fundamental model assumptions, (2) illustrate how their method provides strategic implications for timing new product introductions, and (3) provide an empirical application. The authors transform time so that, during high seasons, time is moving faster than normal time. Traditional methods only adjust sales, independent of the underlying sales model. The authors’ method also changes the product's growth along its life cycle and suggests that timing introduction decisions are dependent on the shape of the product's life cycle. The authors’ empirical work compares their theoretical results with empirical observations. With data for all major films released between July 1993 and 1995 (673 films), the authors estimate the seasonal pattern for the motion picture industry and compare their theory with studio behavior.
Coupon Value: A Signal for Price?
Authors: Raghubir Priya
Published: December 2018

In this article, the author proposes that consumers use the value of a coupon to estimate price. Study 1 shows that the higher the percentage discount, the higher the perceived price; Study 2 demonstrates this effect with cents-off coupons. Study 3 then demonstrates that the effect is contingent on whether alternate sources of information are available to consumers and examines the consequences of this on deal evaluations and purchase intentions. The author discusses implications for the information value of promotions, along with managerial implications for coupon design and communication.
Exploring the Determinants of Broadway Show Success
Authors: Reddy Srinivas K. , Swaminathan Vanitha , Motley Carol M.
Published: December 2018

This study investigates the determinants of success of an experiential good: Broadway shows. The authors focus on the sources and types of information used in the selection of an artistic event and discuss the impact of critics’ reviews on the length of a show's run and attendance. In addition, the authors empirically determine the influence of other variables, such as previews, newspaper advertising, ticket prices, show type, talent characteristics, and timing of opening. The results indicate that New York newspaper theater critics have a significant impact on the success of Broadway shows. It is also found that the newspaper critics have a differential impact, with the critic from the New York Times yielding nearly twice as much influence as critics from the Daily News or the New York Post. Theater critics, it appears, are not only predictors but influencers as well. Among the various show types, musicals appear to fare better than other categories of shows. Previews have a significant impact on the attendance, but not on the longevity, of Broadway shows. Advertising also has a significant impact on both longevity and attendance. However, the characteristics of the key talent do not have a consistently significant influence on show success. In addition, ticket prices do not have a significant relationship with either longevity or attendance. The results indicate that there is an overwhelming impact of information sources, particularly the influence of critics’ reviews, on the success of Broadway shows. The authors discuss the implications of these results for the theater industry.
On the Heterogeneity of Demand
Authors: Allenby Greg M. , Arora Neeraj , Ginter James L.
Published: December 2018

Demand heterogeneity traditionally has been defined as segments of consumers that are homogeneous with regard to the benefits they seek or in their response to marketing programs (e.g., product offering, price discounts). Although it often is acknowledged that truly homogeneous segments of consumers do not exist, the approximation is assumed to be sufficiently accurate to provide a reasonable basis for the development of marketing strategy. In this article, the authors provide evidence that the homogeneous segment assumption might not be reasonable. By using a normal component mixture model that nests other, more commonly used models of heterogeneity, the authors find that the within-component heterogeneity remains substantial, even when multiple components are present. Predictive tests substantiate their finding of large within-component heterogeneity.
The Effect of Promotion on Consumption: Buying More and Consuming it Faster
Authors: Ailawadi Kusum L. , Neslin Scott A.
Published: December 2018

The authors empirically demonstrate the existence of flexible consumption rates in packaged-goods products, how this phenomenon can be modeled, and its importance in assessing the effectiveness of sales promotion. They specify an incidence, choice, and quantity model in which category consumption varies with the level of household inventory. The authors use two different functions to relate consumption rates to household inventory and estimate the models using scanner panel data from two product categories: yogurt and ketchup. Both functions provide a significantly better fit than a conventional model, which assumes a constant daily usage rate. They also have strong discriminant validity; yogurt consumption is found to be much more flexible with respect to inventory than ketchup consumption is. The authors use a Monte Carlo simulation to decompose the long-term impact of promotion into brand switching and consumption effects and conclude with the implications of their findings for researchers and managers.
Overcoming the Early Entrant Advantage: The Role of Alignable and Nonalignable Differences
Authors: Zhang Shi , Markman Arthur B.
Published: December 2018

Prior research has focused on early entrant advantage rather than on theories that explain and predict how late entrants can surpass the early entrant's performance. In this research, the authors propose that learning about new brands is influenced by the way the attributes of later entrants compare with attributes of the first. In three experiments, the authors show that attributes that differentiate later entrants from the first entrant are better remembered and listed more often in judgment formation protocols if the attributes are comparable along some common aspect (i.e., they are alignable differences) than if they do not correspond to any attributes of the first entrant (i.e., they are nonalignable differences). The impact of greater memorability of alignable over nonalignable differences is that later entrants whose attributes are superior to those of the first entrant can come to be preferred over the first entrant when the attributes are alignable differences but not when they are nonalignable differences. These findings have important implications for product entry, differentiation, and positioning strategies.
Divide and Prosper: Consumers’ Reactions to Partitioned Prices
Authors: Morwitz Vicki G. , Greenleaf Eric A. , Johnson Eric J.
Published: December 2018

Many firms divide a product's price into two mandatory parts, such as the base price of a mail-order shirt and the surcharge for shipping and handling, rather than charging a combined, all-inclusive price. The authors call this strategy partitioned pricing. Although firms presumably use partitioned pricing to increase demand and profits, there is little clear empirical support that these prices increase demand or any theoretical explanation for why this should occur. The authors test hypotheses of how consumers process partitioned prices and how partitioned pricing affects consumers’ processing and recall of total costs and their purchase intentions and certain types of demand. The results suggest that partitioned prices decrease consumers’ recalled total costs and increase their demand. The manner in which the surcharge is presented and consumers’ affect for the brand name also influence how they react to partitioned prices.
The Effects of Extensions on Brand Name Dilution and Enhancement
Authors: Gürhan-Canli Zeynep , Maheswaran Durairaj
Published: December 2018

In this article, the authors examine new product extension strategies that are likely to be effective in building brand equity. The framework accounts for mixed findings in brand equity literature by identifying motivation as a factor that moderates the dilution and enhancement effects observed in prior research. The authors find that the typicality of the extension and consumers’ level of motivation determine the effect of extensions on family brand name. In high-motivation conditions, incongruent extensions are scrutinized in detail and lead to the modification of family brand evaluations, regardless of the typicality of the extensions. However, in low-motivation conditions, brand evaluations are more extreme in the context of high (versus low) typicality. The less typical extension is considered an exception, which reduces its impact on evaluations. Results also show that brand name dilution or enhancement can occur in response to congruent extensions. However, processes that underlie the effect of congruent information are somewhat different.
A Dynamic Model of Customers’ Usage of Services: Usage as an Antecedent and Consequence of Satisfaction
Authors: Bolton Ruth N. , Lemon Katherine N.
Published: December 2018

As firms seek ways to manage customer relationships over the long term, understanding the dynamics of the service provider–customer relationship becomes a key priority. In this article, the authors develop and test a dynamic model of customer usage of services, identifying causal links between customer's prior usage levels, satisfaction evaluations, and subsequent service usage. The authors quantify the (heretofore anecdotal) relationship between customer satisfaction and subsequent service usage and provide new theoretical insights into the antecedents of customer satisfaction by introducing the concept of perceived payment equity. The primary contribution of the article is an understanding of how service usage changes over time, and particularly, how the consumer's view of the fairness or “equity” of the exchange over time affects the consumer's usage of services. Specifically, payment equity represents the customer's changing evaluation of the fairness of the level of economic benefits derived from usage in relation to the level of economic costs, that is, the customer's evaluation of the fairness of the exchange. By examining the antecedents of payment equity, it can be determined how customers use price and usage over time to update their evaluations of the fairness of the exchange. This evaluation affects overall satisfaction, which in turn affects future usage. The results suggest that customers’ usage levels can be managed through pricing strategies, communications, and more generally dynamic customer satisfaction management.