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This study provides a comprehensive assessment of the impact of advertising creative strategy (ACS) on advertising elasticity, founded on an integrative framework that distinguishes between the function (content) and form (execution) of an advertising creative. The authors evaluate function using a three-dimensional representation of content (experience, affect, cognition), whereas the representation of form accounts for both executional elements and the use of creative templates. The distinction between function and form allows for the investigation of potential synergies between content and execution, previously unaccounted for in the literature. The ACS framework also facilitates the calculation of composite metrics that capture holistic aspects of the creative strategy, such as focus (i.e., the extent of the emphasis on a specific content dimension) and variation (i.e., changes in content and execution over time). The empirical application focuses on a dynamic linear model analysis of 2,251 television advertising creatives from 91 brands in 16 consumer packaged goods categories. The findings show that for function, experiential content has the greatest effect on elasticity, followed by cognitive and affective content. Function and form produce synergies that advertisers can leverage to increase returns. Finally, focus, variation, and the use of templates increase advertising elasticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeded marketing campaigns (SMCs) have become part of the marketing mix for many fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies. In addition to making large investments in advertising and sales promotions, these firms now encourage seed agents or microinfluencers to discuss brands with friends and acquaintances to create further value. It is thus critical to understand how an FMCG seeding program interacts with traditional marketing tools when estimating the effectiveness of such efforts. However, the issue is still underexplored. The authors present the first empirical analysis of this question using a rich data set collected on four brands from various European FMCG markets. They combine advertising and sales promotion data from FMCG brand managers with sales and retail variables from market research companies as well as firm-created word-of-mouth variables from SMC agencies. The authors analyze the data using several approaches, confronting challenges of endogeneity and multicollinearity. They consistently find that firm-created word of mouth through SMC programs interacts negatively with all tested forms of advertising but positively with promotional activities. This phenomenon has significant implications for understanding the utility of SMCs and how they should be managed. The analysis implies that SMCs may increase total sales by approximately 3%–18% throughout the campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet is dominated by free web services that depend on advertising revenues and powerful marketing tools to support their business models. Targeted online advertising enables websites to increase their advertising revenues by selectively displaying advertisements according to users' browsing behavior, sociodemographics, and interests. Yet targeting also creates negative consumer reactions, and websites confront increasing regulatory pressures to inform consumers about their practices. It is critical for such advertising-supported websites to address those challenges proactively. In one scenario experiment and two field studies, the authors show that a normative reciprocity argument is generally more effective than the current industry practice of using a utilitarian argument related to advertising relevance to increase acceptance of targeted online advertising. However, in some cases, this dominance switches depending on specific website characteristics such as website utility and level of user-generated content. Managers of free websites should remind their users of the free services they enjoy when asking permission to target them online or to use their personal information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketers and investors face a heated, provocative debate over whether excelling in social responsibility initiatives hurts or benefits firms financially. This study develops a theoretical framework that predicts (1) the impact of corporate social performance (CSP) on firm-idiosyncratic risk and (2) the role of two strategic marketing levers, advertising and research and development (R&D), in explaining the variability of this impact among different firms. The results show that higher CSP lowers undesirable firm-idiosyncratic risk. Notably, although the salutary impact of CSP is greater in firms with higher (versus lower) advertising, a simultaneous pursuit for CSP, advertising, and R&D is harmful with increased firm-idiosyncratic risk. For theory, the authors advance the literature on the marketing–finance interface by drawing attention to the risk-reduction potential of CSP and by shedding new light on some critical but neglected roles of strategic marketing levers. They also extend CSP research by moving away from the long-fought battle for a universal CSP impact and toward a finer-grained understanding of when some firms derive more risk-reduction benefits from CSP. For practice, the results indicate that the “goodwill refund” of CSP is not unconditional. They also empower marketers to communicate more effectively with investors (i.e., doing good to better manage the risk surrounding firm stock prices). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine how a service firm's longevity may affect consumers' perceptions of risk in conducting business with the firm. Depending on the nature of information available to consumers, a firm's longevity can act in one of two ways to reduce the consumers' perceived risk: (1) Longevity may act as an extrinsic cue of the firm's quality, or (2) availability of a longer track record of an older firm may allow consumers to make more precise prediction of the firm's future quality. The authors develop a set of hypotheses that relate these two effects to consumers' preferences and test them in a series of four experiments. They find that a firm's age can act as an extrinsic cue of the firm's quality. When consumers also have information about firms' intrinsic attributes, the effect of a firm's age as an extrinsic cue is diminished under conditions of high involvement. The experiments also show that consumers prefer firms with longer track records, especially when firms' performance/quality levels are subject to more variability. However, when consumers have high aspiration levels, they prefer firms with shorter track records, even though the consumers perceive these firms as riskier choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Management of brand equity has come to be viewed as critical to a brand's optimal long-term performance. The authors evaluate the usefulness of brand equity estimates obtained from store-level data for monitoring the health of a brand. They use a random coefficients logit demand model calibrated on store-level scanner data to track brand equity estimates over time in two consumer packaged goods categories that experienced several new product introductions during the period of the empirical investigation. Using these tracked measures, the authors also study the impact of marketing actions, such as advertising, sales promotions, and product innovations, on brand equity. They find that the brand equity estimates effectively capture the high equity of strongly positioned popular brands and brands that command a significant price premium in niche markets. Using an example, the authors illustrate how these brand equity estimates can be used to monitor changes in brand equity, which measures such as market share may fail to capture. The substantive results indicate that advertising has a positive effect on brand equity in both the product categories, whereas the effect of sales promotions is not significant in either category. Furthermore, the results reveal that new product innovations have a positive impact on brand equity and can explain a significant proportion of its variation. Overall, the analysis shows that a brand manager can track brand equity using store-level data, gain insights into the drivers of the brand's equity, and manage these drivers to achieve brand equity targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Practitioners and scholars have questioned marketing communication's credibility because it has not been linked to firm shareholder value. Using secondary longitudinal data, the authors show that the impact of marketing communication productivity (MCP) on shareholder value is positive and nonlinear. In particular, the influence of MCP on the forward-looking performances of Tobin's q and stock return is curvilinear with an inverted U shape. The authors also investigate the moderating role of research-and-development investment and competitive intensity. The findings have implications for marketing managers regarding how to model and benchmark MCP and the dangers of blindly improving the productivity of advertising and sales promotion expenditures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three key ad elements (brand, pictorial, and text) each have unique superiority effects on attention to advertisements, which are on par with many commonly held ideas in marketing practice. This is the main conclusion of an analysis of 1363 print advertisements tested with infrared eye-tracking methodology on more than 3600 consumers. The pictorial is superior in capturing attention, independent of its size. The text element best captures attention in direct proportion to its surface size. The brand element most effectively transfers attention to the other elements. Only increments in the text element's surface size produce a net gain in attention to the advertisement as a whole. The authors discuss how their findings can be used to render more effective decisions in advertising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the enormous benefits of early-detection products, consumers are reluctant to use them. The authors explore this reluctance, testing alternative approaches to communicating the consequences of detection behaviors. The results suggest that anecdotal messages are more involving than statistical messages and that positive anecdotes (about gains from screening) are less persuasive than negative anecdotes (about the losses from failing to get screened); positive anecdotes appear to cause a 'boomerang' effect. The authors discuss implications for promoting consumer risk-reduction behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research has focused on how consumers and competitors respond to short-term changes in advertising and promotion. In contrast, the authors use Procter & Gamble's (P&G's) value pricing strategy as an opportunity to study consumer and competitor response to a major, sustained change in marketing-mix strategy. They compile data across 24 categories in which P&G has a significant market share, covering the period from 1990 to 1996, during which P&G instituted major cuts in deals and coupons and substantial increases in advertising. The authors estimate an econometric model to trace how consumers and competitors react to such changes. For the average brand, the authors find that deals and coupons increase market penetration and surprisingly have little impact on customer retention as measured by share-of-category requirements and category usage. For the average brand, advertising works primarily by increasing penetration, but its effect is weaker than that of promotion. The authors find that competitor response is related to how strongly the competitor's market share is affected by the change in marketing mix and the competitor's own response and to structural factors such as market share position and multi-market contact. The net impact of these consumer and competitor responses is a decrease in market share for the company that institutes sustained decreases in promotion coupled with increases in advertising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interaction between marketing actions with a social dimension and marketing actions with an economic orientation is at the heart of this study. The authors introduce institutional theory as the theoretical lens used to inform this research. Results from an experiment in a retail context show that there is a minimum acceptable level of marketing actions with a social dimension, below which the effectiveness of a firm's economic-oriented actions is hindered significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors investigate the effectiveness of advertising alliances (in which two brands from different product categories are featured together in an advertisement) for introducing new brands. The authors identify degree of complementarity between the featured products, type of differentiation strategy (common versus unique advertised attributes), and type of ad processing strategy (top-down or bottom-up) as important factors in determining ad effectiveness. The conceptualization captures the effects of these factors on brand awareness, brand accessibility, brand beliefs, belief accessibility, and brand attitudes. The theory was tested in an experiment using print advertisements to manipulate the three factors in conditions of high consumer involvement. The results show an interesting pattern of interactions among the factors, which has important implications for managers of new and established brands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promotion strategies for a major car company are developed for different international market segments by comparing consumer preferences measured by tradeoff analysis with their perceptions of new and existing products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It may be ill-advised for advertisers to avoid technical language in print media messages directed to household consumers. Results of an experiment reported here suggest that technical wording levels in ads combine with the audiences educational levels and product experience to generate a series of product perceptions, advertising evaluations, and purchase considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with what is known as opposed to what is thought about marketing. The distinction is not subtle. The knowledge of a field is defined in terms of scientific generalizations, whereas theory or thought is necessarily speculative. We argue that marketing generalizations logically precede marketing theories and that marketing generalizations are marketing knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketing is a topic of growing interest to nonprofit organization managers as their organizations confront new, complex marketplace problems. These institution heads are taking their first, tentative steps toward marketing, often confusing it with its advertising and selling sub-functions. Nonprofit institutions can introduce marketing in a number of ways, such as appointing a marketing committee or task force, hiring an advertising agency or marketing research firm, hiring a marketing consultant, or appointing a marketing director or marketing vice president. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an overview of the periodical on it's fortieth anniversary. The author focuses on contributions the journal has made to American business during the past four decades. It is suggested that the periodical is responsible for supplementing the marketing knowledgebase and changing the way business professionals approach advertising. The journal is also praised for making education related to the field of marketing an ongoing process. The author also discusses the future of the publication.

The article reports on the consumption patterns of American consumers and the implications for the international field of marketing. The authors focus on using information collected on the subject of consumer behavior to develop marketing strategies. The results of an international study comparing the preferences of consumers living in France and the U.S. are analyzed. The results indicate that, despite the economic similarities between the two countries, patterns in consumer behavior remain fundamentally deferent. Implications for marketing personnel are also discussed.

Application of life style analysis to market segmentation can often provide the marketing manager in search of a competitive advantage with useful new data and fresh insights into the firm's target markets. The author discusses the theory underlying this approach and indicates ways in which it has been and can be used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A real problem in the application of models to the creation of promotional strategy lies in the identification of the belief system underlying consumer attitudes towards a product. This article discusses assumptions and limitations of such models to which the promotional planner should be alert. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although advertisers have employed humor extensively as the motivational basis for their appeals, relatively little is known about the persuasive effect of humor. This article assesses the role of humor in persuasion and suggests an approach to future humor research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research and reviews on comparative advertising report mixed results. The authors report the results from a meta-analysis that examines the efficacy of comparative advertising. The analysis shows that comparative ads are more effective than noncomparative ads in generating attention, message and brand awareness, levels of message processing, favorable sponsored brand attitudes, and increased purchase intentions and purchase behaviors. However, comparative ads evoke lower source believability and a less favorable attitude toward the ad. Additional analyses of moderator variables find that market position (sponsor, comparison, and relative), enhanced credibility, message content, and type of dependent measure (relative versus nonrelative) affect some of the relationships between advertising format and cognition, brand attitudes, and purchase intentions. New brands comparing them- selves to established brands appear to benefit most from comparative advertising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have tried for several years to explain variations in advertising and promotion/sales (A&P/S) ratios across brands, product-market categories, firms, and industries. Market share (MS) and market growth (MG) have been included as explanatory variables in almost all of these studies. A recent article by Balasubramanian and Kumar (1990) presents a parsimonious yet powerful model explaining A&P/S ratios using these two variables and their interaction. Though the MG-MS matrix provides a possible rationale for the use of these variables in an interaction model, the authors argue that it is more consistent with strategic business unit (SBU)-level data than firm data. They attempt to replicate the model with two other data sets (SBU and brand data) as well as a version of the firm data used in the original study. Being unable to find empirical support for the model with any of the three data sets, they argue that further research should rely on other variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable research suggests that advertising executional cues can influence communication effectiveness. Related research indicates that communication effectiveness is in part driven by consumers' motivation, opportunity, and ability (MOA) to process brand information from an ad. However, little research has explicitly linked executional cues to communication effectiveness via their impact on MOA and levels of processing. The authors present a framework that explicitly provides such a linkage. The framework highlights the mediational role of MOA in the relationships among executional cues and communication outcomes. It also provides a theoretical account that links apparently disparate cues to their common effects on motivation, opportunity, or ability. The framework is complemented by a critical review of current measures of MOA and proposed measures based on the review. Research issues raised by the framework and the proposed measures are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author examines the medieval literary tradition of allegory and relates it to contemporary advertising. Allegory is characterized by the use of metaphor, personification, and moral conflict. This tradition is the basis of advertisements that use fear to convey didactic instruction to mass audiences. The author describes the use of allegory in advertising strategy in terms of message appeal, product benefits, target audience, and media design. Five areas for future research are suggested: content analysis of allegorical advertisements, cross-cultural implications, fear and guilt appeals, taxonomy of personifications as presenters, and effects of metaphors and symbols on advertising recall and comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Has usage situation been overlooked in market segmentation? A general framework is offered which positions situation and person within situation as theoretically legitimate and potentially useful bases for segmenting demand and targeting marketing strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous problems can arise in attempting to use conventional, textbook approaches in social marketing programs. This article contains a review of these problems and draws on the experiences of the authors for supporting arguments and examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can the behavioral sciences be used more effectively in marketing? What procedures should be followed? What are the inherent limitations confronting the marketer working with behavioral science tools? These and other questions are discussed. The process of scientific inference for marketing and the behavioral sciences is presented, and several reasons are offered for studying the behavioral sciences in a marketing context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of advertising spokesmen have strongly recommended a truly "international" approach to advertising for firms operating outside the United States. This article describes how U.S. international advertising managers value this approach and how extensively they have employed it in their companies' advertising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A program for the systematic review of company advertising can result in better information concerning what advertising should accomplish, what company advertising has actually accomplished, and what can be done to create more effective advertisements in the future. This article describes a continuing program designed to aid management in evaluating advertising effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A three-step method is presented for planning new products, for planning product improvement, and for evaluating relative strength of copy claims. Step 1 involves systematic creative exploration of all conceivable product variations; step 2 assigns differentiation ratings; step 3 evaluates three primary factors of product attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the debate over the proper role of antitrust continues, the scope of possible government intervention has been increasing. This article discusses the emerging relationship between advertising and antitrust in the determination of the relevant market as it has been developed in recent court cases. The author cautions that business judgment can not be relied on as a safe-guard against antitrust actions, if indeed it ever could. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frequently implicit in marketing decisions are investments, far removed from marketing data, that turn up in sections of the financial reports. They can have troublesome effects on decision making, not only in the marketing activity but also in other areas. Thus, while marketing management is kept unaware of some ramifications of its earlier decisions, other departments may be treating outgrowths of marketing policy without ever understanding the roots of the problems they encounter. In this article hidden investments in inventory resulting from marketing decisions are described, their causes are analyzed and their effects are traced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keeping attuned to fashion trends is crucial to the success of companies in many industries. This article explains that fashion trends can be detected fairly easily if the marketer is aware of certain factors which help to determine whether a particular innovation will go on to become an accepted fashion. According to the author, fashion trends may be of two types which facilitate the prediction of peaks in fashion popularity and the point in time when the trend is likely to die out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents his views on the merits of placing emphasis on product packaging as a marketing strategy. According to sales tests contained in the article "A Cash Register Test of Sales Effectiveness," published in the April 1962 issue, even a non-functional change in the design of a product's packaging can potentially double sales.

Should plans for a product's promotional push emphasize the potential of poorly developed sales districts? Or, should allocations for advertising and sales promotion stress the receptive environment provided by the brand's best markets? These questions have been frequently discussed around the corporate conference table. This article asserts that the purpose of promotional spending should vary according to a brand's strength in a particular geographic area. In strong sales areas, the significance of the brand's own franchise should be considered. Consequently, the primary purpose of spending in those areas is to sustain the franchise already developed. In weaker districts, "developmental dollars'' are necessary to build a brand's franchise to a level where it will begin to generate spontaneous trade support and the marginal return on dollars invested will be higher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article contains a section of abstracts regarding marketing research and research techniques from various publications. Some of the articles include "Libraries and Librarianship in Advertising, Marketing, and Communications Media," "Scouting The Trail for Marketers," and "The Application of Survey Research Methods to "Model Line" Decisions."

What is wrong with the marketing planning methods many companies use? Can something useful be learned by examining the procedures of leading companies and reviewing the literature of planning? What should a company do NOW to improve its marketing planning? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article contains a section of abstracts regarding Advertising and Sales Promotion from various publications. Some of the articles include "Exhibitions: the Price and the Prize," "Trade Ads Spur Brand Preference-And Research Proves It," and "The Starch and Ted Bates Correlative Measures of Advertising Effectiveness."

The general pattern of cyclical fluctuations in advertising has become familiar today. But what remains less well understood is how one type of advertising may behave differently from others. A better insight into this subject will help media in reducing business instability and to assist advertisers in planning effective advertising strategies. This article demonstrates how differently advertisers of different types of products and of various sizes react to business fluctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advertisers are constantly confronted with the problem of budget distribution. Although much progress has been made in the measurement of both marketing data and advertising weight, little has been accomplished in terms of correlating the two so as to arrive at a sound basis for budgeting decisions. This article offers a practical approach for the budget planner who wishes to allocate monies to markets on the basis of the markets' estimated productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frequently misrepresented, the concept of "corporate identify" is misunderstood by many marketing executives. This brief article defines the subject, details the concrete techniques involved, and outlines the realistic marketing benefits that company management can expect from a controlled plan of Visual Communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of marketing literature related to advertising and sales promotion. They include "What is Available in Syndicated Film for Television," by Lawrence W. Lichty, "A Note on the Golden Age of Advertising," by David M. Blank, and "18,000,000 Book Nobody Reads," by Reynolds Girdler.

This article presents the principal factors pro and con as to the growth of standardized advertising practices in Western Europe. The author's presentations to the Fourth Congress of the International Advertising Association in Madrid in September, 1961, and to the Indiana University Second International Seminar on Marketing Management in Stresa, Italy, in July, 1962, have been brought up to date for readers of the "Journal of Marketing." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many readers will be surprised to learn of the timely marketing practices and institutions which characterize the small nation of Finland. Its "Americana" marketing appearance, exemplified by planned shopping centers, television advertising, and self-service stores seems incongruous with a common border with the Soviet Union. Wholesaling, retailing, and advertising are some of the areas included in this firsthand report of Finnish marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of marketing articles related to advertising and sales promotion. They include "How to Get Ahead in Advertising and Maybe Stay There," by Stephen Mahoney, "Changes in Radio Programming, 1960-61," by Sherman P. Lawton, and "Put the Price in the Ad," by Polly Price.

The high costs of television make it increasingly important that TV commercials appear on programs which reach the right prospects for the advertised products and for isolating program audiences in large numbers for subsequent analysis of characteristics. The authors believe that a method now exists. Their article describes a method to expand the sample, without expanding cost unduly, and without affecting reliability of data obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has often been alleged that advertising people are faddists, that they "jump on the bandwagon" whenever a new creative idea comes along. By careful statistical analysis of advertising formats that have appeared in two consumer magazines, the authors have tested the validity of this charge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here is a new look at contests, and contestants. Generally, a count of contest entries is used as a gauge of success. This article shows why a count of entries is a poor measure of number of people involved, and an even poorer measure of prospects attracted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses the changes in the buying market that require a reconsideration of advertising approaches. The article discusses approaches to advertising, from loud, attention getting advertisements, to long, over-informative treatises on the benefits of one product over another. This article proposes that busier consumers require a different approach and that approach depends heavily on brand image. Images fall into three categories, subjective (how the consumer identified with the object), objective (an emotional appeal), and literal (a clear, visual brand identifier). It is no longer necessary for successful products to simply choose a brand name, but the image creation and advertising behind it requires deliberate planning.