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Given that consumers value quality, and advertising content informs consumers’ beliefs about quality, it is not surprising that high-quality brands emphasize quality in their advertising content. What is less obvious is whether firms with lower-quality brands should also follow suit and emphasize quality in their advertising to signal a higher quality. We examine this issue and study the effectiveness of quality-based advertising messages. Our field study relates brands’ monthly sales to their advertised quality claims across 1,876 print ads in national magazines and Consumer Reports–based product quality ratings over more than two decades. Contrary to the generally held yet erroneous belief in the efficacy of low-quality products emphasizing quality in their advertising, we demonstrate that (1) it is not beneficial for a low-quality firm to emphasize quality in its advertising, and (2) it is effective for a high-quality firm to do so. An analysis of parameter values from a published category-agnostic simulation and an experiment that examines consumers’ responses to quality claims in a second product category yields convergent insights.

Gray market activity has become increasingly prevalent. The prevailing wisdom in marketing is to use more severe enforcement to deter gray marketing. However, the certainty and speed of enforcement may also have a bearing on the incidence of violations. This article examines whether and how enforcement deters gray marketing. The results from a field survey of manufacturers and an experimental design suggest that, by itself, enforcement severity has no impact. Deterrence results only when the multiple facets of enforcement are used in combination.

Governance strategies, such as integration or control, structure and regulate the conduct of parties in exchange relationships; as such, they serve to constrain the latitude of the decision making of channel partners. Similarly, collaborative communication can be used to create an atmosphere of mutual support, thereby creating volitional compliance between partners. The authors develop a model that addresses the interrelationships of governance and communication and examine the effects of collaborative communication on channel outcomes (the dealer's perceptions of commitment to, satisfaction with, and coordination of activities with a focal manufacturer) across various levels of integration and control. Based on survey data collected from a national sample of computer dealers, the findings indicate that when levels of integration or manufacturer control are high, the effect of collaborative communication on outcomes is weaker than when integration or control is low.

Using research in social psychology, the authors illustrate how two key routes to improve communication between marketing and engineering are dependent on the strength of managers’ psychological connection to their functional area compared to the firm as a whole (i.e., relative functional identification). In particular, they argue that relative functional identification moderates the relationship between strategies traditionally used to affect interfunctional relationships (information-sharing norms and integrated goals) and the frequency, bidirectionality, and coerciveness of interfunctional communication behaviors. In turn, these communication behaviors are linked to information use and perceived relationship effectiveness. The authors empirically test predictions of the framework in two studies. Study 1 results suggest that (1) the efficacy of the traditional strategies depends on marketing managers’ relative functional identification and (2) the traditional strategies can have negative and unintended effects on communication behaviors. In Study 2, the authors replicate and extend Study 1 by illustrating that bidirectional communication is as important as frequency in increasing both information use by engineering personnel and the perceived effectiveness of interfunctional relationships. The authors conclude with implications for theory building and managerial practice.