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The current article reviews the opinions and counterarguments within the scientific argument on the causal linkage between the components of marketing strategy and client loyalty. The systematization of the literary sources demonstrated that the causal connections from the components of marketing strategy to client loyalty are different. However, nearly none of the research projects have rated and compared the differences among the components of marketing strategies in improving client loyalty. Therefore, the key purpose of this article is to weigh the relative importance of the components of marketing strategy to client loyalty. The current research developed research hypotheses based on experiential learning theory, resource dependency theory, and social exchange theory. Vietnam was chosen as a case study because it is one of the fastest emerging economies. The research data were gathered by employing a structured questionnaire. For this research, responses from 210 enterprises were collected using the simple random sampling method from 1128 firms publicly listed on the main stock exchanges in Vietnam. Finally, this research yielded 222 suitable replies with satisfactory compulsory information. Then, this project employed the procedures of the analytic hierarchy to assess the comparative importance of the components of Product, Price, Place and Promotion of marketing strategy to client loyalty. The results show that Price strategy is first, Pricing is second, Sales promotion is third, Advertising is fourth, Allowances is fifth, Discounts is sixth, Public relations is seventh, Channels is eighth, Direct marketing is ninth, Payment terms are tenth, Features are eleventh, Quality is twelfth, Market coverage is thirteenth, Assortment is fourteenth, Branding is fifteenth, Packaging is sixteenth, Location is seventeenth, Inventory is eighteenth, Sercies is nineteenth, Warranties is twentieth, and Transport is the last in improving client loyalty. This research is expected to provide researchers with a better understanding of the comparative significance among the components of marketing strategy for client loyalty. The results of the current research can also support business executives by helping them make better decisions on suitably planning the components of Product, Price, Place and Promotion of marketing strategy in business so that they can gain the best possible efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under modern conditions, the problem of achieving marketing and business goals is actualized for companies in all sectors of the economy. Digital marketing plays a key role in effectively solving this problem. The purpose of the paper is to highlight the features of the development of digital marketing tools in the context of product promotion on social media platforms. The article highlights the features of planning and implementation of digital marketing in the context of the tasks of promoting goods and services in the digital space. The key role of digital marketing in the implementation of the company's marketing and business tasks is emphasized. The paper highlights a number of trends in the development of digital marketing tools in the context of digitization and changes in the socio-economic environment. The importance of considering the evolution of digital marketing tools in the context of the development of the exogenous and endogenous environment is emphasized. The directions of changes in the digital marketing paradigm are outlined in historical retrospect. The stages of the evolution of digital marketing in the context of marketing and market management are formulated. It is proposed to consider digital marketing as a new paradigm of company management in the conditions of comprehensive digitalization. The peculiarities of digital marketing in terms of individual social networks have been revealed. It is proposed to profile the main social media according to close criteria, which made it possible to place them in priority places in the configuration of the digital marketing company's complex. The most advanced toolkit of digital marketing is considered. Emphasis is placed on the importance of the efficiency principle in the development of the company's digital marketing complex within the framework of the tasks of promoting goods and services in social networks. The results of this study may be useful to practicing marketers, marketing directors, top managers and owners of small and large businesses, and researchers in the field of digital marketing. Prospects for further research are the analysis of the features of the use of digital marketing tools to strengthen the integration of digital channels, as well as the identification of the features of digital marketing tools during a period of significant socio-economic turbulence in Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes that managing the marketing variables of product information, price, promotion and product distribution can mitigate the impact of negative online reviews (NOR). NOR are often inevitable, have a much wider reach, dwell much longer and threaten product sales. It is therefore necessary to understand how the negative impact can be managed more actively. The marketing variables are conceptualised for the e-commerce context. Analysis of objective data on 500 books supports the hypotheses and provides empirical evidence for the relative effectiveness of the variables. In addition to adapting the 4Ps framework of marketing management to the e-commerce context, this study highlights the need and potential to extend theoretical development and research efforts beyond the antecedents and effects of NOR to understand how to manage NOR. The findings have practical relevance for e-commerce businesses. Avenues for future research are also identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present-day business environment that is characterized by the increased competition among local and international companies. The emergence of more demanding customers and great technological advances has resulted in a complex market in retail business. Retailer now must adapt to the constant change brought on by the pandemic to create a new marketing strategy moving forward. Every facet of a retail organization should be leveraging advanced marketing analytics software to meet customer's demand. Retailer should use information about a customer's likes, needs, and value to provide the most relevant experience to customers. Pricing strategy was realistic and accurate, use of premium pricing on it's product and price promotions and discounts. The use of marketing strategies resulted in increased sales, number of items sold enhance purchase of product and increase market penetration of retailer outlet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While often operating the margins of propriety, advertisers and marketers are constrained by the social mores of their times. During the early nineteenth century, product promotion opportunities were limited to a mix of newspapers, hoardings and pamphlets. Some enterprising entrepreneurs and innovative individuals pushed the envelope of the acceptable, effectively creating new standards. This paper presents the first case study where the advertising and marketing strategies of a single French entrepreneur are being examined in depth. To successfully promote his products, the small-scale paint manufacturer Louis Viard employed a range of strategies. These ranged from the true and tried media of newspaper advertisements, product packaging and advertising cards to more innovative modes of promotion, such as mobile advertising on delivery carts as well as flamboyant street processions, to clever and engaging use of billboards and product placement in plays. In addition, he maintained a workforce of loudly attired roaming painters, who combined promotion and marketing at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the acceleration of product updates and the intensification of product competition, product market strategies become the primary consideration for the enterprises, and the advertisement and promotion strategies are considered the two important strategies implemented by enterprises. This paper considers the enterprises of similar products and substitute, their formation of a competition between traditional products and innovative products, and establishes a mixed node-level information diffusion model to describe the dynamic product diffusion process with complex network theories. We implement advertising strategies for potential buyers who have not obtained product information and implement promotional strategies for those who have obtained product information. In accordance with Pontryagin maximization principle, we seek the best strategy to maximize the impact of innovative products and use numerical calculations to simulate the diffusion state of products. We found that the advertisement strategies play a decisive role in the marketing of innovative products. If product promotion strategies are added, the spread of innovative products will be more effective and more influential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a framework for understanding and researching brand choice. The underlying model starts from the assumption that purchasers faced with alternative brands will select what in their judgement suits them best. It develops the theory and the mathematics as simply as possible, and goes on to describe the marketing implications. It explains how to build a working model of the market using Monte Carlo techniques, and how this can be used to test the validity of the basic assumptions and to explore possible marketing strategies. It demonstrates, using real data from an actual study, how to interpret the market model in terms of purchasers' images of the brands. The paper will be of interest to both qualitative and quantitative researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have considered the relative role of the integrated marketing mix (advertising, price promotion, product, and place) on the long-term performance of mature brands, instead emphasizing advertising and price promotion. Thus, little guidance is available to firms regarding the relative efficacy of their various marketing expenditures over the long run. To investigate this issue, the authors apply a multivariate dynamic linear transfer function model to five years of advertising and scanner data for 25 product categories and 70 brands in France. The findings indicate that the total (short-term plus long-term) sales elasticity is 1.37 for product and .74 for distribution. Conversely, the total elasticities for advertising and discounting are only .13 and .04, respectively. This result stands in marked contrast to the previous emphasis in the literature on price promotions and advertising. The authors further find that the long-term effects of discounting are one-third the magnitude of the short-term effects. The ratio is reversed from other aspects of the mix (in which long-term effects exceed four times the short-term effects), underscoring the strategic role of these tools in brand sales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has suggested that consumers have in-store slack for grocery trips—that is, they leave room in their mental budgets to make unplanned purchases. Drawing on this work, this article examines how the impact of promotions depends on whether the shopper still has in-store slack remaining in his or her mental budget. Specifically, the authors evaluate how the effect of promotional savings for both planned and unplanned items on spending varies as a function of whether the item is purchased before or after the shopper's in-store slack is depleted. In addition, they examine how these relationships vary depending on income. To achieve these goals, the authors conducted a field study in which respondents used a handheld scanner to record the order of purchases. The results suggest that savings on planned items lead to stockpiling by higher-income shoppers when the savings occur before the in-store slack has been depleted but lead to increased purchase of unplanned items when they occur after in-store slack is depleted. The results also show that promotions on unplanned grocery items generate incremental spending at the basket level, which increases with income but only when the item is purchased after the in-store slack is exceeded. The authors discuss implications for shopper marketing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effectiveness of customized promotions at three levels of granularity (mass market, segment specific, and individual specific) in online and offline stores. The authors conduct an empirical examination of the profit potential of these customized promotion programs with a joint model of purchase incidence, choice, and quantity and through optimization procedures for approximately 300 conditions. They find that (1) optimization procedures lead to substantial profit improvements over the current practice for all types of promotions (customized and undifferentiated); (2) loyalty promotions are more profitable in online stores than in offline stores, while the opposite holds for competitive promotions; (3) the incremental payoff of individual-level over segment- and mass market–level customized promotions is small in general, especially in offline stores; (4) for categories that are promotion sensitive, individual-level customized promotions can lead to a meaningful profit increase over segment- and mass market–level customized promotions in online stores; and (5) low redemption rates are a major impediment to the success of customized promotions in offline stores. Optimal undifferentiated promotions should be the primary promotion program in this channel, and firms can benefit from offering a combination of optimal undifferentiated and customized promotions for suitable categories in offline stores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effectiveness of a type of nonprice promotion often used in the European magazines industry to diminish the decline rate of periodical sales, in which a value pack is sold containing the magazine issue plus another product. Magazines are sold simultaneously with and without promotion at different prices, and promotions are serialized by fractioning the additional product across different issues of the magazine. Although promoting magazines contemporarily may cannibalize nonpromoted sales, this loss is compensated by a long-term increase in nonpromoted sales caused by product awareness and loyalty improvements. This strategy is increasingly used as an innovative form of product advertising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although managers often hope to obtain long-term benefits with temporary marketing actions, academic studies imply that their chances are slim. Extant research has implicitly assumed that the brand itself carries no influence over whether marketing promotions have the power to lift sales permanently. Using panel data for seven years from 100 brands across seven product categories, the authors employ a two-stage approach in which long-term promotional effectiveness is first estimated with persistence modeling and then these effectiveness estimates are related to brand equity and new product introductions. By examining a broad range of brands in each category, the authors find that positive sales evolution from promotional efforts is fairly common, especially for small brands. Moreover, the authors find that both permanent and cumulative sales effects from marketing promotions are greater for brands with higher equity and more product introductions, whereas brands with low equity gain greater benefits from product introductions. These results offer new research and managerial insights into the presence and conditions for persistent benefits from marketing promotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A consumer contest is a sales promotion technique that requires participants to apply certain skills as they compete for prizes or awards. This article is the first to employ a game-theoretical approach to investigate consumer contest design issues, including prize structure, segmentation, and handicapping. First, the authors find that both skill distribution and the number of contestants play an important role in determining the optimal prize structure in consumer contests. Specifically, if the skill distribution has the increasing hazard-rate property, it is optimal for a marketer to use a winner-take-all design. In large contests, for the winner-take-all approach to be optimal, it suffices to have the increasing hazard-rate property only at the high end of the skill distribution. Second, increasing contest size is beneficial to the marketer. Third, a less dispersive skill distribution leads to higher consumption by consumers at all skill levels and thus is beneficial to the marketer. The marketer may achieve less dispersive skill distributions by (1) segmenting or screening contestants according to their skill levels and (2) adopting a performance evaluation scheme that handicaps high-skilled contestants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has shown that the monetary value of a promotion (promotion depth) affects choice during the promotion period. However, as promotion depth increases, consumers might lower their expectations of future price, which in turn may threaten future choice when prices return to normal levels. This research examines how promotion frame (percentage off versus cents off) moderates the effect of promotion depth on postpromotion price expectations and choice. The findings indicate that compared with cents-off promotions, high-depth percentage-off promotions lead to higher postpromotion price expectations. Likewise, postpromotion choice is higher when high-depth promotions are framed in percentage-off than cents-off terms. The authors examine the process underlying the effect of promotion frame on price expectations and find that frame affects (1) consumers' perceptions of the promoted price and (2) the weight they place on the promoted price. [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]

Past research has shown that monetary promotions (e.g., discounts) are more likely to be processed relative to and integrated with the original product price than are free promotions. We posit that because of this difference, free promotions are more focal and salient than monetary promotions. In a set of three experiments, we demonstrate that this salience results in free promotions being less susceptible than equivalent monetary discounts to negative contextual information on quality that can potentially lower purchase intentions. We show that this effect can be reversed when respondents focus on other pieces of information that diminish the salience of the free promotion [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to quantify the net unit and net profit impact of promotions for a retailer and to understand the key correlates of this impact. Using data on all promotions offered in 2003 by CVS, a leading U.S. drug retailer, the authors (1) quantify the gross promotional lift; (2) decompose this into switching, stockpiling, and incremental lift for the retailer; (3) estimate the extent to which promotion affects sales of other product categories in the store to compute the net unit impact of the promotion; (4) account for promotional and nonpromotional margins and manufacturer funding to compute the net profit impact of the promotion; and (5) examine how promotion, brand, category, and store characteristics influence the net impact. The authors find that approximately 45% of the gross lift is incremental for CVS, and there is also a significant, positive halo effect on sales of other categories. However, on average, the net profit impact of promotions is negative because CVS's promotional margin is often substantially less than regular margin. In the authors' analysis of the correlates of net impact, they find that many promotion and brand characteristics have opposing associations with net unit and net profit impact. Deep, featured promotions on high “consumer-pull” brands generate high net unit impact, but they significantly reduce CVS's promotional margin, resulting in lower net profit impact. Therefore, the retailer must make some difficult trade-offs between revenue and profit objectives in promotion decisions. [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 authors demonstrate that marketing actions, such as pricing, can alter the actual efficacy of products to which they are applied. These placebo effects stem from activation of expectancies about the efficacy of the product, a process that appears not to be conscious. In three experiments, the authors show that consumers who pay a discounted price for a product (e.g., an energy drink thought to increase mental acuity) may derive less actual benefit from consuming this product (e.g., they are able to solve fewer puzzles) than consumers who purchase and consume the exact same product but pay its regular price. The studies consistently support the role of expectancies in mediating this placebo effect. The authors conclude with a discussion of theoretical, managerial, and public policy implications of the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Shiv, Carmon, and Ariely (2005), the authors demonstrate that marketing actions such as price promotions and advertising evoke consumer expectations, which can alter the actual efficacy of the marketed product, a phenomenon they call “placebo effects of marketing actions.” In this rejoinder, they build on the preceding commentaries and refine their framework to account more fully for factors that may influence this placebo effect, and they describe directions for further research in this new topic area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loyalty programs lead to a natural split of a firm's customer base into members and nonmembers. To manage both groups effectively, it is essential to know how marketing activities, such as promotions, affect both groups' contributions to revenues. The authors model each group's contribution as the number of daily buyers times their average expenditures. The model also includes the number of nonbuyers because they may return as customers. Moreover, nonbuyers may influence the expenditures of other customers through crowding effects, and they use personnel time. Model application to two years of daily data from six clothing stores reveals that the number of nonmembers who buy is much more responsive to price discounts than the number of members who buy. Thus, the decomposition of the promotional revenue bump is strongly moderated by the percentage price discount and the communication mode: direct mail to members only and door-to-door flyers to members and nonmembers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To attract potential customers, retailers often advertise low prices with appeals such as “Prices start at $49” or “One week in the Caribbean from $449.” These appeals are deliberately vague in the sense that they give little information about the product to which the prices refer. The author offers an explanation of how such advertisements can construct a credible price image even with this vagueness. When retailers must incur costs in the process of selling a product, advertising low prices to lure potential consumers can backfire. This is because attracting too many consumers who are less likely to purchase the retailer's higher-priced products on the basis of vague promises imposes unwanted selling costs but yields little extra revenue. Therefore, a store with a relatively high selling cost will be dissuaded from attempting to use such a strategy. The author shows analytically that such advertising can be credible only when there is a substantial difference in retailers' costs or when the selling cost is high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key account management (KAM), which involves targeting the largest and most important customers and providing them with special treatment in the areas of marketing, administration, and service, is becoming an important component of many organizations' marketing strategies. Research suggests that KAM enables the development of close relationships between suppliers and buyers, which, in turn, results in better performance for both organizations. This study examines the influence that core selling teams, a specific KAM strategy, have on supplier--buyer relationships. A model is developed using insights from research on sales and sales management, relationship marketing, and competitive advantage, which explains the influence that core selling teams have on supplier--buyer relationships. The model is tested using data from three sources: (1) self-report data obtained from members of 30 core selling teams of a global consumer products company and their direct (and indirect) managers; (2) data gathered, via personal interviews, from each of the core selling team's key customers; and (3) objective sales data supplied by the global consumer products company involved in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of the decision making and coping of functionally illiterate consumers reveals cognitive predilections, decision heuristics and trade-offs, and coping behaviors that distinguish them from literate consumers. English-as-a-second-language and poor, literate consumers are used as comparison groups. The strong predilection for concrete reasoning and overreliance on pictographic information of functionally illiterate consumers suggest that companies should reconsider how they highlight the added benefits of new products or the differentiating aspects of existing product offerings across channels such as advertising, in-store displays, and positioning. Concrete reasoning also has strong implications for the execution and presentation of price promotions through coupons and in-store discounts, because many consumers are unable to process the information and thus avoid discounted products. Finally, the elaborate coping mechanisms identified and the loyalty that functionally illiterate consumers display toward companies that are sensitive to their literacy and numeracy deficiencies reveal a potential for loyalty programs aimed at this population that do not involve price discounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the subsequent impact of a temporary price discount on brand preference after the promotion is retracted. Theorizing that price salience has an impact on price sensitivity, we propose that the effects of retracting a discount depend on the promoted brand's regular price-quality positioning. In a first experiment in which we track consumer choices across a sequence of choice occasions, we show that retracting a discount posted by a higher quality, higher price brand is detrimental to that brand. In contrast, a discount posted by a lower quality, lower price brand is capable of enduringly diverting consumers away from high-end brands. A second experiment relies on process measures to provide evidence for the underlying price salience mechanism. A third experiment tests our hypotheses with real incentives and offers additional support for our price salience theory by testing its most peculiar behavioral implication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Year after year, managers strive to improve financial performance and firm value through marketing actions such as new product introductions and promotional incentives. This study investigates the short- and long-term impact of such marketing actions on financial metrics, including top-line, bottom-line, and stock market performance. The authors apply multivariate time-series models to the automobile industry, in which both new product introductions and promotional incentives are considered important performance drivers. Notably, whereas both marketing actions increase top-line firm performance, their long-term effects strongly differ for the bottom line. First, new product introductions increase long-term financial performance and firm value, but promotions do not. Second, investor reaction to new product introduction grows over time, indicating that useful information unfolds in the first two months after product launch. Third, product entry in a new market yields the highest top-line, bottom-line, and stock market benefits. Managers may use these results to justify new product efforts and to weigh short- and long-term consequences of promotional incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the utilitarian benefits of consumer, or "pull," promotions. The author considers the Chandon, Wansink and Laurent (CWL) model, as well as affective benefits and informative effects of sales promotions. The economic value, informational content, and affective appeal routes are interactive and influence the effectiveness of sales promotions. It is necessary to understand the target segment and its relationship to the product in order to design effective promotions. The author notes that managers must also consider choice of product and target sector, type of promotion or design, promotion pattern and intensity, and the communication method being utilized.

Spokes-characters have appeared in numerous promotion campaigns throughout the past century. While interest in these characters has evolved over time, a substantial portion of the research concerning characters has emerged during this past decade. Yet there exists a research gap concerning the impact of specific spokes-character features on brand-related outcomes. In this study, we address this gap and extend this stream of literature with the first empirical examination of the relationship between specific spokes-character features and brand attitude. Based on the tested moderated mediation model, our results show that spokes-character trust is an important mediator of the effects of spokes-character features on brand attitude. The model also indicates that brand experience significantly moderates the effect of spokes-character trust on brand attitude. Thus, spokes-character features result in more favorable brand attitudes for consumers with less brand experience, whereas spokes-character features have little effect on brand attitudes for consumers with more experience with the brand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several researchers have decomposed sales promotion elasticities based on household scanner-panel data. A key result is that the majority of the sales promotion elasticity, approximately 74% on average, is attributed to secondary demand effects (brand switching) and the remainder is attributed to primary demand effects (timing acceleration and quantity increases). The authors demonstrate that this result does not imply that if a brand gains 100 units in sales during a promotion, the other brands in the category lose 74 units. The authors offer a complementary decomposition measure based on unit sales. The measure shows the ratio of the current cross-brand unit sales loss to the current own-brand unit sales gain during promotion; the authors report empirical results for this measure. They also derive analytical expressions that transform the elasticity decomposition into a decomposition of unit sales effects. These expressions show the nature of the difference between the two decompositions. To gain insight into the magnitude of the difference, the authors apply these expressions to previously reported elasticity decomposition results and find that approximately 33% of the unit sales increase is attributable to losses incurred by other brands in the same category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers in marketing tend to adopt one of two approaches to examining competitive advantage: a focus on a firm's resources or a focus on a firm's strategic or tactical actions. The authors suggest that neither of these approaches by itself fully captures the drivers of competitive advantage. Focusing on marketing-specific actions referred to as market deployment, the authors investigate the roles of both resources and action by examining how the nature and level of a firm's resources influence the success of the firm's marketing actions. The results, based on a secondary data approach and a series of sequentially estimated hierarchical regression models, indicate that resource possession influences returns to market deployment. Specifically, higher levels of intangible marketing resources and intangible technological resources increase the effectiveness of market deployment related to distribution and coupon activity, whereas higher levels of financial resources decrease the effectiveness of these types of market deployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors investigate and find evidence for advertising and sales promotion spillover effects for umbrella brands in frequently purchased packaged product categories. The authors also capture the impact of advertising (as well as use experience) on both utility mean and variance across two categories. They show that variance of the random component of utility declines over time on the basis of advertising (and use experience) in either category. This constitutes the first empirical evidence for the uncertainty-reducing role of advertising across categories for umbrella brands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent do price promotions have a long-term effect on the components of brand sales, namely category incidence, brand choice, and purchase quantity? The authors answer this question by using persistence modeling on weekly sales data of a perishable and a storable product derived from a scanner panel. Their analysis reveals, first, that permanent promotion effects are virtually absent for each sales component. Next, the authors develop and apply an impulse response approach to estimate the promotional adjustment period and the total dynamic effects of a price promotion. Specifically, they calculate the long-term equivalent of Gupta's (1988) 14/84/2 breakdown of promotional effects. Because of positive adjustment effects for incidence but negative adjustment effects for choice, the authors find a reversal of the importance of category incidence and brand choice: 66/11/23 for the storable product and 58/39/3 for the perishable product. The authors discuss the implications of the findings and suggest some areas for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the strong interest in global marketing, there is no consensus in the literature about what constitutes a global marketing strategy and whether it affects a firm's global market performance. The authors develop a broad conceptualization of global marketing strategy, the GMS, that integrates three major perspectives--namely, the standardization, configuration-coordination, and integration perspectives--of global marketing strategy. They also develop a conceptual model that links the GMS to a firm's global market performance. On the basis of a survey of business units competing in global industries, the authors find support for the broad GMS perspective and the fundamental relationship between the GMS and firms' global market performance. The authors also discuss theoretical and managerial implications of their findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior empirical literature states that asymmetry in cross-price effect favors the high-share brand. That is, when high-share brands discount, they have a greater impact on low-share brands than the reverse. This conclusion is based on consideration of cross-price elasticities. The authors point out that focusing on cross-price elasticities for assessing asymmetry is inappropriate for determining the incremental profitability from price promotions. Instead, asymmetries should be investigated in absolute cross-price effects, that is, change in market share of a competing brand for a unit price change of the focal brand. The authors theoretically and empirically demonstrate that asymmetry reverses when absolute cross-price effect is considered. That is, the absolute cross-price effect of a price reduction of a low-share brand on the market share or sales of a high-share brand is greater than the reverse. The authors discuss the implications of the findings and future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased access to individual customers and their purchase histories has led to a growth in targeted promotions, including the practice of offering different pricing policies to prospective, as opposed to current, customers. Prior research on targeted promotions has adopted a tenet of the standard economic theory of choice, whereby what a consumer chooses depends exclusively on the prices available to that consumer. In this article, the authors propose that consumer preference for firms is affected not just by prices the consumers themselves are offered but also by prices available to others. This departure from the conventional strong-rationality approach to targeted promotion results in a decidedly different optimal policy. Through a laboratory experiment, calibration of a stochastic model, and game-theoretic analysis, the authors demonstrate that ignoring behaviorist effects exaggerates the importance of targeting switchers as opposed to loyals. This occurs, though with intriguing differences, even when only part of the market is aware of firms' differing promotional policies. The authors show that both the deal percentage and the proportion of aware consumers affect the optimal strategy of the firm. Furthermore, the authors find that offering lower prices to switchers may not be a sustainable practice in the long run, as information spreads and the proportion of aware consumers grows. The model cautions practitioners against overpromoting and/or promoting to the wrong segment and suggests avenues for improving the effectiveness of targeted promotional policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of consistency of the marketing mix is widely regarded as a key marketing principle. Consistency is commonly understood to apply among marketing mix elements, but it also involves a temporal dimension: Marketing messages and, more generally, marketing mix strategies should achieve some degree of consistency over time. In this article, the authors focus on a particular aspect of marketing mix consistency over time in the context of frequently purchased packaged consumer goods: They investigate the impact of temporal consistency on store promotions, as well as the availability of the product on the shelf, on consumer product evaluations (utilities) and choices. In this specific context, temporal (in)consistency captures the degree of variability of prices, displays, and features, as well as availability over time, for a stockkeeping unit. The authors find that sales promotion mix consistency over time affects both consumer utility mean and scale and thus consumers' choices and brand shares. Lack of sales promotion mix consistency is generally deleterious to consumer brand evaluations through (1) decreases to average valuations and (2) decreases in scale, both of which can lead to decreases in market share. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brands are promoted in many different ways. In this research, the authors examine synergies between different types of promotions and characteristics of the brands that offer the promotions. Specifically, the authors examine interactions among feature advertising, display, price promotions, and the price-quality tier of the brand offering them. Using both scanner data and experiments, the authors find that high-tier brands benefit more than low-tier brands from price promotions, displays, or feature advertising when these promotional tools are used by themselves. This advantage disappears, however, when certain promotional tools are used in combination with one another. In particular, the authors find that price promotions have a more equal effect on low-tier and high-tier brands when these promotions are offered in settings where comparisons are difficult (end-of-aisle displays or feature advertising). Furthermore, the combined effects of displays and price promotions, or feature advertising and price promotions, are greater on the low-tier brands than on the high-tier brands. The results provide insights into the conditions under which specific marketing tools are most effective for which brands. The authors discuss theoretical implications of the results as they relate to promotions and consumer decision making and outline strategic implications for retailers and manufacturers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A decision of increasing importance is how ingredient attributes that make up a product should be labeled or branded, if at all. The authors conduct a laboratory experiment to consider how ingredient branding affects consumer acceptance of a novel line extension (or one that has not been introduced before) as well as the ability of the brand to leverage that ingredient to introduce future category extensions. The authors study two particular types of novel line extensions or brand expansions: (1) slot-filler expansions, in which the level of one existing product attribute changes (e.g., a scent in Tide detergent that is new to the laundry detergent category) and (2) new attribute expansions, in which an entirely new attribute or characteristic is added to the product (e.g., cough relief liquid added to Life Savers candy). The authors examine two types of ingredient branding strategies by branding the target attribute ingredient for the brand expansion with either a new name as a self-branded ingredient (e.g., Tide with its own EverFresh scented bath soap) or an established, well-respected name as a cobranded ingredient (e.g., Tide with Irish Spring scented bath soap). The results indicate that with slot-filler expansions, a cobranded ingredient facilitates initial expansion acceptance, but a self-branded ingredient leads to more favorable subsequent category extension evaluations. With more dissimilar new attribute expansions, however, a cobranded ingredient leads to more favorable evaluations of both the initial expansion and the subsequent category extension. The authors offer interpretation, implications, and limitations of the findings, as well as directions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate differences in time pressure and information between two broad classes of promotional offers: (1) "advanced receipts" in which consumers are encouraged to expedite the purchase of a good or service to take advantage of coupons, rebates, price-offs, premiums, etc.; and (2) "delayed payments," in which consumers are urged to "buy now and pay later." A content analysis of 222 promotional offers was conducted using the time and outcome valuation model as a theoretical basis for understanding the role of time pressure in terms of time allowed before the offer expiration as well as copy and information in these different types of promotional offers. The findings indicate that delayed payment offers allow less time to participate than advanced receipt offers, have more time pressure copy for those promotional offers giving a deadline and provide more information. [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]

Are monetary savings the only explanation for consumer response to a sales promotion? If not, how do the different consumer benefits of a sales promotion influence its effectiveness? To address the first question, this research builds a framework of the multiple consumer benefits of a sales promotion. Through a series of measurement studies, the authors find that monetary and non-monetary promotions provide consumers with different levels of three hedonic benefits (opportunities for value expression, entertainment, and exploration) and three utilitarian benefits (savings, higher product quality, and improved shopping convenience). To address the second question, the authors develop a benefit congruency framework, which argues that a sales promotion's effectiveness is determined by the utilitarian or hedonic nature of the benefits it delivers and the congruence these benefits have with the promoted product. Among other results, two choice experiments show that, as predicted for high-equity brands, monetary promotions are more effective for utilitarian products than for hedonic products. The authors then discuss the implications of the multi-benefit and the benefit congruency frameworks for understanding consumer responses to sales promotions, reexamining the value of everyday-low-price policies, and designing more effective sales promotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on the use of tensile pricing in advertising has not yet determined if services respond differently to tensile tactics than do products. Moreover, in the product studies of tensile tactics, minimum tested discount levels were based on local market conditions which were assessed in the early 1990's. This study examines the effects of tensile pricing tactics on services, and uses minimum discounts based on broader current market conditions. Results suggest that advertisements for professional and retail services do not differ from each other in terms of performance in response to a tensile pricing tactic. Results also indicate that tensile pricing tactics may have different dynamics in services versus product advertising. Finally, the findings tend to indicate that consumers' generic perceptions of savings in response to the use of tensile tactics might be distinct from the specific intent to purchase certain services, given the possible link in the customer's mind between discounts and subsequent perceptions of services quality in certain categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors present a phenomenological and longitudinal investigation of satisfaction, as revealed through consumers' ownership experiences with technological products. The study seeks to serve a provocative role in this mature research area by stepping back from the historically dominant comparison standards paradigm to question, invigorate, and, in certain ways, redirect satisfaction research along emergent lines. Although results show that the dominant paradigm of satisfaction and its competing models (i.e., those based on the confirmation/disconfirmation of preconsumption standards) are distinctly operative in some of the consumer cases, they are also found to be insufficient or even irrelevant in others. The authors consider several theoretical extensions in light of this learning and induct a new satisfaction paradigm. Overall, the findings support a more holistic, context-dependent, and dynamic process of satisfaction. This process is revealed as a multi-model, multi-modal blend of motivations, cognitions, emotions, and meanings, embedded in sociocultural settings, which transforms during progressive and regressive consumer-product interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategies for improving customer loyalty are a sine qua non for attracting new customers and retaining old ones in order to improve firms' sustainable competitiveness. However, choice of marketing communication mix would differ between firms and across industries. This study examines the influence of integrated marketing communications (IMC) dimensions on customer loyalty to mobile telecommunication service among competing firms in telecommunication service industry. Using cross-sectional survey research design, multistage sampling procedure (stratified, quota and simple random) sampling techniques, data was collected from 150 respondents out of which n = 134 copies of the retrieved questionnaires. The data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics (correlation and regression), while hypotheses were tested using the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results show a significant relationship between customer loyalty and direct marketing (r = .375**); publicity (r = .514**); sales promotion (r = .470**) and advertising r = .562**) respectively. The multiple regression result indicates R2 value of .483, meaning that integrated marketing communication dimensions accounted for 48.3% variance in customer loyalty. The study therefore recommends IMC as a strategic tool for targeting subscribers to patronize and retain them with a mobile telecom service provider for a long time. It further suggests that managers in the industry should prioritize their strategies on the basis of IMC dimension that makes the greatest contribution to the criterion of interest, with beta and high coefficient in their budgetary allocation for the optimal promotional mix to achieve the organisational goal both in short and long-run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The profitability of established products is affected greatly by the extent to which they are meaningfully differentiated from competing alternatives. Maintaining meaningful differentiation, in turn, is facilitated by ongoing development of creative marketing programs. Although marketplace observation reveals a general lack of creativity in the way established products are marketed, some product managers are able to devise creative marketing programs for their products. The authors test hypotheses concerning the effects of individual (i.e., product manager) and situational (i.e., planning process) characteristics on marketing program creativity. The findings reveal that marketing program creativity is a function of individual problem-solving inputs (e.g., knowledge of the marketing environment, diversity of experience, diversity of education), motivational factors (e.g., intrinsic motivation, risk taking), and situational factors (e.g., planning process formalization interaction with others, time pressure). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promotions are being used with increasing frequency by manufacturers facing highly competitive markets, which is causing concern among some marketers who feel that frequent promotions can hurt a brand. Nevertheless, there is little empirical evidence to either support or dispel such fears. To fill this gap in the literature, the authors propose a brand choice model that provides an estimate of the dynamic effects of promotions on loyalty to the brand and customers' sensitivity to the price of the brand, and measures whether promotional purchases reinforce or reduce subsequent response to similar promotions. They estimate a random effects heteroskedastic covariance probit time-varying parameter model on household scanner panel data from the liquid detergent category. Their results indicate that increased purchases using coupons erode brand loyalty and increase price sensitivity. In addition the authors find that the effect of features and displays on brand choice is reinforced by prior feature End display purchases, respectively, as well as by feature and display purchases associated with price cuts. Future research directions are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using weekly scanner data representing 18 product categories, the authors estimated store-specific price elasticities for a chain of 83 supermarkets. They related these price sensitivities to a comprehensive set of demographic and competitor variables that described the trading areas of each of the stores. Despite the Inability of previous research to find much of a relationship between consumer characteristics and price sensitivity, 11 demographic and competitive variables explain on average 67% of the variation in price response. Moreover, the authors found that the consumer demographic variables are much more influential than competitive variables. Their findings open the possibility for more effective everyday and promotional pricing strategies that exploit store-level differences In price sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]