Search

For almost nine decades, advertisers have relied on the Sainsbury Normal Method (SNM) to estimate net-reach where single-source data are either too expensive or unavailable. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no SNM validation studies have included catalogues, smartphone applications, websites, social media, or cinema. While few studies have applied the SNM across media, no study has addressed the limitation of the SNM, that is, the implied assumption of audience homogeneity. Given that audiences do differ by age within any medium, and across media, there is a need to incorporate audience heterogeneity into the method. The authors introduce the Sainsbury Weighted Method (SWM) which provides more accurate within medium net-reach estimations in 82% of the 9,680 cases analysed, with an average accuracy improvement for within medium net-reach estimations of 0.6 percentage points (or 13%). For across media net-reach, the SWM estimations are more accurate in 77% of the 968 cases analysed, improving the average accuracy by 0.5 percentage points (or 49%). Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Market share growth requires building mental and physical availability among all category buyers. However, if younger category buyers are more likely to purchase new-to-market products, then perhaps younger buyers are, relatively speaking, more important for growth. This research investigates the relationship between category buyer age, brand buyer age, and brand failure. When sub-brand buyer age is younger than category buyer age, the sub-brand is likely to be (a) new-to-market or (b) growing in market share. Older-than-category sub-brand-buyer age is likely for sub-brands that are (a) declining or (b) dead. Results from 17 years (1998–2014) of U.K. household panel data, including 5,913 sub-brands from 101 categories, show that age skews were uncommon (only 18% of sub-brands), and second, that growing, stable and declining sub-brands appealed equally to all ages. Finally, we identified that new launches and dead brands tend to skew to younger consumers, suggesting that new launches need to appeal to all ages to avoid failure Refereed/Peer-reviewed

In the retail environment, attention is requisite to purchase, attention being the collection and assessment of stimuli from our senses (visual stimuli are generally the most important) for cognitive processing according to the needs of the moment. Visual attention is easily and affordably measured today using eye tracking technology.This paper reviews the "state of play" of the use of eye tracking technology as a research tool in retail and retail marketing. The review is timely as during the last decade many non-proprietary eye tracking studies have been published in marketing, consumer behavior, and retail journals, and additional work is expected as the technology gains adoption in consumer research. We reviewed studies that contributed to an understanding of consumer behavior in the gold standard of consumer interface: the retail store. The goal of the paper is to provide a synthesis of retail-focused eye tracking study findings. We present the managerial and theoretical significanceof the research as well as an agenda that considers the use of eye tracking from pre-shopping through point of sale. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This paper investigates consumer's behavioural loyalty to online supermarkets over time. We use three measures of behavioural loyalty (share of category requirements, repertoire size, and polarisation index) from four major online supermarkets in the UK across five categories. We find that loyalty to online supermarkets is high in the categories we examined, though it declined somewhat from 2005 to 2009 and subsequently remained stable from 2010 to 2014. We also extensively test the generalisability of the well-known Dirichlet model to the choice of online supermarkets. We find that the model gives better fit from 2010 to 2014 than from 2005 to 2009 and can describe loyalty and competition in this context. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Purpose This paper aims to show that strength-based theories of memory provide only a partial description of how consumers retrieve brands from memory. Dual-process theories of memory such as the Source of Activation Confusion (SAC) model provide a more robust explanation of brand retrieval by accounting for the separate effects of brand familiarity and category knowledge. Design/methodology/approach This paper examines brand image associations for 27 brands in three product categories using marketing field data. The authors apply a quasi-experimental approach to divide respondents into four groups based on their levels of brand familiarity and category knowledge. The authors compare brand retrieval for each group to test whether the SAC model, a dual-process theory of memory, or traditional strength-based theories of memory better explain brand retrieval. Findings Familiar brands are harder to remember when consumers know more about the product category. This effect cannot be explained by strength-based theories of memory, but it is a prediction of the SAC model. This outcome is a critical test that discriminates between competing theories of brand retrieval. Research limitations/implications Researchers may draw on the SAC model to identify new ways of analysing brand image data to better understand how consumers retrieve brands from memory. This includes, above all, developing methods to separately measure the effects of brand familiarity and category knowledge. Practical implications To maximise the chance that consumers will remember brands, managers of highly familiar brands should avoid promoting category knowledge through their branding and communications strategies. By contrast, managers of less familiar brands should promote category knowledge by linking their brand to episodes of category consumption. Originality/value This work illustrates that a quasi-experimental approach can be used to extend quantitative psychological models from laboratory experiments to marketing field data. It also illustrates the use of a critical empirical test to discriminate between competing theories in marketing.

Purpose – At present no frameworks exist for services marketers to incorporate social media (SM) within marketing communications planning. The majority of integrated marketing communications (IMC) frameworks were developed prior to the development of the widespread use of digital and SM for information seeking, sales and service. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this issue for services marketers specifically as they differ from FMCG, industrial and durable marketers in terms of marketing messages, branding, media and channels. Furthermore, as they are less reliant on outsourced sale channels they have more potential than other industries to integrate social and digital media to build awareness, brands and sales. Design/methodology/approach – Depth interviews were conducted with eight senior services marketing executives to identify the impact of SM on marketing communications planning, implementation and measurement. Findings – The findings revealed that the unique characteristics of SM (such as interactivity and individualisation, integration of communication and distribution channels, immediacy and information collection) impact traditional marketing communications frameworks. These impacts manifested in 12 modifications specific to services and SM to traditional generic IMC frameworks encompassed by the themes of reach, service channel, word-of-mouth advocacy, consumer generated messages, listening and behavioural measurement. Practical implications – The rapidly evolving nature of SM means senior services marketers need to educate organisational stakeholders regarding implementation issues, which may be a barrier to effective integration of SM within marketing communications. Originality/value – With digital marketing communications budgets reaching 30 per cent within some organisations, it is timely to put forward a marketing communication decision-making framework that first incorporates SM and second is suitable for services marketers.

From analysis of over 39 categories Laurent, Kapferer and Roussel (1995) found that top of mind, spontaneous and aided brand awareness measures have the same underlying structure. The difference in scores appears due to the difficulty of the measure. We have successfully replicated this work and extended it to similarly structured advertising awareness measures. However, additional analyses then revealed that while there is a good category level fit, modelling a single brand over time is less successful. Indeed, Laurent et al.'s excellent cross-sectional fit appears due to substantially different levels of salience between larger and smaller brands. This suggests that while the different types of awareness tend to vary with a brand's overall level of salience, this does not mean that the different measures simply reflect a single underlying construct. Further, our finding challenges the previous authors’ claim that knowing the score for one measure allows the estimation of the score for another measure. Instead, the model provides useful norms against which to compare actual scores.

This research examines long-term loyalty change in a wide variety of FMCG categories in the UK and USA, over time periods between six to thirteen years. The study uses the Dirichlet S category switching parameter as the loyalty indicator. The findings provide mixed evidence. Only in 7 out of 15 UK categories and 2 of 6 US categories loyalty is slightly declining. Loyalty decline appears to be product category-specific, rather than a universal phenomenon, and furthermore appears to be a very slight and slow process, Cette recherche analyse l'hypothèse d'un changement à long terme de la fidélité à la marque dans une grande variété de catégories de produits de grande consommation sur des périodes allant de six à treize ans. L'étude utilise le paramètre de changement Dirichlet S, comme indicateur de fidélité. Les résultats sont mitigés. La fidélité diminue seulement dans 7 des 15 catégories de produits analysées en Grande Bretagne et dans 2 des 6 catégories aux Etats-Unis. Le déclin de la fidélité n'est ainsi pas un phénomène universel mais dépend de la catégorie de produits et apparaît comme un processus très lent

The Dirichlet is one of the most important theoretical achievements of marketing science.It provides insights into the distribution of consumer loyalties and is used widely in industry for benchmarking and interpreting brand performance. The Dirichlet’s implications run counter to some well-entrenched marketing pedagogy and so, unsurprisingly, it has attracted criticism arguing that it cannot adequately reflect the dynamic nature of consumer choice. The authors address these criticisms by discussing how consumer loyalties are manifested and examining whether changes in consumer loyalties do, in fact, disrupt Dirichlet buying patterns. To the best of our discipline’s knowledge, based on extensive empirical and theoretical work, brands compete in a Dirichlet world Refereed/Peer-reviewed