“Add-on” purchasing: Consumer behavior in the trial of new products

The research reported here examines consumer behavior in the trial of new consumer packaged goods. Panel data tracking purchase patterns over the first two years of introduction for seven low-priced consumer goods was utilized to study both the timing and quantity of individual household new product trials. A behavior termed “add-on” purchasing (buying trial brands in addition to regularly purchased brands) was exhibited across all seven new products. Implications of this “add on” behavior are discussed.     

A brief note on the history of fashion

For a number of years the practioners and scholars of fashion have held different views of the consumer. Fashion designers and marketers have traditionally regarded consumers as followers who automatically accept the style dictates and purchase products without any resistance. In contrast, fashion historians and scholars held just the opposite view. To them the consumer is a free individual whose needs must be examined and considered before a new style is introduced. In this article the ideas of such historians as Paul Mystiom, Flaccus, and Tarde are examined. While writing in the early 1900’s, their observations and theories are remarkably similar to the “marketing concept” so often mentioned in the more contemporary marketing literature.     

How effective are public policy decissions?…The need for a general evaluation model

The successful inplementation of public policy decisions depends heavily upon knowing what information is required by the consumers and knowing the situational factors that determine whether or not the consumer will use the information. Implementation will only succeed if there is an attempt made to educate the consumer through methods other than “full disclosure.” The successful education of the consumer will only succeed if the policy decision makers are able to determine what the consumers need to know and how best to communicate this to them. The purpose of this paper is to present a general methodology for gathering information about groups of consumers or industries that will be affected by the policy decision. One of the major thrusts of the model is the emphasis placed on acquiring the information before the policy decision is made. The second major thrust is the proposal to “test market” policy decisions before they are actually made.     

The effect of superstitious beliefs on performance expectations

We explore superstitious beliefs as a basis of product performance expectations and their impact on initial purchase likelihood and subsequent satisfaction. In doing so, we demonstrate instances when superstition-driven expectations cause consumers to make purchase decisions that run counter to economic rationality. In the first set of studies we find that Taiwanese consumers are relatively more likely to purchase a product with positive superstitious associations based on its “lucky” color, and are more likely to purchase and are willing to pay more money for a product with a smaller but “lucky” number of units contained in the package (e.g., eight tennis balls compared to ten). In contrast, consumers who do not hold such superstitious beliefs adhere to the more rational choice paradigm. Next, we show that the differences in purchase likelihood are driven by superstition-based performance expectations. We further generalize these findings to product satisfaction, and find support for expectation disconfirmation sensitivity as a moderator of the effect.

How European retailers view American imported products: Results of a product image survey

With the dimensions of international trade widening each year, and the oil generated U.S. balance of payments deficit unacceptably high, the need for American firms to export their products to overseas markets has never been greater. Formulation of a successful export marketing strategy for the European Community can be greatly assisted by gaining some insight into how the consumers and businessmen in the various European member nations view American products. With this in mind, a total of 163 retail store managers in Britain and France were asked to rate products “made in the U.S.A.” on each of 13 product image dimensions, and to “vote” for which of the 3 countries offered the products of greatest value in 6 different consumer product categories. The results offer some useful insights for U.S. firms seeking to tap the potential consumer markets in Britain and France.     

Industrial market segmentation on buying center purchase responsibilities

This exploratory study focuses on the use of buying center purchase responsibilities as a basis for industrial market segmentation. Analysis of buying centers revealed differences between organizations with “overlapping” versus “position-dominant” patterns of purchase responsibility. Hypotheses supporting overlapping versus position-dominant buying centers are discussed, and implications for industrial marketing management are proposed.     

Who are your successful salespeople?

Utilizing a systematic sample of 200 sales managers selected from manufacturing and wholesaling firms listed in the Dun and BradstreetMillion-Dollar Directory, a survey was conducted to determine whether or not a general profile of “successful” salespersons and another profile of “unsuccessful” salespersons could be constructed. A seven-point semantic differential scale was used to obtain ratings by sales managers of salespeople on each of twenty-four personal attributes. Profiles of “successful” and “unsuccessful” salespersons were found which showed large differences in ratings on the twenty-four personal attributes. Using factor analysis, a reduced set of personal characteristics was determined to predict “successful” and “unsuccessful” salespersons.     

Including the effects of prior and recent contact effort in a customer scoring model for database marketing

Database marketers often use a scoring model to predict the likely value of contacting customers based on their purchase histories and demographics. However, when purchase history has been a partial result of the firm’s own contacting efforts, these contacts should also be accounted for in the scoring model. The current work extends the existing literature to account for the firm’s contacts by focusing on each customer’s most recent purchase. Contacts prior to that purchase are designated “prior contacts” and those after that purchase “recent contacts.” A new latent variables formulation of the customer’s propensity to respond is used to predict the likelihood and time of response as well as the relationship to the independent variables. The methodology also addresses the statistical problems of “selection bias” and “endogeneity,” which have been largely ignored in most customer scoring models. An application to the database of a charitable organization confirms that, in this case: (1) the effect of the firm’s customer contact efforts is associated with a stronger propensity to respond than is the case for the included demographics; (2) the firm’s “recent contact” efforts are associated with larger returns in customers’ propensity to respond than the “prior contact” efforts; and (3) the “recent contact” efforts are associated with an at-first increasing but then diminishing propensity to respond up to a point beyond which actual decreasing returns are observed with further contacts. Clearly, too much contacting can alienate would-be donors. The proposed model is general enough to calibrate such impacts in other database marketing applications where the relative effects might be different.

Contribution of women to U.S. marketing thought: The consumers’ perspective, 1900–1940

This paper examines the early contributions of women to marketing thought with particular emphasis on marketing's evolving interest in the consumer. The emergence of marketing and home economics in the beginning of the present century provides a background for development of consumer theory and the relationships between these two disciplines. In addition, the contributions of women more closely aligned with mainstream marketing thought in the first half of the century are described and the significance of the “feminine perspective” and unique understanding of the consumer is demonstrated.     

Contractually integrated systems for the marketing of industrial supplies

Increasingly competitive pressures during the past decade have caused both industrial buyers and suppliers to search for new economies and means for achieving greater profitability. Industrial wholesaler-distributors have responded with a variety of contractually based “systems” that are designed to simplify customers' purchase of supplies while ensuring distributor profits. The two main varieties of such Systems are popularly called “Blanket Orders” and ”Systems Contracts,” but the latter are more comprehensive extensions of the former. Specifically, Systems Contracts imply a total commitment by a distributor toward solving his customers' supplies problems. Such agreements typically involve a shifting of the supplies warehousing function back to the vendor, where items are then automatically reordered by plant-level users as opposed to purchasing agents. Rounding out the System is an extensive array of vendor-supplied services: 24-hour item delivery, computer-processed item usage reports, a control feature, and vendor consultation and problem solving. The Contract effectively links buyer and supplier together in a harmonious, profitable relationship.     

The link between attractiveness of “Extrabrand” attributes and the adoption of innovations

While innovators may rush to purchase many new products, most consumers are more conservative and do not want to buy into fads but purchase only those new products that are viable. How do the majority of consumers make judgments about whether they will adopt an innovation? This article examines the evaluative aspects of adoption as a means for better understanding consumer adoption and the market factors that may influence the success of an innovation. This research introduces a conceptual model that shows how consumers’ evaluation of product category attractiveness affects the adoption decision for really new products. These consumer evaluations are based on the attributes of the product category (“extrabrand” attributes) rather than brand attributes. Results from a test of the model indicate that consumers do use extrabrand attributes to assess the attractiveness of innovative new products.     

A pre-diffusion growth model of intentions and purchase

In this paper, we investigate whether information on the history of purchase intentions is useful in predicting actual purchase behavior. The research is motivated by two factors. The first factor is the empirical finding in the literature that measuring intentions just prior to purchase provides better predictions of actual purchase as compared to when these intentions are measured earlier. The second factor is the role of the timing of the formation of intentions prior to purchase. While one stream of literature based on preference fluency predicts that early formation of intentions is more likely to lead to actual purchase, the other stream based on the memory-based “recency” effect predicts that formation of intentions just prior to purchase is more likely to lead to actual purchase. Together, these two factors motivate the potential need to account for the entire history of intentions prior to purchase. A canonical example of a market where intention histories are tracked is the movie industry, where “first choice” movie watching intentions are tracked up to (and in some cases beyond) the time of release. Accommodating the history of intentions in an econometric model that predicts actual box office performance is challenging due to the differing numbers of observations for the movies, the large numbers of observations for certain movies, as well as the role of various time-invariant and time-varying covariates influencing intentions. We propose a two-part model where the first part involves a hierarchical growth model that summarizes the trajectories of intentions via “growth factors.” These growth factors also reflect the role of the various covariates. The second part is a regression of the box office performance on the growth factors and other covariates. The models are simultaneously estimated within a Bayesian framework. Consistent with the previous literature, we find that including information on intentions improves our ability to predict behavior, with the recent intentions being the most informative. Importantly, when the history of intentions is accounted for, our results indicate that the data support the “recency” literature—intentions grow over time leading up to purchase, and this growth has a positive impact on opening box office performance. While a linear growth model performs best for most movies, there exists a subset of movies for which the quadratic growth model better captures the “spike” in intentions just prior to purchase. Further, accounting for information on the history of intentions dramatically improves model fit and forecasting performance relative to when only the intentions at one point in time (e.g., the ones just prior to purchase) are accounted for.     

Transparent pricing: theory,tests, and implications for marketing practice

In today’s retail markets, products display opaque pricing, i.e., a single number that provides no information about the allocation of the retail proceeds among agents who bring the product to market. We study transparent pricing, which is an alternative strategy in which allocation information is revealed. We differentiate transparent pricing from related marketing practices such as social marketing, cause-related marketing, and pay-what-you-want. Using controlled experiments in multiple product categories with diverse sampling frames, we find that transparent prices systematically alter consumer utility functions and stated choice behavior. Our results support explanations drawn from both neoclassical and behavioral economic theory, including inequity aversion, procedural justice, and altruism. Classical theory predicts that price transparency should have little effect on consumer behavior. However, results from behavioral economics suggest that consumers may relax “self-interest” in the face of transparent prices, leading to counter-intuitive preferences. For example, in one set of studies we observe a significant proportion of consumers selecting the more expensive of two replicates of the same product. In another study, a subset of motorists willingly pays higher gasoline taxes for the same gallon of gas, increasing the overall price per gallon. We explain this behavior via parameterized utility functions that contain both self-interested and other-interested components moderated by characteristics of the decision-maker and characteristics of the choice context.     

The client as consumer: Marketing the law,clinic-style

In 1977 the Supreme Court ruled that lawyers could not be prevented from advertising their prices for routine services, thus outlawing a long standing restriction imposed by the legal profession on its own members. This decision prompted a ferocious controversy (even for lawyers) over the proprieties of advertising legal services, not to mention the effect that “marketplace ethics” might wield on the delivery pricing, and quality of services offered to the great lay public. This article looks at how legal consumers are affected by the kind of high-volume, low-priced delivery of routine services that can only be offered profitably through aggressive marketing. Then it discusses how one firm used segmentation strategy and a consumer orientation to introduce the clinic concept on the East Coast. Finally, some implications of the immediate future of lawyer marketing for marketing professionals are analyzed.     

产品的搜寻、经验和信任属性对手机购买行为的影响——基于焦点座谈小组的归纳性分析

产品的搜寻属性、经验属性和信任属性是影响消费购买行为的重要因素。本文运用焦点座谈小组的定性分析方法,在手机购买的情景下考察了产品的搜寻属性、经验属性和信任属性的构成维度及其对购买行为的影响。结果发现,除了传统的三大产品属性,个人属性也是影响手机购买的重要因素,这些发现可为手机制造商和经销商提供重要的营销实践参考。     

Implications of accurate usage of nutrition facts panel information for food product evaluations and purchase intentions

The nutrition facts panel on food packages was designed to provide comprehensible quantitative nutrition information that would allow consumers to make more informed food choices that could result in significant long-term health benefits. This study (1) examines how accurately consumers can use nutrient information in the facts panel to determine if a product has more or less than the recommended daily values of certain nutrients and (2) offers predictions and tests of the relationships between this usage ability and product nutrition evaluations and purchase intentions. Results show that more accurate use moderates the effect of product nutrition value on consumer evaluations, as predicted. Findings also reveal that several variables (e.g., measures of nutrition knowledge, attitude toward the “facts” label) are related to accuracy in the usage task. Implications based on these findings are offered. Scot Burton is a professor and Wal-Mart chairholder in the Department of Marketing and Transportation at the University of Arkansas. His research interests include public policy and consumer welfare concerns, consumer price and promotion perceptions, and survey research measurement issues. His work has been published in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, and other journals. Judith A. Garretson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Marketing and Transportation at the University of Arkansas. Her research interests include promotion issues public policy and consumer welfare, and consumer behavior in general. Her work has appeared in journals including theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, and theJournal of Professional Services Marketing, as well as in conference proceedings such as the American Marketing Association and the Association for Consumer Research. Anne M. Velliquette is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Marketing and Transportation at the University of Arkansas. Her research interests include consumer behavior and public policy. She has published in theJournal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Professional Services Marketing, and proceedings of the Association for Consumer Research as well as other conference proceedings and journals.     

Marketing as production: The development of a concept

The conventional view of marketing as somehow adding to the work of manufacturing is rooted in the concept of production as the creation of material attributes. A view of marketing as an integral part of a productive process generating “bundles of utilities” has a long history in economic analysis. This approach offers several advantages for marketing thought.     

It’s not easy being green: the effects of attribute tradeoffs on green product preference and choice

Despite widespread pro-green attitudes, consumers frequently purchase non-green alternatives. One possible explanation for this value–action gap is the tradeoffs that green products often force on their users: higher prices, lower quality, and/or reduced performance. The current study uses conjoint analysis to uncover the attribute preferences of car and TV buyers when green attributes are negatively correlated with conventional attributes. These attribute preferences are then used to predict choice among sets of green and less green alternatives currently sold in the marketplace. Strong preferences for green products are found when tradeoffs are not apparent, but preference shifts significantly to less green compromise alternatives when the actual attribute tradeoffs are considered. Although general preference is reduced by tradeoffs, a green product offering some compensatory advantage on a conventional attribute does attract a broader spectrum of consumers, while only “dark green” consumers are willing to pay the price to go green when the product offers few compensatory qualities. In all cases, however, predicted buyers of the greenest technologies offset some of their environmental benefits by choosing more energy-thirsty specifications on negatively correlated conventional attributes. Managerial and public policy implications of the findings are then discussed.     

The measurement of the relative influence of husband and wife upon a purchase decision

There is some empirical evidence which indicates that current measures of the relative influence of husband and wife upon a purchase decision may not be completely valid. In this paper, a new measure of relative influence is presented. Extent of influence is determined primarily by the extent that one member of the dyad's brand preferences are influenced by the other member or by comparing the brand purchased to the brand preferences of one or both members of the dyad. This measure should be an improvement over current measures because respondents do not need to define the term “influence” with the measure, and because it assumes that an individual may not be able to determine whether an attempt to influence a decision is successful and/or assess whether he or she influences a decision without attempting to do so.     

The role of rationalization in consumer decision processes: A revisionist approach to consumer behavior

Consumer behavior theory, as it has largely evolved from economics with its rigid adherence to marginal utility theory, suggests that consumers are highly rational and that they basically strive to maximize utility or satisfaction by the careful rationing of resources. In this paper, the typical assumptions in consumer decision process models are reviewed and analyzed, the empirical evidence supporting the models of the rational consumer is challenged, the concept of rationalization is developed and the existential support for the concept is examined, the role and significance of alternative ego state on consumer decision processes are explained and finally, the rudiments of a revisionist approach to consumer behavior are advanced. An earlier draft of this paper entitled “Consumer Decision Processes: The Role and Influence of Rationalization” was presented at the annual meeting of The American Psychological Association Division 23 in 1977. The author was assisted in the preparation and development of this earlier draft by Dr. Chem Narayana. This assistance is herewith acknowledged.