Britt,Steuart Henderson. Psychological Principles of Marketing and Consumer Behavior. Lexington,Mass.: Lexington Books, 1978

Abstract

Conventionally, an advertiser's spending on the creative component of an advertising campaign is small in relation to the media budget and is channeled exclusively to a single advertising agency. Gross challenged those conventions more than 20 years ago, using a mathematical model of advertising effectiveness. His model suggested spending more on the creative component and doing so in a competition among several independent sources. The model assumed a normal distribution of effectiveness of advertisements. Data on response to consumer product ads show that the distribution of effectiveness is not normal, but quite skewed. Using Monté Carlo simulations and Gross's framework, the authors find that the skewness strengthens the case for competition. Shifting a sizable percentage of a campaign budget away from media spending and into competitive generation of creative renderings apparently can be very profitable.     

An evaluation of the effectiveness of televised road safety messages in Ghana

The goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of recent televised advertisements conducted by the National Road Safety Commission in Ghana. These concerned speeding and alcohol-impaired driving and were targeted towards commercial drivers. Focus group discussions were conducted with 50 commercial drivers in four cities. Discussions addressed coverage, clarity and appropriateness of messages, including suggestions for improvements. Most discussants indicated that the messages were clear and appropriate. Television reached all participants in this urban group. However, they felt that other modes of communication, such as flyers and radio, should also be used to reach drivers who did not own televisions. A particular problem was language. The advertisements had been in English and Akan (the most common vernacular language). Participants wanted the messages diversified into more of the major Ghanaian languages. Some participants were unclear on the behaviour that the advertisements were telling viewers to take. Participants advocated greater involvement by police in road safety and called for laws banning the sale of alcohol at bus stations. The advertisements reached and were understood by most of the target audience. Opportunities for strengthening the messages included using other media; increasing the number of languages; and stressing the change in behaviour being recommended. Overall road safety activities would be strengthened by increasing accompanying law enforcement activities related to speed and alcohol-impaired driving. To the authors' knowledge this is the first formal evaluation of a road safety social marketing programme in a low-income sub-Saharan African country. This evaluation will hopefully assist Ghana and other similar countries in strengthening road safety work.     

Reexamining Masculinity,Femininity,and Gender Identity Scales

This research compares and contrasts three gender identity instruments, the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ), and the Sexual Identity Scale (SIS), that have been used in previous investigations of various aspects of consumer behavior. Specifically, it examines the dimensionality and internal reliability of each scale, inter-scale correlations, and the relationship of each scale to biological sex. Results indicate that the gender identity scales consist of several dimensions beyond those typically interpreted as masculinity and femininity. The femininity factors emerging in the three scales tended to be highly correlated, and females scored higher than males on the femininity factors. However, the three masculinity factors were not correlated with one another, and were not as strongly associated with biological sex—females identified with typically masculine traits just as much as males. The implications of these results for using gender identity in consumer research are discussed, and future research opportunities are explored.     

Influence of decision styles on use of decision models

This article discusses how the “decision style” of an administrator influences the adoption and use of particular decision models. Several “interactive” and “analytical” decision models often used to guide decision making are described and critiqued to point out their virtues and deficiencies. Propositions are suggested that contend that “systematic,” “judicial”, “speculative”, and “intuitive” styles have clear-cut preferences for a particular decision model. This model seems to be used, even when another would be more suitable. Effective decision makers are postulated to adapt their styles, or at least to see the benefits of different styles. Mixed-mode models are proposed that seem to simulate the behavior of successful decision makers.     

Efficient delays in a stochastic model of bargaining

Summary. We consider a k-player sequential bargaining model in which both the cake size and the identity of the proposer are determined by a stochastic process. For the case where the cake is a simplex (of random size) and the players share a common discount factor, we establish the existence of a unique stationary subgame perfect payoff which is efficient and characterize the conditions under which agreement is delayed. We also investigate how the equilibrium payoffs depend on the order in which the players move and on the correlation between the identity of the proposer and the cake size.Received: November 5, 1996; revised version: December 31, 1996This revised version was published online in February 2005 with corrections to the cover date.