The effects of memory set accessibility and relevance on the use of memory information during product choice

The Accessibility-Relevance framework provides a useful perspective to consider the retrieval and use of memory information during product decision making (Alba, Lynch, and Hutchinson, 1990; Lynch, Marmorstein, and Weigold, 1989). However, it considers accessibility on an individual brand basis, while actual product choice often includes information across multiple alternatives. Thus, memory set accessibility (MSA), the relative accessibility across memory brands, is introduced as a potentially important but unexplored issue within the Accessibility-Relevance research stream. This study 1) provides an explanation for how MSA may produce results which significantly expand the current Accessibility-Relevance conceptualization and 2) considers the effects of MSA and relevance on both brand processing and choice.     

Cognitive insights into the highly skilled or expert salesperson

A cognitive psychology based approach is used to investigate the highly skilled or expert salesperson. The study utilized verbal protocol analysis to identify differences in the decision processes of expert and less‐skilled salespeople as they progressed through a difficult selling situation. The results of this study indicate that experts in sales share several similarities with experts in such diverse fields as chess, medicine, physics, and teaching. For example, expert salespeople were shown to reach better decisions in a faster and more confident manner than their less‐skilled contemporaries. Further, in resolving current problems, experts were shown to be more likely to utilize their memory of previous selling situations, as well as to employ different strategies for customer interactions than less‐skilled salespeople. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Evaluative and factual ad claims,knowledge level,and making inferences

A lab study examined the effect of type of ad claim (factual versus evaluative) and knowledge level on subjects' product feature inference making from three camera ads. Each ad had some missing brand information. The results showed that as knowledge increased, so did inference making. Also, there was a significant interaction between ad claim and knowledge. Inference making was positively correlated with knowledge level for factual ads but not for evaluative ones. Finally, subjects made very few inferences to fill in missing ad features but instead did more interpretive processing.     

French versus American consumers’ attachment of value to a product in a common consumption context: A cross-national comparison

This article investigates the influence of French and American national culture on consumer perceptions of productrelated value. Employing means-end theory, hypotheses are developed to predict how French versus American national culture influences the content and structure of consumer value hierachies. Hypotheses are tested using data from in-depth laddering interviews with a matched sample of French and American consumers. The findings support the contention that differences exist in the meaning and relative importance of consumer value hierarchy dimensions across the two national cultures. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that consumption consequences are especially culturally sensitive. Jeffrey W. Overby (joverby@cob.fsu.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing and international business in the Department of Marketing at Florida State University. He holds a doctorate from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research interests focus on customer value determination, service quality, and cross-cultural marketing issues. His work has appeared inInternational Marketing Review and numerous domestic and international conferences, includingProceeding of the 2001 Academy of Marketing Science Annual Conference andProceeding of the Tenth Biennial World Marketing Conference. Sarah Fisher Gardial (sgardial@utk.edu) is an associate professor and associate dean for academic programs in the College of Business Administration at the University of Tennessee. She holds a doctorate from the University of Houston. Her research interests focus on customer value and satisfaction, consumer decision making and information processing, and buyer/seller dyadic relations. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Advertising, Industrial Marketing Management, and theJournal of Macromarketing. Robert B.Woodruff (rwoodruff@utk.edu) is the Proffitt’s, Inc. Professor of Marketing and head of the Department of Marketing and Logistics at the University of Tennessee. His primary interests are in customer value theory, customer satisfaction theory, and market opportunity analyses, all with applications to customer-value-based marketing strategies. His work has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Consumer Research, and theJournal of Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction & Complaining Behavior. He has received two outstanding reviewer awards from theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science.