Australasian Marketing Journal

This study examines how visual and musical stimuli contribute to perceived trendiness of the commercial across native Chinese- and English-speakers. Research results indicate that, though visual stimuli have stronger effects on both Chinese- and English-speakers, visual stimuli have stronger effects on Chinese-speakers than English-speakers. These findings are consistent with suggested differences between the Chinese and English language that could have affected the processing orientation of native speakers. The implications of the results are discussed.

An influential observation measurement procedure was developed in the context of cluster analysis, and in particular, k-means partitioning procedure (using the Jancey and the Forgy algorithms) adapting the idea of “leave-one-out” method. A computer program called DETLIE was developed and then applied to both synthetic data and empirical data sets to explore the applicability of the developed procedure of influential observation measurement. The results are promising given the exploratory nature of the current study. Directions for future research were also discussed.

Given the increasing importance of international business, cross-cultural research becomes more and more relevant to marketing academics and practitioners. This paper illustrates the difficulties in achieving equivalence when conducting marketing research across borders. It opens with a general typology of equivalence issues in cross-cultural research and, subsequently, focuses specifically on data equivalence. Recent studies either disregard data equivalence at all or they predominantly suggest the use of simultaneous confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for establishing data equivalence. The Latent Trait Theory (LTT), based on a different measurement paradigm, offers an alternative which promises to overcome many of the problems inherent in CFA. This paper contrasts the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches and illustrates their application by means of a simulated data set. In conclusion, a call is made for the incorporation of equivalence issues in scale development by quantitative as well as qualitative analyses.

There has been considerable concern exposed by marketers and advertisers about the effectiveness of different forms of message presentation. This, in turn has fuelled an on-going debate about the most efficient means of measuring advertising effectiveness. Two experiments were conducted with undergraduate and postgraduate students to investigate the application of mere exposure to marketing practice. Results indicate support for the use of mere exposure in developing consumers’ liking for a previously unfamiliar brand. Results also showed limited support for the mere exposure effect under the presentation of stimuli with divided attention. No support was found for the correction process proposed by Bornstein and D'Agostino (1992; 1994), with a greater mere exposure effect under full attention (supraliminal presentation of stimuli) than under divided attention (subliminal presentation of stimuli). The implications for applying mere exposure to the planning, placement, pricing and measurement of advertising, are discussed.

Many probabilistic conjoint preference simulators, such as those based on either a multinomial logit (MNL) share allocation or a version of the Bradley-Terry-Luce rule, are known to suffer from the problem of Independence from Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA). Johnson (1992) has developed a simulator based on the Multinomial Probit (MNP) distribution that provides a way to simulate preference shares not subject to IIA. In this paper we extend this conjoint simulator by applying individual-level importance weights to an alternative similarities matrix and discuss how these weights can be estimated and used in the simulator. We then illustrate the use of the simulator in a hypothetical situation and compare results with other simulators including the original Johnson MNP preference simulator.

Why do firms design web sites the way that they do? The internet literature has suggested several thing that should affect web site design. Firms may have strategic motivations to use the internet. For example these may include to reduce costs, increase sales, or enhance image. A web page may also have certain functional roles it might play like selling or communicating. All of these should impact web page design and this is tested via an on-line survey and a content analysis of web sites. The authors find no relationship between actual content of web sites and strategic motivations to use the internet or functional roles of internet web sites. Therefore, the authors conclude we have much to learn about effective advertising on the web and we call for more empirical research.