American Marketing Association Research Articles

Optimal Allocation of Competitive Marketing Efforts: An Empirical Study

There is probably no more difficult and complex problem in marketing than the allocation of the total selling efforts of a firm among the various marketing instruments that influence sales, such as advertising, price, product quality, and personal selling. From a theoretical viewpoint, this problem has been neatly solved and the formal conditions defining an equilibrium have been stated in a number of ways.' Dorfman and Steiner, for example, have derived a general rule which is claimed to be a useful guide for marketing programming; this theorem, however, so far has received little empirical verification.2 Furthermore, implicit in the DorfmanSteiner formula is the assumption that there is no reaction of competitors to the change in marketing inputs made by the firm, while in real market situations mutual interdependence is the rule, since the sales of any firm are also a function of marketing inputs of its rivals.3 The neglect of competitive interdependence is of course a serious shortcoming. The purpose of this article is to show how the Dorfman-Steiner theorem can be expressed in terms of market shares, relative price, advertising, and quality, and how it can then be converted into operational concepts by means of regression analysis, so that attention can be turned to the study of competitors' reactions to change in marketing pressure and especially in advertising. These objectives will be pursued by studying the case of a household durable product sold on three markets of Western Europe characterized by an oligopolistic structure. This paper is divided into three parts. In the first one, a theoretical extension of the Dorfman-Steiner theorem that explicitly considers competitive effects is presented. In the second part, a description of the case studied, of the model, of the data utilized, and of the regression results is given. Using the optimization * Associate professor of marketing research, Louvain University, Belgium. Part of this paper has been presented at the 1968 fall conference of the American Marketing Association. I am grateful to Miss Leboutte for programming assistance, and to K. S. Palda for his advice and comments on an earlier draft. Responsibility for errors remains mine.

Some Observations on Marketing Research in Top Management Decision Making

The author's comments on the role of marketing research in top management decisions are based on his association with six companies (and continuing contact with many more) spanning manufacturing, consulting, and advertising. Some of these observations on the diverse marketing research-top management interface in decision making were presented to the Chicago Chapter of the American Marketing Association. The Chapter conferred a Merit Award on the earlier presentation during its 1968 competition for papers advancing the science of marketing.

Some Observations on Marketing Research in Top Management Decision Making

The author's comments on the role of marketing research in top management decisions are based on his association with six companies (and continuing contact with many more) spanning manufacturing, consulting, and advertising. Some of these observations on the diverse marketing research-top management interface in decision making were presented to the Chicago Chapter of the American Marketing Association. The Chapter conferred a Merit Award on the earlier presentation during its 1968 competition for papers advancing the science of marketing.

Who needs the American marketing Association?

Who needs the American marketing Association?

Marketing Education and Marketing Personnel as Research Areas

In the second of the reports developed by the American Marketing Association task force on research on basic marketing problems, Smith and Cooke ask for research to guide marketing educators in relating education to job performance as well as evaluating curricula and teaching methods. They also point out that there is need to study the best means of identifying, attracting, and stimulating marketing people. Banks' commentary raises the question of education in marketing vs. education for marketing. He also seconds suggestions by Smith and Cooke that education in marketing may well be an efficient vehicle for understanding contemporary society.

Marketing Education and Marketing Personnel as Research Areas

In the second of the reports developed by the American Marketing Association task force on research on basic marketing problems, Smith and Cooke ask for research to guide marketing educators in relating education to job performance as well as evaluating curricula and teaching methods. They also point out that there is need to study the best means of identifying, attracting, and stimulating marketing people. Banks' commentary raises the question of education in marketing vs. education for marketing. He also seconds suggestions by Smith and Cooke that education in marketing may well be an efficient vehicle for understanding contemporary society.

Marketing Science

For over fifty years, the idea of joining the word “science” to the word “marketing” has met with considerable skepticism. The two words have often appeared with a question mark and often with much more disparaging epithets. The skepticism has not stopped all progress. The American Marketing Association, for instance, claims its purpose is to foster the advancement of science in marketing. And, with a certain amount of clucking, the marketing community permitted, and even encouraged, the founding of an organization called the Marketing Science Institute. Just this past Spring, in Boston, TIMS officially started its College on Marketing which should certainly be concerned with the question of Marketing Science.

The Promise of Simulation in Marketing

In recognition of simulation's potential, the author was invited to speak at a meeting of the American Marketing Association on the role of simulation in marketing. For that talk an intensive survey was made of the published literature. This article presents some of the results of the survey.

The Process of Professionalization in American Science: The Emergent Period, 1820-1860

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Process of Professionalization in American Science: The Emergent Period, 1820-1860George H. DanielsGeorge H. Daniels Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 58, Number 2Summer, 1967 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/350216 Views: 28Total views on this site Citations: 32Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1967 History of Science Society, Inc.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Dale R. Sumner, Sabine Hildebrandt, Allison Nesbitt, Melissa A. Carroll, Vassiliki B. Smocovitis, Jeffrey T. Laitman, Amy C. Beresheim, Christopher J. Ramnanan, Michael L. Blakey Racism, structural racism, and the American Association for Anatomy: Initial report from a task force, The Anatomical Record 305, no.44 (Feb 2022): 772–787.https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.24903Axel Philipps Science rules! A qualitative study of scientists’ approaches to grant lottery, Research Evaluation 549 (Dec 2020).https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvaa027Edgar A Burns Professions and Modern Organisational Forms, (Nov 2019): 73–110.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27935-6_3ROBIN VANDOME , Journal of American Studies 53, no.22 ( 2019): 478.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875817001852Kristoffer Whitney, Melanie A. Kiechle Introduction: Counting on Nature, Science as Culture 26, no.11 (Sep 2016): 1–10.https://doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2016.1223114Wayne Orchiston Astronomers in Isolation: A New Branch of the British Astronomical Association, (Nov 2016): 449–477.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44521-2_13 Dagomar Degroot “A Catastrophe Happening in Front of Our Very Eyes”: The Environmental History of a Comet Crash on Jupiter, Environmental History 22, no.11 (Sep 2021): 23–49.https://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/emw067Franck Cochoy The American Marketing Association, Journal of Historical Research in Marketing 6, no.44 (Nov 2014): 538–547.https://doi.org/10.1108/JHRM-01-2013-0003Carla Bittel Woman, Know Thyself: Producing and Using Phrenological Knowledge in 19th-Century America, Centaurus 55, no.22 (Apr 2013): 104–130.https://doi.org/10.1111/1600-0498.12015Christine von Oertzen, Maria Rentetzi, Elizabeth S. Watkins Finding Science in Surprising Places: Gender and the Geography of Scientific Knowledge. Introduction to ‘Beyond the Academy: Histories of Gender and Knowledge’, Centaurus 55, no.22 (Apr 2013): 73–80.https://doi.org/10.1111/1600-0498.12018Andrew L. Christenson Who were the Professional North American Archaeologists of 1900? Clues from the Work of Warren K. Moorehead, Bulletin of the History of Archaeology 21, no.11 (May 2011): 4.https://doi.org/10.5334/bha.2112By Paul Lucier The Professional and the Scientist in Nineteenth-Century America Paul Lucier, Isis 100, no.44 (Jul 2015): 699–732.https://doi.org/10.1086/652016Tamás Szmrecsányi Periodization Problems in the Economic History of Science and Technology, Investigaciones de Historia Económica 5, no.1515 (Jan 2009): 47–73.https://doi.org/10.1016/S1698-6989(09)70119-5D.A. Grier The rise and fall of the committee on mathematical tables and other aids to computation, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 23, no.22 (Apr 2001): 38–49.https://doi.org/10.1109/85.929910 Robert H. Silliman The Hamlet Affair: Charles Lyell and the North Americans, Isis 86, no.44 (Oct 2015): 541–561.https://doi.org/10.1086/357317 Daniel Goldstein "Yours for Science": The Smithsonian Institution's Correspondents and the Shape of Scientific Community in Nineteenth-Century America, Isis 85, no.44 (Oct 2015): 573–599.https://doi.org/10.1086/356978Nancy Krieger, Elizabeth Fee Man-Made Medicine and Women's Health: The Biopolitics of Sex/Gender and Race/Ethnicity, International Journal of Health Services 24, no.22 (Jan 1995): 265–283.https://doi.org/10.2190/LWLH-NMCJ-UACL-U80YJohn V. Pickstone Ways of knowing: towards a historical sociology of science, technology and medicine, The British Journal for the History of Science 26, no.44 (Jan 2009): 433–458.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087400031459Edward R Hogan The fading amateur: William Lenhart and 19th-century American mathematics, Historia Mathematica 17, no.11 (Feb 1990): 6–15.https://doi.org/10.1016/0315-0860(90)90075-O David J. Krause Testing a Tradition: Douglass Houghton and the Native Copper of Lake Superior, Isis 80, no.44 (Oct 2015): 622–639.https://doi.org/10.1086/355167Pierre-Gerlier Forest Les techniciens de la représentation: contribution à l'histoire des études électorales, Canadian Journal of Political Science 19, no.44 (Nov 2009): 679–704.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423900055104Robert C. Post Reflections of American Science and Technology at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1853, Journal of American Studies 17, no.33 (Jan 2009): 337–356.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875800017801 Charles Rosenberg Science in American Society: A Generation of Historical Debate, Isis 74, no.33 (Oct 2015): 356–367.https://doi.org/10.1086/353304Steven Turner The Prussian Professoriate and the Research Imperative, 1790 – 1840, (Jan 1981): 109–121.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8414-1_8David A. Hounshell Edison and the Pure Science Ideal in 19th-Century America, Science 207, no.44314431 (Feb 1980): 612–617.https://doi.org/10.1126/science.207.4431.612Henrika Kuklick Restructuring the Past: Toward an Appreciation of the Social Context of Social Science, The Sociological Quarterly 21, no.11 (Dec 2016): 5–21.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1980.tb02194.xHenrika Kuklick Restructuring the Past: Toward an Appreciation of the Social Context of Social Science*, The Sociological Quarterly 21, no.11 (Dec 1979): 5–21.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1979.tb01921.xD. deB Beaver, R. Rosen Studies in scientific collaboration, Scientometrics 1, no.11 (Sep 1978): 65–84.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02016840Sally Gregory Kohlstedt The Nineteenth-Century Amateur Tradition: The Case of the Boston Society of Natural History, (Jan 1976): 173–190.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1887-6_12Norriss S. Hetherington Cleveland Abbe and a view of science in mid-nineteenth-century America, Annals of Science 33, no.11 (Aug 2006): 31–49.https://doi.org/10.1080/00033797600200121Edward R Hogan The beginnings of mathematics in a howling wilderness, Historia Mathematica 1, no.22 (May 1974): 151–166.https://doi.org/10.1016/0315-0860(74)90004-4George H. Daniels The Pure-Science Ideal and Democratic Culture, Science 156, no.37833783 (Jun 1967): 1699–1705.https://doi.org/10.1126/science.156.3783.1699

Preparation of Students for Marketing Research

There appears to be a substantial difference between the attitudes of professors of marketing and marketing research and those of practitioners on the kind of training necessary to prepare students for careers in marketing research. Recent research shows that many professors still have the same attitudes found in a 1957 study by the subcommittee on the teaching of marketing research of the American Marketing Association. In the meantime, marketing research has taken on new dimensions that require an even broader background in the social sciences.

Marketing Snags and Fallacies

This article is based on an address by Leo Burnett, head of one of the largest advertising agencies, when he was named 1966 Marketing Man of the Year by the Chicago Chapter of the American Marketing Association. Mr. Burnett feels that marketing men are handicapped by five major fallacies. But he points with pride as well as views with alarm — he has some constructive suggestions for the field of marketing.

Tribute to past Presidents of American Marketing Association

This is the speech given by Donald M. Hobart, formerly Senior Vice President and Director of Research of the Curtis Publishing Company (also President of the American Marketing Association in 1945), in New York on June 14, 1965, at the annual meeting of the American Marketing Association.

Tribute to Past Presidents of American Marketing Association

Tribute to Past Presidents of American Marketing Association

Passport for Marketing Overseas

Ray Eppert, a recognized expert in the field of international marketing, contends that it is mandatory for U.S. marketing management to become internationally minded at all levels, or else face complete failure even at home. Originally titled “Passport for World Leadership,” the basic precepts in this article come from the Charles Coolidge Parlin Memorial Lecture given by Mr. Eppert at the American Marketing Association meeting in Philadelphia in May, 1964.

An Inquiry Into the Misuse of the Survey Technique by Sales Solicitors

Misuse of the approach as a blind for sales canvassing is increasing, if one notes the number of complaints made annually to such organizations as the American Marketing Association, the American Association for Public Opinion Research, and the Better Business Bureaus. To determine the present extent of this problem, and any trend indications, the 1962-1963 Public Relations Committee of the American Association for Public Opinion Research made two kinds of inquiries. The first was in the form of requesting certain research organizations to include questions relevant to the problem in surveys they were conducting for clients. The second was an informal mail survey among a small group of practitioners in the United States. Public Relations Committee members did not feel that deceptive use of the approach for sales purposes had reached an alarming level. However, they did note sufficiently flagrant cases of unethical activity to warrant calling the attention of professional researchers to the problem. There is genuine concern that an increase in the fraudulent use of the approach over a period of time would represent a severe problem to the legitimate market and opinion researcher. Indeed, it is probable that public confusion, annoyance, and distrust of field interviewers resulting from unfortunate experiences with deceptive survey practices can seriously impede legitimate research activity. The following two sections of this article report on the problem from two different perspectives. Part I is concerned with public awareness of the deceptive use of the approach, and with variations in incidence according to types of products and services involved, geographic region and size of community in which respondents live, and other factors. Part II reports on the problem from the perspective of researchers whose principal professional activity is the conduct of legitimate market and opinion research.

American Marketing Association Membership in 1963

What are the characteristics of members of the American Marketing Association? How many members are there? When did they join? In which industries do they work? What are their job functions and titles? What changes currently are taking place within the AMA? This articles gives the answer.

American Marketing Association Membership in 1963

American Marketing Association Membership in 1963

Why a Marketing Research Code of Ethics?

Obtaining consumer opinions through organized marketing research is essential to modern marketing. But this implies fairness to consumers, and not abuse of their confidence. The Marketing Research Code of Ethics approved by the American Marketing Association spells out minimum ethical standards for researchers.

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

The American Marketing Association in 1960

The American Marketing Association is growing at a healthy rate. Most of its members are businessmen, engaged in the marketing of industrial and consumer goods; and the most common occupational function is marketing research, although this function accounts for less than half the membership.