Hershey H. Friedman

The Effectiveness of Advertisements Utilizing Four Types of Endorsers

Abstract Four groups of students were presented with identical advertisements for sangria wine, attributed to one of four different types of endorsers: a celebrity, student, professional expert, and company president. A fifth group serving as a control was presented with the same advertisement, but it was not attributed to an endorser. Subjects were asked to rate the wine on three scales: expected selling price, probable (anticipated) taste and intent-to-purchase. In addition, the advertisements were rated on their believability. While endorsers did not significantly affect the expected selling price or believability, they had an effect on probable taste and intent-to-purchase. The authors conclude that it is probably worthwhile for an advertiser to use an endorsement for his product, rather than utilize a similar advertisement without an endorsement.

Correlates of trustworthiness for celebrities

The widespread use of celebrities as product endorsers and company spokesmen stimulated the authors to investigate what factors underlie the credibility of these endorsers. Two studies were conducted in order to determine those attributes of a celebrity which correlate most highly with trust. In Study I, students rated 33 celebrities, who were not product endorsers, on six attributes: awareness, trust, likeableness, similarity, life style, and personal attractiveness. In Study II, members of a civic group rated 20 celebrities, who were endorsing products, on the above-mentioned six attributes plus two additional ones, talent and voting intention. Both studies demonstrated the strong relationship between trust and likeableness.

Validating the simulation metamodel: Some practical approaches

This paper stresses the usefulness of developing a metamodel as an auxilliary model in simulation analysis and emphasizes the importance of validating the metamodel in order to determine whether it accurately approximates the simulation-generated data. A simulation model of the M/M/s queuing system was used for demonstration purposes. Two statistical validation procedures appropriate for simulation metamodels were discussed and demonstrated: use of a holdout sample and double cross- validation. The metamodel developed from the M/M/s queuing system simulation data proved to be valid as an approximation not only to the simulation but also to the real-world system itself.

Using Humor in the Introductory Statistics Course

This paper discusses reasons for using humor in the statistics classroom. Humor strengthens the relationship between student and teacher, reduces stress, makes a course more interesting, and, if relevant to the subject, may even enhance recall of the material. The authors provide examples of humorous material for teaching students such topics as descriptive statistics, probability and independence, sampling, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, and regression and forecasting. Also, some references, summarized strategies, and suggestions for becoming more humorous in the classroom are provided.

The Impact of Jewish Values on Marketing and Business Practices

Judaism, which relies on the Torah for its written law, has had a great impact on marketing and business. The Torah is replete with precepts dealing with business, and the Talmud, the source of Jewish oral law, elaborates and expands Torah law. The process is ongoing, and rabbinical authorities today build on the decisions of their predecessors to apply Jewish law to modern problems. Some of the issues examined in this article include honesty in the marketplace, fair pricing, employer-employee relations, and environmental issues. Jewish law is not only concerned with practical legal advice but in encouraging individuals to go beyond the requirements of the law and practice the “way of the pious.” Judaism does not have a negative attitude toward business and wealth—indeed, most of the Talmudic sages had occupations, and some were quite wealthy—but riches must be acquired honestly and used to help the poor, the needy, and the stranger.

Analyzing Simulation Output Using the Bootstrap Method

There are many situations in which parametric statistical techniques are less than ideal for evaluating a simulated system. For most simulation output, one must rely heavily on the central limit theorein in order to apply parametric statistical techniques. The bootstrap statistic is a nonparametric sample-resample technique that makes no distributional assumptions and may be used for estimation and hypothesis testing. The authors propose the bootstrap as a valuable tool for the analysis of simulation output data since it can be used in situations in which either the distribution is not known or normal approximations are inappropriate. Furthermore, since bootstrapping is itself a simulation technique it is inherently satisfying as a tool for the analysis of simulation output data. Illustrations are presented.

Abraham as a Transformational Leader

Executive Summary The World Wide Web and the rise of the global economy are rapidly changing the way business is conducted. Organizations that hope to prosper need special leaders, leaders that are more than just accomplished administrators and managers. They need leaders that have some charisma and possess the ability to inspire followers to subordinate their own interests for the good of the entire company. What organizations need, if they desire to change rapidly, are transformational leaders. One of the greatest transformational leaders of all time was, arguably, the Biblical Abraham, progenitor of three major religions. This paper demonstrates that the traits Abraham possessed, traits useful to individuals desiring to become transformational leaders, were: a vision, some charisma, confidence, courage, humility, a strong sense of justice, a willingness to be different, concern for others, and a willingness to make great sacrifices for his vision.

Reducing the "wait" in waiting-line systems: Waiting line segmentation

The problem of long wait in queue in apparent wherever there is a waiting-line system, but the cost of waiting is not the same for all customers. The authors propose a new model of waiting, called Waiting Line Segmentation. Waiting lines are segmented into customers who are willing to pay a premium for faster service and those who are not. Analytic results show that this approach results in increased customer satisfaction for both segments, increased profits, and increased efficiency.

Ethical behavior in business: A hierarchical approach from the talmud

The Talmud, the compilation of Jewish oral law, is over 1500 years old and includes extensive discussions of business ethics. This paper presents four levels of ethical behavior in business gleaned from the words of the Talmud. At the lowest level, an individual is just barely inside the law; the highest level is “the way of the pious”. The author has attempted to relate the ethics in ancient business situations to business practices today.

The Effect of a Gift‐Upon‐Entry on Sales: Reciprocity in a Retailing Context

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether providing shoppers with a gift upon entering a store would result in an increase in sales. An experiment was conducted in a pharmacy and a total of 200 subjects were used. The results showed that shoppers given a key chain and thanked for patronizing the store spent significantly more than a control group of shoppers who were not given any gift upon entry (