Robert M. Schindler

Some Exploratory Findings on the Development of Musical Tastes

Preferences toward popular music appear to reflect tastes acquired during late adolescence or early adulthood. In an empirical investigation of this parsimonious inductive proposition, both the aggregate results (R = 0.84) and the disaggregated findings (R = 0.46) suggest that the development of tastes for popular music follows an inverted U-shaped pattern that reaches a peak in about the 24th year. Possible explanations include intrinsic components (e.g., a developmental period of maximum sensitivity analogous to the critical periods documented in ethological studies of imprinting) and extrinsic components (e.g., social pressures from ones peer group that reach peak intensity during a particular phase in ones life cycle.) Copyright 1989 by the University of Chicago.

Patterns of Rightmost Digits Used in Advertised Prices: Implications for Nine-Ending Effects

Analysis of the rightmost digits of selling prices in a sample of retail price advertisements confirmed past findings indicating the overrepresentation of the digits 0, 5, and 9. The high cognitive accessibility of round numbers can account for the overrepresentation of 0- and 5-ending prices and suggests the existence of two effects that could account for the overrepresentation of 9-ending prices: (1) a tendency of consumers to perceive a 9-ending price as a round-number price with a small amount given back and (2) a tendency of consumers to underestimate a 9-ending price by encoding it as the first round number evoked during incomplete left-to-right processing. Analysis of the patterns of rightmost digits observed in the sample provides supportive evidence particularly for the second of these two 9-ending effects. Copyright 1997 by the University of Chicago.

Market segmentation based on age and attitude toward the past: Concepts, methods, and findings concerning nostalgic influences on customer tastes

Abstract The marketing literature has neglected some effects of age and attitude toward the past that are potentially useful to marketers in the formulation of segmentation strategy for cultural products that appeal differentially to various customer tastes. Specifically, with respect to cognitive responses, previous research has supported a peak in memory for events that occurred during ones late adolescence or early adulthood. Similarly, research on the affective responses of consumers has shown comparable effects connected with nostalgia—first, an age-related preference peak for offerings associated with ones youth; second, a shift in this preference peak to an earlier age for those more favorable in attitude toward the past. The purpose of the present study is to illustrate such effects and to indicate their potential marketing implications in the case of one particular cultural product category—namely, motion pictures. Toward these ends, a complete reanalysis of data reported in another context: (1) replicates both the age-related preference peak and the nostalgic shift due to attitude toward the past, (2) extends these findings to the case of tastes for motion pictures, and (3) suggests the possibly dramatic implications that such findings might carry for the formulation of marketing strategy in the areas of entertainment, the arts, and other media-related offerings.

Increased consumer sales response though use of 99-ending prices

Abstract Through the cooperation of a direct-mail womens clothing retailer, we were able to conduct a well-controlled experiment testing the sales effect of using retail prices that end in the digits 99 rather than 00 (e.g.,

Effects of odd pricing on price recall

29.99 rather than

Cultural Superstitions and the Price Endings Used in Chinese Advertising

30.00). The results indicated that the use of 99 endings led to increased consumer purchasing. This finding demonstrates the importance of the managers decision concerning a price s rightmost digits.

Image Communicated by the Use of 99 Endings in Advertised Prices

Abstract Odd pricing is the ubiquitous practice of expressing a price so that it falls just below a round number. In this study, subjects were presented with a set of prices and were asked to recall those prices 2 days later. It was found that odd-ending prices are less likely than even-ending prices to be recalled accurately and that expressing a price as an odd-ending price increases the likelihood that it will be underestimated when it is recalled.

Transforming Consumer Health

In traditional Chinese superstition, the numerical digit 8 is associated with prosperity and good luck and the digit 4 is associated with death. An examination of the price endings used in a sample of Chinese price advertisements indicates a distinct tendency to favor the digit 8 and to avoid the digit 4. These results constitute evidence of the role of superstition in the Chinese marketplace and provide guidance for setting prices in this increasingly important market.

Familiarity affects visual processing of words.

Abstract In a controlled experiment, use of the 99 rather than the 00 price ending (e.g., using

The effect of prose context on visual search for letters

49.99 rather than