William B. Locander

Improving the effectiveness of persuasive communications: Matching message with functional profile

Abstract The functional approach to improving communication strategy has received little attention. This research attempts to partially correct this oversight by experimentally verifying the major functional hypothesis: matching message with functional profile brings about attitude change. Working adults were integrated into an experiment which was a before-after with control. The major functional hypothesis was confirmed at the 0.10 level. An associated hypothesis regarding the relative ease of changing value- expressive attitudes compared to utilitarian attitudes was confirmed at the 0.10 level. The results show the importance of matching message with functional profile and highlight the potential inherent in the functional approach.

A team approach to managing the development of a decision support system

Decision support systems (DSS) often fail when their development lacks a thorough problem definition and/or an adequate commitment of individuals from the associated functional areas. A team-oriented structure for developing a DSS, like the one described in this article, can reduce such problems by outlining the tasks that managers, operating personnel, and information systems personnel should complete during the DSSs definition, design, and implementation stages.

Media allocation model using nonlinear benefit curves

Abstract An integral part of planning advertising campaigns involves the selection of those media vehicles that maximize the effectiveness of the advertising effort. This article describes a media allocation model designed to provide the media planner, responsible for a particular advertising campaign, with relevant information for use in selecting the most appropriate media vehicles and in determining the number of insertions in each vehicle. It is based on the derivation of nonlinear benefit curves for candidate media vehicles that can be derived from commercially available response data and from subjective estimates gathered from media planning experts. When tested in an actual advertising campaign, the results serve to provide relevant information that can make the media allocation decision a more objective one.

A conceptual approach to planning new product introductions in sets

In an increasingly changing business environment, a key ingredient to corporate growth is the successful introduction of a series of new products that efficiently utilizes scarce resources to meet product line needs. The purpose of this paper is to describe an approach for planning new product introductions that allows the new product planner to allocate resources over a number of products while taking into account such shared marketing variables as technological innovations and advertising expenditures.