Generalizing about trade show effectiveness: a cross-national comparison.

Trade shows are a multi-billion dollar business in the US and the UK, but little is known about the determinants of trade show effectiveness. In this paper, we build a model that explains differences in trade show effectiveness across industries, across companies and across two countries. We focus on the differences in trade show effectiveness measured in a similar way across similar samples of 171 US and 135 UK firm-show experiences between 1980 and 1991. While the similarities outweigh the differences, we find evidence that trade shows are viewed differently by exhibitors and attendees in these two countries. We are able to make substantial generalizations about the effect of various show selection (go-not go) variables (booth size, personnel, etc.) on observed performance. We discuss the implications of our research for developing benchmarks for trade show performance and for better global management of the business marketing communications mix.Effectiveness; Trade;

Investors' evaluations of price-increase preannouncements

Several firms preannounce their price increases with the expectation that such announcements will be evaluated favorably by investors. However, little is known about the actual effect they have on shareholder value. Accordingly, the authors present the first systematic empirical examination of investors' evaluations of 274 price-increase preannouncements (PIPs). Results show that whereas the average increase in abnormal returns following a PIP is 0.51%, almost 41% of the PIPs result in negative abnormal returns. To explore this heterogeneity, the authors propose a conceptual framework that focuses on three key pieces of information that investors can use when evaluating a PIP: information on the nature (time to implementation and magnitude) of the preannounced price increase, the stated attribution for the preannounced price increase (demand and/or cost based), and information on prior PIP occurrences by the firm and its competitors. Results indicate that PIPs with greater time to implementation, higher own precedence and greater competitive precedence result in lower abnormal returns, while PIPs with higher magnitude and PIPs with an explicit demand attribution result in greater abnormal returns

Dancing with a Giant: The Effect of Wal-Mart's Entry into the United Kingdom on the Performance of European Retailers

The authors examine the value-destroying and value-enhancing effects of a giant player's foreign entry on incumbents operating in that region. They use Wal-Mart's entry into the United Kingdom, through its acquisition of Asda, as the empirical context. Drawing on the marketing, strategy, and finance literature streams, the authors develop hypotheses as to why some incumbents are negatively affected whereas others actually may benefit from the entry of a giant competitor. Their measure of performance impact is the change in shareholder value around the announcement date, which has recently been recognized as an important metric to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing actions. The authors find strong support for the conceptual model, which distinguishes between the seriousness of the threat to the incumbents and their capacity to withstand the threat. The authors validate their findings using three alternative measures of company performance: percentage growth in the incumbent retailer's sales, earnings before interest and taxes, and return on assets between 1998 (the year before the Asda takeover) and 2002 (three years after the takeover). The authors discuss various managerial implications of their results. By acting proactively, incumbents can mitigate the negative performance consequences, while maximally benefiting from the positive implications of a giant competitor's entry