The Trust Imperative

Nearly 70% of Americans agree with the statement, "I don't know whom to trust anymore," according to a February 2002 Golin/Harris Poll1. Although trust in society and corporations seems to be at an all time low, now is a good time for businesses to embark on a trust-based marketing strategy. Increasing customer power will drive a new paradigm for marketing, a paradigm based on advocating for the customer by providing open, honest information and advice. At the same time, this customer power is reducing the effectiveness of old-style push-based marketing. Thus, the shift to trust-based marketing may be more of a mandatory imperative than an optional opportunity. Trust-based marketing involves much more than dropping millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads that say "trust us." Instead, it is an approach to marketing that shifts and deepens the relationship between a company and its customers. Rather than bombarding passive customers, a trust-based strategy creates a positive relationship with an increasingly loyal customer base. Trust-based marketing contrasts with traditional push-based marketing in the assumptions that it makes about customer. The old paradigm of push-based marketing assumed that customers did not know what was good for them. Under this old assumption, companies broadcast their hype to push products and services onto an ignorant customer base. The goal was to "push" products onto customers. This contrast between push-based marketing and trust-based marketing parallels McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y. (see Sidebar on Theory P vs. Theory T -- Theory X vs. Theory Y). The key is in changing the assumptions that companies hold about their customers

A strategic planning model for the management of a family planning system

This paper... will become part of a monograph to be entitled Building models for models for public sector decision makers: an application to family planning

First-mover advantages from pioneering new markets: A survey of empirical evidence

Market pioneers can develop first-mover advantages that span decades. The most general first-mover advantage that helps explain higher pioneer market share levels is a broad product line or brand proliferation. In markets for experience goods, pioneers tend to shape consumer tastes and preferences in favor of the pioneering brand. While the preliminary results vary by industry, they indicate that market pioneers do not tend to perish more often than later entrants. Accounting profits for market pioneers generally are lower in the first four years of operation, but higher thereafter. Overall, market pioneers follow innovative strategies that have high initial costs and risks, but yield high potential returns.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43581/1/11151_2005_Article_BF01024216.pd

Are the drivers and role of online trust the same for all web sites and consumers? A large-scale exploratory empirical study

The authors develop a conceptual model that links Web site and consumer characteristics, online trust, and behavioral intent. They estimate this model on data from 6831 consumers across 25 sites from eight Web site categories, using structural equation analysis with a priori and post hoc segmentation. The results show that the influences of the determinants of online trust are different across site categories and consumers. Privacy and order fulfillment are the most influential determinants of trust for sites in which both information risk and involvement are high, such as travel sites. Navigation is strongest for information-intensive sites, such as sports, portal, and community sites. Brand strength is critical for high-involvement categories, such as automobile and financial services sites. Online trust partially mediates the relationships between Web site and consumer characteristics and behavioral intent, and this mediation is strongest (weakest) for sites oriented toward infrequently (frequently) purchased, highinvolvement items, such as computers (financial services). Yakov Bart is a doctoral student

MI 48084-5353 (formerly Technical Fellow at General Motors Research), [email protected]. John R. Hauser is the Kirin Professor of Marketing

Abstract Researchers and practitioners devote substantial effort to targeting banner advertisements, but less effort on how to communicate with consumers once targeted. Morphing enables a website to learn (actively and near optimally) which banner advertisements to serve to each cognitive-style segment in order to maximize click-through, brand consideration, and purchase. Cognitive-style segments are identified automatically from consumers' clickstreams. This paper describes the first large-sample random-assignment field-test of banner morphing -over 100,000 consumers viewing over 450,000 banners on CNET.com. On relevant webpages, CNET's click-through rates almost doubled relative to control banners. We supplement the CNET field test with a focused experiment on an automotive information-andrecommendation website. The focused experiment replaces automated learning with a longitudinal design to test the premise of morph-to-segment matching. Banners matched to cognitive styles, as well as the stage of the consumer's buying process and body-type preference, significantly increase click-through rates, brand consideration, and purchase likelihood relative to a control. Together the field and the focused experiments demonstrate that matching cognitive styles provide significant benefits above and beyond more-traditional targeting. Such improved banner effectiveness has strategic implications for allocations among media

MI 48084-5353 (formerly Technical Fellow at General Motors Research), [email protected]. John R. Hauser is the Kirin Professor of Marketing

Abstract Morphing enables a website to learn (actively and near optimally) which banner advertisements to serve to each cognitive-style segment in order to maximize outcome measures such as click-through, brand consideration, or purchase. Consumer segments are identified automatically from consumers' clickstream choices. Morphing works best on high-traffic websites with tens of thousands of visitors because large samples are necessary to reach steady state optimally. This paper describes the first large-sample random-assignment field test of banner morphing -over 100,000 consumers viewing over 450,000 banners on CNET.com. (Previously published morphing evaluations evaluated morphing website characteristics and were based on predictive simulations using only priming-study data.) On relevant webpages, CNET's clickthrough rates almost double relative to control banners. We supplement the CNET field test with a focused experiment on an automotive information-and-recommendation website. The focused experiment replaces automated learning with a longitudinal design which tests the premise of morph-to-segment matching. Banners matched to cognitive styles, as well as the stage of the consumer's buying process and body-type preference, significantly increase click-through rates, brand consideration, and purchase likelihood relative to a control