How to grow a brand: retain or acquire customers?

Journal ArticleWhile customer acquisition is clearly important for new brands, mature brands are often said to rely on defection management for maintenance and growth. Yet the theory to support this approach has been subject to very little empirical investigation. How do brands actually increase the size of their customer base? Through superior acquisition or by reducing customer defection? Or some mixture of both? Conversely, do brands decline through deficient acquisition or excessive defection? This work analyzes changes in ‘first brand loyal’ customers to answer these questions, using a combination of panel data on the prescribing behavior of doctors and a cross-sectional tracking survey for residential finance. This study is the first research to compare defection and acquisition against stochastic benchmarks for customer churn under stationary conditions. The results are surprising: for both growth and decline, unusual acquisition plays a stronger role than unusual defection. This finding demonstrates that acquisition has been under-rated in the past, and implies that prospect management is at least as important as defection reduction. A simulation shows that unusual acquisition also accounts for far more variation in profit than does unusual defection.n/

Does Triple Jeopardy Exist for Retail Chains?

Abstract The famous 'double jeopardy' empirical generalisation has been well documented for many competitive choice situations, including store shopping. A third 'disadvantage' (hence triple jeopardy) has been propose

How clutter affects advertising effectiveness

This paper reports from a range of data sets (including four new ones, described) on how different levels of ad clutter in TV and radio affects how advertising works. Advertising avoidance is similar in low and high clutter environments, so when there is more clutter, audiences really do see more advertisements. Less clutter does not result in better brand identification, although audiences remember more of what they saw. Advertisements recalled in high clutter are generally of better quality and are more likeable on average: people remember what they liked. Overall, therefore, the impact of clutter is not large, especially when compared to creative elements of executions.

Personal motivation, exercise, and smoking behaviors among young adults

This study explored the motivational factors that influence individuals across the stages of change for exercise. The authors compared physically active nonsmokers with physically active smokers in a college student population. Half of regular exercisers identified themselves as smokers. Compared with their nonsmoking peers, young smokers have higher rates of physical and emotional distress. Those participants who exercise and do not smoke are more likely to exhibit intrinsic factors for exercise. Undergraduate psychology students (N = 614) completed an Internet survey on exercise and smoking behavior as well as motivational factors for exercise. Multivariate analyses of variance revealed that intrinsic motivational factors for exercise were significantly higher for the active nonsmokers than for the active smokers. Interventions promoting consistent exercise and smoking abstinence should continue to be directed toward young adults, focusing on fostering intrinsic motivational factors for exercise. © 2009 Heldref Publications

How successful are media differentiation attempts?

Radio stations promote their ability to reach particular market segments more successfully than their competitors. However, previous research has suggested that radio station sales propositions on audience composition are somewhat misleading, with audiences being far more mass than the stations claim (Nelson-Field, Lees, Riebe, & Sharp 2005). Our study extends Nelson-Field et al. (2005) to three consecutive years of data, which capture a major re-shuffle of positioning for most vehicles in the market. We found no improvement on Nelson-Field et al. (2005) in the proportion of the audience not captured in the claimed target audiences. Nor did we find a difference in the degree to which a media’s core audience varies demographically from that of competitors. These findings suggest that advertisers should look beyond sales propositions to determine whether high reach networks offer a more strategic buy irrespective of their lack of audience skew. Further research should consider the cost effectiveness of such targeting efforts

How to grow a brand : retain or acquire customers?

While customer acquisition is clearly important for new brands, mature brands are often said to rely on defection management for maintenance and growth. Yet the theory to support this approach has been subject to very little empirical investigation. How do brands actually increase the size of their customer base? Through superior acquisition or by reducing customer defection? Or some mixture of both? Conversely, do brands decline through deficient acquisition or excessive defection? This work analyzes changes in ‘first brand loyal’ customers to answer these questions, using a combination of panel data on the prescribing behavior of doctors and a cross-sectional tracking survey for residential finance. This study is the first research to compare defection and acquisition against stochastic benchmarks for customer churn under stationary conditions. The results are surprising: for both growth and decline, unusual acquisition plays a much stronger role than unusual defection. This finding demonstrates that acquisition has been under-rated in the past, and implies that prospect management is at least as important as defection reduction. A simulation shows that unusual acquisition also accounts for far more improvement in profit than does unusual defection.

Interrelationships of Health Related Behaviors among Young Adults

Obesity and smoking continue to be some of the nation’s top health concerns. This study explored the interrelationships among exercise, nutrition and smoking behaviors among young college adults. Undergraduate psychology students (N=612) completed an internet survey that included measures of exercise, nutrition and smoking behaviors. Analyses revealed that more males were exercising while more females were eating nutritiously. The Transtheoretical Model constructs stage of change for exercise and eating nutritiously were significantly related. There were no significant differences found for smoking behavior across the stages of change for exercise or nutrition. Health professionals and researchers should not assume that regular exercise is associated with a non-smoking status or that a non-smoking status is associated with consuming a more nutritious diet. Further research and intervention is strongly urged targeted towards both men and women among the young college adult population