The use of celebrity athletes as endorsers: views of the New Zealand general public

Matching celebrity athletes with potential endorsement opportunities is often difficult. Yet there are easy-to-use survey-based methods available. Based on a survey of the general public in New Zealand, this study uses both Ohanian's source-credibility scale and a constant-sum scale to help brand managers, player agents and advertising practitioners select good celebrity athlete-product fit. Four New Zealand athletes (two males and two females) and several products were included in the test. Results show that the female celebrity athletes outperformed their male counterparts as potential endorsers. Use of Ohanian's multi-attribute scale yields a level of richness and insight, prompting us to advocate the use of both scales in the pursuit of endorser-product congruences

Investigating the contextual requirements of the Juster Scale

Researchers have employed the Juster Scale to collect purchase probability data with notable success. Reviewing the Juster Scale studies, however, has revealed that there is considerable variation in its per¬formance. Some of these variations appeared to be caused by the context in which the Juster Scale has been presented to respondents. This paper discusses three factors that influence the context of the Juster Scale and reports the results of a study that attempted to standardise its contextual requirements. The results substantiate further the Juster Scale's satisfactory performance in collecting purchase probability data

Evaluating New Zealand sports stars as celebrity endorsers : intriguing results

Celebrity athlete endorsement of products and services has become prominent in the promotional mixes of New Zealand companies and organisations. For years advertisers and researchers have pondered how successful celebrity athlete endorsement really works. Most suggest some form of transfer of positive images takes place between celebrity and the product or service they are endorsing and source-credibility models have become the preferred research design. The overall objective of this research was to assist sport marketing managers and their advertising agencies in matching celebrities with products and services. An ancillary objective was to compare results obtained from multiple-item and single-item scales. An exploratory study with tertiary students was conducted, using both Ohanian&rsquo;s (1990) 15 item source-credibility scale and two single-item measures to examine potential &ldquo;endorsement fit&rdquo; for four New Zealand sporting heroes. They were Bernice Mene (recently retired national netball team captain), Dean Barker (America&rsquo;s Cup yachting defender&rsquo;s helmsman), Mandy Smith (recently retired national women&rsquo;s hockey team star) and Justin Marshall (All Black rugby&rsquo;s most capped halfback), all of whom were adjudged by students as physically attractive sports stars. The product reported here against which these athletes were scored was an isotonic sports drink. Results were mixed; the Ohanian source-credibility scale yielded selection of different celebrity athletes to the single-item measures. The research results show that matching celebrities to products for potential endorsement opportunities is a complex issue, leaving scope for judgement and intuition alongside quantification. Still unresolved is the question of multiple-item measures versus single-item measures in advertising and service research.<br /

S4E10: Are you ready to garden?

Springtime in Maine can mean turning on the heat in the morning and the air conditioner in the afternoon. Spring also is when people flock to vegetable gardens, patios, flower beds and orchards. Gardening, which has been particularly popular during the pandemic, has a number of benefits — from reducing stress to increasing property values. In this semester’s final episode of “The Maine Question,” Charlene Gray, University of Maine lecturer in landscape in design, and Kate Garland, University of Maine Cooperative Extension horticulture professional, talk with host Ron Lisnet about all things gardening, including promoting bee populations

Towards a Theory of Software Development Expertise

Software development includes diverse tasks such as implementing new features, analyzing requirements, and fixing bugs. Being an expert in those tasks requires a certain set of skills, knowledge, and experience. Several studies investigated individual aspects of software development expertise, but what is missing is a comprehensive theory. We present a first conceptual theory of software development expertise that is grounded in data from a mixed-methods survey with 335 software developers and in literature on expertise and expert performance. Our theory currently focuses on programming, but already provides valuable insights for researchers, developers, and employers. The theory describes important properties of software development expertise and which factors foster or hinder its formation, including how developers' performance may decline over time. Moreover, our quantitative results show that developers' expertise self-assessments are context-dependent and that experience is not necessarily related to expertise.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, 26th ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE 2018), ACM, 201

Electron scattering and transport in simple liquid mixtures

The theory for electron transport in simple liquids developed by Cohen and Lekner is extended to simple liquid mixtures. The focus is on developing benchmark models for binary mixtures of hard-spheres, using the Percus-Yevick model to represent the density structure effects. A multi-term solution of the Boltzmann equation is employed to investigate the effect of the binary mixture structure on hard-sphere electron scattering cross-sections and transport properties, including the drift velocity, mean energy, longitudinal and transverse diffusion coefficients. Benchmark calculations are established for electrons driven out of equilibrium by a range of reduced electric field strengths 0.1-100 Td.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. To be published in J. Phys.

Test Procedure for Conducted Energy Weapons

Several studies have discussed the need for reliable uniform testing of Conducted Energy Weapons (CEWs) independent of the manufacturer. We propose a test proceedure that will enable organizations across Canada to test CEWs in a reliable, repeatable manner. This proceedure includes, but goes beyond, the one proposed by the manufacturer. Test results so obtained will also enable: acceptance and regular validation of function of weapons in inventories of police service; post incedent testing to determine whether the weapon was functioning normally; collection of weapons data across Canada to allow research on trends with age of weapon or other factors related to performance. The authors represent a group of subject matter experts who have been involved in research on or testing of CEWs

Letters of Comment

Letters from readers in The Mythic Circle #

Isoperimetric Inequalities in Simplicial Complexes

In graph theory there are intimate connections between the expansion properties of a graph and the spectrum of its Laplacian. In this paper we define a notion of combinatorial expansion for simplicial complexes of general dimension, and prove that similar connections exist between the combinatorial expansion of a complex, and the spectrum of the high dimensional Laplacian defined by Eckmann. In particular, we present a Cheeger-type inequality, and a high-dimensional Expander Mixing Lemma. As a corollary, using the work of Pach, we obtain a connection between spectral properties of complexes and Gromov's notion of geometric overlap. Using the work of Gunder and Wagner, we give an estimate for the combinatorial expansion and geometric overlap of random Linial-Meshulam complexes

Microbial life in the deep terrestrial subsurface

The distribution and function of microorganisms is a vital issue in microbial ecology. The US Department of Energy`s Program, ``Microbiology of the Deep Subsurface,`` concentrates on establishing fundamental scientific information about organisms at depth, and the use of these organisms for remediation of contaminants in deep vadose zone and groundwater environments. This investigation effectively extends the Biosphere hundreds of meters into the Geosphere and has implications to a variety of subsurface activities