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The purpose of this paper is to conduct an exploratory study of potential business-to-business (B2B) customers that includes an empirical analysis that investigate the effect that customer entertainment has on customer suspicion toward the salesperson, and how those negative attitudes are influenced by the relationship stage and the perceived cost of the event.

Using an experimental design, data were collected from 105 potential customers working in a B2B environment that assessed their attitudes regarding offers of varying levels of customer entertainment across differing stages of the relationship.

Results demonstrate that B2B customers have important perceptions regarding the perceived cost of customer entertainment offers by salespeople. Those evaluations resulted in a positive relationship between customer attitudes of suspicion toward the salesperson and the perceived cost of the entertainment event. However, the stage of the relationship tended to ameliorate suspicious attitudes of customers, although not in a completely symmetrical manner.

Additional testing with larger sample populations would better solidify the existence of the relationships.

This study provides a framework for practitioners that gives direction to the strategic use of customer entertainment such that it acts as a relationship catalyst, and not a relationship poison.

The paper uses a customer perspective to fill a need to better understand the instrumental role of customer entertainment in relationship marketing, and how it interacts with the perceived cost of the event and relationship stage to create differing customer attitudes.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/eb008172. When citing the article, please cite: Alan J. Bush, Robert P. Bush, (1986), “SHOULD ADVERTISERS USE NUMBER-BASED COPY IN PRINT ADVERTISEMENTS?”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 3 Iss: 3, pp. 71 - 79.

Discusses the results of content analysis of the Web sites of Fortune 100 companies, carried out to identify the mix of promotional activities on their Web sites. Specifically, we performed a content analysis of Web sites utilizing categories representing a range of marketing communications, including: communicating product, pricing and dealer/retail location information, related and unrelated advertisements, sales promotion, direct marketing, basic company information and public relations. We also identified differences between and among industries based on standard industrial classification (SIC) codes. We found considerable variability in how members of the Fortune 100 used their Web sites. The Web sites ranged from very simple ones that focused on basic company information, such as company history, to quite complex Web sites that incorporated a mix of promotional elements, such as press releases, advertisements, games, free gifts and pricing information.

Machiavelli's dictums in The Prince (1977) instigated the modern discourse on power. Arguing that “there's such a difference between the way we really live and the way we ought to live that the man who neglects the real to study the ideal will learn to accomplish his ruin, not his salvation” (Machiavelli, 1977, p. 44), his approach is a realist one. In this text, Machiavelli (1977, p. 3) endeavors to “discuss the rule of princes” and to “lay down principles for them.” Taking his lead, Foucault (1978, p. 97) argued that “if it is true that Machiavelli was among the few…who conceived the power of the Prince in terms of force relationships, perhaps we need to go one step further, do without the persona of the Prince, and decipher mechanisms on the basis of a strategy that is immanent in force relationships.” He believed that we should “investigate…how mechanisms of power have been able to function…how these mechanisms…have begun to become economically advantageous and politically useful…in a given context for specific reasons,” and, therefore, “we should…base our analysis of power on the study of the techniques and tactics of domination” (Foucault, 1980, pp. 100–102). Conceptualizing such techniques and tactics as the “art of governance”, Foucault (1991), examined power as strategies geared toward managing civic populations through shaping people's dispositions and behaviors.

Recently it is becoming more common for advertisers to employ numbers and statistics in their print advertisements. However, there has been no published research that investigates how this number‐based copy influences the reader. This study presents the results of a controlled experiment in which a number‐oriented versus a non‐number‐oriented ad was manipulated for a consumer durable and a consumer nondurable product. The results indicate that readers perceived the number‐based ad to be more informative than a similar ad without numbers, regardless of the type of product being advertised. The findings from this study can help advertisers create more effective advertisements which could ultimately enhance sales.

To investigate the influence of word‐of‐mouth (WOM) behavior among the growing teenage female market segment in the flourishing sports market.

A sample of 118 teenaged girls, aged 13‐18, participated in the study. The theory of consumer socialization and interpersonal influence was used as the conceptual foundation to generate hypotheses concerning female teens' susceptibility to interpersonal influence, self‐esteem, and WOM behavior. Female teens' ethnicity and media habits were also investigated.

All hypotheses were either supported or partially supported, suggesting that female teens' susceptibility to interpersonal influence and self‐esteem are related to athlete WOM behavior. Additionally, African‐American teenaged girls had significantly higher media habits than Caucasian teenaged girls.

The research is based on a small sample of teenaged girls from one region of the USA. However, the sample is from a diverse socioeconomic group of teenagers, and represents a relatively unexplored, yet extremely important, consumer market segment.

The study provides insights for managers who want to learn more about the WOM behavior of one of the largest and most powerful market segments in the USA. Implications and applications are given to consumer marketers to help better serve this segment.

This paper fills a gap in the literature on female teens and what influences their WOM behavior in the enormous and growing sports market. Additionally, the paper looks at ethnicity and media habits and how these variables may impact on WOM behavior.

One unique group of consumers which has recently attracted the attention of many marketing professionals is the yuppie (young urban professional) market segment. Yet little is known or understood about this segment's service needs, preferences, and behavior or about the marketing strategies necessary to attract this type of consumer to various types of services. The study described here directly investigates yuppie consumers and their preferences and habits concerning services. This article utilizes a study among yuppies concerning a particular service, as well as previous literature on the yuppie market, to provide meaningful insights as to how marketing decision makers can develop more effective marketing strategies to attract yuppie consumers to the various service offerings.

Attempts to determine which individual, or group of individuals, has the strongest influence on adolescent consumer purchase intentions and purchase behavior. By introducing the concepts of direct (fathers and mothers) and vicarious (favorite entertainers and favorite athletes) role models into the consumer behavior literature, the study allows greater understanding of the socialization patterns of young adult consumers. Results from this study provide significant contributions for marketing and advertising managers seeking to improve their understanding of the ever‐growing adolescent consumer market.

The arena of services marketing provides numerous opportunities for ethical violations. As competition intensifies, service providers strive harder to please the customer which can increase the temptation to make ethical compromises. Presents the narrative paradigm as a normative model for ethical decision making in the services marketing environment. The narrative paradigm is learned through socialization and can be applied to the performances of service providers. By viewing services rendered from the narrative perspective, service marketers may be able to discern hidden moral issues, or potential controversial activities. Introduces the concept of services as a performance and the current status of ethics in marketing with implications for the service industry. Introduces the narrative paradigm and gives examples of how it can be applied to the service marketing environment.

This paper aims to understand an emerging paradigm for business-to-business selling, Sales 2.0, which connects various enabling technologies within leading sales processes to drive improved business and relational outcomes. In the context of Sales 2.0, this paper addresses the need for buyer–seller dyadic sales research in the literature and highlights the importance of understanding buyer and seller perspectives regarding technology expectations and relationship-building performance.

This research utilizes a dyadic (salesperson–customer) data collection methodology, involving 74 matched salesperson and customer responses (37 dyads) to an online survey. Existing salesperson (self-report) measures of customer technology expectations and relationship-building performance with customers were utilized and adapted to provide dyadic measures to test for buyer–seller perceptual differences.

The dyadic data analysis supports the presence of significant perceptual differences between the salesperson and their customer, respective of customer technology expectations and relationship-building performance measures. In particular, the analysis reveals bidirectional perceptual differences for the two measures, whereas the salesperson underestimates the importance of their customer’s technology expectations, but overestimates their relational performance relative to their customers.

As technology continues to transform salesperson interactions with customers, the value of capturing a deeper understanding about those interactions increases. This study uses matched salesperson–customer dyads from a health-care sales organization to provide researchers and practitioners with insightful findings with respect to buyer–seller interactions and perceptual differences. Further, the research uniquely advances dyadic measures of customer technology expectations and relationship-building performance with customers to advance sales research in the context of Sales 2.0.