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This research aims to examine the moderating role of consumers’ persuasion knowledge (PK) on the persuasive effect of combined advertising and publicity within the same medium. The synergistic effect experienced when two messages are thus combined is reversed for readers with high PK who are first exposed to publicity then to advertising. Believability of the message is found to be a mediator within this context.

Based on a review of the appropriate literatures on PK and integrated marketing communication (IMC), this paper tests the hypotheses using two experimental studies.

The results of two experiments show that publicity-then-advertising yields poorer persuasion than advertising-then-publicity, especially under a high PK condition. The reduced synergistic effect of combinations of advertising and publicity is found especially when consumers activate temporary PK and/or when they have chronically high PK. A mediator for a decrease in the synergistic effect of combinations of advertising and publicity, believability, is examined.

This study contains significant managerial implications for marketing communicators about how to most effectively combine and coordinate publicity and advertising in the implementation of an IMC strategy.

Other than making a contribution to the IMCs’ literature, this research extends understanding of the power of PK within an IMC framework. The research contributes yet another extension to the original PK model of Friestad and Wright (1994) by suggesting an underlying theoretical mechanism to explain how PK works in the IMC domain.

Many consumer behaviour researchers have concluded that using self reports in the measurement of influence in family decision making may provide data which is not reflective of actual influence among family members. This suggests the need for different methods of obtaining influence data. This paper reports the development and preliminary application of an observed influence scale; a scale developed to measure actual influence using content analysis of videotaped family interactions. This observational method determines the relative influence of family members over three stages of the decision making process. The scale is tested on nuclear families with two adolescents, 89 from New Zealand and 24 from Singapore. The analysis indicates the scale has strong predictive and face validity.

Decision system analysis is a conceptually simple technique that maps the process of group decisions over time. The data is gathered in a variety of ways, but most often some form of protocol analysis is the foremost tool. The data is then condensed and depicted as a flowchart for a specific decision. If several such flowcharts can be assembled within an industry, they can be melded together to form a generic guide that is very useful to practitioners and very interesting to theorists. Here, a brief history of the development of the technique leads to a description of the process. This is followed by a comparison to cognitive mapping (a similar technique applied to mapping thought processes rather than physical processes), and an illustrative longitudinal example of DSA.

Urry’s model of Tourism Gaze as described by Woodside is problematic, in that tourist participant observers change the phenomenon they observe. The purpose of this study is to present an alternative model that better represents the dialectic between tourists and the destination culture.

A story-telling technique, based upon personal experience and introspection that matches the story told by Woodside, is used to illustrate the theory development and formulate an alternative model.

A new model is proposed that acknowledges that the more a tourist lives their tourism experience and becomes immersed in the destination culture, the greater the affect he/she has upon the destination. The issue of authenticity is discussed in relationship to this new model, as – in a sense – the experience of a one-time traveler is as authentic as those of a long-term stay tourist.

The practical implications are both for tourist operators and policymakers. Cultures change, regardless of any tourism activity; but, such activity is a major change-agent, especially so as the emerging Asian countries discover the pleasures of “globe-trotting”. Although the cultural experience of tourists will remain authentic, large-scale tourism projects will inevitably change the culture the tourists sought to experience in the first place. The value of alternate tourism strategies based on the tourist’s impact upon the host culture is becoming increasingly critical.

The new model is simple but effective, and is more pragmatic and accurate than the original tourist gaze model of Urry. The introspective, story-telling, methods used are more typical of academic marketing than tourism research, but serve the purpose here well by making the conceptual idea readily available to the reader.

Understanding the nature and distribution of influence within buying centres is of critical importance to researchers in organisational buying behaviour (Dawes, Lee, & Dowling, 1998). However, the effects of the Internet on organisational buying behaviour remain rather vague. The primary objective of this study is to examine the effects of the Internet on the distribution of influence within buying centres. In particular, the study aims to identify the changes in levels of influence among key players at each stage of the organisational buying process due to the introduction of the Internet as a means of gathering information. Two groups of companies, representing high-internet-usage and low-internet-usage companies are identified. Results show that there is a significant difference in the distribution of influence within buying centres between the two groups where the level of influence of general managers tend to decline while functional managers tend to enjoy increased levels of influence in high-internet-usage companies.

A study is reported, which investigated Singapore consumers’ price thresholds and saturation points for price discounts. The study shows that consumers discount the offered price discount, i.e. they lower the dollar gain value. This discounting of discounts increases significantly with the increase in advertised discounts. Very similar patterns of responses are obtained for products and services. The study also indicates that the saturation point for price discounts of 20 to 30 percent is found to be the same in Singapore and the USA. However, a price threshold of less than 10 percent is found for Singapore consumers, compared to 15 percent in the USA. Frequent price promotions in Singapore may have lowered the products’ expected price and appear to lead consumers to defer purchases when regular prices are offered.

Science fiction is that demonic creature lurking in the depths of every human subconscious waiting for the chance to emerge and destroy, with ecstasy, mankind's literary taste. It condemns the reader to an endless array of spaceships, hyperdrive, alternate universes, and alien beings — the really fun things in life. Unfortunately, not all readers or critics hold this view. To many literary critics, science fiction is something to keep in the closet, ignore, and generally not discuss in front of frail women or young children.

The relationship between knowledge and power appears to be assumptive in marketing; the study reported here attempts to justify this assumption.

The study is set in a family decision context. The research divides families according to the domain‐specific internet use of sons, and then the analysts inspect family decision‐power patterns for a range of products. Analysis is by factor analysis in the first instance, followed by ANOVA to test the research hypotheses.

The relationship between the internet‐enabled, domain‐specific knowledge acquisition of young consumers and their consequent increase in power in group decisions is supported.

Academics need to adjust their existing beliefs about family decisions, given the impact technology is having on knowledge patterns.

Marketers not only must be cognizant of the increasing power of youth in family purchase decisions as technology changes knowledge structures, but also must realize the potential of technological promotion channels for reaching this newly empowered target audience.

The concept that knowledge leads to power is not original, but the application of the idea to consider the structure of group decisions in a family context is. Most observers accept that the youth market is large and growing in its own right. It also seems possible, though, that many young consumers will have even more importance than previously considered because of their increasing influence within their family group.