Journal of Marketing

Some serious marketing theorists are attempting to use formal reasoning in creating marketing programs.

This article surveys the new methods developed by formalists. The implications of this new approach are important to all marketing executives and researchers.

Do most sales managers try to maximize sales volume to the detriment of profits? The authors do not think so.

Methods are proposed for shifting incentives from sales volume to profits through better utilization of data available from electronic data processing systems.

Has advertising degenerated into wasteful and sometimes deceptive promotion of brand rivalry? Since the author of the present article says, “Yes,” it might be well to point out that an old-fashioned but still valid tenet is that a good marketing man must always try to learn about and understand another person's point of view.

In this article, originally presented at the 1961 Boston Conference on Distribution (Colston E. Warne, “Advertising—A Critic's View,” Boston, International Marketing Institute, 1961, pp. 61–65), the author maintains that present-day advertising is featuring the irrational and the irrelevant, and is often employed as a means of consumer manipulation.

For a different point of view, see the article that follows this one.

This article was written independently of the one preceding, by Colston E. Warne. The point that authors Petit and Zakon are making is that advertising is a bulwark rather than a threat to our existing values.

They maintain that critics of advertising who say that it violates the American value system are in reality criticizing the American value system itself.

It has often been alleged that advertising people are faddists, that they “jump on the bandwagon” whenever a new creative idea comes along. By careful statistical analysis of advertising formats that have appeared in two consumer magazines, the authors have tested the validity of this charge.

For the first time, graduate students in marketing have available a summarized picture of the financial assistance available during 1962–1963 at leading business schools throughout the country.

The fact that 68 institutions furnished detailed information for this first survey of financial aid points up the importance of providing this service for people interested in graduate work in the marketing field.

Blind allegiance to a particular marketing research technique is frequently the cause of survey inefficiency. According to Mr. O'Dell, the never deviating adherence of many practitioners to the mail panel or a rigorous probability sample leads to waste and excessively costly survey data.

He presents some new, objective findings here, to aid the researcher in selecting the most efficient data-gathering method.

Organization changes for more effective management of physical distribution are currently taking place in many of our nation's industrial firms.

This article answers the following questions: •

What is physical distribution?

Believing that most companies do not go after new products effectively, the author deals with what is wrong and what to do about it.

Of special interest is the theme that the responsibility for new products should not rest with the marketing function.

How accurately do respondents report in marketing research surveys? This study shows that survey results can be correct for a total sample, even when many individuals have not reported accurately. But the study also shows that seemingly correct results sometimes conceal a bias which leads to false conclusions.

For a century, retailing has been leavened by a succession of large scale retailers—the department store, the mail order house, the chain store, the supermarket, and the discount house.

What are the common, underlying reasons for their emergence? Will the pattern continue? Here is a critical answer.

Established marketing institutions and practices are undergoing changes. The wholesaler in particular is under pressure; and he is striving to improve his position, as this article shows.

Automatic vending has come to hold equal fascination for the marketing practitioner, the academic theorist, and the average consumer. Unfortunately, it has also been the recipient of more than its share of “blue-sky” prognoses.

This article gives the results of an interesting experiment in grocery vending conducted by a midwestern supermarket chain.

If decisions of marketing managers are to be influenced by predictions based on theoretical models, it is important that the assumptions in the models be accurate. Marketeers must reformulate concepts in such models to make them empirically meaningful, as the author of this article shows.

Most students jump to recommendations and conclusions for cases almost before they have finished reading them for the first time. This article describes a way of forcing marketing students to do more analysis before preparing a formal case report.

The kinds of shopping behavior exhibited by automobile purchasers have implications for both advertising and selling strategy. This article illustrates a methodology for studying shopping deportment and suggests possible hypotheses about the importance of this kind of analysis.