Browsing by Author "Yildirim, G."

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Open Access
Consumer attitude metrics for guiding marketing mix decisions
(Informs, 2014-08) Hanssens, D. M.; Pauwels, Koen Hendrik; Srinivasan, S.; Vanhuele, M.; Yildirim, G.; Business Administration; PAUWELS, Koen Hendrik
Marketing managers often use consumer attitude metrics such as awareness, consideration, and preference as performance indicators because they represent their brand's health and are readily connected to marketing activity. However, this does not mean that financially focused executives know how such metrics translate into sales performance, which would allow them to make beneficial marketing mix decisions. We propose four criteria-potential, responsiveness, stickiness, and sales conversion-that determine the connection between marketing actions, attitudinal metrics, and sales outcomes. We test our approach with a rich data set of four-weekly marketing actions, attitude metrics, and sales for several consumer brands in four categories over a seven-year period. The results quantify how marketing actions affect sales performance through their differential impact on attitudinal metrics, as captured by our proposed criteria. We find that marketing-attitude and attitude-sales relationships are predominantly stable over time but differ substantially across brands and product categories. We also establish that combining marketing and attitudinal metrics criteria improves the prediction of brand sales performance, often substantially so. Based on these insights, we provide specific recommendations on improving the marketing mix for different brands, and we validate them in a holdout sample. For managers and researchers alike, our criteria offer a verifiable explanation for differences in marketing elasticities and an actionable connection between marketing and financial performance metrics.
Open Access
Winning hearts, minds and sales: How marketing communication enters the purchase process in emerging and mature markets
(Elsevier, 2013-03) Pauwels, Koen Hendrik; Erguncu, S.; Yildirim, G.; Business Administration; PAUWELS, Koen Hendrik
Consumers differ in the way their minds and hearts respond to marketing communication. Recent research has quantified effectiveness criteria of mindset metrics, such as brand consideration and liking, in the purchase process for a mature market. This paper develops and illustrates our conceptual framework of how mindset effectiveness differs in an emerging and a mature market. We propose that the responsiveness, stickiness and sales conversion of mindset metrics depend on the regulative, cultural and economic systems that provide structure to society. In particular, we focus on regulative protection, collectivism and income. First, we propose that a lack of regulative protection leads consumers to be more attentive to, and thus more aware of marketing communication. Second, we propose that consumers living in a collectivist culture are less responsive to advertising in their consideration and liking of the advertised brand. Finally, we propose that lower income reduces the sales conversion of brand liking. We examine our predictions empirically with data for the same brands in the same time period in Brazil and the United Kingdom. First, we find that brand liking has a higher responsiveness to advertising, a higher stickiness and a higher sales conversion in the U.K. versus Brazil. Thus, the advice to focus on the emotional brand connection is more appropriate in the analyzed mature versus the emerging market. In contrast, knowing the brand is more important to purchase in Brazil, and is more responsive to advertising. These first findings set up an intriguing research agenda on winning hearts and sales in emerging and mature markets.