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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated.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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This exploratory research aims to examine the commonalities and differences in how buyers and sellers perceive and characterize an effective sales presentation in an attempt to present issues/themes that may help start a dialogue into the theoretical underpinnings of effective sales presentations.

The paper consists of a qualitative study involving both salespeople and buyers.

The study uncovers three common themes of an effective sales presentation – knowledge, adaptability, and trust – but exposes a gap between buyer and seller expectations and perspectives of these themes.

The findings provide insight for business‐to‐business (B2B) salespeople and managers as to what buyers and sellers consider characteristic of an effective sales presentation.

By focusing on how the two main parties to an exchange – the buyer and seller – define what makes an effective sales presentation, this paper adds knowledge to the area of B2B sales research.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of salesperson coachability and to propose potential relationships between it and sales coaching and sales performance.

This conceptual paper reviews the sales coaching and sales performance literature to highlight how the knowledge of each may be enhanced by the coachability construct. The concept of athletic coachability is then introduced to explain why it should be adapted and applied to salespeople in a personal selling context.

Adapting and applying the concept of athlete coachability to salespeople in a personal selling context may provide sales management practitioners and academics a better understanding of how certain salesperson personality traits combine and interact with certain situational influences to impact sales performance.

Future studies need to test the propositions advanced.

Salesperson coachability may be used by sales managers as a screening criterion for sales force recruiting and retention.

Salesperson coachability assessments for recruiting and training may result in lowering job turnover.

This paper introduces the concept of athletic coachability to the sales literature, argues why the concept should be adapted and applied to salespeople in a personal selling context, and advances testable propositions with respect to its expected relationship with sales coaching and sales performance.

Recent research investigating customer‐oriented selling has indicated that greater attention needs to be focused on organizational or personal antecedents influencing customer‐oriented selling behaviors. Similar to most other departments, a selling department’s environment would include its goals, objectives, and culture, as well as the behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes of top and middle management. Through its corporate culture and environment, the organization’s expectations and requirements are transmitted to its employees, who then implement the organization’s policies and carry out organizational strategies. Therefore, it is apparent that both individual internal environment perceptions and managerial leadership styles could possibly have a significant impact on the level of customer‐oriented selling behavior exhibited by salespeople. Three organizational or personal variables likely related to customer‐oriented selling are examined in the present study. The variables include sales manager leadership style, psychological climate, and empowerment. Each of the variables, and an explanation of its expected relationship with customer‐oriented selling, is explored. Implications for managers from these potential relationships are also provided.