Branding New York: A new strategy of economic development, 1967--1981

This dissertation is composed of two essays that represent an attempt to explain consumer choice processes in new perspectives.; Over the past years, the marketing literature has spent much attention to the two specification of heterogeneity distributions (discrete, continuous heterogeneity). Choice models have been developed that accommodate unobserved heterogeneity in consumer preference by assuming a distribution of these preferences across households. The underlying behavioral choice mechanism, however, is assumed to be the same across consumers, while different theories on these choice mechanisms have been proposed in the literature.; In this study, we develop a methodology that accounts for different decision rules, i.e., the way consumers make choices when purchasing products. In addition, it helps to explain why consumers use one heuristic over the other. The model is applied to choice data collected in an international survey among consumers in the European Union.; The results show, among others, that the use of decision rules differ across cultures.; A fundamental belief in the advertising industry is that younger consumers have less well-formed brand preferences and can be swayed into becoming loyal to another brand. Older consumers on the other hand are believed to have already settled into buying habits that can't be shifted, and are hence assumed to be brand-loyal. The result of this tenet is that advertising rates are set such that it is much more expensive to advertise on programs geared towards younger audience. The response by network and cable television to such youth obsession by the advertisers is to create television shows targeted to attract young audience. However, several industry experts have challenged this practice citing lack of research that shows that younger consumers behave any differently than their older counterparts. In this paper we investigate the differences in purchase behavior for consumers in different age groups in the consumer packaged good (CPG) industry. We estimate brand choice models that accounts for both state dependence and heterogeneity. However, using information on over 900 new product introductions spanning 17 product categories, we find that older consumers are consistently less prone to new product trail than their younger counterparts. Implications for advertisers and other marketing managers are discussed. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...