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This paper develops a model which is an extension of a class of stochastic response models first proposed by Coleman [5]. In its present form the model applies to the binary response situation. The model postulates a population of respondents who are heterogeneous with respect to their response probabilities. A given respondent may experience changes in his response probability in the intervals between probability, the model is zero order. The paper also presents a variant of the minimum chi square procedure which may be used to estimate and test the model. An application to consumer brand choice data demonstrates that the model is empirically viable. Potential applications to multi-wave voting intentions panels and social-psychological experiments are indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several versions of a mathematical programming model which determines attribute weights for each consumer are empirically evaluated using data on dry cereals and automobiles. The model is found to be a good predictor of consumer preferences, particularly for dry cereals. Managerial implications for product repositioning, new product design, and market segmentation are discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new, more general model of consumer brand choice behavior. The model is a composite of the Bernoulli, Markov, and Linear Learning Models, all of which have previously been proposed to represent brand choice behavior. The properties of the model are explored, and a parameter estimation technique is developed. A special case of the model is developed for situations in which insufficient data are available to estimate the parameters of the complete model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a report of a study of innovation of consumer nondurable products. A simple hypothesis about consumer behavior in short run, nonequilibrium situations is presented. Following classical economic methodology, the behavior of individuals is then aggregated. This aggregate equation form is tested and shown to be not rejected by the data. The effect of marketing actions of the firm upon consumer behavior is also explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customers strive in a Poisson process at a queueing system with two counters in series, with an infinite queue allowed before the first counter and no queue allowed before the second. The steady-state behaviour of this system was studied by earlier authors. In this paper the transient behaviour of the stochastic processes underlying the model is investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Task Manufacturing Corporation is a computer-simulated business firm. The objective is to simulate the operations of a real business firm on a greatly contracted time scale for use in education and research. The methodology is to build a business firm from detailed models of its subsystems. This paper discusses the model of one subsystem, the customer, who is viewed as a participant in an organization and whose behavior involves such participating notions as inducements, contributions, satisfactions, dissatisfactions and searches for alternative sources of supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the interaction of purchasing motives and the optimal programming of their activation in the evaluation of advertising themes. In recent years considerable attention has been paid by marketing theorists to the role of advertising and other promotional activities within the marketing policy of the firm and to their optimal setting in the combined operation of the various instruments available to such a policy. These authors have generally assumed efficient spending of money on advertising as far as choice of media and of purchase motivating themes are concerned. It is the object of the present paper to consider in some detail the second of these two problems-the efficient selection of purchase motivating themes for activation through advertising. This will be done in two stages. First, the effect of motives on purchasing behavior is considered. In many surveys questions are asked relating to the reasons for buying decisions, preferences, or purchasing plans. The practical nature of such questions on purchasing motives seems clear, since it might be well worth trying to activate such a motive--if it turns out to be important--by advertising and other promotional efforts.

Numerous alternatives are available in the kinds of studies which can be elected in the market research which should precede the introduction of a new product. This gives rise to a possible network interpretation and treatment by an associated chance-constrained programming characterization and analysis. The resulting model, called DEMON (Decision Mapping Via Optimum GO-NO Networks), which was discussed in [6], is here given a new formulation in terms of an extremal equation. A general analytic characterization is achieved and then replaced by more special ones. Means for effecting study decisions and inferences are discussed along with the sensitivity analyses that we associate with GO and NO preemptions, relative to profit and payback constraints. Payback (in a constraint) is here distinguished from its use as a criterion for choice (or objective), the latter being here oriented toward MEMP (maximizing expected maximum profit). A chart is provided for interpreting these and other aspects of policy which bear on the problems of marketing a new product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A stochastic model of individual buyer behavior is developed from a set of postulates about the buying process. The postulates are shown to imply a linear learning model modified by a term to explain response to pricing stimuli. Thus, a customer's purchasing probability is modelled as a combination of the effect of his past purchasing behavior plus the effect of price-variation in the market. Methods are developed to calculate short- and long-term probabilistic properties of the process. A method for parameter estimation is included. The model differs from past modelling efforts in this area in that a controllable variable, product price, is explicitly included in the model-structure, allowing the model to be used to aid in pricing decision making under a certain set of assumptions about competitive behavior in a market situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A market where two groups of brands, premium (higher priced) and private label (lower priced) are sold is considered. It is assumed price is the only indicator of quality. Using hypotheses about consumer behavior in such markets, a model for changes in market share that would result from temporary price reductions by one of the premium brands is constructed. The model is used to develop promotional strategies for one of the premium brands, given various assumptions about competitive behavior. Methods for use of the model are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A quasi-game theory approach to market-entry pricing is taken for a product class where price is the only indicator of quality. The model is based on certain hypotheses regarding individual customer behavior, which is then aggregated to find demand for a product given its price. Using game theoretic thinking and assumptions about brand behavior, optimal pricing policies are derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study argues the need for, and then develops, some graph theoretic approaches for comparing complex information processing models of individual decisions. Two similarity coefficients are proposed, and a coefficient based on path and reachability structure is shown to be preferable. Some properties of this coefficient are outlined, as well as a computational method. The coefficient is applied to actual information processing models of consumer choice and stock selection. The results of this application are interpreted for insights into process structure, stability of decision processes over time, and possibilities of developing process-oriented typologies. Finally, problems and prospects for this type of approach are assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laboratory measures of brand preferences and survey measures of demographic, media exposure, attitudinal, activity and opinion characteristics of individual consumers have been combined to predict brand purchases in the market. Brands in the tooth paste, liquid household cleaner and cake mix product categories were employed in a set of laboratory experiments. Preference scales derived from the experiments are used in three separate models to predict the subject's purchases recorded in seven months of diary data. The behavioral implications and predictive power of the models are interesting from both theoretical and applied points of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biometrics and psychometrics have developed a variety of methods to derive empirically clusters or types of variables, objects, or subjects. These empirical classificatory methods have been applied to data at one point in time—they have been used for static analyses. An extension is presented to the ease of dynamic analyses, that is, the empirical identification of subjects with different time changes in one or more observed characteristics and their grouping based on sufficient similarity of time changes. Two management applications of the extension are given, the first dealing with behavioral, and the second with behavioristic, data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A transportation queueing process in which taxis arrive in a Poisson process and customers arrive as a renewal process independent of taxi-arrival process is controlled by calling extra taxis whenever the total number of customers lost to the system reaches a certain predetermined number. Transient and steady state behavior of this process is studied using renewal theoretic arguments. The optimum value of the control variable is also obtained so as to minimize the total cost to the system due to the waiting taxis and lost customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A single product system with linear costs is considered when customers are of two different types. Penalty costs for lost sales differ for the two types of customers and therefore, optimal system control requires different shortage probabilities for the two classes. In one case, high penalty customers independently arrive while at the other extreme it is assumed that there is only one such customer. Single critical number policies are optimal in the simple situations. If the priority type customers become active and register displeasure by changing their demand pattern when their demands are not satisfied, simple convexity or Polya frequency function arguments are not sufficient to guarantee that the optimal policy remains one of the single critical number variety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the significance of using Markov chain processes in marketing research, based on the findings of several research studies. The author suggests that, although Markov chains are widely used as tools for operations research, the results are often disappointing. It is further proposed that the research results differ from the consumer behavior managers' experience. A sequential model developed to predict consumer's brand choice is discussed. Letters to the editor are included.

Post-war advances in technology have changed the concept of marketing management considerably. The core of this change is the shift of emphasis from the firm to the buyer. In this survey article, the author reviews all the important approaches to understanding buying behavior and provides an up-to-date bibliography. Two important issues emerge from the review. First, the existing variety of formulations resembles the variety of responses of seven blind men touching different parts of an elephant and making inferences about the animal which necessarily differ from, and occasionally contradict, one another. Second, the theory which attempts to explain the observed phenomenon of buying behavior and the quantitative techniques which provide adequate definitions and measurements have been developed independently of each other to the detriment of the maturity of the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-seasonal forecasting methods are examined by considering demand generating processes which are reasonable and general descriptions of customer demand and for which the popular predictors are shown to be optimal. Tests of the adequacy of the generating processes are described. The way in which the forecasting errors vary with the forecasting period is examined, and it is shown that this is dependent not only on the length of the period but also on the values of the forecasting parameters. The sensitivity of the predictors to departures from the optimal parameters is investigated, and the long debated comparison of Holt's linear growth predictor (1957) and Brown's linear growth predictor (1959) is examined. It is shown for the assumed generating model and for forecasting parameters lying within the usual limits, that even if there is an infinite amount of data available to establish the optimum forecasting parameters, the standard error of the one step ahead predictor exceeds that of the Holt predictor by no more than 1.6 percent. The generalized polynomial generating process is shown to have as its optimal least squares predictor the corresponding Box-Jenkins polynomial predictor (1962). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are numerous queueing situations in which those awaiting service may be allowed to make choices which affect the time spent in the service system. In such cases, it should be possible to formulate a "strategy" for customers to follow in order to optimize a given parameter. A whole class of queue problems which involve "jockeying" can be regarded in this way, but has so far received little attention. Jockeying can be described as the movement of of a waiting customer from one queue to another (of shorter length or which appears to be moving faster, etc.) in anticipation of a shorter delay. We have so far considered steady state solutions for just a few of the various possible jockeying disciplines in two-server systems with heterogeneous "exponential" servers and Poisson inputs. As a basis for comparison, we first treat the heterogeneous server problems where arriving customers join the shorter of two independent waiting lines and are not permitted to jockey. The same problem is then considered allowing instantaneous jockeying from the longer to the shorter line when the difference in line lengths exceeds one. The results, in terms of expected line lengths and delays, are identical to those obtained by Gumbel [6] for heterogeneous servers fed from a single queue. When the same problem, with customer preferences for a specific line, is considered the results are identical to those of Krishnamoorthi [8]. It is important to note that in these two problems the slower server has a larger throughput than might be expected from the classical theory. In other words, the slower server acts as a trapping state. In the last problems treated here, customers join a preferred line and may jockey at a rate proportional to the line lengths or proportional to the difference in line lengths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are primarily concerned here with the question of integrability of the total demand in a model in which each consumer acts according to a cardinal utility function and has a fixed monetary income. It is well known that concavity of the various utilities is not sufficient to guarantee integrability, nor even to ensure rationality of the revealed preference. We show that if each personal utility function is homogeneous, in addition to satisfying the usual regularity conditions, then an aggregate utility function can be defined explicitly in terms of the given utilities. Furthermore, under the same assumptions we give a new characterization of equilibrium and show that equilibrium satisfactions are unique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]