Journal of Marketing

Previous research and reviews on comparative advertising report mixed results. The authors report the results from a meta-analysis that examines the efficacy of comparative advertising. The analysis shows that comparative ads are more effective than noncomparative ads in generating attention, message and brand awareness, levels of message processing, favorable sponsored brand attitudes, and increased purchase intentions and purchase behaviors. However, comparative ads evoke lower source believability and a less favorable attitude toward the ad. Additional analyses of moderator variables find that market position (sponsor, comparison, and relative), enhanced credibility, message content, and type of dependent measure (relative versus nonrelative) affect some of the relationships between advertising format and cognition, brand attitudes, and purchase intentions. New brands comparing themselves to established brands appear to benefit most from comparative advertising.

Whereas some firms embrace and successfully exploit pro-social consumer influence strategies (e.g., environmental positionings, cause-related promotions), other firms tend to downplay their effectiveness and are reluctant to pursue such strategies. The author's research findings reveal that important moderators, namely consumer trust in the marketing source and attributions of consumer responsibility, must be activated for pro-social positioning strategies to work. Moreover, the levels of the moderating variables appear to be critical in determining whether a pro-social positioning strategy achieves the intended effect or backfires, thereby jeopardizing product equity and market share.

Over the past decade, transaction cost analysis (TCA) has received considerable attention in the marketing literature. Marketing scholars have made important contributions in extending and refining TCA's original conceptual framework. The authors provide a synthesis and integration of recent contributions to TCA by both marketers and scholars in related disciplines, an evaluation of recent critiques of TCA, and an agenda for further research on TCA.

Trade shows are a multibillion-dollar business in the United States and the United Kingdom, but little is known about the determinants of trade show effectiveness. The authors build a model that captures differences in trade show effectiveness across industries, companies, and two countries. They focus on the differences in trade show effectiveness measured in a similar way across similar samples of 221 U.S. and 135 UK firm-show experiences between 1982 and 1993. Although the variables explain different amounts of variance in these two countries and some variables tend to have different relative effects, the similarities outweigh the differences. The authors are able to generalize about the effect of various show selection (go/not go) variables as well as tactical variables (e.g., booth size, personnel) on observed performance. They conclude by discussing the implications of their research for developing benchmarks for trade show performance.

The Comparative Advantage Theory of Competition (CATC) is proposed by Hunt and Morgan (1995) to replace the Neoclassical Theory of Perfect Competition (NTPC). The new theory claims to offer a better explanation for key macro and micro phenomena. The authors’ purpose in this article is to evaluate the CATC's potential as a replacement for the neoclassical theory. They argue that (1) both the NTPC and CATC are offshoots of the exchange paradigm; furthermore, (2) the efficient theories in the exchange paradigm family cannot claim superiority over one another since a supracriterion for their contest is lacking; and (3) the CATC—even when considered efficient—cannot challenge the NTPC, let alone replace it. In addition to meeting a host of conditions, a successful contender must come from a new paradigm, which the CATC does not. Therefore, the replacement assertion remains unjustified.

Deligönül and çavuşgil (1997) conduct a paradigm-level analysis of resource-advantage (R-A) theory. They argue that (1) Hunt and Morgan (1995) offer resource-advantage theory as a replacement for perfect competition theory, (2) a successful challenger to any theory must come from a new paradigm, (3) but both perfect competition and R-A theory come from the same paradigm. Therefore, (4) the replacement thesis is dubious. We evaluate their argument.