Automotive sales forecasts traditionally focus on predictors such as advertising, brand preference, life cycle position, retail price, and technological sophistication. The quality of the cars' design is, however, an often-neglected variable in such models. We show that incorporating objective...

A buyer's observation that one or more people are consuming a product can lead that buyer to consume the product as well. The evidence supporting unconscious and unintentional (automatic) mimicry of consumption suggests that it is a pervasive and robust phenomenon. However, up until now most...