It is a common belief that users of a brand in one category are more likely to purchase brand extensions than non-users of the brand. This study examines whether extensions actually do facilitate purchase of the brand in a second category. We analyze one year of household purchasing data for...

This paper uses a sample of approximately 60,000 US households to document fundamental basket size patterns across a range of retailer types (e.g. grocery stores, convenience stores, and warehouse clubs), and studies them in relation to retailer performance metrics (unit sales and dollar...

The Ansoff Matrix has been widely taught as part of business education for over 50 years. It portrays growth options as a 2 x 2 matrix of options, with one axis representing products (existing / new) and the representing markets (existing / new). Two logical problems arise from the matrix. Both...

When brands grow, what changes more: the number of households buying, or the average number of units they buy in the course of a year? We examined twelve US package-goods brands that exhibited high growth from 2005 to 2007 to find out the answer. For eleven of the twelve brands, growth was...

An apparent paradox in brand metrics data is that the aggregated buyer base of each brand appears to buy the category at above the average rate. This seems arithmetically impossible. The effect is real, but it has a simple explanation. It is caused by the fact that heavy category buyers buy more...

Cigarettes constitute a very large product category with very adverse health outcomes for consumers. Knowing more about cigarette purchasing will inform researchers, and help policymakers make better decisions about this product. We examine how heavy cigarette purchasers differ from ‘light’...

Customer evaluations of service quality may exhibit variation at the individual customer level, or in the aggregate level, over time. This study investigated three types of aggregate-level variation in customer evaluations of service quality. Using multiple data sets, it examined (1) the...