Peter S.H. Leeflang

Philippe A. Naert

The observation that many models are built but few are used has almost become a commonplace in the management science and operations research literature. Nevertheless, the statement remains to a large extent true today, also and perhaps even more so where marketing models are concerned. This led Philippe Naert, now about four years ago, to write a concept text of a few hundred pages on the subject of how to build imple men table marketing models, that is, models that can and will be used. One of the readers of that early manuscript was Peter Leefiang. He made suggestions leading to a more consistent ordering of the material and pro posed the addition of some topics and the expansion of others to make the book more self-contained. This resulted in a co-authorship and a revised version, which was written by Peter Leefiang and consisted of a reshuffling and an expansion of the original material by about fifty per cent. Several meetings between the co-authors produced further refinements in the text and the sequence of chapters and sections, after which Philippe Naert again totally reworked the whole text. This led to a new expansion, again by fifty per cent, of the second iteration. The third iteration also required the inclusion of a great deal of new literature indicating that the field is making fast progress and that implementation has become a major concern to marketing model builders.

Building Implementable Marketing Models

Michel Wedel

Dick R. Wittink

This book is about marketing models and the process of model building. Our primary focus is on models that can be used by managers to support marketing decisions. It has long been known that simple models usually outperform judgments in predicting outcomes in a wide variety of contexts. For example, models of judgments tend to provide better forecasts of the outcomes than the judgments themselves (because the model eliminates the noise in judgments). And since judgments never fully reflect the complexities of the many forces that influence outcomes, it is easy to see why models of actual outcomes should be very attractive to (marketing) decision makers. Thus, appropriately constructed models can provide insights about structural relations between marketing variables. Since models explicate the relations, both the process of model building and the model that ultimately results can improve the quality of marketing decisions. Managers often use rules of thumb for decisions. For example, a brand manager will have defined a specific set of alternative brands as the competitive set within a product category. Usually this set is based on perceived similarities in brand characteristics, advertising messages, etc. If a new marketing initiative occurs for one of the other brands, the brand manager will have a strong inclination to react. The reaction is partly based on the manager's desire to maintain some competitive parity in the mar keting variables.

Building Models for Marketing Decisions

With advances in information technology and expertise in modeling, IRI introduced model-based services in the US that explain and predict essential parts of the marketplace. ACNielsen followed, and marketing researchers have been developing increasingly valid, useful and relevant models of marketplace behavior ever since. Models that provide information about the sensitivity of market behavior to marketing activities such as advertising, pricing, promotions and distribution are now routinely used by managers for the identification of changes in marketing programs that can improve brand performances. Building Models for Marketing Decisions, Second Edition describes up-dated marketing models that managers can use as an aid in decision making.

Philippe A. Naert

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