Editorial

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY

FRIENDS — YOU CAN GET

SATISFACTION

This is an eclectic issue. At the time of

launch, the Beatles ‘White Album’ was

criticised for being eclectic, but it turned

out to be a classic — a parallel? Here we

have papers based on positivist

research, others more interpretist and a

range of topics is explored across the

selection within this issue.

Morris Holbrook and Robert

Schindler also refer to the Beatles in

their paper about nostalgia. They show

how marketers can use the past as a

frame of reference for consumers who

appear to react positively to links with

‘their era’ — when they were about 20

(not ‘64’). So, are you as old as your

chronological age? Or is at least a bit of

you still stuck at 20?

There is, despite my eclecticism claim,

a link between Holbrook and

Schindler’s paper and the one by Anil

Mathur et al. which is concerned with

events in our past. Mathur et al. delve

into these to discover the extent to

which certain key events in our lives

change our brand preferences. These

include family life stage changes,

personal physical change, job change

and so on. There are practical

implications for how marketers can

employ such knowledge.

Jessica Santos and Jonathan Boote

consider aspects of satisfaction. They

present a very useful framework for

incorporating different pre-purchase

‘expectation’ constructs along with a

variety of post-purchase outcomes such

as delight, satisfaction, acceptance and

dissatisfaction. From this, they then

propose a series of practical

implications for marketers.

Karen Smith and Mary Ann Stutts’

paper is concerned with the effects of

anti-smoking advertisements. The

authors conducted a longitudinal

experiment and their findings are of

significance in that ‘fear’ versus

‘cosmetic’ appeals were found to work

differently for males and females. They

present a number of other important

findings such as the relative

effectiveness of different advertising

media in reducing smoking, as well as

the more obvious power of peer

pressure.

Turning to the Practice papers, Daniel

Milotic focuses on aesthetics — a

current topic attracting growing

interest. His paper is concerned mainly

with the sense of smell and how

marketers can learn from how

consumers react to fragrances — less so

as we age, for example — and he shows

how fragrance can be a key

differentiator between brands in

product categories that go well beyond

the more obvious one of cosmetics.

In the second of our Practice papers,

Paul Fulberg allows me to again link

with music, or at least ‘sound’. He

explores the relatively new

phenomenon of enhancing a brand at

retail level through this ‘sense’. He

implies that this Revolution, will Help

brand relationships Come Together.

Martin Evans

Managing Editor

106 Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 3, 2, 106 #Henry Stewart Publications 1479-1838