A review of recently published academic studies of ad effects reveals that authors did not report qualifying subjects as prospects for the product category used in the research and did not include measures to permit examining findings by prospects and nonprospects. The marketing theoretic implications for advertising
research of the concept of prospect are discussed.
Probably no recent contribution to the business literature has sparked more controversy than Levitt’s (1983) paper on ‘the globalization of markets.’ On the one hand, Levitt argues that the world is shrinking as a marketplace and challenges companies to compete by realizing economics of scale through offering standardized goods and services that will be acceptable on a worldwide basis. On the other hand, many marketing authors scoff at Levitt’s globalization challenge, calling the idea a myth and a dangerous policy (Douglas and Wind, 1987; Kotler, 1986; Sheth, 1986, for example).
Dholakis et al. (1987) discuss two views on marketers’ proper role i.e., trying to participate in (Fennell, 1987), or change (Kotler, 1987) consumers’ ongoing projects. They suggest that the two views meet if one construes “long-term benefit” as a product that consumers seek and look to the “marketing system” to provide. While marketers must strive to avoid harming consumers, for a variety of reasons discussed herein, they cannot, with integrity, claim to provide consumers’ long-term benefit.