Assessing direct response service advertising on television

ROBERT P. BUSH ALAN J. BUSH PHILIP S. NlTSE

Assessing Direct Response Service Advertising on Television ROBERT P BUSH i s an assistant professor of marketing, ALAN J BUSH i s associate professor of marketing. and PHILIP S NITSE is a Doctoral candidate in marketing-all at Memphis State University, Fogleman College of Business, Department of Marketing. Memphis. Tennessee.

ROBERT P BUSH

ALAN J BUSH

PHILIP S NITSE

ABSTRACT Despite a recent research commitment to the area of service marketing, very little research has been conducted in the field of direct response service advertising. The present study addresses a series of research questions pertaining to television advertising strategies associated with direct marketers of services. In an attempt to assess these research questions, the authors utilize a content analysis methodology exploring various aspects of 362 direct response service TV commercials. Results suggest that direct marketers of services do differ in their advertising approach. Implications for the direct marketing industry, specifically those for service firms, are discussed.

0 1991 John Wilcy & Sons, Inc. and Direct Marketing Educational Poundation, Inc CCC 0892-0591/91/04018-1 1$04.00

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VOLUME 5 NUMBER 4 AUTUMN I99 I

INTRODUCTION

The direct marketing industry has advanced considerably concerning its use of television advertising. An industry once stereotyped by its TV ads for “greatest hits” albums and Ronco products, is emerging into a sophisticated marketing-oriented industry that is starting to include a great diversity of TV commercial formats as a part of its overall marketing strategy. Bush and Bush ( 3 ) recently analyzed over 198 hours of television programming on six networks to discover that approximately 17 percent of the commercials were sponsored by direct marketers. Furthermore, these direct response TV commercials advertised such diverse industries as travel and lodging, financial services, and transportation, among others. Perhaps the most intriguing finding of the Bush and Bush study is that approximately 55 percent of the direct response commercials they analyzed were for services. Direct marketers in the service sector appear to be utilizing television advertising to the same, if not greater, extent than those marketing products. The resulting dilemma from all this is that, while direct response marketers in the service sector are utilizing television advertising to a great extent, there is very little empirical work on service advertising which they can use to assist them in their advertising strategy. Therefore, the purpose of this article is twofold: first, to review the relevant literature on service marketing; second, to use this literature base on service marketing to assess current direct response service commercials. The commercials will be assessed via a content analysis methodology of direct response service commercials on both cable and broadcast networks. The value of this analysis will be to provide a scientific, objective, systematic, quantitative, and generalizable description of service-related direct response communication content. It is hoped that this analysis will open new avenues for research on the themes, appeals, and media character of direct response service advertising in order to spur interest and additional research into this neglected area. LITERATURE REVIEW

Although the United States economy is increasing its dependence on the service sector, little research

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exists on the advertising of these services. The research on the advertising of products offers little insight into the large numbers of service companies who are contemplating advertising. The distinction is important, since the advertising of services has been shown to be different from the advertising of products (6). The lack of research suggests either that the researchers discount these findings, or that the advertisers are mistakenly applying product advertising concepts to service-oriented ads. Since the service sector does dominate the economy, over 68 percent of the nation’s GNP and 71 percent of its employment (111, advertising researchers should direct their attention to assisting service-oriented firms with their advertising strategy. However, it has only been in the past decade or so that research on service marketing has acquired any degree of sustained commitment. The majority of the initial research on service marketing centered on how services differed from physical goods (e.g., 1,2,5,8,12,14,16). This research dialogue posited a separate treatment of services marketing from product marketing because of services’ unique characteristics of intangibility, inseparability of production and consumption, heterogeneity, and perishability. More recently, research on service marketing has focused on conceptualizing the service experience and on the problems surrounding the service transaction. This era of research on service marketing developed conceptual frameworks summarizing the unique characteristics and consequent problems of services and service quality (10,15,17,18). Despite the recent research commitment to service marketing over the last decade, very little empirical research exists which focuses on advertising of services, let alone direct response advertising of services. George and Berry (2) suggested guidelines for the advertising of services, such as providing tangible cues in the advertising, capitalizing on word-of-mouth,making the service understood, and so forth. However, George and Berry’s guidelines were not based on scientific evidence. Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Berry (17) surveyed over 300 service firms and discovered that advertising usage among these firms differed significantly, depending on the type of service the firm offered. For example, their data indicated that service firms which require the customer’s physical presence during the service encounter placed a greater emphasis on advertising

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than those firms where the customer can activate the service encounter at a distance. Furthermore, service firms whose benefits are immediate (e.g., hotels) use television and newspaper advertising more than do those firms whose benefits are longterm (e.g., landscaping).

over, mentioning competition in an advertisement can often give consumers more information about a service, and help them better to position the service in their minds relative to competition. Therefore, the next two research questions investigate the following: Do direct marketers of services emphasize a service benefit in their TV commercial?

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Do direct marketers of services mention competitors

Despite the initial research on service advertising, more empirical research is needed to gain a better understanding of what direct marketers of services are currently doing with their advertising. Several important research questions will be addressed so that the direct marketing industry can get a better picture of the frequency, style, and content of direct response service advertising. First, service marketing experts (2,4,6,14) stress the importance of using tangible cues in service advertisements to help overcome the intangibility associated with services. Since services cannot be seen, felt, or touched in the same manner as products, tangible cues must be stressed in communicating services. George and Berry (6) suggest using celebrities in service advertising as a way to help build tangibility and credibility for the service. Thus, the first research question is as follows: To what extent are direct marketers of services utilizing celebrities in their TV commercials?

An important strategic benefit for any product or service is its perceived quality. In fact, Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (17) suggest that communicating how much a service will cost can help keep consumers better informed about the service, and eventually influence consumers’ perceived quality of that service. Therefore, an important item to include in an advertisement for services may be the price for that service. Research question number two is: Do direct marketers of services communicate the price or the cost of the service in their commercials?

In any advertising strategy it is very important to consider execution styles and persuasive techniques. For example, advertising experts (13) believe a distinct benefit of the product or service should be emphasized in an advertisement. More-

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in their Tv commercials? The next two research questions are media-related. In order to gain a better understanding of the current environment surrounding direct response service advertisements, two research questions deal with the type of network and the type of ad used by direct response service advertisers. To what extent are direct response service advertisers employing cable versus traditional broadcast networks for their commercials?

What proportion of direct response service commer. cials are local versus national?

Finally, with so many different direct marketers of services currently advertising on television ( 3 ) , are they all following a similar or different advertising strategy? For example, do direct marketers of travel and lodging services have significantly different ad strategies than direct marketers of entertainment services?This leads to the final research question: Do direct marketers of services follow a similar ad. vertising strategy?

METHODOLOGY analysis of direct response commercials of the three maior broadcast networks and three cable networks (i.e., ESPN, CNN, WTBS) was undertaken. The purpose and function of this methodology is to provide a foundation for the present state of service-related direct response advertising efforts. The intent of this descriptive approach is to serve as a benchmark for hypothesis generation and further research efforts in the area of direct response service advertising. A total of 36 graduate student observers were selected and careA

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fully trained as to the methodology to follow while analyzing the content of the direct response commercials. Kassarjian’s (7) requirements for a content analysis were followed throughout the study. A pretest, including all observers consisted of an analysis of six T V commercials preselected by the researchers of the study. The six test commercials included four direct response and two conventional commercials. Two of the direct response commercials were for services. Each observer was given a questionnaire which contained the instructions to follow in categorizing the commercial content. All concepts and categories were defined for each observer during the pretest. The 36 observers were given a videotape of TV programming and commercials and were asked to analyze the content of the direct response commercials on their videotape. All commercials on the six TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, ESPN, and WTBS) during the morning ( 7 : O O a.m. to 1O:OO a.m.),daytime (1:OO p.m. to 4:OO p.m.), primetime (7:OO p.m. to 1O:OO p.m.), and fringe (lo: 00 p.m. to midnight) time periods on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Sundays over a two-week period, were videotaped. The objective in choosing the Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday observation periods was to obtain a manageable sample of ads, that would be representative of two weeks of TV viewing during the regular programming schedule. A total of 4,220 commercials were generated from the programming and were used for analysis purposes. Approximately 17 percent (709) of all the ads were direct response commercials, and of those approximately 5 1 percent (362) were for services. Content Categories and Operational Definitions

To achieve the objectives of the study, an operational definition of a direct response service commercial was developed. First, direct response commercials were distinguished from product commercials based on the following unique characteristics of direct response advertising: the ad makes a definite offer, the ad contains all the information necessary to make a decision, and the ad contains a response device to facilitate action (3). As mentioned earlier, approximately 17 percent (709) of the ads in the data set met all three of these requirements. Next, it was necessary to extract all service-oriented direct response commercials for data analysis purposes. Although service firms are

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quite heterogeneous, there are three important characteristics services have in common (2), and these characteristics were used to classify the ads as “service ads” in this study. Generally, all services are: 1) more intangible than tangible; 2) produced and consumed in the same time frame; and 3) more “people-based’’ than “equipment-based.” Of the 709 direct response commercials analyzed, 362 met the criteria for service commercials. Therefore, the data analysis for this study will be conducted on 362 direct response service commercials. In an attempt to gain an understanding of direct response service advertising, as well as to address the final research questions of this study, all of the 362 direct response service commercials were coded based on their industry classifications (e.g., financial services, entertainment, education, etc.) , and were placed into Lovelock’s (9) classification scheme for services. Lovelock’stypology centers on the following two fundamental issues which pervade the service experience: 1) to whom (or what) is the service act directed?, and 2) is the nature of the service act tangible-dominant or intangibledominant? These two questions result in the four‘wayclassification scheme that is presented in Figure 1. All direct response service commercials in the study were placed into one of the four categories depending on whether the advertised service represented 1) tangible-dominant actions to peoples’ bodies, such as restaurants, hotels, and health care services; 2) tangible-dominant actions to physical things, such as repair services, utilities, and business services; 3 ) intangible-dominant services directed at peoples’ minds, such as education, museums, and movies; or 4 ) intangible-dominant actions directed at peoples’ intangible assets, such as financial, legal, and consulting services. The resulting classification scheme used to classify the 362 direct response service commercials is presented in Figure 1. The observers or raters analyzed all direct response service commercials based on content categories. All of the content categories were developed from the research questions and/or the literature on service marketing/advertising. Data was gathered on each direct response service commercial for the following content categories: 1. The type of direct service being advertised (coded 1 through 16 based on standard in-

dustry classification).

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Who or What is the Dired Recipient of the SenricS'l Things People

What Is the Nature of the service Act?

Tangible Actions

Senrlcesd i m at peoples' tmdies:

Restaurants Healh w e aervices

Personal sewices

Travel and bdging

Services d i r e a d st goods and other physical possessions:

Transportation: Personal & frelght Home improvements

Buslness services Repair services Utilities

Intangible Actions

Services directed at peoples' minds:

Services directed at intangible assets

Educatlon

Flnanclal servlcea

Information senrim

k g a l sen/lces

Entertainment

Insurance

Broadcasting

FIGURE 1

Classification Scheme Used to Categorize Direct Response Service Advertisements 2. Whether there was a celebrity endorsement in the ad (coded as 1 or 2).

3. Whether the price or cost of the service was mentioned in the ad (coded as 1 o r 2). 4. Whether or not a benefit was emphasized in the ad (coded as 1 or 2). 5. Whether or not competitors were mentioned in the ad (coded as 1 o r 2). 6 . The network the ad was shown o n (coded as

22 JOURNAL OF DIRECT MARKETING

ABC, CBS, and NBC = 1,and CNN, ESPN, and WTBS = 2). 7. Whether it was a national or local ad (coded as 1 or 2). RELIABILITY A major concern of a content analysis is the degree

of consistency between observers applying the same

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set of categories to the same content. The ratio of coding agreements of the two observers to the total number of coding decisions (7) was used to assess interjudge reliability. Reliabilities reported in the literature range between 66 and 95 percent, with a median of about 90 percent (7). The intercoder reliability ranged from a 1.0 on networks to 0.85 for the classification of service. Reliability coefficients for the other measures were: national or local ad, 0.89; use of celebrity, 0.87; mentioning price, 0.89; emphasizing benefit, 0.86; and mention of competition, 0.90. Therefore, interjudge reliability was predominantly within the acceptable limits suggested in the literature. RESULTS

ient of the service (e.g. travel and lodging, education). In order to maintain consistency with the Lovelock (9) classification, the direct response service commercials were further categorized as either tangible dominant or intangible dominant. ChiSquare analysis indicates that direct response service ads of a tangible dominant nature are utilizing celebrity endorsements more than intangible dominant service ads. Furthermore, tangible dominant direct response ads draw more direct comparisons to competing services than do intangible dominant services (X’ = 4.951, p I. O l ) . Additionally, direct response commercials for tangible dominant services place a greater emphasis on cable networks (x’ = 7.173, p I.05) and appear to have more national coverage in their communication pattern (x’ = 6.806, p I.05).

A general profile of direct response service televi-

sion commercials has been generated in Table 1. As indicated, direct response service firms are placing a greater emphasis on the cable networks as opposed to traditional networks (58 percent to 42 percent, respectively) for their advertising. Concerning which classification of service is more pronounced in their direct response attempts, people directed service firms (tangible and intangible dominant) account for 63 percent of the commercials with object directed service firms (both tangible and intangible) yielding 37 percent of the ads. Additionally, national direct response service firms appear to be utilizing TV commercials more than local direct response service companies (73 percent versus 27 percent, respectively). When one explores the rhetorical content of the direct response service ads, a general consistency exists across firms. As indicated in Table 1, only 16 percent of direct response service commercials utilize celebrities in the advertisements’ content. Price as a variable is only utilized in 23 percent of the direct response service commercials. Finally, while a majority of direct response ads emphasize the benefit of the service (89 percent), relatively few direct response commercials (only 10 percent) mention their competitors. Assessment of Direct Response fervlce Commercials: Person Directed Table 2 illustrates the profile of direct response ser-

vice commercials when people are the direct recip-

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TABLE

’

Characteristics of Direct Response Service Advertisements (n = 362) Number of Advertisements (%) Type of network Traditional (ABC, CES. NEC) Cable (CNN, ESPN, W S S ) Classification of servicea People directed Tangible dominant Intangible dominant Object directed Tangible dominant Intangible dominant Type of advertisement National Local Characteristics of advertisement Is celebrity usedb Yes

No Is price mentioned? Yes No Is benefit emphasized7 Yes No Is competitor mentioned? Yes No

152 210

42 58

I03 124

29 34

63 72

17 20

263 99

73 27

58 301

16 84

84 2 78

23 77

323

39

89 I1

37 325

10 90

Based on Lovelock‘s,i983, C,aSS,fiCat,On scheme, Category totals 359 due to 3 unusable observations.

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TABLE 2

Characteristics of Direct Response Service Advertisements: When People Are the Direct Recipient of the Service (n = 227) Nature of the Service Act Advertising

Tangible

Celebrity endorsement’ Yes No Total’ Price mentioned’ Yes No Total Benefit emphasized3 Yes

Dominant

Intangible

Dominant

PI

1%)

Characteristic

19

15

29

29

72 -

71 -

I05 -

101

I00

124

100

27 97 I24

78 -

28

27

75 -

73 -

I03

100

85 -

22

100

85

83

Ill

90

No

18 -

17 -

13 -

10 -

Total

103

100

I24

100

Competitor mentioned‘ Yes No Total Type of network’ Traditional Cable

15 85 -

I23 -

99 -

I03

100

I24

100

23

22

71

57

80 -

78 100

53

43 -

I24

100

103 Type of advertisement6 National Local

1

16 87 -

I

86

84

69

56

17 -

16 -

55 -

44 -

103

100

124

100

Total for celebrity endorsement, tangible dominant equals 101 due to two nonusable observations. X’ = 13.434. p s ,001 X’ = 0.358. not significant. X’ = 6 636. p 5 .01 x’ = 4.95 I , p 5 .01 X’ = 7. I 73. p 5 .05. X’ = 6.806. p 5 .05. a

’

’

Further analysis of Table 2 reveals that direct response service commercials for intangible dominant services rely more on communicating the benefit of the service than do tangible dominant service firms (x2= 6.636, p I . O l ) . Additionally, intangible dominant service firms differ significantly from tangible dominant firms regarding type of network utilized and coverage of the commercial. Intangible dominant firms rely more on traditional networks and emphasize local coverage slightly more than their tangible dominant counterparts. N o significant

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differences were found when comparing the use of price in the direct response ads across tangible and intangible service firms. When applying these results to the research questions posited earlier, distinct profiles emerge regarding the direct response advertising efforts of these services. Tangible dominant services attempt to create more tangibility for their service by relying on celebrity endorsements. These services also utilize competitive comparisons as a way of making the direct response commercials more persuasive. There is also a greater emphasis on cable networks and the coverage appears more national in nature for people directed, tangible dominant, direct response service commercials. Intangible dominant service firms place greater emphasis on communicating the benefit of the service as a persuasive device in their direct response ads. These firms also differ in media usage, relying more on traditional networks, and have more local coverage than tangible dominant services. Both categories of service do not place much emphasis on price in their direct response efforts. Assessment of Direct Response Service Commercials: Object Directed

Results in Table 3 indicate the profile of direct response commercials when objects are the recipient of the service (e.g. home improvement, insurance). These services were further classified as either tangible dominant or intangible dominant. Chi-square analysis indicates that no significant differences exist between direct response service ads of tangible or intangible dominant service firms concerning celebrity endorsements. Significant differences exist regarding the use of price as an element of the rhetorical content of the direct response commercial. Intangible dominant services appear to utilize price as a service quality dimension more than tangible dominant services in their direct response efforts (Xz = 5.611,p I. O l ) . Further analysis of Table 3 reveals no significant difference across tangible and intangible dominant services regarding the emphasis of benefits within the direct response commercials. Results of ChiSquare analysis suggest, however, significant differences existing on the competition dimension ( X 2 = 17.556, p I . O O l > . It appears that tangible dominant service firms emphasize competition more in

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___

TABLE 3

Characteristics of Direct Response Service Advertisements: When Objects Are the Direct Recipient of the Service In = 135) Nature of the Service Act

Advertising Characteristic ~~

Tangible

Dominant

intangible

(%I

Dominant

l%l

~

Celebrity endor semen1 Yes No Total’

’

Price mentioned2 Yer No Total Benefit emphasized’ Yes No Total competitor mentioned‘ Yes No Total Type of network’ Traditional Cable Type of advertisement6 National

Local

4 58 62

6 94 100

6 66 72

8 92 -

I00

20

32

9

13

43 -

68 -

63 -

100

72

87 -

63

58

92

69

-5

8 -

3 -

I00

72

63

100

96

4 100

13

21

7

10

50 -

79 -

63

100

65 -

90 -

72

100

26

41

32

44

37 -

59 -

40 -

56 -

63

100

72

100

47

75

61

85

I6 -

25 -

11 -

15 -

63

100

72

I00

Total for celebrity endorsement, tangible dominant equals 62 due to t w o nonusable observations x 2 = 0 744 not significant ’ x 2 = 5 6 1 1 . p < 01 Xz = 0 616. not significant ‘ X ’ = 1 7 5 5 6 . p < 001 x 2 = 0 075, not significant ‘ X Z = 1 2 0 6 2 . ~ 5001

a

’

their direct response commercials than do intangible dominant services. Concerning the aspect of media usage, no significant differences were found regarding type of network used by the two categories of services. However, Chi-square analysis results revealed significant differences regarding coverage of the direct response commercials. Intangible dominant services appear to utilize more national coverage than t.dngib\e dominafit service firms in their direct marketing effort (x’ = 12.062,p < . O O l ) .

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Overall, the results presented in Table 3 suggest that neither form of service utilizes celebrity endorsements in their direct response effort as a way of enhancing the tangibility of the service. Both forms of services tend to emphasize the benefit of the service as a major dimension of the rhetorical content of the direct response commercials. Additionally, both categories of services place a greater emphasis on the cable networks in their direct response efforts. Direct response advertising of tangible dominanc and intangible dominant service firms do, however, differ across three dimensions. First, tangible dominant service firms emphasize price more often than d o intangible dominant service firms. Tangible dominant services appear to incorporate competitive comparisons more in their direct response commercials. Finally, national coverage appears more acceptable for intangible dominant services in comparison to tangible dominant services. In attempting to address the final research question on whether services differ in their direct response advertising strategies, a summarization of Table 2 and Table 3 is presented in Figure 2. An overview of Figure 2 suggest that different services do differ in their direct response advertising strategies. More specifically, tangible action person-directed services appear to utilize celebrity endorsements and place some emphasis on competition within the rhetorical content of the commercials. Intangible action person-directed services have a tendency to emphasize only the benefits of the service as a major dimension in their direct response ads. Tangible action object-directed services appear to add more rhetorical elements within direct response ads, emphasizing the benefits of the service, mentioning price in the ads-and to place some emphasis on competition. Intangible action objectdirected services place significant emphasis only on the benefit of the service in their direct response attempts.

DISCUSSION

The findings from this study provide direct marketers with a benchmark of the current environment

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CURRENT AREAS OF STRENGTH: People

Tangible Dominant

Object

Celebrity Endorsements

Benefits Emphasized

Comparatke Ads

Price Mentioned

Comparative Ads

lntanglble Dominant

Benefhs Emphasized

Benefb Emphasized

AREAS FOR POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENT:

People

Object

Tangible Dominant

Mentlon Price

Intangible

Celebdty Endorsement

Celebrity Endorsement

Mention Price

Mention Pdce

Mention Camptitar

Mention Competitar

Domlnant

Emphasize Benefits

Celeb@ Endorsement

FIGURE 2 Scorecard for Direct Response Service Advertisements

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surrounding direct response service advertising. It is hoped that this benchmark can help direct marketers of services in two ways. First, it can provide them with information on what various direct marketers of services are currently doing regarding the more rhetorical elements of their TV commercials. Second, based on the service marketing literature, it can provide them with information they can use to plan future advertising strategy. Direct marketers of services are currently using several important persuasive elements in their television commercials (see Figure 2). Direct marketers in quadrant I1 (tangible dominant, object-directed) appear to be including more persuasive elements in their T V commercials than those in the other three quadrants. For example, direct marketers of such services as transportation, home improvement, and repair services, are, relative to others, emphasizing benefits and mentioning price and competitors in their commercials. Direct response service advertisers in quadrant I (tangible dominant, people-directed) tend to use celebrities and comparative ads as part of their advertising strategy. Direct marketers with intangible dominant services are currently emphasizing benefits only in their TV commercials. Based on the literature from service marketing/ advertising, direct marketers of services have several areas for possible improvement regarding their TV advertising (see Figure 2 ) . First, since building tangibility for a service is important to consumers in helping them better evaluate a service, using celebrities may enhance both tangibility and credibility of the service. Direct marketers of services in quadrants 11, I11 and IV should consider adding credibility and tangibility to their ads via celebrities. Before his death, actor John Wayne was very successful in building credibility and tangibility for California’s Great Western Savings and Loan. Actor John Housman has also been used successfully by Smith-Barney. Many direct marketers of services who advertise locally, however, may not have the money to hire Hollywood celebrities. For them, a local celebrity who has a distinct image or personality can work very well for building tangibility for a service at a local or regional level. Next, direct marketers of services can also help consumers evaluate their service quality better by including the cost of the service in their Commercials. Direct re-

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sponse service advertisers in quadrant I, 11, and IV should consider mentioning the cost of their service in their commercials. Additionally, direct marketers of intangible dominant services (quadrant 111 and IV) can better position their services in consumers’ minds by comparing their, services to those of the competition in their commercials. An interesting aspect of this study’s findings is that those direct response service advertisers that offer the most intangibility (intangible dominant services in quadrants 111and IV) are, relatively speaking, using fewer persuasive elements in their TV commercials. It is difficult to determine whether this finding is due to the unique service experience associated with those direct marketers, or that perhaps this unique group of direct response service marketers (e.g., educational institutions, legal services, financial services, and so forth) are unfamiliar with the relatively new concepts in the service marketing literature. In either case, it was the intention of this study to provide direct response service advertisers with some alternatives, based on the service marketing literature, to consider when developing future advertising plans, as well as to promote further research in this neglected, yet growing, area.

REFERENCES 1. Bateson, John E. G. (1977), “Do We Need Service Marketing?” in Marketing Consumer Services: New Insights, Marketing Science Institute, Report #77-115 (December). 2. Berry, Leonard L. (1980), “Service Marketing Is Different,” Business, 30 (May-June), 24-29. 3. Bush, Alan J . and Bush, Robert P. (1990), “AContent Analysis of Direct Response Advertising,“ Journal ofDirect Marketing, 4 (Winter), 6-12. 4. Booms, Bernard H. and Bitner, Mary J. (19821, “Marketing Services by Managing the Environment,” The Cornell H.R.A. Quarterly, 23 (May), 35-39. 5 . Eiglier, Pierre, Lovelock, Christopher H., Bateson, John E. G., and Young, Robert F. (1977), Marketing Consumer Services: New Insights, Marketing Science Institute, Report #77-115 (December). 6. George, William R. and Berry, Leonard L. (1981), “Guidelines for Advertising Services,” Business Horizons, 24 (July-August), 52-56. 7. Kassarjian, H. H. (1977). “Content Analysis in Consumer Research,” Journal of Consumer Research, 4, 8-18. 8 . Lovelock, Christopher H. (1980), “Towards a Classification of Services,” in Theoretical DeueIopments in Marketing, Charles

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W. Lamb and Patrick M . Dunne, e d s , Chicago: American Marke t i ng Association, 72 -76. 9. ____ (19831, "Classifying Services to Gain Strategic Marketing Insights,"Journal ofMarketing, 4 7 (Summer), 9-20. 10. Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, Valerie A., and Berry, Leonard L. (1985), "Problcms and Strategies in Services Marketing,"Journnl ofMarkefing,49 (Fall), 41-50. 1 1 . Quinn, James B. and Gagnon, Christopher E. (1986). "Will Services Follow Manufacturing into Decline?" HartiardBusiness Review, (November-December). 95-103. 12. Rathmell, John M. (19661, "What Is Meant by Services?" Journal ofMarkefing, 30 (October), 32-36. 13. Roman, Kenneth and Maas, Jane (1976), How f oAduerfise, NY: St. Martin's Press.

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14. Shostack, G . Lynn (19771, "Breaking Free from Product Marketing," Journal oJMarketing, 4 l (April), 73-80.

15. ___ (1987), "Service Positioning Through Structural Change," Journal ofMarkering, 5 1 (January), 34-43.

16. Thomas, Dan R. E. (19781, "Strategy Is Different in Service Business,'' Harvard Business Review, 56 (July-August), 158165. 17. Zeithaml, Valerie A,, Parasuraman, A,, and Berry, Leonard L. (1985). "Problems and Strategies in Services Marketing,"]oumal ofMarkefing, 49 (Spring), 33-46. 18. (1988), "Communication and Control Processes in the Delivery of Service Quality,"JournnlofMur~eting, 52 (April), 35-48. ~

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