Browse

The body of marketing
knowledge, mapped.

An empirical generalization is a finding that has held up across many independent studies, not a single result. Each one here is a plain-language translation of the underlying research, organized by the six value sets of the MarCaps framework. 49 are live today; more are in review.

50 findings

Exchange › Conversion

How Much Advertising Moves Sales

Advertising sales elasticity estimates vary with each model that a team may choose to use.

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Exchange › Conversion

Price vs. Advertising: What Moves Sales More?

Short-term sales respond far more to price, while profit depends on more.

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Strategic › Product & Brand Management

Market Share and Profitability

Market share goes with higher profitability, but intangible business factors shrink the measured link.

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Strategic › Growth Paths

Long-Run Stability of Brand Sales Levels

Lasting marketing gains are possible for sales far more often than for market share.

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Exchange › Conversion

Television Advertising Weight and Sales Response

More TV advertising is not a dependable way to grow sales for established packaged-goods brands.

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Exchange › Conversion

Long-Term Effects of Price Promotions

Price promotions are associated with short-lived sales gains and virtually no permanent gain. For national brands, category buying leads the total response.

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Exchange › Conversion

Trial Drivers for New Packaged Goods

Some shoppers naturally try a new packaged good in its first year, but the trial gap between them and more cautious shoppers narrows when the product is clearly incremental and heavily advertised.

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Strategic › Product & Brand Management

Competitive Response to Advertising and Promotion Attacks

Most brands that make no competitive response have no sales harm to defend against.

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Strategic › Value Leveraging

Customer Satisfaction and Cash Flow Stability

Higher customer satisfaction predicts faster-growing, steadier cash flow the following year.

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Exchange › Conversion

Drivers of Price Elasticity

Price elasticity benchmarks for sales, share, and choice depend on data and model choices.

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Engagement › Connections

Drivers of Relationship Marketing Effectiveness

Relationship marketing's links to relationship strength and performance vary by strategy and setting.

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Strategic › Product & Brand Management

Marketing Effectiveness After a Product-Harm Crisis

In this product-harm crisis, baseline sales and marketing effectiveness fell while links between brands changed.

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Strategic › Value Leveraging

Prices Based on Demand Rather Than Past Prices Go With Higher Margins

In a Chicago grocery chain, category margins are higher where shelf prices rest more on brand demand and competing brands' prices and less on past prices.

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Strategic › Product & Brand Management

Marketing Mix Drivers of New Brand Success

Distribution breadth has the strongest association with new-brand growth rate and long-term market potential.

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Exchange › Conversion

When Competitors' Ads Cancel Out Yours

Competitive clutter means competing advertising and is linked to a smaller sales response.

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Experience › Customer Service

Compensation Lifts Repurchase Intentions Only After Recurring Failures the Company Causes

Compensation raises repurchase intentions after a recurring failure the company causes, but not after a rare one or one it does not cause.

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Experience › Product/Service Innovation

Innovation's Effect on Firm Value and Risk

Investors value CPG firms more in years when they launch more new products, but only breakthroughs that give shoppers a new benefit are associated with returns above a normal return.

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Strategic › Value Leveraging

Marketing vs. R&D vs. Operations

Among marketing, research-and-development (R&D), and operations capabilities, marketing has the strongest link to firm performance.

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Strategic › Growth Paths

Drivers of Organic Sales Growth

Innovation ranks first among marketing levers linked to organic growth, with advertising second.

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Strategic › Value Leveraging

Advertising Spending Over the Business Cycle

Advertising spending usually follows and amplifies the business cycle.

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Strategic › Product & Brand Management

Market Share and Profit: The Rule of Three

Firms in three-generalist industries show higher operating return on assets than firms in other structures.

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Exchange › Conversion

Channel Pass-Through of Trade Promotions

Manufacturers can earn more from selective trade deals than from a blanket discount, when they choose products whose shoppers respond to price cuts and retailers that pass more of the discount on.

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Exchange › Conversion

How Much Personal Selling Moves Sales

Personal selling has an adjusted benchmark for same-period sales.

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Knowledge › Marketing Analytics

Which Marketing Levers Move Sales Most?

For mature consumer-goods brands, distribution is linked to the largest sales response among the four marketing levers.

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Knowledge › Marketing Analytics

Brand Metrics as Early Warning

Brand metrics add sales information beyond the marketing mix.

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Exchange › Conversion

Price and Advertising Effectiveness Over the Business Cycle

Contractions go with greater long-term price sensitivity; expansions go with greater long-term advertising effectiveness. Same-month responses show no clear cycle change.

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Engagement › Community

Showing Prior Choices Concentrates Consumer Demand

Shoppers crowd toward what others already chose, which concentrates demand on popular products and makes market share harder to forecast.

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Strategic › Product & Brand Management

How Distribution Drives Market Share

Products with wider distribution hold more market share per point of distribution.

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Exchange › Conversion

Shelf Space and Sales: Impulse Buys Gain Most, Commodities Least

Shoppers buy more of a product when it gets more shelf space, most for impulse buys and least for everyday commodities.

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Exchange › Conversion

Discounts Off a Store's Own Price Signal Quality Better Than 'Compare At' Claims

For practical purchases in stores, shoppers see a sale price beside the store’s own regular price as a stronger sign of quality than a “Compare at” price from other stores.

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Exchange › Conversion

Customers Say They Will Pay More for Socially Responsible Products, Especially When the Benefit Goes to People

Customers say they will pay more for socially responsible products, especially when the benefit goes to people.

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Exchange › Customer Attraction

TV-Driven Branded Search

More TV spending is associated with more branded searches over the following four days.

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Knowledge › Marketing Analytics

What Marketing Research Can Actually Explain

Marketing knowledge explains about as much of market behavior as psychology does.

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Engagement › Content

How Online Reviews Move Sales

eWOM sales response varies by product, site, and competition.

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Knowledge › Marketing Analytics

Marketing's Effect on Firm Value

Marketing assets are associated more strongly with firm value than advertising expenditure, especially customer-related assets.

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Exchange › Conversion

Customers See a Price Increase for Profit as Less Fair Than One That Covers Higher Costs

Customers judge a price increase by the reason behind it, and they see an increase that adds profit as less fair than one that covers higher costs.

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Knowledge › Marketing Analytics

Personal Selling Keeps Lifting Sales Longer Than Advertising

On average, most of the sales effect of marketing communication arrives after spending ends, more so for personal selling and targeted advertising than for mass media.

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Engagement › Connections

Celebrity Endorsement Effectiveness

Celebrity status alone has a near-zero average effect across consumer responses. Results vary with fit and endorsement format.

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Experience › Customer Service

The Service-Profit Chain

The service-profit chain has offsetting paths to loyalty and profitability.

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Strategic › Value Leveraging

Market Share and Financial Performance

Higher market share goes with modestly better financial performance, and with other factors held equal the link is strongest for firms that sell to consumers or face a moderate number of competitors.

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Exchange › Conversion

Search Advertising's Effect on In-Store Sales

Broad category search advertising can create in-store sales that online attribution misses.

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Engagement › Content

When Creative Advertising Pays Off

Creative advertising is associated with stronger attitudes toward ads and brands than memory.

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Experience › Journey Management

Healthy Eating Nudges Work Better Through Convenience and Portions Than Through Labeling

Healthy eating nudges help people choose and eat more healthfully, especially by changing convenience or portion size.

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Experience › Product/Service Innovation

Robot Anthropomorphism and Customer Adoption

Customers say they are more willing to use a service robot the more humanlike it seems. The association is strongest for robots that also seem lifelike, smart, safe, likable, useful, and easy to use.

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Strategic › Product & Brand Management

Parent Brand Equity and Extension Fit

Parent brand equity and extension fit are linked to brand extension success, with extension fit slightly stronger.

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Engagement › Connections

Customer Engagement Initiatives and Their Effectiveness

Task-based initiatives have stronger average links to emotional and behavioral engagement than experiential initiatives.

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Engagement › Content

How Brand Social Posts Move Sales

On average, brand social posts are associated with a stronger sales response than engagement.

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Exchange › Conversion

Advertising Elasticity: Entertainment vs. Other Industries, Launch Week vs. Full Run

Movie and video-game sales respond to advertising far more strongly than sales in other industries, and more strongly over a title's full run than in its launch week.

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Engagement › Content

What Makes Influencer Marketing Work?

Follower count has weak links with attitude, engagement, purchase intention, and purchase behavior.

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Experience › Product/Service Innovation

Drivers of Consumer Resistance to AI

Consumer resistance to AI varies sharply by label, autonomy, and use case.

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