Specialty advertising as a tool for building goodwill: Experimental evidence and research implications

While some work has been done in specialty advertising’s impact, most has been anecdotal. This paper reports an experiment which tests the effects specialty advertising has on building goodwill with present customers. A questionnaire designed to measure goodwill was developed, tested, and found to be unidimensional in its construction. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to rule out the possibility of multiple underlying dimensions. A field experiment was conducted to determine whether the gift of appreciation would.have a significant impact on the goodwill of present customers toward their bank. According to the results of the goodwill scale, neither of the two specialty advertising items nor the letter of appreciation by itself produced differential responses in the bank’s customers. The implications of using specialty advertising to generate goodwill among present customers as well as future research possibilities are discussed.