Tinker Toys and Christmas Trees: Opening a New Merchandising Package for Amoco Oil Company

To define and evaluate new strategies for merchandising Amoco gasoline, motor oil, tires, batteries, and accessories, Standard Oil (Indiana) used a combination of judgmental modeling and multiattribute utility theory. The model combined objective data and subjective assessments to calculate objective weights for the multiattribute model. Ordinary sets of Tinker Toys were used to demonstrate the analytical approach of the model to management. Another visual aid, “the Christmas tree,” was used to display new merchandising strategies. A guaranteed car repair strategy, Certicare, was selected and is projected to improve annual profit by $10 million and to strengthen the dealer organization.