Commentary—Steps Toward Mastering Trade Promotions

The papers by Abraham and Lodish (Abraham, M. M., L. M. Lodish. 1987. Promoter: An automated promotion evaluation system. Marketing Sci.6 101–123.) and Blattberg and Levin (Blattberg, R. C., A. Levin. 1987. Modelling the effectiveness and profitability of trade promotions. Marketing Sci.6 124–146.) represent steps toward developing sufficient theory, sufficient algorithms, and sufficient data to manage the large expenditures trade promotions represent. In this comment, I'll focus on the stylistic differences in the two approaches, discuss the barriers to implementation within manufacturers, and comment on enhancements.