Investigating Undercurrents of Stationarity and Growth With Long-Term Panel Data

There have been frequent calls in the literature for a more comprehensive understanding of marketing impact on long-term firm performance. Retail scanner data has been the principal source of empirical evidence in this strategic domain, but it cannot explain the behavioural shifts that underpin the sales dynamics it reports. With the availability of far larger and extended household panels, it is now possible to observe the effects of accumulating penetration on brand and category buying over many years. This type of data nevertheless presents theoretical and methodological challenges to researchers. In this article, we discuss an approach to extending established marketing theory to long-run repeat buying and then outline the inherent constraints of long-term panels. We illustrate these challenges using one-, five- and 10-year panel datasets and present a research agenda to progress explanatory theories of long-run brand building and category growth in this new but so far mostly untapped resource.