Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is one of the environmental assessment tools available to gauge buildings. This rating system is a voluntary system which does not include financial aspects in the evaluation framework. This poses a challenge for encouraging land development projects, since developers consider financial or economic return as a crucial factor before building a project. It becomes essential to know if market really accepts the economic worth of LEED ratings. This research attempted to find out relationship between economic worth of a land and parameters (measurements), which are essential to earn LEED sustainable rating for public transportation access. To find out this relationship and to recognize power of the LEED measurements to predict the appraised value of a land (dollars per square foot) various statistical models were used and predictive equations produced. The observational units were properties in Harris County, Texas that were unimproved and had zero improvement value. The dependent variable was unit value of the property measured in dollars per square foot. The independent variables were measurements that are required for a parcel to earn LEED sustainable site rating for public transportation access and the area of parcel. Data regarding appraised values and land area were acquired from the Harris County Appraisal District and transportation data was obtained from Houston- Galveston Area Council. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze different models and to develop predictive equations. Findings suggest that LEED green building rating system influences the appraised value, dollars per square foot, of properties. It further implies that market considers the economic effect of the LEED rating system even if this assessment method does not explicitly include financial aspects in the evaluation framework. Findings of this research also suggest that a sustainable feature of a site is related to the economic worth of a related land development project. This will provide encouragement for new sustainable land development projects. This will provide an economic incentive to the owners and developers. Developers will get encouragement to select a site located closer to mass transit networks.

Product placements are gaining more importance in corporate marketing communication budgets and marketers need to understand the effectiveness of these placements to justify investments into them. Three studies were conducted to study the effectiveness of product placements in movies. Essay one studied the economic worth of product placements on the long term profitability of the firm through an event study. Analysis of 467 placements of movies released during 1968-2007 shows that product placements generate a mean cumulative abnormal return of 0.21% during the (-1, +2) event window. Hierarchical linear modeling of the abnormal returns in cross-sectional analysis indicates that placement duration positively impacts the abnormal returns. Placement blatancy was found to negatively affect placements' worth. We did not find any support for the effect of critical reviews or presence of a star director on the worth of product placements. Crime and comedy genres were found to positively affect abnormal returns of placements. Additional MANCOVA analysis, using different event windows as the dependent variable, suggests that a period of two weeks might be required after a movie's release for the information about placement execution factors to be incorporated by the market in its evaluation of the firm. In essay two we study the effectiveness of product placement from a memory perspective by means of a longitudinal study, using a student subject panel. Subjects were exposed to a full- length movie and recognition was tracked at weekly intervals for a period of four weeks. Results of a dynamic panel analysis using generalized estimating equations indicate that audience recognition for a movie placement significantly diminishes one to two weeks after exposure to the movie. In addition, recognition of placements is enhanced by audiences' attitude toward product placements. Recognition is further affected by placement execution factors. Specifically, we found that audio placements and placements of longer duration positively affect placement recognition. Plot connectivity and character association did not significantly impact recognition over time. Essay three examines the impact of brand-character association on consumer attitude toward the placed brand. A 2x2 within subjects experiment, using a full-length movie as a stimulus, was conducted on a panel of student subjects to assess the interaction effect of character-brand valence on consumer attitude. Results support a significant interaction between character and brand valence. Analyses also indicate that congruency between character and brand valence enhances affective measures toward the placed brand, supporting the congruency theory and Meaning Transfer Model. Additionally, we found that brand familiarity fully mediates the character-valence interaction. Limitations and Implications of the studies were also discussed.