Anita Elberse

Anita Elberse

Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration

Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration

Anita Elberse is the Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. 

An award-winning teacher and scholar, Professor Elberse develops and teaches an MBA course covering the "Businesses of Entertainment, Media, and Sports," which ranks among the most sought-after and longest-running elective courses in the School’s curriculum, and chairs a short executive education program, also named "The Business of Entertainment, Media, and Sports." She further chairs a semester-long mentoring program, "Crossover Into Business," that is specifically designed for professional athletes. In her research, Professor Elberse primarily aims to understand what drives the success of products in the entertainment, media, sports, and other creative industries, and how firms can effectively manage products and talent in such sectors. She is acclaimed for her work on digital-media strategies, the power of superstar talent, and leadership and team management. Professor Elberse has conducted case studies on dozens of entertainment companies, personalities, and other entities. Several of these are described in her first book, Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment.

Professor Elberse is one of the youngest female professors to have been promoted to full professor with tenure in Harvard Business School's history.

Looking to get in touch with professor Elberse? Feel free to do so via this form. 

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Anita Elberse
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Featured Work Publications Research Summary Teaching Awards & Honors
Research Focus
My research focuses on "creative industries," defined as industries that supply goods that we commonly associate with artistic, cultural, or entertainment value -- including book and magazine publishing, film, music, television, video games, the performing arts, sports, advertising, and perhaps fashion. I borrow the term from the economist Richard Caves, who argued that these industries share certain key economic properties: among other things, demand is highly uncertain, products are primarily differentiated based on subjective rather than objective dimensions of quality, and time is of the essence in that there is a need for a tight coordination of production activities and a timely realization of revenues. While it is difficult to come to an exact definition, taken together, these properties distinguish creative industries from other sectors of the economy. The industries that feature in my research are essentially content industries that compete for the attention of audiences (or "eyeballs") and, often, the advertisers that seek access to those audiences.
Research Questions

One overarching question drives my research: What are effective marketing strategies for managers in creative industries?

I focus on three sub-questions:

  1. How can managers in creative industries effectively manage products and product portfolios?
  2. How can managers in creative industries effectively manage and market talent?
  3. How can managers in creative industries effectively respond to advances in digital technology?
I consider strategic marketing challenges from a number of different viewpoints, but the dominant perspective is that of a manager of a firm that produces content, such as a book publisher, film or television studio, record label, or sports team or league. The three questions capture what are arguably the main challenges that today's content producers face in serving consumers. The questions relate directly to the producers' position in the marketing channel, which also consists of the talent (authors, actors, musicians, athletes, and other "creative workers") they employ to create goods, and the content retailers or aggregators (such as book or music stores, theater chains, television networks, and online video sites) through which they distribute and market those goods -- a marketing channel that is severely impacted by the rise of digital technology.

Anita Elberse is the Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Professor Elberse develops and teaches an MBA course covering the "Businesses of Entertainment, Media, and Sports," which ranks among the most sought-after and longest-running elective courses in the School’s curriculum, and chairs a short executive education program, also named "The Business of Entertainment, Media, and Sports." She further chairs a semester-long mentoring program, "Crossover Into Business," that is specifically designed for professional athletes. In partnership with Mercedes Formula One team principal Toto Wolff, she has developed a short course for MBA students on "High Performance Management: Leading a Formula One Team." She has received teaching awards on multiple occasions from both the Harvard Business School and its students, including the Charles M. Williams Award for excellence in teaching, "Best of EC Year" honors (for top faculty teaching in the Elective Curriculum), and the Faculty Teaching Award. She has also won the "Outstanding Case Teacher" award in The Case Centre's worldwide competition, also known as "business education's Oscars."

In her research, Professor Elberse primarily aims to understand what drives the success of products in the entertainment, media, sports, and other creative industries, and how firms can effectively manage products and talent in such sectors. She is acclaimed for her work on digital-media strategies, the power of superstar talent, and leadership and team management, and she frequently uses econometric modeling techniques to examine media-industry problems. Her work has been published in the Harvard Business Review, Marketing Science, the Journal of Marketing, and several other journals. She was named a Marketing Science Institute Young Scholar, and served on the editorial board of Marketing Science.

Professor Elberse has conducted case studies on dozens of entertainment companies, personalities, and other entities. These include record label A&M/Octone Records, cable operator Comcast, book publisher Grand Central Publishing, Broadway show Hamilton, online video provider Hulu, music streaming service Spotify, the campaign for Jay-Z's book Decoded by advertising agency Droga5, entertainment companies Live Nation, Marvel Enterprises, NBCUniversal and The Walt Disney Studios, nightlife business Marquee, the Metropolitan Opera, sports leagues MLB and the NFL, MRC's television series House of Cards, Shonda Rhimes' production company ShondaLand, Jason Blum's Blumhouse Productions and Ava DuVernay's Array, soccer clubs AFC Ajax, FC Barcelona, Boca Juniors, Paris Saint Germain and Real Madrid, NBA team the Milwaukee Bucks, the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament, World Wrestling Entertainment, soccer coach Sir Alex Ferguson and Formula One team principal Toto Wolff, Vogue magazine, fashion house Burberry, sports apparel brand Nike, and superstars Giannis Antetokounmpo, David Beckham, Beyoncé, BTS, Roger Federer, Lady Gaga, Chip and Joanna Gaines, LeBron James, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, MrBeast, Francis Ngannou, Ninja, Mohamed Salah, Maria Sharapova, Dwyane Wade, and Pharrell Williams. Several of these case studies are described in her bestselling first book, Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment, which Amazon named one of its Best Books of 2013.

Prior to joining Harvard Business School, professor Elberse was a Visiting Fellow at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. She holds a PhD from London Business School, an MA in Communication from the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, and an MA in Communication Science from the University of Amsterdam (cum laude). A native of The Netherlands but now an American citizen, she was awarded a Netherland-America Foundation/Fulbright Fellowship.

Professor Elberse is one of the youngest female professors to have been promoted to full professor with tenure in Harvard Business School's history.

Looking to get in touch with professor Elberse? Feel free to do so via this form. 

Featured Work
Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment
Book
What’s behind the phenomenal success of entertainment businesses such as Warner Bros., Marvel Enterprises, and the NFL—along with such stars as Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, and LeBron James? Which strategies give leaders in film, television, music, publishing, and sports an edge over their rivals?

In this book, drawing on my case studies and other research on the worlds of media and sports, I explain a powerful truth about the fiercely competitive world of entertainment: building a business around blockbuster products—the movies, television shows, songs, and books that are hugely expensive to produce and market—is the surest path to long-term success. Along the way, I reveal why entertainment executives often spend outrageous amounts of money in search of the next blockbuster, why superstars are paid unimaginable sums, and how digital technologies are transforming the entertainment landscape.

Full of inside stories about some of the world’s most successful entertainment brands, Blockbusters is aimed at anyone seeking to understand how the entertainment industry really works—and how to navigate today’s high-stakes business world at large.

"There is hope—because the world truly is entertaining. Blockbusters is a delightful, thought-provoking book." — Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator's Dilemma.

Named one of Amazon's "Best Books of 2013."
The Business of Entertainment, Media, and Sports
Executive Education Program
In the business of entertainment, digital technologies are dramatically disrupting the way products are developed, marketed, and distributed. As a result of this paradigm shift, entertainment executives and content producers are challenged to effectively allocate limited resources—both human and financial—across a seemingly infinite array of fragmented channels in order to survive. With an increasing number of musicians, athletes, stars, and authors promoting their brands via a wide range of online and offline channels, intermediaries must reinvent their strategies to compete effectively. This innovative new program provides proven approaches for marketing creative products and portfolios, managing and marketing talent, determining when to make smaller versus blockbuster bets, and identifying and capitalizing on market disruptions.
Books
Cases and Teaching Materials
Journal Articles
Popular Writings
Research Summary
Research Focus
My research focuses on "creative industries," defined as industries that supply goods that we commonly associate with artistic, cultural, or entertainment value -- including book and magazine publishing, film, music, television, video games, the performing arts, sports, advertising, and perhaps fashion. I borrow the term from the economist Richard Caves, who argued that these industries share certain key economic properties: among other things, demand is highly uncertain, products are primarily differentiated based on subjective rather than objective dimensions of quality, and time is of the essence in that there is a need for a tight coordination of production activities and a timely realization of revenues. While it is difficult to come to an exact definition, taken together, these properties distinguish creative industries from other sectors of the economy. The industries that feature in my research are essentially content industries that compete for the attention of audiences (or "eyeballs") and, often, the advertisers that seek access to those audiences.
Research Questions

One overarching question drives my research: What are effective marketing strategies for managers in creative industries?

I focus on three sub-questions:

  1. How can managers in creative industries effectively manage products and product portfolios?
  2. How can managers in creative industries effectively manage and market talent?
  3. How can managers in creative industries effectively respond to advances in digital technology?
I consider strategic marketing challenges from a number of different viewpoints, but the dominant perspective is that of a manager of a firm that produces content, such as a book publisher, film or television studio, record label, or sports team or league. The three questions capture what are arguably the main challenges that today's content producers face in serving consumers. The questions relate directly to the producers' position in the marketing channel, which also consists of the talent (authors, actors, musicians, athletes, and other "creative workers") they employ to create goods, and the content retailers or aggregators (such as book or music stores, theater chains, television networks, and online video sites) through which they distribute and market those goods -- a marketing channel that is severely impacted by the rise of digital technology.
Teaching
Crossover into Business (for Professional Athletes)
Designed to help professional athletes be better prepared for business activities during and after their active sports careers, this program matches each athlete with a pair of student mentors so athletes can learn business fundamentals in a customized and flexible way. After a kick-off day on campus (in which the athletes attend an MBA class, participate in a case discussion, and choose their student mentors), the athletes remotely work with their mentors throughout the semester on a set of cases and any other topics of interest, and deliver a final presentation at the end of the semester. A pilot program – launched in the fall of 2017 in partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA) – involved ten active and recently active NBA players as well as twenty second-year MBA students and one student coordinator. The plan is for future editions of the program to also include athletes in other sports.
The Business of Entertainment, Media, and Sports (MBA)
This second-year MBA course is primarily designed for students pursuing a career in the entertainment, media and sports sectors -- including film, television, music, publishing, video games, the performing arts, sports, fashion, and advertising -- or who plan to work in companies that advise or support those sectors. It may also be interesting for students seeking to advance their knowledge of management, strategy and marketing in the context of a challenging, rapidly changing environment. The course revolves around three questions:
  1. How can entertainment businesses best allocate resources across a portfolio of projects and for one project over time? For example, does it pay to pursue a "blockbuster" strategy?
  2. How can entertainment businesses best approach the management and marketing of creative talent? In particular, how should companies invest in and capture value from superstars and the teams to which they belong?
  3. How are digital technologies changing the entertainment, media, and sports industries? For instance, how are firms affected by – and how can they benefit from – the increased pressure on prices and the larger assortments offered online? 
Cases focus on established and emerging firms, products, and personalities in media, sports, and other entertainment industries. Examples include Hamilton, The Walt Disney Studios, NBCUniversal, Grand Central Publishing, Beyoncé, Droga 5 and Jay-Z, Vogue, FC Barcelona, Boca Juniors, Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Lady Gaga, The Metropolitan Opera, Major League Baseball, the NFL, Droga5, Spotify, MRC's House of Cards, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, and Marquee.
The Business of Entertainment, Media, and Sports (Executive Education)
In the business of entertainment, digital technologies are dramatically disrupting the way products are developed, marketed, and distributed. As a result of this paradigm shift, entertainment executives and content producers are challenged to effectively allocate limited resources—both human and financial—across a seemingly infinite array of fragmented channels in order to survive. With an increasing number of musicians, athletes, stars, and authors promoting their brands via a wide range of online and offline channels, intermediaries must reinvent their strategies to compete effectively. This innovative short program provides proven approaches for marketing creative products and portfolios, managing and marketing talent, determining when to make smaller versus blockbuster bets, and identifying and capitalizing on market disruptions.
Awards & Honors
Named one of the 25 Most Illustrious Alumni of the University of Amsterdam in 2018.
Received the inaugural "PlayMakeHers" award for "contributions within the sports and entertainment industry," voted on by female sports and entertainment industry professionals, in 2018.
Won the "Outstanding Case Teacher" award in The Case Centre's worldwide competition, also known as "business education's Oscars," in 2016.
Received the 2014 Robert F. Greenhill Award for "exemplary work on behalf of the Harvard Business School and its mission."
Awarded Amazon’s "Best Books of 2013," Business and Investing category, for Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment (Henry Holt and Company).
Named a TriBeCa Disruptor Foundation Fellow.
Marketing Science article ("Demand and Supply Dynamics for Sequentially Released Products in International Markets: The Case of Motion Pictures," 2003, with Jehoshua Eliashberg) chosen as finalist for the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science "Long Term Impact Award," awarded annually to papers published in the last ten years that are viewed to have made a significant long run impact on the field of Marketing.
Received the 2012 Emerald Management Reviews Citation of Excellence Award, for Harvard Business Review article ("Should You Invest in the Long Tail", 2008) as one of the top 50 articles with proven impact since its publication date from the top 300 management journals in the world.
One of three faculty elected by the HBS Class of 2011 to take part in the "Best of EC Year" Speaker Series, honoring faculty teaching in the second year, Elective Curriculum (EC).
Selected as the 2011 Marketing Science Institute Young Scholar, "identified as a likely leader of the next generation of marketing academics".
Received the 2011 Charles M. Williams Award for "outstanding and effective teaching" in the MBA program, awarded by HBS Dean Nitin Nohria.
Received the HBS Class of 2011 Faculty Award for "excellence in teaching".
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