Publications

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

May 2017 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Predicting Consumer Tastes with Big Data at Gap

By: Ayelet Israeli and Jill Avery

CEO Art Peck was eliminating his creative directors for The Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic brands and promoting a collective creative ecosystem fueled by the input of big data. Rather than relying on artistic vision, Peck wanted the company to use the mining of big... View Details

24 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

The Yelp Factor: Are Consumer Reviews Good for Business?

digital age is a fertile area of his research. Luca is looking at rankings, expert evaluations, online consumer reviews, and quality disclosure laws to see how they work in market settings, and which are... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage

February 2021
Article

How Transparency into Internal and External Responsibility Initiatives Influences Consumer Choice

By: Ryan W. Buell and Basak Kalkanci

Amid growing calls for transparency and social and environmental responsibility, companies are employing different strategies to improve consumer perceptions of their brands. Some pursue internal initiatives that reduce their negative social or environmental impacts... View Details

Keywords: Sustainable Operations; Corporate Social Responsibility; Operational Transparency; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Operations; Environmental Sustainability; Consumer Behavior; Perception

SSRN

Find at Harvard

Teaching Interest

MBA Elective Curriculum Business-to-Business Marketing

Business markets differ from consumer markets in important ways. Typically, the buying process is more complex, the buying units and purchase criteria differ, and marketing decisions are more closely interrelated with firm-wide strategic choices. In addition,... View Details

April 2024
Article

Pay-As-You-Go Insurance: Experimental Evidence on Consumer Demand and Behavior

By: Raymond Kluender

Pay-as-you-go contracts reduce minimum purchase requirements which may increase market participation. We randomize the introduction and price(s) of a novel pay-as-you-go contract to the California auto insurance market where 17 percent of drivers are uninsured. The... View Details

Keywords: Contracts; Consumer Behavior; Price; Personal Finance; Insurance Industry; California

20 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Getting the Marketing Mix Right

the right mix between them—the ideal brew needed to achieve sales and market share goals. The trick is that each marketing effort affects consumer behavior in different ways,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

24 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

Global Brands: Connecting With Consumers Across Boundaries

What's in a name? Plenty if you're a consumer marketer trying to build a brand. "They are road signs that help people find orientation in the jungle of supply", said Hans G. Gueldenberg, CEO of... View Details

Keywords: by James E. Aisner

2005
Chapter

Consumer Identity Motives in the Information Age

By: John Deighton

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Identity; Behavior

03 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

Marketing Your Way Through a Recession

weakening both consumer confidence and the consumer spending—much of it on credit—that has been buoying the U.S. economy. Companies should bear eight factors in mind when making their View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

April 2009
Article

How to Market in a Downturn

By: John A. Quelch and Katherine Jocz

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. Because no two recessions are exactly alike, marketers find themselves in poorly... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Spending; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Segmentation

Read Now

February 2005 (Revised June 2007)
Case

Unilever in India: Hindustan Lever's Project Shakti--Marketing FMCG to the Rural Consumer

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Rohithari Rajan

With liberalization of India's economy and the opening up of markets to foreign multinationals such as Procter & Gamble, the Indian subsidiary of Unilever--Hindustan Lever Ltd. (HLL)--was under pressure to grow revenues and profits. HLL had a long and stellar record of... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Market Entry and Exit; Business Subsidiaries; Revenue; Profit; Market Participation; Programs; Rural Scope; Poverty; Multinational Firms and Management; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; India

28 Sep 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Digital Interactivity: Unanticipated Consequences for Markets, Marketing, and Consumers

Keywords: by John A. Deighton & Leora Kornfeld

11 Feb 2008
Research & Ideas

Does Democracy Need a Marketing Manager?

marketing can be used to create a political process that entices consumers (voters) rather than makes them cynical. "We wanted to elevate understanding of the power and importance of View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2024
Working Paper

Platform Information Provision and Consumer Search: A Field Experiment

By: Lu Fang, Yanyou Chen, Chiara Farronato, Zhe Yuan and Yitong Wang

Despite substantial efforts to help consumers search in more intuitive ways, text search remains the predominant tool for product discovery online. In this paper, we explore the effects of visual and textual cues for search refinement on consumer search and purchasing... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; E-commerce; Decision Choices and Conditions; Learning; Internet and the Web

Read Now

December 2012
Article

Defending the Markers of Masculinity: Consumer Resistance to Brand Gender-Bending

By: Jill Avery

I study the Porsche Cayenne SUV launch to ethnographically analyze how men consuming a gendered brand respond to perceived brand gender contamination. Consumers' communal gender work in a Porsche brand community is analyzed to uncover brand gender contamination's... View Details

Keywords: Brands; Brand Building; Brand Equity; Brand Management; Brand Positioning; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Gender; Identity; Customer Focus and Relationships; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

Read Now

February 2010
Background Note

Marketing Analysis Toolkit: Situation Analysis

By: Thomas J. Steenburgh and Jill Avery

Before managers can begin to formulate marketing strategies for their businesses, they must have a strong understanding of the internal and external marketing environments in which they are operating. In this note, we present three methods for collecting and analyzing... View Details

Keywords: Five Forces Framework; SWOT Analysis; Marketing Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Industry Structures; Strategic Planning

21 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Solving the Marketing Resources Allocation Puzzle

example, how well consumers were able to recall a brand name after commercials have been run—but not much more. The effectiveness of marketing investments was rarely directly tied back to sales. This has... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

February 2006 (Revised September 2007)
Background Note

Winner-Take-All in Networked Markets

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Discusses platform structure in new networked markets, that is, whether a market that exhibits network effects will be served by a single platform or by rival platforms. Defines "platforms" and "platform structure"; describes factors that influence the odds that a... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Growth Management; Network Effects; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web