Publications

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November 2019 (Revised April 2020)
Case

Purple Innovation, Inc.: The Online to Offline Marketing Challenge

By: Elie Ofek and Nakisha Williams

This case focuses on Purple Innovation Inc. (Purple), a company that started out in the Direct to Consumer (DTC) mattress space. In late 2018, after a successful launch and IPO with sales predominantly originating from its website, Purple was looking to sustain its... View Details

Keywords: Offline Sales; Marketing Strategy; Digital Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry

February 2011 (Revised November 2013)
Case

The Cheezburger Network

By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

Cheezburger Network was a Web publisher of humorous, user-contributed content, using social media for dissemination, and selling advertising against the traffic of 1 billion page views per quarter. In January 2011, it raised $30 million in venture capital for the... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Digital Marketing; Customer Relationship Management; Venture Capital; Emerging Markets; Strategic Planning; Sales; Internet and the Web; Publishing Industry; Web Services Industry

08 Aug 2022
HBS Case

Building an 'ARMY' of Fans: Marketing Lessons from K-Pop Sensation BTS

fan base. The effective use of social media was how they created an ecosystem." In a recent case study, “BTS and ARMY,” Harvard Business School associate professor Doug Chung and research associate Kay Koo show how BTS marshalled its... View Details

Keywords: by Shalene Gupta; Media & Broadcasting; Media & Broadcasting

February 2012 (Revised January 2013)
Case

The New York Times Paywall

By: Vineet Kumar, Bharat Anand, Sunil Gupta and Felix Oberholzer-Gee

On March 28, 2011, The New York Times website became a restricted site where most of the content was protected behind a "paywall." Users who exceeded the limit of 20 free articles per month were required to pay for either a digital or print subscription. The newspaper... View Details

Keywords: Newspapers; Strategy; Journalism and News Industry; Publishing Industry

Elie Ofek is a Professor in the Marketing unit at the Harvard Business School. Professor Ofek's research focuses on new product strategies in technology-driven business environments as well as in consumer-oriented companies in general. He explores interactions... View Details

Keywords: media; media; media; media

Antonio Moreno

Antonio (Toni) Moreno is the Sicupira Family Associate Professor in the Technology and Operations Management Unit. He teaches courses related to technology and operations management in the MBA, executive, and doctoral programs. Before joining HBS, he was an... View Details

Keywords: retailing; internet; e-commerce industry

Henry W. McGee

Henry McGee joined the HBS faculty in 2013 after retiring as President of HBO Home Entertainment, the digital and DVD program distribution division of Home Box Office, the pioneering premium television company. A member of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit,... View Details

Keywords: media; media; media; media; media; media; media; media; media; media; media; media

August 2015
Case

Building an e-Commerce Brand at Wayfair

By: Thales Teixeira and Elizabeth Anne Watkins

Wayfair, Inc. comprised five home goods, furniture, and décor e-commerce brands. Wayfair.com, the main brand, which was responsible for the majority of sales, targeted the mass-middle home-goods market. AllModern, DwellStudio, Joss & Main, and Birch Lane were niche... View Details

Feng Zhu is the MBA Class of 1958 Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he leads the Platform Lab within the Digital, Data, and Design Institute, co-chairs the Harvard Business Analytics Program, and serves as the course head for the... View Details

29 Nov 2010
HBS Case

United Breaks Guitars

Tweets are in the air we breathe. Most of us know that "friend" can also be a verb. Social media are part of the public discourse now, whether or not we're active users of them. A new case coauthored by HBS marketing professor... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

29 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

Is There a Method to Musk’s Madness on Twitter?

Prior to the acquisition, Twitter as a company was much weaker than most people realize. They’ve struggled with profitability for many years, and they’ve been quite slow at innovating on new features and growth opportunities. By doing this deal and having the View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Technology

01 Dec 2017
News

2017 in Finance: Helping Consumers Improve Their Financial Life

their financial lives, high tech is not enough. In our business, we also have to be high touch. Consumers love the convenience of a digital platform, but there will always be circumstances in the financial services sector when the... View Details

Keywords: Omer Ismail (MBA 2007), chief commercial officer, Marcus by Goldman Sachs, the firm’s digital consumer financial services business; Finance

07 Apr 2023
Research & Ideas

When Celebrity ‘Crypto-Influencers’ Rake in Cash, Investors Lose Big

significant negative returns—an average loss of 19 percent after three months. "It could also be the case that they’re just pushing the hype because they want followers." Crypto influencers—many of whom are based overseas and use pseudonyms online—rarely advise their... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

November 2016 (Revised May 2017)
Case

The Black List

By: Henry McGee and Sarah McAra

Franklin Leonard founded The Black List in 2005 as an innovative approach to identifying potential hit movie scripts via crowdsourcing. As the annual Black List proved to hold the scripts of some of Hollywood’s most successful films, from “Slumdog Millionaire” to... View Details

Keywords: Screenwriting; Independent Production; Hollywood; Film Development; Film Distribution; Film Financing; Manging Uncertainty; Barriers To Entry; Globalization; Digitalization; Film Entertainment; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Media; Strategy; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; United States

Career Coach

Jim Warner

Television Network. He joined Avenue A, a pioneering digital media start-up, in 2000 and led the company’s East coast operations through the ups and downs and ups of the decade. Avenue A acquired Razorfish... View Details

Keywords: Entertainment / Media; Entertainment / Media; Entertainment / Media

January 2007
Case

Gobi Partners: Raising Fund II

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

The three founding partners of Gobi Partners, a venture capital fund investing in early start IT and digital media companies in China, are planning to raise a second fund. The first $51.75 million fund is close to being entirely invested and the portfolio companies are... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Private Equity; Investment Funds; Financial Strategy; Business or Company Management; China

November 2022
Background Note

The Future of E-Commerce: Lessons from the Livestream Wars in China

By: Ayelet Israeli, Jeremy Yang and Billy Chan

This note explores the emerging multi-billion dollar commerce trend of livestream commerce. Livestream commerce is the sale of goods or services directly to consumers via live shows on digital platforms (such as social media or e-commerce platforms). It is a form of... View Details

February 2008 (Revised September 2008)
Case

Apple Inc., 2008

By: David B. Yoffie and Michael Slind

In January 2007, three decades after its incorporation, Apple Computer shed the second word in its name and became Apple Inc. With that move, the company signaled a fundamental shift away from its historic status as a vendor of the Macintosh personal computer (PC)... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Leadership; Industry Growth; Corporate Strategy; Information Infrastructure; Internet and the Web; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry; Technology Industry