Publications

November 2019 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Shiseido Acquires Drunk Elephant

By: Jill Avery

On October 7, 2019, the Shiseido Group announced that it would acquire clean skincare brand Drunk Elephant for $845 million, a valuation of 8.5 times sales. Did Shiseido pay too much or too little for this brand asset? How much was the Drunk Elephant brand worth and... View Details

Keywords: Personal Care; Startup; Brand Equity; Brand Valuation; Brand Value; Brand Storytelling; Brand Management; Brands and Branding; Valuation; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; Japan

03 Feb 2015
News

Jury out on how win might affect Patriots brand

Web

Online Personal Branding Course | HBS Online

This course is part of the Marketing track. Introduction to Personal Branding ENROLL NOW No application needed for our certificate programs. Start your journey today! New Personal Branding $1,850 Next 3-week... View Details

01 Mar 2004
News

Protecting against the Erosion of Brand Value

Innovation, a newsletter from HBS Publishing. “Barnes & Noble’s action indicates that within the publishing area, circumstances have changed, meaning that the power to capture value from a brand will increasingly shift from book... View Details

Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

2010
Working Paper

Quality Provision, Expected Firm Altruism and Brand Extensions

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper studies quality choice in a model where consumers expect firms to act altruistically. It is shown that, under plausible assumptions regarding this altruism and the reaction of consumers to firms that demonstrate insufficient altruism, existing firms (or... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Product Development; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Quality; Mathematical Methods

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May–June 2024
Article

Should Your Brand Hire a Virtual Influencer?

By: Serim Hwang, Shunyuan Zhang, Xiao Liu and Kannan Srinivasan

Followers respond more favorably to sponsored posts by virtual influencers versus those by humans, costs are lower, and creating an influencer from scratch allows marketers to introduce more diversity. View Details

Keywords: Social Media; AI and Machine Learning; Brands and Branding; Power and Influence

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January 2008 (Revised December 2011)
Case

Inner Mongolia Yili Group: China's Pioneering Dairy Brand

By: Regina M. Abrami, William C. Kirby, F. Warren McFarlan and Tracy Yuen Manty

Setting up the goal to become one of the top 20 enterprises in the world dairy industry by 2010, the Inner Mongolia Yili Group had ambitious plans. As one of China's biggest national dairy companies, its main challenge was competing as a local company against... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Globalized Markets and Industries; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Competition; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; China

19 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Empathy: The Brand Equity of Retail

agreed, sharing the story of a woman whose luggage was lost on the eve of her husband's funeral. Staff at a local Nordstrom store responded by staying open so she could purchase a few outfits, and her family has been loyal to the retailer ever since. "Empathy can be... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

07 Dec 1999
Research & Ideas

Henry Heinz and Brand Creation in the Late Nineteenth Century

efficiently as possible. Increasing the company's product line was a potentially quick, inexpensive way to shape a nascent market for processed food. It was also a means, Heinz reasoned, of building the brand. In the 1870s, branding was a... View Details

Keywords: by Nancy F. Koehn

June 2025
Teaching Note

AI and Brand Management: Promises and Perils

By: Julian De Freitas and Elie Ofek

Teaching Note for HBS Background Note No. 525-021. View Details

August 2013 (Revised November 2013)
Case

Gordon Brothers: Collateralizing Corporate Loans by Brands

By: Paul Healy and Maria Loumioti

The case explores the collateralization of intellectual property in a loan agreement between a highly leveraged apparel company and a large US bank. Leveraging intangibles in the credit market is a new practice that has significantly grown over the past few years.... View Details

Keywords: Intangible Assets; Accounting; Valuation; Finance; Restructuring; United States