Publications

December 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Ebro Puleva

By: David E. Bell, Antonio Garcia de Castro, Rocio Reina Paniagua and Mary Louise Shelman

Once Spain's largest sugar company, Ebro Puleva has been transformed through a series of international acquisitions into the world's largest package rice company and second largest pasta company. In 2009, Chairman Antonio Hernandez Callejas must decide how to proceed... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Crisis; Globalized Firms and Management; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Retail Industry; Spain

16 Jul 2007
Research & Ideas

Understanding the ‘Want’ vs. ’Should’ Decision

Like having both an angel and a devil whispering advice in our ears, consumers often wrestle with the "want" versus "should" decision. Yes, I want to purchase that chocolate bar, but I should snack on granola instead.... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Retail; Entertainment & Recreation

20 Nov 2007
Working Paper Summaries

The “Fees → Savings” Link, or Purchasing Fifty Pounds of Pasta

Keywords: by Michael I. Norton & Leonard Lee; Retail

2019
Working Paper

Soul and Machine (Learning)

By: Davide Proserpio, John R. Hauser, Xiao Liu, Tomomichi Amano, Alex Burnap, Tong Guo, Dokyun Lee, Randall Lewis, Kanishka Misra, Eric Schwarz, Artem Timoshenko, Lilei Xu and Hema Yoganarasimhan

Machine learning is bringing us self-driving cars, improved medical diagnostics, and machine translation, but can it improve marketing decisions? It can. Machine learning models predict extremely well, are scalable to “big data,” and are a natural fit to rich media... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Technological Innovation; Marketing; AI and Machine Learning

SSRN

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Research Summary

The Asymmetric Effect of Discount Retraction on Subsequent Choice

This paper examines the subsequent impact of a temporary price discount on brand preference after the promotion is retracted. Theorizing that price salience has an impact on price sensitivity, we propose that the effects of retracting a discount depend on the promoted... View Details

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

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06 Sep 2005
Research & Ideas

When Product Variety Backfires

co-written by professor Dilip Soman of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, demonstrates that sometimes offering too many choices prompts the confused consumer to defer a purchase or run to the arms of a competitor... View Details

Keywords: by Poping Lin; Consumer Products

Research Summary

Price as a Stimulus to Think: The Case for Willful Overpricing

Consumers aware of a new benefit will often experience uncertainty about its personal relevance or usage value. This paper shows that the decision to deliberate further to resolve this uncertainty and reach a polarized judgment of personal relevance critically depends... View Details

November 2023
Case

Nourishing Communities: Brighter Bites Approach to Childhood Nutrition

By: David E. Bell, Forest Reinhardt and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

In September 2023, Brighter Bites, a Houston-based non-profit that distributed fresh produce and nutrition education in underserved communities across 11 cities and 5 states, grappled with identifying the best path forward for continued growth. Brighter Bites proved... View Details

Keywords: Nutrition; Growth and Development Strategy; Logistics; Nonprofit Organizations; Human Needs; Poverty; Houston

2023
Working Paper

Deep Responsibility and Irresponsibility in the Beauty Industry

By: Geoffrey Jones

This working paper employs the concept of deep responsibility to assess the social responsibility of the beauty industry over time. It shows that many of today’s problems with the industry have deep historical roots. Products have carried too many health hazards.... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Accountability; Ethics; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

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March 2018 (Revised April 2018)
Case

Designing a Compliance Program at AB InBev

By: Eugene Soltes

Compliance programs help companies align the interests and behavior of employees with external expectations and regulation. The case discusses how AB InBev, a major brewer, developed its compliance program. View Details

Keywords: Governance; Crime and Corruption; Governance Compliance; Consumer Products Industry; Africa; Europe; India; North America

May 2011 (Revised January 2012)
Supplement

OPOWER: Increasing Energy Efficiency through Normative Influence (B)

By: Maarten W. Bos, Amy J.C. Cuddy and Kyle Todd Doherty

The case profiles OPOWER, an energy efficiency software company that applies Cialdini's principles of social influence to successfully encourage consumers to reduce their energy usage. OPOWER was co-founded in 2008 by two young Harvard graduates, Dan Yates and Alex... View Details

Keywords: Energy Conservation

10 Apr 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Where Does it Go? Spending by the Financially Constrained

Keywords: by Shawn A. Cole, John Thompson & Peter Tufano; Financial Services

18 Mar 2009
Research & Ideas

Marketing After the Recession

and behaviors permanently. Their coping mechanisms may become ingrained and define a new normal. In addition, the competitive landscape will have changed. A competitive shakeout along with new product launches may mean View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Retail

July 2020
Case

Amanda and Kristen: Mented Cosmetics

By: Steven Rogers, Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Alterrell Mills

The co-founders (Black HBS alumnae) of an e-commerce beauty startup explore the unmet needs within the beauty industry. This case study examines the entrepreneurial opportunities that come from identifying an underserved market, specifically within the Black community... View Details

18 Jun 2018
Research & Ideas

Warning: Scary Warning Labels Work!

learned that graphic warnings led to a drop in sugary drink purchases, they supported the labels in much greater numbers. One question that remains unanswered by the study is whether the warnings spur consumers to change their View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Advertising; Public Relations

20 Nov 2017
Research & Ideas

How Independent Bookstores Have Thrived in Spite of Amazon.com

stores to 2,227. This surprising resurgence piqued the interest of Ryan Raffaelli, an assistant professor in the Organizational Behavior unit at Harvard Business School, who studies how mature organizations and industries faced with... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel (with video by Amelia Kunhardt); Retail

20 Sep 2007
Research & Ideas

How to be a Customer

at all. Here are five behaviors that, in the eyes of vendors, make for a good customer: Be Demanding. Make sure the vendor knows you have other options, that you're going to seek out more than one bid. Ask for references; a good supplier... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

July 2021
Article

Information Transparency, Multihoming, and Platform Competition: A Natural Experiment in the Daily Deals Market

By: Hui Li and Feng Zhu

Platform competition is shaped by the likelihood of multi-homing (i.e., complementors or consumers adopt more than one platform). To take advantage of multi-homing, platform firms often attempt to motivate their rivals’ high-performing complementors to adopt their own... View Details

Keywords: Platform Competition; Multi-homing; Information Transparency; Daily Deals; Groupon; LivingSocial; Digital Platforms; Information; Competition