Publications

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20 Aug 2018
Research & Ideas

Bargain Hunters Beware: A Store's 'Original Price' Might Not Be After All

PeopleImages Sale! Even the word is enough to send a flutter through the hearts of certain shoppers, who salivate in anticipation of scoring a discount off a product’s original price. Few consumers stop to think, however, that the only... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising; Retail

1985
Working Paper

Sequential Innovation and Market Structure

By: Jerry R. Green and Jean-Jacques Laffont

This paper concerns the introduction of a sequence of new, higher-quality durable products in a market in which there already exists a lower-quality substitute. The product has the further attribute that a real resource cost is incurred at the time a higher-quality... View Details

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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 View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

Muhammad Alagil

Keywords: Electronics; office supplies; books; diversified

April 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Wayfair

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Susie L. Ma and Matthew G. Preble

In 2016 Niraj Shah and Steve Conine, founders of online home goods retailer Wayfair, are faced with a decision about how to improve user experience on their e-commerce sites. A key driver of consumer interest and conversion to purchase in the home category is visual... View Details

Keywords: Visual Assets; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Business or Company Management; Growth Management; Innovation and Invention; Operations; Strategy; Technology; Retail Industry; Service Industry; United States; Massachusetts

18 Apr 2005
Research & Ideas

Selling Luxury to Everyone

Luxury is the new essential. Consumers know it and retailers are reaping the bounty. At a "Growth Strategies in the Luxury Goods Industry" panel on April 3 at the HBS Retail and Luxury View Details

Keywords: by Julie Jette; Consumer Products

March 2011 (Revised October 2011)
Case

If We Ran the World

By: Hanna Halaburda, Radka Dohnalova and Aldo Sesia

Cindy Gallop launched IfWeRanTheWorld (IWRTW) in February 2010, as what the tech world called minimum viable product, in order to real-world test Gallop's "business of the future" concept while development was ongoing. IWRTW was conceived to bring together human good... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Outcome or Result; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Network Effects

25 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Has Occupational Licensing Outlived Its Usefulness?

that a professional is licensed does not affect the decision of whom to hire.” It turns out that consumers know very little about occupational licensing requirements for the services they need. In a sense, View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Service

September–October 2017
Article

The Surprising Power of Online Experiments: Getting the Most Out of A/B and Other Controlled Tests

By: Ron Kohavi and Stefan Thomke

In the fast-moving digital world, even experts have a hard time assessing new ideas. Case in point: At Bing, a small headline change an employee proposed was deemed a low priority and shelved for months until one engineer decided to do a quick online controlled... View Details

Keywords: Experiments; A/B Testing; Research; Consumer Behavior

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June 2022
Case

The SAH Group: The Time is Right

By: Juan Alcacer and Alpana Thapar

In January 2021, Jalila Mezni, cofounder and CEO of the SAH Group, was preparing to present the company’s future growth plans to its board of directors. The Tunisian company was a leading producer and distributor of personal care and packaged hygiene products. In 2019,... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Expansion; Business Divisions; Product Positioning; Brands and Branding; Competition; Presentations; Consumer Products Industry; Tunisia; Kenya

29 Jan 2013
Research & Ideas

Creating the Perfect Super Bowl Ad

question whether ads, including the over-the-top Super Bowl spots, have become too entertaining, says Thales S. Teixeira, an assistant professor in the Marketing unit at Harvard Business School. In upcoming research, Why, When and How Much to Entertain View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Advertising; Media & Broadcasting

Research Summary

Overview

Grant uses a combination of laboratory and field experiments to harness consumers' cognitive and affective resources to increase their well-being. Consumers make countless daily decisions in the pursuit of happiness -- whether and how to spend or save their money, what... View Details

Keywords: Well-being; Judgment And Decision Making; Health; Prosocial Behavior

09 Feb 2012
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Online Marketing

Yelp Factor: Are Consumer Reviews Good for Business? In a new study, Assistant Professor Michael Luca shows just how much restaurant reviews on Yelp affect companies' bottom lines. The more difficult... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Technology

Career Coach

Amber Wade

Amber is a marketing, brand and creative strategy vet with experiences spanning consumer tech (Microsoft), consumer packaged goods (Unilever) and most recently media and... View Details

March – April 2010
Article

The Need for Ideological Consciousness

By: George C. Lodge

Every so often in American history a crisis comes along that requires Americans to inspect cherished assumptions and to act in a way that many find ideologically repulsive. Although our leaders insist that such actions are pragmatic-the only sensible way to deal with... View Details

Keywords: History; Leadership; Competition; Framework; Consumer Behavior; Business and Community Relations; Government and Politics; Financial Crisis; Planning; United States

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November 2015 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Uber: Changing the Way the World Moves

By: Youngme Moon

In 2015, Uber is building what may be the largest point-to-point transportation network of its kind; it is literally changing the way the world moves. But unlike traditional transportation logistics companies like FedEx, Uber has an incredibly lightweight... View Details

Keywords: Service; Innovation; Pricing; Customer Loyalty; Uber; Taxi; Sharing Economy; On-demand Economy; Marketing; Operations; Strategy; Disruption; Customer Satisfaction; Transportation; Consumer Behavior

June 2008 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Bernd Beetz: Creating the New Coty

By: Geoffrey Jones and David Kiron

Considers the creation of the world's largest fragrance company by Bernd Beetz, appointed chief executive of Coty Inc. in 2001. In 1990 the German consumer goods company Benkiser began acquiring fragrance and cosmetics brands with the intent of developing a beauty... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Entrepreneurship; Globalized Firms and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Germany; United States