Publications

19 Jun 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, June 19, 2018

Japan's Dream Machine: Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd. Recruit Holdings, an advertising media, staffing, and business support conglomerate was founded in 1960 by Hiromasa Ezoe. Recruit was built on the principle that the View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

15 Jul 2019
Book

Many Executives Are Afraid of Finance. Here's How They Can Gain Confidence

Book of the Year and connected finance with the humanities. The book sets out to demystify finance and instill both curiosity and confidence, helping readers answer fundamental questions like: What do financial ratios reveal about a company? How much value does a... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

18 Dec 2017
Op-Ed

Why Employers Must Stop Requiring College Degrees For Middle-Skill Jobs

Credit: Pixsooz American companies have a problem. Over the past decade, they have begun to demand a bachelor’s degree in hiring workers for jobs that traditionally haven’t required one. This uptick in credentialing, or “degree inflation,” rested on the belief that... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph Fuller

07 Feb 2012
First Look

First Look: February 7

company can justify the expense of assembling records. The Internet has transformed how economists interact with these datasets by lowering the cost of storing, updating, distributing, finding, and retrieving this information. Second,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

06 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

Technology Re-Emergence: Creating New Value for Old Innovations

introduced low cost production methods to manufacture highly accurate quartz watches. Swiss business historians refer to this as the "Quartz Crisis." Companies like Seiko and Casio seized the quartz market. By 1983, two-thirds... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Apparel & Accessories; Technology; Consumer Products

21 May 2007
Research & Ideas

Fixing the Marketing-CEO Disconnect

marketing function and the C-suite often drift apart, resulting in a disconnect between the overall strategy of the company and what marketing understands to be the actual needs of customers. One result is that View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

17 Apr 2012
First Look

First Look: April 17

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/12-090.pdf Why Every Company Needs a CSR Strategy and How to Build It Authors:Kash Rangan, Lisa A. Chase, and Sohel Karim Abstract The authors argue for a strategic and pragmatic, rather than ideological,... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

07 Apr 2020
Research & Ideas

What Customers Need to Hear from You During the COVID Crisis

data-id=_/HwZhW1Gssbb77V0GBoue][/div] Which types of brand stories should companies tell? After KFC was chastised by the U.K. Advertising Standards Authority for what it deemed inappropriate ads promoting... View Details

Keywords: by Jill Avery and Richard Edelman

June 2024 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light

By: Jill Avery and Celine Chammas

On April 1, 2023, social media content creator and influencer Dylan Mulvaney recorded a promotional post. It featured a video of herself drinking from a can of Bud Light beer, offering a virtual toast to her followers. Alongside the video, she posted a photograph of a... View Details

Keywords: Brand Crises; Brand Management; Influencer Marketing; Boycott; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Communications; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Social Media; Advertising; Social Issues; Public Opinion; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

November 2001
Case

Korea-Tender

By: Das Narayandas and Kate Attea

Korea-Tender is a closed-bidding auction company trying to break even and must select the best opportunity to increase membership and revenue. It can continue its current model with heavy advertising, try to modify its costs, or develop an additional business model... View Details

Keywords: Auctions; Business Model; Advertising; Business Startups; Problems and Challenges; Marketing Strategy; Revenue; Growth and Development Strategy

22 Mar 2013
Research & Ideas

Pulling Campbell’s Out of the Soup

company in January 2001. In the late 1990s, the company increased prices and lost many consumers to less expensive soup brands. Rather than bring prices back down, to maintain earnings Campbell cut costs by... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Food & Beverage

March 2001 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Madison Avenue: Digital Media Services (C)

By July 2000, Madison Avenue had experienced extraordinary growth in sales, employees, clients, and service offerings. From late 1999 to July 2000, the company had taken several initiatives to redesign its internal processes so that the firm could continue to grow,... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Digital Marketing; Product Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Advertising Industry

January 2019 (Revised February 2024)
Teaching Note

Hubble Contact Lenses: Data Driven Direct-to-Consumer Marketing

By: Ayelet Israeli

Teaching Note for HBS No. 519-011. As its Series A extension round approaches, the founders of Hubble, a subscription-based, social-media fueled, direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand of contact lenses, are reflecting on the marketing strategies that have taken them to a... View Details

17 Sep 2024
Cold Call Podcast

Fawn Weaver’s Entrepreneurial Journey as an Outsider in the Spirits Industry

Keywords: Re: Hise O. Gibson; Food & Beverage; Tourism

March 2017 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Facebook Fake News in the Post-Truth World

By: John R. Wells and Carole A. Winkler

In January 2017, Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, was surrounded by controversy. The election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States in November 2016 had triggered a national storm of protests, and many attributed Trump’s victory to... View Details