Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,738)
- Faculty Publications (229)
- 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
- May–June 2024
- Article
What Makes a Successful Celebrity Brand?
Celebrities have shifted from endorsing established brands to being influencers for established brands to drawing on their influence to create brands themselves. The authors examine what it takes to make celebrity brands work. View Details
Keywords: Celebrities; Celebrity Endorsement; Celebrity Management; Celebrity; Direct To Consumer Marketing; DTC; Influencer Marketing; Influencers; Influencer Advertising; Influencer; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Power and Influence; Advertising; Social Media; Consumer Products Industry; United States
- February 2024
- Case
Adventures Inc: 21st Century Brand Building
By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott
Founded in 2020, Adventures worked with celebrities in Brazil to create and launch digitally native brands. The idea was to match the celebrity’s skill in creating content and entertaining fans with Adventures’ skill in consumer packaged goods marketing and operations.... View Details
Keywords: Digital Brand; Influencer Marketing; Growth And Scaling; Capital Constraints; Brand Portfolio Strategy; CPG; Start-up; Celebrity Endorsement; Digital Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Advertising; Social Media; Business Startups; Joint Ventures; Brands and Branding; Brazil
- December 2023
- Article
Brokerage Relationships and Analyst Forecasts: Evidence from the Protocol for Broker Recruiting
By: Braiden Coleman, Michael Drake, Joseph Pacelli and Brady Twedt
In this study, we offer novel evidence on how the nature of brokerage-client relationships can influence the quality of equity research. We exploit a unique setting provided by the Protocol for Broker Recruiting to examine whether relaxed broker non-compete agreement... View Details
Keywords: Brokers; Analysts; Forecasts; Bias; Protocol; Investment; Research; Forecasting and Prediction
- 2023
- Working Paper
The Impact of Unionization on Consumer Perceptions of Service Quality: Evidence from Starbucks
By: Isamar Troncoso, Minkyung Kim, Ishita Chakraborty and SooHyun Kim
The US has seen a rise in union movements, but their effects on service industry marketing outcomes like customer satisfaction and perceptions of service quality remain understudied. In this paper, we empirically study the impact on customer satisfaction and... View Details
- October 2023
- Case
Kevin O'Leary: Building a Brand in Shark-infested Waters
By: Reza Satchu and Patrick Sanguineti
For more than fifteen years, successful Canadian entrepreneur and investor Kevin O’Leary had developed his brand into a global powerhouse. Since his first appearance on the Canadian television program Dragons’ Den in 2006 and his meteoric rise to stardom through the... View Details
- October 2023
- Article
Speedy Activists: Firm Response Time to Sociopolitical Events Influences Consumer Behavior
By: Jimin Nam, Maya Balakrishnan, Julian De Freitas and Alison Wood Brooks
Organizations face growing pressure from their consumers and stakeholders to take public stances on sociopolitical issues. However, many are hesitant to do so lest they make missteps, promises they cannot keep, appear inauthentic, or alienate consumers, employees, or... View Details
- September 2023
- Article
(Not) Paying for Diversity: Repugnant Market Concerns Associated with Transactional Approaches to Diversity Recruitment
In a 20-month ethnographic study, I examine how a technology firm, ShopCo (a pseudonym), considered 13 different recruitment platforms to attract racial minority engineering candidates. I find that when choosing whether to adopt recruitment platforms focused on racial... View Details
- September 2023
- Case
The Meteoric Rise of Skims
Since its founding in 2019 by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede, Skims, a solutions-oriented brand creating the next generation of underwear, loungewear, and shapewear with an eye toward body-type and skin-tone inclusivity, has experienced a meteoric rise. Kardashian, who... View Details
Keywords: Brand; Branding; Direct-to-consumer; DTC; Influencers; Influencer Marketing; Fashion; Growth; Direct Marketing; Influence; Reputation; Social Inference; Consumer Goods; Consumer Products; Female Entrepreneur; Female Protagonist; Entrepreneurship And Strategy; Brand ＆ Product Management; Competitive Advantage; Online Followers; Retail; Retail Formats; Retailing; Online Retail; Celebrities; Celebrity; Celebrity Endorsement; Go To Market Strategy; Apparel; Startup Marketing; Startups; Social Influencers; Brands and Branding; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Distribution Channels; Digital Marketing; Advertising; Power and Influence; Social Media; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States
- 2023
- Working Paper
Firm Visibility and Acquisition Likelihood: Evidence from Seeking Alpha Coverage
By: Pu Gu, Benjamin Yost and Yuan Zou
This study investigates whether social media coverage influences a firm’s likelihood of being acquired. Specifically, we hypothesize that coverage of a firm on the Seeking Alpha platform raises its visibility to potential acquirers and M&A advisers (i.e., investment... View Details
- May–June 2023
- Article
A New Approach to Building Your Personal Brand: How to Communicate Your Value
By: Jill Avery and Rachel Greenwald
For better or worse, in today’s world everyone is a brand. Whether you’re applying for a job, asking for a promotion, or writing a dating profile, your success will depend on getting others to recognize your value. So you need to get comfortable marketing... View Details
- March 2023
- Article
Giving-by-proxy Triggers Subsequent Charitable Behavior
By: Samantha Kassirer, Jillian J. Jordan and Maryam Kouchaki
How can we foster habits of charitable giving? Here, we investigate the potential power of giving-by-proxy experiences, drawing inspiration from a growing trend in marketing and corporate social responsibility contexts in which organizations make charitable... View Details
- February 22, 2023
- Article
How to Seed Organic Marketing in a Video-First World
By: Ayelet Israeli, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Matt Higgins
Early direct-to-consumer (DTC) companies relied on plentiful capital and low-cost digital marketing to power growth. But as this sector has matured, capital is more constrained, social media is more cluttered, and customer acquisition costs are rising. DTC companies... View Details
Keywords: Online Business; Ecommerce; E-commerce; E-Commerce Strategy; Omnichannel Retail; Omnichannel Retailing; Influencer Marketing; Consumer; Organic Growth; Video Advertising; Promotion; Celebrities; Online Advertising; Online Channel; Online Communities; Online Community; Go To Market Strategy; Platform; Media; Media Content; Digital; Digital Culture; Digital Influencers; Direct To Consumer Marketing; Direct-to-consumer; Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Sales; Digital Platforms; Digital Marketing; Digital Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Internet and the Web; Advertising; Business Model; Growth Management; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Channels; Marketing Communications; Communication Strategy; Innovation Strategy; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Fashion Industry; Advertising Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States; North America
- October 2022 (Revised December 2022)
- Case
Aphro Beverages
By: Frank V. Cespedes and Amram Migdal
This case focuses on distribution, sales, and product decisions as Aphro Beverages reaches an inflection point in its growth trajectory. In 2020, Aphro Beverages, based in Accra, Ghana, successfully launched its brand and brought two new alcoholic spirits products to... View Details
Keywords: Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Business Ventures; Business Growth and Maturation; Entrepreneurship; Food; Geography; Geographic Scope; Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Resource Allocation; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Digital Marketing; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Social Marketing; Operations; Distribution; Distribution Channels; Product; Product Design; Product Development; Supply Chain; Sales; Salesforce Management; Food and Beverage Industry; Africa; Ghana
- Article
All Eyes on Them: A Field Experiment on Citizen Oversight and Electoral Integrity
By: Natalia Garbiras-Díaz and Mateo Montenegro
Can information and communication technologies help citizens monitor their elections? We analyze a large-scale field experiment designed to answer this question in Colombia. We leveraged Facebook advertisements sent to over 4 million potential voters to encourage... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
Confidence, Self-Selection and Bias in the Aggregate
By: Benjamin Enke, Thomas Graeber and Ryan Oprea
The influence of behavioral biases on aggregate outcomes like prices and allocations depends in part on self-selection: whether rational people opt more strongly into aggregate interactions than biased individuals. We conduct a series of betting market, auction and... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
Failing Just Fine: Assessing Careers of Venture Capital-backed Entrepreneurs via a Non-wage Measure
By: Natee Amornsiripanitch, Paul Gompers, George Hu, Will Levinson and Vladimir Mukharlyamov
This paper proposes a non-pecuniary measure of career achievement, Seniority. Based on a database of over 5 million resumes, this metric exploits the variation in job titles and how long they take to attain. When non-monetary factors influence career choice, inference... View Details
- May 2022
- Case
Thinking Outside the Wine Box (A): Mekanism and the Franz for Life Campaign
This case provides an overview of “Franz for Life,” an advertising campaign that independent advertising agency Mekanism created and executed to revitalize the brand image of Franzia, a low-cost boxed wine. For several years, Franzia’s popularity declined among... View Details