Publications

May–June 2024
Article

What Makes a Successful Celebrity Brand?

By: Ayelet Israeli, Jill Avery, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Matt Higgins

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

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April 2024 (Revised August 2024)
Teaching Note

Silicon Valley Bank: Gone in 36 Hours

By: Jung Koo Kang, Krishna G. Palepu and Charles C.Y. Wang

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 124-001. View Details

Keywords: Accounting Standards; Bank Runs; Financial Accounting; Financial Reporting; Social Media; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Investment Portfolio; Interest Rates; Debt Securities; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Statements; Risk Management; Financial Services Industry; United States

April 2024
Teaching Note

Social Media Background Screening at Fama Technologies

By: Joseph Pacelli and Jillian Grennan

Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 123-010 and 123-086. View Details

2024
Working Paper

Social Movements and Public Opinion in the United States

By: Amory Gethin and Vincent Pons

Recent social movements stand out by their spontaneous nature and lack of stable leadership, raising doubts on their ability to generate political change. This article provides systematic evidence on the effects of protests on public opinion and political attitudes.... View Details

Keywords: Attitudes; Social Issues; Voting; Public Opinion; Social Media

March 2024
Case

Katharine Graham: Changing the World

By: Robert Simons and Shirley Sun

This case traces the life of Katharine Graham from housewife to publisher of the Washington Post. Born into a family of wealth, Graham described herself as a “doormat wife” after she married Phil Graham and stayed at home to raise their children. His unexpected death... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Values and Beliefs; Power and Influence; Personal Characteristics; Leadership Style; Success; Work-Life Balance; News; Newspapers; Media; Gender; Publishing Industry

March 2024
Exercise

'Storrowed': A Generative AI Exercise

By: Mitchell Weiss

"Storrowed" is an exercise to help participants raise their capacity and curiosity for generative AI. It focuses on generative AI for problem understanding and ideation, but can be adapted for use more broadly. Participants use generative AI tools to understand a... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Problems and Challenges

March 22, 2024
Article

It’s Time to Give Up on Ending Social Media’s Misinformation Problem

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Jesse Shapiro

Keywords: Social Media; Lawsuits and Litigation; Information Publishing; Policy

March 2024
Article

What Makes Groups Emotional

By: Amit Goldenberg

When people experience emotions in a group, their emotions tend to have stronger intensity and to last longer. Why is that? This question has occupied thinkers throughout history, and with the use of digital media it is even more pressing today. Historically, attention... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Emotions; Cognition and Thinking; Interpersonal Communication

February 2024
Case

ReSpo.Vision: The Kickstart of an AI Sports Revolution

By: Paul A. Gompers, Elena Corsi and Nikolina Jonsson

This case study explores the growth journey of Polish computer vision sports start-up ReSpo.Vision in an emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem. By providing 3D data and analysis to soccer clubs, ReSpo.Vision achieved significant milestones with a €1 million seed round, an... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Plan; Experience and Expertise; Talent and Talent Management; Decisions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Forecasting and Prediction; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Applications and Software; Business Strategy; Sports Industry; Technology Industry; Poland; Europe

February 2024
Case

Best Buy Health: Enabling Care at Home

By: Robert S. Huckman, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Antonio Moreno, Bradley Staats and Sarah Mehta

This case explores retailer Best Buy’s decision to enter health care. Best Buy Health aims to enable care at home across three prongs: consumer health, active aging, and virtual care. A key pillar of Best Buy Health's strategy is leveraging the Geek Squad—the company's... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Business Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Electronics Industry; Health Industry; Retail Industry; United States; Minnesota

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

2024
Working Paper

Content Moderation with Opaque Policies

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Jesse M. Shapiro

A sender sends a signal about a state to a receiver who takes an action that determines a payoff. A moderator can block some or all of the sender's signal before it reaches the receiver. When the moderator's policy is transparent to the receiver, the moderator can... View Details

Keywords: Market Design; Communication; Knowledge Sharing; Information Infrastructure; Media

February 2024
Article

Pricing Power in Advertising Markets: Theory and Evidence

By: Matthew Gentzkow, Jesse M. Shapiro, Frank Yang and Ali Yurukoglu

Existing theories of media competition imply that advertisers will pay a lower price in equilibrium to reach consumers who multi-home across competing outlets. We generalize, extend, and test this prediction. We find that television outlets whose viewers watch more... View Details

Keywords: Television Entertainment; Advertising; Residency; Social Media; Price; Media; Age

January 2024 (Revised August 2024)
Case

Silicon Valley Bank: Gone in 36 Hours

By: Jung Koo Kang, Krishna G. Palepu, Charles C.Y. Wang and David Lane

This case examines factors contributing to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in March 2023, an event as unpredicted as it was quick. SVB funded nearly half of all U.S. venture-backed startups and at the end of 2022 held $173 billion in deposits, largely... View Details