Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,831)
- Faculty Publications (1,096)
- August 2024 (Revised December 2024)
- Case
Influencer-Led Brand Building: Hairitage and the McKnights
By: William R. Kerr, Daniel O'Connor and James Palano
Longtime hairstyle influencer Mindy McKnight had been building her “Cute Girls Hairstyles” audience across numerous online platforms for nearly two decades. Brand incubator Maesa took an innovative approach to producing successful brands: identifying white space in the... View Details
- 20 Aug 2024
- Interview
Angel City Football Club: A New Business Model for Women’s Sports
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Brian Kenny and Nicole Tempest Keller
Angel City Football Club (ACFC) was founded in 2020 by venture capitalist Kara Nortman, entrepreneur Julie Uhrman, and actor and activist Natalie Portman. As outsiders to professional sports, the all-female founding team had rewritten the playbook for how to build a... View Details
- August 2024 (Revised January 2025)
- Case
Barbie: Reviving a Cultural Icon at Mattel
The 2023 release of the live-action film Barbie, and its accompanying marketing blitz, incited a worldwide Barbie craze. Suddenly Barbie was everywhere, a celebrated icon reinstated at the forefront of cultural conversation. This goodwill stood in contrast to... View Details
Keywords: Brands and Branding; Media; Intellectual Property; Business Strategy; Entertainment; Gender; Public Opinion; Marketing Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States
- August 2024
- Article
How Do Copayment Coupons Affect Branded Drug Prices and Quantities Purchased?
By: Leemore S. Dafny, Kate Ho and Edward Kong
Drug copayment coupons to reduce patient cost-sharing have become nearly ubiquitous for high-priced brand-name prescription drugs. Medicare bans such coupons on the grounds that they are kickbacks that induce utilization, but they are commonly used by... View Details
- July 2024
- Case
Wizards of the Coast and Magic: The Rebounding
By: Boris Groysberg and Tom Quinn
This case traces the history and growth of the Magic: The Gathering trading card game. From its development in 1993 by tiny studio Wizards of the Coast, to Wizards’ acquisition by toy giant Hasbro in 1999, to its evolution into a billion-dollar brand in 2023,... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Change Management; Transformation; Cost vs Benefits; Business Cycles; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Global Strategy; Growth and Development; Selection and Staffing; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Intellectual Property; Job Design and Levels; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Succession; Risk Management; Brands and Branding; Product Positioning; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Expansion; Mergers and Acquisitions; Product Development; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States; Washington (state, US); Seattle; Japan
- July 2024
- Article
Chatbots and Mental Health: Insights into the Safety of Generative AI
By: Julian De Freitas, Ahmet Kaan Uğuralp, Zeliha Uğuralp and Stefano Puntoni
Chatbots are now able to engage in sophisticated conversations with consumers. Due to the ‘black box’ nature of the algorithms, it is impossible to predict in advance how these conversations will unfold. Behavioral research provides little insight into potential safety... View Details
- June 2024
- Case
Metub: Scaling Influence beyond Vietnam
By: Paul A. Gompers and Shu Lin
Founded in 2014, Metub was a leading video and talent network in Vietnam. It managed over 3,000 channels on YouTube and more than 3,000 content creators. To expand creators’ income opportunities across multiple platforms, Metub had diversified beyond its original... View Details
- June 2024 (Revised August 2024)
- Case
Revlon India's Turnaround: Navigating Online-Offline Decisions Using a Balanced Scorecard
By: Tatiana Sandino and Samuel Grad
Revlon India was founded as a joint venture in 1995, pairing the industrial conglomerate UMG with the global beauty brand Revlon, Inc. to bring international color cosmetics to India. After growing rapidly and pioneering the Beauty Advisor (BA) model in India, the... View Details
Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Restructuring; Training; Supply Chain Management; Distribution; E-commerce; Business Model; Business Plan; Decision Choices and Conditions; Marketing Strategy; Alignment; Brands and Branding; Negotiation; Joint Ventures; Strategic Planning; Salesforce Management; Competition; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; India
- 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
- June 2024 (Revised October 2024)
- Teaching Note
FARM Rio: Bringing a Brazilian Fashion Brand to the World
By: Isamar Troncoso and Jill Avery
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 524-003. View Details
- May 2024 (Revised February 2025)
- Case
Lowe's: Improving the Total Home Strategy
By: Elie Ofek, K. Shelette Stewart and Alicia Dadlani
In 2023, Marvin Ellison, CEO of Lowe’s, contemplated enhancements to the company’s Total Home Strategy to accelerate performance and grow market share. In the last five years since becoming CEO, Ellison had championed a turnaround of the company, completing a... View Details
- May 2024
- Supplement
HubSpot and Motion AI (B): Generative AI Opportunities
By: Jill Avery
The technologies driving artificial intelligence (AI) had progressed significantly since HubSpot’s acquisition of Motion AI in 2017. Generative AI was the newest major development. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies such as HubSpot were analyzing how generative AI... View Details
- May 2024
- Teaching Note
The Meteoric Rise of Skims
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 524-023, "The Meteoric Rise of Skims." View Details
Keywords: Brand; Branding; Direct-to-consumer; DTC; Influencers; Influencer Marketing; Fashion; Growth; Direct Marketing; Influence; Reputation; Social Influence; 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; Brands and Branding; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Distribution Channels; Digital Marketing; Advertising; Power and Influence; Social Media; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States
- 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
- April 8, 2024
- Article
Loyalty Programs May Limit Competition, and They Could Be Pushing Prices up for Everyone
By: Alexandru Nichifor and Scott Duke Kominers
- March 2024 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
Angel City Football Club: Scoring a New Model
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Jennifer Fonstad and Nicole Tempest Keller
In January 2024, Kara Nortman, Julie Uhrman, and Natalie Portman, the founders of Angel City Football Club (ACFC) were developing the club’s first three-year strategic plan. Founded in 2020, ACFC had a star-studded investor group, including Portman and celebrities such... View Details
- March 2024 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
Coursera's Foray into GenAI
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Michael Parzen and Radhika Kak
In early 2023, Maggioncalda, CEO of US EdTech firm Coursera, launched Project Genesis to develop a strategy for incorporating GenAI capabilities into the firm's offerings, asking his teams to focus on value to the firm and cost of implementation. The team identified... View Details
- March 2024
- Case
Lyft 2023: Roads to Growth and Differentiation
By: Ranjay Gulati and Jeffrey Huizinga
Set in San Francisco in winter 2023, this case explores the strategic challenges and initiatives at Lyft under the leadership of its new CEO, David Risher. Confronted with declining market share and financial pressures, Risher spent his first six months at the helm... View Details
- March 2024
- Teaching Note
Sonder Holdings Inc.: Using Technology to Solve Hospitality's Frictions
By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 922-039. Digital disruption is challenging the hospitality industry. Traditional hotels face competition from platforms, most visibly Airbnb but also the homeshare divisions of online travel agencies such as Expedia and Booking.com, that... View Details