Publications

April 2010
Case

Metabical: Pricing, Packaging, and Demand Forecasting Recommendations for a New Weight Loss Drug

By: John A. Quelch and Heather Beckham

Metabical is a new weight loss drug from Cambridge Sciences Pharmaceuticals intended for moderately overweight individuals. In anticipation of final FDA approval, the senior director of marketing, Barbara Printup, prepares for the product launch and must make several... View Details

Keywords: Return On Investment; Forecasting; Pricing Policies; Demand Planning; Marketing Strategy; Price; Consumer Behavior; Investment Return; Forecasting and Prediction; Product Launch; Planning; Brands and Branding; Pharmaceutical Industry

01 Oct 2013
First Look

First Look: October 1

Publications August 2013 Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization Religion, Politician Identity and Development Outcomes: Evidence from India By: Bhalotra, Sonia, Guilhem Cassan, Irma Clots-Figueras, and Lakshmi Iyer... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2012 (Revised January 2013)
Case

J.C. Penney's 'Fair and Square' Pricing Strategy

By: Elie Ofek and Jill Avery

As a he gets ready to release 2nd quarter 2012 results, Ron Johnson, the new CEO of department store J.C. Penney, is reconsidering the dramatic changes he initiated for the business model and brand image of his company. A new pricing scheme he put in place in February,... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Consumer Behavior; Management Teams; Business Model; Marketing Strategy; Price; Brands and Branding; Decision Making; Retail Industry; United States

11 Sep 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, September 11, 2018

Conference Proceedings More Amazon Effects: Online Competition and Pricing Behaviors By: Cavallo, Alberto Abstract—I study how online competition, with its shrinking margins, algorithmic pricing technologies, and the transparency of the... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

28 Jan 2014
First Look

First Look: January 28

field and the central research questions that it sought to answer. However, the commitment to engage with the complexities of business and the disinclination to rely on models with simplistic assumptions about business behavior also... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

06 Aug 2019
Cold Call Podcast

Super Bowl Ads Sell Products, but Do They Sell Brands?

some Skittles. I want to engage our audience in the conversation a little bit now. We've got time for a few questions. Speaker 1: Great talk. Do you have any data to indicate that that brand storytelling actually converts into consumer... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Sports; Entertainment & Recreation; Media & Broadcasting

24 Apr 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, April 24, 2018

The analysis finds no impact of financial incentives on learning but significant effects of both goal setting and counseling on real financial outcomes. These results identify important complements to financial education that can bridge the gap between financial... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Jan 2016
First Look

January 26, 2016

employees, since some of them may naturally engage in behaviors to offset the negative effects of longer commutes. Drawing on psychological research on self-control, we theorize how engaging in future-oriented thinking about the tasks to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 May 2012
Research & Ideas

Five Ways to Make Your Company More Innovative

How can marketing get involved? Well, if you think about relative advantage, you can achieve it several ways. You can provide more benefits for the same cost, the same benefits for less cost, or a lot more benefits for slightly more cost. Each of those has a different... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons, Julia Hanna & Roger Thompson

27 Jun 2019
Research & Ideas

Rituals Strengthen Couples. Here’s Why They’re Good for Business, Too

satisfied, invested in, and committed to their relationships than couples who don't bother with them, according to an April article in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, Rituals and Nuptials: The Emotional and... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

March 2022
Case

BTS & ARMY

By: Doug J. Chung and Kay R. Koo

The South Korean K-pop band, BTS, is shattering linguistic boundaries and reshaping the global music industry. BTS became the first band in Billboard history to simultaneously top the Billboard Artist 100, Billboard Hot 100, and Billboard 200; and the sixth act to have... View Details

Keywords: Entertainment; Music Entertainment; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Social and Collaborative Networks; Social Enterprise; Consumer Behavior; Music Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

26 Jul 2016
First Look

July 26, 2016

June 2016 PLoS ONE Social and Spatial Clustering of People at Humanity's Largest Gathering By: Barnett, Ian, Tarun Khanna, and Jukka-Pekka Onnela Abstract—Macroscopic behavior of scientific and societal systems results from the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2011
Article

The Labor Illusion: How Operational Transparency Increases Perceived Value

By: Ryan W. Buell and Michael I. Norton

A ubiquitous feature of even the fastest self-service technology transactions is the wait. Conventional wisdom and operations theory suggests that the longer people wait, the less satisfied they become; we demonstrate that due to what we term the labor illusion, when... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Perception; Valuation; Service Delivery; Consumer Behavior; Performance Effectiveness; Customer Satisfaction; Service Industry

November 2019 (Revised April 2020)
Case

Away: Scaling a DTC Travel Brand

By: Jill Avery and Joseph B. Fuller

Away, a direct-to-consumer, digital native e-commerce seller of travel luggage, is debating how to invest its latest round of venture funding. How quickly could and should Away scale and what were the most promising growth trajectories to maximize its potential? Three... View Details

26 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

How Paid Promos Take the Shine Off YouTube Stars (and Tips for Better Influencer Marketing)

suggests that the effect translates to an average of $10,000 over an average six-year-career influencer. “If consumers aren’t perceiving social influencers as trustworthy and authentic, much of their marketing effort might not lead to a... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin; Technology; Media & Broadcasting

February 2001 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Howard Schultz and Starbucks Coffee Company

By: Nancy F. Koehn

Investigates the entrepreneur's strategic initiatives to develop a mass market for specialty coffee in the 1980s and 1990s. These initiatives included the development of premium products, rapid expansion of company-owned stores--each with attractive retail environments... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Groups and Teams; Brands and Branding; Growth Management; Employee Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Organizational Design; Leadership Style; Customer Relationship Management; Competitive Advantage; Vertical Integration; Food and Beverage Industry