Publications

October 2015
Case

BandPage (A)

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Colin Maclay and Greta Friar

BandPage CEO James "J" Sider is about to receive results from BandPage's targeted advertising campaign on music streaming service Rhapsody and learn whether BandPage's strategy to improve ad click through rates and generate revenue has succeeded. BandPage, which began... View Details

Keywords: Digital Innovation; Digital Music; Digital Marketing; Mobile Marketing; Technological Innovation; Marketing Communications; Music Entertainment; Mobile Technology; Music Industry

October 2008 (Revised November 2008)
Case

Miles Davis: Kind of Blue

Examines how successful companies can “jump to the next S-curve” through an analogy to the life's work of Miles Davis, especially his paradigm-shattering Kind of Blue album in 1959. Students consider how and why Davis, who had already proven he was tops in his field,... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Creativity; Music Entertainment; Music Industry

June 1988
Case

American Repertory Theatre--1988

American Repertory Theatre (ART) is one of the premier resident theatres in the United States. ART has been successful in following its vision, which is to advance the art of theatre by creating an ideal working environment for artists and promoting very high quality... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Success; Theater Entertainment; Fine Arts Industry; United States

01 Sep 2010
News

A CEO Goes Undercover

had agreed to work at different jobs in my company. But I would not appear as myself, the president and CEO of Herschend Family Entertainment (HFE), one of America’s premier, privately held theme-park operators. Instead, I would be “John... View Details

Keywords: Joel Manby; reality television; social class; Arts, Entertainment; Arts, Entertainment

September 2017 (Revised June 2019)
Case

The ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament

By: Anita Elberse and Saskia Van Rheenen

Should the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament gamble most of its player budget on superstar player Rafael Nadal, even after the event’s previous two editions saw Nadal and Roger Federer pull out at the last moment due to injury, leaving the tournament without any... View Details

Keywords: Superstar; Talent; General Management; Marketing; Sports; Media; Entertainment; Talent and Talent Management; Negotiation; Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

March 2006 (Revised September 2006)
Case

Slots, Tables, and All That Jazz: Managing Customer Profitability at the MGM Grand Hotel

By: Dennis Campbell, Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, Marc Epstein and Joshua Bellin

The MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas had detailed information on loyal gaming customers, but could its information systems also be tailored to nongaming customers? As the nongaming business sectors became increasingly profitable both at the MGM Grand and in Las Vegas... View Details

Keywords: Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Nevada

01 Sep 2003
News

Jonathan Mariner

baseball’s future is fan-friendly. Mariner is part of a Commissioner’s task force charged with studying “how the next generation wants to be entertained and informed about the game.” With fans already taking advantage of Internet feeds to... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; Arts, Entertainment; Arts, Entertainment

01 Dec 2015
News

How Do I Get Your Job?

student-run Entertainment & Media Club, worked as an assistant to John Davis (MBA 1981) of Davis Entertainment and at Creative Artists Agency before coming to HBS. MB: What sparked your interest in the film... View Details

September 1979
Article

An Impossibility Result Concerning n-Person Bargaining Games

By: A. E. Roth

Keywords: Negotiation; Games, Gaming, and Gambling

1978
Article

On Stochastic Games with Stationary Optimal Strategies

By: Truman F. Bewley and Elon Kohlberg

Keywords: Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Strategy

21 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Lessons for Retailers from the Rebirth of Indie Bookstores

bookstore owners are increasingly seeing their competition not as Barnes & Noble, but as Netflix and other entertainment apps that tie people to their couches. “Retailers who succeed are able to create a unique experience that... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Entertainment & Recreation

01 Dec 2022
News

The State of Play

Meow Wolf is headed that way, too. A wildly popular arts and entertainment company with more than 2 million visitors a year, across three locations, Meow Wolf started in 2008 as decidedly offline. The founders were a group of artists who... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Arts, Entertainment; Arts, Entertainment

October 2021
Article

Judgment Aggregation in Creative Production: Evidence from the Movie Industry

By: Hong Luo, Jeffrey T. Macher and Michael Wahlen

We study a novel, low-cost approach to aggregating judgment from a large number of industry experts on ideas that they encounter in their normal course of business. Our context is the movie industry, in which customer appeal is difficult to predict and investment costs... View Details

Keywords: Judgment Aggregation; Quality Uncertainty; Creative Industry; Project Evaluation And Selection; Creativity; Film Entertainment; Judgments; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

Read Now

January 2012 (Revised March 2012)
Background Note

Cahiers du Cinéma and The French Film Industry

By: Mukti Khaire, Elena Corsi and Emilie Billaud

The French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma contributed to strengthening the characterization of film as art in France. The note provides background information on the magazine's history, on the French film industry, and on French film magazines. View Details

Keywords: Film Entertainment; Journals and Magazines; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Publishing Industry; France

Nov 2009
Conference Presentation

The Reach of Online Movie Trailers

By: Anita Elberse

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Film Entertainment

November 1997
Case

Polygram Classics

There has been no growth in classical recorded music sales from 1991 to 1996. Polygram Classics, the market leader, has appointed a new management team to revive growth. All areas of marketing are analyzed as the basis for a new strategy. View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Music Entertainment; Global Strategy; Music Industry

April 2013
Teaching Note

Bluefin Labs: The Acquisition by Twitter

By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

What is the value of Bluefin Labs's social listening data to Twitter? Acquired by Twitter in 2013, Bluefin had built a system that gathered millions of online comments in an effort to develop new metrics for TV programs and brand advertising. With data from Twitter and... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Use and Leverage; Knowledge Acquisition; Marketing; Television Entertainment; Mobile Technology

February 2013
Case

YouTube Channels

By: Sunil Gupta and Dharmishta Rood

In December 2011 YouTube launched a website redesign that made Channels the central focus of the site. This redesign was the company's first foray into a strategy designed to foster long-form user engagement. YouTube invested $100 million in 100 Channels, often created... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Internet and the Web; Entertainment; Growth and Development Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry