Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,719)
- Faculty Publications (488)
- March 13, 2023
- Article
Sales Teams Need to Stop Focusing on the Customer Funnel
Understanding where customers are, how they navigate streams in your market, and how to interact with them in a given stream is now central to crafting a good customer experience, and that has implications. Among other things, companies need to shift from thinking... 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; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; North America
- January 2023
- Article
Calculators for Women: When Identity-Based Appeals Backfire
By: Tami Kim, Kate Barasz, Michael I. Norton and Leslie K. John
From “Chick Beer” to “Dryer Sheets for Men,” identity-based labeling is frequently deployed by marketers to appeal to specific target markets. Yet such identity appeals can backfire, alienating the very consumers they aim to attract. We theorize and empirically... View Details
Keywords: Categorization Threat; Stereotypes; Identity; Labels; Gender; Perception; Consumer Behavior
- 2 Mar 2023 - 4 Mar 2023
- Conference Presentation
Speedy Activists: Firm Response Time to Sociopolitical Events Influences Consumer Behavior
By: Maya Balakrishnan, Julian De Freitas and Alison Wood Brooks
- December 2022 (Revised July 2023)
- Case
Applegate Farms
By: Forest L. Reinhardt, José B. Alvarez and Natalie Kindred
- December 2022
- Case
The Magic of Marks & Spencer Food
By: David E. Bell, Natalie Kindred and Damien McLoughlin
- November 2022
- Background Note
The Future of E-Commerce: Lessons from the Livestream Wars in China
By: Ayelet Israeli, Jeremy Yang and Billy Chan
This note explores the emerging multi-billion dollar commerce trend of livestream commerce. Livestream commerce is the sale of goods or services directly to consumers via live shows on digital platforms (such as social media or e-commerce platforms). It is a form of... View Details
Keywords: Retail; Retailing; E-commerce; E-Commerce Strategy; Ecommerce; Channels Of Distribution; Marketing Communication; Livestream Commerce; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Advertising; Brands and Branding; Media; Consumer Behavior; Social Media; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; China; United States; United Kingdom
- October 2022
- Exercise
Shanty Real Estate: Confidential Information for Homebuyer 1
By: Michael Luca, Jesse M. Shapiro and Nathan Sun
Shanty is a simulation in which students inhabit the role of either a traditional home buyer or an iBuyer, both bidding on the same condo. The traditional home buyer has access to a “comp sheet” of similar properties that have recently sold, and has done a walkthrough.... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
Buy Now, Pay Later Credit: User Characteristics and Effects on Spending Patterns
By: Marco Di Maggio, Justin Katz and Emily Williams
Firms offering "buy now, pay later" (BNPL) point-of-sale installment loans with minimal underwriting and low interest have captured a growing fraction of the market for short-term unsecured consumer credit. We provide a detailed look into the US BNPL market by... View Details
- September 2022 (Revised January 2025)
- Case
The Pokémon Company: Evolving into an Everlasting Brand
By: Tomomichi Amano and Masaki Nomura
Super Bowl 50, the fiftieth annual championship game of the American National Football League played in February 2016, featured 52 commercials, and brands spent more than six million dollars each for a 30-second commercial slot. Surprisingly, the commercial that... View Details
- September 2022 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Navya: Steering toward a Driverless Future
By: Julian De Freitas, Elie Ofek, Shaun Ingledew and Tonia Labruyere
In 2022, Sophie Desormière arrived at French roboshuttle producer Navya, tasked with charting a new course in a challenging sector. The company, which had recently listed on the Paris Stock Exchange, was burning through cash reserves and needed to transform the promise... View Details
- September 2022 (Revised November 2023)
- Case
Wordle
After sourdough bread, countertop chive gardens, and vaccine selfies came a pandemic-era trend that everyone seemed to be in on: one daily chance to guess a five-letter word and crow about your success on social media via little green and yellow squares. From a... View Details
- August 2022
- Background Note
Retail Media Networks
By: Eva Ascarza, Ayelet Israeli and Celine Chammas
In 2022, retail media was one of the fastest growing segments in digital advertising. A retail media network (RMN) allows a retailer to use its assets for advertising. Retailers set up an advertising business by allowing marketers to buy advertising space across their... View Details
Keywords: Advertisers; Advertising Media; Media And Broadcasting Industry; Retail; Retail Analytics; Retail Promotion; Retailing; Ecommerce; E-Commerce Strategy; E-commerce; Marketing Communication; Targeting; Targeted Advertising; Targeted Marketing; Advertising; Marketing; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Media; Marketing Channels; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States
- 2022
- Working Paper
Consumer Demand with Social Influences: Evidence from an E-Commerce Platform
By: El Hadi Caoui, Chiara Farronato, John J. Horton and Robert Schultz
For some kinds of goods, rarity itself is valued. "Fashionable'" goods are demanded in part because they are unique. In this paper, we explore the economics of rare goods using auctions of limited-edition shoes held by an e-commerce platform. We model endogenous entry... View Details
- 2022
- Book
Purpose + Profit: How Business Can Lift Up the World
By: George Serafeim
The roadmap and best practices to reap the enormous value that can emerge when your business prioritizes social and environmental goals—such as climate change, diversity and inclusion, and sustainability—right alongside the pursuit of profit.
We not only... View Details
We not only... View Details
- August 2022
- Article
The Bulletproof Glass Effect: Unintended Consequences of Privacy Notices
By: Aaron R. Brough, David A. Norton, Shannon L. Sciarappa and Leslie K. John
Drawing from a content analysis of publicly traded companies’ privacy notices, a survey of managers, a field study, and five online experiments, this research investigates how consumers respond to privacy notices. A privacy notice, by placing legally enforceable limits... View Details
- July 2022
- Teaching Note
Arçelik (A), (B): From a Dealer Network to an Omnichannel Experience
By: Ayelet Israeli, Fares Khrais and Menna Hassan
Arçelik Turkey, the country’s market leader in household appliances, was at an omnichannel crossroads in January 2020. Arçelik was a B2B player utilizing a dealership network with an umbrella of brands and had one of the largest brick-and-mortar store networks in... View Details
Keywords: Digital Marketing; Bricks And Mortar; Franchise Management; Franchising; Dealer Network; Dealers; B2B; B2B2C; Tradition; Culture Change; Cultural Adaptation; Omnichannel; Omnichannel Retail; Omni-channel; Omnichannel Retailing; Sales Channels; Sales Channel Development; Channel Management; Channels Of Distribution; Marketplace; Platforms; Collaboration; Online Channel; Online Data; Online Sales; Online Shopping; Online; Retail; Retailing; Disruption; Transformation; Franchise Ownership; Change Management; Partners and Partnerships; Consumer Behavior; Sales; Internet and the Web; Marketing Strategy; Conflict and Resolution; Conflict Management; Organizational Culture; Distribution Channels; Digital Transformation; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Turkey
- 2022
- Working Paper
Product2Vec: Leveraging Representation Learning to Model Consumer Product Choice in Large Assortments
By: Fanglin Chen, Xiao Liu, Davide Proserpio and Isamar Troncoso
We propose a method, Product2Vec, based on representation learning, that can automatically learn latent product attributes that drive consumer choices, to study product-level competition when the number of products is large. We demonstrate Product2Vec’s... View Details
- June 2022 (Revised August 2022)
- Case
Dollar Tree: Breaking the Buck
By: Jill Avery and Marco Bertini
For thirty-five years, Dollar Tree, a discount retail chain selling general merchandise, had held its fixed price point steady, pricing all of its household items, food, stationery, books, seasonal items, gifts, toys, and clothing that made up its diverse and... View Details
- May 2022
- Case
Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?
By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger
Thomas de Dreux-Brézé, the Head of Strategy and Project Management at Rawbank Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was perplexed as he reviewed annual adoption rates for the bank’s launch of Illico Cash 2.0. As the bank’s mobile money app, Illico Cash... View Details
Keywords: Fintech; Inflation; Deflation; Rural; Urban; Emerging Market; Mobile Technology; Finance; Money; Inflation and Deflation; Business Growth and Maturation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Demographics; Developing Countries and Economies; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Behavioral Finance; Currency; Banks and Banking; Commercial Banking; Financial Strategy; Rural Scope; Urban Scope; Innovation Strategy; Emerging Markets; Network Effects; Consumer Behavior; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technology Adoption; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Congo, Democratic Republic of the