Publications

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09 Jun 2015
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Social Media

Using social media to advance your marketing is a potentially powerful and low-cost tool. But the risk is potentially powerful, too—allowing consumers to co-create your brand is enough to induce night sweats in any marketer. From our... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Advertising

16 Dec 2015
Research & Ideas

Why ‘Sleep on It’ No Longer Sounds Like Great Advice

On It? The Effects of Overnight Sleep on Subjective Preference-Based Choice, forthcoming in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. Sleeping on a decision may not lead to a happy outcome. ©iStock/vadimguzhva In order to test their... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Retail

02 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

Digital Initiative Summit: Big Messages, Small Screens, Many Choices

is, if the app is the way we interact with the brands, how do you get me to be one of your favorite apps?" Gupta said that a successful app must provide obvious, unique value—and meet consumers where they live. As an example, he cited the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Advertising

September 2022 (Revised November 2023)
Case

Wordle

By: Karen G. Mills, Christina Wallace, Ebehi Iyoha, Gabriella Elanbeck and Morgane Herculano

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

Keywords: Games; Innovation; General Management; Mergers and Acquisitions; Trends; Entrepreneurship; Bids and Bidding; Consumer Behavior; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Technology Industry

October 2003 (Revised February 2004)
Case

Cape Wind

By: John T. Gourville and Kerry Herman

Cape Wind has proposed placing a 170-tower wind farm, with each tower more than 400-feet tall, in Nantucket Sound. Not surprisingly, public reaction is mixed. Some view the wind farm as clean, renewable energy. Others view it as an eyesore and a desecration of a valued... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Renewable Energy; Consumer Behavior; Problems and Challenges; Natural Environment; Behavior; United States

October 1971 (Revised June 1985)
Case

Fisher-Price Toys, Inc.

Reviews new product introduction and pricing decisions for a riding toy designed for preschool children. Designed to provide background in buyer behavior, market analysis, and corporate strategy. View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Product Launch; Consumer Products Industry

February 2021 (Revised March 2021)
Case

AptDeco: Circular Economy Furniture Marketplace

By: Ayelet Israeli and Jamie Merkrebs

AptDeco, a used furniture marketplace, was growing rapidly in the tri-state area. The co-founders were confident that the business model, financial position, and unit economics positioned AptDeco for scaling in the massive $120 billion furniture market, despite its... View Details

September 2006 (Revised March 2007)
Case

QuickBase

By: Clayton M. Christensen and Mark Szigety

Describes the challenge that engineers and marketing executives at Intuit Corp. faced when finding markets and applications for their QuickBase product. The breakthrough occurred when they abandoned their conventional modes of market segmentation, and instead strove to... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Engineering; Product Marketing; Segmentation; Jobs and Positions; Consumer Behavior; Information Technology Industry

19 Dec 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

New Year, New Habits

Economists Can Make You a Healthier Consumer and Smarter Marketer What’s behind the decisions we make, especially when it comes to eating well and losing weight? Can companies motivate employees to make healthier decisions? Unethical... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

28 Jan 2013
Research & Ideas

Helping Yelp Create More Accurate Reviews

Each week, millions of consumers visit crowd-sourced review websites in search of recommendations for everything from taco stands to car dealers. Among the influential leaders in the field is Yelp.com, which in the third quarter of 2012... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Food & Beverage

September–October 2013
Article

The Dynamic Advertising Effect of Collegiate Athletics

By: Doug J. Chung

I measure the spillover effect of intercollegiate athletics on the quantity and quality of applicants to institutions of higher education in the United States, popularly known as the "Flutie Effect." I treat athletic success as a stock of goodwill that decays over... View Details

Keywords: Choice Modeling; Entertainment Marketing; Heterogeneity; Panel Data; Structural Modeling; Rights; Analytics and Data Science; Higher Education; Ethics; Consumer Behavior; Advertising; Sports; Advertising Industry; Education Industry

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08 Sep 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

Capitalism Works Better When I Can See What You're Doing

to work in your favor for that next job. And privacy disclosure notices on websites, rather than convincing consumers that their private data is well protected, can make them less likely to make a purchase. Here is recent research on the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2016
Working Paper

The Impact of Supplier Inventory Service Level on Retailer Demand

By: Nathan Craig, Nicole DeHoratius and Ananth Raman

To set inventory service levels, suppliers must understand how changes in inventory service level affect demand. We build on prior research, which uses analytical models and laboratory experiments to study the impact of a supplier's service level on demand from... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Forecasting and Prediction; Learning; Consumer Behavior; Service Delivery; Performance Expectations; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Service Industry

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November 2009 (Revised March 2011)
Case

New York Life and Immediate Annuities

By: Julio J. Rotemberg and John T. Gourville

By positioning Immediate Annuities as "guaranteed lifetime income," New York Life has built itself a $1.4 billion per year business by 2009. However, to make Immediate Annuities a mainstream financial product for retirees, New York Life must understand why many... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Personal Finance; Product Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Retirement; Salesforce Management; Insurance Industry

March 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Neck & Neck: Leveraging the Club Neck Information

Commercial Director Prado wonders how to leverage the loyalty card information to prepare the fall 2008 budget. The case discusses the value of subjective and objective information for profit-planning purposes. Spanish children's apparel retailer Neck & Neck uses... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Profit; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Retail Industry

27 Jul 2009
Research & Ideas

Social Network Marketing: What Works?

the research with HBS Working Knowledge. Sarah Jane Gilbert: Your research attempted to answer this question: Do friends within a social network influence online buying behaviors of others in the group? What did you discover? Sunil Gupta:... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Advertising; Publishing; Retail

2024
Working Paper

Moral Incoherence During Category Emergence: The Contentious Case of Connected Toys

By: Ryann Noe

Through a longitudinal study of the emergence of connected toys – physical toys that interact with digital devices – I build theory about moral incoherence: when competing views about the moral worth of a category persist over time. During the course of their... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Technology Adoption; Moral Sensibility; Market Entry and Exit; Consumer Behavior

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August 10, 2019
Editorial

E-Commerce Promised the World. Are We Happy With Our Purchase?

By: Louis Hyman and Kwelina Thompson

It has been 25 years since the first online transaction, but we are still struggling with the balance between convenience and security. View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Technology Adoption; E-commerce; Consumer Behavior; Internet and the Web

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December 2021
Case

Pairwise

By: José B. Alvarez and Annelena Lobb

Pairwise discusses the strategic approach of a company aiming to “snackify” fruits and vegetables by using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing to create nutritious, bite-sized foods that could compete with packaged snacks. The company is confronting a number of challenges,... View Details

Keywords: Gene Editing; GMO; Food; Nutrition; Competition; Market Entry and Exit; Public Opinion; Competitive Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Food and Beverage Industry