Publications

Find at Harvard

November 1992 (Revised April 1995)
Case

Advertising Council Earth Share Campaign: Strategy, Execution, and Final Campaign

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Jayne D. Kramer

In the several years preceding 1992, there had been a dramatic rise in the public's concern for environmental issues. Yet the Roper Organization reported that fewer than one in ten Americans made personal efforts to help solve environmental problems on a regular basis.... View Details

Keywords: Advertising Campaigns; Social Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Research; Environmental Sustainability; Welfare

2015
Working Paper

Selling to a Moving Target: Dynamic Marketing Effects in US Presidential Elections

By: Doug J. Chung and Lingling Zhang

We examine the effects of various political campaign activities on voter preferences in the domain of US Presidential elections. We construct a comprehensive data set that covers the three most recent elections, with detailed records of voter preferences at the... View Details

Keywords: Multi-channel Marketing; Personal Selling; Advertising; Political Campaigns; Dynamic Panel Data; Instrumental Variables; Marketing Communications; Political Elections; Advertising Campaigns; United States

Read Now

2024
Working Paper

Consumer Inertia and Market Power

By: Alexander MacKay and Marc Remer

We study the pricing decisions of firms in the presence of consumer inertia. Inertia, which can arise from habit formation, brand loyalty, and switching costs, generates dynamic pricing incentives. These incentives mediate the impact of competition on market power in... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Inertia; Market Power; Dynamic Competition; Demand Estimation; Consumer Behavior; Markets; Performance; Competition; Price

SSRN

Read Now

September 2005 (Revised April 2006)
Background Note

Market Segmentation, Target Market Selection, and Positioning

By: Miklos Sarvary and Anita Elberse

Elaborates on the prerequisites for designing a successful marketing strategy: market segmentation, target market selection, and product positioning. View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Product Positioning; Markets

2002
Working Paper

Risk Aversion and Apparently Persuasive Advertising

By: Bharat Anand and Ron Shachar

March 1991 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Chevron Corp.: Corporate Image Advertising

By: John A. Quelch

Describes a series of advertising research studies conducted by Chevron to monitor the effectiveness of its corporate advertising. Specific research approaches covered include the McCollum-Spielman and Communications Techniques. The Vals Typology developed by Stanford... View Details

Keywords: Surveys; Multinational Firms and Management; Research; Advertising; Brands and Branding; Energy Industry; United States

27 Oct 2010
News

Advertisers Gamble on World Series

January 2018 (Revised February 2018)
Technical Note

Making Markets

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Scott Duke Kominers

Explains how to identify and capitalize on marketplace design opportunities. Defines markets and marketplaces and describes the basic functions of each. Discusses attributes (e.g., heterogeneity of participants' preferences and asymmetry in available information) that... View Details

Keywords: Marketplaces; Two-Sided Markets; Entrepreneurship; Market Design; Digital Platforms; Marketplace Matching; Market Participation; Market Transactions; Market Entry and Exit; Digital Platforms; Auctions

January 1997 (Revised February 1997)
Case

Marketing a President: Advertising in the 1996 U.S. Presidential Election Campaign

By: David J. Arnold and Robert J. Dolan

Find at Harvard

June 2025
Exercise

Full-Funnel Advertising on TikTok: An Experiment (Solution)

By: Jeremy Yang and Ayelet Israeli

TikTok’s Marketing Science team developed a new type of advertising strategy beyond branding and performance advertising, called full-funnel advertising. Branding ads focused on brand building at the top of the funnel by generating consumer awareness, while performance... View Details

Research Summary

Social Marketing and Cause Marketing

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Rangan is studying the role of marketing in influencing social change by focusing on the adoption of social products and ideas such as family planning, economic development, drug abuse prevention, health care, and recycling. Rangan is attempting to determine how social... View Details

January 2019 (Revised December 2020)
Module Note

Market Attractiveness

By: Ashish Nanda

As a strategist, you must understand and calibrate the environment in which your organization operates. How generous or challenging is the environment? What forces drive the munificence or sparseness of your environment? How are those forces changing, and what is their... View Details

Keywords: Market Attractiveness; Markets; Situation or Environment; Strategy

18 Sep 2008
Working Paper Summaries

The Internalization of Advertising Services: An Inter-Industry Analysis

Keywords: by Sharon Horsky, Steven C. Michael & Alvin J. Silk; Advertising

22 Jan 2020
News

Alcohol Trends and Super Bowl Political Advertising

18 Jul 2023
Interview

Jeffrey Rayport on Product Market Fit, Profit Market Fit and Whiplash, and More

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Doug Levin

This episode of "Lessons from Startup Life" podcast features Jeffrey Rayport, Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. Jeffrey specializes in teaching and researching growth-stage technology ventures and their scalability. Prior to... View Details

Keywords: Scaling And Growth; Start-up; Diversity; Equity; Inclusion; Technology; Business Startups; Product Marketing; Business Growth and Maturation