Marketing

- Featured Publication
Frontiers: Can an AI Algorithm Mitigate Racial Economic Inequality? An Analysis in the Context of Airbnb

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Nitin Mehta, Param Singh and Kannan Srinivasan

Nominated for the 2022 John D. C. Little Award.

They study the effect of Airbnb’s smart-pricing algorithm on the racial disparity in the daily revenue earned by Airbnb hosts. Their empirical strategy exploits Airbnb’s introduction of the algorithm and its voluntary adoption by hosts as a quasi-natural experiment.
- Featured Publication
Frontiers: Can an AI Algorithm Mitigate Racial Economic Inequality? An Analysis in the Context of Airbnb

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Nitin Mehta, Param Singh and Kannan Srinivasan

Nominated for the 2022 John D. C. Little Award.

They study the effect of Airbnb’s smart-pricing algorithm on the racial disparity in the daily revenue earned by Airbnb hosts. Their empirical strategy exploits Airbnb’s introduction of the algorithm and its voluntary adoption by hosts as a quasi-natural experiment.
- Featured Case
Hometown Foods: Changing Price Amid Inflation Case

By: Julian De Freitas, Jeremy Yang, and Das Narayandas

During the early part of the 2021 Covid-19 pandemic, Hometown Foods, a large seller of flour-based products, thrived as consumers hoarded baked goods and took up baking to pass the time and find comfort. Then, amid growing shortages in commodities, a vaccine arrived, businesses began to re-open, and consumers benefited from federal relief aid. This perfect storm of high demand amid stock shortages generated the highest inflation in 13 years.
- Featured Case
Hometown Foods: Changing Price Amid Inflation Case

By: Julian De Freitas, Jeremy Yang, and Das Narayandas

During the early part of the 2021 Covid-19 pandemic, Hometown Foods, a large seller of flour-based products, thrived as consumers hoarded baked goods and took up baking to pass the time and find comfort. Then, amid growing shortages in commodities, a vaccine arrived, businesses began to re-open, and consumers benefited from federal relief aid....
- Award
Winner of the 2016 Case Centre Award in the Marketing category for “The New York Times Paywall” (HBS Case 512-077).

By: Sunil Gupta, Vineet Kumar, Bharat Anand, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee

The Case Centre Awards and Competitions recognize worldwide excellence in case writing and teaching, and are considered the case community's annual 'Oscars'. The winners of this category are the Marketing cases that were used in the largest number of organizations across the globe in the preceding calendar year.
- Award
Winner of the 2016 Case Centre Award in the Marketing category for “The New York Times Paywall” (HBS Case 512-077).

By: Sunil Gupta, Vineet Kumar, Bharat Anand, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee

The Case Centre Awards and Competitions recognize worldwide excellence in case writing and teaching, and are considered the case community's annual 'Oscars'. The winners of this category are the Marketing cases that were used in the largest number of organizations across the globe in the preceding calendar year.
- Article
Minimum Advertised Pricing: Patterns of Violation in Competitive Retail Markets

By: Ayelet Israeli, Eric Anderson, and Anne Coughlan

We study the extent and depth of MAP violations among online retailers and confront managerial wisdom with empirical data.

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- Article
Minimum Advertised Pricing: Patterns of Violation in Competitive Retail Markets

By: Ayelet Israeli, Eric Anderson, and Anne Coughlan

We study the extent and depth of MAP violations among online retailers and confront managerial wisdom with empirical data.

More Information
- Award
Outstanding Case Teacher

By: Anita Elberse

This world-wide Case Centre competition recognizes an excellent practitioner in the case classroom.

More Information
- Award
Outstanding Case Teacher

By: Anita Elberse

This world-wide Case Centre competition recognizes an excellent practitioner in the case classroom.

More Information

About the Unit

Marketing is critical for organic growth of a business and its central role is in creating, communicating, capturing and sustaining value for an organization. Marketing helps a firm in creating value by better understanding the needs of its customers and providing them with innovative products and services. This value is communicated through a variety of channels as well as through the firm's branding strategy. Effective management of customers and pricing allows the firm to capture part of the value it has created. Finally, by building an effective customer-centric organization a firm attempts to sustain value over time.

Our faculty addresses a broad array of topics in all of these areas. Our work attempts to get a better understanding of how consumers use information and make choices and how these choices affect the firm's strategy for new product development, customer relationship management, branding and other marketing efforts. We examine issues related to branding, business marketing, global marketing, distribution channels, pricing, direct and interactive marketing, sales management and return on marketing investment. Some of our faculty specializes in specific industries such as retailing, agribusiness, social enterprise, media, arts and entertainment.

There are several new developments in marketing that offer opportunities for us to make important contributions in the future. The current economic crisis is changing consumers' current and future purchase and consumption patterns. Search engines have changed the way consumers obtain information and make decisions and they are also dramatically changing the advertising industry. Social networks and user generated content have opened a new way for consumers to engage with each other as well as with brands and companies. There are significant changes in the attitudes of consumers and companies about social issues. Consumer preferences and choice of products are increasingly influenced by social factors. Companies are recognizing that there is a large market at the "bottom of the pyramid" and marketing to these consumers may require a new framework. These and related developments provide great opportunities for the marketing faculty to make a significant impact in the future.

Recent Publications

Why People Resist Embracing AI

By: Julian De Freitas

January–February 2025 |
Article |
Harvard Business Review

The success of AI depends not only on its capabilities, which are becoming more advanced each day, but on people’s willingness to harness them. Unfortunately, many people view AI negatively, fearing it will cause job losses, increase the likelihood that their personal data will be misused, and even attack humanity someday. Behind this resistance are perceptions that AI is too opaque, emotionless, rigid, and independent and that interacting with humans is preferable. This article explores each one of those psychological barriers to adoption and describes interventions managers can undertake to counter them and make employees more comfortable with using AI tools.

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Perception

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Assessing the Value of Unifying and De-duplicating Customer Data

By: Elie Ofek and Hema Yoganarasimhan

December 2024 |
Teaching Note |
Faculty Research

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AC Milan

By: Anita Elberse

December 2024 |
Case |
Faculty Research

In April 2024, Giorgio Furlani is nearing the end of his first full season as chief executive officer of Italian soccer club AC Milan. A Harvard Business School Class of 2007 graduate with a finance background, Furlani was appointed by RedBird Capital Partners’ founder and managing partner Gerry Cardinale, a few months after the investment company acquired AC Milan for 1.2 billion. RedBird has big plans for AC Milan, which was traditionally one of Europe’s soccer powerhouses but has largely failed to keep up with its European rivals in the last decade. Working closely with Cardinale, Furlani now will be spearheading RedBird’s plans for AC Milan. Does RedBird have the right strategy to bring AC Milan back to its glory days? How can the club benefit from RedBird’s broader portfolio in sports, media and entertainment? And how can Furlani, in his first management role, best lead the club and manage the relationship with RedBird?

Keywords: Sports; Soccer; Football; Entertainment; Media; Talent Management; Superstars; Marketing; Strategy; General Management

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Why Most Resist AI Companions

By: Julian De Freitas, Zeliha Oğuz-Uğuralp, Ahmet Kaan Uğuralp and Stefano Puntoni

2024 |
Working Paper |
Faculty Research

Chatbots are now able to form emotional relationships with people and alleviate loneliness—a growing public health concern. Behavioral research provides little insight into whether everyday people are likely to use these applications and why. We address this question by focusing on the context of “AI companion” applications, designed to provide people with synthetic interaction partners. Study 1 shows that people believe AI companions are more capable than human companions in advertised respects relevant to relationships (being more available and non-judgmental). Even so, they view them as incapable of realizing the underlying values of relationships, like mutual caring, judging them as not ‘true’ relationships. Study 2 provides further insight into this belief: people believe relationships with AI companions are one-sided (rather than mutual), because they see AI as incapable of understanding and feeling emotion. Study 3 finds that interacting with an AI companion increases acceptance by changing beliefs about the AI’s advertised capabilities, but not about its ability to achieve the true values of relationships, demonstrating the resilience of this belief against intervention. In short, despite the potential loneliness-reducing benefits of AI companions, we uncover fundamental psychological barriers to adoption, suggesting these benefits will not be easily realized.

Keywords: Generative Ai; Chatbots; Artificial Intelligence; Algorithmic Aversion; Lonelines; Technology Adoption; AI and Machine Learning; Well-being; Emotions

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Precision Agriculture at AGCO

By: Rajiv Lal, Alicia Dadlani and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

November 2024 |
Case |
Faculty Research

In 2024, AGCO, a leading agricultural equipment manufacturer, sought to improve its customers net farm income by 20% over five years by becoming a comprehensive one-stop precision agriculture solutions provider and strengthening its dual channel sales approach – retrofit solutions and equipment sales – which was unlike their competitors. AGCO senior vice president Seth Crawford oversaw a series of strategic acquisitions and worked to integrate these companies into a new unified precision agriculture group. He faced significant cultural and organizational challenges in aligning the diverse teams around a common "farmer-first" vision. The case highlights Crawford's efforts to embed a rapid innovation approach and customer-centric mindset across the expanded organization. It demonstrates the importance of proactively aligning organizational culture, adapting operational processes, educating dealer networks, while maintaining an unwavering focus on the end customer, even amidst complex challenges.

Keywords: Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

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Educators

Cheerful Music

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Feng Zhu and Nancy Hua Dai

November 2024 |
Case |
Faculty Research

Established by Snow Jiang in 2019 in Shenzhen, China, Cheerful Music was a record label company that had created many hit songs in China. “Yi Xiao Jiang Hu,” its most famous hit song, gained 50 billion views on TikTok as the background music for the Subject Three dance. In April 2023, Cheerful Music established an office in London, UK. In August 2024, Snow Jiang was considering two important issues: How could the company develop a new hit making model that would enable it to succeed in the UK? And should Cheerful Music double down on using generative AI tools like Suno?

Keywords: Music Entertainment; Global Strategy; Generative Ai; China; UK

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Educators

Grand Seiko — The Sleeping Lion

By: Rohit Deshpandé, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno

November 2024 |
Case |
Faculty Research

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Educators

Preference Externality Estimators: A Comparison of Border Approaches and IVs

By: Xi Ling, Wesley R. Hartmann and Tomomichi Amano

November 2024 |
Article |
Management Science

This paper compares two estimators—the Border Approach and an Instrumental Variable (IV) estimator—using a unified framework where identifying variation arises from “preference externalities,” following the intuition in Waldfogel (2003). We highlight two dimensions in favor of the IV approach. First, an econometric model of the data-generating process reveals that the border approach requires a set of identification assumptions that are not easily satisfied in practice: the ignorance of some payoff-relevant information and conflicting spatial correlation assumptions. The IV approach, in contrast, exhibits greater internal validity because it is derived from the model that generates the data. Second, the border approach suffers from representative issues when the true effect sizes are different between border and off-border regions. We use a common political advertising example to evaluate these estimators and suggest ways to evaluate or limit the above concerns, such as excluding localities that are a large share of the policy making region and evaluating spatial correlations of observables. We find the border approach’s representative issue to be substantial when the ignorance assumption is most plausible and observe that spatial correlations do not reflect those needed in the unobservables for consistency of the estimator. The IV, in contrast, does not exhibit concerns related to local average treatment effects. We also derive the specific conditions when the border approach can reduce bias relative to OLS.

Keywords: Econometrics; Casual Inference; Marketing; Economics; Advertising; Mathematical Methods