Marketing

Marketing

Overview Faculty Curriculum Seminars & Conferences Awards & Honors Doctoral Students

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

An AI Method to Score Celebrity Visual Potential from Human Faces

By: Flora Feng, Shunyuan Zhang, Xiao Liu, Kannan Srinivasan and Cait Lamberton
  • October 2025 |
  • Article |
  • Journal of Marketing Research (JMR)
It has long been a mantra of marketing practice that, particularly in low-involvement situations, spokespeople should be physically attractive. This paper suggests there is a higher probability of gaining fame and influence (i.e., celebrity potential) than is captured by attractiveness or typicality. The authors identify 11 facial features that may predict celebrity potential by virtue of their purported relationship with charisma and resulting personality trait inferences. Using machine learning methods and a sample of 22,000 faces, the authors calculate the direction and strength of the correlation of each feature with celebrity potential. The model is 95.92% accurate in predicting whether a given face belongs to a celebrity or noncelebrity, and it allows calculating a celebrity visual potential (CVP) metric for any face. Two controlled experiments and two studies using photographs of faces of Instagram and LinkedIn users further validate that the model-generated CVP is consistent with human-rated CVP, showing predictive power above and beyond facial typicality and averageness. This paper challenges prior assumptions about the importance of attractiveness in spokesperson choice, offers a useful additional metric for marketers, and provides novel insights about the relative importance of various inferred personality traits for celebrity potential.
Keywords: Personal Characteristics; AI and Machine Learning; Forecasting and Prediction; Marketing
Related

ODI Grips: A Hands-On Generative AI Prompting Exercise for Social Media Content Creation

By: Iavor I Bojinov, Jacob M. Cook, Yufan (Frank) Lin, Yiwen Chen, In-Hye Kang and Randy Stein
  • September 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Related

ODI Grips: A Hands-On Generative AI Prompting Exercise for Customer Support Chatbots

By: Iavor I Bojinov, Jacob M. Cook, Yufan (Frank) Lin, Yiwen Chen, In-Hye Kang and Randy Stein
  • September 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Related

Clandestina: Going Global with "99% Cuban Design"

By: Eva Ascarza
  • September 2025 |
  • Supplement |
  • Faculty Research
Related

Clandestina: Going Global with '99% Cuban Design'

By: Eva Ascarza, Ayelet Israeli and Mariana Cal
  • September 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
This case follows Clandestina, a Havana-based design brand, as its founders weigh how to expand into the U.S. market without losing their Cuban identity. Readers must evaluate three potential go-to-market approaches—e-commerce, pop-ups, and wholesale partnerships—and consider the operational, financial, and brand implications of each.
Keywords: Generative Ai; Cuba; Globalization; Go To Market Strategy; Design; Entrepreneurship; Marketing Strategy; Product Positioning; E-commerce; Distribution Channels; Strategic Planning; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Latin America; Central America; Cuba; Havana
Related

Bloom Books: Rewriting the Rules of Romance

By: Anita Elberse
  • September 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
In January 2025, Bloom Books, a romance-focused imprint of publishing company Sourcebooks, is making headlines for having landed more than two dozen titles on the bestseller list in the previous year. Launched in 2021 with E L James as its first author, Bloom has since signed more than forty authors, establishing itself as a sought-after partner for authors who have built up a fanbase through self-publishing and who are looking to expand their reach. Bloom’s success had, in turn, helped propel Sourcebooks to become a significant challenger to the ‘Big Five’ publishers that had long dominated the book publishing industry. Could the company, led by founder and chief executive officer Dominique Raccah, continue to attract new authors and was there room to sign them? And as other publishers stepped up their efforts to sign promising self-published authors or adopt other aspects of Bloom’s approach, how could Sourcebooks best protect and build on Bloom’s current success?
Keywords: Book Publishing; Superstars; Digital Technology; Management; General Management; Strategy; Marketing; Entertainment; Media; Talent and Talent Management; Distribution; Arts; Books; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Competitive Strategy; Publishing Industry
Related

The Customer Journey as a Source of Information

By: Nicolas Padilla, Eva Ascarza and Oded Netzer
  • September 2025 |
  • Article |
  • Quantitative Marketing and Economics
We introduce a probabilistic machine learning model that fuses customer click-stream data and purchase data within and across journeys. This approach addresses the critical business need for leveraging first-party data (1PD), particularly in environments with infrequent purchases, which are characterized by minimal or no prior purchase history. Combining data across journeys poses a challenge because customers’ needs might vary across different purchase occasions. Our model accounts for this “context heterogeneity” using a Bayesian non-parametric Pitman-Yor process. By drawing from within-journey, past journeys, and cross-customer behaviors, our model addresses the “cold start problem,” enabling firms to predict customer preferences even without prior interactions. Notably, the model continuously updates the inferred preferences as customers interact with the firm. We apply this model to data from an online travel platform, revealing significant benefits from consolidating 1PD from both current and previous customer journeys. This integration enhances managers’ understanding of customer needs, allowing for more effective personalization of marketing tactics, such as retargeting efforts and product recommendations, to better align with customers’ dynamic preferences.
Keywords: Consumer Behavior; AI and Machine Learning; Customer Focus and Relationships; Mathematical Methods
Related

Parque del Sendero: Repositioning in the Death Care Industry in Chile

By: Jill Avery, Andres Cuneo and Marco Bertini
  • August 2025 |
  • Teaching Note |
  • Faculty Research
Facing changing consumer behavior and shifting industry conditions, Rafael Valdivieso, President of Parque del Sendero, one of largest networks of cemeteries in Chile, considers repositioning his services to appeal to a broader swath of Chilean customers to fuel growth and a more profitable business model. In the post-COVID-19 pandemic era, he realized that consumers’ attitudes and beliefs about death were changing: while sales had hit record highs during the pandemic and had made people more aware of the proximity of death, it also contributed to changing how people perceived death—reshaping long-held traditions and leading to the questioning of its meaning. Valdivieso was clear that he needed to find new avenues for growth. But where would they come from? Should Sendero deepen ties with its existing customers, attract new segments, tap into the newly emerging demand for cremation, or reimagine the funeral experience altogether? As his team analyzes ethnographic data collected from consumers, they debate the meaning of death, how the death care industry caters to people’s needs and desires, and how the tangible aspects of the company’s products delivered value to their customers. Market segmentation data provides insights into possible target markets for the company’s existing services – and suggests new service and product innovations to fuel growth.
Keywords: Brand Positioning; Market Research; Ethnography; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Service Industry; Chile
Related
More Publications

In the News

More Faculty News

HBS Working Knowledge

More Working Knowledge Articles

Harvard Business Publishing

→More Harvard Business Publishing

Seminars & Conferences

→More Seminars & Conferences

Faculty Positions

Harvard Business School seeks candidates in all fields for full time positions. Candidates with outstanding records in PhD or DBA programs are encouraged to apply.
Learn More

Contact Information

Marketing Unit
Harvard Business School
Morgan Hall
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
Marketing@hbs.edu