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.

More Information
- 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

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

Citation

Educators

Grand Seiko — The Sleeping Lion

By: Rohit Deshpandé, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno

November 2024 |
Case |
Faculty Research

Citation

Educators

Kering Eyewear

By: Rohit Deshpandé, Dante Roscini and Elena Corsi

October 2024 |
Case |
Faculty Research

In June 2024, Roberto Vedovotto, CEO of Kering Eyewear, prepared to discuss the future of the recently acquired brands LINDBERG, a Danish optical eyewear brand, and Maui Jim, an American sunglasses brand. Vedovotto founded Kering Eyewear in 2014, convincing François-Henri Pinault to internalize eyewear production for Kering’s luxury brands like Gucci and Saint Laurent. Kering could in this way control design, quality, and distribution of its eyewear products. In the following years, following an agreement with the luxury group Richemont, which became a co-owner, Kering Eyewear also included four Richemont eyewear brands, among which the high-end one Cartier. By 2024, Kering Eyewear was the second-largest eyewear manufacturer, generating 1.5 billion in revenue. However, slowing growth in China’s luxury market was expected to impact sunglasses sales, which accounted for 70% of its business. Vedovotto now faced the challenge of managing and growing a portfolio of brands, which included house brands and eyewear-only brands.

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Italy; Europe

Citation

Educators

Allurion: Competing in the Age of GLP-1

By: Satish Tadikonda, Rajiv Lal, David Lane and Sarah Sasso

October 2024 |
Case |
Faculty Research

Shantanu Gaur had built Allurion into a formidable business internationally, providing obesity patients with a less invasive option long before GLP-1 drugs became the latest craze. Selling Allurion's medical device across 60+ countries, he awaited FDA approval to bring his technology to patients in the US. As time ticked by, GLP-1 drugs came like a tsunami, seemingly conquering the weight-loss market. With approval seemingly coming soon, Gaur had to decide what his strategy should be in continuing to grow Allurion, dealing with the challenges of the GLP-1 craze, and preparing for long term success.

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Global Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Health Industry; United States; United Kingdom; France; India; Brazil; Middle East

Citation

Educators

AI and Brand Management: Promises and Perils

By: Julian De Freitas and Elie Ofek

October 2024 |
Case |
Faculty Research

Citation

Educators

Lessons from an App Update at Replika AI: Identity Discontinuity in Human-AI Relationships

By: Julian De Freitas, Noah Castelo, Ahmet Uğuralp and Zeliha Uğuralp

2024 |
Working Paper |
Faculty Research

Can consumers form deep emotional bonds with AI and be vested in AI identities over time? We leverage a natural app-update event at Replika AI, a popular US-based AI companion, to shed light on these questions. We find that customers feel closer to their AI companion than even their best human friend. However, after the app removed its erotic role play (ERP) feature, preventing intimate interactions between consumers and chatbots that were previously possible, this event triggered perceptions in customers that their AI companion’s identity had discontinued. This in turn predicted negative consumer welfare and marketing outcomes related to loss, including mourning the loss, and devaluing the ‘new’ AI relative to the ‘original’. Experimental evidence confirms these findings. In short, we quantify the closeness of the relationship with AI companions, measure well-being and marketing impacts of perceived discontinuity in the AI’s identity, show causal evidence that app updates can result in perceptions of the AI’s identity discontinuity, and determine what types of app changes are most likely to elicit these impressions. Our results illustrate the benefits and risks to both consumers and firms associated with the growing prevalence of AI companions.

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Welfare; Loss; Well-being; Identity; Perception; Relationships

Citation

Read Now

Canary Categories

By: Eric Anderson, Chaoqun Chen, Ayelet Israeli and Duncan Simester

October 2024 |
Article |
Journal of Marketing Research (JMR)

Past customer spending in a category is generally a positive signal of future customer spending. We show that there exist “canary categories” for which the reverse is true. Purchases in these categories are a signal that customers are less likely to return to that retailer. We demonstrate the robustness of this finding at two retailers. We propose an explanation for the existence of canary categories and then develop a stylized model that illustrates four contributing factors: the probability a customer finds their favorite brand, customers’ willingness to substitute brands, the cost and attractiveness of visiting other stores, and expectations about future brand availability. We use both field data and experiments to investigate these factors. The findings suggest that canary categories exist (at least in part) because store assortments are not completely adjusted to local preferences. An implication is that canary categories are endogenous to each retailer; the same category may be a canary category at one retailer and a destination category at a competing retailer.