Marketing: Advertising

38 Results

 

Solving the Search vs. Display Advertising Quandary

Internet advertising was supposed to make it easier for marketers to measure the impact of their ad buys. But a basic question remains: Do search ads or do display ads create more customers on the web? Research by Professor Sunil Gupta. Open for comment; 7 Comments posted.

Do Display Ads Influence Search? Attribution and Dynamics in Online Advertising

Pavel Kireyev, Koen Pauwels, and Sunil Gupta

The introduction of online metrics such as click through rate (CTR) and cost per acquisition (CPA) by Google and other online advertisers has made it easy for marketing managers to justify their online ad spending in comparison to the budgets used for television and other media. However, these metrics suffer from two fundamental problems: (a) they do not account for attribution, since they give credit to the last click and ignore the impact of other ad formats that may have helped a consumer move down the conversion funnel, and (b) they ignore the dynamics, since they only account for the immediate impact of ads. As firms spend more of their ad dollars on online search and display, managers and researchers alike recognize a need for more careful attribution adjustment that takes into account the journey consumers follow before conversion as well as account for the impact of ads over time. In this paper, the authors use time series models to infer the interaction between search and display ads and also capture their impact over time. Examining data from a bank that used online advertising to acquire new customers for its checking account, the authors found that display ads have a significant impact on search applications, as well as clicks. The majority of this spillover was not instant, but took effect only after two weeks. On the other hand, search advertising did not lead to an increase in display applications. However, search ads showed significant dynamic effects on search applications that made them very cost effective in the long run. Read More

Creating the Perfect Super Bowl Ad

Professor Thales S. Teixeira says TV viewers lose purchasing interest when ads get too caught up in entertainment. His advice for the perfect pitch: tie together a good story and a compelling brand. Open for comment; 3 Comments posted.

Advertising: It’s Not ‘Mad Men’ Anymore

Alvin J. Silk

Three major forces have changed advertising since Don Draper last prowled the corridors of Sterling Cooper. Professor Emeritus Alvin J. Silk's decades of research finds an industry that, while evolving in fundamental ways, is healthy and creative. Open for comment; 4 Comments posted.

Creating Online Ads We Want to Watch

The mere fact that an online video advertisement reaches a viewer's computer screen does not guarantee that the ad actually reaches the viewer. New experimental research by Thales S. Teixeira looks at how advertisers can effectively capture and keep viewers' attention by evoking certain emotional responses. Open for comment; 6 Comments posted.

To Groupon or Not to Groupon: The Profitability of Deep Discounts

Benjamin Edelman, Sonia Jaffe, and and Scott Duke Kominers

For consumers, online discount vouchers (like those offered by Groupon.com) have obvious appeal: discounts as large as 90 percent. But for retailers offering the deals through the site, does the publicity compensate for the deep hit to profit margins? This paper sets out to help small businesses decide whether it makes sense to offer discount vouchers. Research was conducted by Harvard Business School professor Ben Edelman, Business Economics PhD candidate Scott Duke Kominers, and by Sonia Jaffe of the Harvard University Department of Economics. Read More

Is Groupon Good for Retailers?

For retailers offering deals through the wildly popular online start-up Groupon, does the one-day publicity compensate for the deep hit to profit margins? A new working paper, "To Groupon or Not to Groupon," sets out to help small businesses decide. Harvard Business School professor Benjamin G. Edelman discusses the paper's findings. Closed for comment; 59 Comments posted.

The Unbundling of Advertising Agency Services: An Economic Analysis

Mohammad Arzaghi, Ernst R. Berndt, James C. Davis, and Alvin J. Silk

From 1982 through 2007, U.S. advertising agencies increasingly "unbundled," or disaggregated, services such as copywriting and media placement, moving away from the industry's traditional one-stop-shop model. At the same time, agencies began to charge clients based on a fee-for-service system, rather than collecting commissions on media placements. The researchers analyze this trend and consider how it may be interpreted by the economic theory of bundling. Read More

Improving Brand Recognition in TV Ads

Advertisers pay millions of dollars to air TV ads that are subsequently ignored by a third of viewers. New research by HBS professor Thales S. Teixeira offers a simple, inexpensive solution for marketers to retain brand recognition. Read More

Quantifying the Economic Impact of the Internet

Businesses around the advertising-supported Internet have incredible multiplier effects throughout the economy and society. Professor John Quelch starts to put some numbers on the impact. Read More

Do Friends Influence Purchases in a Social Network?

Raghuram Iyengar, Sangman Han, and Sunil Gupta

In spite of the cultural and social revolution in the rise of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace (and in South Korea, Cyworld), the business viability of these sites remains in question. While many sites are attempting to follow Google and generate revenues from advertising, will advertising be effective? If friends influence the purchases of a user in a social network, it could potentially be a significant source of revenue for the sites and their corporate sponsors. Using a unique data set from Cyworld, this study empirically assesses if friends indeed influence purchases. The answer: It depends. Findings are relevant for social networking sites and large advertisers. Read More

CPC/CPA Hybrid Bidding in a Second Price Auction

Benjamin Edelman and Hoan Soo Lee

How should online advertisers measure and pay for advertising deliveries? Options include pay per impression (CPM), per click (CPC), per action (CPA), or in proportion of the dollar value of merchandise sold. The advertisers who choose to pay one way may differ, systematically, from those who choose to pay in some other way. HBS professor Benjamin Edelman and doctoral student Hoan Soo Lee present the problem in an algebraic model in anticipation of measurement to follow in future work. Read More

Concentration Levels in the U.S. Advertising and Marketing Services Industry: Myth vs. Reality

Alvin J. Silk and Charles King III

How concentrated is the U.S. advertising and marketing services industry? Over the past several decades, the effects of deregulation, globalization, and technological innovation have reshaped the advertising and marketing services industry as they worked their way through the economy. Estimates from the existing literature are typically based on data from trade sources and present a picture that emphasizes rising concentration over time and domination by a handful of holding companies. These estimates are suspect as they suffer from a number of conceptual and measurement limitations. This paper analyzes changes in concentration levels in the U.S. advertising and marketing services industry, using data that have been largely ignored in past discussions of the economic organization of the industry. Read More

Should You Bring Advertising Expertise In-House?

Alvin J. Silk

Advertising agencies have traditionally offered services to firms that couldn't afford or didn't find value in having that expertise in-house. But a recent study indicates more firms than previously thought are developing internal advertising units. Q&A with HBS professor emeritus Alvin J. Silk. Read More

Going Negative in Political Advertising

Companies rarely run negative ads against competitors, but political candidates often do. Why the difference? It's a byproduct of our political system's winner-take-all approach, says professor John Quelch. Read More

Connecting with Consumers Using Deep Metaphors

Consumer needs and desires are not entirely mysterious. In fact, marketers of successful brands regularly draw on a rich assortment of insights excavated from research into basic frames or orientations we have toward the world around us, according to HBS professor emeritus Gerald Zaltman and Lindsay Zaltman, authors of Marketing Metaphoria. Here's a Q&A and book excerpt. Read More

Optimal Deterrence when Judgment-Proof Agents Are Paid In Arrears—With an Application to Online Advertising Fraud

Benjamin G. Edelman

It is commonplace for large entities (both advertisers and ad networks) to enter into relationships with numerous small agents such as Web sites, blogs, search syndicators, and other marketing partners. For example, one well-known affiliate network boasts more than a million affiliates promoting offers from the network's hundreds of merchants, and Google contracts with numerous independent Web sites to show Google's "AdSense" ads. Although these advertising agents are often small, they can take advantage of technology to claim payments they have not earned. In practice, the legal system cannot offer meaningful redress to an aggrieved advertiser or ad network. This paper argues that delayed payment offers a more expedient alternative—a sensible stopgap strategy for use when primary enforcement systems prove inadequate. Read More

Reducing Risk with Online Advertising

Benjamin G. Edelman

Fraud is fairly easy in the world of online advertising, particularly for determined adversaries. In this Q&A, HBS professor Ben Edelman, who designs electronic markets, explains how contract terms can be managed to both reduce advertisers' risks of being defrauded and reward good suppliers. "The idea here is to make everyone better off, except of course the fraudsters," Edelman says. Read More

Broadband: Remaking the Advertising Industry

Stephen P. Bradley

Evolving from the Marlboro Man in the 1960s to the Subservient Chicken in a recent Web campaign, advertising is undergoing a radical transformation. Harvard Business School professor Stephen P. Bradley, who is cowriting a book on how broadband technologies are remaking many industries, discusses how advertising is responding to the challenges. Read More

Is MySpace.com Your Space?

John A. Deighton

Social networking sites such as MySpace.com have demographics to die for, but PR problems with parents, police, and policymakers. Are they safe for advertisers? A Q&A with Professor John Deighton. Read More

The Box Office Power of Stars

Anita Elberse

Just how much do movie stars contribute to box office success? HBS professor Anita Elberse researched the notion of "star power" to better understand how A-list players contribute to Hollywood's bottom line. Read More

Advertising and Expectations: The Effectiveness of Pre-Release Advertising for Motion Pictures

Anita Elberse and Bharat N. Anand

This research examines how advertising affects market-wide sales expectations for pre-release movies. The authors use data on advertising expenditures and an online stock market simulation, The Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX), to track more than 280 movies released between 2001 and 2003. Their findings show that advertising affects the updating of market-wide expectations prior to release, and that this effect is stronger the higher the product quality. Read More

Measuring Consumer and Competitive Impact with Elasticity Decompositions

Thomas J. Steenburgh

Do marketing actions expand the market or steal business from rival firms? One research method suggests that all of the demand created by an incremental advertising investment would be generated by market expansion; another suggests that the same increase would be stolen from rival firms. Steenburgh explains why these seemingly contradictory results actually are complementary and provide a more comprehensive understanding of the investment's impact. Read More

The Motion Picture Industry: Critical Issues in Practice, Current Research & New Research Directions

Jehoshua Eliashberg, Anita Elberse, and Mark A. A. M. Leenders

This paper reviews research and trends in three key areas of movie making: production, distribution, and exhibition. In the production process, the authors recommend risk management and portfolio management for studios, and explore talent compensation issues. Distribution trends show that box-office performance will increasingly depend on a small number of blockbusters, advertising spending will rise (but will cross different types of media), and the timing of releases (and DVDs) will become a bigger issue. As for exhibiting movies, trends show that more sophisticated exhibitors will emerge, contractual changes between distributor and exhibitors will change, and strategies for tickets prices may be reevaluated. Read More

Rethinking Marketing’s Conventional Wisdom

Youngme Moon

Making advertising hard to find is just one way companies are rewriting conventional marketing strategies, says Harvard Business School professor Youngme Moon. Read More

Bypass Marketing: Are Docs Influenced?

Alvin J. Silk

Although they are prescription drugs, Viagra, Prozac, Allegra and many others are pitched directly to consumers. Do physicians take notice? HBS professor Alvin Silk and Harvard's Joel Weissman discuss a recent study. Read More

How Consumers Value Global Brands

What do consumers expect of global brands? Does it hurt to be an American brand? This Harvard Business Review excerpt co-written by HBS professor John A. Quelch identifies the three characteristics consumers look for to make purchase decisions. Read More

Marketing Wine to the World

Michael Roberto

From consolidation to the growing clout of mass retailers, structural changes have hit the wine industry. Professor Michael Roberto discusses the move from elitism to mainstream appeal. Read More

Why Have Marketers Ignored America’s Man-of-Action Hero?

John A. Quelch

The man-of-action hero has been the central myth in American culture for twenty years. So why have only Budweiser and Nike tapped into this story? Professor Douglas B. Holt explains. Read More

Is This a Golden Era for Marketing Productivity?

This should be a good time to be a marketer and a consumer as well, suggests Jim Heskett. More focused sales, less waste in advertising, an industry in tune with its best customers. Is this your experience? Do you think marketing has hit its stride? Can it? Closed for comment; 9 Comments posted.

Will American Brands Be a Casualty of War?

John A. Quelch

Does your U.S. brand play well overseas? If so, heed the words of Harvard Business School professor John Quelch: A swelling anti-American tide could wash away the international popularity of U.S. brands. Read More

The Subconscious Mind of the Consumer (And How To Reach It)

Gerald Zaltman

Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman says that 95 percent of our purchase decision making takes place in the subconscious mind. But how does a marketer reach the subconscious? Zaltman explains in this Q&A. Read More

Building ’Brandtopias’—How Top Brands Tap into Society

What are "identity brands" and why are they so powerful? HBS professor Douglas Holt explains how some top brands—including soft drink Mountain Dew—deliver imaginative stories that are perfectly attuned to society's deep desires. Read More

How a Juicy Brand Came Back to Life

"Some brands just want to have fun, and from birth Snapple was one of them," says HBS professor John Deighton. As he explains in this excerpt from Harvard Business Review, the odyssey of the fun-loving beverage contains smart lessons for managers on branding and company culture. Read More

E-Commerce Unplugged

Clearly "mobile commerce"—shopping with wireless devices—is a powerful new way to grab consumers. But don't think of this as business as usual, says HBS professor Nitin Nohria and collaborator Marty Leestma. Read More

Cyber-Marketing: Scouting the Digital Communications Frontier

Marketers have a whole new game to learn in the digital revolution, and the greatest benefit, says HBS Professor John A. Deighton, will go to those who comprehend and embrace the new medium most quickly. But, adds Deighton, that's unlikely to be a simple task. Read More

Getting the Message: How the Internet is Changing Advertising

In the six years since the first banner ad appeared on the World Wide Web, advertising has been transformed. With powerful technologies that can track responses and target customers, the Internet offers marketers a new world of opportunities. HBS Professors Alvin J. Silk and John A. Deighton and others offer perspectives, in this article from the HBS Bulletin, on advertising in the age of the Web. Read More

Media Metamorphosis: Advertising in the Technology Age

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