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First Look at New Research, March 7

Sean Silverthorne

Digitizing tradition and decorum at Wimbledon ... Elon Musk on the road and in space ... The problem with growth: organizational scaling.

Off and Running: Professors Comment on Olympics

Re: Multiple Faculty

The most difficult challenge at The Olympics is the behind-the-scenes efforts to actually get them up and running. Is it worth it? HBS professors Stephen A. Greyser, John D. Macomber, and John T. Gourville offer insights into the business behind the games. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Five Ways to Make Your Company More Innovative

by Garry Emmons, Julia Hanna & Roger Thompson

How do you create a company that unleashes and capitalizes on innovation? HBS faculty experts in culture, customers, creativity, marketing, and the DNA of innovators offer up ideas. From HBS Alumni Bulletin. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

How to Brand a Next-Generation Product

by Carmen Nobel

Upgrades to existing product lines make up a huge part of corporate research and development activity, and with every upgrade comes the decision of how to brand it. Harvard Business School marketing professors John T. Gourville and Elie Ofek teamed up with London Business School's Marco Bertini to suss out the best practices for naming next-generation products. Key concepts include: Companies often take one of two tacks in naming a next-generation product—the sequential naming approach or the complete name change approach. Experimental research showed that each naming approach affects customer expectations. With a name change, research participants expected features that were distinctly different or new. With a name continuation, they just expected improved performance on existing features. Companies must assess risk versus reward when branding a product upgrade, weighing the excitement generated by a new name against the danger of scaring away customers who worry that new features pose the threat of new glitches and a steep learning curve. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Extremeness Seeking: When and Why Consumers Prefer the Extremes

by John T. Gourville & Dilip Soman

When can variety be helpful and when can it be harmful? Conventional wisdom suggests that a product provider enhances the overall attractiveness of a set of options by adding more alternatives to the mix. By contrast, Gourville and Soman’s research indicates that in certain, predictable cases, adding more alternatives to an assortment leads consumers to choose either the most basic or the most "fully loaded" product or service, be it a camera, car, cable TV service, laptop, or vacation package in Italy. Key concepts include: As the variety of choices available to consumers grows in size and those choices vary in their distinct features, consumers often prefer the options at either extreme—either the basic model or the fully loaded model. While getting some consumers to trade up to the "fully loaded" model may seem desirable for a seller, it is not clear that the overall effect of such polarization will be positive. Rather than encourage consumers to choose a basic or fully loaded product, product providers may wish to turn an uncertain customer into a certain customer by offering an alternative that best meets the customer's needs. Understanding how additional choices have an impact on demand for specific models in a product portfolio is essential for efficient inventory and product line management. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

When Product Variety Backfires

by Poping Lin

Consumers like choice—but not too much of it. Presented with too many options, buyers may run to a competitor, says professor John Gourville. Here's what new research says about "overchoice." Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

How to Avoid a Price Increase

by Manda Salls

Consumers hate price increases, but what is a company to do when material costs skyrocket? One answer: Think small. Professor John Gourville considers the alternative in this Q&A. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Use the Psychology of Pricing To Keep Customers Returning

by Manda Mahoney

When to charge for a product or service can be more important than how much to charge, says Harvard Business School professor John Gourville. If you want to build long-term loyalty with customers, you better understand the difference. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.