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New research on marketing from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including advertising, crisis communications, social media, digital marketing techniques and strategy.
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The Life of Luxury and How to Sell It

by Sean Silverthorne

Luxury is its own market, but who shops there? Who sells there? What's the best strategy? Researchers at Harvard Business School examine consumerism at the top of the curve. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Will Startup Fishbowl Become the Social Media App for Your Industry?

Re: Leslie K. John

Fishbowl's founders have built a social media platform allowing professionals to connect anonymously and with candor within their companies and industries. Can they grow? Leslie John discusses her case study on the boundaries of social media and personal privacy. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Mitigating the Negative Effects of Customer Anxiety Through Access to Human Contact

by Michelle A. Shell and Ryan W. Buell

Firms increasingly deploy self-service technologies (SSTs) to manage customer interfaces that are inherently stressful. For example, patients may be asked to use kiosks to check themselves into hospitals. This study finds that customer anxiety during SST transactions can reduce customers’ trust in the service provider. Operational design choices may help.

The Ferrari Way

by Michael Blanding

Secretive sports car maker Ferrari opens up to Stefan Thomke about how it has bucked industry trends to achieve success. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

How Helena Rubinstein Used Tall Tales to Turn Cosmetics into a Luxury Brand

Re: Geoffrey G. Jones

Professor Geoff Jones examines the career of Helena Rubinstein, one of the trailblazing female entrepreneurs of the 20th century. Using guile, brilliant branding, and more than a few falsehoods, Rubinstein lifted cosmetics from an accessory item for prostitutes to a great luxury product during the Great Depression. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Branding Sells Cereal, Handbags, and Vacations. Can It Sell a Country?

by Danielle Kost

Countries such as Israel now realize they need to engage in public diplomacy as well as foreign diplomacy, and in place branding, not just political advocacy, says Elie Ofek. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Calculators for Women: When Identity Appeals Provoke Backlash

by Tami Kim, Kate Barasz, Leslie John, and Michael Norton

With calculators targeted to women and laundry products aimed at men, examples of identity-based labeling—or “identity appeals”—abound in advertising and marketing. Five studies show when and why such identity appeals backfire. Identity appeals may fail equally whether they evoke negative or just milder stereotypes.

The Impacts of Increasing Search Frictions on Online Shopping Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment

by Donald Ngwe, Kris J. Ferreira, and Thales Teixeira

This paper challenges the logic that making it easier for consumers to search across a wide assortment of products is the best strategy for online retailers. Experiments show that adding extra search costs to find discounted items can improve gross margins and sales by increasing the number of items inspected and serving as a self-selecting price discrimination mechanism among customers.

What’s the Antidote to Surveillance Capitalism?

by James Heskett

SUMMING UP: As companies increasingly build business models around our personal data, what can be done to fight back? James Heskett's readers suggest there are no easy answers. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

The Hidden Cost of a Product Recall

by Danielle Kost

Product failures create managerial challenges for companies but market opportunities for competitors, says Ariel Dora Stern. The stakes have only grown higher. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Relative Performance Transparency: Effects on Sustainable Choices

by Ryan W. Buell, Shwetha Mariadassou, and Yanchong Zheng

Encouraging consumers to purchase a more sustainable product or use resources more responsibly is a key challenge for society. This paper discusses experiments involving more than 7,000 participants to shed light on how information and its presentation regarding sustainable performance can be a tool for enhancing sustainable choices in practice.

Who Will Measure up to These Two Remarkable Leaders?

by James Heskett

SUMMING UP. In the wake of the loss of two great CEOs, James Heskett asks which schools are ready to turn out the next generation of transformative leaders? Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Demand Estimation in Models of Imperfect Competition

by Alexander MacKay and Nathan H. Miller

The study shows how knowledge about firm behavior can be modeled to better predict demand. Firms tend to raise prices in response to higher demand, so observed relationships between price and quantity can be quite misleading. The authors provide an adjustment that can be used when price experiments or instrumental variables are not available.

Product Quality and Entering Through Tying: Experimental Evidence

by Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca

This study empirically explores Google’s decision to tie its new reviews product to the top of its search results, excluding competitors. Results suggest that such "tying" can facilitate dominant platforms’ entry into adjacent markets, even when the tied product is of worse quality compared to existing options.

8 Ways to Make Olympic Stadiums Useful After the Games End

by Julia Hanna

For many cities that host the Olympic Games, the central stadium is nothing more than a white elephant after the competition ends. Stephen A. Greyser and Isao Okada pinpoint actions cities can take to give them new life. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

How to Use Free Shipping as a Competitive Weapon

by Kristen Senz

Free shipping is an increasingly important tool in the online retailer's marketing arsenal, but profit is lost when not done right, says Donald Ngwe. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Shipping Fees and Product Assortment in Online Retail

by Chaoqun Chen and Donald Ngwe

This study highlights a strong link between an online retailer’s product assortment decisions and shipping policies in determining purchase outcomes and profits. Consumers are less sensitive to shipping fees than to product prices, but free shipping for orders above the minimum is a strong motivator for increasing average basket sizes.

The Legacy of Boaty McBoatface: Beware of Customers Who Vote

by Michael Blanding

Companies that encourage consumers to vote online should be forewarned—they may expect more than you promise, according to research by Michael Norton, Leslie John, and colleagues. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Large-Scale Demand Estimation with Search Data

by Tomomichi Amano, Andrew Rhodes, and Stephan Seiler

Online retailers face the challenge of leveraging the rich data they collect on their websites to uncover insights about consumer behavior. This study proposes a practical and tractable model of economic behavior that can reveal helpful patterns of cross-product substitution. The model can be used to simulate optimal prices.

L.A. Philharmonic Shows the American Symphony Orchestra Isn’t Dead Yet

Re: Rohit Deshpande

Like many American symphony orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic seemed dying on the vine, unable to attract younger audiences or new sponsors. Then new CEO Deborah Borda came aboard with a plan to revive the brand. Rohit Deshpande discusses his case study on the turnaround. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.