Advertising →
- 09 Jun 2015
- Sharpening Your Skills
Sharpening Your Skills: Social Media
Sharpening Your Skills culls the HBS Working Knowledge archive to deliver insights around important business topics. This week: developing a social media strategy. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 02 Apr 2015
- Research & Ideas
Digital Initiative Summit: Companies Must Forget—and Borrow
Entering the digital economy, commercial giants must adapt to new ways of doing business, but not forget how they achieved success in the first place. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 02 Apr 2015
- Research & Ideas
Digital Initiative Summit: Big Messages, Small Screens, Many Choices
How do companies profit from the fact that mobile users are more engaged than ever? Panelists discuss "Monetization in a Mobile World." Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 13 Jun 2014
- Op-Ed
World Cup Soccer: 770 Billion Minutes of Attention
FIFA stands to generate $23 billion in revenue from World Cup soccer over the next few weeks. Clearly the organization understands "Attention Economics," says marketing expert Thales Teixeira. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 31 Mar 2014
- Research & Ideas
Encouraging Niche Content in an Ad-Driven World
Research by Feng Zhu and Monic Sun explores how advertising drives bloggers to shift their writing to subjects that will grab more eyeballs—namely, the stock market, celebrities, and salacious behavior. But surprise: Ads might also help generate more niche content. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 19 Mar 2014
- Research & Ideas
A Brand Manager’s Guide to Losing Control
Social media platforms have taken some of the marketing power away from companies and given it to consumers. Jill Avery discusses the landscape of "open source branding," wherein consumers not only discuss and disseminate branded content, they also create it. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Feb 2014
- Research & Ideas
The Art of American Advertising
Harvard Business School's Baker Library is hosting a historical exhibit that examines the advertising industry in a bygone era. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 05 Feb 2014
- Research & Ideas
Can Putin Score Olympic Gold?
With billions of dollars on the line at this year's troubled Winter Olympics, Stephen Greyser breaks down what's at stake for the brands of NBC, key corporate sponsors, Russia—and Vladimir Putin. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 03 Feb 2014
- Research & Ideas
The Tricky Business of Managing Web Advertising Affiliates
Advertising through numerous website affiliates potentially helps marketers get more bang for their buck. But the far-flung systems can also lead to fraud, says Ben Edelman. What's the best way to manage your advertising network? Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 29 Jan 2014
- Working Paper Summaries
The Rising Cost of Consumer Attention: Why You Should Care, and What You Can Do about It
Attention is the allocation of mental resources, visual or cognitive, to visible or conceptual objects. Before consumers can be affected by advertising messages, they first need to be paying attention. As Thales S. Teixeira writes in this paper, the quality of consumer attention has been falling for decades. Consumers have lost interest in the information content of ads because they can access more and better information on‐demand on the Web. In addition, the price of marketers' acquiring high-quality attention has increased by as much as nine‐fold in the past two decades. To compensate for these circumstances marketers have typically responded by advertising more or by pursuing other means, such as price promotions, to acquire customers. However, these tactics risk eroding current profits and future revenues. A better solution, argues Teixeira, is to find cheaper attention or increase its conversion into sales. Novel approaches described in the paper, such as Lean Advertising and Viral Ad Symbiosis, can help to mitigate the rising cost of attention. Ultimately, in order to effectively manage the valuable resource of consumer attention, marketers will need to tailor their advertising strategies to the attention contingently available to them. This paper shows how to achieve this through Teixeira's Attention‐Contingent Advertising Strategy. He also lays out the fundamental principles of the economics of attention, an emerging field. Key concepts include: The value of consumer attention is rising. Marketers need to manage consumer attention better. This paper is intended to help them in this regard. The cost of acquiring consumer attention has increased dramatically (seven- to nine-fold) in the past two decades. Marketers can tailor their advertising strategies to the attention contingently available to them. When marketers stop asking "What do I want to achieve from the advertisement?" and begin asking "What can my consumers achieve if they share the advertisement?" they then start the process of creating truly consumer‐centered advertising, that which benefits the consumer's social needs. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 29 Jan 2014
- Research & Ideas
Super Bowl Ads for Multitaskers
With more than half the Super Bowl audience using smartphones or laptops at the same time they watch the big game on TV, Thales S. Teixeira says advertisers have to step up their game. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 10 Dec 2013
- Working Paper Summaries
Information and Incentives in Online Affiliate Marketing
Compared to historic advertising methods, online marketing invites advertisers to attempt a sharply increased quantity of partnerships. Online relationships reduce the transaction costs of buying ad placements. In many advertising marketplaces, standardized contracts let an advertiser accept a proposed placement with a single click, and ad networks widely sell bundles of hundreds or thousands of placements. Meanwhile, many advertisers find they can get valuable leads and favorable pricing from the Internet's myriad small sites. These numerous relationships entail costs, too, such as selecting, compensating, and supervising the sites, making sure each site is suitable to show the advertiser's offer, and making sure sites in fact deliver the promised benefits. Advertisers thus turn to specialists and outside firms to handle important aspects of advertising-buying. In this paper, the authors evaluate advertisers' chosen management structures by measuring the relative prevalence of advertising fraud targeting advertisers engaged in online "affiliate marketing," a performance-based compensation system increasingly common in online ad campaigns. Specifically, the authors identify the vulnerabilities best addressed by outsourcing marketing management to external specialists, versus the problems better overseen by keeping management decisions in-house. They find outside advisors most effective at enforcing clear rules, but in-house staff excel at preventing practices viewed as "borderline" under industry norms. While the results apply most directly to advertisers considering the management structure of their online marketing programs, the analysis also speaks to broader concerns of outsourcing and the boundary of the firm. Key concepts include: Affiliate marketing broadly aligns incentives between advertisers and affiliates by compensating affiliates only when sales occur. Rogue affiliates may seek commissions they have not fairly earned, typically by claiming to have referred customers who were already going to buy. Alternative structures of affiliate program management can influence merchants' vulnerability to affiliate fraud. Outsourced marketing managers tend to enjoy superior information about affiliates' practices, but outsourcers' incentives differ from advertisers' objectives. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 13 Nov 2013
- Research & Ideas
Should Men’s Products Fear a Woman’s Touch?
Recent research shows that loyal customers often get upset when a brand associated with men expands to include products perceived as feminine. Senior Lecturer Jill J. Avery discusses the problem of "gender contamination." Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 17 Jun 2013
- Research & Ideas
Advertising Symbiosis: The Key to Viral Videos
Creating an online ad that goes viral requires more than mere entertainment. Thales S. Teixeira discusses the key to creating megahit marketing through "advertising symbiosis." Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 15 Apr 2013
- Research & Ideas
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. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 28 Feb 2013
- Working Paper Summaries
Do Display Ads Influence Search? Attribution and Dynamics in Online Advertising
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. Key concepts include: Classic metrics used in practice are highly biased since they do not account for the effects documented in this study. As a result, firms may be making suboptimal budget allocation decisions. Managers should carefully consider the interaction and dynamic effects of search and display advertising. In the study, revised measures of ad effectiveness lead to a very different budget allocation than the one used currently by the firm. Even though the proposed allocation gives credit to display due to its effect on search applications, the search ad budget should be increased by 36% from its current level due to its strong dynamic effects. The display ad budget should be decreased by 31%. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 11 Feb 2013
- Research & Ideas
Neuroeconomics: Eyes, Brain, Business
At first glance, a neuroscientist and a business school might seem an odd fit. But in fact economists have been paying increasing attention to how the brain works. Christine Looser discusses her research on how the brain detects aliveness and the possible implications for organizations and advertisers. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 29 Jan 2013
- Research & Ideas
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. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 22 Aug 2012
- Research & Ideas
Advertising: It’s Not ‘Mad Men’ Anymore
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; 0 Comments.
Build It, Buy It Or Both? Rethinking the Sourcing of Advertising Services
The scale and scope of in-house advertising services is increasing. These developments are part and parcel of the restructuring of the advertising and marketing services industry more broadly. In this paper the authors provide guidance to senior managers considering bringing their internal and external agency resources together to arrive at a more collaborative operating model. Two case examples of successful internal/external agency collaboration are included. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.