Marketing Strategy →
- 07 Oct 2019
- Sharpening Your Skills
How Companies Can Make Up with (Very) Unhappy Customers
It happens to the best of companies. One fine day a public relations nightmare explodes and shatters your hard-won trust with customers. What should you do next? Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 18 Sep 2019
- Op-Ed
WeWork—The IPO That Shouldn’t?
WeWork's IPO has been one of the most debated in recent memory. But the real controversy, says Nori Gerardo Lietz, is what is contained in the company's prospectus. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 21 Aug 2019
- Working Paper Summaries
Improving Customer Compatibility with Operational Transparency
Service firms seeking prospective customers usually highlight the advantages of their offerings and downplay the tradeoffs. This study suggests a different approach: Provide transparency into advantages as well as tradeoffs. The transparency helps customers make informed decisions and can lead to better outcomes for both firms and customers over the long run.
- 25 Jun 2019
- Research & Ideas
The Powerful Strategic Tool Companies Should Not Try to Control
3QUESTIONS More executives are tapping user communities for strategic guidance, but productive relationships with fan groups require a nuanced approach, Frank Nagle says. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 08 Apr 2019
- Sharpening Your Skills
The Life of Luxury and How to Sell It
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; 0 Comments.
- 26 Mar 2019
- Working Paper Summaries
Mitigating the Negative Effects of Customer Anxiety Through Access to Human Contact
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.
- 07 Mar 2019
- Working Paper Summaries
Calculators for Women: When Identity Appeals Provoke Backlash
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.
- 05 Mar 2019
- Working Paper Summaries
The Impacts of Increasing Search Frictions on Online Shopping Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment
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.
- 04 Mar 2019
- What Do You Think?
What’s the Antidote to Surveillance Capitalism?
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; 0 Comments.
- 27 Feb 2019
- Research & Ideas
The Hidden Cost of a Product Recall
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; 0 Comments.
- 30 Jan 2019
- What Do You Think?
Who Will Measure up to These Two Remarkable Leaders?
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; 0 Comments.
- 26 Nov 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Demand Estimation in Models of Imperfect Competition
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.
- 06 Nov 2018
- Research & Ideas
8 Ways to Make Olympic Stadiums Useful After the Games End
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; 0 Comments.
- 18 Oct 2018
- Research & Ideas
How to Use Free Shipping as a Competitive Weapon
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; 0 Comments.
- 16 Oct 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Shipping Fees and Product Assortment in Online Retail
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.
- 27 Sep 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Large-Scale Demand Estimation with Search Data
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.
- 07 May 2018
- Research & Ideas
Why Online Retailers Should Hide Their Best Discounts
Online retailers should take a tip from brick-and-mortar shops: Shove your best deals to the back of the store. Research by Thales Teixeira and Donald Ngwe. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 09 Feb 2018
- Research & Ideas
Big Hits: The Best of the 2018 Super Bowl Ads
Harvard Business School marketing experts Jill Avery, Stephen Greyser, and Thales Teixeira discuss the best ads and how they reflect American society. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 18 Sep 2017
- Research & Ideas
'Likes' Lead to Nothing—and Other Hard-Learned Lessons of Social Media Marketing
A decade-and-a-half after the dawn of social media marketing, brands are still learning what works and what doesn't with consumers. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
‘Chick Beer’ for Women? Why Gender Marketing Repels More Than Sells
Just how far will women go to avoid products labeled "for women?" Research by Leslie K. John and colleagues explores why gender marketing usually offends the very people a company is trying to attract. Open for comment; 0 Comments.