While they appear to have little in common, time and money are frequently interchangeable. Researchers refer to the amount of time that people spend in an unpleasant mood - when feelings of tension, depression or irritation outweigh feelings of happiness - as the 'U-index'. For instance, people are rarely in an unpleasant mood while exercising, reading or praying; but unpleasant moods are common while working, commuting and doing housework. Sadly, over the past 50 years, the overall U-index has barely budged. The authors show that by re-allocating our time in three key areas - commuting, watching television and spending time with loved ones-we can impact our happiness in a more powerful way than money every can.
Companies are increasingly experimenting with the use of philanthropy to enhance consumer loyalty, brand awareness, and sales. But even highly creative approaches that garner a lot of buzz often fall short of sales goals. Firms can design more-successful initiatives by ensuring alignment between what the authors call the three C's of consumer philanthropy: Companies need to choose Causes that resonate with Customers in a way that drives sales.
Core Curriculum Readings in Marketing cover fundamental concepts, theories, and frameworks in marketing. For classroom use in higher education, this Reading is accompanied by a Teaching Note, test bank, and exhibit slides. "Consumer Behavior and the Buying Process" describes and analyzes 4 frameworks for understanding how consumers make decisions: cognitive versus emotional, high-involvement versus low-involvement, optimizing versus "satisficing," and compensatory versus noncompensatory decision making. This Core Curriculum Reading then presents the activities that occur during the 3 phases in the consumer buying process: pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase. It also analyzes consumer decision-making units, including roles played within such units, such as buyer, influencer, gatekeeper, and approver. The Reading includes an in-depth example of how a pharmaceutical company analyzed decision-making processes and decision-making units to develop marketing campaigns for a new product. It concludes with an exploration of 3 developments that profoundly affect consumers' decision-making process and units: social media, co-creation and customer involvement, and "conscience" marketing. Ultimately, this Reading prepares students to become marketers who can design effective advertising and marketing campaigns for products and services.
Gaston Acurio, star chef and restaurateur from Peru, must decide whether and how to adapt his signature Peruvian cuisine to local tastes as he opens restaurants in new countries.
stickK.com, a website that uses behavioral economics to help users achieve their goals, must choose between a direct-to-consumer or business-to-business model. The case includes a discussion of how principles of behavioral economics can be used to influence behavior, and how an understanding of behavioral economics can inform managerial decisions about product adoption and diffusion.
Traditional market research methods focus on understanding the average experiences of average consumers. This focus leads to gaps in our knowledge of consumer behavior and often fails to uncover insights that can drive revolutionary, rather than evolutionary innovation. This note outlines a process for studying extreme consumers-consumers who fall in both tails of a normal distribution of customers-with needs, behaviors, attitudes, and emotions atypical of the average customer. Different tactics for leveraging the power of the fringe, product category virgins, customers with constraints, and lovers, haters, and opt-outers are presented.
Pretending not to notice race for fear of appearing prejudiced actually has the opposite effect--others will perceive you as more biased. Research documenting this effect suggests that smart companies will deal with the subject of race head-on and will recognize that "embracing diversity" means recognizing all races, including the majority one.
The stream of customers who visit Flanagan Theme Parks has started to dwindle. The fictional Australian company must decide, with the help of consultant Allie James, whether to try to attract a whole new crop of customers using DailyDilly, a fast-growing social-coupon venture. Allie and Ruth Davison, Flanagan's marking director, take a lunchtime tour of the marketing landscape to answer a key question for any company that is considering such an initiative: "Are daily deal seekers the right kind of customers for our business?" Expert commentary comes from Gideon Lask, the founder of BuyaPowa, a UK-based social media business; and Al Bhakta, CEO of Genghis Grill, a Dallas-based restaurant chain. HBR's online readers also weigh in.
The stream of customers who visit Flanagan Theme Parks has started to dwindle. The fictional Australian company must decide, with the help of consultant Allie James, whether to try to attract a whole new crop of customers using DailyDilly, a fast-growing social-coupon venture. Allie and Ruth Davison, Flanagan's marking director, take a lunchtime tour of the marketing landscape to answer a key question for any company that is considering such an initiative: "Are daily deal seekers the right kind of customers for our business?" Expert commentary comes from Gideon Lask, the founder of BuyaPowa, a UK-based social media business; and Al Bhakta, CEO of Genghis Grill, a Dallas-based restaurant chain. HBR's online readers also weigh in.
The stream of customers who visit Flanagan Theme Parks has started to dwindle. The fictional Australian company must decide, with the help of consultant Allie James, whether to try to attract a whole new crop of customers using DailyDilly, a fast-growing social-coupon venture. Allie and Ruth Davison, Flanagan's marking director, take a lunchtime tour of the marketing landscape to answer a key question for any company that is considering such an initiative: "Are daily deal seekers the right kind of customers for our business?" Expert commentary comes from Gideon Lask, the founder of BuyaPowa, a UK-based social media business; and Al Bhakta, CEO of Genghis Grill, a Dallas-based restaurant chain. HBR's online readers also weigh in.
Well-established fashion brand Eileen Fisher has traditionally appealed to older women. However, to drive growth, Eileen Fisher's management team wants to target a younger demographic and has revamped its Fall product line to offer more fashionable styles to appeal to younger women. But, repositioning the brand has proven to be harder than expected. This case explores the challenges of appealing to new target markets, without alienating existing customers. The case follows Eileen Fisher's initial forays into social media as they chase a younger demographic, and demonstrates the opportunities and pitfalls that await big brands when they enter the world of Web 2.0.
Tim O'Shaughnessy, the 29-year-old CEO of LivingSocial, is growing a revolutionary worldwide business of "daily deals"-in which retailers offer a heavily-discounted product or service available for purchase for brief (often 24-hour) windows. The case explores the complicated sharing of risks and rewards between LivingSocial, participating retailers, and customers, focusing on the return on investment in both the short- and longer-term for LivingSocial's retail partners. In addition, given the rapid growth of the daily deals space and the accompanying proliferation of competitors including Groupon and Amazon.com, the case focuses on the need for constant innovation in product offerings to maintain differentiation from copycats.
In 2010, for the first time in 23 years, PepsiCo did not invest in Superbowl advertising for its iconic brand. Instead, the company diverted this $20 million to the social media-fueled Pepsi Refresh Project: PepsiCo's innovative cause-marketing program in which consumers submitted ideas for grants for health, environmental, social, educational, and cultural causes. Consumers voted for their favorite ideas, and PepsiCo funded the winners with grants ranging from $5,000 to $250,000. The case highlights the benefits and risks of traditional branding and social media branding, including a discussion of how the Pepsi Refresh Project fits with Pepsi's previous brand positioning. The case discussion focuses on how the brand team should evaluate the initiative's return on investment (from sales to social media engagement), whether they should continue the initiative for 2011, and whether Pepsi is the right brand for this kind of initiative.
This note is intended to provide students with a basic understanding of how to evaluate empirical research papers. While reading both case studies and empirical research require close attention and scrutiny, evaluating empirical research requires a different "lens"-this note briefly outlines how to adopt this mindset. It includes a review of the major sections of an empirical research paper (Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion), as well as guidelines on how to evaluate each section.
Managers typically look for ways to reduce wait time to increase customer satisfaction. New research suggests there's a better approach: showing customers a representation of the effort, whether literal or not, being expended on their behalf while they wait. (The prototypical example is the travel website Kayak, which shows customers each airline it searches.) Studies show that customers prefer waiting when the work being done is transparent-even when the waits are longer or the results are no better than those obtained with shorter waits.
Though we'd like to think that it always pays to be honest, new research from Harvard proves that it doesn't necessarily. A new study that compared viewers' reactions to a candidate's answers to questions in a debate reveals that when the candidate dodged a question eloquently, people liked and trusted him nearly as much as when he gave a direct response. What's more, they preferred artful dodges to honest but less articulate answers. That finding presents an interesting quandary for any leader who has to field difficult questions.
Better World Books, a young start-up, provides a socially-conscious alternative to Amazon, collecting and selling used books to keep them out of the wastestream, while providing a portion of their profits to support global literacy efforts. The case presents an emerging new business model: the for profit "B corporation" designed to combine profits and mission. Founder Xavier Helgesen struggles with how to price his products to capture the value of their social good, how to manage multiple channels of distribution, including selling direct to consumers, and managing negative public perceptions of the social impact of the business once the company turns profitable.
In the wake of the meltdown among US auto manufacturers in 2009, Jay Rogers - CEO of Local Motors - has a new approach for the automotive industry: Decide which models are produced through online design competitions, and then allow customers to "build their own cars" from the winning designs. The case focuses on two key issues: Can Local Motors build a thriving online design community at a reasonable cost? And can customers be convinced to add their own sweat and labor to the manufacturing process? The case is written from the perspective of a start-up company seeking funding while trying to implement a novel business concept.
Duke behavioral economist Ariely and Harvard Business School professor Norton explore how our consumption of concepts influences physical consumption, both positively and negatively.