Marketing

The authors test methods, based on cognitively simple decision rules, that predict which products consumers select for their consideration sets. Drawing on qualitative research, the authors propose disjunctions-of-conjunctions (DOC) decision rules that generalize well-studied decision models, such as disjunctive, conjunctive, lexicographic, and subset conjunctive rules. They propose two machine-learning methods to estimate cognitively simple DOC rules. They observe consumers' consideration sets for global positioning systems for both calibration and validation data.

Since Max Barenbrug and Eduard Zanen founded Bugaboo, a baby stroller company, in 1995, the company had grown into a global corporation with over 800 people worldwide. Such rapid growth and accretion of brand equity presented Bugaboo with both opportunities and challenges. Max's vision was to become "the leading mobility brand in the world." To achieve this vision, the company would have to introduce new products in categories outside of strollers. How could the company capture and replicate the essence of what drove its initial success?

The U.S. pharmaceutical industry spent upwards of $18 billion on marketing drugs in 2007. Detailing and drug sampling activities account for the bulk of this spending. To stay competitive, pharmaceutical managers need to maximize the return on these marketing investments by determining which physicians to target, when, and how to target them. In this paper, we present a two-stage approach for dynamically allocating detailing and sampling activities across physicians to maximize long-run profitability.

This paper examines optimal sampling and pricing of information goods for firms that generate revenues from both sales and advertising. We develop a model where the demand for paid information goods is influenced by the sample portion that the firm offers for free. Taking into account the consumers’ initial valuation and experienced quality of the free version, we characterize the firm’s optimal sampling and pricing decisions. We find that the effect of advertising revenues on optimal sample portion and price depends on expected and experienced quality.

Jacob Goldenberg, Sangman Han, and Donald Lehmann discuss the critical role of "social hubs" in social systems (i.e., individuals with an exceptionally large number of social ties). They point to the importance of identifying such social hubs for accelerating the diffusion of products.

We propose that the reliance on feelings as information in judgment may involve two separate mechanisms: one involves a metacognitive assessment of whether one's feelings should be trusted in the judgment; the other is more mindless reliance on feelings without much consideration for their perceived diagnosticity.

The family-owned Montclair Video attracted loyal customers by providing a wide selection of movies and personalized recommendations, helping it fend off competition from movie-rental giant Blockbuster. That changed with the increasing popularity of Netflix, as well as a rise in on-demand cable content and the introduction of a similar pricing model from Blockbuster. The family was prepared to adopt new pricing and add rental services, but only if the strategy made financial sense.