Marketing Division

Letter From the Chair

Michel Tuan Pham, Chair of the Marketing Division

Greetings from the Marketing Division of Columbia Business School!

Columbia’s Marketing Division is proud to be widely recognized as one of the world’s leading academic marketing departments. We are home to 25 full-time faculty, 20 PhD students, 8 dedicated staff members, and approximately 40 adjunct faculty. In the most recent American Marketing Association ranking of research productivity in premier journals, Columbia ranked #1.

Our senior faculty includes some of the most influential scholars in both behavioral and quantitative marketing—among them, the outgoing Editors-in-Chief of two of the field’s top four journals, four Fellows of the Association for Consumer Research and the Society for Consumer Psychology, and numerous recipients of other major academic honors. Our PhD alumni have gone on to join the faculties of other top institutions, including recent placements at Wharton, London Business School, Cornell, Stanford Business School, and Harvard Business School.

We foster a vibrant and collegial interdisciplinary intellectual environment. Our faculty conduct cutting-edge research at the intersection of social and data sciences—including psychology, economics, sociology, statistics, computer science, and operations research. Current research topics span a wide array of domains, such as the application of Generative AI in market research and innovation, the optimization of marketing platforms, luxury marketing, digital game monetization, consumer responses to AI and other emerging technologies, price optimization, and the engineering of consumer experiences, among many others.

Our faculty are also leaders and innovators in the classroom. We offer a rich curriculum of foundational and advanced courses across our MBA, EMBA, and MS programs, including popular electives on Generative AI for Business, Product Management, Digital Marketing, Branding, Innovation, Marketing Analytics, Retail Management, Behavioral Economics, Media Management, and Strategic Customer Insight. Our course portfolio is further enriched by our exceptional adjunct faculty, most of whom are seasoned industry professionals.

Beyond its offering in MBA/EMBA and PhD programs, the Division offers a highly selective Master of Science in Marketing Science, which trains future practitioners in quantitative, analytical marketing and data-driven market insight. The division also plays an important role in the MS in Business Analytics program, offered in partnership with the School of Engineering.

I invite you to explore our website to learn more about our outstanding faculty, our various programs, and our thought leadership in marketing.

Warm regards,
Michel Tuan Pham
Kravis Professor of Business
Chair of the Marketing Division
Columbia Business School

News and Awards

Silvia Bellezza, 2025 Journal of Consumer Research Best Article Award for her co-authored paper "Consumer Minimalism."

Mohamed Hussein, 2025 Journal of Consumer Research Ferber Award Finalist (Honorable Mention) for his dissertation-based article "How Do Consumers React to Ads That Meddle in Out-Party Primaries?"

Kinshuk Jerath, whose paper "The Non-Linear Impact of Promised Delivery Time on Online Purchasing” was accepted for publication in the journal of Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM) and chosen as a finalist for the MSOM Practice-Based Research Competition.

Eric Johnson, whose paper "Choice Architecture for Healthier Insurance Decisions: Ordering and Partitioning Together Can Improve Consumer Choice" was selected as a finalist for the AMA Marketing Science Institute H. Paul Root Award for the most significant contribution to the advancement of the practice of marketing.

Oded Netzer on receiving the Sheth Foundation/Journal of Marketing Award, honoring the best article published in the Journal of Marketing that has made long-term contributions to the field of marketing for the paper "Uniting the Tribes: Using Text for Marketing Insight", and also for being a finalist for Paul E. Green/Vithala R. Rao Award honoring the best article published within the last calendar year in the Journal of Marketing Research for the paper "Detecting Routines in Ride-sharing: Implications for Customer Management”, as well as a finalist for the Weitz-Winer-O'Dell Best Paper Award recognizing Journal of Marketing Research articles that have made the most significant long-term contribution to marketing theory, methodology, and/or practice for the paper "The Polarity of Online Reviews: Prevalence, Drivers and Implications,".

What was new in the Marketing Division?

Read about it in our newsletter!

The Marketing Division Is Pleased To Welcome Our New Faculty

Malek Ben Sliman

Malek Ben Sliman is a Lecturer in Discipline at Columbia Business School in the Marketing Department. Malek’s research interests lie in the application of machine learning, computer vision and NLP tools in the context of art valuation, social networks, marketing analytics and online retailing. As a practitioner, he had previously worked at Sotheby’s where he built models to track the evolution of artists’ prestige over time and to automatically predict the price of art during auctions. More recently, Malek has been part of the data science team at Oden Technologies, an Industry 4.0 start-up focused on enabling analytics for manufacturers.

Malek received an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Ecole Centrale Paris (France), an M.S. in Operations Research from the IEOR Department at Columbia, and a Ph.D. in Marketing from Columbia Business School.

See Dr. Ben Sliman's profile

Professor Mohamed Hussein

Dr. Mohamed Hussein is a faculty member in the Marketing Division at Columbia Business School. Using survey experiments, conjoint analysis, and natural language processing techniques, he studies the psychology of persuasion, politics, and the intersection of the two. Dr. Hussein’s research has been published in top-tier academic journals, including the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and Personality and Social Psychology Review.

Before joining Columbia, Dr. Hussein earned his Ph.D. in marketing from Stanford GSB. At Stanford, he was chosen to be a member of the inaugural cohort of the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship and was awarded the Diversifying Academia Recruiting Excellence Fellowship. Before Stanford, he worked in economic consulting at Analysis Group and studied economics and mathematics at Middlebury College.

See Dr. Hussein's Profile

In the Media

Impact Wealth Magazine

April 25, 2026

Balancing Personal Well-Being and Professional Success

An article in Impact Wealth Magazine cites Columbia Business School research showing that economic conditions experienced during young adulthood—such as recessions—can have lasting effects on job selection and career outlook. The piece references these findings to illustrate how early-career economic environments can shape long-term professional trajectories and decision-making. 

View the Media Mention

Marketing Brew

April 22, 2026

Prediction Markets Are Transforming Media and Marketing

Columbia Business School’s Professor Olivier Toubia provided expert commentary to Marketing Brew on the rise of prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi. In the article by Jennimai Nguyen, Professor Toubia discussed how these platforms are influencing media, marketing strategies, and audience engagement by turning programming into interactive, market-driven experiences.

Mentioned Faculty

Olivier Toubia

Glaubinger Professor of Business: Marketing Division

HuffPost

April 21, 2026

Surcharges Are Piling Up—and Consumers Are Feeling It

Columbia Business School’s Professor Vicki Morwitz provided expert commentary to HuffPost on the growing prevalence of hidden surcharge fees. In the article by Monic Torres, Professor Morwitz explained how businesses use surcharges as pricing strategies that can obscure total costs, influencing consumer perception and spending behavior during periods of economic uncertainty.

Mentioned Faculty

Vicki Morwitz

Bruce Greenwald Professor of Business: Marketing Division

USA Today

April 15, 2026

Airline Baggage Fees Continue to Frustrate Travelers

Columbia Business School’s Professor Vicki Morwitz provided commentary to USA Today on the persistence of airline baggage fees. In the article by Zach Wichter, Professor Morwitz discussed how pricing strategies and consumer psychology influence traveler behavior, highlighting why such fees remain widespread despite customer dissatisfaction. 

Mentioned Faculty

Vicki Morwitz

Bruce Greenwald Professor of Business: Marketing Division

Forbes

April 13, 2026

Hidden Fees Add to Consumer Costs Amid Affordability Crisis

Columbia Business School’s Professor Vicki Morwitz provided commentary to Forbes on the growing prevalence of hidden fees across industries. In the article by Mary Whitfill Roeloffs, Professor Morwitz explained how such pricing practices impact consumer perception and spending, particularly during periods of economic strain.

Mentioned Faculty

Vicki Morwitz

Bruce Greenwald Professor of Business: Marketing Division

Wall Street Journal

April 13, 2026

Surcharges Are Everywhere—and Consumers Are Paying Up

Columbia Business School’s Professor Vicki Morwitz provided commentary to The Wall Street Journal on the rise of hidden fees and surcharges. In the article by Rachel Wolfe, Professor Morwitz discussed how businesses use pricing strategies that obscure total costs, and how consumer behavior contributes to the persistence of these practices.

Mentioned Faculty

Vicki Morwitz

Bruce Greenwald Professor of Business: Marketing Division

Research

Generative AI and Firm Productivity: Field Experiments in Online Retail

Authors: Lu Fang, Zhe Yuan, Kaifu Zhang, Dante Donati, and Miklos Sarvary

Date: Forthcoming

Format: Working Paper

We quantify the impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) on firm productivity through a series of large-scale randomized field experiments involving millions of users and products at a leading cross-border online retail platform. Over six months in 2023-2024, GenAI-based enhancements were integrated into seven consumer-facing business workflows. We find that GenAI adoption significantly increases sales, with treatment effects ranging from 0% to 16.3%, depending on GenAI’s marginal contribution relative to existing firm practices.

Authors: Aurelie Lemmens, Jason M.T. Roos, Sebastian Gabel, Eva Ascarza, Hernan Bruno, Brett R. Gordon, Ayelet Israeli, Elea McDonnell Feit, Carl F. Mela, and Oded Netzer

Date: Forthcoming

Format: Journal Article

Journal: International Journal of Research in Marketing

Personalization has become the heartbeat of modern marketing. The rapid expansion of individual-level data, the proliferation of personalized communication channels, and advancements in experimentation have fundamentally reshaped how firms tailor their marketing strategies. Furthermore, causal inference and machine learning enable companies to understand how the same marketing action can impact the choices of individual customers differently. This article provides an academic overview of these developments.

Authors: Simon Blanchard, Nofar Duani, Aaron Garvey, Oded Netzer, and Travis Oh

Date: Forthcoming

Format: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of Marketing

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools based on Large Language Models (LLMs) are quickly reshaping how researchers conduct surveys and experiments. From reviewing the literature and designing instruments, to administering studies, coding data, and interpreting results, these tools offer substantial opportunities to improve research productivity and advance methodology. Yet with this potential comes a critical challenge: researchers often use these systems without fully understanding how they work.

Authors: Jennifer J Sun and Michel Tuan Pham

Date: Forthcoming

Format: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of Consumer Research

This paper addresses a simple theoretical question of high substantive relevance: What makes a consumption experience special in a consumer’s mind?

Authors: Olivier Toubia

Date: Forthcoming

Format: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of Marketing

We aim to stimulate discussion on how innovation research within marketing can use a better world (BW) perspective to help innovation become a driver of positive change in the world. In this "Challenging the Boundaries" series paper, we hope to provide purposeful research opportunities for scholars seeking to bridge innovation research with the BW movement. We frame our discussion with four areas of innovation research in marketing that are particularly relevant to BW objectives.

Marketing Division

Letter From the Chair

News and Awards

Newsletter

What was new in the Marketing Division?

The Marketing Division Is Pleased To Welcome Our New Faculty

Malek Ben Sliman

Professor Mohamed Hussein

In the Media

Balancing Personal Well-Being and Professional Success

Prediction Markets Are Transforming Media and Marketing

Mentioned Faculty

Surcharges Are Piling Up—and Consumers Are Feeling It

Mentioned Faculty

Airline Baggage Fees Continue to Frustrate Travelers

Mentioned Faculty

Hidden Fees Add to Consumer Costs Amid Affordability Crisis

Mentioned Faculty

Surcharges Are Everywhere—and Consumers Are Paying Up

Mentioned Faculty

Research

Generative AI and Firm Productivity: Field Experiments in Online Retail

Advancing Personalization: How to Experiment, Learn & Optimize

New Tools, New Rules: A Practical Guide to Effective and Responsible GenAI Use for Surveys and Experiments Research

What Makes Consumption Experiences Feel “Special”? A Multimethod Integrative Analysis

Better Innovation for a Better World

Ideas

Letter From the Chair

News and Awards

Newsletter

What was new in the Marketing Division?

The Marketing Division Is Pleased To Welcome Our New Faculty

Malek Ben Sliman

Professor Mohamed Hussein

In the Media

Balancing Personal Well-Being and Professional Success

Prediction Markets Are Transforming Media and Marketing

Mentioned Faculty

Surcharges Are Piling Up—and Consumers Are Feeling It

Mentioned Faculty

Airline Baggage Fees Continue to Frustrate Travelers

Mentioned Faculty

Hidden Fees Add to Consumer Costs Amid Affordability Crisis

Mentioned Faculty

Surcharges Are Everywhere—and Consumers Are Paying Up

Mentioned Faculty

Research

Generative AI and Firm Productivity: Field Experiments in Online Retail

Advancing Personalization: How to Experiment, Learn & Optimize

New Tools, New Rules: A Practical Guide to Effective and Responsible GenAI Use for Surveys and Experiments Research

What Makes Consumption Experiences Feel “Special”? A Multimethod Integrative Analysis

Better Innovation for a Better World

Ideas

External CSS