Shelle Santana is an assistant professor of business administration in the Marketing Unit at Harvard Business School, where she teaches the Marketing course to first-year MBA students. Before pursuing her academic career, she held a variety of senior marketing roles at American Express Company, ultimately as head of U.S. corporate card marketing and global product strategy.
In one stream of research, Professor Santana explores how consumers respond to various pricing strategies in the marketplace. In one of her current projects, she examines how “drip pricing,” where sellers gradually reveal individual price components for a product or service, affects consumers’ current choices and future behavior intentions. In another, she shows how individual and contextual factors influence prices paid by consumers in pay-what-you-want settings. Professor Santana’s work has been published in the Journal of Retailing, and she co-authored “Consumer Financial Protection Legislation” in Regulating Wall Street: The Dodd-Frank Act and the New Architecture of Global Finance.
A second stream of research looks at consumers’ subjective value of money—or how people tend to spend and save differently depending on the type and form of currency that they are using. Currently, she is examining how consumers value credit card loyalty points relative to cash as a form of currency.
Professor Santana earned her Ph.D. and M.Phil. in marketing from the Stern School of Business at New York University. She holds an M.B.A. from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and a B.S. from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
The one day a year when consumers not only tolerate but actually eagerly anticipate ads is during the NFL's Super Bowl. In sharp contrast to their behavior on the other 364 days of the year, consumers watch an average of 89 commercials per Super Bowl game for an average of 46 minutes. Why are consumers willing to spend 3.5x more time watching commercials on the Super Bowl than on any other day of the year? Perhaps because they have come to expect the best, most creative, most engaging storytelling of the year from advertisers. With one out of every three Americans glued to the game, advertisers know they have a captive audience and they go to great lengths to stand out in what is somewhat akin to a battle of the brands. However, at a cost of more than $5 million for a 30-second spot, is Super Bowl advertising worth it? And, which types of Super Bowl stories are more and less likely to "win" on the Super Bowl?
Supplements the (A) case. Işıl Akdemir Evlioğlu, executive vice president of marketing at Garanti Payment Systems (GPS), a subsidiary of Garanti Bank, is grappling with three questions. First, should GPS create its own mobile app for credit card customers or leverage the bank’s already successful mobile banking app? Second, if a separate app was developed, then who should manage it? GPS managed the bank’s credit card business and was as a separate entity, but the bank’s digital assets were managed exclusively by the bank. Third, if a separate app was not developed, then would the required breadth and depth of functionality for the credit card customers be delivered? If a separate app was not developed, then would GPS be able to design one when they had never done so before? The credit card business included a popular loyalty program and GPS leadership was very focused on customer engagement and experience for program enrollees, but how best to do that was a critical question.
Işıl Akdemir Evlioğlu, executive vice president of marketing at Garanti Payment Systems (GPS), a subsidiary of Garanti Bank, is grappling with three questions. First, should GPS create its own mobile app for credit card customers or leverage the bank’s already successful mobile banking app? Second, if a separate app was developed, then who should manage it? GPS managed the bank’s credit card business and was as a separate entity, but the bank’s digital assets were managed exclusively by the bank. Third, if a separate app was not developed, then would the required breadth and depth of functionality for the credit card customers be delivered? If a separate app was not developed, then would GPS be able to design one when they had never done so before? The credit card business included a popular loyalty program and GPS leadership was very focused on customer engagement and experience for program enrollees, but how best to do that was a critical question.
This spreadsheet is intended as a supplement for the case study "Membership Rewards® from American Express."
Citation:
Santana, Shelle, Frances X. Frei, and Lauren G. Pickle. "Membership Rewards® from American Express." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 518-703, June 2018. (Revised January 2018.)
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Credit and charge card issuer American Express (Amex) had developed a strong reputation among consumers due in part to its Membership Rewards (MR) loyalty program, first established in 1991. Through MR, all Amex cardholders could accumulate and redeem “points” based on how much they spent, while customers with Amex’s Gold and Platinum Cards received additional perks. By 2016, however, the U.S. credit card market had become increasingly competitive, with many credit card companies increasing their sign-on point bonuses for new customers. Chris Cracchiolo, Amex’s vice president of U.S. loyalty, strategy, and global partnerships, had to decide how to position the MR program in the face of this competition. Should Amex begin offering more competitive sign-on bonuses and point redemption rates, or would this dilute the company’s strong brand?
Santana, Shelle, Jill Avery, and Christine Snively. "Chase Sapphire: Creating a Millennial Cult Brand." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 518-068, February 2018.
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The launch of the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card was enthusiastically received by millennial consumers, a cohort that had previously eluded JPMorgan Chase and its competitors. With the one-year anniversary of the launch approaching, managers are focused on retaining customers attracted by a one-time signup bonus of 100,000 reward points and on acquiring new customers now that the bonus had been reduced to 50,000 points. They were also refocusing on the remainder of the Chase Sapphire product portfolio to assess differentiation among the products and to identify white space in the market that could support additional new product launches.
On September 9, 2014, in front of a packed audience in Cupertino, CA, Tim Cook, the chief executive officer of Apple, announced the much anticipated launch of Apple Pay. "Our vision is to replace this [wallet] and we are going to start with payments." Cook then invited Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, to the stage to explain how Apple Pay would transform the mobile payments industry. He explained how Apple Pay would allow consumers to complete the check-out process within apps with a single touch, and without needing to repeatedly enter credit card information, the billing address, or shipping address.
On October 20, 2014, U.S. consumers could start using Apple Pay in stores with their iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus (and later Apple Watch) and within apps using iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3. By March 2015, Apple Pay was accepted in 700,000 retail locations including Coca-Cola vending machines. "We are the fastest adopted mobile payment service by a long shot," noted Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay. However, Cue and Bailey were aware that the landscape of mobile wallets and payment services was littered with failures. Reflecting on these challenges, Bailey wondered, "What should Apple do to continue the early momentum for the adoption and use of Apple Pay?"
Gupta, Sunil, Shelle Santana, and Margaret L. Rodriguez. "Apple Pay." Harvard Business School Case 516-027, August 2015. (Revised December 2016.)
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The Digital Initiative is a cross-unit venture that unites scholars and practitioners to explore and impact the transformation of business in today’s digital, networked, and media-rich environment.
