Marketing is critical for organic growth of a business and its central role is in creating, communicating, capturing and sustaining value for an organization. Marketing helps a firm in creating value by better understanding the needs of its customers and providing them with innovative products and services. This value is communicated through a variety of channels as well as through the firm's branding strategy. Effective management of customers and pricing allows the firm to capture part of the value it has created. Finally, by building an effective customer-centric organization a firm attempts to sustain value over time.

Our faculty addresses a broad array of topics in all of these areas. Our work attempts to get a better understanding of how consumers use information and make choices and how these choices affect the firm's strategy for new product development, customer relationship management, branding and other marketing efforts. We examine issues related to branding, business marketing, global marketing, distribution channels, pricing, direct and interactive marketing, sales management and return on marketing investment. Some of our faculty specializes in specific industries such as retailing, agribusiness, social enterprise, media, arts and entertainment.

There are several new developments in marketing that offer opportunities for us to make important contributions in the future. The current economic crisis is changing consumers' current and future purchase and consumption patterns. Search engines have changed the way consumers obtain information and make decisions and they are also dramatically changing the advertising industry. Social networks and user generated content have opened a new way for consumers to engage with each other as well as with brands and companies. There are significant changes in the attitudes of consumers and companies about social issues. Consumer preferences and choice of products are increasingly influenced by social factors. Companies are recognizing that there is a large market at the "bottom of the pyramid" and marketing to these consumers may require a new framework. These and related developments provide great opportunities for the marketing faculty to make a significant impact in the future.

In The News

Recent Publications

  • RECENT PUBLICATION: Case

    Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2020

    Car Trade

    Vinay Sanghi, the founder and CEO of CarTrade, had been trying different business strategies to keep the company, which he founded in 2010 as an online marketplace for used and new cars, profitable and on track for growth. In a crowded and disorganized dealer marketplace in India, and an environment where consumers had gotten used to buying online, Sanghi had found that some big challenges were getting dealers to believe the validity of digital platforms to bring in customers, and for CarTrade itself to grow, get more margins from dealers, and get more advertising revenue from car manufacturers. Sanghi came from a world of brick-and-mortar retail and his family had run car dealerships, so he had started drawing on some of that history to build a franchising model, and acquire a large offline auctioner of vehicles in India. Plans were also underway to build an NBFC to lend to dealers and consumers. Would this be enough, and were these promising strategies? What would be the way forward for CarTrade, an e-marketplace, to build its margins, solidify its customer base and steer toward growth?

    Citation:

    Lal, Rajiv. "Car Trade." Harvard Business School Case 520-088, March 2020.  View Details
    CiteView DetailsEducatorsRelated
  • RECENT PUBLICATION: Article

    Article | Journal of Retailing | March 2020

    The Role of Numbers in the Customer Journey

    , Manoj Thomas and Vicki Morwitz

    At each stage in customers’ journeys, they encounter different types of numeric information that they process using different judgment strategies. Relevant numbers might include budgets, price, product attributes, product counts, product ratings, numbers in brand names, health and nutrition information, financial information, time-related information, and others. This manuscript provides a review of the vast array of numerical information presented to consumers at different stages of the customer journey. It also identifies several different types of judgment strategies that consumers use to evaluate numeric information. It includes a discussion of how consumers use these judgment strategies during the pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase stages of the customer journey, highlighting unanswered questions that identify new research opportunities. Implications for practice and research are identified.

    Keywords: numbers; heuristics; numerical cognition; pricing; customer journey; Information; Consumer Behavior;

    Citation:

    Santana, Shelle, Manoj Thomas, and Vicki Morwitz. "The Role of Numbers in the Customer Journey." Journal of Retailing 96, no. 1 (March 2020): 138–154.  View Details
    CiteView DetailsFind at HarvardRelated
  • RECENT PUBLICATION: Article

    Article | Harvard Business Review | March–April 2020

    Pricing Policies that Protect your Brand

    and Eugene F. Zelek Jr.

    When customers seek out online deals, it seems like a win for everybody: Brands, retailers, dealers, and distributors sell more goods, and buyers get a bargain. What's not to like? Here's the problem: Lured by rock-bottom online prices, customers often end up dealing with disreputable digital resellers that mistreat them, which can erode brand equity and undermine authorized sellers. For brands selling in the United States and Canada, there is a potent countermeasure: crafting and enforcing pricing policies that discourage anyone from advertising or selling a firm's products at an unauthorized discount. This article lays out the four steps essential to designing and enforcing policies with teeth that stay on the right side of antitrust law.

    Keywords: e-commerce; Price; Policy; Brands and Branding;

    Citation:

    Israeli, Ayelet, and Eugene F. Zelek Jr. "Pricing Policies that Protect your Brand." Harvard Business Review 98, no. 2 (March–April 2020): 76–83.  View Details
    CiteView DetailsFind at HarvardRelated

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Doctoral Students

Ximena Garcia-Rada Benavides

Michael Els

Dafna Goor

Serena Hagerty

Byungyeon Kim

Emily Prinsloo

Lucy Shen

Anne Wilson

Faculty Positions

Harvard Business School seeks candidates in all fields for full time positions. Candidates with outstanding records in PhD or DBA programs are encouraged to apply.

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Contact Information

Marketing Unit
Harvard Business School
Morgan Hall
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
Marketing@hbs.edu

HBS Working Knowledge

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re Doug J. Chung
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re Das Narayandas
Learning happens most reliably and efficiently when it is contextualized, personalized, and socialized. This is important for executive learning in particular and adult learning more generally. Innov
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re Das Narayandas
Digitalization is reshaping companies’ demand for executive education. Executive education providers have to adapt quickly to these new demands and cost structures if they wish to survive. This paper

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by Anita Elberse and Sir Alex Ferguson
Case
by Rohit Deshpandé, Aiyesha Dey and George Serafeim
Press Book
by Sunil Gupta

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