Faculty & Research

Marketing

Marketing

Overview Faculty Curriculum Seminars & Conferences Awards & Honors Doctoral Students

About the Unit

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.

Recent Publications

Social Intelligence in Humans and Robots Workshop

By: Julian De Freitas
  • 2022 |
  • Keynote Speech |
  • Faculty Research
Related

Should Automated Vehicles Favor Passengers Over Pedestrians?

By: Julian De Freitas
  • Mar 2022 |
  • Conference Presentation |
  • Faculty Research
Related

Corporations are Viewed as Psychopaths with Good True Selves

By: Julian De Freitas, Samuel G. B. Johnson, Z. Kohn and P. Kim
  • Mar 2022 |
  • Conference Presentation |
  • Faculty Research
Related

The Secret Ingredient of Thriving Companies? Human Magic

By: Hubert Joly
  • January 10, 2022 |
  • Article |
  • Harvard Business Review (website)
The traditional corporate approach to motivating people has been a combination of carrots and sticks: a system of financial incentives designed to mobilize everyone around a plan designed by a few smart people at the top. Multiple studies have confirmed that, for any work involving cognitive or creative skills, financial rewards do not drive motivation and performance. So, what does? According to former Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly, it takes several mutually reinforcing elements to create an environment that unleashes the kind of human magic necessary for a company purpose to take root and flourish. He presents six ingredients to create your company’s unique recipe for human magic.
Keywords: Meaning; Purpose; Organizational Culture; Employees; Motivation and Incentives; Performance
Related

Lifelines: Summarizing the Pattern of a Meaningful Life

By: P. Kim, J. De Freitas and T. Ullman
  • 2021 |
  • Conference Presentation |
  • Faculty Research
Related

Danish Crown: Feeding the Future

By: David E. Bell, Damien P. McLoughlin, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej
  • December 2021 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Danish Crown, one of the world’s largest exporters of pork meat and one of Europe’s tops five producers of beef, faced increasing headwinds in 2021, making CEO Jais Valeur feel like the core of the meat business was under attack. As a cooperative and prominent player in Denmark’s high-standard agriculture sector, the company had particular responsibilities and constraints including a high labor and production cost and strict regulatory environment. More recently growing concerns over climate change had led to increasing criticism of the environmental impacts of livestock production. Consumers in Denmark and worldwide were turning away from meat, for its climate impact but also for concerns about animal welfare and their own health. The case discusses these industry trends and describes Danish Crown’s efforts to respond by transitioning to a more sustainable company, with several initiatives and investments underway to meet its ambitious carbon reduction targets. Valeur was convinced that sustainability leadership was the only way to keep its customers, add value to commodity parts of the business, and earn the “license” to keep operating in the future. However, the more the company publicized its efforts, the more it got under attack from environmental activists for alleged “greenwashing”. Just like many of its peers, Danish Crown’s management team needed to devise a strategy that would allow for its survival despite the growing adverse trends.
Keywords: Agribusiness; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Food; Environmental Management; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Nutrition; Cooperative Ownership; Change Management; Transition; Leadership; Leading Change; Marketing; Product Marketing; Corporate Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Europe; Denmark
Related

Green Monday

By: Jose B. Alvarez, Billy Chan and Dawn H. Lau
  • December 2021 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
This case describes the entrepreneurial journey of David Yeung, from campaigning for plant-based diets to building Green Monday, a purpose-driven business and an ecosystem based in Hong Kong comprising a retail platform, an alternative meat brand (“OmniPork”), a non-profit foundation, and an impact investment arm. Green Monday had been reshaping the traditional concept of plant-based food into a modern and aspirational lifestyle by providing more food options to the growing number of flexitarian consumers in Hong Kong and beyond. But in fall 2021, challenges were emerging that could slow its rapid growth. Externally, the breakdown of the global supply chain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic was affecting the company’s expansion into new markets, such as mainland China, the U.S., and Southeast Asia. Internally, the strategy of operating multiple business models was testing the startup’s ability to find a balance between growing the business without diluting its strong mission and purpose. Given these constraints, Yeung had some important decisions to make regarding Green Monday’s growth plans. Should he continue the multi-business strategy or should he be more focused?
Keywords: Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Business Model; Mission and Purpose; Growth and Development Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; Hong Kong; China; Asia
Related

CRM and AI in Time of Crisis

By: Michelle Y. Lu and Navid Mojir
  • 2021 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
A crisis can affect the incentives of various players within a firm’s multi-layered sales and marketing organization (e.g., headquarters and branches of a bank). Such shifts can result in sales decisions against the firm’s best interests. Motivated by the backlash to the Paycheck Protection Program and the subsequent adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the banking industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, we develop a model of decision authority allocation between headquarters and branches, then examine the impact of AI on decision authority and intra-organizational conflicts. Our model reveals how an increased concentration of decision authority at headquarters during a crisis can push the bank to focus on its largest clients and explains why such a strategy might not be beneficial. Furthermore, using AI does not always help the firm. When it replaces the branch’s due diligence efforts (e.g., Fintech firms), AI can mitigate intra-organizational conflict and enhance resource allocation. Yet when AI supplements the branch’s due diligence efforts (e.g., traditional banks), the branch might decrease its efforts and thus lower the bank’s information about the branch’s clients. AI can thus create new conflicts of interest and result in decision authority becoming concentrated at headquarters. This effect of AI is exacerbated during a crisis. Our findings have important implications for both practitioners and policy-makers that apply beyond the COVID-19 crisis.
Keywords: CRM; Artificial Intelligence; AI; B2B Marketing; Decision Authority; Crisis Marketing; Intra-organizational Conflict; COVID-19 Pandemic; Customer Relationship Management; Technological Innovation; Decision Making; Strategy; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management
Related
More Publications

In the News

More Faculty News

HBS Working Knowledge

More Working Knowledge Articles

Harvard Business Publishing

→More Harvard Business Publishing

Seminars & Conferences

There are no upcoming events.

→More Seminars & Conferences

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.
Learn More

Contact Information

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