Subscribed consumers stay subscribed – a tendency that is often exploited by companies. However, a recent study by Klaus M. Miller of HEC Paris and H! PARIS center chairholder, Navdeep S. Sahni of Stanford University, and Avner Strulov-Shlain of the University of Chicago shows that in the long term, exploiting these consumer behaviors may not pay off.
By Klaus Miller
How consumer mindset metrics such as level of brand awareness, experience with the brand, and desire to purchase can be used to guide advertising decisions is still not fully understood. A recent study by professors of HEC Paris, Imperial College London, University of Navarra, Boston University and Northeastern University validates for the first time the old, and often contested, idea of analyzing them as a sequence of effects that ultimately lead to sales.
By Marc Vanhuele
Artificial Intelligence has a potentially disruptive impact on organizations, firms, and society at large. The latest mind-boggling illustration came with the discovery of chatGPT’s mesmerizing results in November 2022. This followed a fall of investments in AI last year in Silicon Valley. From analyzing data in one’s business to increasing customer engagement and replacing humans in routine tasks across industries, AI is becoming more relevant to our lives and economy every day. Everyone talks about it, but do we really understand its opportunities and threats? And how can we make the best out of it, whilst ensuring that ethical requirements are met?
The Black Lives Matter movement is officially supported by consumers and brands worldwide. However, brands that are true allies to the movement through their actions and words gain more customer support than those who simply join the bandwagon. These are the key findings of Professor L. J. Shrum of HEC Paris, Nathalie Spielmann of NEOMA Business School, and Susan Dobscha of Bentley University, following their investigation into whether brands’ actions in support of a cause matter to consumers.
By L. J. Shrum
Researchers in Marketing Gilles Laurent of ESSEC Business School and Marc Vanhuele of HEC Paris study how consumers read and assimilate prices while shopping. Their novel theory refutes the intuitive hypothesis made by previous research in consumer behavior that prices are read from left to right, and has implications for policy regulations, to prevent misleading consumers in their purchase decisions.
Camille Putois is the CEO of Business for Inclusive Growth (B4IG), a coalition of more than 40 global businesses, representing 4.4 million employees and a combined revenue of over 1 trillion USD. She discusses how this coalition strives for more inclusive practices and navigates the pros and cons of the different methods to measure progress on this crucial topic. For this, she worked with Leandro Nardi and Marieke Huysentruyt, researchers at the Inclusive Economy Center at HEC Paris.
After the COVID pandemic, Chief Marketing Officers would have finally hoped for calmer times: more stable sales, budget increases instead of cuts and fewer "knee-jerk reactions". Now, however, we have to deal with a depressed consumer climate, triggered by an enormous increase in inflation. This is something which we might no longer have considered possible, let alone as a long-term phenomenon, and which we would have thought of (over-optimistically) as an unwanted echo of the past. During these times, which products and services will be less in demand? And what marketing strategy should CMOs develop?
Many luxury brands have engaged in corporate social responsibility by linking products to a charitable cause. But altruism is at odds with the materialistic motivations to purchase fancy watches or handbags. So how do luxury brands overcome the paradox and get their clients to engage in charitable giving? Find out in this new study by HEC Paris Marketing Professor L. J. Shrum and PhD Sukhyun Kim, and Kiwan Park of Seoul National University.
How to create business opportunities online? Are premium memberships in networks such as LinkedIn helpful for this purpose? The online presence of managers becomes more and more important, according to Andreas Lanz, Assistant Professor of Marketing at HEC Paris, who focuses on seeding questions in most of his research. Together with colleagues from Germany, Professor Lanz investigated premium memberships and found that going premium alone is not helpful––it is all about capitalizing on the advanced networking features.
By Andreas Lanz
HEC Paris Assistant Professor in Marketing, Klaus Miller, analyzes the February 3 Facebook/Meta stock market plunge. What exactly does it tell us about private data on internet and its links to the advertising world? We meet Klaus on February 8, the very day he and five co-researchers self-published “The Impact of the GDPR on the Online Advertising Market”. This book focuses on Europe’s GDPR and how it affects online publicity. In a wide-ranging discussion on personal data and the advertising industry, Klaus provides insights on ad blockers on news websites and their impact on our reading habits.
