Marketing

This paper examines optimal sampling and pricing of information goods for firms that generate revenues from both sales and advertising. We develop a model where the demand for paid information goods is influenced by the sample portion that the firm offers for free. Taking into account the consumers’ initial valuation and experienced quality of the free version, we characterize the firm’s optimal sampling and pricing decisions. We find that the effect of advertising revenues on optimal sample portion and price depends on expected and experienced quality.

Jacob Goldenberg, Sangman Han, and Donald Lehmann discuss the critical role of "social hubs" in social systems (i.e., individuals with an exceptionally large number of social ties). They point to the importance of identifying such social hubs for accelerating the diffusion of products.

We propose that the reliance on feelings as information in judgment may involve two separate mechanisms: one involves a metacognitive assessment of whether one's feelings should be trusted in the judgment; the other is more mindless reliance on feelings without much consideration for their perceived diagnosticity.

The family-owned Montclair Video attracted loyal customers by providing a wide selection of movies and personalized recommendations, helping it fend off competition from movie-rental giant Blockbuster. That changed with the increasing popularity of Netflix, as well as a rise in on-demand cable content and the introduction of a similar pricing model from Blockbuster. The family was prepared to adopt new pricing and add rental services, but only if the strategy made financial sense.

In 2009, Samsung invited Professor Bernd Schmitt to advise the company about how it could transform its brand and appeal to consumers on an emotional level. Although Samsung was generally well-regarded for its technological skill and steady execution, it had a reputation for lacking innovation and creativity. In this case, students accompany Schmitt on his journey from Seoul to Silicon Valley to Las Vegas as he discovers how a revolutionary new camera might change consumers' perception of the brand.

Lawrence Glaubinger, a Columbia Business School alumnus, became increasingly involved in running his 100-acre Christmas tree farm after he retired in 1992. Between 1993 and 2008, Glaubinger sold Ponderosa pines through an arrangement with Green Acres, a large retailer that bought Glaubinger's trees to sell at its nurseries. While Glaubinger Tree Farm sold the trees to Green Acre at a wholesale price based on its marginal cost, the retailer independently set retail pricing. Glaubinger suspected his tree farm could have shown higher profits if it had sold directly to consumers.

Aliza Freud partnered with Josh McKay (both CBS '01) to launch SheSpeaks, a word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing community, in 2007. What business model would help them to compete in the world of Facebook and Twitter — and by what means should they measure the sucesss of their marketing campaigns?