2018-2019 BBA Marketing Seminar

Mobile Dating Apps and the Gamification of Entrepreneurialized Romance

Anil Isisag, Doctoral Student, Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Synopses

How does a domain of social life that was once deemed outside the realm of the marketplace become marketized? In this study, I address this question by focusing on the marketization of romantic-sexual relationships in the context of mobile dating apps. My historical analysis demonstrates that rather than a one-off transition, marketization of romance transpires in stages and mobile dating apps facilitate the transition from the earlier model of entrepreneurialized romance (as exemplified by online dating) to the contemporary model of gamified romance. Based on semi-structured interviews with 25 mobile dating app users, I examine the implications of this transition for app users' romantic-sexual relationships.

As a second project based on the same data set, I investigate the positioning wars in the mobile dating apps market by focusing on how Bumble and Hinge utilize Tinder's bad reputation in their own branding efforts. Capitalizing on Tinder's image as a platform that fosters a sexist hook-up culture, Bumble ("the feminist app") and Hinge ("the relationship app") carved out unique market positions by presenting their brand as a remedy to Tinder's shortcomings. By explicating the process through which they make use of defamatory messages about Tinder to create their own branding story, I offer a step-by-step framework that marketing professionals can utilize in similar markets where emotional branding prevails.

2018-2019 Marketing Seminar

Consumer Claims to Space in the Politics of Consumer Identity

Melanie Wallendorf, Professor, Eller College of Management, University of Arizona

Synopses

Physical space is an integral element of social life that impacts a wide range of consumption experiences, including shopping, eating, and exercising. However, not every consumer has access to the same kinds or amounts of spaces. Just like with the resources of money and knowledge, access to the resource of space is socially structured, being unevenly available to different consumer categories. This substantial issue, consumer differential access to space, has been underexplored in consumer research; in this literature, the predominant approach to study space has been to focus on how social actors work to make specific sites more meaningful, through practices that are mostly detached from the influence of social structure. In response to this oversight, the present research employs a mixed-method ethnography to study a contemporary ethos of consumption that questions the differential access to space that women encounter with some of their self-expressive consumption activities as a result of pervasive power hierarchies. This research develops a geosocial framework that sheds light on how consumers act on space as a way of interrogating the cultural subordination of their consumer identities. This framework helps unravel the interlinkage between space and power relations in the realm of consumption.

 Understanding the Impact of Artificial Intelligence

Avi Goldfarb, Professor, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

Synopses

Perhaps the most popular topic with respect to the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) concerns what this technology means for jobs. As AI develops and mimics increasing levels of cognitive functions, the scope of jobs that might be impacted is great. This has motivated investigations into the nature of cognitive skills required for a wide array of occupations in order to identify those most likely to be impacted. Estimating the impact of AI on labor market outcomes requires an understanding of the particular tasks that AI will directly effect. Our goal in this article is to specify the characteristics of the technological change brought about by AI, and then to demonstrate how understanding these details provides useful insight into the labor market consequences.

Paying for a Chance to Save Money: Two-Part Tariffs in Name-Your-Own-Price Markets

Robert Zeithammer, Professor, Anderson School of Management, University of California - Los Angeles

Synopses

Prior theoretical research has shown that a Name-Your-Own-Price (NYOP) seller can profit from charging each prospective buyer a non-refundable fee for the opportunity to place a bid, akin to an entry fee to the seller’s store. We examine the profitability of such two-part tariffs in NYOP markets using incentive-compatible laboratory experiments. Overall, our results suggest two-part tariffs increase NYOP profit in a standard information-poor setting in the short run, but they are not as profitable as theory would suggest when the bidders get more information or experience. We also propose an individual-level non parametric test of the risk-averse expected utility model, and the test results suggest that this canonical model for decision making under uncertainty is not a good fit to the behavior of a substantial proportion of our subjects.

2018 Marketing Camp

The Wisconsin School of Business’ Marketing Department hosts an annual Marketing Camp that invites guest speakers from all around the globe to present their research. The objective of the Camp is to network, share research, studies, and findings regarding the ever-changing marketing landscape. The marketing landscape is continuously evolving due to technological advancements and the multifaceted human population. We believe that in this day and age marketing research has never been more imperative. The focus of our marketing research is to help us gain key insights on marketing analytics and big data, consumer culture theory, and consumer behavior. A big part of this research involves bringing in new ideas from our fellow peers in the world of academia. As such, we have invited these four guest speakers below to share with us some of the research that they have been working on.

Zeynep Arsel, Professor, John Molson School of Business, Concordia University

arsel-zeynep-150x188Synopsis

Professor Zeynep Arsel is the Concordia University Research Chair in Consumption and Markets at John Molson School of Business. She is a recipient of the Petro Canada Young Innovator Award and the Sidney J. Levy Award. Her research focuses on consumption with a sociological, anthropological and historical focus. She has published high impact articles in the Journal of Consumer Research and Journal of Marketing, is Associate Editor for Journal of Consumer Research and Consumption Markets and Culture, and is the co-editor of Taste, Consumption and Markets (Routledge). Arsel’s work has been funded by SSHRC, FQRSC, Association for Consumer Research, Marketing Science Institute, and has been featured in mass media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Harper’s Magazine, Globe and Mail, WIRED, Psychology Today, Montreal Gazette, Vancouver Sun, Ottawa Citizen, Le Devoir, L’Actualite, La Presse, and numerous blogs.

Kusum Ailawadi, Professor, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College

ailawadi-kusum-150x188Synopsis

Kusum received her PhD from the University of Virginia and taught at the Darden School at the University of Virginia and the Wallace E. Carroll School of Management at Boston College before joining Tuck in 1993. Before entering the PhD program, she worked in marketing management for Computer Maintenance Corporation (CMC) Ltd. in India. Her work has been honored for excellence in collaborative research between academics and practitioners, and for outstanding application of marketing science methods to practice. She has examined the effectiveness of policy changes by packaged goods manufacturers like Procter & Gamble, assessed the profit impact of the strategies of retailers like Hannaford and CVS, and studied the reaction of incumbent retailers to a major entrant like Wal-Mart. She is a recipient of best paper awards from top marketing journals like Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science, and Journal of Retailing; the winner of the Marketing Science Institute/Journal of Marketing Research competition for academic-practitioner collaborative research; and a finalist for multiple awards from the Journal of Marketing Research as well as the ISMS Practice Prize.  Recently, her Journal of Marketing paper on store brands and store loyalty was selected as one of the 50 best papers of 2008 published in all management journals. Besides publishing extensively in the top academic journals, she has written for the Wall Street Journal, US News and World Report, the CMO Strategy Forum at Advertising Age, and the Harvard Business Reviewamong others.

Kusum is an associate editor for two major marketing journals – Journal of Marketing and International Journal of Research in Marketing – and on the editorial boards of several others, including the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Retailing, and Marketing Science.  She serves on the board of trustees of Southern New Hampshire University and as an academic trustee of the Marketing Science Institute and AiMark, organizations in the US and Europe respectively that brings together academics, senior practitioners, and data providers to facilitate research and idea exchange.

Stijn Van Osselaer, Professor, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, Cornell University

van-osselaer-stijn-150x188Synopsis

Professor Stijn van Osselaer is S.C. Johnson Professor of Marketing at the Johnson Graduate School of Management. His research focuses on branding, customer loyalty, connecting customers with service providers, and the influences of learning, memory, and cognition in consumers' decisions. His work has appeared in the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, and many other scientific journals. Professor van Osselaer serves on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and International Journal of Research in Marketing, and he has twice served as an associate editor at the Journal of Consumer Research ((2008-2011, 2012-2018).

At Johnson, Professor van Osselaer teaches the core marketing course. He previously taught at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, London Business School, and Rotterdam School of Management. In 2012-2013, he was a visiting research scholar at the University of Colorado's Leeds School of Business. In 2015, Professor van Osselaer served as the president of the Society for Consumer Psychology. He has also co-chaired the 2010 annual conference of the Association for Consumer Research (ACR) and served as a member of this organization's board of directors.

Chris Moorman, Professor, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University

moorman-chris-150x188Synopsis

Christine Moorman is the T. Austin Finch, Sr. Professor of Business Administration at The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University where she is a member of the marketing area. Professor Moorman’s expertise lies in examining the nature and effects of learning and knowledge utilization by consumers, managers, organizations, and financial markets. She has studied these effects in the context of innovation, marketing alliances and networks, and public policy. Professor Moorman’s research has been published in a range of top journals, including the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Harvard Business Review. She is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Marketing Research and the Journal of Marketing and will serve as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Marketingbeginning July 1. Her research has been supported by grants from the Marketing Science Institute, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, and the National Science Foundation.  

Professor Moorman is the founder and managing director of The CMO Survey where she collects and disseminates the opinions of top marketers in order to predict the future of markets, track marketing excellence, and improve the value of marketing in firms and in society. She blogs about survey findings at Forbes and The CMO Survey. Professor Moorman is author of the book, Strategy from the Outside In: Profiting from Customer Value with George S. Day (which was awarded the 2011 Berry Book prize for the best book in the field of marketing. Christine was named the AMA-Irwin-McGraw-Hill Distinguished Marketing Educator in 2018 and a Fellow of the American Marketing Association in 2017 and she won the 2012 Paul D. Converse Award, the 2008 Mahajan Award for Career Contributions to Marketing Strategy, and the 2008 Distinguished Marketing Educator for the Academy of Marketing Science. At Duke, Christine was awarded the 2006 Bank of America award, the highest honor a Fuqua faculty can receive from professor peers. 

Professor Moorman’s teaching focuses on marketing strategy with an emphasis on building the organization and capabilities for customer focus. She has taught this class to undergraduate, MBA, and Executive MBA classes and has received numerous teaching awards, including the 2016 Best Elective Teaching Award from the Fuqua School of Business. She is passionate about connecting with customers and views this connection as the key to firm profitability and the free market system. A former Junior Achiever, Christine strives to inspire managers to innovate and manage their companies with the passion of entrepreneurs. She views managers as a source of great insight and direction for her research and teaching.