Study Identifies When it is Profitable to Reward, or Punish, Customers

New Haven, Conn., March 18, 2008 – A study from the Yale Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management sheds new light on when it is profitable for a firm to offer better prices to its current customers to retain them or to its competitors’ customers to acquire them...more

Study Measures Keyword Performance in Paid Search Advertising

New Haven, Conn., December 10, 2007 – Oliver J. Rutz of the Yale School of Management and Randolph E. Bucklin of the UCLA Anderson School of Business have developed the first model to measure the performance of individual keywords in paid search advertising on Internet search engines...more

Extreme Price Shoppers Have Minimal Effect on Grocery Retailer Profits 

New Haven, Conn., September 13, 2007 – Extreme price shoppers for groceries – those who contribute negative gross margins to a retailer – are a very small share of the market and do not have a significant adverse impact on retail profits according to a study by researchers at the Yale School of Management and SUNY Buffalo...more

Answers in Grocery Carts

For the last four months, a small group of SOM students fanned out across New Haven, talking to people in supermarkets about what’s in their grocery carts. They were trying to understand how people choose the kind of food they buy and how they might be convinced to make healthier choices. This wasn’t just an exercise in curiosity. This was a joint research project with PepsiCo, Inc., which sells products in nearly 200 countries, ranging from soda and chips to Quaker oatmeal, Tropicana orange juice, Gatorade, Naked Juices, and Aquafina bottled water...more

Money Better Spent: Study Finds Suggesting Alternative Ways to Spend Money Affects Consumers' Purchase Decisions

NEW HAVEN, Conn., May 31, 2007 - It's a scene that plays out in stores every day: a customer standing in front of a product display, frozen in indecision, trying to decide what to buy among the various options. As a new study explains, whether the customer is weighing plasma TVs or pairs of sunglasses, his choice can be swayed not by calling attention to details like prduct features, but to something he is not likey thinking about in the moment of decision - other ways he could spend his money...more

Blogs Build an Audience by Promoting Rivals Finds Yale School of Management Study

NEW HAVEN, Conn., March 7. Recommending a rival can increase a firm's bottom line suggests a new study by researchers at Yale School of Management.  There are a number of contexts where a firm may recommend a rival. For example, a salesperson may recommend that a customer look for a product in another store and Amazon.com frequently provides a link to a book sold by another site. In their study, "Link to Success: How Blogs Build an Audience by Promoting Rivals" Dina Mayzlin and Hema Yoganarasimhan focus on the context of web logs or blogs. From the bloggers' perspective, posting a one-way link to a potential competitor may be a risky strategy since it may lose readers to the linked blog...more

Consumers' Self-Control Today Is Influenced by Choices They May Make Tomorrow Finds Yale School of Management Study

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Feb. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Before you reach for that snack, does thinking about your next meal make it easier to eat healthy? Every day, people make choices that involve self-control dilemmas such as choosing between a fattening cookie and a fat-free yogurt as a snack. A new consumer behavior study from researchers at the Yale School of Management and Carnegie Mellon finds that the self-control people exercise in a decision at hand is influenced by the choices they believe they will make in the future...more

Study Explains Why - and When - People Rely on Intuitions to Make Choices

New Haven, Conn., August 1, 2006 – People often rely on their intuitions when making choices – whether they are deciding which sports team to bet on, politician to vote for, or job candidate to hire.  A new study published in the August issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General explains why people are predisposed to trusting their intuitions even when presented with information that suggests that their intuition may be wrong...more

Don't Tell Me, I Don't Want to Know: Yale School of Management Study Finds People Actively Avoid Medical Diagnoses for Illnesses Perceived as Severe, Untreatable

New Haven, Conn., April 26, 2006— People are often reluctant to obtain diagnostic medical tests for serious diseases they may be at risk for including cancer, HIV/AIDS, and Alzheimer’s.  A new study finds that the perceived treatability and severity of a disease impacts individuals’ decisions to submit to—or avoid—medical screening…more

Average Investor Does Not Understand Importance of Mutual Fund Fees in Investment Decisions Finds Yale School of Management Study

New Haven, Conn., April 11, 2006—A study that examines the demand for high-fee mutual funds finds that many investors do not realize that fund fees are important for making investment decisions, are swayed by irrelevant prospectus information, and often buy high-cost funds even though they sense they may be making a mistake…more

Ravi Dhar Named George Rogers Clark Professor of Management and Marketing
Ravi Dhar has been appointed the George Rogers Clark Professor of Management and Marketing at the Yale School of Management.  The George Rogers Clark faculty chair was previously held by Dhar's friend and colleague, the late Professor Dick R. Wittink…more

Setting New Year's Resolutions May Be Counterproductive. Study Explains Why Cunsomers Stray From Goals
Many New Year’s resolutions are made to save money, lose weight, and stop smoking. A study from the Yale School of Management and the University of Chicago helps explain who will stick to their goals and who will stray…more

Yale School of Management Word of Mouth Study Finds Customer Reviews at Amazon, BN.com Influence Book Sales
Many online retailers encourage customers to post product reviews believing that they will influence the purchases of other customers. A new study from the Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management that examines the effect of consumer reviews on book sales at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com finds that this community content does have an impact on what consumers buy. .more

License to Shop: Charitable Acts Increase Consumers' Willingness to Buy Luxury Goods
How much do you really desire a designer handbag or an exclusive watch but feel guilty purchasing it? Maybe you should donate to the United Way or spend a weekend building homes with Habitat for Humanity. According to a new research study, "Licensing Effect in Consumer Choice," consumers who act or feel altruistic are more likely to subsequently splurge on luxury goods. .more

Study Sheds New Light on Role of Retail Slotting Allowances
Retailers, manufacturers, and regulators have debated the controversial role of slotting allowances, the one-time fees manufacturers pay to retailers in exchange for shelf space to stock new products, with little consensus. While some argue that they are anti-competitive, others contend that they serve to enhance efficiency by helping, for example, to allocate scarce shelf space. .more

Recruiting Less-Loyal Customers for Word of Mouth Campaigns May Be Most Effective
As consumers become more impervious to traditional marketing tactics, companies are increasingly turning to word of mouth (WOM) campaigns to engineer conversations--or buzz--among customers.more

Ravi Dhar Receives William O'Dell Award for Consumer Choice Study
Ravi Dhar, professor of marketing at the Yale School of Management and director of the Yale Center for Customer Insights, and Klaus Wertenbroch (INSEAD), are the recipients of the prestigious 2005 William F. O'Dell Award for their study "Consumer Choice Between Hedonic and Utilitarian Goods.".more

Yale School of Management Opens New Research Center To Advance Study of Customer Behavior
The Yale School of Management is opening a new research center devoted to the behavior of customers. The Yale Center for Customer Insights (YCCI) will bring together industry leaders and scholars from multiple disciplines to focus on joint research relevant to the marketplace..more

Shop Till You SHOP? New Study Shows Shoppers Don't "Drop"--They Just Keep on Shopping
As consumers flood malls and online retailers this holiday shopping season, a new study of shopping behavior by researchers at the Yale School of Management and Duke University explains why some consumers may buy more than they intend..more