Marketing Library Research Guide: Find Featured Articles

This research responds to the attendant need for empirical evidence pertaining to how marketing affects firm performance. Using the Fama-French method, common in finance, and a leading marketplace measure of a brand's financial equity value, the authors provide empirical evidence for the branding-shareholder value creation link. The results extend previous research by showing that strong brands deliver greater returns to stockholders than does a relevant benchmark.

Discusses new business models targeted at providing goods and services to the poorest people in the world. It makes a case for the fastest growing new markets and entrepreneurial opportunities being found among the billions of poor people 'at the bottom of the [financial] pyramid'.

Case studies suggest that companies including Avon, Stonyfield Farm and Starbucks have benefited from marketing initiatives associating the company with a socially beneficial cause. But how should managers allocate dollars between social-cause marketing and other types of marketing programs? The authors use a market-research technique called conjoint analysis to help managers evaluate the relative benefits of various types of affinity marketing programs, including sponsorship of social causes...

Although managers have been aware of the significance of Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) for over a decade, they have been slow to leverage their ability to maximize their ROMI. The purpose of this article is to sketch a framework for optimizing a corporation's ROMI and to highlight the indispensability of ROMI to marketing management. The article suggests a framework to accelerate the adoption of ROMI, and a plan to carry out a pilot ROMI project.

If your company is intrigued by the opportunities at the bottom of the pyramid but is hesitant to plunge in, it's not alone: Despite the immensity of the markets and the volume of the hype, few multinational firms have built sizable businesses serving consumers or producers who survive on just a few dollars a day.

As marketing budgets get leaner, the pressure is on to deliver more profits. To develop effective strategies for doing this, marketers need clear measurements. Unfortunately, measurements other than ROI are incomplete and can lead to misguided spending and lost profits. The ROI measure can account for all costs and the complete customer value to prioritize marketing investments and maximize profits. Other marketing measures are merely performance indicators useful in improving the ROI...

Cost reductions and incremental product improvements are no longer the way to revenue growth and greater profitability. Measurement of "return on innovation investment" (R2I), the capstone of a series of innovation metrics tools, will enable executives to manage the greater risks inherent in truly innovative new products and services. Additional metrics for monitoring various performance and process dimensions of innovation initiatives feed into the R2I "roll-up" number.

Sustainability is the buzzword du jour, but how do you actually go about achieving it? Well, its clear there isn't a one-size-fits-all strategy. Look at five companies, and you will see five different paths, each particular to a specific company's market and problems.

The authors present a unified strategic framework that enables competing marketing strategy options to be traded off on the basis of projected financial return, which is operationalized as the change in a firm's customer equity relative to the incremental expenditure necessary to produce the change.

The article discusses the role of market-driven forces in the alleviation of poverty. The authors focus on strategic business models that encourage better distribution of resources to the urban poor in order to provide access to the open market. Details are provided regarding the global poor in developing countries and the challenges that face proper distribution, including inadequate civil infrastructure, illiteracy, and underdeveloped skills.

As companies continue to hold marketing executives to greater levels of accountability, they must determine whether ROI, or other financial metrics, can truly provide the insights they need to be accountable. ROI should not replace other marketing metrics but clearly needs to be central to improving marketing measurements and decision making. Without financial metrics, companies will continue to treat marketing as a discretionary expense.

This study examines the concepts of value and information in terms of management. Although changes in information technology are the major themes, changes in the marketplace and the challenges facing marketing are also discussed. Value-based marketing and its usefulness to customers, as well as the consequences of customers' needs, as related to corporate and product credibility is examined. Organizational structure, and its relation to strategic direction, is considered within this context.