Marketing faculty are publishing leading research across the marketing discipline.
See below for some recent highlights of Marketing faculty research. Read how Jindal School faculty members are contributing to the body of marketing knowledge by exploring the below subjects:
Advertising Effectiveness and Brand Building
Dr. Kuksov explored how image advertising may influence brand image formation and the incremental price consumers would be willing to pay for a product with a particular brand image. His research, in particular, sheds light on the questions of when a firm may benefit from abstaining (or limiting) advertising, how advertising and branding would affect consumer-to-consumer communication, and whether introducing one vs. multiple brands would be more profitable. While the above research is about image advertising, Dr. Kuksov also investigated product and price advertising, and the part they play in the competitive strategy.
Other faculty working on advertising issues include Dr. Kuksov, Dr. Murthi and Dr. Rao.
Faculty
Competitive Models of Marketing Strategy
Using game theory analysis, Dr. Rao, a leading scholar in this area, has studied the competitive effects of advertising, promotions and pricing on profits and firm’s strategies with emphasis on supermarket competition and pricing by frequently purchased goods. Dr. Kumar uses game theory to address issues related to trade promotions, retail pass through of promotional discounts, category management, strategic sourcing of private label brands, open-source software and internet auctions. Dr. Kuksov uses game theory to examine the competitive effects of consumer search costs, product design, and specifics of consumer behavior. Dr. Tehrani uses game theory to study the effect of targeting advertising on firms’ profit in a competitive market. Dr. Joo uses structural empirical approach in analyzing consumer choices and preferences to develop data-driven marketing strategy in retailing. Dr. Mamadehussene has empirically investigated the competition effects of price-matching guarantees. Dr. Jain has used game theoretic approaches to study the impact of behavioral biases such as need for conformity or uniqueness, fairness and self-control issues on market competition and welfare. Dr. Subramanian has studied the competitive implications of CRM and managing customers as assets.
Faculty
Sanjay Jain, Joonhwi Joo, Dmitri Kuksov, Nanda Kumar, Samir Mamadehussene, Ram C. Rao, Upender Subramanian, Shervin S. Tehrani
Consumer Uncertainty and Search Costs
In multiple research projects, Dr. Kuksov and Dr. Joo examine consumer choice under uncertainty and search costs, and how retailers and manufacturers should respond and manage this consumer behavior. In particular, Dr. Kuksov explored how consumer uncertainty and costs of price discovery affect pricing, product development, and retail assortment choices, and how retailers and manufacturers can manage consumer uncertainty by direct information provision, advertising, and assortment choices, or by facilitating consumer reviews. Dr. Kumar and Dr. Ratchford have examined how consumers’ uncertainty about future prices and search costs affects firms’ price matching strategies. Dr. Xie conducted research to empirically investigate the interplay between buyer information search behavior and firm pricing strategy. Dr. Mamadehussene investigates the implications of consumer uncertainty and search costs on the optimal design of mechanisms to elicit preferences. Dr. Tehrani use the multi-armed bandit setting and reinforcement learning approaches to capture consumers’ choice pattern under uncertainty. Moreover, he studies heuristic approaches to address consumers’ bounded rationality in updating beliefs and information processing.
Faculty
Joonhwi Joo, Dmitri Kuksov, Nanda Kumar, Samir Mamadehussene, Brian Ratchford, Shervin S. Tehrani, Ying Xie
Health Care Marketing
Dr. Kim examines the role of marketing in various aspects of the U.S. health care industry. In particular, Dr. Kim studied how hospital advertising can attract patients to a particular hospital, and it does not seem to hurt patient health outcomes, and how marketing on television (e.g., erectile dysfunction ads) can have unintended effects on public health outcomes (e.g, increased birth rates). Dr. Kim’s research has also showed that direct-to-consumer advertising can affect health care providers’ prescribing behavior, as well as patients’ preference toward high-tech medical procedures such as robotic surgeries.
Faculty
Information Economics and Marketing on the Internet
Dr. Kuksov investigated the implications of changing consumer search costs due to the internet and the effects of showrooming. Dr. Rao has studied search engine advertising, internet marketing affiliates and platform design. Dr. Rao explored how auction formats affect final prices in Internet auctions. Dr. Murthi is conducting research on personalization on the Internet. Dr. Xie studies the influence of various information sources and channels such as multi-channel advertising, social media and social network on consumer purchase journey. Dr. Chiong studies the effectiveness of digital advertising, particularly mobile in-app advertising and its effect on users’ engagement and gameplay. Dr. Ratchford has completed a number of studies of the role of the internet in the consumer search process, and is currently working on another one. Dr. Mamadehussene analyzed price comparison platforms’ equilibrium design of their search environments. Dr. Tehrani studies the effect of social and experiential information on consumers’ sampling behavior in digital entertainment market. Dr. Jain has studied the impact of sampling on demand, prices and profits in the context of a book publisher. Dr. Subramanian has examined the marketing strategies of daily deal platforms, and pricing strategies of on-demand service platforms in the gig-economy.
Faculty
Khai Chiong, Sanjay Jain, Dmitri Kuksov, Samir Mamadehussene, B.P.S. Murthi, Brian Ratchford, Ram C. Rao, Upender Subramanian, Shervin S. Tehrani, Ying Xie
New Product and Brand Development and Management
Dr. Bass, was a world-renowned expert on new product development and management, who researched the diffusion of new product sales and the spread of new technology for over 40 years. He developed the famous diffusion model that bears his name, the Bass model. He consulted with many companies to forecast the sales of new products and shaped the marketing area at UTD. Several of our current faculty continue to investigate product development and consumer adoption of new products, assortment choice, brand positioning, and other aspects of product line management.
Faculty
Sanjay Jain, Dmitri Kuksov, B.P.S. Murthi, Ram C. Rao, Ying Xie
Pricing
Often in conjunction with other research questions, many of our faculty investigate the optimal pricing strategies of manufacturers and retailers under different market conditions, such as competitive environment, information, consumer search costs, distribution channels, consumer characteristics, branding, etc. Dr. Kumar and Dr. Rao have studied how retailers can use their store/loyalty cards to compete efficiently and price intelligently. Dr. Tehrani studies the optimal pricing strategy when firms are capable to target consumers by using behavioral or geo-targeting technologies. Dr. Jain has investigated issues such as pricing of luxury products and behavioral-based pricing. Dr. Kuksov investigated pricing in the context of luxury product branding and competition, distribution channels, and the effects of consumer uncertainty and search costs on pricing.
Faculty
Sanjay Jain, Dmitri Kuksov, Nanda Kumar, Samir Mamadehussene, Ram C. Rao, Shervin S. Tehrani
Retail Channel Management
Dr. Kuksov studied several aspects of retail management, such as informational service, assortment, and pricing. Dr. Xie investigated several multi-channel retailing problems such as showrooming and mobile channel adoption. Dr. Rao has looked at issues such as consistent provision of assortment, and double couponing in the context of retail strategies. Across several research projects Dr. Kumar has examined optimal category management strategies, sourcing of private labels, how manufacturers can manage dual distribution channels and manage trade promotions. Dr. Ratchford has studied retail productivity, loss leader pricing, and pricing of fashion merchandise. He is currently studying IT outsourcing contracts. Dr. Kim has studied franchise management, particularly the role of franchisees’ service effort on demand and franchise encroachment issues. Dr. Tehrani studies the effect of one-stop shopping behavior on the optimal channel structure. Dr. Subramanian has studied the strategic implications of exclusive distribution arrangements, the information role of buyback contracts and category captain arrangements.
Faculty
Tongil “TI” Kim, Dmitri Kuksov, Nanda Kumar, Brian Ratchford, Ram C. Rao, Upender Subramanian, Shervin S. Tehrani, Ying Xie
Sales Promotions
Stochastic brand choice models were developed by Dr. Bass in the early 70’s. Recent choice models estimated on grocery scanner panel data shed light on the effectiveness of different kinds of promotions. Dr. Murthi and Dr. Kumar employ these empirical models to better understand how promotions affect consumer choice behavior. The long-term impact of promotions and competitive promotional strategies are researched by Dr. Kuksov, Dr. Kumar, Dr. Murthi, and Dr. Rao. Dr. Tehrani is studying the effect of sales’ promotion on consumers’ consideration set and their exploration incentive about products. In recent work Dr. Kumar and Dr. Rao have examined how consumers’ uncertainty about future prices affects consumers’ stockpiling behavior and firms’ promotional strategies.
Faculty
Dmitri Kuksov, Nanda Kumar, B.P.S. Murthi, Ram C. Rao, Shervin S. Tehrani
Salesforce Management
The Marketing Area has several faculty members who study sales force management topics and the Area also offers an undergraduate sales concentration and a professional Sales program directed by Dr. Dover. Dr. Rao has developed analytical tools for the design of compensation packages that offer the right mix of salary and incentives to salespeople under such conditions as where their abilities are uncertain, actions cannot be easily monitored, or when sales carries over into future quarters. Dr. Chiong is interested in models of persuasion, and using machine learning tools to analyze videos of buyer-seller interactions. Dr. Jain has studied optimal compensation plans in the presence of salesperson with self-control issues. Dr. Kuksov explored the boundaries of the effectiveness of expanding the scope of salesforce performance measurements.
Faculty
Khai Chiong, Howard Dover, Sanjay Jain, Dmitri Kuksov, Ram C. Rao
Marketing Program Resources at the Jindal School
Academic Programs – Primary
The Marketing academic area offers one bachelor’s, one master’s and one PhD program.
Online Degrees
Academic Programs – Additional
The Marketing area also offers accelerated pathways to adding more degrees as well as professional programs and concentrations.
Faculty and Advisory Board
Discover how Marketing area faculty are researching, publishing, speaking and engaging in the business community.
Community Activity
Marketing area students, faculty and staff are engaged in the community through center activity, events and more.