In 2003 the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science (ISMS) introduce and conducted its inaugural Practice Prize Competition. The reports and papers that follow are the finalists from that competition, representing the best examples of rigor plus relevance that our profession produces.

Marketing has matured to the point where it seems desirable to take stock of where we are, what we have learned, and fruitful directions for extending the knowledge base that has developed. Science is a process involving the interaction between empirical generalizations and theory. An is “a...