In this paper we study such pricing practices like MCI's Friends and Family Program that employ price discriminations on the basis of callers' social ties. We characterize a consumer's personal communication network by the number of strong and weak ties that the consumer has. We then derive a...

Consumer choice is influenced in a direct and meaningful way by the actions taken by others. These “actions” range from face-to-face recommendations from a friend to the passive observation of what a stranger is wearing. We refer to the set of such contexts as “social interactions” (SI)....

This paper investigates the dynamic relation between callers' social ties and their wireless phone service consumption. We construct a large pair-level panel dataset with information on the number of each pair's common contacts, calling activities, prices, and each caller's characteristics over...

Sweepstakes and contests are an extremely common promotional strategy used by firms. The sweepstakes and contests often differ significantly in the design of reward structure. For example, in 1999, Godiva Chocolates conducted a sweepstakes where one box of chocolates contained a diamond...

In goal--oriented services, consumers want to get transported from one well--defined state (start) to another (destination) state without much concern for intermediate states. A cost--based evaluation of such services should depend on the total cost associated with the service---i.e., the price...

Wireless number portability (WNP) is a telecommunication regulatory policy that requires cellular phone service providers to allow customers who switch service subscriptions to retain their original phone numbers. The right to retain the number lowers the switching cost for a consumer. Thus, the...

Sales contests are commonly used by firms as a short-term motivational device to increase salespeople's efforts. Conceptually, sales contests and piece-rate schemes, such as salary, commission, or quotas, differ in that in sales contests payment to salespeople is based on relative rather than...

Reward programs, a promotional tool to develop customer loyalty, offer incentives to consumers on the basis of cumulative purchases of a given product or service from a firm. Reward programs have become increasingly common in many industries. The best-known examples include frequent-flier...

Brands often form alliances to enhance their brand equities. In this paper, we examine the alliances between professional athletes (athlete brands) and sports teams (team brands) in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Athletes and teams match to maximize the total added value created by...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the spillover effects of marketing expertise on the market performance of domestic firms and multinational enterprises (MNEs). Specifically, this study examines how the adoption of frequency loyalty programs by a domestic firm following an MNE...