Head: Prof. Glen L. Urban, Professor Sloan School, Marketing Group

Associated Faculty:
Prof. Dan Ariely, MIT Sloan School of Management & MIT Media Lab
Prof. Dimitris Berstimas, MIT Sloan School, Operations Research Group
Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson, MIT Sloan School, Information Technology Group
Prof. John Hauser, MIT Sloan School, Marketing Group
Prof. John Little, MIT Sloan School, Marketing Group
Prof. Andrew Lo, MIT Sloan School, Finance Group
Prof. Jim Orlin, MIT Sloan School, Operations Research Group
Prof. Nittin Patel, MIT Sloan School, Operations Research Group
Prof. Drazen Prelec, MIT Sloan School, Marketing Group
Prof. Duncan Simester, MIT Sloan School, Marketing Group
Prof. Eric Von Hipple, MIT Sloan School, Management of Technology Group

Description:
The Internet provides a new technology for enhancing marketing effectiveness and efficiency.  The Digital Marketing SIG studies the potential gains from employing digital technologies to the formulation and execution of (real) marketing strategies.  Existing and fully funded projects currently include over $500,000 of work per year with GM, BT, and Suruga Bank.

The General Motors Corporation project looks at Customer Advocacy and market research measures to calibrate the effects of four Trust and Advocacy tools: community, individualized electronic brochures, advisors, and competitive test drives at the dealer level.  We are helping BT to build and evaluate a Customer Advocacy web site for trust based marketing of broadband telecommunication services, and testing its impact.  Suruga Bank is building a trusted adviser in a virtual Branch Bank. Both BT and Suruga Bank are now researching algorithms to “morph” the site experience to match individual cognitive (impulsive/deliberative, analytic/holistic, visual/verbal) and cultural (individual/collective, hierarchical/egalitarian, emotional/neutral) characteristics.  Finally, GM has begun a new project to model lexicographically how people decide which cars to consider for purchase, and then choose those that pass the consideration elimination screening.

Our Faculty are also working on improved methods of "Virtual Customer" modeling through Fast Track conjoint measurement and an enhanced focus group using a creative problem solving method called the "Information Pump".  Exploratory work is being conducted to look at the effects of short-term and long-term pricing in multi-channel shopping (catalogues, store, Internet, telephone).  There is interest in new methods of click stream data analysis to support segmentation and site design.  Overall the group aims to integrate theory and relevance in their work.  The group is very responsive to managerial needs and how they can be filled by methods that advance the state of the art in marketing science with live experimentation and implementation at sponsor sites.