This article introduces a near-optimal bidding algorithm for use in real-time display advertising auctions. These auctions constitute a dominant distribution channel for internet display advertising and a potential funding model for addressable media. The proposed efficient, implementable learning algorithm is proven to rapidly converge to the optimal strategy while achieving zero regret and constituting a competitive equilibrium. This is the first algorithmic solution to the online knapsack problem to offer such theoretical guarantees without assuming a priori knowledge of object values or costs. Furthermore, it meets advertiser requirements by accommodating any valuation metric while satisfying budget constraints. Across a series of 100 simulated and 10 real-world campaigns, the algorithm delivers 98% of the value achievable with perfect foresight and outperforms the best available alternative by 11%. Finally, we show how the algorithm can be augmented to simultaneously estimate impression values and learn the bidding policy. Across a series of simulations, we show that the total regret delivered under this dual objective is less than that from any competing algorithm required only to learn the bidding policy.
文献来源：Tunuguntla S , Hoban P R . 2021. A Near Optimal Bidding Strategy for Real-Time Display Advertising Auctions[J]. Journal of Marketing Research, 58 (1), 1-21.
The authors analyze the impact of a tax on sweetened beverages using a unique data set of prices, quantities sold, and nutritional information across several thousand taxed and untaxed beverages for a large set of stores in Philadelphia and its surrounding area. The tax is passed through at an average rate of 97%, leading to a 34% price increase. Demand in the taxed area decreases by 46% in response to the tax. Cross-shopping to stores outside of Philadelphia offsets more than half of the reduction in sales in the city and decreases the net reduction in sales of taxed beverages to only 22%. There is no significant substitution to bottled water and modest substitution to untaxed natural juices. The authors show that tax avoidance through cross-shopping severely constrains revenue generation and nutritional improvement, thus making geographic coverage an important policy decision.
文献来源：Stephan Seiler, Anna Tuchman, Song Yao. 2021. The Impact of Soda Taxes: Pass-Through, Tax Avoidance, and Nutritional Effects. Journal of Marketing Research, 58 (1): 22–49.
Using one field and two online lab experiments, this article shows that congruency between shelf layout and a consumer’s internal product categorization increases the perceived variety of the assortment and reduces the perceived complexity of the shelf layout. These assortment perceptions, in turn, heighten purchase intention and satisfaction toward the chosen item. Results are robust across internal categorization measurements (planogram design vs. sorting tasks), congruency measures (distance- vs. matching-based), and products (biscuits vs. yogurt snacks). In the field study, familiarity—operationalized as either consumption frequency or subjective product knowledge—increased the overall effect of categorization congruency and strengthened its pathway through perceived variety (vs. the one through complexity). The authors show how their research can be exploited to improve shelf layouts by optimizing the external categorization. They demonstrate the value of a unifying Bayesian framework for research on behavioral decision making that uses the same set of posterior parameter draws for parameter inference, moderated mediation analysis, and optimization under uncertainty.
文献来源：Robert P. Rooderkerk and Donald R. Lehmann. 2021. Incorporating Consumer Product Categorizations into Shelf Layout Design. Journal of Marketing Research, 58 (1): 50–73.
Empirical demand functions, such as those from choice-based conjoint analyses, are critical to many aspects of marketing. Approaches have been developed to ensure that research subjects provide honest and thoughtful responses. However, to reduce costs, researchers increasingly collect data online, under conditions that compromise the value of the information provided. Objective measures related to how the study is completed, such as latency (how quickly answers are given), can only be tied to other objective measures (such as the consistency of the answers), but ultimately their relationship to the subject’s utility function is questionable. To address this problem, the authors introduce a mixture modeling framework that clusters subjects based on variances. The proposed model naturally groups subjects based on their internal consistency. The authors argue that a higher level of internal consistency (i.e., lower variance) reflects more engaged consumers who have sufficient experience with the product category and choice task. “Gremlins,” in contrast, behave such that the noise in their responses overwhelms any signal, leading to a lack of predictive power. This approach provides an automated way to determine which respondents are relevant. The authors discuss the conceptual and modeling framework and illustrate the method using both simulated and commercial data.
文献来源：John R. Howell, Peter Ebbes, John C. Liechty. 2021. Gremlins in the Data: Identifying the Information Content of Research Subjects. Journal of Marketing Research, 58 (1): 74–94.
Open innovation contests that display all submitted ideas to participants are a popular way for firms to generate ideas. In such contest-based ideation, the authors show that seeing numerous competitive ideas of others harms, rather than stimulates, creative performance (Study 1). Others’ competitive prior ideas interfere with idea generation, as new ideas need to be differentiated from the preceding ones to be original. Exposure to an increasing number of prior ideas thus heightens individuals’ perceived constraints of expressing ideas and harms creative performance (Studies 2 and 3). Furthermore, creative performance monotonically reduces with an increasing number of prior ideas (Study 4). A final study demonstrates that showing only a limited number of ideas as well as grouping prior ideas offer actionable ways to reduce prior ideas’ harmful influence (Study 5). These results illustrate viable ways to improve contest-based ideation outcomes merely by changing how competitive prior ideas are presented.
文献来源：Reto Hofstetter, Darren W. Dahl, Suleiman Aryobsei, Andreas Herrmann. 2021. Constraining Ideas: How Seeing Ideas of Others Harms Creativity in Open Innovation. Journal of Marketing Research, 58 (1): 95–114.
In 2019, U.S. pharmaceutical companies paid $3.6 billion to physicians in the form of gifts to promote their drugs. To curb inappropriate financial relationships between health care providers and firms, several state laws require firms to publicly declare the payments they make to physicians. In 2013, this disclosure law was rolled out to all 50 states. The authors investigate the causal impact of this increased transparency on subsequent payments between firms and physicians. While firms and physicians were informed of the disclosure regulation at data collection, complete transparency did not occur until the data were published online. The authors estimate the heterogeneous treatment effects of the online data disclosure exploiting the phased rollout of the disclosure laws across states, facilitated by recent advances in machine learning methods. Using a 29-month national panel covering $100 million in payments between 16 antidiabetic brands and 50,000 physicians, the authors find that the monthly payments changed insignificantly, on average, due to disclosure. However, the average null effect masks some unintended consequences of disclosure, wherein payments may have increased for more expensive drugs and among physicians who prescribed more heavily. The authors further explore potential mechanisms that can parsimoniously describe the data pattern.
文献来源：Tong Guo, S. Sriram, Puneet Manchanda. 2021. The Effect of Information Disclosure on Industry Payments to Physicians. Journal of Marketing Research, 58 (1): 115–140.
Public school districts not only make strategic investments in internet access as a means to attract and retain students but also communicate the value of these investments with parents as part of their marketing programs. While it helps attract more customers, how does school district internet access spending (SDIAS) affect academic performance and disciplinary problems among students? Using a longitudinal data set that combines SDIAS of 1,243 school districts with academic performance and disciplinary records of more than 9,000 Texas public schools between 2000 and 2014, the authors find that a one-standard-deviation increase in SDIAS (an average increase of $.6 million) is associated with an improvement in eight academic performance indicators, with effect sizes ranging from 2% to 5% of a standard deviation, amounting to a $.8 million to $1.8 million increase in cumulative income for the current students of a school district. Furthermore, a one-standard-deviation increase in SDIAS is associated with a 5% increase in Part II offense–related school disciplinary problems, amounting to a yearly cost of $25,800 to $53,440 for a school district. The positive and negative consequences of SDIAS are more pronounced among schools in regions with a higher level of household internet access.
文献来源：Yixing Chen, Vikas Mittal, Shrihari (Hari) Sridhar. 2021. Investigating the Academic Performance and Disciplinary Consequences of School District Internet Access Spending. Journal of Marketing Research, 58 (1): 141–162.
Anecdotal evidence and extant research show that consumers can prefer both user-designed and designer-designed products. However, the factors that moderate such preferences are not well understood. The authors posit power distance belief (PDB) as a moderator such that low-PDB consumers prefer user-designed to designer-designed products because they identify more with user-driven companies. In contrast, high-PDB consumers prefer designer-designed to user-designed products due to their stronger trust in designer-driven companies. Six studies examining power distance belief at both the country and individual levels provide convergent support for the proposed moderating effect of PDB and underlying mechanisms. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that the interaction between design philosophy and PDB is more likely for low-complexity than high-complexity products.
文献来源：Xiaobing Song, Jihye Jung, Yinlong Zhang. 2021. Consumers’ Preference for User-Designed Versus Designer-Designed Products: The Moderating Role of Power Distance Belief. Journal of Marketing Research, 58 (1): 163–181.
Sales force incentive design often involves significant participation by sales managers in designing the compensation plans of salespeople who report to them. Although sales managers hold valuable territory-level information, they may benefit from misrepresenting that information given their own incentives. The author uses a game theoretic model to show (1) how a firm can efficiently leverage a manager’s true knowledge and (2) the conditions under which involving the manager is optimal. Under the proposed approach, the firm delegates sales incentive decisions to the manager within restrictive constraints. She can then request relaxed constraints by fulfilling certain requirements. The author shows how these constraints and requirements can be set to ensure the firm’s best possible outcome given the manager’s information. Thus, this “request mechanism” offers an efficient, reliable alternative to approaches often used in practice to incorporate managerial input, such as internal negotiations and behind-the-scenes lobbying. The author then identifies the conditions under which this mechanism outperforms the well-established theoretical approach of offering the salesperson a menu of contracts to reveal territory-level information.
