Making your mark in the multi-billion dollar global sports industry is a challenge. So how do teams like the Red Sox and the Dallas Cowboys drive revenue? They create powerhouse brands that attract, engage, and retain fans by leveraging big data, creating cross-platform media and engagement plans, and using dynamic social media strategies to maximize live event experiences. Using theoretical and real-world examples, Ben Shields will share innovative best practices from the business of sports that are relevant to any consumer-driven enterprise.
New digital technologies, pervasive social media and countless apps have transformed the traditional B to C marketing templates. Now, businesses and consumers can increasingly co-create content, experiences and value. And often these collaborations yield persuasive results. But to achieve this brand leverage, businesses have to be willing to give up some control and also engage, creatively, with customers on a more personal level. Under what circumstances does it make sense for business to loosen brand control and what energy and investment is required of consumers to enable co-creation to make an impact? Similarly, what needs to be considered as we enter the world of co-decision making, in which customers have to allow apps to control selection and decisions?
Bitcoin became a buzzword overnight. It pops up in headlines and fuels endless media debate. Cryptocurrency and the “blockchain” technology behind it holds the promise of a financial system without middlemen—it could put that system in the control of the people who use it and safeguard them from a 2008-type crash. More than a digital form of currency, this technology could integrate billions of hitherto excluded people into the global economy, restore individuals’ control over their private data and identities, and change the way organizations and business relationships are governed.
Rapid urbanization and increasing population density in megacities poses unique challenges for last-mile distribution in many of the world’s largest emerging markets. Meeting these challenges requires understanding shifting consumer expectations and the evolution of omni-channel retail and delivery in city environments. These insights can help companies leverage logistics big data analytics for last-mile network design and planning to reach customers on their own terms, where they live, work, shop, or play, anywhere on the globe.
Why is it so difficult to create advertising that people are willing to share with their friends? Based on analysis of recent field tests on YouTube and Twitter, Catherine Tucker will discuss the challenges to marketers seeking to create branded content that will be shared by social media users, particularly those propagators who share other noncommercial content.
ILP members, many of them Fortune 1000 companies, increasingly want to meet with MIT startups, to scout, to discuss, to partner, to invest, and more. Responding to that need, ILP’s Startup Initiative will boost our current database of near 1000 MIT startups. Going forward, the intent is to provide a web platform to gather real time developments, advertise opportunities and do more but also better matching. We are currently seeking feedback from the wider MIT innovation ecosystem on how we should proceed. There will be a stand at the Startup Exhibit where we can take questions and you can give your input. We're looking for input from both MIT startups and ILP members.
Retailers know it is crucial to optimize the timing and promotion of sales to maximize profit. But how do you process the large amounts of data necessary to determine optimal pricing and timing? Left to the intuition of product managers, retailers risk missing out, but a new method created by Georgia Perakis and her team of PhD students in collaboration with Oracle RGBU, aims to change that. Using models that analyze price effects, promotion effects, and general consumer behavior data, this approach has the potential to help retailers increase their profits by an average of 3-10 percent. In a world of slim profit margins and ever-increasing competition, this could be a game changer for retailers in any industry.
Today’s consumers are better equipped with access to information than any in history, but we don’t always use that information at critical moments. By leveraging the power of augmented reality and the techniques that advertisers use to influence consumers, our personal devices can become personal coaches, not only helping inform our decisions but helping improve our decisions. By playing an expanded role in day-to-day decision-making, smart phones and wearable technologies can encourage consumers towards less impulsive, more deliberate, and ultimately more satisfying choices.
Empowered by ubiquitous information technology, the generation that has come of age in the digital era has learned a very different consumer experience than their parents. From media and financial services to hospitality and transportation, Millennials expect flexibility and responsiveness across sectors to customize their transactions to fit their needs as individuals. Those expectations may only grow as the exchange of data between consumers and sellers continues expanding, fostering even greater personalization through the emergence of bioproducts.