Advertising is central to e-commerce. In a world of choice, ads drive consumption by informing consumers about available products. New insights into the influence of online advertising on e-shopping behavior come from a study led by Ralf van der Lans of HKUST. The team used eye-tracking experiments to probe how ad features and site design can help or hinder ... Read More

Advertising is central to e-commerce. In a world of choice, ads drive consumption by informing consumers about available products. New insights into the influence of online advertising on e-shopping behavior come from a study led by Ralf van der Lans of HKUST. The team used eye-tracking experiments to probe how ad features and site design can help or hinder ... Read More

An HKUST researcher has developed a methodology to optimize promotions in online networks. The methodology does not only consider the likelihood of whether an individual is interested in the promotion (i.e., whom to target), but also how it impacts other individuals in the network (i.e., social influence of the target) and the time it is most effective ( ... Read More

More and more organizations are turning to social media to reach as many potential customers as possible, yet few marketing campaigns truly “go viral.” This is largely due to the immense amount of content competing for attention in social networks. Even if users see a particular campaign, they may pay no attention to it, due to the overabundance of ... Read More

Viral marketing can be a cost-effective marketing tool to create awareness and reach many new customers. Viral marketing relies on word of mouth and leverages social networks of individuals to spread information. But, what is the optimal seeding strategy? Put differently: who should you target to initiate a viral marketing campaign? Previous research ... Read More

Gift giving generates large revenues for businesses, corresponding to 17.6 percent of retail sales in Hong Kong. Despite their importance for the retail industry, retailers tend to follow the same pricing strategies as for other regular products or services. Yet, consumers purchase decisions for gifts are fundamentally different compared to purchases for own ... Read More

Gift-giving is a big business – in the US annual spending on gift-giving reached $159 billion in 2017. But such expenditure may also be symptomatic of overspending. In the UK in 2015, one in 10 people reported experiencing financial difficulties because they spent too much over the Christmas season. Moreover, recipients are often not as impressed as the ... Read More

When it comes to launching new products, major firms such as Philips and Microsoft have adopted seeding strategies that target influential customers in social networks so they can spread the word to their friends, colleagues and acquaintances. The difficulty, of course, is how to identify such people and assess their reach. Traditionally, researchers have ... Read More

Brand alliances bring together two or more brands in joint marketing events that in theory should benefit all participants. But the science behind which brand alliances make the best “fit” has been weak, complicated by the difficulty in collecting data and determining the best measures. The reason is that brands are strategically combined into alliances ... Read More

Viral marketinsome viral campaigns have performed phenomenally well - for example, a viral video by Unilever in 2006 generated over 2.3 million views in its first 10 days and three times more traffic to the company's website than a Super Bowl commercial had - many campaigns falter. Ralf van der Lans of HKUST and his co-authors Gerrit van Bruggen, Jehoshua ... Read More