Faculty and Research

Research Focus

My research focuses on 'creative industries,' defined as industries that supply goods that we commonly associate with cultural, artistic, or entertainment value. They include the performing arts, film, television, music, book and magazine publishing, games, sports, advertising, and perhaps fashion. I borrow the term from the economist Richard Caves , who argued that these industries share certain key economic properties: among other things, demand is highly uncertain, products are primarily differentiated based on subjective rather than objective dimensions of quality, and time is of the essence in that there is a need for a tight coordination of production activities and a timely realization of revenues. While it is difficult to come to an exact definition, taken together, these properties distinguish creative industries from other sectors of the economy. The industries that feature in my research are essentially content industries that compete for the attention of audiences (or 'eyeballs') and, often, the advertisers that seek access to those audiences.

Two Research Questions

I focus on two interrelated questions that are critical to the development of effective marketing strategies for companies in creative industries:

1. How can firms increase the success of new products in creative industries?
2. How can firms build sustainable businesses in creative industries?

The first research question essentially asks what makes for a hit product, and how to improve both the rate and level of market success. Given the low odds of success -- most executives in creative industries are accustomed to an 80% to 90% failure rate -- this is a critical question. Conventional wisdom dictates that the uncertain nature of demand for creative products makes it impossible to predict what will succeed in the market place. The challenge is encapsulated in a quote by screenwriter William Goldman, who remarked about Hollywood in the 1980s: 'Nobody knows anything.'

While my first question considers marketing resource allocation challenges at the product level, my second question focuses on issues at the level of the firm and its portfolio of products. As a natural follow-up to studying how one product can be marketed successfully, here I ask how firms in creative industries can create and sustain success across their set of products, brands, or properties. The central question here is how firms can 'organize for success' across their product portfolios.