The 19th annual Frank M. Bass – UT Dallas Frontiers of Research in Marketing Science Conference (UTD FORMS) attracted attendees from universities across the United States and internationally. The event was held Feb. 28-29 and presented by the Naveen Jindal School of Management.
A wide range of topics were discussed in two-dozen, hour-long sessions, including the use of AI, advertising, sustainable products and the role of beliefs in online search behavior. The event honors the memory of the late Dr. Frank M. Bass (1926-2006), Eugene McDermott Chair in the Jindal School who led the way in establishing marketing as a quantitative science.
Dr. Upender Subramanian, a professor in the Jindal School’s Marketing Area, and Dr. Tim Derdenger from Carnegie Mellon University co-chaired the conference.
Dr. Shervin Tehrani, an assistant professor in the Jindal School’s Marketing Area, served on the committee with Dr. Kinshuk Jerath from Columbia Business School, Dr. Davide Proserpio from the University of Southern California, Dr. Woochoel Shin from the University of Florida, and Dr. Hema Yoganarasimhan from the University of Washington.
The conference consisted of 24 presentations chosen from more than 130 submissions. Each hour-long session gave presenters ample time to go in depth into their research and receive feedback. In addition, each presentation was followed with an independent discussion by another researcher.
“This year, too, the conference was very well attended from the very first session to the very last one, with both presentation rooms being full throughout and at times having only standing space,” Subramanian said. “We had over 125 attendees from outside UTD, with 90 faculty attendees from almost 40 leading universities across the country and also from Europe and Asia.
Subramanian said he does not take this support for granted. He and his team continue to explore ways to improve the conference every year.
“One key change we experimented with this year was to organize the conference around research topics rather than method,” he said. “This was done to promote exchange and cross-fertilization of ideas between different areas within the field. The initial feedback has been highly encouraging.”
One of those attendees was Dr. Jennifer Jie Zhang from UT Arlington who has attended the event several times.
“It is a very special conference,” she said. “They have an hour per presentation and there is a lot of time for discussion. That is rare.”
First-time attendee Si Zuo is a PhD is a student at Cornell University. She found much to appreciate about the event.
“This is known as a high-level conference with very good researchers,” she said. “I believed it would be a good opportunity for me to learn and to meet so many professionals.”
Conference co-chair Derdenger welcomed attendees to open one of the first sessions, “Generative AI in Equilibrium: Evidence from Platform Marketplace.” The authors were Dr. Samuel G. Goldberg from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Dr. H. Tai Lam from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, who gave the presentation. The discussant was Dr. Krista J. Li from Indiana University.
The authors looked at the impact of AI photography on services that provide images to journalists and other clients. AI photos are increasingly available on those services and photographers can submit AI photos to be sold.
Their research found that AI photos can be more or less expensive than human-generated photography. One of the questions they sought to answer was whether Gen AI options crowd out non-GenAI. Other questions were, on the supply side, how does the supplier’s entry, exit, and production change and are GenAI firms more productive?
On the demand side, do consumers buy GenAI goods and do GenAI goods provide variety and better matches when consumers search for goods?
Their results included, in the supply case, there is increased participation, GenAI crowds out non-GenAI, demand IE GenAI images are viable, consumers substitute Gen AI for non-GenAI, and GenAI images add variety to the market.
The discussant for the presentation was Krista Li with Indiana University.
A presentation and discussion of a study titled “Privacy-Enhanced versus Traditional Retargeting: Ad Effectiveness in an Industry-Wide Field Experiment.” Dr. Shunto J. Kobayashi from Boston University gave the presentation. He co-authored the paper with Dr. Garrett A. Johnson and Dr. Zhengrong Gu, both also from Boston University. The discussant was Dr. Soogand Alavi, PhD’24, from the University of Iowa.
Most people have been subjected to retargeting or, as Kobayashi said, “ads that follow you around.” Those are instances when someone searches for an item online and finds ads for the product suddenly popping up on other websites they visit. Among the topics considered was the effectiveness of retargeting. Do they result in purchases by consumers? The authors found a lack of evidence showing true effectiveness.
They also looked at the effect of Privacy Sandbox, a set of technologies that aim to protect consumer privacy online while allowing businesses to thrive. There is an industry-wide effort to create safer alternatives to current tracking technologies. Businesses worry that such privacy measures could weaken retargeting and result in fewer sales.
The presentation concluded that there is a need to leverage an industry-wide experiment to measure the true impact of retargeting and the effectiveness of Privacy Sandbox.
Key findings included that retargeting increases purchases by about 4.6 percent based on 28-plus advertisers and that higher use of Sandbox may be required to achieve its full potential.
Sustainability is a high-profile topic and it was the focus of a presentation by Dr. Sherry He from Michigan State University. The program, “Sustainability Discussion: Do Judge a Product by Its Sustainability Label: Evidence from the Amazon Marketplace,” was co-authored by Dr. Caroline Wang from Northwestern University. The discussant was Dr. Guneet Kaur Nagpal, Ivey Business School in Ontario, Canada.
They focused on the impact of sustainability labels on overall product sales, including positive and negative.
The positives came from industry reports, surveys, and lab experiments, all indicating strong consumer preference for sustainable and environmentally friendly products. The negative impacts were perceived as lower effectiveness and higher prices and concerns about greenwashing practices.
Their findings concluded that sustainability labels positively influence product sales and impact consumers’ choices. They also found that both consumer preferences and platform dynamics affect the sales impact of sustainability labels.
If products are labeled as sustainable their search rankings tend to be improved, the research found. The label also was found to increase the product’s visibility and drive sales.
Dr. Olivia R. Natan, University of California, Berkeley, gave the presentation, “Consumer Inferences from Product Rankings: The Role of Beliefs in Search Behavior.” It was co-authored by Dr. Jessica Fong, University of Michigan; and Ranmit Pantle, Northwestern University. The discussant was the Jindal School’s Subramanian.
The research was based on the fact that, in online markets, consumers tend to search for and purchase prominently positioned products. They developed an experimental model to distinguish between mechanisms driving the behavior, position-specific search costs, and beliefs about expected returns.
The research discussed how to extend their findings to real-world search settings and solutions for estimating unbiased search costs.
According to the presentation, consumers tend to search for and purchase prominently positioned products. The extent of a platform’s ability to manipulate consumer choice through rankings depends on the magnitude of search costs or time and effort. The core idea of the research was that informing consumers that the products are ordered randomly “shuts off position-specific beliefs.”
A February 28 luncheon during which the winner of the Management Science Best Paper in Marketing Award was opened by Dr. Mark Thouin, associate dean for Graduate Programs-Academic Operations at the Jindal School. Thouin spoke about some changes and updates at the Jindal School, including beginning an update of its complete curriculum about a year ago.
“With all changes, those who do not update and change will be left behind,” he said. “UT Dallas will be at the forefront.”
Dr. Raphael Thomadsen from Washington University in St. Louis announced the winner of the Management Science Best Paper in Marketing Award. Entries were published in 2022. A committee read the papers and narrowed it down to a set of finalists, who were required to submit a brief essay explaining why their paper should win.
The winning paper was “ History Matters: The Impact of Online Customer Reviews Across Product Ggeneration” by Dr. Linyi Li, Singapore Management University; Shyam Gopinath, University of Iowa; and Stephen Carson, University of Utah.
Commenting on the competition, Dr. Arun Gopalakrishnan from Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business, recalled the earlier days of the conference. He first attended 12 years ago as a PhD student.
“I look forward to it every year,” he said. “It used to be that you could submit your paper and you were in. Now, the competition is so strong that only a few get in.”
