Ruminating About Placebo Effects of Marketing Actions
Published 11/1/2005
Author: Baba Shiv, Ziv Carmon, and Dan Ariely
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Executive Summary
In their lead article, Shiv, Carmon, and Ariely (2005) demonstrate that marketing actions, such as price promotions and advertising, can alter the actual efficacy of the marketed product, a phenomenon they call “the placebo effect of marketing actions.” In this rejoinder, the authors build on the commentaries by Rao (2005), Berns (2005), and Borsook and Becerra (2005), elaborating on the process that leads to the placebo effect, suggesting other factors that can influence the placebo phenomenon, and highlighting avenues for further research in this new topic area.
Biography
Baba Shiv received his doctoral degree from Duke University. He is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. His current work focuses on the role of affect in decision making, the neurophysiological bases of emotions, and nonconscious mental processes. His articles have been published in Cognitive Brain Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Letters, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Psychological Science. He serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Consumer Psychology and Journal of Marketing Research, and he is Associate Editor of Journal of Consumer Research. He was invited to the first Marketing Science Institute Young Scholar program in 2001. He was named Outstanding Faculty in the Business Week Guide to the Best Business Schools (6th, 7th, and 8th eds.) and was voted by MBA students at the University of Iowa as the best teacher of the year for seven consecutive years (1999–2005).
Ziv Carmon received his doctoral degree from the University of California at Berkeley. He is Associate Professor of Marketing at INSEAD. His research focuses on unintended effects of marketing actions, how consumers perceive their experiences, and how consumers assess value. His research has been published in Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Management Science, Annual Review of Psychology, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, and Journal of Consumer Psychology. He serves on editorial boards of Journal of Consumer Research and Journal of Marketing Research. For more information about Ziv, see www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/marketing/carmon.
Dan Ariely received his doctoral degrees from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and from Duke University. He is Luiz Alvarez Renta Professor of Management Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dan’s current research focuses on day-to-day irrationalities and on market mechanisms to try to overcome these irrationalities. Dan founded the eRationalty research initiative at the media laboratory at MIT and the Center for Advanced Hindsight at MIT. Dan has never won any teaching awards and is unlikely to win any in the future. For more information about Dan, see http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www.
J Marketing Research, Volume 42, Number 4, November 2005
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