JM Webinar Series: Insights for Managers (February 2019)

Does a Customer on the Board of Directors Affect Business-to-Business Firm Performance?

Presenters: Michael Ahearne (University of Houston) and Raghu Bommaraju (Iowa State University)

Summary: “Improve the customer experience” is the rallying call of companies everywhere. Leaders know that a better customer experience drives sales, increases retention, and decreases price sensitivity. Companies go to great lengths to gain insight into their customers’ needs, using data analytics, surveys, focus groups, and interviews. One novel way to achieve this objective is to have a customer on the board of directors (COB), something only one in three B2B companies in the U.S. currently do. A new article in the Journal of Marketing examines this little-studied practice to determine whether having a customer on the board of directors positively or negatively impacts firm performance.

“Does It Pay to Be Real? Understanding Authenticity in TV Advertising”

Presenters: Maren Becker and Nico Wiegand (both from Cologne University, Germany)

Summary: “Be authentic!” is the watchword of today’s social sharing era. In fact, a recent survey found that 87% of global consumers said it was more important for companies to be authentic than innovate (72%) or deliver unique products (17%). But is authenticity truly a driver of product sales? A new study in the Journal of Marketing analyzes 323 television ads across 67 brands and four years to measure the impact of authenticity on the sales of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG).