Experience Stern | News & Events

NYU Stern marketing faculty are available to offer perspectives on this season's holiday trends. In addition to commentary on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, the following professors can speak to what we will see this year around brick and mortar stores, digital/mobile trends, luxury retail, tech gifts and more.

Topics include:

Perception vs. reality on advertising and promotions:

• Top ad campaigns of the holiday season: Professor Tülin Erdem analyzes winners and losers in this year’s marketing campaigns.
• The truth around free shipping + limited-time offers: Professor Priya Raghubir demystifies retailer pricing strategies for shoppers.
• Shopping local on Small Business Saturday: Professor Jeffrey Carr discusses how startups and small businesses can maximize sales opportunities this season.

The retail landscape:

• Is Brick and Mortar back in style? Professors Allen Adamson and Joel Steckel, co-authors of Shift Ahead: How the Best Companies Stay Relevant in a Fast-Changing World, examine why so many retailers fail to stay relevant (Radio Shack), and how retailers from travel to toys need to shift their business strategy to remain competitive in the rapidly changing marketplace.
• Trade war with China leads to an uptick in toy prices. Professor Russell Winer explains the latest consumer trends and breaks down the holiday retail landscape.  He points to price sensitivity as a key issue this year because of tariffs on products imported from China.
• What’s new in luxury and which retail format is a winner for department stores? Professor Thomaï Serdari, a strategist in luxury marketing and branding, shares insights on luxury marketing and new retail strategies, including concept stores.

All things tech: 

• Screens compel us to overspend: Professor Adam Alter, author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, offers insights into how tech companies ensure that we’ll overspend at the holiday time. Plus, he looks at households avoiding screens to spend quality time with family and friends.
• Nintendo is changing the game! Xbox and Sony cling to the traditional video game console business: Professor Sunder Narayanan shares his perspective on disruption in the gaming industry based on tablets and smartphones and how companies are reacting.
• Cyber Monday dominates as consumers shop with Alexa and on mobile! Professor Anindya Ghose, author of Tap: Unlocking the Mobile Economy, examines how voice-activated shopping devices (voice AI) are gaining in popularity and how retailers are leveraging tech and data analytics to create a better mobile, online and offline shopping experience this holiday season.
• Talk of curbing tech addiction is just that, talk. Professor Andrew Breen points to increased spending on tech products, including smartphones, video games and streaming boxes, and shares early evidence that screen time controls are rarely used to self-regulate but instead used by parents for their kids’ devices.
• The future of holiday shopping: Professor Amy Webb, founder of the Future Today Institute, looks at the future of retail in an AI world and explains how shoppers plan for the holidays.