The Power of
Multidisciplinary Marketing
The Chicago Approach to marketing grounds students in the core disciplines of economics, psychology, and statistics. This foundational knowledge equips students with essential scientific tools and analytical frameworks that prepare them to formulate effective strategies, make optimized decisions, and effectively lead in today’s rapidly evolving, data-driven business climate.
What Is The Chicago Approach to Marketing?
There are three foundational elements to The Chicago Approach:
Theory:
Learning the core disciplines—economics, psychology, and statistics—helps students define the problem they are trying to solve. The Chicago Approach guides students in identifying the right problem and then asking the right questions.
Evidence:
Booth faculty teach students how to use analytical tools to gather evidence to test a theory. Students at Booth become true empiricists and learn how to conduct experiments, model existing data to look for patterns, and provide persuasive evidence to support—or challenge—a theory.
Evaluation:
The ultimate success of a business decision depends on weighing that decision against alternative outcomes.
Theory:
Misra and Nair theorized that bonuses and caps on incentive pay could create unintended strategic behavior by sales agents. Excessive gaming by sales agents on the timing of their efforts with clients could have an adverse effect on company sales.
Evidence:
The authors used a detailed longitudinal dataset tracking individual sales agents and their respective clients for a large, national contact lens manufacturer.
Evaluation:
The researchers used estimates of sales agents’ selling strategies to design a new contract structure. The implementation of this contract increased company revenues by about 10 percent.
$12 Million
Misra and Nair found that the new contract resulted in $12 million in incremental revenue annually. Their results illustrate that when dynamic programming-based solutions are combined with structural empirical specifications of behavior, it can significantly improve marketing decision-making and firms’ profitability.
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“Booth prepared me with the knowledge to be able to talk about a wide array of industries, and the tools and frameworks to feel comfortable drawing conclusions from data.”
–Francisco Vasquez, ’16
The ROI of The Chicago Approach
Hear the faculty director of the Kilts Center, Booth professor Jean-Pierre Dubé, explain how The Chicago Approach to marketing sets Booth apart from its peers.
A Transformative Curriculum
At Booth, students are exposed to cutting-edge marketing courses that are grounded in core business disciplines. In Marketing Strategy with Simulation (BUS 37100 - password protected), for instance, students not only learn the fundamentals of marketing strategy, such as customer analysis and product strategy, but they also work with computer simulation and XLSTAT software to create optimal, team-based marketing strategies, which they then use to compete against other teams in the class.
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Are You Smarter Than An Algorithm?
The next time Amazon suggests a related product that you want to buy, send a thank-you note to an algorithm. But do people trust algorithms to make good decisions for them? Research suggests they don’t. Berkeley Dietvorst, assistant professor of marketing at Booth, has been shining a light on a phenomenon he calls “algorithm aversion.” Through his research, Dietvorst suggests that people tend to use their own decision-making processes, even when they have information that an algorithm could do a better job.
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