The Surprising Breadth of Harbingers of Failure
Name
The Surprising Breadth of Harbingers of Failure June 2019.pdf
Description
Submitted version
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409.19 KB
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Name
The Surprising Breadth of Harbingers of Failure APPENDIX June 2019.pdf
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539.51 KB
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Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
Simester, Duncan
Tucker, Catherine Elizabeth
Yang, Clair
Date Issued
September 2019
Journal
Journal of Marketing Research
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Citation
Simester, Duncan I. et al. "The Surprising Breadth of Harbingers of Failure." Journal of Marketing Research 56, 6 (September 2019): 1034-1049. © 2019 American Marketing Association
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
Previous research has shown that there exist “harbinger customers” who systematically purchase new products that fail (and are discontinued by retailers). This article extends this result in two ways. First, the findings document the existence of “harbinger zip codes.” If households in these zip codes adopt a new product, this is a signal that the new product will fail. Second, a series of comparisons reveal that households in harbinger zip codes make other decisions that differ from other households. The first comparison identifies harbinger zip codes using purchases from one retailer and then evaluates purchases at a different retailer. Households in harbinger zip codes purchase products from the second retailer that other households are less likely to purchase. The analysis next compares donations to congressional election candidates; households in harbinger zip codes donate to different candidates than households in neighboring zip codes, and they donate to candidates who are less likely to win. House prices in harbinger zip codes also increase at slower rates than in neighboring zip codes. Investigation of households that change zip codes indicates that the harbinger zip code effect is more due to where customers choose to live, rather than households influencing their neighbors’ tendencies.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1177/0022243719867935
