Marketing Strategy and Wall Street: Nailing Down Marketing’s Impact

Dominique M. Hanssens is Bud Knapp Professor of Marketing, Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles (e-mail: [email protected]). Roland T. Rust is Distinguished University Professor, David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing, and Chair of the Department of Marketing, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland (e-mail: [email protected]). Rajendra K. Srivastava is Provost and Deputy President, Singapore Management University, and Roberto C. Goizueta Chair in Marketing and e-Commerce, Goizueta Business School, Emory University (e-mail: [email protected]). Stock prices are based in large part on corporate financial statements, augmented by analysis by stock analysts. The ultimate goal of any marketing expenditure should be to increase the value of the firm, but the road from marketing expenditure to stock price is usually circuitous. This is because marketing’s path to financial impact is through revenues, and the road to revenues runs through the customer. Typically, a long chain of effects is involved to account for the impact of a marketing expenditure (Rust et al. 2004), and the effects of marketing investments play out over time. This special issue focuses on exploring relationships along this chain from marketing actions to marketplace outcomes and the creation of market-based assets and firm value. In an effort to add greater clarity to and lend support to the exploration of these issues, the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) and Emory Marketing Institute (EMI) organized a gathering of manufacturers, investment companies, and academics from across marketing, finance, and accounting to identify key issues and research questions. This small group identified five key areas: