Media Coverage

As the amount of content and advertising exponentially increases, product placement can still be an effective way to reach consumers. According to new research from the INFORMS journal Marketing Science, verbal product placements have the most success at driving online engagement around a brand. Luxury brands including BMW, Land Rover and Shangri-La have previously used product placement in television and film to get consumers' attention.

Since the introduction of sharing-economy services such as Airbnb, hotels have struggled with how to compete against the alternative accommodations market. Among hotels’ concerns is how Airbnb impacts their pricing and distribution strategies, which, according to new research in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science, might be more dramatic than hoteliers may think.

It comes as no surprise that Airbnb steals business from hotels, but a new research paper published last month argued that the home-sharing platform also drives demand in a way that helps traditional hotels, especially during peak travel season. Professors from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon published a study last month in research journal Marketing Science that analyzed how Airbnb interacts with the hotel markets, and the conclusions were somewhat unexpected. 

The INFORMS Certified Analytics Professional (CAP) certification was named among the top seven data analytics certifications.

INFORMS member Arden Baxter has been awarded a Graduate Research Fellowships (GRF) by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Baxter, a PhD student with Georgia Tech's H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) received one of only four grants given by the NSF in the industrial engineering/operations research category. Baxter, who has a bachelor’s degree from Rollins College in math and computer science, is advised by William W. George Chair and Professor Pinar Keskinocak, who also directs the Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems, and is an INFORMS Fellow and the INFORMS President-Elect.