Research Interests
Dr. Ofer Mintz's research focuses on four substantive topics:
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Marketing metrics and analytics
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Marketing's role and impact on start-up firms
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Big data and digital marketing
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How firms should enact customer-centric solutions to navigate through and grow during and after the COVID-19 pandemic
Ofer's methodological approach can best be described as an integrative attempt to amalgamate cutting edge econometric techniques that analyzes unique empirical data with theories from marketing, finance, strategy, accounting, and behavioral decision theory to address managerially relevant issues.
Please see below for more information.
Summary of Research Accomplishments
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Winner of 2021 Robert D. Buzzell Best Paper Award from the Marketing Science Institute’s Working Paper Series for making the most significant contribution to marketing practice and thought during the previous two years calendar years (with Tim Gilbride, Peter Lenk, and Imran Currim for “The Right Metrics for Marketing-Mix Decisions”)
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Finalist for 2019 Robert D. Buzzell Best Paper Award from the Marketing Science Institute’s Working Paper Series for making the most significant contribution to marketing practice and thought during the previous two years calendar years (with Imran Currim, Jan-Benedict Steenkamp, and Martijn de Jong for “Managerial Metric Use in Marketing Decisions across 16 Countries”)
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Directly provided vaccine marketing strategy recommendations to the heads of Australian government public health vaccine marketing and communication office (co-author provided recommendations to USA vaccine marketing efforts, based on joint research; and our research was presented at the US Air Force Commander’s Conference)
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Solo-authored book, The Post-Pandemic Business Playbook: Customer Centric Solutions to Help Your Firm Grow, featured in the World Economic Forum and was designated as a “key title” by publisher that is bestowed to only 5% of its publications
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Customer-centric recommendations for how firms should adapt to COVID pandemic jointly published in Forbes and HBS WK presented to over 350 executives and is providing guidance for how Harvard Business School is restructuring its Executive Education Program
- Vaccine marketing recommendations published in World Economic Forum viewed by readers in over 100 countries
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One of 40 delegates on the 2019 Australian Sustainable Growth Through Innovation Trade Mission to the United States to visit leading tech firms in Silicon Valley and Seattle regions co-organized by American-Australian and Israeli-Australian Chambers of Commerce (trip co-led by Tesla Chairwoman Robyn Denholm and Boeing APAC President Maureen Daugherty)
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Total academic-outputs since 2011 include a solo-authored forthcoming book (and a second book in-progress), ten academic journal publications (three UT-Dallas listed publications), six managerial publications, over 40 conference presentations on five continents about 16 topics, and 18 obtained grants
Book
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a shift in customer behavior that provides firms an opportunity to grow unlike most have ever encountered.
The Post-Pandemic Business Playbook offers firms actionable customer-centric based guidance (incl. through its proposed COUNTER COVID framework) for how to adapt to this new customer and economic reality.
For more information, please visit https://www.customercentricstrategies.com/book
Book Summary Video
Book Summary Article
Book Launch
Academic Publications
01.
Mintz, Ofer and Imran S. Currim (2013), “What Drives Managerial Use of Marketing and Financial Metrics and Does Metric Use Affect Performance of Marketing-Mix Activities?” Journal of Marketing, 77(2), 17–40.
Abstract: To increase marketing’s accountability, Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science Institute, and the Institute for the Study of Business Markets have advocated development of marketing metrics and linking marketing-mix activities with financial metrics. Although the marketing field has made progress, researchers have paid less attention to what drives managerial use of marketing and financial metrics and whether metric use is associated with marketing-mix performance. The authors propose a conceptual model that links firm strategy, metric orientation, type of marketing-mix activity, and managerial, firm, and environmental characteristics to marketing and financial metric use, which in turn are linked to performance of marketing-mix activities. An analysis of 1287 marketing-mix activities reported by 439 U.S. managers reveals that firm strategy, metric orientation, type of marketing-mix activity, and firm and environmental characteristics are more useful than managerial characteristics in explaining use of marketing and financial metrics and that use of metrics is positively associated with marketing-mix performance. The results help identify conditions under which managers use fewer metrics and how metric use can be increased to improve marketing-mix performance.
02.
Mintz, Ofer, Imran S. Currim, and Ivan Jeliazkov (2013), “Information Processing Pattern and Propensity to Buy: An Investigation of Online Point-of-Purchase Behavior.” Marketing Science, 32(5), 716-732.
Abstract: The information processing literature provides a wealth of laboratory evidence on the effects that the choice task and individual characteristics have on the extent to which consumers engage in alternative-based versus attribute-based information processing. Less attention has been paid to studying how the processing pattern at the point of purchase is associated with a consumer’s propensity to buy in shopping settings. To understand this relationship, we formulate a discrete choice model and perform formal model comparisons to distinguish among several possible dependence structures. We consider models involving an existing measure of information processing, PATTERN; a latent variable version of this measure; and several new refinements and generalizations. Analysis of a unique data set of 895 shoppers on a popular electronics website supports the latent variable specification and provides validation for several hypotheses and modeling components. We find a positive relationship between alternative-based processing and purchase, as well as a tendency of shoppers in the lower price category to engage in alternative-based processing. The results also support the case for joint modeling and estimation. These findings can be useful for future work in information processing and suggest that likely buyers can be identified while engaged in information processing prior to purchase commitment, an important first step in targeting decisions.
03.
Currim, Imran S., Ofer Mintz, and S. Siddarth (2015), “How Information Accessed at the Point of Purchase Impacts Inferences from Consumer Choice Models: Insights from a Durable Product E-Commerce Website.” Journal of Interactive Marketing, 29(1), 11-25.
Abstract: Most previous choice modeling research infers preferences by assuming that consumers consider all the information available at the point-of-purchase. Because e-commerce sites increasingly incorporate tracking technologies that can monitor consumer behavior on their site, our research studies how incorporating the information accessed by consumers into a choice model impacts model performance and inferred preferences. We use data from an electronic goods manufacturer that monitored the attribute information accessed by 582 shoppers while they made Customize and Buy decisions at the firm's website. We find that incorporating the information accessed by consumers into the choice model provides more valid estimates of attribute preferences and better fitting choice models than models based on information available. Because firms can easily obtain this type of information as a by-product of their online operations, we propose that managers who monitor information acquisition and apply the information accessed model will have a useful methodology to gain a better understanding of consumer preferences.
04.
Mintz, Ofer and Imran S. Currim (2015), “When Does Metric Use Matter Less? How Firm and Managerial Characteristics Moderate the Relationship between Metric Use and Marketing Mix Performance.” European Journal of Marketing, 49(11/12), 1809-1856.
Abstract:
Purpose – This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework, in an effort toward building a contingent theory of drivers and consequences of managerial metric use in marketing mix decisions, this paper develops a conceptual framework to test whether the relationship between metric use and marketing mix performance is moderated by firm and managerial characteristics.
Design/methodology/approach – Based on reviews of the marketing, finance, management and accounting literatures, and homophily, firm resource- and decision-maker-based theories and 22 managerial interviews, a conceptual model is proposed. It is tested via generalized least squares – seemingly unrelated regression estimation of 1,287 managerial decisions.
Findings – Results suggest that the impact of metric use on marketing mix performance is lower in firms which are more market oriented, larger and with worse recent business performance and for marketing and higher-level managers, while organizational involvement has a lesser nuanced effect.
Research limitations/implications – While much is written on the importance of metric use to improve performance, this work is a first step toward understanding which settings are more difficult than others to accomplish this.
Practical implications – Results allow identification of several conditional managerial strategies to improve marketing mix performance based on metric use.
Originality/value – This paper contributes to the metric literature, as prior research has generally focused on the development of metrics or the linking of marketing efforts with performance metrics, but paid little attention to understanding the relationship between managerial metric use and performance of the marketing mix decision and has not considered how the relationship is moderated by firm and managerial characteristics.
05.
Gilbride, Timothy J., Imran S. Currim, Ofer Mintz, and S. Siddarth (2016), “A Model for Inferring Market Preferences from Online Retail Product Information Matrices.” Journal of Retailing, 92 (4), 470-85.
Abstract: This research extends information display board methods, currently employed to study information processing patterns in laboratory settings, to a field based setting that also yields managerially useful estimates of market preferences. A new model is proposed based on statistical, behavioral, and economic theories, which integrates three decisions consumers must make in this context: which product-attribute to inspect next, when to stop processing, and which, if any, product to purchase. Several theoretical options are considered on how to model product attribute selection and how to treat uninspected attributes. The modeling options are empirically tested employing datasets collected at a popular e-tailer’s website, while customers were making product evaluation and purchase decisions. Subsequent to identifying the best model, we show how the resulting attribute preference estimates can be managerially employed to improve customer targeting of abandoned shopping carts for follow up communications aimed at improving sales conversions.
06.
Choudhary, Vidyanand, Imran S. Currim, Sanjeev Dewan, Ivan Jeliazkov, Ofer Mintz, and John G. Turner (2017), “Evaluation Set Size and Purchase: Evidence from a Product Search Engine.” Journal of Interactive Marketing, 37(1), 16-31.
Abstract: The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the popularity of product search engines, yet the analysis of consumer behavior at such sites remains a challenging research problem despite its timeliness and importance. In this article, we develop and estimate a copula model of evaluation set size and purchase behavior employing data from 3,182 hotel searches by customers at a large travel search engine. The model allows us to jointly study purchase behavior, evaluation sets, and their antecedents. Our results reveal that evaluation set size and purchase are negatively correlated and that factors typically presumed to be associated with purchase—i.e., when users sort search results by price or quality, request many rooms, disclose that there are many guests in their party, or arrive from other search engines and/or partner sites—actually relate to larger evaluation sets but lower purchase probability. In contrast, when users filter the search results, we observe smaller evaluation sets and higher purchase probability. The theoretical background and practical implications of our findings suggest that efforts to increase purchases need not necessarily be predicated on cultivating larger evaluation sets.
07.
Mintz, Ofer, Imran S. Currim, Martijn de Jong, and Jan-Benedict Steenkamp (2021), “Managerial Metric Use in Marketing Decisions across 16 Countries: A Cultural Perspective.” Journal of International Business Studies, 52(8), 1474-1500.
Abstract: Research on metrics is consistently designated a priority by academics and practitioners. However, less is known about how culture and cross-national differences can potentially impact metric use, which is theoretically and managerially limiting. This work develops a model that examines national and organizational cultural antecedents while controlling for the decision setting. Testing the model on data collected from 4384 managerial decisions from 1637 firms in 16 countries reveals that both levels of culture are associated with metric use but each has varying effects. Our results enable multinational executives to better understand and increase managerial metric use across different cultures and settings.
08.
Mintz, Ofer, Timothy J. Gilbride, Imran S. Currim, and Peter Lenk (2021), “The Right Metrics for Marketing-Mix Decisions.” International Journal of Research in Marketing, 38(1), 32-49.
Abstract: This study addresses the following question: For a given managerial, firm, and industry setting, which individual metrics are effective for making marketing-mix decisions that improve perceived performance outcomes? We articulate the key managerial takeaways based on testing a multi-stage behavioral framework that links decision context, metrics selection, and performance outcomes. Our statistical model adjusts for potential endogeneity bias in estimating metric effectiveness due to selection effects and differs from past literature in that managers can strategically choose metrics based on their ex-ante expected effectiveness. The key findings of our analysis of 439 managers making 1287 decisions are that customer-mindset marketing metrics such as awareness and willingness to recommend are the most effective metrics for managers to employ while financial metrics such as target volume and net present value are the least effective. However, relative to financial metrics, managers are more uncertain about the ex-ante effectiveness of customer-mindset marketing metrics, which attenuates their use. A second study on 142 managers helps provide detailed underlying rationale for these key results. The implications of metric effectiveness for dashboards and automated decision systems based on machine learning systems are discussed.
09.
Healey, John and Ofer Mintz (2021), “What if Your Owners Also Own Other Firms in Your Industry? The Relationship between Institutional Cross-Ownership, Marketing, and Firm Performance.” International Journal of Research in Marketing, 38(4), 838-856.
Abstract: The growth in institutional holdings of public firms has led to increased interest in the concept of common ownership, in which the same investor owns stakes in multiple firms within the same industry. Economic theory suggests that common ownership could affect firm performance, but little empirical research has examined the nature of this effect or how a firm’s extant marketing potentially relates to this effect. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a relationship between common ownership and firm performance that is moderated by the firm’s extant marketing capabilities and its relative marketing strategic emphasis. Our empirical approach employs data from over 43 million institutional holdings to develop a measure of common ownership and accounts for empirical issues like endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity. The results document a positive relationship between common ownership and firm performance and provide some evidence that this effect is stronger for firms with lower marketing capabilities and a relative strategic emphasis towards R&D spending. These results suggest that public policymakers should consider the firms’ extant strategic marketing when assessing regulations on common ownership.
10.
Mintz, Ofer, Imran S. Currim, and Rohit Deshpandé (2022), “National Customer Orientation: A Framework, Propositions and Agenda for Future Research.” European Journal of Marketing, 56(4), 1014-1041.
Abstract:
Purpose – This paper proposes a new country-level construct, national customer orientation, to provide a benchmark for global headquartered managers’ decisions and scholars investigating cross-national research.
Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual framework and unique propositions are developed that focus on how one macro-economic driver, e.g., the wealth of a country, and one macro-marketing driver, e.g., customer price sensitivity, affect national customer orientation during and after global economic downturns such as recessions and a pandemic.
Findings – An agenda setting section proposes distinct theoretical, empirical, and managerial themes for future research aimed at testing the propositions at the country and organization levels over time.
Originality – Research on market and customer orientation is consistently designated a priority by academics and practitioners. However, most previous studies exclusively focus at the micro organizational-level, with less known on how customer orientation varies at the macro country-level and over time.
Research limitations/implications – Although the new construct offers substantial benefits for scholars and managers, current measures of national customer orientation are limited to data provided by the World Economic Forum or expensive primary survey-based research that restrict the number of countries, respondents, and time periods.
Practical implications – The new national-level customer orientation construct and propositions about its drivers over time promise to provide global managers a country-level customer-based benchmark so that they can better understand, set expectations, and manage customer orientation across different countries over time. .
11.
Mintz, Ofer, Imran S. Currim, and Rohit Deshpandé (2023), “National Customer Orientation: An Empirical Test Across 112 Countries.” Marketing Letters, 34(2), 189-204.
Abstract: Customer orientation is a central tenet of marketing. However, less is known about how customer orientation varies across countries and time. Mintz, Currim, and Deshpandé (2022) propose a country-level construct, national customer orientation, and develop theoretical propositions on how a country’s wealth and average customer price sensitivity affect national customer orientation during and after global economic shocks without providing an empirical test. This paper tests drivers of national customer orientation by employing World Economic Forum and World Bank annual panel data from 112 countries between 2007-2017. The results show customer orientation is a greater luxury of richer nations and price sensitivity is a partial mediator of that relationship, however, both relationships only transpire in non-recessionary times. The empirical test furthers scholarly research on national customer orientation and provides managers with country-level customer orientation benchmarks across countries and time.
12.
Lu, Shuya (Subrina), and Ofer Mintz (2023), “Marketing on the Metaverse: Research Opportunities and Challenges.” AMS Review, 13(1), 151-166.
Abstract: The metaverse offers marketers the greatest potential to engage with customers and develop competitive advantages on a new medium since the advent of social media. Yet, immense uncertainty exists on what the metaverse is, how it will ultimately develop, and how firms and consumers will use it. This research aims to reduce this uncertainty by offering guidance on metaverse marketing from a firm’s perspective. We first provide background on the metaverse and summarize existing metaverse marketing research. Then, we describe how marketers can use the metaverse to differentiate their firms through the 4 P’s and 5 C’s. Subsequently, we expand on Reibstein and Iyengar’s (2023) seven potential marketing roles for the metaverse by providing additional rationales, potential opportunities, challenges, and future research directions for each role. Finally, we conclude the research by summarizing potential challenges firms face/will face while conducting metaverse marketing.
Popular Press Publications
Deshpandé, Rohit, Ofer Mintz, and Imran S. Currim (2020), “Your Customers Have Changed. Here's How to Engage Them Again.” Forbes and Harvard Business School Working Knowledge (joint publication).
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Mintz, Ofer (2020), “Australia Re-opens: Seven Ways to Increase the Likelihood Customers will Return to Your Store.” Smart Company.
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Deshpandé, Rohit, Ofer Mintz, and Imran S. Currim (2021), “How Influencers, Celebrities, and FOMO Can Win Over Vaccine Skeptics.” Harvard Business School Working Knowledge.
03.
Deshpandé, Rohit, Ofer Mintz, and Imran S. Currim (2021), “3 Tactics to Overcome COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy.” World Economic Forum.
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Mintz, Ofer (2021), “The Marketing Strategy Australia’s Vaccine Campaign needs Right Now.” Mumbrella.
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Mintz, Ofer and Eric Knight (2022), “Beyond Usual: [Six] Ways Leading Firms diverge from Business as Usual.” Management and Business Review, 2(2), 61-67.
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Mintz, Ofer (2022), “Post-Pandemic Business Playbook: An Opportunity Unlike Ever Before.” CMO Australia.
07.
Mintz, Ofer (2022), "Harnessing post-pandemic customer trends to fuel business growth.” World Economic Forum.
09.
Mintz, Ofer (2023), “How conversations with customers will help you survive the period of upheaval in the markets.” Globes (in Hebrew).
10.
Mintz, Ofer (2023), “Metrics for Marketing Decisions: Drivers and Implications for Performance.” NIM Marketing Intelligence, 15(1), 18-23.
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Mintz, Ofer (2023), “Key performance indicators for evaluating branding efforts.” Globes (in Hebrew).
12.
Wang, Yitong, Ofer Mintz, Dipin Chen, and Kehan Chen (2023), “Alibaba’s Use of Artificial Intelligence to Engage with Millions of Daily Customer Service Enquires.” Management and Business Review, 3(1 and 2), 19-23.
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