This annual award honors past AMA Board Chair H. Paul Root. In addition to being an active member of the AMA, Root served as President of MSI from 1990 to 1998. The award is given to a paper that has made a significant contribution to the advancement of the practice of marketing in a calendar year. It is cosponsored by the American Marketing Association and the Marketing Science Institute.

1. 2018 Marketing Science Institute/H.
Paul Root Award
Winner and Finalists

2. About the Award
The MSI / Root Award celebrates research that makes a
significant contribution to the advancement of the
practice of marketing in a calendar year. It is given to a
paper that has made a significant contribution to the
advancement of the practice of marketing, and it is
cosponsored by the American Marketing Association and
the Marketing Science Institute.
Finalists were selected by JM’s AEs, ERB, and Advisory
Board. The winning article was selected by a committee
comprised of Coeditors and Advisory Board members.
| 22018 Marketing Science Institute/H. Paul Root Award

3. And the award
goes to…
| 3

4. | 42018 Marketing Science Institute/H. Paul Root Award
Video Content Marketing: The Making of Clips
Xuan Liu, Savannah Wei Shi, Thales Teixeira, and
Michel Wedel
In a Nutshell: The authors propose a formal optimization
approach to produce short video clips from existing video
material and study the effectiveness of movie trailer clips at
generating consumer response.
Practitioner Takeaways: Optimal movie clips last about 30
seconds and contain an average of 3.6 scenes. Following
the practices proposed by the researchers increases movie
watching intentions.
Published in the July 2018 issue (Vol. 82, No. 4) of JM. See the full
article here.

5. Distinguished
Finalists
| 5

6. | 62018 Marketing Science Institute/H. Paul Root Award
Design Crowdsourcing: The Impact on New Product
Performance of Sourcing Design Solutions from the
“Crowd”
B.J. Allen, Deepa Chandrasekaran, Suman Basuroy
In a Nutshell: The authors examine an increasingly popular open
innovation practice, “design crowdsourcing,” wherein firms seek external
inputs in the form of functional design solutions for new product
development from the general population of consumers.
Practitioner Takeaways:
• The right crowdsourcing platform can provide firms with an optimal
amount of control over the design process while freeing up their own R&D
and design teams.
• Crowdsourcing increases perceived reliability and usability.
Published in the March 2018 issue (Vol. 82, No. 2) of JM. See the full article here.

7. | 72018 Marketing Science Institute/H. Paul Root Award
In-Store Mobile Phone Use and Customer Shopping
Behavior: Evidence from the Field
Dhruv Grewal, Carl-Philip Ahlbom, Lauren
Beitelspacher, Stephanie M. Noble, and Jens Nordfält
In a Nutshell: Anecdotal evidence has suggested that mobile phone use
decreases point-of-purchase sales, but the results of this study indicate
instead that it can increase purchases overall.
Practitioner Takeaways: In-store mobile phone use leads to increased
purchases, because consumers divert from their conventional shopping
loop, spend more time in the store, and spend more time examining
products and prices on shelves.
Published in the July 2018 issue (Vol. 82, No. 4) of JM. See the full article here.

8. | 82018 Marketing Science Institute/H. Paul Root Award
Selling the Premium in Freemium
Xian Gu, P.K. Kannan, and Liye Ma
In a Nutshell: The success of a freemium model depends on the number of
customers who purchase the premium version when the free version is available.
The authors investigate the strategy of extending a premium product line to spur
demand for the existing premium version.
Practitioner Takeaways:
• Extending the product line to include an even more “premium” option leads to a
positive impact on sales of the existing premium option.
• When customers are offered a new premium product that is higher-quality and
higher-priced, a “compromise” effect kicks in, causing them to choose a “middle”
option.
• Marketers who are introducing a lower-quality, lower-priced premium product
that is higher-quality than the free product should consider whether it will
cannibalize the existing premium product. If so, they should determine whether it
will increase overall revenues with higher sales or negatively affect revenues by
causing mass migration away from the initial offering.​
Published in the November 2018 issue (Vol. 82, No. 6) of JM. See the full article
here.

9. | 92018 Marketing Science Institute/H. Paul Root Award
Scheduling Content on Social Media: Theory, Evidence, and
Application
Vamsi K. Kanuri, Yixing Chen, and Shrihari (Hari) Sridhar
In a Nutshell: The authors build a theoretical framework for social media
content scheduling and explain how scheduling attributes (i.e., time of day,
content type, and targeting) affect link clicks.
Practitioner Takeaways:
• Posting content in the morning results in an 8.8 percent increase in link
clicks over posts scheduled for the afternoon and 11.1 increase over
those scheduled in the evening.
• Employing targeted content advertising (TCA) in the afternoon generates
21 percent more link clicks than doing so in the morning. TCA at night
decreases link clicks by 9.7 percent, leading to advertising losses.
• Posting content that contains high-arousal negative emotions in the
morning is 1.6 percent more effective at generating link clicks than
posting it in the afternoon or evening.
Published in the November 2018 issue (Vol. 82, No. 6) of JM. See the full article here.

10. | 1 02018 Marketing Science Institute/H. Paul Root Award
When and how Board Members with Marketing Experience
Facilitate Firm Growth
Kimberly A. Whitler, Ryan Krause, Donald R. Lehmann
In a Nutshell: Only 2.6% of firms’ board members have marketing
experience. The authors suggest that this is shortsighted and that
including more marketing-experienced board members will increase firm
growth
Practitioner Takeaways: Re​​​venues increase by 5.8 percentage points
annually when a marketer is on the board. The effect of having a
marketer on the board is much stronger when other board members are
open to marketing ideas, when the board has a strong connection to top
management decision making, and when prior industry growth and
company market share growth are weak.
Published in the September 2018 issue (Vol. 82, No. 5) of JM. See the full
article here.