Business & Entrepreneurship

Playbook for a winning Super Bowl ad: Embrace risk, seek emotion

Megan M Rogers — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:58:31 +0000

Playbook for a winning Super Bowl ad: Embrace risk, seek emotion Megan M Rogers Thu, 02/05/2026 - 09:58

College of Communication, Media, Design and Information

An advertising professor from the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information, who's produced Super Bowl spots for Coca-Cola, shares what makes a commercial memorable (or not) during the big game.

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С�� Boulder partners with Denver International Airport on new travel index

Megan M Rogers — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 15:58:05 +0000

С�� Boulder partners with Denver International Airport on new travel index Megan M Rogers Wed, 02/04/2026 - 08:58

Casey Bauer

С�� Boulder is partnering with Denver International Airport (DEN) to launch the Denver International Airport Travel Index, a new quarterly survey focused on how travelers across the region expect to fly in the months ahead.

Developed by the Business Research Division (BRD) at С�� Boulder’s Leeds School of Business in collaboration with the airport, the DEN Travel Index tracks expectations for business, leisure and personal travel. The results will offer an early signal of near-term travel demand and help inform airport planning, air service decisions and route development.

“This ongoing research with DEN will shed light on near-term travel expectations and offer a window into the general health of regional businesses and the economy,” said Brian Lewandowski, BRD executive director. “By tracking data over time, we can analyze how external economic factors are impacting travel expectations across the region.”

The travel index will be administered quarterly, allowing researchers to track shifts in traveler sentiment over time. Beyond travel intent, the data will also reflect broader economic and behavioral factors shaping travel decisions including tourism and business activity in the Denver metro area, as well as how economic conditions influence when and why people travel.

“DEN’s passengers are our greatest source of insight into the future of air travel,” said Phil Washington, CEO of Denver International Airport. “Their continuous feedback, paired with С�� Boulder’s expertise in the development and administration of comprehensive surveys, will equip us with timely, in-depth intelligence to help the airport continue to expand its global connectivity.”

Turning research into real-world insight

С�� Boulder’s Business Research Division brings decades of experience conducting applied economic research and tracking economic trends across Colorado. The division is known statewide for its ongoing economic indicators, business confidence surveys and annual Colorado Business Economic Outlook, which provide data-driven insight used by business leaders, policymakers and public agencies.

Through this partnership, BRD researchers will oversee survey design, data collection and analysis, ensuring the travel index reflects regional travel sentiment in a consistent, methodologically sound way. The approach mirrors the division’s broader work of tracking expectations over time to better understand how economic conditions translate into real-world behavior.

The findings will supplement the airport’s existing research and support longer-term planning—helping the airport anticipate demand while offering insight into how broader economic conditions may shape travel, tourism and business activity across the region.

How to participate

Take the survey

Denver International Airport is inviting travelers from Colorado and neighboring states who pass through the airport to take part in the survey. Participants will be asked to continue participating on a quarterly basis, helping build a consistent, long-term dataset.

The survey opens Feb. 4 and will remain available through Feb. 27.

A new quarterly survey developed by the Leeds School of Business and Denver International Airport will measure traveler demand and expectations, offering insight into near-term air travel trends.

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Why we love watching the Super Bowl live

Katy Hill — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 21:46:27 +0000

Why we love watching the Super Bowl live Katy Hill Tue, 02/03/2026 - 14:46

Katy Marquardt Hill

More than 100 million people in the U.S. tune in to the Super Bowl every year. In 2025, Super Bowl LIX hit a record, averaging about 127.7 million viewers, with numbers spiking even higher for the big plays and halftime show. Factor in streaming and social platforms, and recent Super Bowls have reached more than 200 million people—drawn not just by the game itself but by the thrill of watching it all happen together in real time.

Alix Barasch

A study published online in the Journal of Marketing in January helps explain why so many viewers still tune in live for the Super Bowl. Across a series of experiments, researchers found that people enjoy watching something more when they think it’s live, even if it’s identical to a replay.

“When you know you’re watching live, the emotional experience is different,” said Alix Barasch, associate professor of marketing at the Leeds School of Business and co-author of the study. “You’re not just watching the game—you’re sharing a moment as it unfolds.”

What makes the difference is presence, the feeling of being drawn into the moment.

“It’s that sense that you’re really there—on the field, in the arena—with the people on the screen, instead of observing from the outside,” Barasch said. “When something’s live, your brain treats it like a shared moment you’re part of, not just a recording.”

That feeling of being part of the moment helps explain why the Super Bowl still draws huge live audiences, even when replays are available.

“Once a moment passes, you can’t really recreate that shared ‘now,’” Barasch said. “You can get the information later, but you can’t get that same experience again.”

Why live hits harder than a replay

The researchers, who also included Nofar Duani of the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and Adrian Ward of the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business, set out to measure that feeling of being “in the moment.”

Across five experiments, participants who believed they were watching something live reported feeling more socially connected, enjoying the experience more and being more likely to keep watching.

In one experiment, participants watched music videos on Twitch, some live and some prerecorded. In another, everyone saw the same band perform on YouTube, but some were told it was live and others were told it was prerecorded. Even when the performance was prerecorded, “just thinking it was live made people feel more connected to the person on screen, enjoy it more and want to stick around,” Barasch said.

The effect didn’t depend on surprises or suspense, and it happened even with fully scripted performances, Barasch said. “The content itself doesn’t change,” she said. “What changes is how it feels, because you know others including the performers are experiencing it right now too.”

That helps explain the Super Bowl effect: Highlights show what happened, but they can’t recreate the feeling of seeing a key play live with millions of others.

The lesson goes beyond sports, according to the researchers. Live formats such as product demos, livestreamed events and Q&As can help marketers and brands build stronger connections with audiences.

Connection to the crowd and people on screen

The researchers found that on platforms like YouTube and Twitch, features such as chats and viewer counts can make other viewers feel more present, creating a sense of connection similar to watching a game at a crowded bar or sharing reactions in a group text.

But even without those cues, just knowing something is live strengthens the connection to the person on screen, Barasch said.

“The strongest effects actually come from feeling closer to the broadcaster, performer or player,” she said. “That’s rarely someone you know personally, but when it’s live, it makes that connection feel real.”

Seeing faces makes the effect stronger, the study found. When viewers can see a coach’s reaction or a performer’s facial expression mid-song, they feel more present, she added.

“Faces help viewers enter the social world of what they’re watching,” Barasch said. “Without that emotional access, it’s harder to feel like you’re really there.”

That’s why live events still matter. “Live doesn’t just capture attention,” Barasch said. “It creates connection—and that’s what keeps people showing up in the moment.”

New research explains why real-time viewing creates a powerful sense of presence and connection.

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Welcome to the Camping Games (now please show up)

Megan M Rogers — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 16:16:40 +0000

Welcome to the Camping Games (now please show up) Megan M Rogers Tue, 01/27/2026 - 09:16

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

The world of campsite reservations is increasingly cutthroat, so why are so many campers not showing up? С�� Boulder economist Jon Hughes applies numerical modeling to understand campground no-shows.

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Why anti-Asian discrimination often goes unnoticed at work

Katy Hill — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:35:36 +0000

Why anti-Asian discrimination often goes unnoticed at work Katy Hill Wed, 01/21/2026 - 08:35

Katy Marquardt Hill

Even in workplaces that aim to be fair, discrimination can slip by unnoticed. New research finds that when Asian Americans experience potentially biased treatment at work, others are less likely to recognize it as discrimination or step in as allies.

Tony Kong

"In many workplaces, it’s not that anyone is trying to be unfair, but patterns of awareness and interpretation add up,” said Tony Kong, professor of organizational leadership and information analytics at the Leeds School of Business and co-author of the research.

Published online in November 2025 in the journal Organization Science, the research examined why racial discrimination against Asian Americans is often overlooked. Across 13 studies, the researchers used experiments, surveys and real-world data to examine workplace scenarios, perceptions of discrimination against various Asian American subgroups, and nearly 600,000 discrimination claims filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission between 2011 and 2017.

The researchers, who also included Sora Jun of Rice University and Junfeng Wu of the University of Texas at Dallas, found that Asian Americans are less likely to be seen as “prototypical” targets of racial discrimination at work. In other words, Asian Americans tend to be overlooked as targets of discrimination, even in cases identical to those experienced by Black Americans.

Kong said the researchers chose Black Americans as a comparison group because they are likely to be the most prototypical target of racial discrimination and are the most studied racial group in workplace discrimination research.

"Asian Americans tend to fall in the middle of the U.S. racial hierarchy,” Kong said. “People usually focus more on the top or the bottom of this hierarchy. If you’re in the middle, you get less attention.”

“The middle part is tricky, because people likely think, ‘You have resources, you have ability, so I don’t need to support you,’ even though Asian Americans might still face biased or discriminatory treatment and need allyship,” Kong said.

In controlled and field experiments, participants reviewed scenarios such as a job candidate being passed over for a position. If the job candidate was Asian American, observers were less likely to perceive discrimination than if the candidate was Black, even though the scenarios were otherwise the same. This “invisibility effect” showed up across multiple Asian American subgroups, including East Asian, Southeast Asian and South Asian candidates.

Real-world data also supported the pattern: Discrimination claims filed with the EEOC by Asian American employees were significantly less likely to be resolved favorably—13.3% of cases—compared with 15.6% for Black employees and 15.7% for multiracial employees.

Kong said these patterns likely extend beyond discrimination against Asian Americans. Any social group that doesn’t match people’s mental image of who faces discrimination can be overlooked, he said, and as a result, may receive less support from others. That could include, but is not limited to, other racial and ethnic minority groups, some gender and sexual minority groups, and people with intersectional identities, he said.

It’s worth taking a closer look at which social groups don’t fit the “usual picture” of discrimination—and what that means, Kong said. “These are probably the people who fall victim to our psychological biases or blind spots," he said. "We need to check our assumptions and beliefs first: Does the person fit the prototype? If not, we need to be extra careful about the judgments we’re making, as the judgments could lead to non-action."

The findings point to a broader challenge in creating inclusive and equitable workplaces, Kong added. “When discriminatory experiences go unseen due to our mental models that guide our interpretation, prediction, decision-making and problem-solving, bias can affect our recognition of a person’s negative experience and our bystander responses,” he said, adding that failing to act against discrimination undermines efforts to create inclusive and equitable workplaces.

"This isn’t about making anyone feel guilty; we are human and have psychological tendencies," Kong emphasized. "It’s about awareness of a systematic psychological problem that we need to address collectively through practices, interventions and policies."

A new study finds bias is often overlooked when people aren’t seen as likely targets of discrimination.

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The secret behind successful CEOs: Structured thinking beats gut instinct

Katy Hill — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 16:26:10 +0000

The secret behind successful CEOs: Structured thinking beats gut instinct Katy Hill Tue, 01/13/2026 - 09:26

Katy Marquardt Hill

When CEOs make strategic decisions such as where to compete, what to prioritize or how to grow, many rely on instinct—that gut feeling often credited for Steve Jobs’ success at Apple. But a new study of hundreds of CEOs shows that it’s a structured decision-making process, not intuition, that drives success.

Mu-Jeung (MJ) Yang

“CEOs who are most effective start by identifying the real problems, consider multiple possible solutions, and then test their assumptions with evidence,” said Mu-Jeung (MJ) Yang, co-author of the study and assistant professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business. “They use a structured process, very much like how a scientist approaches a problem.”

Why CEO strategy is hard to study

Understanding how CEOs make strategic decisions has long been elusive in management research. “Whenever we study successful companies like Apple or Nvidia, it’s tempting to list all the reasons they succeed—hindsight makes it look obvious,” Yang said. “But leaders don’t have a clear view of the future when they make decisions. If the key factors for success were that obvious, everyone would follow them and the competitive advantage would disappear.”

Most research, he added, looks backward at outcomes rather than at the decision-making process itself. And because CEOs are difficult to reach and strategy discussions are often confidential, large-scale research on how they actually make choices has been rare.

To address this blind spot, Yang and his colleagues surveyed 262 Harvard Business School alumni currently serving as CEOs across the U.S., U.K., and Canada, spanning industries from manufacturing to tech to health care. The study, published in Management Science in September 2025, offers a look into how top executives make strategic calls that can influence a company’s health.

The researchers, including Michael Christensen of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School; Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University; and Raffaella Sadun and Jan Rivkin of Harvard Business School, asked CEOs to describe recent strategic changes—such as entering new markets or launching products—and how those decisions were made and tested. Using structured interviews modeled on the World Management Survey, they scored responses on a continuum from intuitive, reactive styles to structured, evidence-based ones. “We wanted to understand the process, not just the outcomes,” Yang said. “How do great strategies actually come to be?”

Structure pays off

The study found that CEOs who used more structured, analytical approaches tended to lead larger and faster-growing companies. Over time, their firms’ performance improved, which points to the advantages of systematic decision-making, Yang said.

Structured strategic thinking shares much with critical thinking and the scientific method, he added. “It starts with identifying problems proactively, not just reacting when something goes wrong,” he said. “Then you cultivate multiple possible solutions, spell out what would have to be true for each to succeed, and test those assumptions with evidence.”

He added that structure doesn’t mean getting bogged down with bureaucracy and pointed to Procter & Gamble under former CEO A.G. Lafley as an example. Instead of endless PowerPoint presentations, Lafley and consultant Roger Martin focused discussions on core questions such as where to invest and what assumptions must hold true for success.

Business school matters

The study also found that business education can have a lasting influence on how executives think. Looking at changes in Harvard Business School’s strategy curriculum, the researchers traced differences in CEOs’ strategic styles back to their exposure to the decision-making frameworks of Michael Porter, a Harvard Business School professor and economist known for his influential research on business strategy.

“Whatever we teach in business education will stay with students for a long time and may even shape how they interpret the world,” Yang said. “At the same time, we should move away from only explaining why some firms did well in the past toward giving tomorrow’s leaders tools to come up with great strategies going forward.”

The future of strategic thinking

Yang believes that tools like artificial intelligence could eventually enhance CEO decision-making. “AI can be an opportunity to improve strategic decision-making if deployed correctly,” he said. “It can’t replace expert decision-makers, but it can be a thought partner that boosts critical thinking and helps avoid costly mistakes.”

Whether CEOs are aided by AI or not, Yang stressed that strategic decisions work best when they’re approached systematically and thoughtfully.

“It’s about being proactive, consistent and hypothesis-driven—making decisions by testing assumptions, not just by going with your gut,” he said.

A new study of hundreds of chief executives suggests that methodical decision-making, not intuition, drives success.

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С��riosity: How can you make your resolutions stick?

Daniel William Strain — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 22:44:18 +0000

С��riosity: How can you make your resolutions stick? Daniel William… Mon, 01/05/2026 - 15:44

Katy Marquardt Hill

In С��riosity, experts across the С�� Boulder campus answer questions about humans, our planet and the universe beyond.

This week, Alix Barasch, a marketing professor in the Leeds School of Business, says that virtual badges and digital trinkets may sound silly, but they really can help you reach your goals. She answers the question: "How do I keep my New Year’s resolution?"

New Year's Eve in New York's Times Square. (Credit: CC photo via Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/76807015@N03/11745399044)

Millions of people open apps each day to protect something with no monetary value but plenty of psychological punch: a streak. Whether it’s logging language lessons, tracking meals, meditating or hitting step goals, missing a day can feel oddly devastating.

There’s a reason it feels that way. Streaks turn progress into a reward of its own, according to Alix Barasch, associate professor of marketing at the Leeds School of Business, who studies how technologies influence consumer behavior.

Alix Barasch

“A streak has no real value in the world, but it has real psychological value,” she says.

That mental pull may be why streaks (and the apps that track them) help make resolutions stick. Even when apps offer seemingly trivial rewards, they can still influence behavior.

“These apps add an extra layer to goals,” Barasch says. “Tracking streaks and earning badges along the way turns something you might already want to do—like practicing a language or exercising—into something you really care about, even if the reward is just a number or a virtual icon.”

This is gamification, the process of turning ordinary tasks into a kind of game. Apps use badges, streak counts, progress trackers and virtual currencies to make those tasks feel like achievements. For example, the meditation app Calm awards badges for streaks of consecutive days of practice and completing specific programs, such as those for stress and anxiety. For people with fitness goals, the Apple Watch encourages users with three colorful rings that users aim to close each day: “move” (calories burned), “exercise” (activity minutes), and “stand” (moving around for at least 1 minute during 12 hours of the day).

“Tracking your progress, earning badges, keeping a streak—these things all give the behavior a sense of meaning,” Barasch says.

But apps also dutifully notice if you skip a day’s workout. That can feel bigger than a small slip and really knock your motivation.

Previously in С��riosity

Why hasn't it snowed much this year, and what does that mean for Colorado?

Or read more С��riosity stories here

“Psychologically, it’s extra demotivating,” Barasch says. “Breaking a streak affects your likelihood of keeping up the behavior.”

Apps have gotten good at forgiving streak breaks, which can help users overcome slip-ups.

The language app Duolingo, for example, offers “streak repairs” via subscription features or “gems” that can be earned or bought. Users can also preemptively protect their streaks with “freezes.”

Not surprisingly, sharing streaks with friends or tracking them within a group can make people more likely to stick with a resolution.

“For me, there does have to be a layer of accountability,” Barasch says. “You don’t necessarily need shared tracking, but social connection helps.”

Over time, streaks reinforce behavior simply by making it part of your routine. Showing up day after day helps solidify those actions into habits that can last even without the digital nudges. To make a resolution stick, she recommends leaning on simple forms of gamification like earning badges to reinforce the behavior long enough for it to become a habit.

And that’s the real goal.

“If it becomes part of your day,” Barasch says, “you’ll probably keep doing it—even without the rewards.”

Virtual badges and digital trinkets may sound silly, but they really can help you reach your goals, says marketing researcher Alix Barasch.

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The science behind successful holiday fundraising stories

Katy Hill — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 15:47:08 +0000

The science behind successful holiday fundraising stories Katy Hill Tue, 12/16/2025 - 08:47

Katy Marquardt Hill

The holidays bring out generosity, and for fundraisers, that’s an opportunity. But the right message can mean the difference between an appeal that goes unnoticed and one that inspires people to give. New research shows that the key to success lies in storytelling—specifically, the emotional journey of the story.

“People are often convinced by the heart, not just the brain,” said Liu Liu, assistant professor of marketing at the Leeds School of Business and co-author of the working paper, “Building Persuasive Stories With Emotional Sequences.” “Emotional storytelling reaches where reason sometimes can’t, so building empathy and a sense of connection is what turns a story into action.”

Liu Liu

The researchers, who included Leeds marketing professor Laura Kornish and Samsun Knight, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Toronto, analyzed more than 14,000 medical fundraising pitches on GoFundMe. They measured emotions across stories using an AI tool that detects emotion in text. They focused on three key emotional categories that are important to online fundraising: sadness, fear and caring. A fourth category–neutrality–was included to capture overall emotionality.

The findings were clear: Stories that start with sadness and end with caring are the most likely to reach their fundraising goals. For example, a fundraiser might begin by describing a patient’s sadness upon receiving a difficult diagnosis, then shift to expressions of caring and gratitude as friends and family rally around them, highlighting the support that a broader community, including donors, can provide.

Other story arcs, such as those that stay caring throughout or shift from sadness to a neutral tone, also tended to appear in higher-earning campaigns, according to the study. But the researchers caution that these trends are based on observational GoFundMe posts rather than controlled experiments, meaning they should be interpreted as correlations, not proof that these emotions cause donors to give more.

It’s not just which emotions a story evokes, Liu said; it’s the way those emotions unfold throughout the narrative.

“The order matters. A sad beginning captures attention and builds empathy. Ending with caring fosters identification with the person asking for help, which motivates donations,” she said.

Testing emotional storytelling

Measuring the emotional impact of stories is not easy. “Stories are complex and subjective. We wanted to capture narrative and language patterns in a scalable, accurate way,” Liu said.

To make sure the study’s results weren’t influenced by other factors that could affect emotional perception and fundraising success, the researchers developed a testing method involving crowd-sourced, large-language-model (LLM) assisted rewrites that include humans. LLMs generated rewritten fundraising narratives at scale, while humans ensured factual accuracy and natural-sounding emotional progression, Liu said.

The team first selected real fundraising pitches on GoFundMe and identified their baseline emotional arcs, then used the LLM to create rewrites targeting specific emotional sequences, such as sadness to caring. Human reviewers corrected any inaccuracies the LLM introduced and refined the text, then both the original and rewritten pitches were evaluated for persuasiveness and emotional impact.

Why the sadness-to-caring arc resonates

The researchers also explored why stories that move from sadness to caring seem to resonate with donors. “Sadness may signal the problem, while caring may highlight the humanity and gratitude of the person asking. That combination makes donors feel close to the protagonist, and that identification increases donations,” Liu said.

In other words, people are more likely to give when they can see themselves in the story and connect with the person or cause.

Even short-form stories like social media posts or email appeals can benefit from this approach, Liu said. And although the study centered on medical fundraising, the findings can be used as a blueprint that other types of nonprofits can adapt to craft more compelling calls for donations.

“Our work identifies one powerful sequence for medical fundraising, but the method can be applied more broadly: Nonprofits can find the sequence that resonates most with their audience,” Liu said.

New research shows that donation appeals work best when they follow certain emotional arcs.

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You're probably misreading online reviews. Here's why

Katy Hill — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 15:16:23 +0000

You're probably misreading online reviews. Here's why Katy Hill Mon, 12/15/2025 - 08:16

Katy Marquardt Hill

If you’re shopping for gifts or hunting for deals this season, chances are you’re putting a lot of trust into star ratings. A 4.6 must be better than a 4.2, right? And if you find something that’s cheap and highly rated, you’re clicking the “buy” button.

Pause here before purchasing. New research uncovers a major blind spot in how people read and interpret reviews that can lead to bad purchases, wasted money and piles of low-quality products. As many as 98% of consumers check reviews before buying, and most assume the stars reflect only quality, not context or expectations.

Ying Zeng

“When consumers are rating a product, they are giving a ‘vibe’ rating to some extent,” said Ying Zeng, assistant professor of marketing at the Leeds School of Business and co-author of the study, published in the journal Psychology & Marketing in November 2025. “This vibe includes a lot of things—what they paid, how the product looks, how well it performs, and what the rater is currently feeling.”

How shoppers misread ratings

To explore this, Zeng and her co-authors—including Thomas Hsee of Stanford University and Christopher K. Hsee of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business—ran six studies using everyday items like power banks, home theater projectors and maps. Each study followed a two-phase approach: Participants first rated products they had used, then a separate group of prospective buyers interpreted those ratings.

The results were consistent: Raters judged higher-priced products more harshly, so readers systematically underestimated the true quality of expensive items. They even assumed cheaper products were better in some cases, unless they consciously considered how price had shaped the original ratings.

“Rating is not just about quality, it’s about the quality-to-price ratio,” Zeng said. “Readers don’t see that. They assume raters are very impartial and very sophisticated—that they understand how to disentangle price from the product quality.”

Expensive products are penalized

Price influences ratings in ways most shoppers never consider, Zeng said. When people pay more for something, they expect more.

“If it’s an expensive product, consumers tend to have a higher standard because there is a pain of paying,” Zeng said. “So the more I pay, the more I discount my rating.”

How to approach online reviews

Be wary of cheap products with high ratings. High stars may just reflect low expectations not high quality.
Give expensive items with slightly lower ratings the benefit of the doubt, especially when they’re on sale. The rating may reflect the original full-price expectations.
Don’t rely solely on the rating number. Read reviews to get the real picture.
Look for patterns not outliers. Focus on recurring complaints and strengths rather than single extreme reviews.
Remember that ratings reflect a “vibe.” Appearance, user errors, the rater’s mood and other factors all contribute to the score.

That means pricey products often look worse on paper not because they are worse, but because the cost raised the raters’ expectations. Then, when those expensive items later go on sale, their lower ratings can scare off shoppers who don’t realize the ratings were influenced by the original full price.

“If an expensive product has a low rating but now it’s discounted, it’s probably worth considering that product,” Zeng said. “Compared to a cheap product with a high rating, you have to consider that the actual quality could be higher.”

The trap of the cheap, highly rated product

On the flip side, low-priced products often get more glowing scores because raters’ expectations were low to begin with.

“The combination of low price and high rating is very appealing,” Zeng said. “It may feel as if it’s a high-quality product with a very good deal, but that’s not necessarily the case.”

That’s hard to resist, as even Zeng can attest: “Even though I’m an expert in this area, I’m always under-adjusting. I know I should be cautious, but I still get trapped by a product with a cheap price and high rating.”

Cheap, low-quality items also create a sustainability problem. Zeng noted that people often don’t bother returning these products because the time and cost outweigh the refund, leading to more waste.

Takeaways for shoppers

Star ratings are easy, fast and intuitive—which is exactly why we overuse them.

“Numbers are easy to rely on, but they contain way less information than the text itself,” Zeng said.

Her advice: Read reviews, or even AI-generated summaries of reviews, which can sift through hundreds of comments and identify patterns.

“AI is a super powerful tool that summarizes the key complaints and key strengths,” she says. “Use that information and evaluate it with your own needs.”

And don’t forget this simple truth: “Ratings are contaminated by a lot of things,” Zeng said. “They’re emotional, contextual and often heavily influenced by price.”

Understanding that, especially during the shopping season when time is limited and pressure is high, can help you make better, less wasteful purchases.

Most reviews reflect a “vibe” and not pure quality, making bargains not the deals they seem, according to a С�� marketing researcher.

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After new SEC rule, companies are strengthening accounting—not executive pay

Katy Hill — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 16:09:04 +0000

After new SEC rule, companies are strengthening accounting—not executive pay Katy Hill Wed, 12/10/2025 - 09:09

Katy Marquardt Hill

When the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission finalized long-awaited rules requiring companies to “claw back” executive pay after corrections in their financial statements, critics warned that boards would adjust CEO pay packages to shield executives from potential losses. But new research tells a different story that could be reassuring to investors: Companies are improving their accounting practices to prevent errors in the first place.

Andrea Pawliczek

The SEC’s clawback rule is a product of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, enacted after the global financial crisis with the aim of recovering executive pay tied to misstated financial results. After years of debate and revisions, the rule finally took effect in October 2022.

In a working paper, researchers with the Leeds School of Business analyzed data from 2019 to 2024 on U.S. public companies affected by the rule, including firms that adopted clawback policies when it took effect in 2022 as well as those that had already done so voluntarily.

“Importantly, we didn’t see CEO pay increasing or firms shifting away from performance-based compensation,” said Bryce Schonberger, a co-author of the study and assistant professor of accounting. “That was surprising.”

In earlier work related to a related Dodd-Frank provision—the CEO pay-ratio disclosure rule—Schonberger found that company boards often restructured executive pay to offset potential backlash. He expected a similar response under the clawback rule, but found no sign that companies weakened performance-based incentives, an outcome he called both unexpected and meaningful.

“We’re seeing encouraging signs,” said Andrea Pawliczek, assistant professor of accounting at Leeds and co-author of the study. “Firms are hiring more accounting staff and strengthening their financial reporting to avoid errors in the first place.”

The researchers, who also included Michael Dambra, associate professor of accounting and law at the University at Buffalo SUNY, tracked how newly affected companies differed from those that already had clawback policies in place to see how the rule itself changed companies’ behavior.

Bryce Schonberger

The results show that newly affected companies invested more heavily in financial reporting by hiring additional accountants, paying higher audit fees and more quickly releasing earnings reports. Some companies also added more ways to gauge performance in CEO pay plans, further linking their pay to performance.

Investors responded positively to the new rule, according to the paper. Share prices for affected firms rose slightly—about 1% to 2%—around key SEC announcements, indicating that the market viewed the rule as a positive change, Schonberger said. Analyst coverage of these companies also increased, he added, signaling greater investor attention and confidence.

What is a clawback?

The SEC's clawback rule allows a company to reclaim a bonus or stock award paid to an executive if the company later restates its financial results. The SEC now requires all publicly listed companies to have a written policy for recovering such incentive-based pay when restatements occur.

So far, only a handful of companies have reported clawbacks under the new SEC rule. For instance, in April 2025 Macy’s recovered $600,000 in executive bonus compensation because it misclassified over $150 million in delivery expenses over three years.

Schonberger noted that financial restatements often take years to surface, so it will be some time before the rule’s full impact on misreporting becomes clear.

“It’ll be interesting to see how markets and the media react when larger clawbacks eventually happen,” he said. But so far, the results reflect a broader shift among companies toward transparency and market visibility, Pawliczek said.

“From an investor’s perspective, what matters is alignment. You want the CEO’s incentives tied to firm performance,” Pawliczek said. “Our findings—that companies aren’t shifting away from pay-for-performance—should reassure investors that those incentives remain in place.”

Publicly traded firms are hiring more accountants and improving financial reporting in response to a “clawback” rule that recovers CEO bonuses if earnings turn out to be misstated, new research shows.

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