Thought Leadership

Team USA's gold medal win at the Paris 2024 Olympics coincided with NBCU's viewership surge, averaging 30.6 million viewers. Smith School marketing professor Bobby Zhou attributes this to Paris's allure, favorable time zones, and the Olympics' unifying effect.

With the 2024 Summer Olympics underway, brands vie for top endorsements, despite past low ratings. The games, expected to generate $1.3 billion in sponsorship revenue, mark the first unrestricted post-COVID Olympics. Successful campaigns connect athletes' stories authentically with brands.

For the first time, equal numbers of male and female athletes will compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Celebrating gender parity, this milestone highlights the progress in women's sports since Paris 1924, where only 4.4% of athletes were women.

Finance professor Agustin Hurtado’s AI research highlights racial disparities in mortgage lending, while Information Systems researchers study AI chatbots' impact on mental health counseling. Marketing professor Michel Wedel explores predicting decisions via eye-tracking, and accounting professor…

Professor Michel Wedel and team introduce RETINA, an AI-driven eye-tracking innovation predicting decisions from eye movements in seconds. Detailed in 'Predicting Consumer Choice From Raw Eye‑Movement Data,' the technology offers insights for marketing and beyond.

The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business is leading the charge to understand how artificial intelligence is impacting jobs in the U.S. economy with the world’s first attempt to map the creation of AI-skilled jobs.

New research from P.K. Kannan at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith of Business reveals how companies should pick influencers to maximize sales.

Amid a sluggish holiday-season outlook for retailers – thanks to the likes of rising credit card debt and dwindling, post-pandemic savings, competition is intensified for shoppers who are looking to spend. Reflecting this, big retailers initiated their holiday-season discounts as early as October…

There’s been some backlash to all of the attention the National Football League is giving to the assumption that singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce are dating.

With two of the most prominent combat sports properties—WWE and UFC—now united under one belt, eyes are on parent company TKO Group Holdings for its plans to continue growing the brands moving forward.