Sridhar Narayanan

Professor of Marketing
Academic Area:

Bio

Narayanan is a professor of marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2005 and has been at Stanford since July 2005. Before his PhD, he worked as a sales and marketing manager at Unilever, after receiving a BE in electrical engineering and an MBA, both from the University of Delhi, India.

Narayanan’s research has been published in the leading journals of marketing, such as Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research, Quantitative Marketing and Economics, and Journal of Marketing. He serves as associate editor at Marketing Science and Quantitative Marketing and Economics.

Narayanan teaches an MBA core course in marketing and a PhD course on Bayesian methods. Previously he also taught MBA electives like Marketing Analytics, Advanced Marketing Analytics, Digital Marketing, and Green Marketing.

Stanford GSB Affiliations

Academic Degrees

  • PhD, University of Chicago, 2005
  • MBA, University of Delhi, India, 1997
  • BE, University of Delhi, India, 1995

Academic Appointments

  • Professor, Stanford GSB, 2021–present
  • Associate Professor, Stanford GSB, 2009–21
  • Assistant Professor, Stanford GSB, 2005–09

Awards and Honors

  • Younger Family Faculty Fellow, 2022–23
  • Philip F. Maritz Faculty Scholar, 2016–17
  • MBA Class of ’69 Faculty Scholar, 2013–14
  • Coulter Family Scholar, 2007–08

Service to the Profession

Journal Service

    • Associate Editor, Quantitative Marketing and Economics
    • Associate Editor, Marketing Science

    Membership of Professional Organizations

      • American Marketing Association
      • The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)

      Professional Experience

      • Area Sales Manager, Unilever India, 1997–2000

      Research Statement

      Sridhar Narayanan’s research focuses on empirical analysis of marketing problems, through the estimation of econometric models on behavioral data and through field experiments. His current streams of streams focus on various problems in digital advertising and other aspects of digital marketing, and on the adoption and usage of modern marketing practices and technologies by small businesses in emerging markets. He has focused on causal estimation using experimental, quasi-experimental and econometric approaches. Topics he has focused on in the past include learning and decision-making under uncertainty, peer effects, pharmaceutical marketing, the role of marketing over the product life cycle among others. A particular area of interest of his is the application of Bayesian methods to problems in marketing and empirical industrial organization.

      Journal Articles

      Jon Zeller, Sridhar Narayanan
      Quantitative Marketing and Economics
      May 2024
      Stephen Anderson, Leonardo Iacovone, Shreya Kankanhalli, Sridhar Narayanan
      Journal of Marketing Research
      February 18, 2022
      Brett Gordon, Kinshuk Jerath, Zsolt Katona, Sridhar Narayanan, Jiwoong Shin, Kenneth Wilbur
      Journal of Marketing
      January 2021 Vol. 85 Issue 1 Pages 7–25
      Navdeep S. Sahni, Sridhar Narayanan, Kirthi Kalyanam
      Journal of Marketing Research
      June 1, 2019 Vol. 56 Issue 3 Pages 401-418
      Sridhar Narayanan, Kirthi Kalyanam
      Marketing Science
      2015 Vol. 34 Issue 3 Pages 388-407
      Sridhar Narayanan, Harikesh S. Nair
      Journal of Marketing Research
      February 2013 Vol. 50 Issue 1 Pages 70-94
      Sridhar Narayanan
      Quantitative Marketing and Economics
      2013 Vol. 11 Issue 1 Pages 39-81
      Sridhar Narayanan, Puneet Manchanda
      Quantitative Marketing and Economics
      2012 Vol. 10 Issue 1 Pages 27-62
      Wesley R. Hartmann, Harikesh S. Nair, Sridhar Narayanan
      Marketing Science
      November 2011 Vol. 30 Issue 6 Pages 1079–1097
      Sridhar Narayanan, Puneet Manchanda
      Marketing Science
      2009 Vol. 28 Issue 3 Pages 424-441
      Michaela Draganska, Sanjog Misra, Victor Aguirregabiria, Pat Bajari, Liran Einav, Paul Ellickson, Dan Horsky, Sridhar Narayanan, Yesim Orhun, Peter C. Reiss, Katja Seim, Vishal Singh, Raphael Thomadsen, Ting Zhu
      Marketing Letters
      2008 Vol. 19 Issue 3-4 Pages 399-416
      Sridhar Narayanan, Pradeep K. Chintagunta, Eugenio J. Miravete
      Quantitative Marketing and Economics
      2007 Vol. 5 Issue 1 Pages 1-34
      Sridhar Narayanan, Puneet Manchanda, Pradeep K. Chintagunta
      Journal of Marketing Research
      2005 Vol. 42 Issue 3 Pages 278-290
      Puneet Manchanda, Dick R. Wittink, Andrew Ching, Paris Cleanthous, Min Ding, Xiaojing J. Dong, Peter S. H. Leeflang, Sanjog Misra, Natalie Mizik, Sridhar Narayanan, Thomas Steenburgh, Jaap E. Wieringa, Marta Wosinska, Ying Xie
      Marketing Letters
      2005 Vol. 16 Issue 3-4 Pages 293-308
      Sridhar Narayanan, Ramarao Desiraju, Pradeep K. Chintagunta
      Journal of Marketing
      2004 Vol. 68 Issue 4 Pages 90-105

      In the Media

      Insights by Stanford Business

      June 29, 2023
      New research finds that AI-powered fitness coaching is more effective when users interact with real people.
      May 20, 2022
      A project to assist small Mexican shops with branding and management quickly boosted their sales.
      September 04, 2019
      You know those ads that follow you around online? New research shows that they work, especially when deployed early.
      January 16, 2015
      The researchers gained rare insight into the effects of position in paid search advertising on Google.
      February 01, 2009
      Research shows that, while gamblers do exhibit many irrational behaviors, for most its just simple entertainment.
      November 01, 2007
      Research examines whether "rational" consumers always chose the best plan for themselves.
      August 01, 2006
      A recent study shows direct-to-consumer drug ads can lift a whole category, but well-timed ads to doctors boost the individual brand.