Maryland Smith's Xian Gu, P.K. Kannan and Liye Ma, have been selected as a finalist for the 2018 Marketing Science Institute/H. Paul Root Award for their research paper, "Selling the Premium in Freemium." The award is given to a paper published in the Journal of Marketing that has made a significant contribution to the advancement of the practice of marketing in a calendar year.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST – What could be better than free? For companies with a freemium business model – Spotify, Dropbox, Hulu and The New York Times are examples – it’s a key question. Can a company increase its number of paying customers when a free version is available? And if so, how?