Lan Luo is a quantitative marketing expert focusing on consumer preference measurement, new product design, and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to analyze data from digital platforms and online marketplaces.
Professor Luo’s work combines conjoint analysis, econometrics, field experiments, surveys, and big-data analysis to examine the drivers of product demand, consumer choice among complex products, and the influence of online platforms on purchasing and hiring outcomes. Her research spans industries that include digital advertising and assets, e-commerce and retail, entertainment and streaming media, and online labor markets.
As an expert witness, Professor Luo has submitted expert reports, including a report rebutting a conjoint analysis in a product defect matter, and has testified in deposition.
Conjoint analysis, consumer preference measurement, and new product design
In her research, Professor Luo studies how firms measure consumer preferences and translate them into product and channel decisions. Her methodologies connect preference data to engineering design, including product line design for consumer durables and designs that hold up under variation in product performance and consumer taste. She has also examined how different retail channels, both brick-and-mortar and online, shape new product design and acceptance.
In related work, she has built machine learning methods that elicit preferences for complex products from limited survey responses.
AI and machine learning research on digital platforms and online marketplaces
In another research strand, Professor Luo applies AI, machine learning, and computer vision to platform and marketplace data, analyzing how consumer-generated content and platform design shape purchase, hiring, and market outcomes. She has studied large-scale media selection for online display advertising and examined the role of blockchain-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and smart contracts in creative industries.
Her recent studies address the use of generative AI (genAI) in product design, as well as methods for detecting AI-generated product reviews.
Amazon marketing science and analytics leadership
From 2020 to 2026, Professor Luo held several marketing science roles at Amazon. Most recently, she served as an Amazon Scholar, first as a science advisor for the Global Media & Entertainment business and later for the Selling Partner Experience.
Previously, she headed the Amazon Studios Science team, which develops AI, machine learning, and optimization models for intellectual property (IP) discovery, acquisition and engagement, media planning, release scheduling, and other purposes, on streaming platforms. From 2020 to 2021, Professor Luo was a principal economist, leading marketing analytics for Prime Video.
Marketing science publications, awards, and editorial service
Professor Luo has published research in Marketing Science, the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Marketing, and Management Science, among others. Her coauthored article “New Product Development Under Channel Acceptance” won the John D. C. Little Award for the best paper in Marketing Science. Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge, Newsweek, and the Wall Street Journal have covered her research.
The Journal of Marketing Research twice named Professor Luo a finalist for its Paul E. Green Award, which recognizes scholarship with the potential to advance the practice of marketing research. She has also received the American Marketing Association’s Donald R. Lehmann Award twice.
In 2023, the USC Marshall School recognized Professor Luo with the Dr. Jagdish N. Sheth Award for her research into consumer behavior and market demand.
Among her editorial and leadership roles, Professor Luo has served as vice president of practice for the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science (ISMS), associate editor for Marketing Science, and senior editor for Production and Operations Management.
Marketing analytics teaching at USC’s Marshall School of Business
Professor Luo has more than twenty years of experience teaching marketing analytics, marketing analysis and strategy, and quantitative models in marketing. Graduating classes have twice selected her for the Marshall Golden Apple Award for Teaching Excellence, an annual honor for faculty and staff who students say have positively influenced their lives.