Tao (Tony) Gao

Whether you cel­e­brate Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, gift giving is a part of most hol­iday tra­di­tions this time of year. Many fac­tors go into selecting and pur­chasing hol­iday gifts. We asked Tony Gao, assis­tant pro­fessor of mar­keting in the Col­lege of Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion, to explain some gift-​​giving trends and what moti­vates con­sumers’ gift-​​buying behaviors.

Retail titans Apple, Nike and Ikea have to com­pete with impostor replicas of their retail stores that have popped up in the southern dis­trict of Kun­ming city in south­west China and other parts of the world. These stores hawk knockoff prod­ucts to some­times unknowing cus­tomers. Tony Gao, an assis­tant pro­fessor of mar­keting in Northeastern’s Col­lege of Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion, inter­prets the broader impli­ca­tions to con­sumer wel­fare, intel­lec­tual prop­erty rights pro­tec­tion and how these com­pet­i­tive behav­iors affect inter­na­tional marketing.