Growing the Mamas & Papas Brand

Nawaal Motlekar is the managing director of Kwenta Media and founding editor of Mamas & Papas, a recently launched parenting magazine in South Africa. From her early entrepreneurial experiences, Motlekar developed a personal and professional interest in parenting magazines. As a Black South African woman married to an Indian man in an increasingly multi-racial and multi-cultural society, Motlekar recognized a gap for a parenting magazine that would appeal to a wider and more racially and culturally inclusive target market. After extensive research and development, she launched the Mamas & Papas magazine in early 2009. The case charts Motlekar’s journey as an entrepreneur, as well as her efforts between 2006 and 2009 to bring the magazine to life. The case explores the quantitative and qualitative research approaches employed by Motlekar, as well as her marketing and branding initiatives towards building a Mamas & Papas brand beyond just the physical magazine. With the magazine having been on shelves for 12 months, Motlekar and her board faced a number of decisions. These included options to increase advertising revenues and circulation, as well as choosing how to extend the Mamas & Papas brand into related categories.

The case is written for a first-year MBA marketing module and is designed to explore the following themes:<ul><li>Market scanning and research for segmentation and positioning decisions.</li><li>Brand-building and brand extension decisions.</li></ul>

• Brand Extension
• Brand Management
• Brand Positioning
• Consumer Research
• Marketing Research
• Magazines
• South Africa
• GIBS