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Joy4Home Brands, the maker of novel houseware items, was gearing up for its launch. The company would be introducing two lines: kitchenware products and storage containers. The initial go-to-market plan called for a direct to consumer (DTC) channel strategy. While Joy4Home had a handle on its customer acquisition efforts, it had yet to determine the DTC pricing for each line. Moreover, two additional opportunities had recently emerged. The first was a B2B opportunity involving a modified kitchenware line, and the second was a brick-and mortar wholesale proposal for larger storage containers. The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) had market research data and other information to help her determine the optimal pricing scheme for these various sales avenues. Recommendations were needed soon.

This case continues the themes discussed in "Pricing at Netflix" (Case 521-004). Following the conclusion of the original case, Netflix developed new, high-profile original content, added millions of subscribers, and introduced another price increase in January 2022. Yet Netflix struggled to grow as streaming rivals such as Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max captured market share and the global pandemic was winding down. The case describes actions that Netflix considered to remain competitive, such as developing video games, charging users for sharing passwords, and, particularly, rolling out an ad-supported tier at a cheaper price than the other plans it currently offered. The case describes other streaming platforms' ad-supported tiers and asks readers to consider whether and how Netflix should design its own ad-supported plan; as well as whether raising subscription prices yet again on its existing plans was advisable.

This case reveals the events that took place after the conclusion of the cases "Thinking Outside the Wine Box (A-B): Mekanism and the Franz for Life Campaign." After selecting a creative direction for the Franz for Life 2.0 campaign, independent advertising agency Mekanism must decide the campaign's influencer marketing strategy as part of the media plan. Mekanism Chief Social Officer Brendan Gahan must review a proposed roster of social media influencers and decide which are likely to be the best ambassadors for the Franzia brand. Gahan also needs to decide how many influencers to contract, how much to pay them, how many pieces of content to commission, and what guidelines to provide.

This case provides an overview of "Franz for Life," an advertising campaign that independent advertising agency Mekansim created and executed to revitalize the brand image of Franzia, a low-cost boxed wine. For several years, Franzia's popularity declined among Millennial consumers, many of whom abandoned the brand for higher-priced wines as they grew older. In 2018, executives at The Wine Group (TWG), Franzia's parent company, recruited Mekanism to change younger audiences' perception of the brand. Mekanism developed the "Franz for Life" campaign based on the insight that Franzia was a brand meant to be enjoyed with friends throughout all stages of the post-college journey. In 2020, TWG decided to renew its relationship with Mekanism and launch "Franz for Life 2.0," a second stage of the campaign that would build on the original campaign's momentum, as well as focus on Generation Z consumers. The case describes how Mekanism developed the 1.0 campaign's creative strategy, media budget allocation, influencer marketing efforts, and brand merchandising. At the conclusion of the case, the TWG team must respond to storyboards that Mekanism pitched to inform the creative direction for Franz for Life 2.0. Which, if any, of the storyboard represents the best path forward for Franzia? Should TWG executives request Mekanism to create additional options? Depending on the creative direction ultimately selected, how should Mekanism propose to allocate the 2.0 marketing budget across media options? More broadly, could Mekanism and the "Franz for Life" campaign help Franzia become an iconic brand?

This case reveals the events that took place after the conclusion of the case "Thinking Outside the Wine Box (A): Mekanism and the Franz for Life Campaign." After reviewing Mekanism's pitches for the Franz for Life 2.0 campaign, TWG executives felt that the proposed storyboards were not the right direction for the campaign, and requested that Mekanism develop a second round of storyboards. At the conclusion of the (B) case, TWG leaders must decide whether to choose one of the new storyboard sets, revisit one of the previous ideas, or request yet another iteration of the pitch.

John Henry and Carey Anne Nadeau, co-founders and co-CEOs of LOOP, an insurtech startup based in Austin, Texas, were on a mission to modernize the archaic $250 billion automobile insurance market. They sought to create equitably priced insurance by eliminating pricing factors that disproportionally affected people of color, such as credit score, income, and education. The company used sophisticated AI algorithms to analyze which roads were more prone to accidents and employed proprietary technology to track driving behavior. Moreover, the founders believed in providing a sense of community and in building a mission-driven brand that people loved, thereby altering the antagonist and distant relationship that existed between an insurance company and its customers. By the September 2021 Texas launch, the company had developed a waitlist of over 30,000 people. In March 2022, as the first policy term expired, the co-founders had to figure out which policyholders to renew and at what price to renew them. They also wondered if they could motivate drivers to become safer on the roads by investing in rewards and gamification. Going forward, by the end of 2022 Loop had plans to enter nine additional states with its revolutionary car insurance model, and contemplated removing several other pricing criteria that could be discriminatory, while incorporating metrics that might provide discounts to customers. Longer-term, the company needed to decide which strategic direction to pursue-whether to expand their fledgling company vertically by adding complementary insurance lines, like homeowners insurance, or expand horizontally to other financial services, like auto lending, that were plagued by structural biases against minorities. Given the recent lackluster performance of several high-profile insurtechs, Henry and Nadeau knew that, to achieve their goal of unseating the entrenched incumbents, they had to get these decisions right.

Aleph Farms, an Israeli food-tech start-up, was hoping to play a major role in disrupting the conventional meat sector. Compared to intensive agricultural practices, Aleph's cultured (or lab-grown) meat solution held the promise of considerably reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the use of land and water, while providing a new source of food for a rapidly growing world population. With much of the science already worked out, the company was now facing a host of challenges as it planned to launch its first product-a cultured steak. In particular, Aleph's CEO, Didier Toubia, and his management team had to figure out the best way to position and bring to market its innovative steaks, with a debut expected in late 2022 in Singapore. Management fully recognized potential barriers to consumer adoption and strived to build a relevant brand image. On the production side, the company knew it had to scale quickly and continue to bring down costs so that its steaks approached price parity with conventional meat. Yet given the intensive capital expenditures involved, this was no simple feat. Planning for the longer term, the company was beginning to consider its next product line.

In 2021, Nick Woodman, founder and CEO of GoPro, was reviewing the company's subscription offering, considering whether to extend it beyond benefits that were directly related to the company's iconic camera. Founded in 2002, GoPro had gained renown for its innovative action camera. The brand became synonymous with living an active lifestyle and attracted a strong following on social media. GoPro was a Wall Street favorite when it went public in 2014 at $24 per share, rising to over $90 per share later that year. But just four years later the stock price had slid to $6 per share due to stagnating demand, inventory management issues, bloated expenses, and problems with new product launches. During the COVID-related retail slowdown in 2020, GoPro increased its direct-to-consumer footprint and aggressively marketed a new subscription. The stock price rebounded, in part due to investors placing a higher multiple on the predictable, recurring revenue generated by subscriptions. By 2021, however, subscription benefits were still largely tied to camera ownership. Woodman was considering whether GoPro could leverage its position as an active lifestyle brand to extend the subscription to benefits beyond the camera, similar to the way Amazon packed a host of benefits into Amazon Prime. Woodman saw enormous potential for GoPro's subscription and believed that, someday, it could even become the company's new flagship "product." But how much license did the brand have to grow beyond digital cameras and image capture? What pricing options could the company explore for a bigger, better subscription? In concert with these decisions, should GoPro look to shift even more of its business away from retailers to direct sales?

In July 2021, Sunil Lalvani, founder and CEO of Project Maji, a non-profit social enterprise headquartered in Dubai that had already provided sustainable, clean water solutions to 80,000 people living in rural communities across Ghana and Kenya, was facing an important decision. Traditionally, fees collected from community members covered the operating and maintenance costs of the solar-powered water kiosks, while donations paid the initial capital expenditure and setup costs. Yet Lalvani needed a more scalable financing solution to reach a hefty goal: impacting 1 million lives by 2025. Serving larger, more affluent peri-urban communities was a viable alternative, as the additional revenue could be channeled to rural projects. Thus, Lalvani and his team worked on a pilot for three peri-urban sites and looked to Danone Communities, a venture capital fund that invested in social businesses, to provide a loan. The team mapped out a feasible system, but debated what fees to charge residents. A low price meant that Project Maji would pay off the loan for the first four years, and only then start accumulating funds to support its activities in rural areas. This would delay scaling. Alternatively, a high price, coupled with an offer to establish direct connections in more well-off households, would allow Project Maji to generate excess earned revenue from the get-go, but it would also raise questions of equitability. All of this weighed on Lalvani as he pondered what price point to include in the investment proposal.

In mid-2021, Maaz Sheikh, cofounder and CEO of STARZPLAY, a Dubai-based subscription video on demand (SVOD) provider that catered to the Middle East and North Africa region, was wrestling with how to find the right balance between continued subscriber growth and profitability. Founded in 2015, the company was the first major SVOD player in the region providing high quality and affordable Hollywood content. STARZPLAY rapidly grew its subscriber base through a business model sensitive to the varied tastes and payment preferences of households in the region and was able to maintain leadership even after global players like Netflix and well-funded homegrown companies entered the market. At the time of the case, several U.S. major studios, including the likes of Disney, Paramount, and HBO, were in talks with local operators about potential partnerships. Sheikh needed to prepare an appealing proposal, knowing full well that other regional players were likely doing the same and that these studios might decide to enter independently. He had to think carefully about the company's brand position and its plans regarding content, pricing and payment options, and marketing spend in order to fuel continued growth, while managing the increasing pressure from investors to drive the business toward profitability. Sheikh and his management team had big ambitions for STARZPLAY. What would be the plan that ensured the company continued to prosper despite the mounting competition?

Founded in 2010, Worldreader was an international nonprofit organization that promoted reading to children around the world. For many years, Worldreader distributed e-readers to under-resourced communities and funded its operations primarily through philanthropic donations. In 2019, Worldreader launched the BookSmart mobile reading application, and soon thereafter came the idea of a new, self-perpetuating funding structure: the "flywheel." Worldreader aimed to charge schools and community-based organizations a $6 monthly subscription fee per child to use BookSmart, with the goal of using earned revenue to sustain operational costs and using philanthropy to cover other strategic priorities. However, Worldreader soon realized that ability to pay varied greatly among potential "customers," leading to several exceptions to the initial price. The team also worried that the subscription hindered achieving scale and conflicted with Worldreader's ultimate goal of impacting millions of children. As Co-Founder and CEO David Risher and his team prepared for an upcoming meeting with UNICEF, which typically sought fixed-price contracts, they considered whether a price per-child, per-month would be acceptable. More broadly, they considered whether they had landed on the optimal price point and funding strategy-and the potential implications of pursuing earned revenue on Worldreader's ability to bid for international development grants.

In December 2020, Mary Kay Inc. Chief Marketing Officer Sheryl Adkins-Green considered several strategic dilemmas. Founded in 1963 by Mary Kay Ash, Mary Kay was a direct sales company whose Independent Beauty Consultants purchased its beauty and cosmetics products at wholesale and sold them to end-consumers at retail. As the coronavirus pandemic spread in 2020, Mary Kay worked to equip its Consultants with digital tools and strategies to help them run their businesses remotely. Adkins-Green and the Mary Kay team were now looking for ways to continue refining the company's digital approach and product sampling strategy. Looking beyond COVID-19, Adkins-Green and her team had several other big questions to consider around product innovation, the competitive landscape, navigating the digital world and its implications for retail, and communicating its brand values to the next generation-all while honoring and staying true to the rich history, heritage, and culture that had served as the foundation of Mary Kay for the past 57 years.

Twenty five years after it was initially proposed, Clay Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation continues to be a major reference for entrepreneurs, corporate innovators, and investors. However, the term "disruptive innovation" is often used in ways and contexts that are not consistent with Christensen's original theory, which argues for initially accessing the market from the low end. For example, there has been controversy as to whether a firm like Tesla, which clearly accessed the market by targeting high-end consumers, should be thought of as having "disruptive" potential. Should all disruptions start at the low-end of the market or from unserved segments who can't afford the incumbents' current solutions (a "new market" foothold in Christensen's terminology)? Is it possible for an innovation that will ultimately disrupt and displace incumbents to start off by serving high-end segments that are currently participating in the market and are willing to pay top dollar? In this note, using several examples, including the emerging market of cultivated meat, a distinction between High-End Access Disruptions (HEAD) and Christensen's original Low-End Access Disruptions (LEAD) is proposed. Both strategies support innovations that have the potential, at scale, to dominate incumbents, but that are not able to do so initially due to a "handicap," i.e., a product shortcoming that mainstream consumers aren't willing to accept. The exposition analyzes similarities and differences in the disruptive processes implied by these two strategies, and provides practical guidelines to help entrepreneurs, innovators and investors choose the approach that best fits their situation.

Spreadsheet supplement for 518077.

Social trading platform eToro was preparing for the launch of its expanded offering in the U.S. The company faced critical decisions regarding product-market fit, go-to-market strategy, positioning and monetization. Moreover, it faced the challenge of how best to make its social features relevant to U.S. consumers. eToro was founded in Israel in 2007, with a mission to democratize investing. The cofounders, the Assia brothers, were determined to open the global markets for everyone to trade and invest in a simple and transparent way. By 2020, eToro's customers in most countries were able to trade multiple assets, and in most territories the company offered zero commission stock trading. The vast majority of its users shared their investment strategy, and others in the community could review and even copy their portfolio with a single click. A subset of users were able to garner a large following and become "investment celebrities," enjoying fame and often fortune. Figuring out the best path forward with respect to the U.S. launch was complicated by shifts in the competitive landscape, which had seen consolidation of large players in the U.S. market and the emergence of fintech firms that offered zero commission trading and appealed to millennials. The U.S. regulatory approval was a pivotal milestone in eToro's evolution. But with a limited suite of products, a modest community and a market where zero-commission stock trading was already commonplace, the management team deliberated on what it would take to make inroads in the U.S. and what success could look like.

Pearson, which billed itself as the "world's learning company," faced a host of critical decisions in mid-2020. Several years prior, it had embarked on a new path that put the learner at the heart of the business and committed to a new strategic orientation. The new approach, under the heading of "efficacy," was meant to ensure that products and services were developed with measurable outcomes that mattered to learners in mind; and such offerings would further be taken to market with an emphasis on touting their efficacy credentials. While several efficacy reports had been produced on existing products to hone the framework, 2020 marked the first year Pearson launched a new product (the AIDA Calculus app) with efficacy in mind from the get go. As CEO John Fallon, the main architect behind efficacy, neared the end of his tenure at Pearson, he wanted to chart the next phase of the efficacy journey. In particular, should the company develop all its products and services with efficacy as the guiding principle? Which learner outcomes made the most sense to focus on in the future? How could Pearson better communicate efficacy in the marketplace and get it to resonate with various stakeholders-particularly educators and learners? With competitors following suit and using efficacy in their own communications, often without the same rigor that Pearson had applied, how should Pearson combat such "copy-cat" behavior? Was efficacy a pillar upon which to build the Pearson brand? In short, should he and his successor bet the "Pearson farm" on efficacy?

Tencent, one of the largest Internet conglomerates in China, had a vision to become a "Tech+Culture" firm. With dominant market shares in online games and social networking, it had built a vast Internet-based entertainment ecosystem, and was now focused on cultural asset development. Specifically, the company had an opportunity to develop a media franchise that was rich in Chinese cultural elements and had the potential to turn into a blockbuster franchise comparable with Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe. Edward Cheng, the company's vice president, had to decide how to launch the franchise-whether it should start with a game, movie, a streamed series, or something more innovative. He also had to consider how to promote Chinese culture and project the country's image to a foreign audience.

An examination of the strategic marketing challenges facing Thinx as it tries to grow in the face of menstruation taboos and competition from large incumbents.

In fall 2019, Corinne Mentzelopoulos, owner of the famous first-growth Château Margaux, is pondering a series of decisions with respect to the chateau's third wine. Margaux du Château Marguax, as this wine was called, was launched in 2013 with a particular goal in mind and with a well defined go-to-market strategy. Six years later, Mentzolopoulos and her management team were evaluating the wine's performance against the original goal and re-examining the launch choices made. In particular, they were debating whether to raise the wholesale price, and if so by how much; which new countries to enter and which new deals to pursue, given that recent moves with respect to the château's second wine resulted in more production capacity for the third wine; what options were viable to increase third wine production even further (with implications for product quality); and what the best channel arrangements were going forward. Mentzelopoulos was mulling over other issues as well, such as whether to follow recent actions by the other first-growths, how to contend with broader societal trends (e.g., organic food and environmental concerns), and the succession plan for managing the estate when she stepped down. The case allows for rich discussions on adjusting marketing strategy (in particular target market to serve), re-thinking go-to-market plans (in particular pricing and channels), managing a product line, and constructing a brand architecture (with themes around brand dilution).

In 2020, the three cofounders of Holaluz, a newcomer to Spain's electricity retail market, are preparing to launch a new offering: installing and managing solar panels on households' roofs at no extra cost for the consumer, who would still benefit from the energy savings stemming from the panels' production. Holaluz would fund the installations via a special purpose vehicle and use the surplus energy to power neighboring Holaluz clients at lower costs. There were many challenges in the new venture, like how to market the offering and if investors would buy into the new business. And what if Holaluz went a step further, got rid of all its tariff offerings and disrupted the market with a monthly "unlimited" flat rate for electricity consumption like telecom operators did with mobile phones bills? Was the market ready?