Apex Ski Boots has introduced a new ski boot that, due to its radical design, is meeting resistance in the marketplace from many retailers, ski experts, and consumers. The company must decide how best to drive sales in the face of this resistance.
One job of product managers, marketers, strategic planners, and other corporate executives is to predict what the demand will be for a new product. This task is easier for certain classes of new products than for others. For new consumer package goods, for instance, one can look at past product rollouts, one can look at similar products currently in the marketplace, or one can do test markets-selling the product in a small section of the country to assess consumer acceptance. Quite often, for new products that represent incremental variations or improvements over existing products, marketers do a pretty good job of understanding how that product will be adopted in the marketplace. This is not to say that managers always get it right, as has been made evidently clear in the case of New Coke, dry beers, and the Edsel. However, more often than not, managers of incremental new products predict demand within the right order of magnitude.
It was mid-December, 2016 as Alexandra (Alex) Willis read with satisfaction that The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club (AELTC) had won yet another award for its use of social media to reach its fan base. As the organizer and host of "The Championships, Wimbledon," the oldest of tennis's four Grand Slams, the AELTC prided itself on tradition and decorum. Widely regarded as the most prestigious professional tennis tournament in the world and contested each year over two weeks in late June and early July, Wimbledon, in many ways, had changed little over the years. Its showcase venue―the 15,000 seat "Centre Court," complete with a "Royal Box"―was built in 1926. Slazenger had been the official and only supplier of tennis balls since 1902. A strictly enforced ban on any player clothing other than white dated back to the 1800s. And, whereas other tournaments referred to their Men's and Women's Championships, at Wimbledon, these events were referred to as the Gentlemen's and Ladies' Championships. It was against this "steeped-in-tradition" background that Willis, hired by Wimbledon in 2012 and promoted to Head of Digital and Content in 2015, had to figure out the proper role for digital and social media at Wimbledon. The motivation behind the push into digital was one of communicating and engaging with fans and potential fans around the world, as noted by Richard Lewis, Chief Executive of the AELTC.
In spite of the world's move to digital photography, in 2013 Lomography continues to design and offer analog (film) cameras to a loyal following of artistic photographers. Now it must decide whether to stick to its traditional offerings, expand into artistic lenses for both digital and analog cameras, and/or to expand into film and film developing. In the process, it has to decide what kind of company it wants to be.
Cree, a North Carolina-based maker of light emitting diodes (LEDs), has just introduced its first consumer product - an LED light bulb. It is designed as an energy efficient replacement for the ubiquitous incandescent light bulb. But given that it is an unfamiliar technology and that it costs ten times what an incandescent bulb costs, there are questions about how best to promote adoption and what sales level might be expected.
This Core Curriculum Reading introduces the fundamentals of getting price right. First, it introduces value pricing, which requires a detailed understanding of the true economic value (TEV) that a firm's product creates for a specific customer. Value pricing also requires a decision to divide that value between the firm (providing the firm its incentive to sell) and the customer (providing the customer with an incentive to buy). After covering the key elements of the value-pricing approach, the Reading explains the concepts of price customization, consumer sensitivity to price, and the impact of price on the organization's profitability. Readers also learn how both quantitative research and managerial judgment are used to make optimal pricing decisions. For classroom use in higher education, this Reading is accompanied by a Teaching Note, test bank, and exhibit slides.
Core Curriculum Readings in Marketing cover fundamental concepts, theories, and frameworks in marketing. For classroom use in higher education, this Reading is accompanied by a Teaching Note, test bank, and exhibit slides. "Consumer Behavior and the Buying Process" describes and analyzes 4 frameworks for understanding how consumers make decisions: cognitive versus emotional, high-involvement versus low-involvement, optimizing versus "satisficing," and compensatory versus noncompensatory decision making. This Core Curriculum Reading then presents the activities that occur during the 3 phases in the consumer buying process: pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase. It also analyzes consumer decision-making units, including roles played within such units, such as buyer, influencer, gatekeeper, and approver. The Reading includes an in-depth example of how a pharmaceutical company analyzed decision-making processes and decision-making units to develop marketing campaigns for a new product. It concludes with an exploration of 3 developments that profoundly affect consumers' decision-making process and units: social media, co-creation and customer involvement, and "conscience" marketing. Ultimately, this Reading prepares students to become marketers who can design effective advertising and marketing campaigns for products and services.
Coca-Cola is considering which of several global marketing/promotional efforts to bring to the United States. Each has proven successful in other parts of the world, but for varying reasons. All represent efforts outside of the industry's normal advertising-based approach to marketing.
Singapore Metals Limited (SML) has declining sales but has developed a new product (curled metal pile driver pads) that, in field tests, delivers customer benefits that are many times SML's manufacturing costs. Jonathan Lee and Alex Tan of SML's Engineered Products Division are responsible for formulating a strategy for the new product. A key issue is the price to charge for the pads. The case raises issues of analyzing market potential, aligning price with business strategy, and determining the implications of price on the development and execution of integrated strategic options.
Many companies are in competition with their customers to extract as much value as possible from every transaction. Pricing is their weapon of choice, and consumers fight back by rooting out and disseminating pricing policies that seem unfair. The problem is that companies generally think of value as a pie that is rightfully theirs. But value is not fixed, and it neither originates with nor belongs solely to the firm. Without a willing customer, there is no value. Instead of using pricing in a way that turns customers into adversaries, companies can use it to enlarge the pie. That means viewing customers as partners in value creation--a collaboration that increases customers' engagement and taps their insights about the value they seek and how firms could deliver it. The result can be new revenue, increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, positive word of mouth, and cost savings. The multiyear process to price the 8 million tickets to the upcoming London 2012 Olympic Games suggests five principles for using pricing to create shared value: Focus on relationships, not on transactions, by using pricing to communicate that you value customers as people; set prices proactively to discourage detrimental behavior and to encourage behavior that is beneficial to both your firm and your customers; allow prices to change in response to shifting customer needs; promote transparency by providing the rationale for your pricing; and make sure that prices and the processes by which they are set meet consumers' expectations about what is fair.
An updated "Four Products" case. This 2011 version includes; sliced peanut butter, artificial dirt for thoroughbred race tracks, interactive tombstones, and stride-changing running shoes. These four products form the basis to assess the drivers of new product adoption. In particular, one of the critical tasks in marketing new innovations is predicting demand and rates of diffusion for those products. And while one can speculate on the scope and rate of diffusion for any given product, it's helpful to compare and contrast diffusion across products. Doing so allows one to focus on the drivers or product characteristics that influence product diffusion, making one product a star and another a dog. Specifically, looking across products allows one to pick up on things that get lost in discussing a single product. Note that this case often gets used with HBS No. 505-075, "Note on Innovation Diffusion; Rogers' Five Factors," which can be distributed along with the case or after the case has been taught.
Alegre, a leading hotel group in Central and South America, is suffering under the troubled economy, and its newest property, the flagship Palma Cay in Cozumel, is hurting most. Beatriz Soto, Palma Cay's manager, has a plan to boost bookings, but she doesn't have the money to carry it out. Should corporate headquarters grant her additional funds, despite the company's traditionally decentralized operations? Or should Alegre think about launching its very first portfolio-wide campaign? With commentary by Raul Gonzalez, the CEO of Barcelo Hotels & Resorts for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; and Kevin Lane Keller, the E.B. Osborn Professor of Marketing at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business.
Alegre, a leading hotel group in Central and South America, is suffering under the troubled economy, and its newest property, the flagship Palma Cay in Cozumel, is hurting most. Beatriz Soto, Palma Cay's manager, has a plan to boost bookings, but she doesn't have the money to carry it out. Should corporate headquarters grant her additional funds, despite the company's traditionally decentralized operations? Or should Alegre think about launching its very first portfolio-wide campaign? With commentary by Raul Gonzalez, the CEO of Barcelo Hotels & Resorts for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; and Kevin Lane Keller, the E.B. Osborn Professor of Marketing at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business.
Alegre, a leading hotel group in Central and South America, is suffering under the troubled economy, and its newest property, the flagship Palma Cay in Cozumel, is hurting most. Beatriz Soto, Palma Cay's manager, has a plan to boost bookings, but she doesn't have the money to carry it out. Should corporate headquarters grant her additional funds, despite the company's traditionally decentralized operations? Or should Alegre think about launching its very first portfolio-wide campaign? With commentary by Raul Gonzalez, the CEO of Barcelo Hotels & Resorts for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; and Kevin Lane Keller, the E.B. Osborn Professor of Marketing at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business.
Barcelo Hotels and Resorts must decide whether to allow its many hotels to continue to undertake separate promotional campaigns or to run, for the first time, a broad corporate-level promotion. Complicating the decision is the fact that the many hotels in its portfolio vary greatly in their character, clientele, positioning, and locations.
By positioning Immediate Annuities as "guaranteed lifetime income," New York Life has built itself a $1.4 billion per year business by 2009. However, to make Immediate Annuities a mainstream financial product for retirees, New York Life must understand why many retirees are reluctant to buy them and many agents are reluctant to sell them.
It's 2009 and Paul Williamson, Head of Ticketing, must finalize ticket prices for the 2012 London Olympic Games. Yet, there are many criteria to consider. First, given the importance of ticketing to the Games' bottom line, he has a strong incentive to maximize revenues. Second, because the entire world will be watching, he wants to maximize attendance-not just at the Opening Ceremony and swimming finals, which are easy sells, but also at events such as handball and table tennis, which are not. Third, he wants to fill seats with the right people-knowledgeable fans who add to the energy and atmosphere of the event. Finally, tickets have to be accessible not only to the world's elite but also to average Londoners, many of whom live around the corner from the Olympic Park.
Traces the 12-year career of a pharmaceutical salesperson, Bob Marsh, from recruitment to termination. Marsh has had an uneven career with Cabot Pharmaceuticals and eventually is asked to resign. Following his termination, a number of Marsh's former customers complain vigorously, and Cabot's vice president of sales is asked to investigate the matter and to decide what, if anything, to do about it. The case raises issues in aligning strategy and sales systems, performance evaluation criteria, and on-going performance management processes in field selling situations.