個案總覽

The new CMO of an extreme-race company is on the hook to come up with a way to further monetize the underexploited brand while also fixing customer pain points related to the registration process. She and the COO propose a premium membership that allows die-hard fans to buy early access to race registration, but tests on social media reveal strong animosity toward the program among some racers. Should the company pull the plug or move forward, potentially upsetting the company's most loyal customers? This fictional case study features expert commentary by Michael Bolingbroke and Huib van Bockel.

The new CMO of an extreme-race company is on the hook to come up with a way to further monetize the underexploited brand while also fixing customer pain points related to the registration process. She and the COO propose a premium membership that allows die-hard fans to buy early access to race registration, but tests on social media reveal strong animosity toward the program among some racers. Should the company pull the plug or move forward, potentially upsetting the company's most loyal customers? This fictional case study features expert commentary by Michael Bolingbroke and Huib van Bockel.

The new CMO of an extreme-race company is on the hook to come up with a way to further monetize the underexploited brand while also fixing customer pain points related to the registration process. She and the COO propose a premium membership that allows die-hard fans to buy early access to race registration, but tests on social media reveal strong animosity toward the program among some racers. Should the company pull the plug or move forward, potentially upsetting the company's most loyal customers? This fictional case study features expert commentary by Michael Bolingbroke and Huib van Bockel.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. For most companies, pricing has always been a sensitive, private affair. This article is directed at managers who seek to profit from product differentiation and take maximum advantage of their ability to stand out. Instead of leaving good money on the table and struggling to convert product differentiation into revenue, the authors argue, companies should consider enlisting the pricing help of their customers. Outsourcing pricing isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. Managers can select pricing models ranging from complete oversight to complete delegation. Citing examples from companies including Google, Uber, Orbitz, Volkswagen, Coca-Cola and Humble Bundle, the article integrates classic views on pricing with the latest research and practice to develop a simple framework to help managers decide how much pricing control they should retain and how much they should relinquish to customers. For most businesses, the default approach is having a single fixed price and selling to anyone willing to pay that amount. However, authors Marco Bertini and Oded Koenigsberg argue that this is economically inefficient: Those prepared to pay more in effect receive a discount; those willing to pay less (but an amount that's still profitable) are turned away. For companies interested in interactive approaches to pricing, the authors discuss three collaborative models: auctions, name-your-own-price auctions and negotiations. In the authors'view, asking customers to weigh in on price can have benefits that go beyond promoting greater efficiency. It can promote customer engagement, provide opportunities for customization, allow managers to signal information about their company or product and open up opportunities for increasing market share.

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.

The stream of customers who visit Flanagan Theme Parks has started to dwindle. The fictional Australian company must decide, with the help of consultant Allie James, whether to try to attract a whole new crop of customers using DailyDilly, a fast-growing social-coupon venture. Allie and Ruth Davison, Flanagan's marking director, take a lunchtime tour of the marketing landscape to answer a key question for any company that is considering such an initiative: "Are daily deal seekers the right kind of customers for our business?" Expert commentary comes from Gideon Lask, the founder of BuyaPowa, a UK-based social media business; and Al Bhakta, CEO of Genghis Grill, a Dallas-based restaurant chain. HBR's online readers also weigh in.

The stream of customers who visit Flanagan Theme Parks has started to dwindle. The fictional Australian company must decide, with the help of consultant Allie James, whether to try to attract a whole new crop of customers using DailyDilly, a fast-growing social-coupon venture. Allie and Ruth Davison, Flanagan's marking director, take a lunchtime tour of the marketing landscape to answer a key question for any company that is considering such an initiative: "Are daily deal seekers the right kind of customers for our business?" Expert commentary comes from Gideon Lask, the founder of BuyaPowa, a UK-based social media business; and Al Bhakta, CEO of Genghis Grill, a Dallas-based restaurant chain. HBR's online readers also weigh in.

The stream of customers who visit Flanagan Theme Parks has started to dwindle. The fictional Australian company must decide, with the help of consultant Allie James, whether to try to attract a whole new crop of customers using DailyDilly, a fast-growing social-coupon venture. Allie and Ruth Davison, Flanagan's marking director, take a lunchtime tour of the marketing landscape to answer a key question for any company that is considering such an initiative: "Are daily deal seekers the right kind of customers for our business?" Expert commentary comes from Gideon Lask, the founder of BuyaPowa, a UK-based social media business; and Al Bhakta, CEO of Genghis Grill, a Dallas-based restaurant chain. HBR's online readers also weigh in.

Tim O'Shaughnessy, the 29-year-old CEO of LivingSocial, is growing a revolutionary worldwide business of "daily deals"-in which retailers offer a heavily-discounted product or service available for purchase for brief (often 24-hour) windows. The case explores the complicated sharing of risks and rewards between LivingSocial, participating retailers, and customers, focusing on the return on investment in both the short- and longer-term for LivingSocial's retail partners. In addition, given the rapid growth of the daily deals space and the accompanying proliferation of competitors including Groupon and Amazon.com, the case focuses on the need for constant innovation in product offerings to maintain differentiation from copycats.

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.

Although there's ample research to guide marketers in naming new products, little of it has addressed follow-on offerings, even though these make up the bulk of new products in many industries. Companies have two basic strategies to choose from. They can stick with a name, often adding a sequential indicator (PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3), or they can come up with an entirely new name (Nintendo's Wii). Three questions managers should consider when deciding whether brand-name continuation or brand-name change is the best way to go for their next-generation product.

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.

TelZip, a small mobile-network operator, has decided to shake up the European telecommunications market by offering "free forever" broadband service to customers who sign a long-term contract with the company. Meridicom, the dominant industry player, must decide how to respond. Joe Ulan, the incumbent's new chief marketing officer, gets conflicting advice: The product division heads don't like the idea of discounting their products or even of working together; the sales director wants to kill the competition with a price war. How can Joe turn this attack into an opportunity? Marco Bertini and Nirmalya Kumar, of London Business School, present this fictional case to explore the question, "What do you do when one of your small competitors pulls out its big gun?" Two experts comment on the case in R1007R and R1007Z. Georg Tacke, of Simon-Kucher & Partners, argues that simply matching a small competitor's prices is the worst reaction. Anne Gro Gulla, of Telenor Group, suggests creating offshoots of the main firm that might cannibalize the mother brand but avoid the greater evil of allowing it to be eaten alive by outsiders. HBR's online readers also offer their two cents. You can, too.

TelZip, a small mobile-network operator, has decided to shake up the European telecommunications market by offering "free forever" broadband service to customers who sign a long-term contract with the company. Meridicom, the dominant industry player, must decide how to respond. Joe Ulan, the incumbent's new chief marketing officer, gets conflicting advice: The product division heads don't like the idea of discounting their products or even of working together; the sales director wants to kill the competition with a price war. How can Joe turn this attack into an opportunity? Marco Bertini and Nirmalya Kumar, of London Business School, present this fictional case to explore the question, "What do you do when one of your small competitors pulls out its big gun?" Two experts comment on the case in R1007R and R1007Z. Georg Tacke, of Simon-Kucher & Partners, argues that simply matching a small competitor's prices is the worst reaction. Anne Gro Gulla, of Telenor Group, suggests creating offshoots of the main firm that might cannibalize the mother brand but avoid the greater evil of allowing it to be eaten alive by outsiders. HBR's online readers also offer their two cents. You can, too.

TelZip, a small mobile-network operator, has decided to shake up the European telecommunications market by offering "free forever" broadband service to customers who sign a long-term contract with the company. Meridicom, the dominant industry player, must decide how to respond. Joe Ulan, the incumbent's new chief marketing officer, gets conflicting advice: The product division heads don't like the idea of discounting their products or even of working together; the sales director wants to kill the competition with a price war. How can Joe turn this attack into an opportunity? Marco Bertini and Nirmalya Kumar, of London Business School, present this fictional case to explore the question, "What do you do when one of your small competitors pulls out its big gun?" Two experts comment on the case in R1007R and R1007Z. Georg Tacke, of Simon-Kucher & Partners, argues that simply matching a small competitor's prices is the worst reaction. Anne Gro Gulla, of Telenor Group, suggests creating offshoots of the main firm that might cannibalize the mother brand but avoid the greater evil of allowing it to be eaten alive by outsiders. HBR's online readers also offer their two cents. You can, too.