In 2022, Mazatlán was enjoying a reputation as a popular seaside town on the Mexican Pacific Coast, in the northwestern state of Sinaloa. Protected by a bay and three islands, it offered sandy beaches and favourable weather year-round, making it an attractive destination for Mexican, American, and Canadian vacationers. It was a popular stop for Pacific Ocean cruises, where tourists could enjoy beaches, sunshine, Mexican cuisine and culture, and various sporting activities including baseball, marathons, triathlons, sport fishing, and soccer. However, Mazatlán’s image was being tainted by unfavourable events, which presented unique challenges for the city’s marketers and threatened to endanger the city’s highly successful tourism industry. Mazatlán’s tourism authorities were wondering how to keep the city’s tourism brand and image strong, despite these new and significant challenges.
Major League Baseball (MLB) had been financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. With a shortened season without fans in attendance, revenue-generating opportunities decreased dramatically from previous years. This case examines issues that MLB teams dealt with during the 2020 season, including the loss of revenue during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. How would MLB move forward into the 2021 season, having lost a significant amount of money in the previous year? How should its teams invest their resources to maximize earning potential—despite the ongoing pandemic—for this upcoming season and possibly years to come?
Kalahut: The House of Arts (Kalahut) was an Indian e-commerce site that connected instructors specialized in traditional Indian arts and cultural forms with customers interested in these services. Since its launch in July 2020, it had mainly served customers in India; however, it had also seen modest engagement on social media platforms and its website from individuals outside of the current customer pool. As the COVID-19 pandemic had resulted in both increased web traffic to e-commerce sites and an increase in the number of people looking for new activities while in lockdown, Kalahut hoped to take this opportunity to expand into a new market. In late 2020, Kalahut’s co-founder needed to decide which of three potential market countries to enter. Which would be the most suitable avenue for expansion?
In the spring of 2018, the marketing team at Nike Inc. (Nike), based in Oregon, was faced with a decision regarding whether to follow the suggestion of the company’s long-standing advertising agency to sign Colin Kaepernick as the face of its upcoming “Just Do It” promotional campaign commemorating the 30-year anniversary of the slogan. Kaepernick was an NFL quarterback who had famously begun kneeling during the US national anthem in 2016 to protest social inequality and police brutality. At this juncture, the US political climate was extremely polarized, President Donald Trump had spoken out very negatively about Kaepernick’s “take-a-knee” protest, and the campaign would mark the first time in Nike’s history that the company adopted a clear political position in its promotional messaging. The company had to carefully weigh several issues, including the impact using Kaepernick would have on sales and on Nike’s brand image. Should Nike partner with Kaepernick on its campaign or pick a less controversial spokesperson? What market segments would be affected, and how? What were the implications for company sales and brand image?
This case discusses the future of the Dove brand and what type of advertising it should use moving forward. The brand has previously launched the Dove Real Beauty Campaign, which focuses on widening the definition of beauty. Students are given the history of the campaign and are asked to assess various options for the Dove brand.
In 2010, the commissioner of the Ontario Hockey League was generally satisfied with its operations but knew that certain markets were not reaching their potential. Management needed to use data to make some potentially difficult decisions, including possibly closing several teams down. The data included proximity of competition from other hockey leagues and other sports teams; how long a team had been in its city; how many points the team earned each season and how many of its players graduated to the National Hockey League; the make-up of the city in terms of its size, median income, median house price and its immigrant and visible minority populations; and, finally, the price of tickets. There were a few teams that were significant outliers at each end of the spectrum. What was the league going to do with the teams at the bottom that were dragging down average attendance figures? Student spreadsheet 7B13A028 with data is available.
The president and chief operating officer of Chick-fil-A is a devout Christian who publicly operates his restaurants according to Biblical principles. A recent controversy has surrounded his public opposition to gay marriage. As a result, the company is being accused of discrimination and prejudice. Are the company’s deeply rooted Christian values hindering the business?
When a well-known mass media corporation revises the image of a beloved and non-traditional movie character in a way that conforms to a physical stereotype, the female members of the viewing audience express their disapproval on a widespread scale. In the wake of the backlash, the company has a decision to make: Should it stick with the revised image, which has been deliberately redesigned to support an upcoming media campaign, or should it revert to the original image in order to appease the viewing public? The case presents both sides of the dilemma, revealing the psychological and commercial implications of using one image versus the other.
This case considers the hedonic goals that motivate consumers to make choices among various options that offer them unique experiences. As a birthday gift to his girlfriend Danielle, Jack presented two game-day options to watch the Denver Broncos. Option 1 offered seats with excellent views close to the action while Option 2 offered a more diverse experience including tailgating, souvenirs and concessions, but with seats more removed from the action. As a passionate Broncos fan, Danielle struggled to choose an option that would maximize her “Broncos experience.” Through class discussion from the point of view of both consumers and management, students will be encouraged to think more about what hedonic elements are important when making buying choices.
Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) is a well-known Canadian retailer of outdoor clothing and equipment. While it stocks a range of branded products in its stores, a key source of profits is its private-label line. The challenge MEC faces is how to continue to develop and launch innovative private-labeled products while recognizing that they may be direct competitors of MEC’s assortment of global brands. MEC needs to develop its line-up without being seen as infringing on intellectual property or being too much of a “follower.” In assessing how MEC can develop its line-up, students can review MEC’s philosophy as a co-operative (in which it positions itself as being different from corporations) and its design philosophy.
Jaime has been looking for several weeks to buy his first car. After narrowing his choices down to two, he can’t decide which to purchase. Option A is to buy the Honda CRV, which meets many of Jaime’s functional criteria (e.g. all-wheel drive, large trunk space, plenty of seats). This Honda is quite appealing to Jaime because he could use the car for his work and road trips with his siblings, and could easily handle the Wyoming climate. Option B is to buy the Ford Mustang, a car that he has been in love with ever since he was a teenager. Even though the Mustang does not necessarily meet any of his functional criteria, Jaime loves the idea of driving his dream car. Given these two options, Jaime is struggling to make a decision. Should he go with the car that meets his functional needs or should he go with the car that meets his affective needs? That is, should he go with his mind or his heart? Jaime wants to buy his car tomorrow. Help him.
The executive director of a daycare is trying to figure out how to address legal, financial, and safety issues stemming from an incident that occurred two months before, when a two-year-old boy broke his leg. Despite having no formal training in public relations or crisis management, the executive director felt she had handled the incident reasonably well: it seemed as though everything at the daycare had returned to normal. Still, the executive director couldn’t stop worrying that the daycare might experience further fallout from the incident.
In 2010, an entrepreneur is trying to enter the fuel additives market in Canada by marketing a product called Force For Earth (FFE) Fuel and Engine Conditioner. FFE is made in the United States and the entrepreneur has the Canadian license for the product. Unlike the products of many competitors in North America, FFE has been proven to deliver the stated benefits, but the entrepreneur’s dilemma is that every other product in the market claims to offer “proven” results as well, even though most of these claims are unsubstantiated, false, or exaggerated. The entrepreneur’s challenge is to understand, from a marketing perspective, the key selling features of the FFE product that would resonate with his target groups.
Pepsi Canada has developed and launched the Refresh Project, a campaign to fund socially beneficial ideas developed by individuals, businesses, and non-profit organizations. Each cycle — approximately two months in duration — will see interested parties submit ideas. Pepsi Canada relies on visitors to its website, www.refreshingeverything.ca, to vote on the best ideas. During every cycle, approximately $1 million is available for distribution. While Pepsi Canada’s management has been very supportive of the initial cycle, an analyst is wondering how this corporate social responsibility initiative will have an effect on the bottom line.
This case, a supplement to Pop Shoppe (A), deals with the entrepreneur’s decision point in 2010 on whether to enter the U.S. carbonated soft drinks market.
The Pop Shoppe was once a leading player in the Canadian soft drinks market, but changing market conditions and corporate mismanagement drove the company into bankruptcy in the early 1980s. In 2003, an entrepreneur purchased the rights to the brand, and was considering reintroducing it in the market. The entrepreneur suspected that many Canadians would be as fond of the Pop Shoppe as he was. However, he had little experience in the beverage industry and consumer habits had changed in the many years since the brand died. Looking at the market, the entrepreneur wondered if there was an attractive space for Pop Shoppe. His instincts told him that older consumers would embrace the reintroduction of the old brand, but it was difficult to know if they were a sustainable market segment. Would older consumers be able to turn their children onto the brand? With little experience and limited funds, he knew that if he proceeded with the idea, he could not afford to make many mistakes. If he chose to reintroduce the Pop Shoppe, he questioned how true he should stay to the original concept. Could a new Pop Shoppe compete in the current market? Despite the entrepreneur’s love for the old brand, he wondered how he could raise enough consumer and retailer interest to make the brand succeed.
The Tim Hortons Brier is the annual Canadian men’s national curling championship. In the case, students will assume the role of Peter Inch, chair of the 2011 Brier Host Committee, to create and finalize the promotional plan for the 2011 Brier, to be held in London, Ontario. Inch’s objectives are two-fold: i) create interest for the event and the sport of curling and ii) execute a safe and profitable event.
West Ham United was an English football (soccer) team that competed to win the right to move its games to the stadium being constructed for the 2012 London Olympics. It secured financial support from the local government and the backing of U.K. athletics. West Ham’s rival bidder, Tottenham Hotspurs, presented a strong business case for the move and required no public support. West Ham, despite this, won the right to move. The case focuses on ensuring acceptance of the move by fans who have an emotional attachment to the old stadium and are displeased that the new stadium’s athletic track adds distance between fans and the field.
The new chief executive officer (CEO) of Canada Basketball (CB) is looking back on a very successful 2009 - all four of the country's national teams qualified for their respective World Championships. CB is starting to enjoy serious on-court success, but the CEO is concerned about the program's long-term financial sustainability; he is faced with major cuts to his government funding and is seriously concerned about obtaining private sector funds in a year when both the World Cup and Winter Olympics have already accounted for so many potential sponsor dollars. He is faced with using marketing to create new and reliable revenue streams for CB to help its on-court success.