This social network data analysis case presents the scenario of the launch of a new version of a popular video game called 'Thrive in Space' by a gaming company. The company's Chief Marketing Officer Tina Lohn wants to run an influencer marketing campaign on social platform Twitch to reach its live streaming audience and promote the game. However, before running the campaign, Lohn and her team must select the right influencers for the campaign. Lohn has asked her team to conduct a social network analysis (SNA) to better understand the network of Twitch users and shortlist potential influencers based on various social network metrics. The case is accompanied by two datasets that contain a sample of real data of Twitch users, and allows students to conduct a social network analysis on this data to select the appropriate influencers. The case revolves around Lohn's dilemma of how to choose the right influencers. How can she use SNA to select the influencers? What social network metrics can help her identify the right influencers? What other strategies can she use for selecting influencers that can complement SNA? And, finally, how can she calculate the ROIs of working with the selected influencers?
Set in January 2020, the case describes Singapore-based retailer Iuiga's omni-channel journey. Launched in May 2017 as an e-commerce only venture, Iuiga offers a curated range of high- quality products in the 'home and living' category at affordable prices. It sources these products from China-based original design manufacturers (ODMs), which produce for large global brands (known for their superior design, quality and hence high prices), and retails them under its own brand name at much lower and transparent prices. In May 2018, Iuiga launched a pop-up store to drive greater brand presence and customer engagement. Buoyed by the store's runaway sales, the firm decided to adopt a longer-term brick-and-mortar retail strategy, and by December 2019, it had established nine retail stores that contributed 80% of its total sales and employed more than 40 sales people (full time and part time). It had been almost 20 months since Iuiga adopted omni-channel retailing. Looking at the latest sales and customer data, Jaslyn Chan - Head of marketing at Iuiga, wondered if going physical had been worth it, or whether the sales in the offline channel had grown at the cost of sales in the online channel. Moreover, what types of customers did the different channels attract? Should the company increase the physical footprint further? Would opening additional pop-up or brick-and-mortar stores enable more customer acquisitions and tapping of new market segments?
Set in 2018, the case describes how Zang Hao, the CEO and co-founder of Iuiga, a Singapore based e-commerce start-up, eschewed the conventional e-retailing model by acquiring complete control over its value chain including ownership of the items retailed through the adoption of original design manufacturer (ODM) business model and marketing of its brand in addition to storage, logistics, and distribution. Under the ODM model, Iuiga contracts the manufacturers of large global brands known for their superior quality to manufacture the same products for Iuiga, and then proceeds to retail it directly under its own brand name at much lower, and transparent, prices on its online platform. By targeting quality-conscious customers with a range of products in the home and living category, Iuiga's sales grew fivefold within the first eight months of its launch. However, soon after, the sales growth began to plateau. One of the key reasons identified for the slowdown was the limited market reach of the brand due to its presence only on the online medium. With e-commerce penetration in Singapore at only 5 percent, the majority of the consumer market lacked awareness of the Iuiga brand and the value it offered. This led the company to consider creating an omni-channel presence by opening a pop-up store to drive face-to-face customer engagement and boost Iuiga's brand building efforts. However, this raised many concerns. Would Iuiga's current team be able to manage both the online portal and the pop-up store? With the omni-channel platform entailing unavoidable additional expenses such as rental, people, services and integration costs, would it undermine the strength of Iuiga's core business model? Also, the brick & mortar space was an unchartered territory for its management team, with no prior experience to bank upon. Most importantly, would Iuiga be able to convert the offline footfall to online traffic?
In March 2013, Zalora, a leading online fashion retailer in Asia-Pacific, had diversified it sales channels by launching the Zalora mobile app. Almost three years on, Tito Costa, the Managing Director of Zalora, is faced with some hard-hitting questions, specifically in relation to where he should focus the company's future investments. Although the mobile app was an important channel to draw in customers, conversion rates and retention needed improvement. Tito knew that the question was not whether to have a mobile app or not, it was about getting the best value from it. What investments and incentives were needed to create a large and growing set of loyal customers who would see the Zalora as their go-to app for all their fashion needs? Did Zalora have the resources to execute these plans? And, importantly, would these investments be worthwhile?