The chief executive officer of Zoomcar, an Indian car-rental company, had recognized that the costs of vehicle ownership were high for many individuals who needed vehicles only sporadically. The venture capital-funded, entrepreneur-driven business had launched in 2013, gone through three changes in its business model between 2016 and 2019, and identified a gap in the market with adequate demand to be fulfilled. Having adjusted its business model twice to circumvent the issue of supply, in 2020 it believed that it had identified the perfect product-market fit that would solve consumers’ concerns over owning versus hiring vehicles. The business's shared-mobility model would allow customers to reduce the total cost of vehicle ownership by offering their vehicles for short-term hires to other users on the Zoomcar platform. Now, it needed to resolve three issues: First, how could it get more cars on the platform? Second, even if it had the cars, how could it get people to adapt to a shared-mobility ecosystem? Third, how could it manage all of this while maintaining viable unit economics and ensuring long-term profitability?

Droom Technology Private Limited (Droom), a used-automobile marketplace platform based in India, had identified a big-ticket item with an average selling price of ₹200,000–₹600,000 and harnessed its innovative technology to build an online ecosystem. In doing so, it had stayed clear of inventory management by following a marketplace model like that used by Flipkart Internet Private Ltd. and Amazon.com, Inc. in India, bringing all participants—including used-vehicle dealers, individual buyers and sellers, and financiers—into the online marketplace. Subsequently, Droom created functional, monetary, time, and psychic values for its customers through its various automobile inspection, valuation, records search, insurance, and other services. Droom went from having a single revenue source to having six independent revenue sources through its subsidiaries, which each offered a unique combination of values and collectively created a tough barrier for competitors to penetrate. By April 2020, the start-up had enjoyed some success, but looking to increase its growth, it faced some questions: Was it offering too much for too little? Was its pricing justified by the value offered? Were its performance metrics commensurate with the value provided? Finally, what strategy would successfully shift Droom from a hybrid to a completely online model ready for listing on the Nasdaq exchange?

The chief executive officer of Zoomcar, an Indian car-rental company, had recognized that the costs of vehicle ownership were high for many individuals who needed vehicles only sporadically. The venture capital-funded, entrepreneur-driven business had launched in 2013, gone through three changes in its business model between 2016 and 2019, and identified a gap in the market with adequate demand to be fulfilled. Having adjusted its business model twice to circumvent the issue of supply, in 2020 it believed that it had identified the perfect product-market fit that would solve consumers' concerns over owning versus hiring vehicles. The business's shared-mobility model would allow customers to reduce the total cost of vehicle ownership by offering their vehicles for short-term hires to other users on the Zoomcar platform. Now, it needed to resolve three issues: First, how could it get more cars on the platform? Second, even if it had the cars, how could it get people to adapt to a shared-mobility ecosystem? Third, how could it manage all of this while maintaining viable unit economics and ensuring long-term profitability?

Droom Technology Private Limited (Droom), a used-automobile marketplace platform based in India, had identified a big-ticket item with an average selling price of ₹200,000-₹600,000 and harnessed its innovative technology to build an online ecosystem. In doing so, it had stayed clear of inventory management by following a marketplace model like that used by Flipkart Internet Private Ltd. and Amazon.com, Inc. in India, bringing all participants-including used-vehicle dealers, individual buyers and sellers, and financiers-into the online marketplace. Subsequently, Droom created functional, monetary, time, and psychic values for its customers through its various automobile inspection, valuation, records search, insurance, and other services. Droom went from having a single revenue source to having six independent revenue sources through its subsidiaries, which each offered a unique combination of values and collectively created a tough barrier for competitors to penetrate. By April 2020, the start-up had enjoyed some success, but looking to increase its growth, it faced some questions: Was it offering too much for too little? Was its pricing justified by the value offered? Were its performance metrics commensurate with the value provided? Finally, what strategy would successfully shift Droom from a hybrid to a completely online model ready for listing on the Nasdaq exchange?

The case describes Videocon's experiences of in film branding of the Bollywood film titled "Sultan". It was a film with a crowd puller, popular Hindi actor called Salman Khan. The film touches upon the Digital Addressable System, mandated by the Government of India for DTH operators, and how few players scrambled for a larger piece of the market pie. The case highlights various branding options opted for by Videocon in the film and how Videocon hoped to capture a larger subscriber base through this non -traditional form of in film placements.

This case presents the hybrid business model of a social venture Gramshree. It provides a rich description of an actual decision situation faced by the board of trustees regarding the selection of marketing channel for Gramshree for bringing sustainability to the business. Gramshree aimed at empowering women artisans by ensuring a steady income for them so that they could become catalyst for sustainable economic development and social change. However, with growing competition and difficulties in selling, to generate market demand was a key challenge for Gramshree. This case illustrates the strategies for development and value creation of a hybrid social business model. It also describes the challenges faced by social organizations. The case provides an opportunity to evaluate the current situation and proposes a decision for sustainability of the organization.

The case traces the evolution of the advertising firm DDB Mudra from its founding as an independent "Indian" agency to its current position of being the Indian affiliate of the global advertising major, DDB Worldwide that is going to be overseen directly by the CEO of DDB worldwide. Set in the backdrop of the changes in both the global and Indian advertising industry, this two-part case invites students to consider the strategic choices made by the two leaders who shaped its growth and evolution - the founder CEO, AG Krishnamurthy (AGK) and the current CEO, Madhukar Kamath. The first case - titled DDB Mudra: Transformative Growth captures the company's history from its inception in 1985 until its acquisition by the Omnicom group in 2011, the second case, an update titled DDB Mudra: Profitable Growth focuses on the challenges that Madhukar Kamath faces in 2015, 4 years after the acquisition.

The case traces the evolution of the advertising firm DDB Mudra from its founding as an independent "Indian" agency to its current position of being the Indian affiliate of the global advertising major, DDB Worldwide that is going to be overseen directly by the CEO of DDB worldwide. Set in the backdrop of the changes in both the global and Indian advertising industry, this two-part case invites students to consider the strategic choices made by the two leaders who shaped its growth and evolution - the founder CEO, AG Krishnamurthy (AGK) and the current CEO, Madhukar Kamath. The first case - titled DDB Mudra: Transformative Growth captures the company's history from its inception in 1985 until its acquisition by the Omnicom group in 2011, the second case, an update titled DDB Mudra: Profitable Growth focuses on the challenges that Madhukar Kamath faces in 2015, 4 years after the acquisition.

VW understood the customer funnel and worked backwards on planning ad inventories. ''Cost per lead'' was the key metric to measure any campaign performance. After brand awareness was built through display ads, VW invested in search engine marketing for organic and paid searches which led to ''Planet Volkswagen,''(PV). PV represented VW activities on a revolving circular globe with each section designed around a specific theme. PV received good response; however, owing to recession in industry in 2012, marketing had to lead to test drives - hence efforts towards PV were reduced. Two campaigns were launched one after other towards increasing leads. VW launched New Jetta in 2011 with a social media campaign called ''#AnythingforJetta''. It revolved around the concept that Jetta gave so much driving pleasure that people would do anything to own Jetta. Twitter was chosen for the campaign to get instant responses and to tap into specific customer segment. VW prepared video content showing people doing quirky stuff for Jetta. Full front page ads were published in leading newspapers, which gave the campaign a big push. #AnythingforJetta became the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter and it also led to 15% increase in Twitter users in India. "Jetta TSI YouTube Test Drive" campaign was launched in 2012, which took test drives drives from roads to viewers' desktops, tablets, and mobiles. The idea behind the YouTube test drive was to engage users and let them ask any questions about the car just as they would in a real world test-drive. The campaign, reached 21 million unique users against planned reach of 10 million. The challenge facing VW was how to break the clutter and engage fans to generate positive word-of-mouth.

The case describes the journey of the Dainik Bhaskar (DB) group towards becoming the largest newspaper group in India. Starting from one Hindi state, the group successfully entered other Hindi states and then non-Hindi speaking states in tier II markets (cities with population between 1 and 4 million) using its innovative twin customer contact model of launch. The innovative launch strategy ensured that DB procured subscriptions from consumers even before its paper was available in the market. The group pioneered hyper local journalism ensuring high customer connect. The case describes the distribution strategy, brand-building initiatives, editorial policy, and advertising strategy of the group. The case describes its successful launch in a non-Hindi state - Maharashtra with strong incumbents. The management of DB has to make a decision of which market to enter next to sustain the high growth trajectory of the group.

The case traces the entry of Volkswagen (VW) in India at a time when India will play a key role in fulfilling VW's global ambitions. The case describes the consumer research conducted by VW to identify consumer insights which pave the way for designing products to meet local needs and aspirations. The case describes VW's segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy for India against the background of its global brand values. The case traces the launch strategy of each of the models - Passat, Jetta, Touareg, Phaeton, Beetle, Polo and Vento. The case invites students to review the marketing and communication strategy of VW to enable it to fulfill its vision of being among the top three brands in India by 2018. The vision is challenging, particularly because VW is a very late entrant in the Indian market. The rich data in the case enables full-blown discussion on whether VW is differentiating itself enough in the competitive market place; or is it giving a compelling reason to the consumer to buy its brands.

The case traces the evolution of laundry detergent market in India. Although the entry of Lever brothers was the starting point, Nirma made detergents a product of the masses by targeting the economy segment. When P&G entered the market in 1985, the market was already well-entrenched by existing players. P&G started Project 2-3-4 to crack open the Indian market - by 2015, P&G wanted to double the number of Indians who used its products, treble per capita spending by Indians and quadruple net sales of its India operations. The case analyzes a series of marketing innovations - product line expansion, product line pricing to brand expansion - that the competing players resorted to. With a host of little differentiated products in the market, the companies had to think through positioning the offerings well. The era of price wars and increased marketing spends to obtain customer attention and garner increased market share significantly strained profitability. After making successful inroads in the mid-segment with Tide and Tide Naturals, P&G wondered if it should launch a brand for the economy segment too. P&G was lagging behind in capturing the Indian growth story. How could it realistically play catch-up with HUL when it operated in far lesser categories than HUL? Does it have a choice but to take HUL head-on in big categories such as detergents?

Garnier which was launched in the United States in 2003 acquired a market share of 5.1% within a year. Pantene, which was the market leader in the United States in the shampoo category, saw its market share decline from 22% to 20.5% during the same period. The steep decline in the market share worried Procter & Gamble, the owner of the Pantene brand. It wondered whether the decline was because of lack of distribution, or higher pricing or unfavorable consumer perception. It hired leading market research agency - Nielsen to identify the cause of decline in market share and to suggest marketing strategy. This case elaborates on the research findings of Nielsen. It also traces the evolution of market research industry and in particular Nielsen. It describes the various research offerings of Nielsen.

The case describes the brand migration from MICO to Bosch in India. The case elaborates the integrated communication strategy for change in corporate identity - advertising, public relations, and media strategy. It details the communication strategy adopted for different stakeholders - employees, opinion leaders, aftermarket, and original equipment manufacturers. The metrics for measurement of effectiveness of communication strategy allow for a rich discussion of the extent to which brand migration can lead to transfer of equity. The case invites students to discuss the extent to which brand equity of Bosch has been built and the way forward.

The case traces the evolution of the carbonated soft drink industry. It describes the emergence of two global majors - Coca Cola Company and PepsiCo. It describes the proliferation of brands of each of the two majors. While Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, and Fanta belong to Coca Cola Company; Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Mountain Dew, 7 Up, and Mirinda belong to PepsiCo. The case also describes the local Indian brands - Thums Up and Limca. Many of the soft drink brands have a high brand value and the case describes the role of advertising in building brand equity. The case traces the evolution of advertising over the years globally as well as in India. It engages with the tension between localization and standardization of advertising. It invites students to discuss the role of advertising in building the brand in an emerging market such as India.

The case traces the transformation of The Park Hotels (TPH) from being "yet another hotel" at the time of its founding in 1967 into India's first boutique hotel network. It describes how Priya Paul, the Chairperson, TPH, and her team created a uniquely Indian boutique hotel network - emphasizing intimate and personalized service, and positioning each hotel as an entertainment destination for customers. The case invites students to consider the strategic choices open to the TPH management in 2010 as they grapple with the challenges of sustaining growth, retaining the distinctiveness and individuality of each of the properties in the network even as they cope with growing competition from both global majors (Hyatt, Starwood Hotels, and JW Marriott) and the local giants (The Taj, Oberoi, and ITC Welcomgroup).

Agricultural commodities often are characterized by two aspects, viz., seasonality, and shelf life of the produce. Further, in countries such as India there are significant public policy dimensions (governmental regulation on pricing and markets etc.) that critically influence production, distribution, and marketing of several agricultural commodities. Furthermore, unlike their counterpart in manufacturing, agricultural commodity supply chains typically are not well-organized in such countries. Therefore, prevalence of cooperatives as an organization structure for managing several supply chain activities is also a common feature. This case has contextually been set under these conditions and it deals primarily with the issue of marketing of tea. In addition to the above-mentioned issues pertaining to marketing of agricultural commodities, tea poses unique challenges arising out of numerous varieties/grades. Owing to several of these aspects understanding the factors that influence profitability of a firm engaged in procurement, production, marketing and brand creation of tea makes an interesting study for a student of management. The case thus offers a multidimensional perspective to the problem of improving the profitability and points to various alternatives in the hands of the management to address the same. The case can be used in the core marketing course, perhaps, as a capstone case toward the end to highlight the interrelationships among different elements of marketing. The case can also be used in other courses to introduce challenges of managing cooperatives, use of auction as the procurement mechanism and also to illustrate the use of Internet as a primary marketing channel.