個案總覽

Riding the popularity of a great first product is easy; finding the next one is hard. Written by Elie Ofek and Jill Avery, this fictional HBR Case Study features expert commentary by Gauri Nanda and Ravi Sawhney.

Riding the popularity of a great first product is easy; finding the next one is hard. Written by Elie Ofek and Jill Avery, this fictional HBR Case Study features expert commentary by Gauri Nanda and Ravi Sawhney.

Riding the popularity of a great first product is easy; finding the next one is hard. Written by Elie Ofek and Jill Avery, this fictional HBR Case Study features expert commentary by Gauri Nanda and Ravi Sawhney.

In early 2012, supported by a seed grant from PepsiCo, Nithya Raman, then a masters student in marketing at Columbia Business School (CBS), partnered with Rich Donovan, CBS '02, a world-renowned expert in the convergence of people with disabilities (PWD) and corporate profitability. Together, they framed a lead user study to gain PWD-inspired insights into innovation in the retail space. In this case, students learn of past applications of the lead user method to achieve breakthrough innovation and the step-by-step process by which Raman framed and carried out her study.

This case tracks the new product development process undertaken by Gauri Nanda, the founder and CEO of Nanda Home, as she ventures to innovate beyond her initial product launches. Having achieved commercial success with her first product Clocky, a roll away alarm clock that owners interacted with in a way they found functionally and emotionally appealing, and after two extensions of the line, Nanda thought it was time to design, develop and market another item that would solve an everyday problem with lifelike charm. She wanted to create a clock that would appeal to children and their parents by facilitating kids' going to sleep and waking up routines. However, there were several factors Nanda had to grapple with before she could commit to final manufacturing design and development. Did she conduct sufficient market research to verify the desire for the 'Clockiddie' concept and the features planned? Were her assumptions about parents and kids valid to suggest the product would be in high demand once launched? Could she keep a premium price point in a consumer market that was trending downward in willingness to pay? Should she cut back on differentiating features to reduce costs and price? Or could the product be engineered under current specifications to an acceptable cost of goods and retail price point? These decisions had to be made soon so that the product could be launched to meet the back to school buying period.

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.

The disastrous events of 2011--an earthquake and a nuclear accident, a major accounting scandal at a well-known company, and an unusual current account deficit--have brought Japan back into the international news. Although China and other countries in Asia have grown faster and gained greater attention in the last decade, Japan continues to be an important business player. Japan has the world's third-largest economy and is home to many major corporations, leading-edge technology, operational knowhow, and a strong currency. While much about Japan seems familiar, many of our beliefs about the country remain frozen in the early 1990s, when Japanese management was a hot topic and Japanese businesses appeared invincible. Japan has changed much since then, however, and deserves an updated understanding. In this article, we identify six commonly held myths about Japan, present corresponding realities, and discuss recent developments and implications for managers.

A small upscale bakery produces artisan-quality, hand-decorated cookies, generating $1 million in annual revenue. In the (A) case, the two co-owners investigate the role of pricing in driving growth for their business and allowing them to achieve several fundamental financial goals. In the (B) case 9B13A005, the partners explore the possibility of a website to drive direct-to-consumer sales on an e-commerce platform. The multimedia elements of the case 7B13A004 will add to the richness of the conversation. (A higher price applies to this case due to color exhibits.)

A small upscale bakery produces artisan-quality, hand-decorated cookies, generating $1 million in annual revenue. In the (A) case 9B13A004, the two co-owners investigate the role of pricing in driving growth for their business and allowing them to achieve several fundamental financial goals. In the (B) case, the partners explore the possibility of a website to drive direct-to-consumer sales on an e-commerce platform. The multimedia elements of the case 7B13A004 will add to the richness of the conversation.

In 2012, small upscale bakery produces artisan-quality, hand-decorated cookies, generating $1 million in annual revenue. In the (A) case, the two co-owners investigate the role of pricing in driving growth for their business and allowing them to achieve several fundamental financial goals. In the (B) case 9B13A005, the partners explore the possibility of a website to drive direct-to-consumer sales on an e-commerce platform. <br><br>The multimedia elements of the case 7B13A004 will add to the richness of the conversation. (A higher price applies to this case due to color exhibits.)

A small upscale bakery produces artisan-quality, hand-decorated cookies, generating $1 million in annual revenue. In the (A) case 9B13A004, the two co-owners investigate the role of pricing in driving growth for their business and allowing them to achieve several fundamental financial goals. In the (B) case, the partners explore the possibility of a website to drive direct-to-consumer sales on an e-commerce platform. <br><br>The multimedia elements of the case 7B13A004 will add to the richness of the conversation.

In early May 2013, Abercrombie & Fitch, a high-end clothing retailer in the United States, faced a loss of consumer confidence in its brand after quotes made by its CEO in an interview seven years earlier resurfaced. His remarks fostered the perception that the company was prejudiced against overweight people. In response, angry consumers released a YouTube video entitled #FitchTheHomeless urging people to donate their Abercrombie & Fitch clothing to homeless individuals. This video went viral and inspired negative feedback towards the company from both social media networks and mainstream media outlets. Abercrombie & Fitch’s first response came 12 days later with a second apology issued the following week. Nonetheless, the controversy continued, and by June, Forbes announced that the company’s BrandIndex Impression was at an all year low. How can Abercrombie & Fitch reverse the negative feedback and regain its consumers’ loyalty?<p><br><br>You might also like: Abercrombie and Fitch, Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History?, Domino’s Pizza

<p>At the end of the year’s third quarter, the sales team at a generic-pharmaceutical company has achieved just 91 per cent of its sales target, and growth is less than what was anticipated. The general manager of sales needs to decide whether he can revise the sales targets for the last quarter of the year without compromising growth. He also needs to address the impact of launching a new product when the sales team is striving to achieve its budgets and devise strategies the sales team can use to achieve their sales targets during a selling downturn.</p>

Star Digital, a multichannel video service provider with over US$100 million in annual advertising spends, was gradually increasing its online advertising spend. The company was extremely active in managing its substantial advertising budget, using return on investment information to make spending decisions. Even though the internet provided a promising platform to measure ad effectiveness, doing so for display ads was proving difficult. The two common approaches to measuring display ad effectiveness tended to either under or over value conversion rates. To truly measure the effect on sales conversion, Star Digital needed to understand what users would have done if they had not seen campaign ads. To do so, Star Digital designed a controlled experiment to measure the effect of display ads for one of its advertising campaigns. This case describes Star Digital's experiment, focusing on the experiment design and how the company addressed various design issues. The case includes an Excel spreadsheet that contains sample data from the experiment. Students need to analyze the spreadsheet data to answer questions on the effectiveness of Star Digital's display ads. This case study is based on data from an online advertising study for a real firm, but the name of the firm and some elements of the data have been disguised for confidentiality.

Spreadsheet Supplement for Product #M347

In 2012, a young entrepreneur is preparing the marketing portion of a business plan to launch a board games café, and he needs to complete the plan within a week so that he can review it with his business partner. The marketing plan must include a recommendation for a target market and detail plans for promotion, pricing and product offering. The partners have budgeted $6,000 for promotion to gain exposure and bring customers into the café.

Most marketers think they know how their advertising affects consumer behavior and drives revenue. They correlate sales data with a few dozen discrete variables, and they rely on consumer surveys, focus groups, media-mix models, and online last-click attribution. But to treat advertising touch points as if each works in isolation is to misrepresent the way today's complex combination of marketing efforts influences purchasing outcomes. MarketShare CEO Wes Nichols explains how many big companies are now deploying analytics 2.0, a set of capabilities that can chew through terabytes of data and hundreds of variables in real time to accurately reveal how advertising touch points interact dynamically. The results: 10% to 30% improvements in marketing performance. Firms of various sizes can make the shift to analytics 2.0 by engaging in three broad activities: 1) Attribution: quantifying the contribution of each element of advertising; 2) Optimization: using predictive-analytics tools to run scenarios for business planning; and 3) Allocation: redistributing resources across marketing activities in real time. Nichols argues that implementing analytics 2.0 means building the required infrastructure and entwining it in organizational culture, strategy development, and operations. Any company can begin that journey; businesses that don't will be overtaken by those that do.

Many companies envision mobile ads becoming an integral part of their communications strategies. But there's a growing consensus that ads don't work on mobile devices; consumers just don't like them. Instead of creating tiny banner ads, smart marketers will turn to apps to reach customers and engage them. Effective apps will do one of the following: 1) Add convenience. Banking apps, for example, let people pay their bills online, and airline apps let them check in and monitor the status of their flights. 2) Offer unique value. In South Korea, commuters can use an app to order groceries while waiting for their trains. 3) Provide social value. Apps on Facebook and other sites let users send gifts to their friends. 4) Offer incentives. Apps that give away mobile minutes, for instance, can entice customers. 5) Entertain. Red Bull and other companies have devised popular games focused on their brands. "Mobile advertising" is often a hollow phrase, but mobile apps can enable marketers to communicate with consumers in a format that enhances their lives and offers long-term value.

We live in a media-saturated world, where consumers are drowning in irrelevant messages delivered from the web, TV, radio, print, outdoor displays, and a proliferating array of mobile devices. Advertising strategies built on persuading through interruption, repetition, and brute ubiquity are increasingly ineffective. To win consumers' attention and trust, marketers must think less about what advertising says to its targets and more about what it does for them. Rayport outlines four domains of human experience: In the "public sphere" people move from one place or activity to another, both online and off. In the "social sphere" they interact with and relate to one another. In the "tribal sphere" they affiliate with groups to define or express their identity. In the "psychological sphere" they connect language with specific thoughts and feelings. Savvy marketers think about crafting messages that consumers will welcome in these domains. Zappos did that when it placed ads in airport security bins (the public sphere)--reaching people whose minds may be on their shoes. Nintendo identified young mothers who were willing to host Wii parties and provided them with everything they needed for these social-sphere events. Yelp's Elite Squad of reviewers have a heightened sense of tribal affiliation that makes them powerful brand ambassadors. Life is good Inc. is rooted in the psychological sphere: It advertises only through the optimism-promoting logo and slogan on its products.