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In June 2022, Jay Monahan and his executive team at the PGA Tour were evaluating their current state of operations after some of their star golfers began to leave for the rival LIV Golf League. The PGA Tour was the dominant tour for professional golfers from around the world. But some PGA Tour professionals were critical of player compensation, including digital media rights, appearance fees, and guaranteed pay. However, the LIV Golf League was backed by Saudi Arabian funding, leading to calls of sportswashing. Should the PGA Tour change its business model to secure the players' confidence? Could the PGA Tour innovate to keep up with the guaranteed money and earning potential offered by their new competitor? How should the PGA Tour address its stakeholders?

This annually updated exercise assesses one's exposure to the rest of the world's peoples. A series of worksheets require respondents to check off the number and names of countries they have visited and the corresponding percentage of world population that each country represents. The summary of a group's collective exposure to the world's people will inevitably be the recognition that together they have seen much, even if individually some have seen little. The teaching note provides discussion questions that consider why there is such a high variability in individual profiles, the implications of each profile for one's business career, and what it would take for respondents to change their profile.

Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah co-founded Zomato as a food discovery platform that listed menus from restaurants in the Delhi National Capital Region (Delhi-NCR). Zomato quickly gained popularity and expanded its services to multiple cities in India and abroad. In 2015, Zomato shifted its focus from providing only restaurant discovery services to exploring new business initiatives. One such initiative was Zomaland, which was conceptualised as a food carnival that combined three elements-fun activities, lip-smacking food and entertainment. Zomato organised two seasons of Zomaland in various cities and formats in 2019 and 2020. However, because of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company was forced to suspend Zomaland operations. As the economy gradually returned to normal in 2022, Zomato had to reappraise the future of Zomaland and its synergy with other services offered by Zomato.

Yukimi Daifuku was an ice cream that had been sold exclusively during the winter season in Japan for almost four decades. Lotte Co., Ltd. (Lotte) entered the ice cream market thirty years after its major competitors, so the company strategically targeted the ice cream off-season, when other producers were not promoting their products. Lotte successfully grew the product’s sales, and Yukimi Daifuku became an iconic winter ice cream in Japan. However, the external environment surrounding Yukimi Daifuku had undergone significant changes, and in 2018, Lotte decided to sell the product year-round in order to boost availability and sales. Yukimi Daifuku saw sales momentum in 2019, but growth stalled in 2020. Without the benefits of its historical (and iconic) off-season position, Yukimi Daifuku faced the challenge of thriving in the competitive Japanese ice cream market. In addition, the patent on the product development process of Yukimi Daifuku was set to expire in March 2021. Without the iconic winter ice cream positioning and patent—the two key factors for their forty-year success—what were the next steps needed for the Yukimi Daifuku Branding Division for the product?

Spreadsheet to accompany product #W29882.

Yukimi Daifuku was an ice cream that had been sold exclusively during the winter season in Japan for almost four decades. Lotte Co., Ltd. (Lotte) entered the ice cream market thirty years after its major competitors, so the company strategically targeted the ice cream off-season, when other producers were not promoting their products. Lotte successfully grew the product's sales, and Yukimi Daifuku became an iconic winter ice cream in Japan. However, the external environment surrounding Yukimi Daifuku had undergone significant changes, and in 2018, Lotte decided to sell the product year-round in order to boost availability and sales. Yukimi Daifuku saw sales momentum in 2019, but growth stalled in 2020. Without the benefits of its historical (and iconic) off-season position, Yukimi Daifuku faced the challenge of thriving in the competitive Japanese ice cream market. In addition, the patent on the product development process of Yukimi Daifuku was set to expire in March 2021. Without the iconic winter ice cream positioning and patent-the two key factors for their forty-year success-what were the next steps needed for the Yukimi Daifuku Branding Division for the product?

In the last few years, marketing has increasingly focused on storytelling as a way for brands to deepen relationships with customers. However, there is limited guidance for practitioners on how to apply storytelling in nonprofit contexts, especially in small ones that are financially constrained. After a brief review of the literature on storytelling for charitable organizations, we present a storytelling framework for small nonprofits, illustrated with examples primarily from animal rescues. The use of our suggestions should result in more effective and meaningful storytelling for small nonprofits that seek the support of donors, volunteers, and other community members.

Brands become relevant to consumers via storytelling, and archetypal myths in popular culture inform this effect. The hero is an archetype of enduring interest, yet as the marketing literature is replete with heroic undertones, the scope of empirical research is limited and dominated by North American perspectives. To address this shortcoming, this study explores Australian consumer relationships with hero archetypes to provide a contemporary view of how consumers enact brand myths. An in-depth case study of R.M. Williams, an iconic Australian brand, shows the relevance of iconic heroes and reveals how historical archetypes can evolve to address emergent consumer-brand storytelling needs. The study identifies several novel archetypal patterns which contribute to a deeper understanding of how consumers enact brand myths. These archetypes influence consumers in their consumption quests, reconciling social needs and facilitating their immersion in the brand's story. To improve consumer-brand engagement, marketers must focus on engaging consumers with the brand's narrative through the strategic use of archetypal myths.

After four successful years on the market, the founder and chief executive officer of Sanzo Brands Inc. (Sanzo) was looking for ways to continue the momentum and growth of his company. Sanzo was an Asian-inspired flavoured sparkling-water beverage company with an innovative approach to marketing and branding. Rather than promoting its sparkling water through traditional media channels, Sanzo relied on a digital-brand story approach and adopted social-media marketing tools in a mass-marketing environment. Alessandro Roco knew this was the right product at the right time, but his greatest concern was how to maintain the social-media buzz and continue to build the community around the brand. He wondered how Sanzo should manage social media to keep the community engaged and the brand story relevant.

In 2006, two entrepreneurs founded Fugumobile Co. Ltd., a digital marketing agency based in Shanghai, China. The company grew organically in China by adapting to the evolving trends in digital marketing. In May 2021, the founders were facing a dilemma and had to choose between two options for sustainable and profitable growth of their company. The first option was to reach an extensive client base by continuing to deliver standardized services at affordable prices, which offered the company modest growth and profitability. The second option was to offer customized services at a premium price, which was more rewarding but would require recruiting experienced workers with a proven track record for selling and delivering high quality customized services, who were typically employed by large agencies and demanded significantly high salaries. The two founders had to decide which path to take.

<p align="justify">The Gurmukh Singh Technology (GST) group, based in Ludhiana, Punjab, India, manufactured high-precision machined parts and sheet-metal components for various industries and sectors such as agriculture and horticulture. Revenues of the group had dipped substantially in 2018 due to non-receipt of payments from some customers, and the situation was compounded by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. In January 2022, the managing director and head of marketing was planning a restructuring drive with the intention of doubling revenues and increasing the profitability of the group by 50 per cent over the next five years. He had to decide whether to reframe the group’s business-to-business marketing strategy and, if so, in what respect. How should he segment customers and select the most appropriate segments? How could he incentivize these customers to buy his company’s products rather than those of competitors? What should be the value proposition of the company?

This case about Economic Value to the Customer (EVC) enables students to deeply analyze the positive and negative differentiation value of a product or service, and how distinct demographic segments can have disparate EVC. Additionally, it makes students aware that consumers can feel differently about various types of (equivalent) payment, e.g., $1 spent on service fees, tips, or on monthly fees for a food delivery service. Finally, the case encourages students to think about how to communicate the various aspects of value that a product/service provides.

Marketers often worry that performance marketing and its focus on short-term sales is crowding out brand-building activities aimed at enhancing customer perceptions of their brand-and is sometimes working against brand strategy. Brand-building activities are typically measured using metrics that have no predictive or retrospective connection to financial returns. And performance marketing typically lacks measures that account for its impact on brand building, focusing only on sales, leads, and clicks. To achieve performance- accountable brand building and brand-accountable performance marketing, firms must create metrics that measure the effects of both types of investments on a single North Star metric: brand equity. That is then linked to specific financial outcomes-such as revenue, shareholder value, and return on investment-and deployed as a key performance indicator for both brand building and performance marketing. In doing so, companies are better able to make decisions that fortify the financial contributions of both and get them working better together.

Even as companies devote increasing shares of their marketing budgets to paying social media influencers to tout their products, researchers know little about the tactic's effectiveness or its overall impact on influencers, their followers, and their partner brands. So, a team of researchers decided to investigate. HBS assistant professor Shunyuan Zhang and doctoral student Magie Cheng analyzed more than 85,000 influencer videos posted on YouTube from August 2019 to August 2020. Comparing similar posts with and without paid promotions, they found that putting out a sponsored video caused significant numbers of followers to doubt the influencers' authenticity and drop off. The study's findings suggest several ways for influencers and brands, along with the platforms hosting their content, to minimize the damage.

A new body of research shows that shoppers who lean to the right politically are more likely to buy goods with obvious flaws than shoppers who lean to the left. But it could be that the conservatives believe hidden positives will compensate for the items' drawbacks.

Crop residue burning (CRB) is a major factor contributing to the pollution in the northern part of India and the national capital region (NCR). In November 2021, the NCR consistently recorded an air quality index (AQI) of more than 450, which is hazardous to human health. As a result of these bad weather conditions, Delhi residents have experienced multiple health issues such as red eyes, headaches, cough, itchy skin, and itchy throats. Farmers burning crop residues during the winter months in the states surrounding Delhi contributed to these environmental conditions. Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) has been working with farmers in Punjab and Haryana to encourage them to adopt eco-friendly straw management practices as part of CII's Crop Residue Management (CRM) initiative. The CRM's main objective was to eliminate the practice of burning crop residues in the open. Chandrakant Pradhan, manager for CRM, wondered how to demonstrate CRM's results in the upcoming funding agency meeting. As part of his presentation, he wanted to raise stakeholders' awareness of the alternative methods based on ground realities and the tools that farmers have been using primarily in different districts and villages of Punjab and Haryana. As he weaved through the traffic, several thoughts began to race through his mind. How should the data collected diligently by his team through farmer surveys be presented to potential funders? How best to examine and analyze the data? What valuable insights can the data provide that can help raise more funds and support from various stakeholders? Is there enough evidence to show whether this initiative will reduce pollution over time and hence needs to be scaled up?

Spreadsheet supplement for case IMB959.

The case recounts the dilemma faced by Donnie Boyd, the owner of a small barber shop in downtown Toronto in the second quarter of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic had spread throughout the world but its consequences were only partially known in mid-2020. The first wave of the virus had almost run its course in Canada but people feared (correctly so, as it happens) that subsequent waves would strike, further devastating the economy and specifically small businesses such as Boyd's Barber Shop.

Spreadsheet Supplement for Case IN1911

After merging with Commerce Bancorp Inc., TD Bank NA (TD Bank) continued to wow its customers by providing free lollipops, pens, and dog-friendly services and staying open longer than major competitors in the region. Through social media campaigns, it emphasized the importance of having a human touch in banking and showcased its appreciation for customers who had lent a helping hand to the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. It introduced innovative services such as curbside pickup for debit cards, and it increased its digital offerings by providing various digital financial services, platforms, and mobile applications (apps). It also enhanced its social media footprint and engagement with various hashtags such as #TDThanksYou. While TD Bank was doing all this, major competitors such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo responded with improved online and offline services. Having successfully differentiated itself as a bank with a human touch, TD Bank was forced to shutter 81 branches in the first quarter of 2021 due to the prolonged effects of the pandemic. Now, in September 2021, it has to recalibrate and provide more digital banking services as most of its customers are demanding the safety and convenience of digital banking. Can TD Bank build upon its slogan, “America’s Most Convenient Bank,” by consistently delivering humanized and seamless “phygital” banking experiences?