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The franchise owner of a Marble Slab Creamery (Marble Slab) in Ontario must submit a grand opening proposal to franchise headquarters in Calgary, Alberta, in two weeks' time. This proposal is to include her chosen target market, the franchise location and decisions made regarding product variety and pricing. The franchise owner also has to decide how best to allocate her $10,000 promotional budget to gain exposure and bring customers into her store.

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) is an innovator of strategic environmental management in the airline industry. Being a first-mover can have both its advantages and disadvantages. This case looks at the airline's decision of whether they should invest in the best available environmental technology for a fleet of new aircraft that would serve them for the next 25 years. While the technology for these low-emission engines had been around since the 1970s, it had never really been commercialized. SAS was feeling pressure from the regulatory authorities with regards to potential new charges and taxes that could affect the future operating costs of the fleet. Despite these anticipated future costs, at the time of the decision, the director of aircraft and engine analysis for SAS could not make an economic case for the more expensive engines. The challenge was for the fleet development team to try to convince the SAS management team to spend the extra kr5 million (Swedish Kronor) per aircraft for the dual combustor engine. Given that corporations are faced with increasing pressure with regards to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, this case study presents an opportunity for discussion and analysis of various environmental concepts including strategic environmental management, adoption of best available environmental technologies, the role of internal environmental leadership in a large corporation and the effect of market-based mechanisms to improve a sector's environmental performance. The case illustrates the complexities of environmental decisions in striking a balance between meeting ambitious commitments and dealing with real capabilities of companies and external pressures.

In early 2009, the executive director of the Habitat for Humanity London (HFHL), located in London, Ontario, was faced with the responsibility of determining how to increase revenue for the non-profit organization. The organization provided safe, decent and affordable housing to those in need, and the board of directors had pledged to build 12 units in 2012. Funding generally came from the organization's ReStore; however, revenues had begun to level off in the preceding years. The executive director was evaluating several options of generating additional revenue. After examining HFHL's statement of cash flows and 10 years of ReStore earnings, the executive director had identified three options to increase revenues: relocation of the ReStore to increase efficiencies and increase inventory; increasing their salvage operation; and/or launching an automobile sale program. Or was there a better way to generate revenue that she hadn't yet considered?

By positioning Immediate Annuities as "guaranteed lifetime income," New York Life has built itself a $1.4 billion per year business by 2009. However, to make Immediate Annuities a mainstream financial product for retirees, New York Life must understand why many retirees are reluctant to buy them and many agents are reluctant to sell them.

Road rage, school rage, and customer rage are becoming almost everyday occurrences. Customer rage is an intense anger coupled with expressions of physical, verbal, or other potentially harmful behaviors in response to a dissatisfying service experience. It can potentially result in severe negative consequences for firms, employees, and even other valued customers. Fortune 500 firms are so concerned about this problem that some are installing new software in their call centers to detect rising levels of anger in customers' voices so that management may intervene to prevent an incident escalating to rage. Furthermore, the Entrepreneur magazine noted that Americans are getting angrier every year. This article examines the underlying psychological processes of stress and coping that propel some consumers to experience extreme negative emotions, including rage and, finally, resentment. It explores the triggers (antecedent conditions) that give rise to rage behaviors; identifies the tipping points for extreme anger and rage incidents; and explores the extent to which these circumstances and coping behaviors can be generalized across Eastern and Western cultures. It also recommends a course of action to enable managers to prevent or, at least, better manage customer rage.

Current conditions in the U.S. mortgage industry provide a rich context for exploring the positioning and information used in advertisements for mortgage products. This article examines television, radio, and print advertising messages employed to promote prime and subprime mortgage products. An analysis of these advertising messages reveals marked differences in the marketing for prime and subprime mortgage offers. Prime mortgage market advertisements tended to emphasize 'the American dream of homeownership' and low rates, and often provide detailed loan terms. On the other hand, subprime loan advertisements were based on fear appeals, emphasizing debt problems and encouraging consumers to rely on the lender/broker for help. These important differences in the information available to consumers for various mortgage products may have exacerbated industry information asymmetries and contributed to the current mortgage crisis.

While luxury brands are one of the most profitable and fastest growing segments of the brand pantheon, they are the least understood. There is no established definition as to what a luxury brand is; no clear understanding of the value dimensionality of luxury brands; and no rigorous conceptualization of the different types of luxury brands. They are generally treated as homogeneous. Little wonder that the management of these brands is shrouded in mystery. This article explores the value dimensionality of luxury brands, differentiates among luxury brands, and proposes a typology to help firms understand the managerial implications and challenges of each type. All luxury brands are not the same-they can mean different things to different people or even different things to the same people, which makes target marketing of luxury brands both difficult and important. This also means that they react differently to each other both in times of economic prosperity and in downturns. This article also explores strategies for migrating mass-market brands into luxury brand markets.

This article explores the rise to quality leadership by Japanese automakers, the decline in U.S. automakers' quality reputation, and whether poor quality still contributes to the U.S. automaker's competitive woes. Perception plays a key role in quality competition but not necessarily in ways that we commonly think. The ways in which information about quality performance is displayed plays an important role in customer perception. Quality should not be seen as a stand-alone asset but rather it must be understood in the context of other assets, including a firm's brand equity. It is quality's relationship to brand equity that helps explain the current quandary of U.S. automakers, and this relationship holds lessons for other industries.

This article provides an in-depth look at a value-based channel management model at Cisco Systems for managing the Value-Add Reseller (VAR) channel. In March 2001, Cisco initiated a change from a volume-based channel management model, which had been driving out partner value, to a value-based model that tied channel rewards to specific channel value-add activities. Critical components of this new model include: identifying opportunities for channel value-add; architecting channel programs to enable channel value-add; tying financial rewards to value-add channel activities including a "holdback system"; and exercising significant discipline to manage field pressures for volume-based rewards and diluting certification requirements. It demonstrates that VARs can serve as a significant sales channel, profitably selling complex solutions to satisfied customers under a value added channel management framework. They can also uncover demand opportunities that are incremental to the pull marketing of even a strong brand like Cisco. However, companies need to exercise significant discipline to avoid mixing volume-based rewards with a value-based framework.

Tengion is a young biotech company that is at the frontier of regenerative medicine; a nascent field that seeks to promote the creation of new cells and tissue to repair or replace tissue or organ function lost due to age, disease, damage, or congenital defects. In late 2008 Tengion management faces a difficult dilemma. In light of the financial crises, the company needs to manage cash burn by prioritizing its R&D efforts. CEO Nichtberger needs to recommend to the board which of two promising new medical treatments to keep developing while placing the other on hold. In comparing the two options, a host of factors need to be considered-- these range from assessing the regulatory challenges, manufacturing challenges, marketing challenges (in particular pricing), and partnering challenges. Each of the treatments would target a unique patient population, that differ in both size and composition. Tengion must also consider how quickly it might expect to bring each of the two treatments to market. The decision could have significant long-term implications for the company's ultimate survival and success.

Babeeze in Arms Doula Centre, a small London, Ontario-based business, offers services to women during pregnancy, labour and after childbirth. As a certified doula, the sole proprietor provides emotional and physical support to mother and complements the medical care provided by doctors and midwives. Along with two other doulas and an instructor, the proprietor offers labour services, postpartum services and childbirth education classes. She has a solid reputation in the community for providing excellent care. The proprietor is heavily involved as an active doula, but she would like to step back from practice to focus on improving community awareness of doulas and advocating for more options and better care for mothers and babies. She is interested in opening a private birth centre, which would be an alternative venue for women to give birth and a new facility from which to offer Babeeze's services and classes.

The general manager of a not-for-profit Ultimate Frisbee club seeks a marketing strategy to increase membership. For-profit clubs had claimed an ever-growing portion of the market, and the general manager has been asked to review current offerings in the marketplace and to develop a formal marketing plan that would ensure the club's viability in the coming years.

How is music marketed in the digital era? Nettwerk Music Group built on its foundation as a social, grassroots marketer of music and artists, and emerged as a leader in the Internet-enabled social media environment. For most of the past decade Nettwerk CEO Terry McBride let fans consume music on their own terms. He encouraged file-sharing, the remixing of his artists' songs and videos, and an environment in which "the audience is the record company." In the digital marketplace compact discs mattered much less, said McBride. "Digital assets" were the currency, in the form of ad, television, movie, and videogame song placement, ringtones, mixes, and community-created content. But new artist-label contracts were needed if digital assets were going to flow freely. Moving away from the infrastructure of the music business also meant having to do without the financial, logistical, and promotional power of the major labels. To provide an alternative to the muscle of the major labels, the company is launching a venture capital project called "Polyphonic."

The general manager of a not-for-profit Ultimate Frisbee club seeks a marketing strategy to increase membership. For-profit clubs had claimed an ever-growing portion of the market, and the general manager has been asked to review current offerings in the marketplace and to develop a formal marketing plan that would ensure the club's viability in the coming years.

The president and chief executive officer of a fractional aircraft ownership company based in London, Ontario, must devise a growth strategy and marketing plan for OurPLANE's upcoming year since there is an opportunity to purchase several more aircraft at deeply discounted prices. Students are asked to (1) perform a thorough company size-up, (2) complete an industry analysis of the fractional aircraft ownership industry, (3) analyze competition, (4) complete a consumer analysis, (5) calculate the company's margins and profitability, (6) use the external and internal analyses to develop a growth strategy and (7) analyze the company's marketing strategy.

Many countries have become increasingly concerned with the subject of corruption, and managers today must deal with changes in ethical norms and laws. New laws and international agreements seek to create a worldwide shift towards the reduction of corruption, and so management responsibilities are continually evolving. Both Transparency International and the World Bank provide estimates of the relative pervasiveness of corruption in different countries. Yet this subject is ambiguous and complex, creating significant challenges for managers. Both Volkswagen and Siemens have recently experienced public criticism and legal prosecution over corruption issues, some relating to internal and inter-corporate relations. Some cultures appear to accept corrupt practices as part of normal business-government relations. In China, guanxi is widely seen as a requirement for business success with the establishment of personal relationships that include an ongoing exchange of gifts and personal favours. Some managers may argue that the giving of gifts is acceptable, that bribes to expedite decisions may be necessary, and that only certain types of bribes should be seen as inappropriate corruption. However, this perspective involves the difficulty of drawing a line to guide decisions of corporate employees, and for many managers it is now necessary to implement clear corporate guidelines in regard to what they consider to be corruption. In this context, some managers may decide to avoid investing in certain countries until the culture of corruption has changed.

This case presents market research data concerning the launch of a new drawstring trash bag in Brazil. Ad-lider, one of the leaders in the Brazilian plastic bag industry, has purchased the production machinery for producing the trash bag, and now must decide how the new product should be launched. Data for focus groups and field interviews are included for analysis. The case touches on many areas of marketing, including new product development, marketing research, and creating customer value.

Airwide manufactures a broad line of heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) products. The Italian director of Sales and Marketing for Residential and Light Commercial is reviewing the company's channel management policies. The Italian market is currently served by three master-distributors who have geographic responsibility for the North, Central, and South regions of Italy, and accounts for 85 percent of Airwide sales in Italy. The balance is sold by small dealers, remnants of an early channel management arrangement. Nuova Climatizzazione, the dealer based in Genova, has approached Airwide with a proposal to have their reseller discount be equaled to a master distributor's. Airwide's management must examine the decision and consider the implications for their channel strategy and partnership arrangements

In September 2009, the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Rona Inc. was reviewing the company's progress in relation to the ongoing economic recession. Rona was the largest retailer of hardlines in Canada. Rona had noticed definitive signs of slowdown in the third quarter of 2007 and had launched Strategic Plan 2008 - 2011 as a response. The two-phase program was nearing the completion of its first phase of Productivity, Efficiency and Profitability (PEP) and was gearing up for the 24 month-long Recovery Program. The Strategic Plan had been tweaked since its launch, all with a view towards strengthening the core platform. The objective of the Recovery Plan was to restore focus on growth vectors from which the company had become distracted. On the eve of commencement of the Recovery Plan, the CEO began to wonder if Rona was ready to act on increasing sales, recruiting independents, constructing new stores and pursuing acquisitions. Or was it necessary to redesign and relaunch the PEP program, thus deferring the Recovery Plan?

Emotiv is getting ready to launch its innovative brain-computer interfacing (BCI) technology. The company has developed a special headset, called EPOC, and highly sophisticated software that can translate a person's emotions, cognitive thoughts and facial expressions into digital outcomes. Emotiv wants the technology to be adopted by mainstream consumers and is leaning towards the video game market as its primary initial target. However, it needs to decide whether to continue efforts to convince one of the big three console makers (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii) to enable the EPOC on their platform or to settle for the PC gaming market. Alternatively, the company could have chosen a number of different markets to focus on (such as medical, military, market research). A host of additional marketing decisions (pricing, channels, bundling a demo game) need to be made. The case allows students to grapple with the issues of: selecting a target application for the launch of an innovation; determining the importance of having a big name partner for the launch by an unknown start-up; considering the wisdom of taking a B2C rather than B2B approach with a novel technology; using analogous products to forecast demand and sales for a new technology.