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After going public in 1992, Starbucks' strong balance sheet and double-digit growth made it a hot growth stock. The Starbucks vision was coffee culture as community, the Third Place between work and home, where friends shared the experience and exotic language of gourmet coffee. Its growth was fueled by rapid expansion in the number of stores both in the United States and in foreign markets, the addition of drive-through service, its own music label that promoted and sold CDs in stores and other add-on sales, including pastries and sandwiches. In an amazingly short time, Starbucks became a wildly successful global brand. But in 2007, Starbucks' performance slipped; the company reported its first-ever decline in customer visits to U.S. stores, which led to a 50 per cent drop in its share price. In January 2008, the board ousted CEO Jim Donald and brought back Howard Schultz - Starbucks' visionary leader and CEO from 1987 to 2000 and current chairman and chief global strategist - to re-take the helm. Starbucks' growth strategies have been widely reported and analyzed, but rarely with an eye to their impact on the brand. This case offers a compelling example of how "non-brand" managerial decisions - such as store locations, licensing arrangements and drive-through service - can make sense on financial criteria at one point in time, yet erode brand positioning and equity in the longer term. Examining the growth decisions made in the United States provides a rich context in which to examine both the promise and drawback of further foreign expansion.

In July of 2007 the management of East Central Ohio Freight (ECOF) met to decide whether to increase the company's efforts in the volume less than truckload (VLTL) freight market. While the company's limited experience in the VLTL business had been positive to date, expansion would require considerable capital expenditure and expansion of the work force to meet the anticipated demand. Times were difficult in the trucking business and there were no guarantees that the company would be able to generate new business sufficient to support the necessary commitment of resources.

Do subliminal cues have an effect on behaviour? This question is at the heart of many debates in advertising. In this exercise, students can determine, through their own experience, the impact of subconscious cues on their decisions. In this simulation, the instructor places a number of specific cues throughout the building. Students, in turn, are tasked with creating an advertising poster for a chain of children's play centres. Inevitably, their posters incorporate some, and sometimes all, of the cues. The exercise can lead to a deep and constructive discussion on the effect of subconscious cues on consumers.

Bimbo, headquartered in Mexico with 2008 sales of $7 billion, was one of the largest bakery companies in the world. Even as it had grown spectacularly in the last several decades, the company had earned a stellar reputation for its Corporate Social Responsibility. As the company set its sights on international expansion, its third generation CFO, Daniel Servitje, wondered how to keep its growth and CSR objectives neatly aligned.

Do subliminal cues have an effect on behavior? This question is at the heart of many debates in advertising. In this exercise, students can determine, through their own experience, the impact of subconscious cues on their decisions. In this simulation, the instructor places a number of specific cues throughout the building. Students, in turn, are tasked with creating an advertising poster for a chain of children's play centers. Inevitably, their posters incorporate some, and sometimes all, of the cues. The exercise can lead to a deep and constructive discussion on the effect of subconscious cues on consumers.

In response to new laws governing liability and several food safety scares in the 1990s, European retailers drove the creation of a universal production standard based on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) for fresh fruit and vegetables and a third-party certification system to monitor compliance. By 2008, the GLOBALGAP standard had expanded to cover coffee, tea, livestock, and aquaculture. Over 90,000 producers in 87 countries had been certified. Looking ahead, GLOBALGAP's board and management were discussing a number of questions, including: should GAP include environmental and social aspects beyond food safety; what was GLOBALGAP's role outside of Europe; and how GLOBALGAP as a 'hidden asset' compared to ethical labels such as Fair trade.

Marks & Spencer initiated a comprehensive approach to sustainability (reduction of waste, carbon emissions, fair trade) called Plan A. Does it offer a competitive advantage?

Not all that long ago, the acronym KISS was so popular that many executives displayed it on their desks, either embedded in Lucite or sculpted in bronze. Keep It Simple Stupid was the preferred strategy of the time. That strategy - and the acronym -- is enjoying a limited revival in these difficult times, especially in the research-obsessed, insight-seeking marketing domain. These days, the tome-like marketing plan is out and the pithy pocket version is in. Or, it better be.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Historically, neither the creators nor the distributors of cultural products such as books or movies have used analytics -- data, statistics, predictive modeling -- to determine the likely success of their offerings. Instead, companies relied on the brilliance of tastemakers to predict and shape what people would buy. Creative judgment and expertise will always play a vital role in the creation, shaping and marketing of cultural products. But the balance between art and science is shifting. Today companies have unprecedented access to data and sophisticated technology that allows even the best-known experts to weigh factors and consider evidence that was unobtainable just a few years ago. And with increased cost and risk associated with the creation of cultural products, it has never been more important to get these decisions right. In this article, the authors describe the results of a study of prediction and recommendation efforts for a variety of cultural products. They discuss different approaches used to make predictions, the contexts in which these predictions are applied and the barriers to more extensive use, including the problem of decision making pre-creation. They then discuss two aspects of the prediction market. First, the need for better prediction for distributors of cultural products, and second, the potential for business models around prediction techniques.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. When picking assessment tools to inform better decisions about future paths, executives are faced with a wide variety of options--some of which are well established, while others are in early stages of development. The authors provide an insider's guide to prediction and recommendation techniques and technologies. They cover prediction tools including attributized Bayesian analysis, biological responses analysis, cluster analysis, collaborative filtering, content-based filtering/decision trees, neural network analysis, prediction (or opinion) markets, regression analysis, social network-based recommendations and textual analytics. With each potential tool, they briefly describe the technique, who uses it and for what purpose, its strengths and weaknesses, and its future prospects as a prediction tool. Finally, the authors offer up an indication of the best time in the decision process to begin using the tool.

Microsoft's Office team was developing the marketing communication plan for its new product, Office 2007. Office was a very mature product and several versions of the product had been introduced over more than 20 years. As such, the new version had to overcome the consumer perception that the versions of Microsoft Office that they already have are "good enough" for them. The Office 2007 marketing team has come up with a two-step campaign strategy that sought to first create awareness and intrigue using traditional media, followed by the heavy use of digital media to get consumer to experience the product through different types of "digital experiences." The team needs to decide how much of its advertising spending it should shift from traditional media to digital media, how to design the most effective digital experiences and how to measure the effectiveness of digital experiences. The case is set at a time when digital media were emerging as a promising way to engage consumers more deeply with brands and products, but marketers were uncertain about the relative effectiveness of different digital marketing tactics and the optimal mix of traditional versus digital marketing channels for different product, market and campaign contexts.

Having started Enjoy Life Foods with a classmate at the Kellogg School in the business plan writing class, Scott Mandell had grown from a business plan , Mandell was ready for the next step, a move onto the national stage with Whole Foods. He estimated product promotion would cost several thousand dollars more than revenues in the first year. If sales fell short of his plan, his losses would soar. If sales forecasts were met, the company would achieve profitability in the time period Mandell promised to investors. In the meeting with Whole Foods representative, Mandell spoke about the uniqueness of the hypoallergenic snacks and presented the company's ability to grow sales. When he finished his sales pitch, the Whole Foods representative told him he liked the product, but had no room for it on the shelves. Mandell was put on the spot and needed to think quickly. He might not get another chance to convince the Whole Foods representative to make room for Enjoy Life Foods. He had just seconds to think of a response before the representative walked out the door for another meeting. What could Mandell say to make the representative see the value in taking a chance on Enjoy Life Foods? What creative solutions to the "shelf space" dilemma could he offer?

Having started Enjoy Life Foods with a classmate at the Kellogg School in the business plan writing class, Scott Mandell had grown from a business plan , Mandell was ready for the next step, a move onto the national stage with Whole Foods. He estimated product promotion would cost several thousand dollars more than revenues in the first year. If sales fell short of his plan, his losses would soar. If sales forecasts were met, the company would achieve profitability in the time period Mandell promised to investors. In the meeting with Whole Foods representative, Mandell spoke about the uniqueness of the hypoallergenic snacks and presented the company's ability to grow sales. When he finished his sales pitch, the Whole Foods representative told him he liked the product, but had no room for it on the shelves. Mandell was put on the spot and needed to think quickly. He might not get another chance to convince the Whole Foods representative to make room for Enjoy Life Foods. He had just seconds to think of a response before the representative walked out the door for another meeting. What could Mandell say to make the representative see the value in taking a chance on Enjoy Life Foods? What creative solutions to the "shelf space" dilemma could he offer?

Andreas Stihl AG is the world's leading manufacturer of chain saws and other outdoor handheld power equipment. Based on marketing challenges in its high-volume retail channel-mass merchants such as The Home Depot and Lowe's-Stihl's U.S. unit has narrowed its distribution system to a single channel: independent retail dealers specializing in yard maintenance equipment. This risky and highly publicized decision has proved extremely successful, raising profits, attracting more dealers into exclusive relationships with Stihl, and strengthening the brand's top-quality positioning. But Stihl management are concerned that this channel system may not fit tomorrow's demographics, dominated by homeowners from the so-called Generation X and Generation Y. The case outlines Stihl's business and channel systems and customer needs, then poses a series of questions that management believes must be answered to determine whether to maintain or move away from reliance on its specialty retailers and how to adapt its system.

In April 2007, the New York City Metropolitan Opera's general manager Peter Gelb looks back on the first season of a daring experiment to broadcast performances live in high-definition to movie theaters across North America. While the "Live in HD" program has received mostly positive reviews, there are lingering concerns. Do the benefits of the simulcasts continue to outweigh the possible drawbacks and the significant operational and financial resources?

In April 2007, the New York City Metropolitan Opera's general manager Peter Gelb looks back on the first season of a daring experiment to broadcast performances live in high-definition to movie theaters across North America. While the "Live in HD" program has received mostly positive reviews, there are lingering concerns. Do the benefits of the simulcasts continue to outweigh the possible drawbacks and the significant operational and financial resources?

The case presents a description of the JV between GE Money and Hyundai Card/Hyundai Capital from its inception through 2006 when the venture's success in Korea led to thoughts of international expansion, raising the question of how the entity should be branded. Initially, GE had agreed to forgo the use of its name in the branding of the card given as brand recognition in Korea was low, while Hyundai enjoyed strong awarenesss and positive associations among Korean consumers. Data from market research bearing on the situation in 2006 are provided to facilitate the decision making.

In 20 years, Sunny Verghese had built Singapore-based Olam International from a small Nigerian export company into a $5 billion global leader in agricultural commodities with a core competence in Africa. Olam's growth had come by pursuing product and geographic adjacencies and its 'farm gate to factory gate' approach had been extended to 14 agricultural products, including cashews, sesame, cocoa, and coffee. In mid-October 2008, Olam's stock price declined to $1 a share from a high of $3.71 in early 2007 as part of the global economic crisis. Verghese had to decide whether to change the firm's strategy based on the new economic environment.

In 13 years, Bruce Taylor had built Taylor Fresh Foods into a $1 billion company and the top supplier of salads to the U.S. food service industry and to supermarket deli departments. In 2008, he was convinced that the time was right to make a big push in the fresh food area to satisfy consumers that were demanding more convenient, natural, good-tasting, and locally-grown foods. Bruce needed an action plan to make Taylor Fresh the industry leader before his competition woke up to the opportunity that lay before them all.