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Jessica Pierce and Ashley Mound have developed an innovative product for an entrepreneurship class assignment to be presented to potential investors. They now need to determine 1) which target markets have the most potential, 2) which distribution channels to use and 3) a sales volume estimate. The purpose of the case is to teach students how to use secondary research resources from a typical library to research the nature of the market for a new product. This case is appropriate for introductory business, entrepreneurship, business planning, introductory marketing or marketing research courses. It may also be used as an assessment tool.

Chile's largest wine producer faces a price versus value positioning problem. Its highest quality wines are not priced competitively at retail because "Made in Chile" connotes great value and low price.

The Blue Bulls rugby team enjoyed a fanatical fan base and had been performing well in local and international competitions recently. As a leading South African rugby franchise, the Blue Bulls faced a social and political environment that emphasized racial transformation. An up-and-coming Afrikaans musician had become best-seller with his De La Rey song, which was about a Boer soldier who calls on General De La Rey to lead the Afrikaner people to victory in the second South Africa War between the Boer Republic and colonial Britain. Given the emotive theme of the song and the response by some to view it as a reassertion of Afrikaner nationalism, the song had attracted significant media coverage and controversy. As part of the entertainment at the Vodacom Super 14 rugby game between Western Force and the Vodacom Blue Bulls, De La Rey was played over the stadium loudspeakers. This delighted most of the mainly White Afrikaans spectators. As the evening progressed, the acting head of the Blue Bulls Company, the organization that managed the Blue Bulls rugby team and the Loftus Versveld stadium, received a number of complaints from supporters about the playing of the De La Rey song and thus decided to remove the song from the official stadium playlist. By Monday morning, a media frenzy had erupted about this decision and the acting head was faced with a number of options of how to respond. The case is written for a first-year MBA module and is designed to explore the following themes: 1) race, identity and language as consumer behaviour variables 2) spectator, supporter and consumer processes within sports marketing 3) sports brand development and sponsorship relationships.

The vice-president of marketing at Arts & Crafts was reflecting on the company's extremely successful year in the music business. New artists had been added to the company's roster, experiments with digital releases and marketing campaigns had been successful, and plenty of international licensing opportunities were emerging. In addition, one of the company's artists, Leslie Feist, had received multiple music awards. On the other hand, the music industry was facing some difficulties and most analysts predicted nothing but doom and gloom. The vice-president of marketing had to consider the future strategy of Arts & Crafts while considering the overall health of the industry.

CARE USA, a large ($600 million) international nonprofit/NGO, had recently revamped its external branding and positioning in support of its international development work. The case lays out the challenges facing its new CEO, Helene Gayle, as she manages through the organization's transition.

Consumers are now generating, rather than merely consuming advertising. The consequences for brands, marketers, and senior executives are significant. Advertising was traditionally generated by, or on behalf of, the firm and broadcast to relatively passive consumers. With the rise of digital media, the Internet, and inexpensive media software, considerable creative and distributive power has been handed to the consumer. Liberated from the exclusive control of the firm, ads now express a myriad of different voices. Some ads are subversive, others laudatory, but the fact remains that the firm is no longer in exclusive control of the message. Using a number of high profile cases, this article explores the motivations that drive consumers to create their own ads and develops a typology of the ads created. It develops a model for the various strategic stances that a firm can adopt in response to this phenomenon so that managers can anticipate and thus deal more effectively with some of the extreme consequences of liberated advertising.

This case describes the introduction of the Apple iPhone, including subsequent price reductions and market share goals. The case includes publicly available data on iPhone production costs, channel margins, and marketing costs. It concludes with the July 2008 introduction of the second generation 3G iPhone.

Ferran Adrià, chef at elBulli, the highest-ranked restaurant in the world for two consecutive years, faces two related decisions. First, Adrià and his team must continue to develop new and different dishes for the ground-breaking cuisine at elBulli to guarantee a continuous stream of innovation, the cornerstone of the restaurant's success. In addition, they are also faced with the challenge of growing the business, exploring whether the core concepts from elBulli - this "taste of innovation" - can be applied to domains ranging from consulting to fast food. The case walks readers through an evening at elBulli, by using the rave reviews of former patrons to capture the full experience, from the long trip required to get to the restaurant, to the tour, to descriptions of the meal itself.

The marketing director of a new minor-league baseball team must design, conduct, and then interpret survey research to determine optimal ticket pricing that will yield large attendance figures and contribute to the owner's goal of breaking even in the first year of play. The pricing assignment becomes more challenging when other variables like concessions revenue are considered. Students are asked to complete a quantitative assignment as part of case analysis, but they must grapple with less quantifiable factors as well.

On the return to their homeland of Croatia following a six-year visit to the United States, a couple has decided to open their own coffee house, one that is unique to the Croatian environment - a California-style coffee house that offers the quality, service, product assortment, ambiance and efficiency found in sophisticated coffee shops in developed markets, and all for a locally affordable price. The major challenge faced by the couple is how to grow. Specifically, should they consider franchising over organic growth? If so, how should they go about franchising in a country where the market is developing and where franchising is under-regulated, underdeveloped and misunderstood? This case can be used in entrepreneurship, retailing, international marketing or international business classes. The case provides a practical example of when and how to use franchising.

This case describes a 21-factor, 56-recipe multivariable test (MVT) conducted by Progressive Insurance with the help of QualPro, a leading MVT consulting firm. The object of the test was to improve Progressive's direct-mail retention campaign. The results of the test are available in a spreadsheet for students to analyze (UVA-S-M-0762.xls).

Spreadsheet supplement for case UV1223.

In July 2007 Joris Brinckerhoff, founder and owner of Costa Rica Entomological Supplies (CRES), must decide whether to accept an offer from RBA, a publications firm in Barcelona, Spain, to sell mounted butterflies or "deadstock" as part of RBA's "collectibles" program for schoolchildren. Joris had always avoided the deadstock business which he considered to be low margin and unstable. The business proposed by RBA would also require additional investment and increased overhead. Nevertheless, he thought that the RBA offer might be attractive to CRES and its many suppliers in rural areas throughout the country. Currently, the oversupply of butterfly pupae was adversely affecting not only his business, but also the livelihoods of dozens of breeders, many of whom had been low-income rural families, endangering the social gains that had been made over the past years.

In June 2001, Empresa Editora El Comercio (EEEC) had launched a new popular newspaper, Trome, for low-income families. Although several studies had preceded this launch, sales in following months failed to reach expected levels and actually displayed a decreasing trend. Trome embodied the company's effort to expand its news coverage to new population segments that were not served by its other newspaper, El Comercio, a market leader that had served as the foundation for the company itself. Six months after Trome's launch and faced with dropping sales, company managers had met to discuss their options. This case describes management team members' dilemmas at that meeting: "Should the new paper's style and contents be changed? Should Trome focus more on sex and violence-related issues, as its competitors did? Would it be convenient to replace the silverware promotion chosen to support launching? Was the channel conflict adequately managed? Were intended readers' needs truly and fully understood? Should the company re-launch Trome or would it be wiser to just give up on this project?

The emergence, proliferation, and ubiquity of the Internet have not only transformed businesses, but also altered the relationship between the business and the customer. Recent advances in technology have helped to migrate this relationship to an interactive level where technology contributes to brand building by creating and sustaining a long-term relationship with the customer. Media fragmentation and customer indifference to traditional marketing tools are forcing marketers to seek new opportunities so the marketing message not only captures customers' attention, but also tries to engage them with the company. This paper discusses blogs within the context of creating this new, more enduring relationship with the customer. Blogs are discussed within the framework of Web 2.0, the next generation of the Internet, which is comprised of user-generated content and social computing. The use of blogs by several companies as tools to better engage the customer in the creation, delivery, and dissemination of marketing messages is also demonstrated.

Describes the launch and initial results of the (PRODUCT) RED campaign, a social marketing initiative conceived of by U2's Bono and Bobby Shriver to combat AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. The company licensed the (RED) brand to partner companies, which initially included Gap, Apple, Motorola, Armani, and American Express. The business model was structured to benefit partner companies by increasing consumer purchases - of (RED)-branded products such as red iPods and phones - while also resulting in increased donations to the Global Fund.

Updates the (PRODUCT) RED (A) case through early 2008, including announcements of new partner relationships (with Hallmark, Microsoft, and Dell) as well as new communications initiatives.

Choosing duty over pleasure today can cause regret down the road-whereas regret over the reverse is fleeting. Marketers of luxury products and services should consider prompting customers to predict their future feelings about choices made now.

Research shows that people favor pleasurable "want" options if the consequences are immediate, and good-for-you "should" options if the consequences will occur in the future. That finding offers potentially profitable opportunities.

Tibal Fisher made a fortune selling trendy, inexpensive home furnishings to baby boomers. With that generation beginning to enter its sixties, he sees a huge opportunity in products for aging consumers. Focus groups and surveys confirm strong market demand for such items, and the media love the idea. So why is TF's NextStage, his new line of stores for older consumers, a disaster? Four experts comment on this fictional case study in R0807A and R0807Z. Donna J. Sturgess, global head of innovation for GlaxoSmithKline, thinks Tibal's research missed the subconscious associations in customers' minds-the deep metaphors that reveal people's true feelings about products. The solution: Find ways to generate positive emotional associations, as GSK has done with its weight-loss product. Alex Lee, president of household-products maker OXO International, says consumers are attracted by brands they associate with the type of people they'd like to be-not the type they are. TF's NextStage must avoid trying to get customers to "act their age" and using labels and positioning that call attention to their senior status. Yoshinori Fujikawa, a professor at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, says certain businesses-those led by executives with a talent for sensing what their customers want-can forgo deep research into customers' feelings, at least in the short term. But over the long term, firms need to have an organizational capability to create a systematic method for discovering what's going on in customers' minds. Lewis Carbone, CEO of market research firm Experience Engineering, points out that customers often are unable to articulate their deepest feelings. That's why companies need to go to the trouble to work with them one-on-one to find out what's driving them toward-or away from-a brand.