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The founder/owner of Sunripe Marketplace (Sunripe) is thinking about the stores' product offerings. He has two fresh produce-focused stores and a unique set of distribution and store-level systems that differentiate Sunripe from other supermarkets. Being a small retailer allows the owner to only choose the best and freshest products for his two stores. His stores have several private labels that customers like. Sunripe's owner must now consider how to improve the marketing of these private labels.

The manager of business development for Carvel Asia Limited is trying to determine how best to increase ice cream cake sales in Beijing. In doing so, he needs to develop a complete marketing program which includes decisions about product offerings, pricing, placement (distribution) and promotion - the 4 Ps. Carvel Asia was a 50-50 joint venture between Carvel (USA) and China's Ministry of Agriculture.

Interbrew had developed into the world's fourth largest brewer by acquiring and managing a large portfolio of national and regional beer brands in markets around the world. Recently, senior management had decided to develop one of their premium beers, Stella Artois, as a global brand. The early stages of Interbrew's global branding strategy and tactics are examined, enabling students to consider these concepts in the context of a fragmented but consolidating industry. It is suitable for use in courses in consumer marketing, international marketing and international business.

Supplements the (A) case.

In 1996, CEO Fernando Garcia Checa wanted to make customer analytics a part of Bancaja's new strategy. Bancaja, a savings bank based in Valencia, Spain, was expanding and wanted to exploit customer information to increase commercial effectiveness. At the same time, it was pushing for innovation in the nascent Spanish credit card market. To avoid the considerable investments of time and money that a large-scale customer relationship management (CRM) project would require, the bank decided to explore its benefits with a smaller pilot project. It appointed a CRM project team to design and implement a project focused on credit cards. Describes the challenges of the Spanish credit card market at the time, the methods for profiling credit card customers, and the variables involved in designing an optimal credit card. Concludes with a consideration of the decisions the CRM team had to make in designing the project, including whether to use conjoint analysis or implement a mini campaign.

In Hong Kong in 2001, a leading eye drop brand's position was threatened. Although it was a top selling brand (from here on referred to as EDB), overall eye drop usage was declining and the entire category was shrinking. Furthermore, customers showed no particular brand preference and price alone determined sales. To better understand the situation, the company surveyed EDB's target customers and discovered that its brand image was outdated and that its core users had aged with the brand. Thus, in order to sustain a long-term customer base, EDB needed to realign with its target audience and reposition the brand. The company hired Beyond Interactive to help them face these challenges. The Beyond team came up with a one-to-one interactive online campaign, EDB and Friends, aimed at achieving three objectives: reposition the brand towards a younger audience, rejuvenate the brand image, and establish brand preference. With its games, its likable virtual personality, and relevant content, EDB and Friends helped the company achieve its objectives and the award-winning campaign was a commercial success. Introduces and illustrates the following concepts: one-to-one marketing, brand revitalization, and repositioning. Provides a best-practice example of a creative online marketing campaign.

The president of a national placement agency is preparing to make a final pitch to sign Greyhound Canada as a client. Greyhound wants to reposition its brand as a mainstream travel option, particularly for suburban commuters, and needs cost-effective ways to get its message to consumers. The company views product placement as a viable tool for building brand awareness, but worries about losing control over its brand image. Even more serious are concerns about the absence of reliable metrics to assess the overall effectiveness of product placement. The case covers fundamentals of product placement, particularly with respect to strengths and weaknesses, and provides an excellent basis for discussing its value as part of an overall marketing communications strategy.

The owner of Tutti Matti, a new restaurant specializing in authentic Tuscan cuisine, opened only four months before the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Toronto, Canada. Tutti Matti had a successful first six months, and the early performance was encouraging. However, to continue the restaurant's success and to overcome the added challenges created by SARS, a strong and creative marketing plan was necessary.

Wal-Mart is at a crossroads. Its positioning as the world's largest, low-price retail leader is being undermined by higher operating costs and slower sales growth. The solution, according to President and CEO Lee Scott, is to get middle-class consumers who shop the store selectively for grocery and personal care items "to cross the aisle" for higher-margin fashion goods. But Wal-Mart's attempts at entering Cheap Chic-the fashion category dominated by competitors such as Target and H&M-have been undermined by strategic decision focused on operational efficiencies and a lack of understanding of branding nuances.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 507-005.

Schwab management is evaluating the success of the recently launched "Talk to Chuck" advertising campaign. This campaign aims to differentiate Schwab in the cluttered financial services marketplace. Test market results facilitate discussion of advertising objectives, message strategy, media selection, and performance measures.

Anduro Marketing is a Canadian company that sells technical services to companies wanting to improve their search engine website rankings. Though small, Anduro has attracted several major clients in both Canada and the United States, and expects steady profitability and growth. Anduro believes it can generate substantial additional profit by developing and selling a suite of software products that automate its technical service offerings. Anduro's managers must decide whether Anduro is better off staying with its current safe and profitable strategy or if Anduro should instead pursue a riskier but potentially more profitable software sales model. Several tough questions must be answered to determine whether the risk is worth the reward. The Anduro case provides an interesting description of an Internet technical/marketing services business and contrasts this with software sales.

A recent MBA graduate was about to return to the family business, Biomed Co., Ltd., as its general manager. Biomed's parent company, Thai Drugs Co., Ltd., has just revised Biomed's market strategy, a change that created the need to realign the sales compensation system to fit with the new strategy. The new general manager was charged with this responsibility. Follows the path from strategy to a powerful sales compensation plan that will support the strategy and encourage salespeople to execute their role within this strategy.

The LG brand was launched in the US in 2002 with the ambition to build it up as a premium brand. The case outlines LG's strategy in the washing machine category from 2002-2005, during which a series of successful launches has established LG as a strong player. The case presents extensive customer data and information on potential product features for a new washing machine and raises several questions: Which segment should LG serve? What features should the new machine contain? How should it be priced? How should it be marketed? The questions need to be addressed in light of LG's desire to be a premium brand. The case can be used with UG, MBA or executive audiences.

Dove is one of Unilever's better-known personal care brands. It has significant top-of-mind awareness among women in many countries. In an attempt to increase sales volume by 80 per cent, Unilever re-launched Dove in 2004. The campaign asks the question What is real beauty? and attempts to redefine it in ways that challenge commonly portrayed stereotypes. This case examines the re-launch of Dove, Unilever's well-known international personal care brand, and the marketing issues behind its phenomenal success. It also raises questions about how to maintain the brand's momentum as the next phase unfolds. In 2007, Dove products are still well thought of by consumers and the campaign has attracted imitators, including brands outside the cosmetics and beauty care sector.

Organizations that fail to recognize and act on their Strategic Market Position may be at risk. First, however, you must know what Strategic Market Position is and how to use it. This author, who has written the book on Strategic Market Position, describes what it is and how to use it.

The founders of Just Us! Coffee Cooperative (Just Us!) are involved in a strategic planning process. The growing demand and acceptance of fair trade products is good news for the industry and opens many opportunities for Just Us!, but there are also risks. Just Us! will likely face increased market competition from major U.S. retail coffee brands and Canadian supermarket brands, pressure on margins as more brands crowd the shelves, and more competition for access to top quality sources of supply. Just Us! will have to make strategic choices and will have to develop a clear and focused marketing plan.

Infosys is a highly respected, India-based information technology (IT) software service provider, established in July 1981. The ramp-up of the company has been particularly spectacular during the last several years, starting from 1995. The initial business model related to labor arbitrage and was based upon differential wage rates for IT professionals in India and the developed countries. The boom of the late 1990s, catalyzed by the Y2K-related problems, resulted in opportunities that the company capitalized upon. Today the company serves clients drawn from global 2000 companies. Based upon its strong ethical and principled approach, execution excellence, relentless quest for quality and customer satisfaction, the company had astounding financial success and became a darling of the stock markets both in India and the United States. Notwithstanding its successful track record, Infosys has over the last several years, proactively been applying itself to a fundamental question of identifying the drivers of success for the next 10 years. Infosys has been deeply concerned about leveraging its current strong position, to evolve into a much stronger company, so as to ensure continued growth and success in the long-term. The case presents the challenges that Infosys has been grappling with, and invites participants to come up with creative solutions, going forward.

This case describes the meteoric rise of Brita in the US market, following the acquisition of local rights by The Clorox Company in 1989, until a sudden decline in 1999. The case details the various failed strategies attempted by the brand between 1999 and 2006 and poses the question as to what Brita should do to turn its fortunes around. The case presents the results of a recent segmentation study, which holds the key to developing the turnaround strategy.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Contrary to the beliefs of many managers, their companies' products and corporate brands cannot truly be managed, much less owned. That much has become clear in recent years as many well known brands have seemed to take on lives of their own, changing in the minds of many even though management may think of them as immutable. In this article, the authors introduce the concept of a "brand manifold" in order to bring out two overlooked factors: first, that brands have multiple dimensions depending on who is valuing them, and second, that those dimensions change in space and time. Drawing on automotive industry examples such as Maybach, Morgan, and BMW's Mini, the authors demonstrate the importance of managing a brand's evolution so that the brand does not lose its roots in the past. They go on to highlight the importance of understanding that brands have a life and meaning independent of what their initiators intended--as embodied by the thriving user community around Apple Computer's long-obsolete Newton handheld and evident in the influence of Harley-Davidson owners over many of the company's strategic decisions.