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Products and services that claim to provide business insights based on brain research are proliferating, but some of these applications may be of limited value. This article educates managers on some underlying issues with translating neuroscience findings into information that's useful for business.

In December 2021, Forest Essentials opened its one hundredth store in India and a store in the United Kingdom; the Indian home-grown luxury Ayurveda brand had rapid expansion plans despite the obstacles it faced. Twenty-one years earlier, the company’s founder, liberal arts graduate Mira Kulkarni, converted the six-thousand-year-old science of Ayurveda into bottles and jars of luxurious skin-care and hair-care products, making Forest Essentials an aspirational luxury brand. Forest Essentials had grown to establish a robust presence in five categories—skin care, hair care, wellness, health, and makeup—while acquiring a large and loyal customer base in India. The company was meticulous about the quality of its ingredients and put great effort into sourcing high-quality ingredients from all over India; however, easy access to cheaper Ayurveda-based brands and the entry and availability of international wellness brands into the Indian market threatened Forest Essentials’ customer retention.<br><br>Kulkarni and her son, Samrath Bedi, needed to sustain the growth of Forest Essentials across digital and physical channels in India’s cluttered beauty and wellness market, with a price-sensitive customer base, while also growing the brand’s presence in cross-cultural markets overseas. Could they pursue growth in both marketspaces consistently? Should Kulkarni and Bedi focus on engaging with their existing and potential customers in India, or should they aim to establish their luxury brand in international markets?

In January 2022, the leaders of the Canadian charity organization International Needs Canada recognized that individual child sponsorship had serious flaws and was not as impactful as it once had been. They sought to move donors from individual child sponsorship to the more beneficial group sponsorship model. The director of communications and marketing had to determine which donor group to target as he launched the program. As the new model could disrupt the industry. The organization also had to consider the reaction of much larger competitors. Furthermore, International Needs Canada was not replacing its own individual child sponsorship model with group sponsorship; instead, both programs would run simultaneously.

In December 2021, Forest Essentials opened its one hundredth store in India and a store in the United Kingdom; the Indian home-grown luxury Ayurveda brand had rapid expansion plans despite the obstacles it faced. Twenty-one years earlier, the company's founder, liberal arts graduate Mira Kulkarni, converted the six-thousand-year-old science of Ayurveda into bottles and jars of luxurious skin-care and hair-care products, making Forest Essentials an aspirational luxury brand. Forest Essentials had grown to establish a robust presence in five categories-skin care, hair care, wellness, health, and makeup-while acquiring a large and loyal customer base in India. The company was meticulous about the quality of its ingredients and put great effort into sourcing high-quality ingredients from all over India; however, easy access to cheaper Ayurveda-based brands and the entry and availability of international wellness brands into the Indian market threatened Forest Essentials' customer retention.<br><br>Kulkarni and her son, Samrath Bedi, needed to sustain the growth of Forest Essentials across digital and physical channels in India's cluttered beauty and wellness market, with a price-sensitive customer base, while also growing the brand's presence in cross-cultural markets overseas. Could they pursue growth in both marketspaces consistently? Should Kulkarni and Bedi focus on engaging with their existing and potential customers in India, or should they aim to establish their luxury brand in international markets?

Daily Crunch was a sprouted-nut brand that launched in March 2020 during the beginning of a global pandemic. The co-founder and chief executive officer of Daily Crunch was responsible for determining the company’s marketing and business strategy in 2021. In this pivotal time for a new company, a multitude of avenues needed to be explored, such as deciding whether to focus on a digital or an in-person marketing strategy; examining new marketing opportunities in a new shopping environment; launching new products, flavours, or sizes; and deciding whether to focus primarily on direct-to-consumer sales through e-commerce. Daily Crunch had several key objectives—namely, increasing brand awareness and sales, and expanding distribution. However, its key objective was to survive as a start-up during a global pandemic.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W28617.

Daily Crunch was a sprouted-nut brand that launched in March 2020 during the beginning of a global pandemic. The co-founder and chief executive officer of Daily Crunch was responsible for determining the company's marketing and business strategy in 2021. In this pivotal time for a new company, a multitude of avenues needed to be explored, such as deciding whether to focus on a digital or an in-person marketing strategy; examining new marketing opportunities in a new shopping environment; launching new products, flavours, or sizes; and deciding whether to focus primarily on direct-to-consumer sales through e-commerce. Daily Crunch had several key objectives-namely, increasing brand awareness and sales, and expanding distribution. However, its key objective was to survive as a start-up during a global pandemic.

Spreadsheet Supplement for Case W28617

In January 2018, an account manager at a Canadian advertising agency was tasked with making a recommendation regarding a potential workplace safety marketing campaign in Manitoba, Canada, that aimed to lower the number of work-related injuries and deaths. The account manager had previously been involved with a 2016 advertising campaign that had used an innovative approach to expose the attitudes and opinions that young people had about workplace safety. Cleverly utilized hidden-camera footage of inexperienced young people eagerly agreeing to dangerous working practices caught the attention of the public and media, and ultimately helped raise awareness and reduce workplace injuries in Manitoba. The account manager felt strongly that more needed to be done to improve workplace safety, but he needed to analyze the 2016 results to determine whether a new marketing campaign was the best solution. He would be working with and ultimately pitching his recommendation to a multi-faceted team made up of members who each had a stake in improving workplace safety in Manitoba. With the team already formed and time of the essence, he knew he must analyze and address the potential opportunities of a behavioural marketing campaign in order to make a recommendation on a course of action that could potentially save young Manitobans’ lives.

In January 2018, an account manager at a Canadian advertising agency was tasked with making a recommendation regarding a potential workplace safety marketing campaign in Manitoba, Canada, that aimed to lower the number of work-related injuries and deaths. The account manager had previously been involved with a 2016 advertising campaign that had used an innovative approach to expose the attitudes and opinions that young people had about workplace safety. Cleverly utilized hidden-camera footage of inexperienced young people eagerly agreeing to dangerous working practices caught the attention of the public and media, and ultimately helped raise awareness and reduce workplace injuries in Manitoba. The account manager felt strongly that more needed to be done to improve workplace safety, but he needed to analyze the 2016 results to determine whether a new marketing campaign was the best solution. He would be working with and ultimately pitching his recommendation to a multi-faceted team made up of members who each had a stake in improving workplace safety in Manitoba. With the team already formed and time of the essence, he knew he must analyze and address the potential opportunities of a behavioural marketing campaign in order to make a recommendation on a course of action that could potentially save young Manitobans' lives.

In the fall of 2022, boot maker UGG and its parent company, Deckers, were working to position the brand in the nascent but fast growing metaverse. The metaverse, the online realm that individual users could navigate as digital avatars, was becoming more commercialized, as a range of brands started offering digital products for sale to users. Given the importance of how physical UGGs felt on wearers feet, how should the company think about its metaverse operations?

This note explores the emerging multi-billion dollars commerce trend of livestream commerce. Livestream commerce is the sale of goods or services directly to consumers via live shows on digital platforms (such as social media or e-commerce platforms). It is a form of social commerce in which consumers engage with real-time videos to complete transactions. Livestream commerce was especially popular in China, where gross merchandise value through this channel reached $316 billion USD. In the rest of the world, livestream commerce had mixed success, and has not gained traction in Europe and North America. The note explores the 3 top livestream commerce in China - Taobao Live, Douyin, and Kuaishou, to learn about the phenomenon and explore the success of livestream commerce in the future. In particular, the note allows for discussion of the following questions: How should a platform develop a sustainable business model in livestream commerce? What would it take for any of these platforms to come out on top of the competition? Are social media or e-commerce platforms better positioned to win in this market? Was the boom in China's livestream commerce replicable in other countries? Why hasn't livestream commerce gained traction in Europe and North America? Was it just a matter of time, or are there inherent factors that impede on the success of this shopping format?

The sports events agency Maïenga, owned by two French women, operates off-road motor rallies in the Sahara Desert of Morocco. Its flagship event, the annual Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles du Maroc, is the foundation on which Maïenga has, over 30 years, built a reputation for being a socially and environmentally responsible company operating in a fragile desert ecosystem. Maïenga's unique brand image centers around the Rallye Aïcha participants, who become known as Gazelles, "a tribe of modern women", willing to push themselves to the limit in a challenging physical environment. Students are asked to examine the intersection of key marketing decisions (segmentation, targeting, positioning, company reputation, brand management, and promotion) with considerations about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), corporate charitable operations, and the critical need for environmental protection and responsibility in the locations of Maïenga's rallies. National DEI policies and laws in the agency's home country, France, differ from those in the United States and the United Kingdom, which are large parts of Maïenga's target market for recruiting participants. A key issue is whether segmentation based on gender (women) is exclusionary or justified by Maïenga's celebrated Gazelle brand image and its operation as a French company. Students must determine how this positioning might affect the agency's corporate image and options for growth.

This exercise aims to teach students about 1) Targeting Policies; and 2) Algorithmic decision making, and 3) Retention management.

The Green Monday Group was co-founded in 2012 by Hong Kong entrepreneur David Yeung. Capitalizing on the developing global sustainability movement and the market opportunity from growth in flexitarianism, Yeung acquired a research and development company to innovate a plant-based pig meat product, OmniPork. Through product innovation, global distribution, and celebrity endorsement, Yeung was determined to bring OmniPork to global markets. He announced in 2020 that Green Monday Holdings had raised US$70 million of equity investment, the largest funding of its kind in Asia. In 2021, the question left was how those funds could be used to expand flexitarianism globally and capture new consumers of OmniPork.

Stemina Lubricants (Stemina) was an automotive lubricant manufacturer in Udupi, Karnataka, India. All Stemina products were a blend of high-class base oil and imported branded additives. Stemina competed with leading brands—one that was strong in the market and at mechanics’ locations, having leveraged its consumer brand equity and strong advertising support to win over mechanics and dealers, and another that had a strong presence in the forecourts of gas stations in India. Customers looking for oil changes at gas stations were likely to purchase these company brands rather than a local brand, and Stemina faced an uphill battle to establish itself in a market with such entrenched distribution. How could this small business, with few resources for branding and distribution, successfully establish itself in the market?

The owner of Physio2U, the largest provider of in-home physical rehabilitation services in Western Canada, was forced to rapidly transition to telehealth amid the growing threat of COVID-19 in early 2020. While the Physio2U team and its patients were pleasantly surprised by their success with telehealth, as vaccination rates increased and the threat of COVID-19 infection became less significant, she had some tough decisions to make. She wondered if telehealth was (a) just a temporary solution to survive the pandemic; or (b) an opportunity for her business going forward. Before she invested any more resources in telehealth, including marketing funds, the owner needed to make sure she had both a strong business case and a comprehensive strategy for offering telehealth post-pandemic.

Costco Wholesale Corporation (Costco), the world’s second-largest retailer, officially entered the Chinese market in Shanghai in August 2019. The opening day was so jam-packed with customers that the massive influx forced the company to close early, after only five hours of operations. However, after only one week, customers were lining up outside the store, asking Costco for refunds for their membership cards. The warehouse’s traffic declined significantly as well. What caused this situation? Did Costco make the right decision to enter the Chinese market? Does Costco’s membership system fit the Chinese market? What kinds of challenges will Costco face in the future?

In 2015, Modelo was tasked with growing sales from 50 million cases to 100 million cases within five years. Imported from Tacuba, Mexico, the brand had a solid and loyal following of Hispanic beer drinkers. To achieve more than double sales growth, however, the brand needed a broader target. The brand aimed to grow by targeting a more general market around the idea that the product was associated with a fighting spirit. In 2016 the brand ran two campaigns, one directed at the general market and one at the Hispanic market. The results were encouraging, but the brand felt it needed to dig deeper and find a more robust insight to achieve further growth.