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The CEO of Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc. needed to give sales and profits a serious boost; despite the company's excellent brand equity, it was losing market share and struggling to make a profit. The company's product was on store shelves in all U.S. states, but efforts to enter foreign markets had only been haphazard with non-U.S. sales accounting for just three per cent of total sales. The CEO needed to focus serious attention on entering the world's second largest ice cream market, Japan. An objective of Ben & Jerry's was to use the excess manufacturing capacity it had in the U.S., and it found that exporting ice cream from Vermont to Japan was feasible from a logistics and cost perspective. The company identified two leading partnering options. One was to give a Japanese convenience store chain exclusive rights to the product for a limited time. The other was to give long-term rights for all sales of the product in Japan to a Japanese-American who would build the brand. For the company to enter Japan in time for the upcoming summer season, it would have to be through one of these two partnering arrangements.

In late 1996, Manuel Diaz, head of Worldwide Sales for Hewlett-Packard's (HP) Computer Systems Organization (CSO), is reviewing the results of an audit of HP's enterprise customer management approach with the objective of identifying market and organizational opportunities that might provide HP the next wave of growth while further reducing sales and support costs. HP's current customer management approach, although successful, had involved structural changes that had forced a deep-rooted overhaul of HP's traditional regional sales approach. The new recommendations would necessitate another round of drastic changes in the way HP manages relationships with its large enterprise customers. Diaz does not want to put the sales organization through another round of changes unless he is sure they are necessary. He has to figure out if the organization is ready for more change, and whether the benefits outweigh the costs of implementation. The case provides a detailed review of the audit process and the findings.

The vice-president of an American logistics services provider considers establishing this service in Mexico where the logistics market is controlled by the banks and is very underdeveloped. He must decide whether to establish a greenfield operation or enter a joint venture. Issues of target segments and positioning also needed resolution.

In 1995 McDonald's was the largest restaurant chain in the United States with domestic sales of almost $15.9 billion. McDonald's was also the country's fourth-largest advertiser, spending $490 million on measured media in 1995. On May 9, 1996, the company introduced the Arch Deluxe, a quarter-pound hamburger that was the first in a planned series of sandwiches targested to adults. By the end of May, McDonald's had sold or given away 100 million Arch Deluxe burgers. Despite this success, in the second quarter of 1996 some store sales at McDonald's restaurants declined slightly from the same quarter in the previous year. Thus McDonald's faced several key decisions. Should the Arch Deluxe burger be modified? What changes, if any, shoud be made in the marketing campaign? Should McDonald's proceed with plans to introduce fish and chicken line extensions?

Price wars are a fact of life, whether we're talking about the fast-paced world of knowledge products, the marketing of Internet appliances, or the staid, traditional sales of aluminum castings. If you're a manager and you're not in battle currently, you probably will be soon, so it's never too early to prepare. The authors describe the causes and characteristics of price wars and explain how companies can fight them, flee them--or even start them. The authors say the best defense in a pricing battle isn't to simply match price cut for price cut; they emphasize other options for protecting market share. For instance, companies can compete on quality instead of price; they can alert customers to the risks and negative consequences of choosing a low-priced option. Companies can reveal their strategic intentions and capabilities; just the threat of a major price action might hold rivals' pricing moves in check. And, finally, companies can seek support from interested third parties--governments, customers, and vendors, for instance--to help avert a price war. If a company chooses to compete on price, the authors suggest using complex pricing actions, cutting prices in certain channels, or introducing new products or flanking brands--each of which lets companies selectively target only those segments of the market that are under competitive threat. A simple tit-for-tat price move should be the last resort--and managers should act swiftly and decisively so competitors will know that any revenue gains will be short-lived.

There is much euphoria about the possibilities offered by e-commerce. Consumers envision lower prices and easy shopping; investors imagine cashing in on Internet IPOs; and start-ups want their business model to be the one that transforms an industry. But beneath all the excitement lies a sobering reality: the Internet represents the biggest threat thus far to a company's ability to brand its products, extract price premiums from buyers, and generate high profit margins. Indrajit Sinha explains that this threat comes from what economists call cost transparency, a situation made possible by the abundance of free, easily obtained information on the Internet. Pricing information is the most prevalent, but consumers can also find a wealth of material about product quality, supplier reliability, service offerings, and much more. All that information makes sellers' costs more transparent to buyers. It lets them see through manufacturing costs and determine whether those costs are in line with the prices being charged. That will make it much harder for companies, whether they are on-line or not, to impose large price premiums. What can companies do to fight back? Sinha suggests several options. One is to implement creative pricing strategies that go beyond traditional price cutting. Another is bundling--packaging a product with other goods and services in order to obscure the product's costs. But the best way of countering cost transparency is through innovation, Sinha says. Consumers will always reward makers of new and distinctive products that improve their lives.

Data show that the top-selling drugs today are not the products of breakthrough science. That's why drug companies need to learn the lessons of marketing that consumer-goods manufacturers know so well.

A new statistical technique, called Bayesian shrinkage, can help manufacturers better analyze retail sales data and target marketing programs.

Merrill Lynch, a full-service brokerage firm with $1.5 trillion in client assets, is under attack from both discount and electronic brokerage firms. It responds with Integrated Choice, a suite of products designed to capture clients from the do-it-yourself investor who doesn't want to use a broker to clients who want to rely completely on a broker. The strategy is high risk and requires a sea change from the company.

Citibank Argentina faces a number of questions on how to develop its future strategy in its credit card business. Citibank is the most successful foreign bank in Argentina and is number one in the country's credit card business. To defend its position as leader, Citibank has to maintain its role as driver of the business, since aggressive competition from American Express and others can be expected. However, intensifying competition involves increasing pressure on margins, and the need to tap new (and less secure) market segments to achieve the growth target.

The vice president of marketing at Creemore Springs Brewery needs to develop a marketing plan to absorb the doubling of brewing capacity without hurting the brand. According to him, the Creemore brand has been successful and has had such committed and loyal consumers because it was known only to a select few. Its reputation had grown mainly through word of mouth. However, with the brewing capacity increase in progress, Creemore would need to double sales. Would this hurt the brand?

Priceline.com is a new concept shifting the setting of price from sellers to buyers. The company aspires to use its patented process of advertising units of demand at named prices to suppliers in many categories. This case focuses on its initial use in the airline industry.

Chairman and CEO M. Douglas Ivester stumbles when he tells a Brazilian newsmagazine about a new Coke vending machine that can automatically raise prices in hot weather. Reaction around the world is swift and negative.

This series of 14 exercises is intended to provide practice in the typical arithmetic challenges faced by marketers. Each exercise focuses on different calculations, including margin calculations, contribution analysis, profit analysis, price calculations and break-even calculations.

Founded in 1953, Stewart Shoes had grown to six outlets by 1990 with headquarters in Nova Scotia. Management is debating the value of money being spent on advertising and promotions. The controller feels that they should stop advertising and the marketing manager believes they should increase advertising by 50 per cent. The president suggests testing the effects of advertising, in-store promotion, and direct mail on sales.

In this first case of a three-case series, Procter & Gamble's strategy for a new shampoo product is outlined. The product is successfully developed and introduced to the Taiwan market. In the series' two subsequent cases, planning for the introduction of this product in Canada (9A99A039) and in the Philippines (9B00A010) is examined.

Procter & Gamble's Canadian brand management team must decide what changes, if any, should be made to the successful Taiwan launch strategy of a new shampoo to meet market requirements in Canada. This is the second of a three-case series. The first case, The Global Introduction of the New Pantene Shampoo: Success in Taiwan (9A99A038) must be used before this case.

This is an abridged version of Compaq Computer Corporation 1995, case 9A95A011. The case describes the evaluation of Compaq's marketing strategy in the personal computer industry from its founding in 1982 up to 1995. The market environment and the strategies of key competitors and Intel are discussed. Compaq management must decide how to respond to the changing market and competitive environment.

Pepcid management must decide whether to risk all in a race to be first in the over-the-counter market with a new heartburn remedy.