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Describes concept testing products. Presents guidelines for effective design, execution, and interpretation of test procedures. Discusses limitations of these techniques and sets out the situations for which they are appropriate.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 590063.

Two businesses that deal in the same goods and services, in the same territory and with the same clientele, cannot coexist equally. Therefore, market share is a meaningless number unless a competitor defines the market in terms of the differences that separate it from its rivals. The essence of the contest lies in extending the boundary of one's advantage and preventing customers from doing the same. Because market equilibrium can be upset at any time, strategy comes into play. Strategy involves the search for a plan of action that will create and compound competitive advantage--in desperately short time periods.

Big retailers like supermarket chains often demand extra service from their suppliers, who are all too eager to forgive a late payment or meet "emergency" shipment demands with no compensation. Most suppliers don't know how much these add-ons are costing them. Suppliers can take charge by tracking individual customer performance and by putting together multidisciplinary teams to manage strategic groups of customers. With internal changes in place, suppliers can then formulate a flexible, service-based pricing system that establishes appropriate incentives without alienating customers.

The driving force of modern marketing is the marketing concept--business succeeds by giving customers what they want. The social discontents and ethical issues associated with marketing arise from functional limitations on implementing the marketing concept, not from greed or deception. Developing a marketing program involves identifying three groups of consumers: 1) the market segment, 2) the program target, and 3) the program audience. To determine the effects of the marketing concept requires identifying the social payoffs and problems.

Written for a module in the Marketing Implementation course (a second-year elective in the MBA program). Provides a brief introduction to common issues involved in recruiting, training, compensating, and evaluating field salespeople. Also offers questions to consider concerning these topics in case analysis.

Written for a module in the Marketing Implementation course (second-year MBA elective). Offers a framework for considering relevant factors that affect sales force deployment and criteria for measuring sales effectiveness and the conduct of field marketing efforts.

Written as an introduction to a module concerning channel management for the second-year MBA elective in Marketing Implementation. Discusses: 1) reasons for the growth of multichannel systems in marketing efforts, 2) key components and choices in channel management, 3) major factors that affect producer-reseller relations, and 4) a framework for analyzing common trade-offs between control and resources in most distribution systems.

Written as an introduction to a module in the second-year MBA course, Marketing Implementation. Discusses issues encountered in the selling and management of major accounts. The topics covered include: 1) reasons for the increasing importance of major account management in sales management and marketing strategy, 2) a framework for account selection, 3) a review of concepts useful in analyzing buying behavior in major-account sales situations, 4) an overview of stages in the development of buyer-seller relationships, and 5) key issues in sales coordination.

Explains the concept of a family of performance curves. The most well known is the price/performance curve relating the prices of items in a product line to their performance. Also discusses the cost/performance curve and its impact on product positioning, product line length, and technological options. Also introduces a reservation price or value/performance curve. All are considered in the context of competitive behavior.

Describes the role of state lotteries, lottery marketing, and the operation of the Massachusetts State Lottery, including reference to Massachusetts lottery advertising. Highlights the success of state lotteries while also noting growing criticism, particularly of their advertising. Teaching objectives: To consider 1) truth in advertising, 2) the ethics of marketing gambling, and 3) the marketing/public policy interface.

Senior management's expectations before launching a particular product program directly affects whether they see the product as performing well or poorly. Optimism and enthusiasm are essential for making any project work, but being realistic is important too. Therefore, program and brand managers should not overpromise their marketing plans to senior management. For their part, senior managers should ask marketing subordinates to make confidence levels explicit. To ensure this, management can link bonuses to the accuracy of marketing forecasts.

In 1982, the West German company Henkel relaunched Pattex, an internationally accepted but stagnating contact adhesive. The relaunch was successful and Henkel attempted to duplicate it with Pritt, its glue stick. The strategy failed. The experience illustrates two pitfalls of global marketing: insufficient use of research and poor follow-up. Other pitfalls include overstandardization, narrow vision, and inflexibility in implementation. A committee of managers from headquarters and subsidiaries should oversee the global marketing process.

A company acquires the rights to a mineral with potential uses in the ceramic and paint industries. After many years, sales are still far below expectations and the company considers selling the whole operation to a potential customer. Rewritten version of an earlier case.

Provides additional quantitative exhibits, including a pro forma income statement and break-even calculations for the operation and makes assumptions about marketing strategy. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Avon engineers developed a new type of electric adjustable speed drive. Executives began to make long-range plans for production and marketing. Members of the sales department wondered what pricing recommendations they should make to management on the basis of estimates of market size at different price levels and Avon's market share. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Involves price negotiation and reciprocity. A rewritten version of a case by W.B. England and J. Landendorf.

Examines the decision by Pharma International on whether to launch an antimalarial product in Nigeria and, if so, how that should be implemented. Involves commercial, ethical, and policy considerations. Rich in situation assessment data, the case refers to criticism of pharmaceutical marketing practices in the Third World and CIBA-GEIGY's Servipharm initiative, one response to this problem.

Identifies the elements of marketing strategy and introduces frameworks for strategic marketing decisions. The frameworks deal with market definition and selection, positioning and differentiation, and market entry/exit decisions. Other topics discussed include selecting and articulating the marketing vision and values, anticipating and responding to competitors' marketing strategies, and determining the appropriate degrees of flexibility and focus in marketing strategy formulation.

An introductory note for MBA students on the nature of marketing and topics encountered in its study. Defines the topic then breaks marketing into two major conceptual pieces--the tools, tasks and variables of the marketer, and the marketing process. In the tools piece, promotion (advertising and selling primarily), pricing, distribution, and product policy are considered. In the processes one, situation analysis, strategy formulation, planning, organizing, budgeting, marketing implementation, and marketing performance analysis are introduced. The intent is to give the beginning MBA student an overview of both the discipline and the major topics involved in its study. The organization proposed captures in large measure the design of the First Year Marketing course at the Harvard Business School as well as the organization of the book Marketing Management by the authors of this note.