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A new product, contact lenses for chickens, is to be introduced by a small firm formed to market the product. An entry strategy must be planned including price, sales force, size, and location. Allows data for computation of economic benefit to farmers. Includes state-by-state chicken population data for planning a rollout sales program. Software for this case is available (9-588-539).

Southwest Airlines, a small intrastate carrier serving Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, begins service in 1971 in the face of competition by two larger, entrenched airlines. Improved quality service, lower prices, and innovative advertising and promotional strategy bring Southwest to the brink of profitability in early 1973, when its major competitor halves fares on Southwest's major route. Management wonders what response to make. Exhibits include cost and revenue data. Southwest Airlines (C), which may be used as an alternative to the (A) case, focuses on advertising and promotional strategy through June 1971.

Describes Southwest's response to a competitive fare cut and the results, bringing the action up to late March 1973, when management must make additional decisions on marketing strategy with both short- and long-range implications. Southwest Airlines (C) should not be used with this case.

At the conclusion of a small-scale pilot survey, management must decide whether to invest in a larger survey or terminate the project. The objective of the study is to use psychographic measurement techniques to study the alternative positions of cranberry sauce. Illustrates the methods and abilities of multivariate statistical procedures in survey data analysis and product positioning studies. A major question is whether the findings of the pilot work justify further expense and analysis. No special competence in statistics is required for discussion of the case.

A consumer attitude survey involving more than 1,000 cranberry users has been conducted. Multivariate statistical procedures including factor analysis, cluster analysis and multiple discriminant analysis have been employed to suggest four attitude segments in the marketplace. The research team has suggested changes in product and advertising strategy. What should management do next? Provides an example of psychographic research procedures applied to a commodity grocery product. No special statistical competence is assumed on the part of the student.

Effective sales management achieves a balance among four key areas: defining the role of personal selling, deploying the sales force, managing the accounts, and understanding the selling costs. Because sales depend on the customer, management's overall concern should be managing the customer, not the sales force.

Although internationally recognized for quality design, the collaborative's billings have been on a plateau for four years and they are losing jobs to architects with sophisticated marketing practices. The main issue is how marketing can be integrated into a design partnership believing that formalized strategy and promotion interfere with creativity. Other issues include the problems of marketing a professional service, whether efficiency and quality can coexist, how architects are selected, and defining an architect's product.

A basic note to be used at the beginning of the introductory marketing course to familiarize students with the arithmetic techniques, concepts, and terms that are typically employed in the analysis of a first year marketing case.

Gillette is trying to decide whether to enter the fast-growing blank recording cassette business. The vice president of new business development is charged with developing a marketing plan to be used as the basis for a go/no go decision. In part, the issue is whether Gillette can transfer its distinct competence to a new but related market. The problem is compounded by the rapid changes characteristic of a market early in its life cycle.

Involves multinational pricing policy. Should a multinational industrial products supplier, with plants on several continents, grant a single worldwide price on given products to multinational customers who purchase on several continents? If so, what should the worldwide price policy be and how should the policy be administered? What organizational issues would a shift from decentralized pricing to internationally centralized pricing involve?

Reviews new product introduction and pricing decisions for a riding toy designed for preschool children. Designed to provide background in buyer behavior, market analysis, and corporate strategy.

Describes the decision of a battery manufacturer to diversify into the computer field through acquisition and the development of a new product. Among the issues to be discussed are the company product fit, phases in new product introduction, product positioning, and distribution strategy.

Introduces the "Norton Plan" designed to halt Norton's declining share of the grinding wheel market.

The prevailing view of multinational companies (MNCs) is that marketing strategy is a local problem which differs from country to country. There are, however, potential benefits in standardizing multinational marketing strategy. Significant cost savings, consistency in dealing with customers, improved planning and control, and the exploitation of good ideas represent potential gains with an integrated approach to marketing strategy. In view of the trend toward at least partial centralization of marketing management, the right balance between local autonomy and central coordination is essential if marketing strategy is to encompass a multinational perspective.

The product life cycle measures the likelihood, character, and timing of competitive and market events. A product strategy that includes some sort of plan for a timed sequence of conditional moves provides an offensive rather than a reactive move. Most successful products pass through certain recognizable stages. Awareness of these stages affects decisions on marketing factors such as pricing, product identity, and sales and distribution networks. New uses and new customers extend the product life cycle. Planning in the early stages for product life extension helps to guide the direction of ongoing technical research in support of the product.

Sales management training and development programs often fail to give a clear concept of what managing really is. Consequently, sales managers concentrate on the non-managing elements of their positions, rather than managing activities. The sales managers' effectiveness in getting results through sales personnel is essential to the marketing effort and significantly affects a company's profit and loss.

While demographic segmentation is a traditional way of analyzing markets, it is only one of many analytic methods. Segmentation analysis allows marketing executives to consider buyer attitudes, motivations, values, patterns of usage, aesthetic preferences, and degree of susceptibility. A discussion of ten markets for consumer and industrial products shows the effect of different modes of nondemographic segmentation and illustrates how segmentation analysis enlarges the scope and depth of a marketer's thinking to include the position of both new and established products. Segmentation analysis provides a significant analysis of the immense diversity of the market and offers an approach for evolving true marketing objectives.

An analysis of the art and science of selling reveals the importance of certain personality traits, effective training, and close supervision. A good sales personality has good persuasion techniques, energy, self-confidence, desire for money, a habit of industry, and a state of mind which regards rejection as a challenge. Minimum effective training for creative sales work must cover: orientation; the product or service; procedures for booking orders, making necessary reports, etc.; time management; and sales techniques. An aggressive, imaginative, even ruthless, sales manager is necessary to provide the kind of strong and dynamic leadership found at the top of productive sales organizations.