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A series of studies looked at how to market visually "atypical" produce--and found that honesty was the best policy.

Shake Shack was a fast, casual restaurant chain with a strong focus and great efforts on sustainability and corporate responsibility. Despite its stated environmental commitments, however, its core product offering-the hamburger-was extremely taxing on the environment. Between 2009 and 2021, various new alternative protein sources had emerged that were much more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Shake Shack's chief executive officer had to make some decisions. Should the company's products shift away from beef toward alternative protein sources? If so, which of these new products should Shake Shack consider and over what timeline?

Since its introduction, in 2003, the Net Promoter System, which measures how consistently brands turn customers into advocates, has become the predominant customer success framework. But as its popularity grew, NPS started to be gamed and misused in ways that hurt its credibility. Unaudited, self-reported Net Promoter Scores undermined the usefulness of NPS. Over time its creator, Fred Reichheld, realized that the only way to correct this problem was to introduce a hard, complementary metric that drew on accounting results. In this article he and two colleagues from Bain introduce that metric: the earned growth rate, which captures the revenue growth generated by returning customers and their referrals. To calculate their earned growth rates, firms must have systems that gather data on the costs and revenues for each customer over time and must ask all new customers why they came on board. If the reason is a referral or recommendation, a customer is "earned"; if it's advertising, a promotional deal, or a persuasive salesperson, the customer is "bought." Earned growth rates reveal the real-world impact of customer loyalty. Because they're auditable, they can help firms validate investments in customer service and convince investors of their businesses's underlying strength.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands such as Allbirds, Casper, Peloton, and Warby Parker have creatively found a weakness in the marketing citadel of incumbent brands. By using data gleaned from daily interactions with customers, these brands have been able to adapt how they serve their unique customer communities across a start-to-finish purchase journey. The best of them have parlayed that ability into a profitable business model applied across multiple channels and customer segments. But as successful DTC brands mature, they must recognize the need to evolve. The authors offer four principles for continued success: (1) Focus on deepening customer relationships, not just making comparisons with competitors. (2) Accompany the customer beyond the initial transaction. (3) Omnichannel is about value addition, not cost reduction. (4) Strengthen the core first; consider extensions later.

In 2021, Nick Woodman, founder and CEO of GoPro, was reviewing the company's subscription offering, considering whether to extend it beyond benefits that were directly related to the company's iconic camera. Founded in 2002, GoPro had gained renown for its innovative action camera. The brand became synonymous with living an active lifestyle and attracted a strong following on social media. GoPro was a Wall Street favorite when it went public in 2014 at $24 per share, rising to over $90 per share later that year. But just four years later the stock price had slid to $6 per share due to stagnating demand, inventory management issues, bloated expenses, and problems with new product launches. During the COVID-related retail slowdown in 2020, GoPro increased its direct-to-consumer footprint and aggressively marketed a new subscription. The stock price rebounded, in part due to investors placing a higher multiple on the predictable, recurring revenue generated by subscriptions. By 2021, however, subscription benefits were still largely tied to camera ownership. Woodman was considering whether GoPro could leverage its position as an active lifestyle brand to extend the subscription to benefits beyond the camera, similar to the way Amazon packed a host of benefits into Amazon Prime. Woodman saw enormous potential for GoPro's subscription and believed that, someday, it could even become the company's new flagship "product." But how much license did the brand have to grow beyond digital cameras and image capture? What pricing options could the company explore for a bigger, better subscription? In concert with these decisions, should GoPro look to shift even more of its business away from retailers to direct sales?

This exercise is designed to give students an opportunity to develop a communications plan and press statement for The Coca-Cola Company (Coke) as it attempts to navigate the 2021 Georgia voting law controversy. Specifically, it asks students to assume the role of chief marketing and communications officer (CMCO) at Coke and recommend a communications plan, including a press statement, to fulfill their role as CMCO while living up to the brand's purpose and values statements. This exercise helps students understand: (1) the challenge associated with making corporate communications decisions in a way that aligns with brand purpose and helps drive growth, and (2) the difficulty of navigating hot-button issues. This exercise can be used as a stand-alone activity or as the second part in a two-part series. If used as the second part of the series on aligning brand activism, brand purpose, and growth, the case "Coca-Cola Puts Its Brand Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Aligning Activism with Brand Purpose" (UVA-M-1019)[1] enables students to take different stakeholder perspectives and consider potential decisions. This exercise then provides an opportunity for students to activate the strategic decision made in the case as they are asked to develop an action plan and press statement for Coke. This exercise is well suited for undergraduate, MBA, MBA for executives (EMBA), and Executive Education programs. For undergraduate students, it can be taught in a brand management, capstone marketing strategy, management communications, or a management strategy course to help students learn how challenging it is to align and implement activism and brand purpose. For MBA/EMBA students, it can be used in a first-year core marketing course or in a leadership communication, strategy, or brand management elective.

This field-based case follows Andrew Yang, who went from an unknown to a major competitor in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential race. Yang's initial rise to fame was largely owed to a group of young people who called themselves the Yang Gang. They made memes, GIFs, and music videos, had lengthy discussions about Yang's campaign platform on Reddit, showed up at rallies, and served as small donors. This success, however, was a double-edged sword. While the Yang Gang brought the candidate name recognition, the marketing strategy that worked for this group of superfans did not work for the more conventional voter base. The case asks students to evaluate the role of digital in Yang's brand strategy and establish strategic priorities for maximizing his chances of securing the nomination. Students must consider the importance of different voter segments to Yang's campaign and consider how effectively each media channel (e.g., television, YouTube, email) speaks to each of the voter segments. This case has been successfully taught in a second-year MBA elective on digital marketing. It was used at the end of the module about integrating-and going beyond-digital channels to grow a brand. The material encourages exploration of managing digital and traditional marketing tools among stakeholders with different objectives. This case can also be used to teach students about market segmentation, brand essence (using brand pyramids as a tool), and the concept of "crossing the chasm." As such, it could also be used in a broader introductory marketing course.

The chief executive officer of the jewellery division at Titan Company Ltd. withdrew two successive advertising campaigns for jewellery brand Tanishq during its high selling festive season in 2020 due to intense social media trolling. These adverse social media reactions, shaped by religious beliefs and ideology, challenged the well-entrenched "progressive and bold" positioning of the brand. With multiple stakeholders and shifting societal ideologies, should the company continue promoting its progressive image and bold creative executions irrespective of the recent setbacks, continue with the current positioning with significantly toned-down executions, or reposition the brand and its creative execution completely?

The Surface Hub 2S, a video-based collaboration device, had been initially designed for the corporate market. In late 2020, Jon Worsley, senior director of hardware program management at Microsoft, and Frank Buchholz, senior product marketing manager for Surface devices, were exploring a new opportunity in the higher-education market. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Zoom had established itself as the go-to software platform for livestreaming and webinars for higher education. Worsley and Buchholz believed that the Surface Hub, with its large display and Microsoft Teams collaboration software, could offer a more powerful integrated solution for teaching and learning for universities and colleges.</p> <p>To pursue the higher-education market opportunity, Microsoft would need to pivot the positioning and messaging, as well as the design of the Surface Hub 2S. This pivot involved two sets of decisions: one in marketing communications and the other in product design. In the short term, Microsoft's marketing team, led by Buchholz, would need to redesign the value proposition, positioning, and messaging for the Surface Hub to appeal to educators. In the longer term, Worsley's engineering team would need to redesign the product features and the product architecture of the Surface Hub 2S to better address the needs of students and instructors. In entering the higher-education opportunity, Microsoft had to be careful not to create a product or deliver a message that would diminish its offering for the core corporate market.

The chief executive officer of the jewellery division at Titan Company Ltd. withdrew two successive advertising campaigns for jewellery brand Tanishq during its high selling festive season in 2020 due to intense social media trolling. These adverse social media reactions, shaped by religious beliefs and ideology, challenged the well-entrenched “progressive and bold” positioning of the brand. With multiple stakeholders and shifting societal ideologies, should the company continue promoting its progressive image and bold creative executions irrespective of the recent setbacks, continue with the current positioning with significantly toned-down executions, or reposition the brand and its creative execution completely?

Philips India is a leading player in the air-treatment products market in the country. Philips India’s launch of the New Urban Living Series air purifiers aligns with the company’s continued focus on enhancing people’s health by leveraging technology to promote healthy living and prevention. The case describes how, given the challenges in the residential consumer segment, Philips India intends to back its competitive strategy logic of entering the air purifier market and leverage its brand equity in healthcare to differentiate itself from its rivals and overcome the hurdles it is likely to encounter in a nascent but overcrowded market.

Philips India is a leading player in the air-treatment products market in the country. Philips India's launch of the New Urban Living Series air purifiers aligns with the company's continued focus on enhancing people's health by leveraging technology to promote healthy living and prevention. The case describes how, given the challenges in the residential consumer segment, Philips India intends to back its competitive strategy logic of entering the air purifier market and leverage its brand equity in healthcare to differentiate itself from its rivals and overcome the hurdles it is likely to encounter in a nascent but overcrowded market.

This field-based case uses the 66°North Company, an iconic Icelandic designer and manufacturer of premium outerwear, to unfold circumstances that allow for an analysis of the firm's value proposition, competitive position, and growth opportunities. The 66°North brand image was believed to be an important contributor to its success over the years. Outside Nordic countries, 66°North had grown since 2013, especially following its shift to develop direct-to-consumer channels, but still remained a small niche brand relative to several more widely recognized competitors. While in Iceland it was standard household gear, its market penetration in large global markets such as the United States remained low. This leaves the case open to exploring the uncertainty over the achievable and costly attempt to gain greater visibility in the US market. What was the brand positioning internationally? And what was the go-to market?

CUBO Modular Inc. (CUBO) was a start-up social enterprise in the Philippines that emerged shortly after its chief executive officer, Earl Forlales, received a substantial cash award for besting 1,200 entries in a competition. The concept behind Forlales’s competition entry was the use of engineered bamboo to produce modular houses. The materials, design, and fabrication resulted in cheaper houses that could be used for mass housing projects.<br><br>The public gained awareness of CUBO from the various articles posted online about the competition, which were also posted on CUBO’s Facebook page. By 2021, interest in the well-designed CUBO houses had swelled, and the quantity of queries overwhelmed the CUBO team, resulting in its failure to respond to hundreds of queries posed by potential customers.<br><br>What should Forlales do to keep interest in CUBO products at a high level while managing its production capacity to meet consumer demand?

In 2016, a Black woman entrepreneur in Ajax, Ontario, Canada, in the greater Toronto area founded a small but successful venture named Kids Swag in response to a gap she identified in the children’s products market, which was failing to represent the Black community. The founder started her business while working as a full-time marketing professional. Kids Swag sold globally sourced products that featured positive Black personas and imagery in pop-up stores, local community events, and online through her social media account. Within four years, she exceeded her initial goals and found herself struggling to keep pace with the growing demand for her products. Her clientele grew from the local community and Facebook groups to international customers, large companies, and institutional clients such as retail outlets and school boards. By the end of 2020, the founder was wondering if she should open a physical store to complement her online presence and if she should leave her full-time career to devote herself fully to running her business. With warehouse space becoming increasingly limited and demand for her products continuing to grow, could she invest the necessary time and resources to take Kids Swag to the next level?

The elections for India’s 294-seat West Bengal (Bengal) Legislative Assembly were due to be held sometime in April–May 2021. The All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), which had been in power in the state since 2011, faced a tough challenge from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had been in power in the Central Government of India since 2014. The TMC and its political rivals in Bengal faced unprecedented social and political divisions among voters in 2021. To add to the TMC’s problems, at least half a dozen TMC stalwarts and many more local leaders had shifted to the BJP in the previous three months. In the run-up to the election, politicians across party lines used emotive issues such as religion, gender, and language to woo undecided voters. The TMC needed to devise a marketing strategy to gain a sustainable competitive advantage. Winning the maximum possible number of votes was the only item on the agenda.

How did Shopee - a small e-commerce player launched in 2015 - overtake its historic rival Lazada in just a few years to average 281 million visits a month and become the most valuable company in South East Asia in 2021? CEO Forrest Li followed a bold two-sided digital marketing strategy that won over sellers (B2B) and users (B2C). What differentiated Shopee from Lazada was its intensive data-driven approach that powered greater customer intimacy and its local, experience-driven branding efforts. Stepping into Li's shoes, students learn the essentials of a e-commerce strategy, from platform design to marketing strategy and tactics, operations and organizational choices supporting Shopee's relationship with its customers.

In July 2021, Sunil Lalvani, founder and CEO of Project Maji, a non-profit social enterprise headquartered in Dubai that had already provided sustainable, clean water solutions to 80,000 people living in rural communities across Ghana and Kenya, was facing an important decision. Traditionally, fees collected from community members covered the operating and maintenance costs of the solar-powered water kiosks, while donations paid the initial capital expenditure and setup costs. Yet Lalvani needed a more scalable financing solution to reach a hefty goal: impacting 1 million lives by 2025. Serving larger, more affluent peri-urban communities was a viable alternative, as the additional revenue could be channeled to rural projects. Thus, Lalvani and his team worked on a pilot for three peri-urban sites and looked to Danone Communities, a venture capital fund that invested in social businesses, to provide a loan. The team mapped out a feasible system, but debated what fees to charge residents. A low price meant that Project Maji would pay off the loan for the first four years, and only then start accumulating funds to support its activities in rural areas. This would delay scaling. Alternatively, a high price, coupled with an offer to establish direct connections in more well-off households, would allow Project Maji to generate excess earned revenue from the get-go, but it would also raise questions of equitability. All of this weighed on Lalvani as he pondered what price point to include in the investment proposal.

In May 2019, a Vietnam-based entrepreneur was wondering which strategy would work best to sell nipa honey, the first product launched by his nipa palm products company, Viet Nam Nipa Development Company Limited (Viet Nipa). The product was launched in February 2019 and the entrepreneur had been selling the nipa honey at trade fairs, through partnerships with three popular resorts in his home district, and on a sales platform on Viet Nipa’s Facebook page. He was reaching out to grocery retailers in Vietnam with sale propositions, but to no avail. Should the entrepreneur continue to pursue business-to-consumer (B2C) distribution or leverage his company’s operational and manufacturing capabilities to shift to a business-to-business (B2B) operation? What was his target market and how should he tailor Viet Nipa’s marketing strategy and tactics to these consumers? Should he also consider taking nipa honey to the international market?

In April 2020, Yuno Learning Global Private Limited, an entrepreneurial venture that offered online training for International English Language Testing System examinations, wanted to optimize its digital marketing and increase the number of prospects who subscribed to the company’s program. The founder and chief executive officer had to decide among multiple marketing channels and funnels to choose the option that maximized value for the marketing effort, and he had to make that decision in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when all businesses were being affected by the move to online interaction.