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In late 2019, the Colombian company Agrícola Himalaya SA was undertaking a strategy to double its sales by 2030. The company’s popular Hindú brand of teas, developed over six decades, had expanded to include not only black and green teas but also herbal teas, fruit teas, ready-to-drink products, and an iced tea line. Over the past 10 years, the company had enjoyed steady growth, distributed its products throughout the Americas, and developed a communications strategy focused on health and wellness. Now the company’s chief executive officer (CEO) had to decide whether or not it was time to expand into other product categories, and if so, how. The CEO and marketing team needed to develop a brand strategy to present to the board of directors and create a new product portfolio that would support the company’s growth strategy. Which channels should the company target for growth? Should it continue to grow in the same category, extend the brand to other categories, or expand the demographic mix of its customer base?

Updates (A) case by describing the early impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the art market, the renaming of the gallery as the Krakow Witkin Gallery, and the response of its partners and staff to the pandemic.

As e-commerce growth continues to surpass that of brick-and-mortar retail, temporary retail spaces, also known as pop-up shops, are becoming an important promotional strategy, especially for online retailers and service providers. Success in today's retail environment means being able to create and maintain brand communities, to generate instant and measurable hype, and to deliver personalized consumer experiences all of which can be readily achieved through a strategically placed physical business presence. In this study, a survey of retailing organizations worldwide reveals that among those that had implemented at least one pop-up shop, more than 80% considered it a success. The results also show that the primary reasons for activating pop-up shops were to create connections with current and potential customers, to increase brand awareness, to introduce a new product or brand to the marketplace, and to stage a new product or brand. While the respondents deemed revenue generated at pop-up shops important, they considered improving market visibility (e.g., through social media, website traffic, or media coverage) a more significant objective. Given the economic potential of pop-up shops, this research provides retailing organizations with guiding principles for developing and operating successful pop-up shops in the current marketplace.

Conventional wisdom regarding customer relationships suggests that a company should strive to deepen the loyalty of its customer base. While multiple approaches have been suggested, each approach advocates moving a subset of the customer base from one level of affinity (e.g., neither satisfied nor dissatisfied) to a higher one (e.g., satisfied). While seemingly appropriate, this approach assumes that moving customers up to higher categories is important and should be the focus of a firm's efforts. Instead, we recommend an approach that involves focusing a firm's resources disproportionately on its most satisfied customers. This approach provides two major benefits relative to conventional approaches. First, it focuses a firm's resources on a narrow segment of customers. Hence, it requires significantly less financial outlay and associated financial risk than any approach that is aimed at all or even a majority of customers. Second, as we demonstrate, the financial benefit from leveraging high satisfaction levels among a subset of the current customer base significantly exceeds the financial benefit of other strategies (e.g., moving customers up from neutral to satisfied). We present the results from two case studies that illustrate our main points and provide useful examples of how to leverage a firm's highly satisfied customers.

THE YES, a multi-brand shopping app launched in May 2020 offered a new type of buying experience for women's fashion, driven by a sophisticated algorithm that used data science and machine learning to create and deliver a personalized store for every shopper, based on her style preferences, size, and budget. When a woman downloaded THE YES app, she embarked upon an interactive shopping journey that leveraged a fun, easy, gamified user experience (UX) reminiscent of dating apps to collect a stream of data from her that could be used to dynamically curate an ever-changing product assortment just for her. The founders had to decide whether to continue developing the UX and the algorithm to deliver on the company's customer value proposition, or to focus on new customer acquisition via paid media, with the idea that more users on the app improve the algorithm's performance. Several ideas for further monetizing the platform were on the table, including the development of social shopping features to make the shopping experience more viral, the design of an influencer program to bring fashion influencer voices onto the platform, and the construction of a customer loyalty program. Should THE YES invest in improving the algorithm, enhancing the UX with new functionality, or on customer acquisition?

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?

In 2018, Walmart, the world's biggest retailer, launched Jetblack, a concierge luxury shopping service that allowed consumers to explore and buy items via text message. It is a classic example of the danger of introducing a relatively luxurious brand into the portfolio of a non-luxury brand family. Jetblack's service combined artificial intelligence (AI) and the customized attention of trained experts to identify the most appropriate products for its customers. Following the launch of Jetblack, customer enrollments grew and both the frequency and breadth of member shopping increased. Its initial customers also stated that texting was their favorite aspect of the service. However, Jetblack's inability to scale its business operations proved to be a major challenge, with dire financial implications. By 2019, Jetblack was losing around USD 15,000 per customer annually. On February 21, 2020, Walmart announced that it was shutting down its exclusive concierge shopping startup, Jetblack, due to limited end user customer enrollments and inadequate investments.

The Bank of New Zealand (BNZ)'s market share among Small and Medium Enterprises is declining. The new general manager discovers a pain point among SMEs - they are spending a couple of hours a day compiling information from different apps in order to manage their business. BNZ creates are new information portal with ecosystem partners called MyBusiness Live. This portal makes information available to SMEs in one simple dashboard. BNZ has to decide how to charge for the system and whether to make it accessible only to current customers (i.e., closed system) or also to non-customers (i.e., open system). It also has to deal with internal challenges (e.g., salesforce) regarding the new system.

Dupden Lepcha started Tingvong Homestay, the first homestay in the remote Dzongu region of Sikkim, India, when the region was opened for tourism in 2006. Initially, the response to Dupden’s homestay was good, improving Dupden’s financial position and earning him the respect of the community. With Dupden’s active encouragement and help, other members of the community also established homestays. Over time, however, a few of these homestays outperformed Tingvong Homestay by creating greater awareness of their offering.<br><br>Despite the government’s intention to develop the region as an ecotourism hub, the pace has been slow, compelling the village council to take proactive steps. They have asked Dupden to play an active role in working closely with government officials, and now Dupden must decide whether to focus on his homestay or take up the role offered by the council and work toward the development of the Dzongu region as an ecotourism hub.

Saudamini Mattu was the chief executive officer of Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla (AJSK), a successful Indian luxury brand specializing in luxe couture, interior design, and wedding decor. The brand had roots in ancient Indian embroidery, and its story was inextricably linked with the personalities of its founders, Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla, who thought of themselves as revivalists creating luxury products and experiences using designs with an Indian ethos. The luxury brand had deeply resonated with its loyal customer base for over three decades, but AJSK had to now address the relevance and sustainability of its brand story. Mattu therefore had to evaluate whether AJSK’s brand story was relevant in the constantly shifting luxury market, and recraft the brand story for the House of AJSK, while considering missed opportunities and the viability of the business model of a creative organization in a challenging economic scenario.

In 2020, the legal cannabis industry in the United States was emerging. One large player in the nascent industry was Canopy Growth Corporation (Canopy Growth), a cannabinoid company based in Smiths Falls, Ontario, that grew cannabis and managed a range of cannabis-related brands. In September 2020, Canopy Growth announced a partnership with Martha Stewart that entailed the development of a mix of cannabis edibles and oils for wellness sold under the name Martha Stewart CBD. Although the legal cannabis industry held tremendous promise, there were a wide range of unique challenges associated with selling cannabis products, including regulatory and policy issues, stigmas associated with illegal cannabis, and other more typical issues associated with selling new products such as the need for consumer education. The partners would need to consider how consumers would respond to the Martha Stewart CBD offerings, what specific obstacles they would have to overcome, and what market segment(s) and products they should prioritize.

The chief commercial officer of Johnson Controls International, a multinational manufacturer and marketer of security systems, was noticing a change in the buying behaviour of one of its premier customers. As one of the company’s designated strategic accounts, this customer was entitled to multi-level collaborative support. Of late, the customer had been taking a “bid-and-buy” approach to its purchases, ignoring the standards agreed to in the strategic agreement with Johnson Controls International. It also sought a scaled-down version of a security system, and this ran contrary to the original strategic account agreement. The chief commercial officer was examining the way forward with the customer. Should he demote it from the strategic account status to a regular sales account, despite the risks involved in doing so?

Social trading platform eToro was preparing for the launch of its expanded offering in the U.S. The company faced critical decisions regarding product-market fit, go-to-market strategy, positioning and monetization. Moreover, it faced the challenge of how best to make its social features relevant to U.S. consumers. eToro was founded in Israel in 2007, with a mission to democratize investing. The cofounders, the Assia brothers, were determined to open the global markets for everyone to trade and invest in a simple and transparent way. By 2020, eToro's customers in most countries were able to trade multiple assets, and in most territories the company offered zero commission stock trading. The vast majority of its users shared their investment strategy, and others in the community could review and even copy their portfolio with a single click. A subset of users were able to garner a large following and become "investment celebrities," enjoying fame and often fortune. Figuring out the best path forward with respect to the U.S. launch was complicated by shifts in the competitive landscape, which had seen consolidation of large players in the U.S. market and the emergence of fintech firms that offered zero commission trading and appealed to millennials. The U.S. regulatory approval was a pivotal milestone in eToro's evolution. But with a limited suite of products, a modest community and a market where zero-commission stock trading was already commonplace, the management team deliberated on what it would take to make inroads in the U.S. and what success could look like.

This case introduces a new Amazon program that has consumers upload their receipts from transactions outside of Amazon, in exchange for money. Through the discussion, the case aims to explore issues in customers' privacy in the digital age, the value of customers' own data, and the change in regulations aimed to protect consumers that move companies from using third party data to first party data. In addition, the case offers an opportunity to discuss the power dynamics of online giants such as Amazon, Google, and Facebook.

Arcelik Turkey, the country's market leader in household appliances, was at an omnichannel crossroads in January 2020. Arcelik was a B2B player utilizing a dealership network with an umbrella of brands and had one of the largest brick-and-mortar store networks in Turkey. In 2015, Arcelik, which was focused on offline sales, realized that online demand was growing and they were behind the competition, which was intensified due to the entry of global household appliances brands and online marketplaces to Turkey. So, they decided on a company-wide omnichannel transformation scheduled to go-live by 2020. They faced resistance from both dealers and employees. While Arcelik tried to gain the dealers' trust and buy-in, they experimented with one of their smaller brands on online marketplaces to learn more about e-commerce. In early 2020, Arcelik felt the squeeze as pressure mounted from the growing presence of marketplaces and online demand. They needed to find a way to cater to the online demand quickly while keeping their established partners happy.

The E-Commerce Analytics group at the traditional CPG firm was in charge of compiling various online sales reports, as well as making data-driven recommendations for sales and marketing tactics. In a series of exercises, students address different data challenges for traditional CPG firms in the new online age and learn what data such firms have access to and what kind of problems they can address with data.

The E-Commerce Analytics group at the traditional CPG firm was in charge of compiling various online sales reports, as well as making data-driven recommendations for sales and marketing tactics. In a series of exercises, students address different data challenges for traditional CPG firms in the new online age and learn what data such firms have access to and what kind of problems they can address with data.

The E-Commerce Analytics group at the traditional CPG firm was in charge of compiling various online sales reports, as well as making data-driven recommendations for sales and marketing tactics. In a series of exercises, students address different data challenges for traditional CPG firms in the new online age and learn what data such firms have access to and what kind of problems they can address with data.