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Influencer marketing represents a $10 billion industry in 2020 and is becoming of increasing relevance for many firms, especially those operating in a business-to-consumer environment. Few firms in the fashion, beauty, travel, food, or beverage industries are running marketing campaigns these days that do not include, at least to some share, a collaboration with popular users on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. However, many marketing managers still have a less than adequate understanding of those platforms compared with their knowledge of more traditional media channels and often find it hard to make the right decision in this fast-moving environment. To provide some guidance in this respect, this article aims to give an introduction to the most critical platforms for influencer marketing. It then presents advice to firms who want to engage in influencer marketing as well as specific questions on identifying the right influencers to collaborate with.

Hangzhou Kub Baby Products Co. Ltd. (Kub), an e-commerce company established in 2009, sold maternal and child products. After a decade of development, Kub had earned praise from customers for the high-value, high-quality, and cost-effective products it sold, but the company's own brand, KÜB, remained less well known. In July 2018, Kub launched a three-day brand marketing campaign, called "KÜB×Tmall Happy Day," which largely relied on new media. The event was successful with increased brand effectiveness; however, new media was increasingly fragmenting marketing and brand awareness. How could Kub maintain its brand success in that context?

Spencer's Retail, a fast-moving consumer goods retail chain in India, had been perceived as an expensive retailer exclusively for high-end consumers. A new sector head took over in 2013 and shifted the store from a positioning statement of "Taste the World" to "Make Fine Living Affordable." Within five years, Spencer's was making a profit. However, traditional grocery stores continued to dominate the Indian retail scene and were more heavily frequented by Indian shoppers. To maintain a sustainable profit, Spencer's had to expand the business by opening more retail outlets and increasing same-store sales growth by increasing footfalls and basket size. What store format and combination of private label and national label products would help Spencer's reach this goal?

In October 2018, the president of a business school student (BSS) society must decide on the viability of marketing a line of business school apparel. The school had been selling its brand of products with moderate success and the president had to determine the best option going forward. She faced a number of decisions: How to increase sales? What should be included in the clothing line? Should the product line be branded under the school’s or the student society’s logo? What strategy would be the most successful?

Kanopy LLC (Kanopy) was a video streaming platform that hosted independent and documentary films for educative purposes. Founded in 2008, Kanopy had rapidly expanded to several countries. By 2017, it had more than 3,000 college libraries and several public libraries as subscribers. Although Kanopy's services were received with much enthusiasm, under Kanopy's pay-per-view pricing model, libraries soon incurred subscription fees that exceeded their budgets. Kanopy's popularity became an impediment to growth as libraries cancelled subscriptions or switched to more restrictive models. By December 2019, even though Kanopy's revenues were increasing, the company's founder needed to consider how to ensure the company's continued growth. Given libraries' constrained budgets, what changes did Kanopy need to make to sell its streaming services to libraries?

This case has stimulated some of the most engaged discussions in my 25 years of case teaching. Students will embrace opposing sides in debating how much packaging versus other factors cause smoking behaviours: initiation, frequency, cessation, and relapse. Some students will argue passionately that removing any advertising and branding, especially that protected by international intellectual property laws (e.g., logos and trade dress), will have no effect and is largely punitive. The discussion can include whether consumers (in particular children and adolescents) have free will, more generally. The case is dense and packed with references given its legally sensitive nature, but this should not pose a barrier.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK defines marketing as: "The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably" 1 This note describes the marketing process as characterized by four iterative stages: market analysis, design of the marketing strategy, synergistic alignment of the marketing mix, and marketing planning to guide tactical implementation and control.

Brand valuation is the process of estimating the financial value of a brand. The valuation of brands as intangible assets emerged in the 1980s, when brands were first capitalized on post-M&A balance sheets. Brands are also valued for non-reporting purposes.

Could these dots be connected? Dozens of Israeli startups and Multinational Corporations (MNCs) thought that they could, and were employing 700 Palestinian engineers, in part through outsourcing companies, and in part directly by opening local R&D centers. In conjunction, the Palestinian tech ecosystem was benefiting and developing a promising entrepreneurship sector. Both the joint work and the independent Palestinian ecosystem had important geopolitical implications, first by supporting the Palestinian economy, and second in the potential implications it could have on the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians, two peoples who have been in conflict for decades. While the opportunities were clear, various challenges facing an emergent tech sector, coupled with sensitivities surrounding cooperation between long-time 'enemies', created complications. Paradoxically, Palestinians realized that working with Israeli tech companies was highly promising, but the reality was that any relationship with Israel was politically sensitive for them and created a dilemma. The same applied for Israelis motivated but concerned about working with Palestinian engineers. Given the tremendous benefits, MNCs, governments, non-profits, and international organizations decided to promote co-operation between Israeli and Palestinian tech companies and to support the creation of a sustainable Palestinian tech sector; by mitigating the challenges both sides faced. Still, it remained to be determined whether these efforts would bear fruits, or whether tech cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians would remain anecdotal. Moreover, it was as yet unclear what big-picture implications such initiatives could have on the Palestinian economy and on the relationship between the two peoples. Recent developments, including the global pandemic and the peace agreement signed between Israel and the UAE provided their own sets of challenges and opportunities.

Created in 2015, BEWOOD was a sustainable fashion brand start-up in Lille, France that sold a range of products with wood as their primary component. The company's best-selling product was a wooden bow tie named "Mr. Divergent." In March 2018, Laury Bonjean, founder and owner of BEWOOD, had four options for growth available to her and had to decide which of these to act on and, most importantly, how to price them. She was considering offering two new products (a Father's Day box set and a subscription box) and had two new channel opportunities (a trendy shop wanted to sell her products and a pop-up store had invited her to participate). While these began as product and distribution decisions, Bonjean felt that pricing formed a huge part of the strategizing. Using qualitative and quantitative information she needed to decide how to proceed and needed to do so very soon.

This technical note outlines what an employer brand is, how it relates to a consumer brand, and why it matters. It allows students to be able to put their knowledge to the test by evaluating the attribute ratings among seven different top employer brands. Finally, they will have a better understanding of how to assess, build, and enhance a company's employer brand.

This note focuses on algorithmic bias in marketing. First, it presents a variety of marketing examples in which algorithmic bias may occur. The examples are organized around the 4 P's of marketing - promotion, price, place and product-characterizing the marketing decision that generates the bias and highlighting the consequences of such a bias. Then, it explains the potential causes of algorithmic bias and offers some solutions to mitigate or reduce this bias.

This collection of exercises aims to teach students about 1)Targeting Policies; and 2)Algorithmic bias in marketing-implications, causes, and possible solutions. Part (A) focuses on A/B testing analysis and targeting. Parts (B),(C),(D) Introduce algorithmic bias. The exercises are designed such that the issues of algorithmic bias and discrimination would emerge inductively, "surprising" the students in the act of recommending a strategy that, inadvertently, is discriminating against customers who belong to minority groups. This is achieved via the combination of hands-on exercises, where students would make decisions based on data analyses and visualization, and in-class discussions, where students would defend their proposed strategies, discover the (discriminating) implications of those actions, and discuss possible solutions.

This collection of exercises aims to teach students about 1)Targeting Policies; and 2)Algorithmic bias in marketing-implications, causes, and possible solutions. Part (A) focuses on A/B testing analysis and targeting. Parts (B),(C),(D) Introduce algorithmic bias. The exercises are designed such that the issues of algorithmic bias and discrimination would emerge inductively, "surprising" the students in the act of recommending a strategy that, inadvertently, is discriminating against customers who belong to minority groups. This is achieved via the combination of hands-on exercises, where students would make decisions based on data analyses and visualization, and in-class discussions, where students would defend their proposed strategies, discover the (discriminating) implications of those actions, and discuss possible solutions.

This collection of exercises aims to teach students about 1)Targeting Policies; and 2)Algorithmic bias in marketing-implications, causes, and possible solutions. Part (A) focuses on A/B testing analysis and targeting. Parts (B),(C),(D) Introduce algorithmic bias. The exercises are designed such that the issues of algorithmic bias and discrimination would emerge inductively, "surprising" the students in the act of recommending a strategy that, inadvertently, is discriminating against customers who belong to minority groups. This is achieved via the combination of hands-on exercises, where students would make decisions based on data analyses and visualization, and in-class discussions, where students would defend their proposed strategies, discover the (discriminating) implications of those actions, and discuss possible solutions.

This collection of exercises aims to teach students about 1)Targeting Policies; and 2)Algorithmic bias in marketing-implications, causes, and possible solutions. Part (A) focuses on A/B testing analysis and targeting. Parts (B),(C),(D) Introduce algorithmic bias. The exercises are designed such that the issues of algorithmic bias and discrimination would emerge inductively, "surprising" the students in the act of recommending a strategy that, inadvertently, is discriminating against customers who belong to minority groups. This is achieved via the combination of hands-on exercises, where students would make decisions based on data analyses and visualization, and in-class discussions, where students would defend their proposed strategies, discover the (discriminating) implications of those actions, and discuss possible solutions.

Spreadsheet Supplement to "Artea: Designing Targeting Strategies" (521-021).

Spreadsheet Supplement to "Artea (B): Including Customer-level Demographic Data" and "Artea (C): Potential Discrimination through Algorithmic Targeting"

This case follows the experiences of Peloton Founder John Foley from concept creation in 2011 to large-scale success in 2020. Foley created his own playbook for a product whose category-"connected fitness"-he created from the ground up. Foley faced, and overcame, product design, technological, manufacturing, and financing challenges before arriving at a marketable stationary cycling product that connected virtually to instructors. Soulcycle and Flywheel, established in-person cycling studios, both rejected Foley's proposal to partner with his new venture. Along the way, Foley was turned down by 400 VC's before landing his first institutional investor after almost three years on the money hunt. But Foley persevered. At the end of FY 2020, Peloton had revenues in excess of $1.8 billion, earned $376 million in operating cash flow, served more than one million subscribers, sold bikes and treadmills in more than 100 stores in four countries, and delivered 175 million fitness classes through its global virtual network. This case brings students a close-up look at an entrepreneur's journey-and asks them to consider if the company's success will likely continue beyond 2020.

Chris Down, Global Brand General Manager for Hot Wheels, and his team from the Advanced Play Group within Mattel, Inc., had developed an entirely new "mixed play" product experience that blended familiar Hot Wheels play in the physical world with breakthrough play in the digital world. The technology underlying the product was an NFC chip embedded in the physical Hot Wheels die-cast car that could be scanned to add a digital version of the car into a virtual domain, where users could see their stats and play video games with the car. The goal for the new mixed play experience was to extend the age of the Hot Wheels customer, as children were observed to be moving on from physical toys to digital play at a younger and younger age. The mixed play concept had received unprecedented investment and support, since it represented a whole new approach to play that could set the stage for the future of Hot Wheels and other Mattel brands. In early 2019, the product development phase was nearly complete and plans were being set for the launch. Key decisions needed to be made around positioning, naming, pricing, channel, promotion, and launch timing. Given the high expectations for the innovative mixed play platform, it was critical to get these go-to-market decisions right.