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The CEO of Eco Tasar, a socially responsible company based in India has to decide how to deal with a customer request that may jeopardize his corporate values.

As companies become increasingly digital, growth hacking emerged as a new way of scaling businesses. While the term is fashionable in business, many executives remain confused about the concept. Even if firms have an idea of what growth hacking is, they may still be puzzled as to how to do it, creating a strategy-execution gap. Our article assists firms by bridging the growth hacking strategy-execution gap. First, we provide a growth hacking framework and deconstruct its building blocks: marketing, data analysis, coding, and the lean startup philosophy. We then present a taxonomy of 34 growth hacking patterns along the customer life cycle of acquisition, activation, revenue, retention, and referral; categorize them on the two dimensions of resource intensity and time lag; and provide an example of how to apply the taxonomy in the case of a fitness application. Finally, we discuss seven opportunities and challenges of growth hacking that firms should keep in mind.

This case focuses on Purple Innovation Inc. (Purple), a company that started out in the Direct to Consumer (DTC) mattress space. After a successful launch and IPO, with sales predominantly originating from its website, in late 2018 Purple was looking to sustain its growth momentum by partnering with traditional bricks & mortar players, such as Mattress Firm and Bed Bath and Beyond. Although the move had the promise of expanding the relevant customer base, it presented a marketing challenge: Could the company continue to rely on its previous digital advertising approach to drive offline sales? If so, how, and, if not, what other media outlets and messaging should be considered? The case forces students to analyze the digital strategy the company had previously used to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in online sales, and then propose a communication plan for generating 30% of sales offline. In doing so, students grapple with delineating the customer journey for buying a mattress online and in stores. The case can also serve as a vehicle to discuss the scaling challenges many disruptor DTC brands face.

Emmanuel Faber, Chairman and CEO of the food and beverage company Danone, believed that humankind had only ten years to bend the curve on climate change and restore the biodiversity that the global food and agricultural ecosystem was critically dependent on. Upon becoming CEO in 2014, he had built on Danone's long history of CSR-engagement to give a boost to the company's mission to bring health through food to as many people as possible. In September 2019, he reflected on the progress achieved thus far, including efforts to support regenerative agriculture through new contract types for famers in their milk division. Still, many questions remained in his journey to fix what he saw as the food industry's broken system: How could they manage the desired long-term transition to a sustainable system while also meeting the company's short-term financial targets? What was the role of the private sector? What economic model could support an inclusive transition? How to engage partners and consumers to embark on this journey?

After reading and analyzing the case, students will be able to leverage product and brand opportunities to drive growth against multiple audience segments; understand the relationship between managing and maintaining strong brands, sustaining brand image clarity, and pursuing revenue growth; understand the key sources of customer value and develop a sustainable value proposition.

Away, a direct-to-consumer, digital native e-commerce seller of travel luggage, is debating how to invest its latest round of venture funding. How quickly could and should Away scale and what were the most promising growth trajectories to maximize its potential? Three decisions face the founders. Should Away continue to invest in driving growth in suitcases and other travel bags or was it time to begin to expand into other adjacent travel categories? How should they use the results of the company's first customer segmentation study to select target segments and quantify their growth aspirations? What were the right distribution strategies moving forward following a series of pilots that included company-owned stores, temporary airport kiosks, and pop-up experiences with retailer partners?

On October 7, 2019, the Shiseido Group announced that it would acquire clean skincare brand Drunk Elephant for $845 million, a valuation of 8.5 times sales. Did Shiseido pay too much or too little for this brand asset? Every acquisition had to be measured against the cost of developing and building a look-a-like brand internally. Would Drunk Elephant prove to be an integral part of Shiseido's future success and what would it take to unlock its full brand value? Would Drunk Elephant thrive under Shiseido's management? How much further investment would Shiseido need to make to realize the new brand's potential?

The Palo Alto Health System had three hospitals, 1,600 physicians, and over 1 million patients each year - and a new risk-based model that incentivized the prevention of illness, as well as early intervention in patients with chronic illness. Engaging with patient populations involved clinical interventions, but also involved a marketing approach to encourage patients to adopt health behaviors and keep following those practices. This case study investigates this marketing aspect of health care, and looks at ways in which Amazon's Alexa, an interactive speaker that connected people to the Internet and the cloud-based Alexa voice service, could enhance health care efforts. With patient permission, Alexa could collect specific health-related information, and could help schedule patients for medical screenings and then report back important laboratory results. One early adopter was the U.K. National Health Service, which contracted to use Alexa to provide health-related content to patients - the same information that was available on the public website. The case study considers health care privacy issues, and asks students to consider whether a marketing approach to health care, in this case using Alexa or another Internet personal assistant, would be a successful strategy for the Palo Alto Health System.

Online reviews are transforming the way consumers choose products and services of all sorts. We turn to TripAdvisor to plan a vacation, Zocdoc to find a doctor, and Yelp to choose a new restaurant. Reviews can create value for buyers and sellers alike, but only if they attain a critical level of quantity and quality. The authors describe principles for setting the incentives, design choices, and rules that help review platforms thrive. To address a shortage of reviews, companies can seed them by hiring reviewers or drawing reviews from other platforms; offer incentives; or pool products. To address selection bias, they can require reviews, allow private comments, and design prompts carefully. To combat fraudulent and strategic reviews, they can set rules for reviewers and call in moderators--whether employees, the community, or algorithms.

Saregama India Limited (Saregama), a 117-year-old music company, was on a growth trajectory. Its third-quarter financial results in 2017-2018 had shown unprecedented growth. Over the previous three years, Saregama had converted its conventional copyrighted music into high-quality digital formats and made a rare stretch from the business-to-business (B2B) to business-to-consumer (B2C) market. The company had added new intellectual properties (IP) in audio and video. Then in 2017, Saregama launched Carvaan, a portable music player with 5,000 evergreen songs. Cleverly created to meet the needs of its older target audience, the Carvaan was largely responsible for the company's turnaround. Saregama's goal was to be a ₹20 billion IP content company in the next five years. To make that happen in the context of rapidly evolving technologies and consumer trends, the company needed sharply defined short- and long-term strategies that addressed content acquisition, its success with Carvaan, and its pursuit of B2B and B2C markets.

Saregama India Limited (Saregama), a 117-year-old music company, was on a growth trajectory. Its third-quarter financial results in 2017–2018 had shown unprecedented growth. Over the previous three years, Saregama had converted its conventional copyrighted music into high-quality digital formats and made a rare stretch from the business-to-business (B2B) to business-to-consumer (B2C) market. The company had added new intellectual properties (IP) in audio and video. Then in 2017, Saregama launched Carvaan, a portable music player with 5,000 evergreen songs. Cleverly created to meet the needs of its older target audience, the Carvaan was largely responsible for the company’s turnaround.<br><br>Saregama’s goal was to be a ?20 billion IP content company in the next five years. To make that happen in the context of rapidly evolving technologies and consumer trends, the company needed sharply defined short- and long-term strategies that addressed content acquisition, its success with Carvaan, and its pursuit of B2B and B2C markets.

As 2018 neared its end, Laetitia Toupet, international general manager of L'Oréal's La Roche-Posay brand reflected on the brand's achievements over the past year. At €1 billion in revenue, La Roche-Posay had recently become the number one dermocosmetics brand in the world. While Toupet was pleased with this feat, she believed that the brand was at a critical juncture. It was time to make some significant marketing decisions related to brand positioning to try to accelerate La Roche-Posay's future growth trajectory as dermocosmetics moved from serving a niche market to the mainstream.

Peloton had redefined many things about the boutique exercise experience, bringing it into members' homes and eliminating per-class fees of roughly $34, instead charging $40 per month. Rather than chatting with a pal beside the gym locker for a few moments before class, customers had Peloton's online community of hundreds of thousands of people who interacted with one another digitally throughout the day. The instructors themselves were part of Peloton's cult following. They were expected to lead and inspire, not just teach a class, and each had a large social media following and minor celebrity status. The company was poised for an IPO in 2019 by identifying a new opportunity in a constantly evolving fitness space, by defining its business broadly, and by capitalizing upon the energy of celebrity and personality that online communities could bring to a brand. But how could a business built on a social community pivot to a position in the public marketplace?

Set in 2019, the case describes the challenge Starbucks faces from Luckin coffee, a local start up in China. Having entered China in 1999, Starbucks was the undisputed leader with more than 70% market share and 3600 cafes by 2018. The brand's success was rooted in its core proposition of providing consumers a 'third place', an escape from both home and the work place, to relax and indulge themselves. While China/Asia Pacific was Starbucks' fastest growing market, the company faced a setback in the region in 2018. There was a decline in its third quarter sales, total number of transactions for the year, and the annual operating income. Starbucks' sudden downturn in the region could be attributed to the threat to its third place positioning by Luckin. Launched in November 2017, Luckin grew to more than 2,300 stores in just 17 months. Unlike Starbucks, it offered lower prices and the convenience of having coffee anywhere - at home, the work place or a café. Its mobile app-linked order and cashless payment platform, and a store pick-up and delivery model appealed to the country's digitally savvy millennials. Over 2018-2019, the company successfully raised US$550 million, and in May 2019, came out with its IPO. By the end of 2019, Luckin aimed to open a total of 4,850 stores to surpass Starbucks' planned network of 4,200 stores. The sudden rise of Luckin raises serious questions to engage students. What should Starbucks do in order to maintain its dominance in China? Should it emulate Luckin and work towards building a stronger and wider delivery channel, or should it continue to pursue its premium priced experiential retail strategy? And, would Luckin's cash burn business model that includes heavy discounting, aggressive advertising and a rapid store expansion fail or succeed eventually?

Spreadsheet supplement for case 520031.

Shriram Transport Finance Company Ltd. (STFCL), the flagship company of the Shriram Group, India's largest player in commercial vehicle finance is trying to transition from a Relationship based model to a Fintech based model in order to provide end consumers with speed, convenience, choice and savings. Digital transactions had reached an all-time high of 1.11 billion in January 2018 and digital payments were estimated to increase to USD 1 trillion by 2023. However, a judgement by the Supreme Court of India has created additional adoption challenges for the firm. This case revolves around the challenges that STFCL will have to face while adopting Fintech within the firm and getting its customers to adopt it as well. It needs to come up with an appropriate strategy to make the transition from traditional payment systems to digital payments systems, given the kind of business model and the organisational processes used in go-to-market activities.

Gupta Media is a Digital Marketing firm started in 2005 that places advertisements and marketing promotions for its clients in digital media, mainly social media such as Facebook and Google. Over the years it had built its expertise in promoting music labels, artists and music festivals. Because its media placements were carefully optimized, it was able to return a high degree of performance on the marketing dollar for its clients. The case focuses on how to optimize performance for two such clients, the Governors Ball Music Festival in NY and Fender Play (a musical instrument company). The case ends with the question of whether such performance marketing techniques can be applied to consumer packaged goods (Red Bull) sold through indirect distribution.

Gupta Media is a Digital Marketing firm started in 2005 that places advertisements and marketing promotions for its clients in digital media, mainly social media such as Facebook and Google. Over the years it had built its expertise in promoting music labels, artists and music festivals. Because its media placements were carefully optimized, it was able to return a high degree of performance on the marketing dollar for its clients. The case series (A), (B), and a data intensive Excel Spread sheet focuses on how to optimize performance for two such clients, the Governors Ball Music Festival in NY and Fender Play (a musical instrument company). The case ends with the question of whether such performance marketing techniques can be applied to consumer packaged goods (Red Bull) sold through indirect distribution. The case series provides students hands-on experience with "performance marketing" data and teaches them how to make data driven digital marketing budget allocation decisions.

On 18 November 2018, Dolce & Gabbana S.R.L. (D&G) released three short videos on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter as well as Sina Weibo in China to promote its first-ever fashion show in mainland China. The campaign was specifically designed to drum up excitement about an important catwalk event to be held at the Expo Center of Shanghai on 21 November 2018. However, the videos did not create the intended positive effect. In fact, the incongruous or extreme presentations in the videos jeopardized the entire promotion campaign. From the Chinese audience's perspective, the D&G videos were not entertaining but inappropriate, offensive, and racist. The result enraged the Chinese audience and fueled a heated online debate. Within 24 hours, under public pressure, D&G was forced to remove the videos from its Weibo promotion channel. While many Chinese media users were demanding a formal apology from D&G for the videos, the company allowed the debate to simmer and boil for the next few days. This case is the first case of a three-part case series. It can be used on a stand-alone basis or in combination with Case B (D&G's Marketing Missteps in China (B): The Deepening Crisis) and Case C (D&G's Marketing Missteps in China (C): The Epilogue).

On the morning of 21 November 2018, Diet Prada, an Instagram account that uncovered the dark secrets and stories about the fashion industry, posted alleged text messages between Dolce & Gabbana S.R.L. (D&G)'s cofounder Stefano Gabbana and fashion writer Michaela Phuong. In the exchange, Stefano complained about the removal of D&G's videos (#DGLovesChina and #DGTheGreatShow) from Chinese social media Weibo amid an onslaught of criticisms. Stefano's alleged anti-China comments on Instagram, coupled with the D&G videos that were perceived as racist and offensive, prompted a slew of outraged responses not only from the Chinese consumers but also from its own brand ambassadors and celebrity partners in China. Many immediately severed ties with the brand. Following this intense backlash from celebrities and consumers, a number of retailers took swift action to sever connections with D&G and removed its products. Bowing to the public backlash from the controversial videos and the Instagram post, the founders of D&G made a personal apology through a video address. This case is a continuation of D&G's marketing missteps in China (A).