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One job of product managers, marketers, strategic planners, and other corporate executives is to predict what the demand will be for a new product. This task is easier for certain classes of new products than for others. For new consumer package goods, for instance, one can look at past product rollouts, one can look at similar products currently in the marketplace, or one can do test markets-selling the product in a small section of the country to assess consumer acceptance. Quite often, for new products that represent incremental variations or improvements over existing products, marketers do a pretty good job of understanding how that product will be adopted in the marketplace. This is not to say that managers always get it right, as has been made evidently clear in the case of New Coke, dry beers, and the Edsel. However, more often than not, managers of incremental new products predict demand within the right order of magnitude.

Organic Wellness Products Private Limited (Organic Wellness) was founded in 2015 with the aim to create a sustainable venture for organic products that would boost agricultural entrepreneurship and benefit society by generating rural employment and value creation. By May 2018, Organic Wellness's market had grown considerably, and the company was exporting to 27 countries around the world and had a pan-Indian presence. While its innovative marketing strategy-free of big spending-had worked well for the organization, the founder needed to decide if he would continue with the same style of cause-related marketing, or whether it was time to invest in marketing channels to create better consumer outreach.

Organic Wellness Products Private Limited (Organic Wellness) was founded in 2015 with the aim to create a sustainable venture for organic products that would boost agricultural entrepreneurship and benefit society by generating rural employment and value creation. By May 2018, Organic Wellness’s market had grown considerably, and the company was exporting to 27 countries around the world and had a pan-Indian presence. While its innovative marketing strategy—free of big spending—had worked well for the organization, the founder needed to decide if he would continue with the same style of cause-related marketing, or whether it was time to invest in marketing channels to create better consumer outreach.

Jai Vakeel, a nonprofit organization in India, serves individuals with Intellectual Disability (IQ below 70). The organization was founded by the parents of a child with Down Syndrome, and they (and their next generation) steadily built the organization over 60 years to the become the largest such organization in India. Yet the organization served only some 1000 children annually when there were millions more needing the healthcare, education and skills to lead a decent life with ID. This case describes the evolution of the organization from the founder's family (six decades) to the first CEO from outside. As Archana Chandra appointed in 2013 brings about several changes to the organization she wonders how to scale the organization from the current 1,000 people it serves annually to at least 10,000 and then to the many millions who are in need.

The case describes the 25-year transformation of Peabody Essex Museum, which was created in 1993 by the merger of two sub-scale predecessor cultural institutions, operating since 1799, in Salem, Massachusetts. Dan Monroe, its founding CEO, began a process of building the institution, which, when he arrived, had a budget of $3 million and an endowment of $23 million in 1993, as compared to a budget of $33 million and an endowment of $650 million in 2018. Monroe made changes in practically every aspect of the museum's operations as PEM broke into the ranks of the top 15 museums in the U.S. All of this was happening at a time when museums in general had lost some 20% in visitation as a result of significant shifts in population demographics and what they understood by "cultural experience." As Dan Monroe handed off the reins of an institution that had successfully run counter to trend to his successor in 2019, the trustees of the museum and its new CEO faced the challenge of how to keep the positive momentum going-and how potentially to reinvent PEM again for a rapidly changing world.

Six years after its inception, Montréal-based social media marketing agency OVRGRND started a sister company, 66Agency, to tackle the growing need for brands to use Instagram influencers for their marketing needs. The new 66Agency acted as a facilitator between brands and influencers. However, the demands of managing people-the brands on one side and the influencers on the other-had become a burden that was distracting the agency from its original intention, which was be a social media marketing company. In May 2018, the company was looking for a creative business plan that would allow it to facilitate interactions between brands and high-quality influencers quickly and efficiently, while still ensuring that all parties were happy.

In the summer of 2012, the president of the leisure sector of John Keells Hotels needed to discuss marketing strategies with his senior management team. The company was a well-known brand that operated Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts and Chaaya Hotels and Resorts in Sri Lanka and Maldives. Each of the two hotel brands catered to a different set of customers and offered different value propositions. After the terrorist conflict that had plagued Sri Lanka for 26 years had come to a dramatic close in May 2009, an influx of tourists was expected from both Western and Asian countries. The company had a great opportunity to strengthen its two hotel brands and capitalize on the growing global tourism market. Of the two hotel chains, Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts was the portfolio's luxury brand, whereas Chaaya Hotels and Resorts was the economy brand. The senior management team needed to design a brand architecture for the company that would offer a sound business solution and help the company's hotel sector find its rightful place in the global arena.

Sun Quan Education Inc. faced a variety of challenges on its path to expanding its customer base and building profitability through the operation of the We-GO club, a strategic business unit aimed at promoting education and training about the Go game in southern Ontario. Some of these challenges came from the low awareness of Go compared to other more popular intellectual products in Canada, the relatively late entry to the market of educational services, and more critically, the need for the company to develop a comprehensive and effective marketing plan starting with a clearly defined target segment. What was the right direction for the company's marketing plan?

In May 2018, B9 Beverages Private Limited (B9 Beverages), the owner of craft beer Bira 91, reached a total of over US$100 million in funding after receiving $50 million from Sofina SA, a Belgian investment firm. This third round of funding would allow the company to meet the various objectives that the founder and chief executive officer had planned for the company’s new Bira 91. He wanted his India business to break even by 2019 and expand fivefold over the next three years. He also wanted to establish a leadership position in the Indian premium beer market. The company also planned to launch Bira 91 as a public company through an initial public offering within the next few years. His long-term goal was to make Bira 91 a product rooted in India, as well as a global leader in craft beer. As the market and competition continued to grow, B9 Beverages had to develop a strategy to differentiate Bira 91 in the crowded global beer market.

Zydus Wellness Ltd. (Zydus), based in Ahmedabad, India, operated in the consumer goods sector, offering health and hygiene products and brands such as Sugar Free, Everyuth, Actilife, and Nutralite. Zydus promoted its Nutralite margarine brand mainly through television advertising. Its other communication strategies included digital marketing efforts and on-ground activities. Entering a market that was primarily dominated by Amul butter, Nutralite positioned itself in its marketing communications as a healthier alternative to butter. With Amul, Nutralite faced a strong legacy and brand loyalty, which Amul had created in the market over the years. Market research indicated that consumers were uncertain about what kind of product Nutralite was. At the end of 2017, the head of marketing at Zydus faced several challenging questions: How should the brand establish its identity? Having existed in the market for more than a decade, should Nutralite now promise something more than health? Finally, how could the company convert this transactional relationship with its consumers and strengthen its market share?

The case centres around the challenges faced by Paytm, India's largest e-wallet, in its transition from a mobile wallet to a payments bank. The shift was the result of a push by Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the central bank of India and regulator of the banking system, in 2015, pending the approval of the new Payments Bill. The transition from Paytm mobile wallet to Paytm Payments Bank had added to the complexity of business for Paytm. Paytm Payments Bank had a target to increase its customer base from 180 million to 500 million by 2020. The road to achieving this target was far from smooth. Paytm Payments Bank had come under the scrutiny of RBI for not abiding by the prescribed Know Your Customer (KYC) norms and for the cashbacks it had offered customers to bring them on board. There were other regulatory challenges that Paytm Payments Bank had to deal with as well. One, the Supreme Court of India had struck down sections of the Aadhaar Act that required the use of Aadhaar cards for online verification and transactions. Two, regulatory uncertainty prevailed with new payments regulation, namely the Payments and Settlement Systems Act, 2018, looming on the horizon. And three, in October 2018, RBI had released guidelines on interoperability among prepaid instruments and bank accounts, creating barriers for the adoption of Paytm Payments Bank. It was in this challenging environment that Paytm Payments Bank had to acquire customers and persuade them to transact actively using its services and to grow from an online financial technology (FinTech) firm in the payments space to a one-stop destination for a FinTech firm in India. The case revolves around the future strategy and marketing tactics that Paytm Payments Bank would have to adopt to become self-sustainable and profitable in the face of various regulatory and customer adoption challenges.

Eureka Forbes, part of the conglomerate Shapoorji Pallonji Group, is currently one of the world's largest direct sales company known for its water purifier brand Aquaguard with a turnover of more than INR 30 billion. The company is estimated to have a customer base of 20 million across 53 countries. The company's distribution channel includes a direct sales force of dealers, institutional channels, business partner network and a rural channel across 1500 cities and towns in India. The company's previous customer acquisition model ensured that interested customers were individually visited for demonstration of the product and for completion of purchase. While this made the company a household name, it kept the acquisition costs on the higher side. With the imminence of online retailing, the brand had been taking steps to establish their digital presence and build a stable online sales channel. The company website (www.eurekaforbes.com) attracts online traffic from various sources such as organic searches, google ads, email campaigns, etc. The company has started to use this click stream data to build a rich database of visitor acquisition factors and behavioral variables such as session duration, device category, pages visited, lead forms filled, etc. using the Google Analytics Reporting API. The company identifies these visitors as potential customers and is actively deploying remarketing campaigns with optimism to convert them. While these campaigns have shown some success, they have resulted in substantially high retention costs. The business goal is clearly defined for the company - they want to target potential customers while keeping the cost per lead (CPL) as low as possible. For Kashif Kudalkar, the Deputy General Manager for Digital Marketing and Analytics, the task is to achieve better conversion at lower costs. This is achievable when the target audience is narrowed down to a sizeable number for remarketing campaigns.

Companies that introduce sustainable offerings face a frustrating paradox: Most consumers report positive attitudes toward eco-friendly products and services, but they often seem unwilling to follow through with their wallets. The authors have been studying how to encourage sustainable consumption for several years, performing their own experiments and reviewing research in marketing, economics, and psychology. The good news is that academics have learned much about how to align consumers' behaviors with their stated preferences. Synthesizing these insights, the authors identify five approaches for companies to consider: use social influence, shape good habits, leverage the domino effect, talk to the heart or the brain, and favor experiences over ownership.

Brita's Stephen Curry sponsorship splash is set in the U.S. water filtration industry in the first nine months of 2016. The case study documents the initial period of market-leader Brita's sponsorship of the NBA's Golden State Warriors' point guard Stephen Curry. Curry was regarded as one of the greatest basketball shooters of all time, had recently won his second Most Valuable Player (MVP) award from the NBA League, and was ranked as the ninth most powerful celebrity endorser in the United States. Although the announcement of the sponsorship deal had generated substantial and positive media reaction, sales of Brita products were still declining nine months into the period of the sponsorship deal, after several years of sluggish growth. By August 2016, Brita had experienced a 7.2 percent annual decline in total sales, including its well-known water pitchers and filters. The case documents the communication activities related to the Curry sponsorship undertaken by Brita's Director of Marketing, Tad Kittredge, during 2016. Given the pressure to deliver weekly sales and the regular NBA season scheduled to begin in just three weeks' time, Kittredge needed to find a way to use the Curry sponsorship to contribute to a sales turnaround in the coming months. The case offers four strategic alternatives that Kittredge was considering in October 2016 to change the way Brita used Curry.

The decision focuses on sustainable green retailing strategies surrounding meat donations by Giant Foods in their meat rescue pilot program called "Meat the Needs." John MacDonald needs to decide whether to expand or to eliminate the pilot program, now that the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank (CPFB) will no longer be picking up the meat after 2012. Green retailing strategies include opportunities and risks. The opportunities include reducing food waste by increasing food donations; risks include risk to brand, cost, and logistics for safe food handling. Will Giant Foods' disposition decision fit with the company's new focus on zero-waste and its desired edict of "Living Here, Giving Here"? Are the risks and costs too much for the future of the program? MacDonald and his team need to work through these important sustainability issues. This case is complemented with video components throughout the written narrative. The videos are accessed by students clicking on links imbedded in the case which take the student to the appropriate video available in youtube.

In early 2019, transportation was set to undergo a major transformation with the advent of autonomous vehicles (AVs), also referred to as driverless cars, which were nearing completion from an R&D and testing phase. Yet many questions remained open regarding exactly how and when that transformation would occur. The case lays out key issues to consider with respect to the marketplace penetration of AVs and delineates several predictions for how things might play out. The case further describes the motivations and potential courses of action of the multiple stakeholders involved (firms, consumers, government). Students are tasked with examining the various factors that will likely impact the future success and widespread acceptance of AVs, identify potential barriers to customer adoption, describe how a number of industries will be impacted, and propose effective business-models for firms to embrace. Students should also suggest what role they believe government (local and federal) should play in regulating AVs. The case provides relevant information for conducting both qualitative and quantitative analyses.

Trov is a disruptive startup in the insurance space ("insurtech"). It allows consumers to simply turn on and turn off insurance for each of their possessions on a mobile app with the swipe of a finger. Consumer love the simple, on-demand, single-item coverage product. However, the cost to acquire customers (CAC) for Trov is significantly higher than the total expected contribution margins (CLV) for the single item coverage insurance product that the company is known for. In light of this, what should the CEO of Trov to with the product? How can Trov monetize on-demand insurance?

INSEAD alumnus Martin Murray is the inventor of waterdropâ„¢, a cube made up of natural aromas, superfood extracts and vitamins that encourages people to drink more water by adding flavour. Although he initially builds a business on a lean budget, he knows that creating a unique brand is key for the success of his innovation. Not only is waterdrop in a category of its own - 'a microdrink' - but, unlike most drinks, the cubes can be sold online. With a product positioning 'drink more water', he tests the brand on his native Austrian market. The case follows Martin from the initial idea (prompted by the limited drinks range on-board a flight to Singapore) to recruiting a small team to launch what he believes will be a game-changer in the non-alcoholic beverage industry.

Lieven Demeester was the Associate Dean of the Singapore Management University (SMU) Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme. The University was launched in 2000 as a school with a distinctive approach to undergraduate education relative to two well entrenched local competing business schools - both in terms of a broad-based curriculum and an interactive pedagogy that aimed at developing students with strong communication and collaborative skills. In 2008, SMU launched an MBA programme with a small cohort of 45 students (including both part-time and full-time) students. Since then, the programme had undergone a few changes to its curriculum and had expanded in size to around a hundred full-time and part-time students. SMU capitalised on its location in the heart of Singapore to attract foreign candidates who were keen to work in the country. However, regulatory changes had made it more difficult for foreign students to find jobs in the country after graduation. The MBA programme was especially important because growth of the undergraduate programme was constrained by the Ministry of Education, which subsidised tertiary education. Also, it is usually the flagship programme of a business school. The recruitment team regularly travelled to hold roadshows and information sessions within Asia while the marketing team used social and traditional media to raise awareness for the programme. The career services team was expanded to help students in their job searches. Deemester was considering getting the programme ranked internationally. How could he differentiate the SMU MBA programme from competing programmes, taking into account the needs of its target market?

This case features an entrepreneur striving to rapidly grow a successful chain of hair salons that serve women with afro hair. After doubling from 13 to 26 salons across Brazil in 2014, the founders' expansion plan called for 120 Beleza Natural salons and R$1 billion in sales by 2018. CEO and cofounder Leila Velez is considering various fundamental marketing strategies to catalyze growth: Should Beleza launch a new mass-media campaign, increase promotional discounts, expand its target market to serve men, broaden its service offerings, streamline processes to reduce wait times, expand distribution channels, or franchise? Students assume the role of Velez and are asked to recommend which growth strategy would be their top priority. In doing so, they are required to evaluate how these strategies pertain to the company's business model and value proposition. They are also challenged to consider what a brand is and what makes a strong service brand in order to verify if their strategies are consistent with Beleza's brand. The teaching note outlines a framework for developing or evaluating a business model as well as developing strategies for managing growth. The case is accompanied by a series of video interviews with Velez that support case preparation, in-class discussion, and key learning points.