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Coolness is a quality that is widely desired but not widely understood. While many brands seek to establish themselves as "cool," few have a clear idea of how to get there. In this technical note, we present a general framework for coolness that can be used by consumers and managers alike to better understand how to create an air of cool around themselves, their brand, or their products. Our framework rests on four traits: autonomy, authenticity, attitude, and association, and on the interplay between them. Using this framework, we answer questions such as, "What makes something cool?" "What do cool brands do differently?" and "How can something cool become uncool?" Drawing on the literature surrounding autonomy, identity, norms, and impression formation, as well as real-world examples of best practices and common pitfalls, the note seeks to help students navigate the ambiguous world of coolness. This case is appropriate for use both in a first-year marketing course as well as a higher-level elective with MBAs and executives. This case would be most impactful if taught along with the case "From Heineken with Love: James Bond Product Promotion" (UVA-M-0952); the framework in this note could be applied to expand the discussion in that case.

In August 2017, Cumplo's Founder Shea and CEO Kirberg meet to discuss growth and strategy issues faced by this Chilean fintech startup. What sales and marketing strategy will best foster the compny's growth? Are changes needed in the product lineup? How and when should Cumplo begin to expand beyond Chile, to other countries in Latin America? The company raised $1.4 million in its first three years, mainly from individual investors, and then issued new shares for $3 million in 2015. By June 2017, Cumplo was debt-free, had achieved break-even, and had raised an additional $2.3 million.

Radio Mirchi is the flagship brand of Entertainment Network India Limited (ENIL). ENIL is the largest private FM radio broadcaster in India. ENIL was able to gain a stronghold in the market due to its strengths of innovativeness and creative content, large operating network, reach among listeners, high quality studio and strong advertisement sales capabilities. The case discusses Radio Mirchi's entry into the Kolkata market in 2003 amidst the competition from three other players --Red FM, Aamar and Power. Kolkata occupied a prime place in the company's growth plans. The case discusses the dilemma faced by the company on developing the entry strategy. Its top management has to decide on the market segment(s) it should target, and the design of the product.

In June 2016, the augmented reality game Pokémon GO quickly became one of the hottest topics in the world, changing both the online and offline behaviours of players. Pokémon GO was jointly developed by the San Francisco-based firm Niantic Inc. and The Pokémon Company, based in Japan, and was underwritten by the Japanese video game giant Nintendo. The game, which overlaid virtual items and creatures onto the physical world, allowed smartphone users to seek out and capture a variety of virtual monsters in real-world locations. With easy-to-follow game rules, Pokémon GO rapidly picked up a wide range of players and, within a relatively short period of time, generated considerable income through in-app purchases. The sudden popularity (and the eventual decline in interest) of the new game provoked debates about the technology behind it. How could developers use augmented reality technology to satisfy customer needs, address business challenges, and promote social welfare?

In June 2014, MannKind Corporation announced that after years of development and billions of dollars in expenses, the FDA had finally approved its drug, Afrezza. MannKind would thus be the only company with an inhalable insulin on the market. As an alternative to injectable rapid-acting (or mealtime) insulin, Afrezza boasted a potential market of at least 4 million diabetic patients. Shortly thereafter, Sanofi, a company with vast experience in the diabetic space, became MannKind's marketing partner and helped launch Afrezza in February, 2015. Although the drug had a black box warning and required doctors to perform a lung test on patients, expectations were high, with some analysts predicting peak sales of up to $4 billion a year. However, those lofty hopes were quickly dashed when Afrezza generated lackluster first-year sales, driving Sanofi to terminate its short-lived contract with MannKind in January, 2016. MannKind's management attributed the launch's failure to a poor marketing approach, convinced that Sanofi, despite its strong global presence and experience, did not effectively address critical barriers to adoption. The company now planned to overhaul Afrezza's entire marketing strategy. This included rethinking: which patients and physicians to target, how to position the drug to engender interest and adoption, how to lower end consumer price, through which media to convey Afrezza's benefits, and how to streamline the process of performing the lung-test and getting the drug into the hands of patients. But would all these changes and initiatives, no matter how well executed, be enough to turn sales around? Would Afrezza ever realize the potential that Alfred Mann, the late founder and former CEO, saw in the novel treatment?

Ramco Systems Limited (Ramco) was a leading information technology (IT) product company and a pioneer in India, where the majority of IT companies were focused on services. It created three world-class products that drove its growth: a cloud-based enterprise resource planning system, a human capital management system, and aviation software. In 2016, the company was enjoying impressive growth, making profits, and acquiring new clients from around the world. At this point, the chief executive officer had to decide how to balance more rapid innovation with product stabilization. He needed to build structures, processes, and a corporate culture that would enable Ramco to continue to grow. At the same time, he needed to consider the ways new technologies were changing clients’ requirements for newer product features—such as the use of mobility or cloud computing. Should the company adopt a mobile-only or mobile-also strategy? Should it incorporate features from social-media platforms as product features? Should it provide its products via software installed at clients’ premises, or should products be available on the cloud, via software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscriptions?

Faced with declining market share and sales, Natura, Brazil's second largest brand in the cosmetics, fragrances, and toiletries market, expanded its customer reach by moving from a direct-sales company to a multichannel company. In 2014, Natura added online catalogs, physical stores, and drugstores to its well-established direct-selling model, but the results were disappointing. Between 2014 and 2016, three different Natura CEOs attempted to lead the company in the strategic transition to focus less on the direct sales consultants and more on reaching the end consumers directly with multiple channels and touchpoints. On October 2016, the company's board appointed its former commercial vice president, João Paulo Ferreira, as the most recent CEO. Ferreira's challenge was to find the right balance between the direct-selling and other channel formats to market Natura, thus enabling it to thrive in the face of intense competition in the beauty and personal care market in Brazil.

This is a collection of four caselets that aim to provide a rich discussion around why experimentation in business is important and how it can be properly designed to improve short-term tactical and long-term strategic decisions. Specifically, this document presents four different business problems that could be resolved with proper experimentation techniques. The decisions range from the initial evaluation of whether an experiment is needed to how it can be designed, implemented, and evaluated to how it can be improved and sustained. This case would be best used alongside the technical note ""To Understand Consumer Behavior, Think Like a Marketplace Scientist"" (UVA-M-0950), as learnings from that note can be leveraged and applied to tackle the issues here. Ultimately, this reading allows MBA students and industry professionals alike an opportunity to practice being effective designers, analyzers, and proponents of experimentation.

Managers today are under tremendous pressure to uncover factors driving customers' attitudes and behavior. Unfortunately, traditional methods suffer from well-known limitations and have remained largely unchanged since their introduction decades ago. As a result, there is growing interest in brain-based approaches that may enable managers to directly probe customers' underlying thoughts, feelings, and intentions. This article provides practical guidance to managers on using these tools, focusing on two distinct uses: validation of existing insights and generation of novel insights. Throughout, we emphasize that managers should see traditional and brain-based approaches as complements, rather than substitutes, in understanding customers.

NewStar Marine & Scooter Inc. was a small family-owned retail operation in Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia. It offered a diverse range of products, from boats and motors to scooters and trailers, all under one roof. For a small family business, it was very successful. Sales grew from $198,000 in the first year to over $600,000 by year three, despite little marketing, few part-time staff, and an unconventional operational strategy. By February 2017, this significant growth coupled with the owner's lack of planning had created a series of problems, including unhappy employees, facility limitations, and brand confusion. To continue its remarkable growth, the owner needed to rethink the business operational and marketing strategies.

BigBasket.com had emerged as one of the major players in highly competitive Indian online grocery retailing market by employing inventory based model. On March 22, 2016, Big Basket had secured Series D funding worth USD 150 million from the United Arab Emirates-based Abraaj group for driving its future growth. A few days later, the Government of India came out with guidelines on March 29, 2016, through its Press Note No. 3 (2016 Series) which stated that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the inventory based model of e-commerce would not be permitted. As BigBasket grappled with the challenges of a growing and expanding business, BigBasket team had to evaluate the existing business model. This case traces the predicament of BigBasket in formulating a business strategy for taking the online grocery retailing business further.

This technical note outlines the process of proper experimentation in the world of business. This reading begins by describing why organizational experimentation is important and then defines a true experiment, highlighting the differences between testing and management by intuition. It then goes on to explain when it is appropriate to use experiments, outlines several different types of experiments, and provides their strengths and weaknesses. Next, the note walks through how to run an experiment, defining the components of experiments and detailing the experimental design process. Finally, it provides preliminary guidance on the analysis of experimental results, focusing on statistical significance, precision, scalability, and sustainability. Ultimately, this reading prepares MBA students and industry professionals alike to become effective designers, analyzers, and proponents of experimentation.

In November 2015, the co-founders of OSSCube Solutions Ltd., an Indian-based information technology (IT) solution provider, faced the risk of shrinking and uncertain profits if they continued with their open source solution strategy. Changing to non-open-source technology would entail re-positioning the company in the minds of employees and customers. The re-positioning could lead to a more stable revenue stream and open up access to larger customers. However, it could also attract severe competitive retaliation and cause the company to lose clients and employees. The challenge of evolving the organization from a technology focus to a customer focus was further complicated by an increasing trend for customers to rationalize their IT vendor list. The co-founders needed to decide whether to expand their business scope now or postpone the decision. If they went ahead now, they needed to address the timing and sequence of the change.

NewStar Marine & Scooter Inc. was a small family-owned retail operation in Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia. It offered a diverse range of products, from boats and motors to scooters and trailers, all under one roof. For a small family business, it was very successful. Sales grew from $198,000 in the first year to over $600,000 by year three, despite little marketing, few part-time staff, and an unconventional operational strategy. By February 2017, this significant growth coupled with the owner's lack of planning had created a series of problems, including unhappy employees, facility limitations, and brand confusion. To continue its remarkable growth, the owner needed to rethink the business operational and marketing strategies.

In November 2015, the co-founders of OSSCube Solutions Ltd., an Indian-based information technology (IT) solution provider, faced the risk of shrinking and uncertain profits if they continued with their open source solution strategy. Changing to non-open-source technology would entail re-positioning the company in the minds of employees and customers. The re-positioning could lead to a more stable revenue stream and open up access to larger customers. However, it could also attract severe competitive retaliation and cause the company to lose clients and employees. The challenge of evolving the organization from a technology focus to a customer focus was further complicated by an increasing trend for customers to rationalize their IT vendor list. The co-founders needed to decide whether to expand their business scope now or postpone the decision. If they went ahead now, they needed to address the timing and sequence of the change.

Yalla Momos was a restaurant in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that served momos, which were Nepal’s answer to the Chinese dumpling. Yalla Momos’ sales have grown exponentially since brothers Prashant and Ishan Goel founded the restaurant in 2012. Recently, in order to safeguard their share of the market, the Goels have been considering how to take their venture forward in the face of competition from both the organized (big retail outlets) and unorganized (individually managed) food sectors. The founders want to secure a position as market leaders in providing nutritious, affordable restaurant food to the expatriate (expat) community in Dubai. How could they communicate with the public and persuade a wider target audience of South Asian expats to adopt this healthy food choice? Should they diversify the menu to attract more customers, or would that cause the restaurant to lose its core competitive advantage of serving healthy, nutritious food? Would harnessing social media attract the expats?

Yalla Momos was a restaurant in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that served momos, which were Nepal's answer to the Chinese dumpling. Yalla Momos' sales have grown exponentially since brothers Prashant and Ishan Goel founded the restaurant in 2012. Recently, in order to safeguard their share of the market, the Goels have been considering how to take their venture forward in the face of competition from both the organized (big retail outlets) and unorganized (individually managed) food sectors. The founders want to secure a position as market leaders in providing nutritious, affordable restaurant food to the expatriate (expat) community in Dubai. How could they communicate with the public and persuade a wider target audience of South Asian expats to adopt this healthy food choice? Should they diversify the menu to attract more customers, or would that cause the restaurant to lose its core competitive advantage of serving healthy, nutritious food? Would harnessing social media attract the expats?

In 2008, the marketing manager for Nestlé Japan’s confectionery business and his team were struggling to redefine the KITKAT brand within the Japanese market. KITKAT as a brand faced a real threat as the retail environment rapidly shifted toward increasingly powerful convenience store chains and consumer preferences shifted toward more novel consumable products. With more than 200 companies competing within Japan’s crowded and relatively stable confectionery market, Nestlé Japan was facing the harsh realities of Japan’s famed position as the world’s toughest consumer market. To address these challenges, Nestlé Japan worked over 15 years to instill deep meaning in the KITKAT brand and then, based upon this foundation, created a comprehensive product portfolio. How can KITKAT capitalize on its past success as it moves forward?

Supplement for product 9B17A037. The KITKAT team had experienced great success over the past few years by building a powerful and resonating brand and enhancing their production capabilities to enable them to adapt to changing demands from their channel partners. However, the harsh realities of a changing market demographic, and increasingly powerful convenience store chains, created a clear sense of urgency for creative solutions to continue their growth. The KITKAT team leaders felt that the ideas that had been generated in the closing months of 2007 held enormous potential to create growth through a previously overlooked retail channel. As they sat down to review the strategies, they wondered: Had they overlooked any important details that could affect their 2008 year?

Supplement for product 9B17A037. In the spring of 2009, the KITKAT team was fresh from a successful marketing campaign targeting students. After reviewing recent figures however, they realized that they had a critical decision to make regarding the fate of the overall KITKAT brand portfolio: was KITKAT too sweet for some of their older customers? How could they address this issue of taste without undermining the overall brand that they had worked so hard to create through their recent postal service campaign?