In 2017, Yosha Gupta established MeMeraki Retail and Tech Private Limited (MeMeraki) with the ambitious goal of digitizing the 3,000-plus art forms produced in India. She intended to create online and off-line experiences and products for consumers and create sustainable livelihoods for traditional artisans using technology as a differentiator. However, ensuring the long-term sustainability of the business presented Gupta with pressing dilemmas. One such challenge was how to articulate the ethical and fair pricing of art products to customers, particularly when similar art forms were available to customers on other websites at a variety of price ranges. Another critical concern was dissuading artists from disintermediating MeMeraki by bypassing the company and selling directly to the customers they had become acquainted with through the company. The challenge also extended to how to communicate the Indian ethos and culture to a global audience.
In April 2023, an issue emerged around the elevated level of sugar found in Mondelez India’s nutritional beverage, Bournvita. The sequence of events began with the posting of a 90-second video by a prominent social media influencer, which rapidly gained widespread attention, accumulating more than 12 million views within a short period. The video emphasized the high amount of sugar in Bournvita and brought attention to the company’s transparency procedures. Mondelez India, owner of the Bournvita brand, promptly refuted the assertions put forth by the influencer and categorized the video as “unscientific.” In response to the accusations levelled against it, Mondelez India opted to issue a legal notice to the individual responsible for creating the video. The company’s legal action yielded positive results, as the influencer ultimately removed the video and issued an apology to the company. Nevertheless, public opinion remained mostly unaltered, and the dispute persisted on many social media sites. The leadership team faced a series of inquiries in the following weeks on the wisdom of issuing a legal notice to the social media influencer. Did Mondelez India effectively address the crisis and utilize the appropriate communication channel? What message should Mondelez India have conveyed and what was the most effective method to do so?
In March 2023, the Adani Group experienced a sharp decline in market value, losing over $150 billion. This downturn followed allegations from US short-seller Hindenburg Research, which accused Gautam Adani of inflating his net worth to $120 billion over three years, mainly through a dramatic rise in the stock prices of the group's key companies. The Adani Group disputed these stock manipulation allegations, citing a misunderstanding of Indian laws, highlighting also their consistent debt reduction over the past decade. The challenge for the Adani Group now lies in regaining stakeholder confidence and managing the crisis, which may include re-evaluating its corporate governance practices and revising its communication strategy to restore its image.
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ganesh Thummer, chief executive officer of Friday Engineering, faced a daunting challenge. Friday Engineering, which is a multinational manufacturer of medical devices, had recently partnered with a European firm. But the Indian and European teams, collaborating for the first time, were encountering significant conflict. Thummer decided to intervene but was facing resistance from his Indian office staff who wanted to maintain their traditional practices and beliefs. Thummer had to figure out how to bring the teams together while respecting the values of both teams, encouraging collaborative efforts, and providing inclusive leadership to foster a harmonious and motivated workforce.
This presentation is intended to accompany W37078. It can provide instructors with additional material to enrich classroom discussion by introducing students to an additional aspect of how a brand achieves consistent messaging and positioning.
<div style="font-size: 0.93em; line-height: 1.4;"><p align="justify">This is the B-case for product W37078. Lynda Oliver and her team at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University developed the new slogan, "The Intelligent Future," to emphasize analytics, interdisciplinary learning, and human judgment in decision-making. This rebranding effort, supported by Dean Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou, was aimed at positioning Tepper as forward-looking and innovative. The comprehensive rebranding included a new voice and tone guide, updated visual design, and a digital advertising campaign that highlighted Tepper's unique strengths. The new branding, launched in September 2021, garnered strong support from stakeholders and prospective students, effectively positioning Tepper among the nation's elite business schools.
<div style="font-size: 0.95em; line-height: 1.4;"><p align="justify">The (A) case outlines the process leading to the rebranding of the Tepper School of Business (the Tepper School) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Lynda Oliver, chief marketing and communications officer at the Tepper School hired Digital Pulp, a New York-based advertising agency, for this project. The case outlines the marketing research process and findings—including a competitive brand analysis and several in-depth interviews and focus groups—that led to a new messaging hierarchy for the Tepper School to represent the school’s new positioning. Oliver had to choose between five proposed new slogans for the Tepper School to communicate this new positioning to the public and present her choice to the dean for approval. The chosen slogan had to reflect the Tepper School’s new competitive positioning and serve as the unifying basis for all future marketing communications. The (B) case presents the chosen slogan as well as a brief description of the proposed implementation process. It also presents sample advertisements, asking students to develop additional ones following the same format.
The Indian Premier League (IPL), a Twenty20 cricket league, underwent a transformative shift in 2022 as the IPL governing council conducted an e-auction for media rights, valuing them at US$5.64 billion. Viacom18 secured digital rights for $2.57 billion, highlighting the growing significance of online platforms. Disney Star invested $3.02 billion in exclusive TV and over-the-top rights, contributing to the IPL’s global popularity and revenue. Special packages, including weekend matches, attracted diverse investors, elevating the league to the second-highest globally—after the US National Football League. Unbundling media rights increased competition, emphasizing the elevated value of digital rights. Amidst competition between Disney+ Hotstar and Jio, strategic evaluation became crucial for the IPL’s position in the evolving sports broadcasting landscape, raising questions about global reach, digital engagement, revenue enhancement, and the pivotal role of media rights in sports property growth and valuation.
On October 10, 2022, Mary-Kay Messier, vice-president global marketing of Bauer Hockey (Bauer), was faced with a difficult decision on the future of Bauer’s sponsorship of Hockey Canada. Hockey Canada was experiencing widespread fallout from sexual assault allegations and the source of money that Hockey Canada paid in various settlements. Messier was planning to share Bauer’s position with Hockey Canada before publicly announcing the decision on October 11, 2022. Some sponsors had paused their relationships with Hockey Canada, other sponsors had severed their relationships entirely. Canada’s government had also frozen funding for Hockey Canada, citing a loss of confidence in the leadership at Hockey Canada.
On July 15, 2022, the senior marketing manager of Prabhu Murthy Industries Limited participated in a high-priority meeting attended by all of the company’s executives to discuss a pressing issue. The company’s unstable financial position and disappointing results had tarnished its reputation among investors. The company had to quickly raise funds by promoting itself as a favourable investment option for the public and investors, and the senior marketing manager was entrusted with developing an advertisement that would fulfill this purpose. As he contemplated the challenging week ahead, the senior marketing manager grappled with determining the most effective course of action to achieve the company’s objective. How would he convey the right advertising concept to effectively inspire confidence in investors and stakeholders? His contemplation would also underscore the importance of ethical communication in the financial services industry.
Cathay Pacific was founded in Hong Kong in 1946. As of July 2023, Cathay Pacific passenger and cargo airlines offered scheduled services to 81 destinations in 30 countries and regions worldwide, including 14 destinations in the Chinese Mainland. The group also served an additional 131 destinations in 21 countries and regions through code-share agreements. Effective January 1, 2023, Lavinia Lau was appointed chief customer and commercial officer and executive director on the board of Cathay Pacific. In August 2023 she faced the decision of what to propose to position Cathay Pacific to achieve its ambitious vision of becoming one of the world’s greatest service brands. What was the current positioning of Cathay Pacific relative to other airlines? Who should its target customers be? What should its message be to appeal to those target customers?
In September 2022, inspired by personal experiences, marketing executive Nicole Bezinski decided to set up GirlsTakeOver.org (GTO) after recognizing that teenage girls and young women in high schools and colleges in the United States were lacking coping mechanisms to help them manage increased stress and performance pressures. While schools received numerous new education program ideas annually, they were highly selective about which programs met the stringent criteria and were accepted. Consequently, Bezinski found herself with the challenge of proving that non-profit GTO offered students the self-management and coping benefits they needed. A high-impact proof-of-concept model was critical for GTO to receive serious consideration and acceptance by schools. Acceptance would lead to support, advocacy, and critical financial sponsorship from numerous stakeholders to enable GTO to launch and run operations in the first year. Bezinski had to finalize her proposal including the proof of concept before schools began accepting new education program applications.
When the new chief executive officer joined MX Player, the video streaming business in India was undergoing a content boom and witnessing many changes due to shifting media consumption patterns and the penetration and exponential growth of Western video streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. The structure of the Indian video-streaming content and consumer market was changing, with global streaming platforms inadvertently segmenting Indian consumers according to which platforms they could afford. Western streaming platforms had thus led to a category of aspirational consumers who desired distinct content but were not yet willing or able to pay for it. MX Player provided a solution to this audience by offering high-quality compressed video content for free. But could it address the needs of a growing number of digital customers and still be successful amidst the formidable competition in the OTT market?
In July 2022, the joint general manager of personnel and administration at the Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited (IFFCO)’s Paradeep unit received a call from the Delhi corporate office informing him of a complaint filed by the wife of a deceased employee against a current employee of the unit. The complaint alleged that the employee had defrauded the widow of approximately US$40,000—the sum total of her husband’s terminal death benefit. As the joint general manager worked to investigate the matter and prepare a report for senior management, he found himself struggling with the managerial need to safeguard the organization’s image. As a human resources manager, he contemplated several questions: How could an ethical culture be established and sustained in IFFCO? What strategic human resources measures should be adopted to avoid such situations in future? How could communication be used as enabler in this critical situation? Despite his mixed emotions and the limited time available to present his findings, he knew that he needed to ensure a fair and thorough investigation to resolve the issue.
This case explores the complexities and challenges that can arise when evaluating a job offer that involves a potential conflict between an individual’s passions and their professional prospects and personal relationships. In January 2023, Stephanie MacLean, a recent business school graduate, faced a challenging career decision. She had received a job offer from Hockey Canada’s Public Relations (PR) division for what she had initially regarded as her “dream job.” However, after revelations in the news regarding the organization’s history of sexual assault, she now had reservations about taking up the offer. While tempted by the opportunity to combine her passion for sports and her interest in PR, MacLean feared potentially alienating her social and professional networks, damaging her personal reputation, and limiting her career trajectory. It was Friday, and MacLean needed to make a decision over the weekend.
In August 2022, a student pursuing his master of business administration degree in Mumbai at one of India’s top business schools found himself in a despondent situation as he prepared his curriculum vitae (CV) to apply for an internship position at Golden Tobacco Company. He had written an email to his former project supervisor (a senior fellow of the MIT Media Lab at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay), requesting him to approve the project the student had worked on under his supervision as relevant experience for the internship position. In response, the student received an email from his supervisor with one terse line: “Is this an order?” With a deadline that very evening to submit the CV, the student was in a tizzy. Where had he gone wrong in his email to prompt the terse reply from his former supervisor? How could he fix the situation? And how could he prevent such a situation when writing emails in the future?
Often organizations need to apologize for a situation caused by a poor decision or by the actions of one of their employees. There are also times when individuals need to make a public apology about something they have said or done. This case gives students an opportunity to put themselves in the place of Lara Spencer, co-host of Good Morning America, apologizing for comments she made in 2019 about the United Kingdom's Prince George and his grade school curriculum, which included computer programming, religious studies, poetry, and ballet. Critics quickly called Spencer to task for making light of boys and men who dance.
On October 18, 2021 a Zomato app user wanted a refund for a missing item in his online food service order and contacted the company’s customer care agent over Twitter. The customer was from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where Tamil was the native language and a matter of parochial pride. What had started as a minor food order detail escalated into an online nationwide language debate with the accompanying hashtag #Reject_Zomato. The entire episode and ensuing online debate lasted less than 24 hours. But the matter created an indelible trail of negative publicity and scathing media coverage for Zomato, denting the company’s reputation. Was Zomato’s public response to the issue appropriate? Should the company review its use of Twitter as a customer care channel? More broadly, what changes should be considered for Zomato’s customer support function to deal effectively with culturally-attuned customer communication in a diverse market of 1.4 billion people with many different regional identities, cultural pride levels, and spoken languages?
Lisa LaFlamme was the trusted face of CTV National News. In 2022, she was at the height of her career. It was therefore a shock to her colleagues and viewers when, on August 15, 2022, she posted a video on Twitter to announce that she had been abruptly ousted from CTV by its parent company, Bell Media Inc. (Bell Media). Bell Media was hit with seemingly never-ending waves of negative press, including speculation that sexism and ageism had been the reasons behind LaFlamme’s ousting. The choice to get rid of LaFlamme, and the manner in which that choice was exercised, had lasting negative effects that Bell Media surely had not anticipated. Looking back, was replacing LaFlamme unequivocally the wrong choice? Or could it have been handled in a way that would have prevented such backlash?