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This case study is designed to enable students to formulate the strategic planning process in relation to an organization’s resources; assess the critical tasks required for the company’s business planning for growth and market expansion; and examine the importance of the value delivery process for the company, its customer and its employees. At the end of the case discussion, students will learn how to plan their business in an emerging market by using their existing resources, where the business stands at present and where it may go in the coming future.

The case study discusses how Byju’s, an Indian multinational educational technology company, revolutionized student learning programs through its innovative strategic implementation. It explores the company’s growth and expansion strategy by considering a strength, weakness, opportunity and threats analysis. It elaborates on how Byju’s acquired various companies in India and other countries to become an international technology-based educational brand with 150 million users in 2022. The case study also highlights the marketing and promotional strategy used by the company on online and offline platforms. The case study elaborates on the value delivery process and its importance for customer and employee satisfaction. Despite its success in the Indian market, Byju’s faced tough challenges in the US and European markets, such as lower-than-expected growth rates and lower subscription numbers, even though it followed the same strategy as in the Indian market. The acquisition and celebrity strategy works in emerging economies such as India but not in developed countries. The company’s return on investment was down owing to the high costs it had incurred over the years on market acquisitions and marketing promotions. The growing competition was also expected to bring more challenges for Byju’s. New players such as Tata Studi and YouTube planned to enter the market. Byju Raveendran and his management group had to decide whether to maintain or change the current market offering to reflect market developments to satisfy their customers and employees. They also had to determine whether the main components of the marketing strategy, such as the company’s ongoing value delivery process and ongoing strategy toward the target audience, partners and rivals, are advantageous to the firm or not. The team was in dilemma whether the marketing planning process was going in the right direction and how to make all elements of its businesses more efficient in dealing with the issues. Raveendran kept asking questions about to what extent it is still possible to alter the marketing plan.

The case study is appropriate for discussion in courses such as marketing management, service marketing and strategic marketing management, whether they are part of an undergraduate program (Bachelor of Business Administration [BBA]), a postgraduate program in business management (Master of Business Administration [MBA]) or an executive-level program (executive MBA). The breadth of business topics addressed and the intricacy of the scenario make this case study best suited to be used after the semester as either a culminating project or as a seminar discussion for undergraduates (BBA). The case study can also be discussed in the marketing management course (graduation level) under the marketing and service strategy chapters.

CSS8: Marketing

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

Given the great tourist attractiveness of Spain at international level, tourism has become one of the main sources of income and employment, as well as a basic pillar of the Spanish economy. With these ideas in mind, this paper aims to study how the different promotion strategies implemented in the industry have influenced the evolution of tourism in Spain since the early 20th century.

The research is a general review, providing a historical examination of the diverse promotion strategies deployed in the tourism industry in Spain over the past decades. It focuses on the descriptive approach of these strategies and their implications throughout the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.

The findings reveal a shift in recent years from strategies focused on Marketing 1.0 to strategies that, apart from being centered on consumer values (therefore, Marketing 3.0), are beginning to rely to a greater extent on information and communication technologies (ICT) and sustainability, more in line with the more recent Marketing 4.0 and even Marketing 5.0.

This work has many implications for the management of public and private operators in the industry, including the need to incorporate the latest marketing trends – most notably the advances in ICT and sustainability.

The study offers an in-depth understanding of how marketing strategies have been used in the tourism sector in Spain from the end of the 19th century to the present day, which is highly original compared to previous studies.

Big data marketing analytics (BDMA) has been discovered to be a key contributing factor to developing necessary marketing capabilities. This research aims to investigate the impact of the technology and information quality of BDMA on the critical marketing capabilities by differentiating between firms with low and high perceived market performance.

The responses were collected from marketing professionals familiar with BDMA in North America (N = 236). The analysis was done with partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The results indicated positive and significant relationships between the information and technology quality as exogenous constructs and the endogenous constructs of the marketing capabilities of marketing planning, implementation and customer relationship management (CRM) with mainly moderate effect sizes. Differences in the path coefficients in the structural model were detected between firms with low and high perceived market performance.

This research indicates the critical role of technology and information quality in developing marketing capabilities. The study discovered heterogeneity in the sample population when using the low and high perceived market performance as the source of potential heterogeneity, the presence of which would likely cause a threat to the validity of the results in case heterogeneity is not considered. Thus, this research builds on previous research by considering this issue.

The author employed a five-step approach: Data (e.g., qualitative primary and secondary data) collection (about a major project at the examined organisation), Critical thinking (in order to determine the dilemma), Setting learning objectives (e.g., with respect to the Bloom's taxonomy), Testing (in order to confirm the teaching plan) (e.g., with research assistants and doctoral candidates), and Ensuring clarity (e.g., especially for the case narrative).

The site manager at a UNESCO World Heritage Site by the name Ephesus in Türkiye (Turkey) was considering who would update the site management plan. UNESCO was regularly asking for updates. Would site management outsource the management plan from a firm? For example, the site management had had an outside firm develop the management plan and Ephesus had become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Otherwise, would the site management rely on their own experience this time? Was there another way?

The educators could use the case study to introduce graduate students to “the value conception” in “marketing management” courses and to “the social exchange school of thought” in “marketing theory” courses. The learning objectives develop over the tension between owning and outsourcing main responsibilities of a scientific field as well as the tension between claims and objective evaluations. “The value conception” in “the social exchange school of thought” could improve planning in favour of humanity in a way that the United Nations could recognise (e.g., “value-based planning”). Corresponding discussions motivate a main question about the future: What is marketing for?

In this study, we applied the strategy-as-practice (SAP) framework to analyse strategic communication practices. SAP implies approaching strategy as something that organisational members do and is useful for understanding the tensions between emergence and formalisation and between planning and improvisation that characterise the everyday communication work of communication practitioners.

The paper is based on an ethnographic study of a record company and on qualitative interviews with various actors from the music industry.

Tensions exist between the emergence of inputs from active consumers that require flexibility and attempts to strategically formalise and continuously adapt plans and encourage consumers to act in anticipated ways. The findings revealed five strategic communication practices—meetings, working in the office, gathering and analysing consumer engagement and related data, collaboration and storytelling—that practitioners used to conduct strategic communication and navigate the tensions.

The study contributes to understanding the role of strategic communication practices in contemporary organisations and how practitioners manage the tensions within them. The study shows that an SAP approach can account for improvisation and emergence, as well as planning and formalisation. It also shows how SAP resonates with emergent and agile strategic communication frameworks.

The purpose of this study is to propose and test an extended theory of planned behavior model to explain the significance of social media influencers’ credibility, social media usage (SMU) and social media marketing while simultaneously examining females’ intentions to purchase cosmetics online.

An online questionnaire was used to collect data from 386 female consumers of cosmetics, and the data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with the help of SmartPLS version 4.

First, the results indicated that SMU, social media influencers’ credibility and social media marketing significantly and positively impact the theory of planned behavior components, namely, attitude, subjective norms (SNs) and perceived behavioral control (PBC). Second, results confirmed that attitude, SNs and PBC significantly and positively influenced female consumers’ online purchase intentions (OPIs).

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to examine an integrated model that consisted of SMU, social media marketing and social media influencers along with the theory of planned behavior constructs in their proposed research model in the context of cosmetics in India. The study also enriched the body of knowledge about using the PLS-SEM approach to predict OPI for cosmetics.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the effect of marketing modification on business performance from the perspective of marketing capabilities theory.

This study employed a survey method to collect data from 225 food processing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the Ghana Enterprise Agency (GEA) registered list in the Eastern Region of Ghana. The effect of marketing modification on the performance of SMEs in the food processing industry was evaluated using a structural equation modeling (SEM) – path analysis.

According to the study’s findings, marketing modification has a positive and significant impact on the financial performance (FP), customer performance (CP), internal business process performance (IBPP) and learning and growth performance (LGP) of Ghanaian SMEs engaged in food processing. The results of this study also demonstrated the importance of marketing modification determinants, such as marketing resources (MR), cross-functional and interenterprise collaboration (CFIEC), architectural marketing capability (AMC) and marketing strategy decision implementation (MSDI), in achieving food processing SME performance in Ghana.

This current research has its limitation, even though its importance has been mentioned earlier. First, the study can be improved by expanding the sample size through the inclusion of other SMEs from other industries since it is industry specific (i.e. food processing SME). Second, this current study was conducted in Ghana. To compare results, the current study may be replicated in other emerging countries. Third, future research studies may consider how business environmental factors such as technological change (e.g. use of artificial intelligence and machine learning) moderate the relationship between marketing modification and SME performance.

The outcomes of this research study are anticipated to give profitable implications to both academicians and practitioners. For the academic aspect, this study provides an important contribution to marketing modification and performance literature by examining the impact of innovative marketing on the performance of food processing SMEs in Ghana. For practitioners, this study indicates that food processing SME owners/managers must focus on marketing modification to develop their performance. The increase in marketing modification application through marketing capabilities such as MR and CFIEC will enable owners/managers to achieve performance targets.

The application of marketing modification among food processing SMEs in Ghana will contribute greatly to their profitability, survival and growth. The growth and survival of food processing SMEs (not limited to food processing SMEs) in Ghana will help in the control of unemployment, which is a major social issue in Ghana.

The study’s findings provide solid support for the marketing capabilities theory. This study also supports the notion that food processing SMEs should perceive marketing modification and its determinants (i.e. MR, CFIEC, AMC and MSDI) as a critical strategic capacity to enhance their performance (i.e. FP, CF, IBPP and LGP). In terms of contribution, this study adds to the body of knowledge already available on marketing modification and business performance, particularly in the setting of an emerging economy.

This case was developed through interviews with Brooke Cooper, Dr. Charles Steinberg and others at the WooSox, as well as a thorough analysis of the Worcester Red Sox’s social media and company websites.

The purpose of this marketing case study is to This case focuses on understanding the process involved in conceptualizing and developing a marketing plan and strategy, and the ability to define and articulate the importance of BRAND in a marketing context.

The Pawtucket Red Sox relocated to Worcester, Massachusetts in Spring of 2019. The citizens of Worcester embraced their new team – the WooSox – as did many of the surrounding towns in Worcester County. The marketing arm of the WooSox worked tirelessly to develop a plan that included immersion in the cultures of the cities and towns within Worcester County; becoming a presence in their schools, businesses and community-based organizations; learning the priorities of the individual communities and supporting those needs; building a consistent, interactive and strong presence on social media; highlighting various interactions with their fan base; providing an outstanding experience at Polar Park; creating a loyal fan base ultimately driving ticket and merchandise sales and cultivating new fans to experience Polar Park; and understanding that word of mouth is the best form of marketing. The WooSox leadership team understood the need to expand its reach into new markets. In this case, the marketing team has been charged with exploring the Western Massachusetts region as a potential growth opportunity. The WooSox have a strong brand in the greater Worcester County area – but can they travel 60–90 min west and establish the same presence?

This case was written for undergraduate-level Marketing Principles or Sport Marketing courses.

This study aims to establish marketing practices which predict business performance of architecture firms within the Nigerian Construction Industry (NCI) to address the sustained poor business performance of firms, which affects allied professionals as many projects in the built environment depend on design proposals from architects.

Survey responses from 86 firms were used to model business performance measured as total revenue of the firms from 40 commonly deployed marketing practices in construction.

Two-thirds of the marketing practices most used by architectural firms were ineffective in predicting business performance. The model also explains up to half the variance in business performance (37.4–49.9%), supporting the view that marketing in the CI affects business performance. Researching client needs and competitors emerged as the only significant positive predictor of business performance (β = 0.827, p = 0.043). Using social media (β = −1.247, p = 0.004), regular participation in awards/competitions (β = −1.420, p = 0.013) and inclusion of political offers in bids (β = −1.050, p = 0.016) negatively predicted business performance.

Architecture and allied professional bodies in Nigeria need to rethink existing restrictions regarding marketing based on traditional code of ethics in light of present-day realities of digital and internet business environments. Principals and management of architecture firms require a paradigm shift in deploying the appropriate marketing practices, especially as it relates to research regarding changing client expectations and current competition within the NCI.

The study established marketing practices which model business performance and demonstrate their value in a framework for improving the financial sustainability of architecture firms within the NCI.

In this paper, the authors aim to introduce international dynamic marketing capabilities (IDMCs) theoretically derived from marketing capabilities (MCs), dynamic marketing capabilities (DMCs) and international marketing capabilities (IMCs) and provide a novel conceptualization of the concept by applying a holistic view of the international enterprise.

This is a literature review that maps the current research on MCs, DMCs and IMCs and serves as a basis for the theoretical conceptualization of a novel IDMCs concept as well as for the identification of research gaps and the development of future research directions on this phenomenon.

Existing typologies of MCs, DMCs and IMCs are classified into four categories: strategic, operational, analytical and value creation capabilities. A new typology of IDMCs is proposed, consisting of digital MC and dynamic internationalization capability as strategic capabilities, agile IMC, IM excellence and absorptive capability in IM as operational capabilities, IM resilience capability, IM knowledge management capability, AI-enabled IDMC and Industry 4.0-enabled IDMC as analytical capabilities, and ambidextrous IM innovation capability as value creation capability. Finally, the authors identify research gaps and develop research questions that open future research avenues for the coming years.

This paper offers a novel view of MCs, DMCs and IMCs and argues that, in contrast to the majority of previous research, a comprehensive understanding of these is only possible if all levels are considered simultaneously: the strategic, the operational, the analytical and the value creation level. A new conceptualization and typology of IDMCs follows this logic.