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The case is written based on general experience.

Zealvita is a challenger brand to NutriMalt in the white malted food drink (MFD) category. It has a product formula that compares favorably on taste and equally on nutrition. However, Zealvita is not able to translate the power product formula to a winning market formula. Drawing on its legacy and strong adoption route, NutriMalt built a dominant 88% market share in the White MFD category. The market rule of “disproportionate market share for the leading brand” applies with inexorable force in MFD. Smarting at the low market share, Zealvita is in search of a marketing strategy to create churn. Rajiv Product Manager of Zealvita believes that consumer sales promotion of a higher order and at a higher frequency than what is normal can tilt the scales. From Zealvita’s perspective is there a strategic advantage in operating consumer promotion? Is it safe to assume that NutriMalt will not retaliate with consumer promotion? Can consumer sales promotion be sustained at planned frequency? What is the logic in a continuous consumer promotion program?

This case can be used at the post-graduate level in the Marketing Strategy course or in a course that has a sales promotion management or competition management segment. This case is also appropriate for use in executive education programs.

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At the end of this study, students should analyze the re-orientation of innovation music business model strategy to create a new market using the Blue Ocean Strategy of Sun-Eater Records Company. Furthermore, they should be able to implement the business model transformation in the music industry in this digital media era based on data and technological capability. Students should analyze the digital content strategy that is relatable and relevant to music customers/users through content creation. Finally, they need to create the content strategy applicable to promotion and marketing innovatively in the music business.

This study analyzes how a Jakarta-based independent music company, Sun Eater Records, changed its strategy in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The adverse effect of the pandemic on this company included a massive drop in sales of products and revenues from tours, festivals and outdoor music performances. Music industry stakeholders were confused and frustrated because of the restriction and the implementation of the social distancing policy, as most of their business models depended on live music showcases and selling records. The protagonist of this study, Kukuh Rizal Arfianto, is the director and co-founder of Sun Eater Records. Kukuh’s experience during the pandemic is used to capture the dilemma faced by the music industry players in Indonesia. This agile businessman transformed this music company by embracing digitalization. Inspired by the business models of Disney and 88 Rising (Music Management), Sun Eater Records developed various derivatives digital products. The company did not only sell music through digital content, it also developed several complementary products with music as their main theme. These innovative creations include mini-documentary, virtual concerts, compilation albums serial, digital comics, and Covid-19 Campaigns. The company is quite active in leveraging digitalization to survive in this business compared to other industry players. This study provides communication and design students opportunities to analyze how to draft an effective content strategy in the industry, in this case, the music industry.

This case is designed mainly for Management, Innovation, and Digital Communication course at the Bachelor's level program.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The case is particularly well suited to courses in marketing, promotion, integrated marketing communication, or marketing for small and medium enterprises.

This teaching case is aimed at postgraduate students in management or business programmes.

This case focusses on the growth direction and product promotion decisions of Debbie Ncube, cofounder and managing director of Eden All Natural (Eden) - an award-winning small enterprise that competes in the peanut butter category - in 2021. Conservative with the use of the company’s financial resources, Ncube has to reconsider Eden’s reliance on word-of-mouth, social media, and network marketing for promoting her range of natural peanut and other nut-based products. The case requires students to identify and evaluate the growth options available to Eden, to consider the strategy decisions around product line management and brand development, and to explore the role of packaging in effective product promotion.

To develop strategic product-market growth options (using the market diversification matrix) for a growing enterprise

To recommend what product line management and brand development strategies can be employed as the product mix gets bigger

To explore how packaging could continue to be leveraged to grow sales

The learning outcomes are as follows: to enable the learners to understand advantages and disadvantages of franchises in the company; to understand the strength and weakness points of Café2Go, its underlying strategy and what makes the company a unique outlet; to acquire a better understanding on the key challenges or dilemmas that Café2Go faces and to provide recommendations to address such dilemmas; to evaluate innovative marketing plans that would aid in expanding Café2Go internationally; and to understand cause-effect analysis of project management and the reason for the increase in the operationalization cost on Café2Go.

This case study presents the story of Jassim Al-Bastaki who was once rejected as a franchisee and later managed to be a pioneering franchiser in the UAE. The case aims to highlight the new coffee products and distribution methods Al-Bastaki used to compete in the over-saturated coffee market in Dubai. Al-Bastaki distinguished the first Café2Go by offering camel products in a mobile truck. It was the first “café-on-wheels” in the UAE, and it marketed the slogan of “wherever you are”. This case study discusses the challenges the project faced while marketing the unpopular, salty drink camel milk and issuing the necessary licenses for the coffee truck. The case study also elaborates on the innovative strategies Al-Bastaki used to convince customers of the health benefits of camel milk, to serve camel milk in appealing forms such as milkshakes and to replace the banned mobile truck with kiosks, cubicles, mobile trolleys and free phone call services. The case study also aims to highlight the obstacles associated with the franchise model and to reveal how Al-Bastaki overcame such challenges, using the franchise model, to expand Café2Go beyond the UAE. What started as a mobile coffee truck in 2009, in Dubai, has changed into an expanding business in Qatar, Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Spain (Masudi, 2013).

The case study is relevant for undergraduate and post-graduate management degrees, and specifically business administration, entrepreneurship, small business management courses.

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CSS 3: Entrepreneurship

Marketing Management, Business Strategy and Promotion & Advertising.

Associated degree, undergraduate and graduate students as well as executives from profit-making organizations.

Groupon is the world's largest daily-deal Web site and a pioneer in the group-buying industry. The major feature of the company's business model is that merchants use Groupon as a platform to offer coupons with a discounted price, and the coupon buyers can then redeem these coupons. Groupon has done business in over 50 countries and, by 2012, had over 39.5 million subscribers received its daily news. It had a 59.1 per cent share of the daily-deals market in 2013. Groupon is a publicly listed company on the NASDAQ in the USA, trading under the ticker symbol of “GPRN”.

The students' business knowledge and skills will be sharpened by working through this case, and students will be challenged to identify solutions to the marketing concerns: specifically, how the driving approach of its daily-deal business model enabled the company to adopt a growth strategy that will confront the difficulties of the emergent “golden age” of the daily-deal industry in the twenty-first century. In addition, it will also be of help to the students to take the active roles of thinker, analyst, evaluator, decision-maker and implementer to evaluate the continuing changes in a competitive environment and consider how Groupon can seize available opportunities to predict future performance by comparing data from 2008 and 2012.

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Pricing, Marketing Management, Strategic Marketing.

The case can be used for pricing course besides Marketing Management and Strategic Management course to MBA students and/or for Management Development Programmes.

ABC Fireworks Private Limited, located in Saharanpur, was into business of manufacturing fireworks under the brand name of Radiance. The owner Mr Sudhir Kapoor was satisfied with the present revenue growth and profit margin except that the cash flow was quite intermittent. The consumption pattern of Indian fireworks industry was highly skewed. Approximately 90 per cent of the entire year manufactured stock had retail market of just 5 days ahead of Diwali festival. To cater to this massive demand, the production was carried out for the whole year. Mr Kapoor was planning to restructure pricing policy so as to have regular cash flow throughout the year. To meet this objective, he was considering price promotion strategy as a preferred option which would enable his marketing team to offer specific discounts to stockists using time slab mechanism. The fireworks industry had four channel distribution processes. The product line was broadly divided into three categories, namely, sound, aerial shots and sparkles. The organization was not into manufacturing of aerial shots product category but was planning to make a foray into it. The case provides interesting insights into pricing dynamics prevalent in the Indian fireworks industry. It includes first-hand information about fireworks price, cost break-up and profit distribution among various members of the industry's value chain.

The case enables students to learn the concept and application of pricing, price-based promotion, discounts and price waterfall analysis in the firework industry.

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Entrepreneurship, Marketing management, Consumer behaviour

Undergraduate students, taking courses of entrepreneurship, marketing management and/or consumer behaviour that cover the topics related to entrepreneurial challenges, institutional support, growth strategy, market segmentation and marketing promotion strategy.

This case demonstrates the dilemma of a founder, cum entrepreneur dealing with the issue related to a change in operating days that would affect her business profitability in the kindergarten industry. The case begins with the problem faced by Azizah Ayob, the founder and entrepreneur of Taska Kyrana when she hears that the state minister of Johor has announced that business operation days will be changed from Sunday to Friday with effect from 1 January 2014. The change would be applicable to government institutions in the state. However, businesses and corporations in the private sector can choose to continue observing Saturday-Sunday weekends or switch to the new official rest days of Friday-Saturday. As customers of Taska Kyrana consist of parents working in public and private sectors, as well as Singaporean parents, Ayob needs to choose either to follow the state requirement or to maintain the usual operation days.

Using this case, the students should be able to understand the need for institutional support for an entrepreneur; understand a possible growth strategy to cope with the volatile situation; understand the importance of a proper segmentation strategy to target the right group of customers; and understand the importance of a promotional strategy to attract new customers and to retain the existing one in a volatile situation.

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CSS 8: Marketing.

Marketing Management, Product & Brand Management, Entrepreneurship.

This case can be taught effectively to MBA/BBA students as part of Marketing Management, Product & Brand Management, Entrepreneurship.

The case talks about the marketing mix strategy of India’s fastest growing fast moving consumer goods (FMCGs) brand Patanjali, with a tremendous revenue growth rate of 100 per cent for the past five years, leaving major FMCG companies insomniac. Patanjali Ayurved Limited riding on Baba Ramdev’s brand equity positioned itself as an authentic Ayurved brand with ancient Indian roots. Patanjali’s product line ranges from healthcare, personal care, home care, to food and more. Patanjali’s products were priced 10-40 per cent lower than that of its competitors. Run by franchisees, Patanjali had a three-tier distribution system. These included Patanjali Chikitsalayas which were franchise dispensaries and clinics along with doctors, Patanjali Arogya Kendra which were health and wellness centres and Swadeshi Kendra, non-medicine outlets. The company has 15,000 exclusive outlets across India and plans to grow to 1,00,000 exclusive outlets by 2020. Patanjali amazed the world by achieving phenomenal success without spending much on advertising in its nascent stage. Recently Patanjali adopted the multinational corporation (MNC) style of advertising by hiring two top advertising agencies McCann and DDB Mudra to prepare the company for the next phase of growth. Patanjali diversified into various segments of the market, ranging from FMCG products, Ayurvedic medicines, Ayurvedic hospitals and a medical college. Patanjali plans to enter various categories of products including the beauty products segment to compete with major MNCs, the baby care segment to compete with Johnson & Johnson, and the sports segment to compete with Nike and Adidas. Patanjali as a brand has a strong positioning in the minds of consumers as a natural and Ayurvedic brand. Will Patanjali’s foray into so many diversified segments lead to a brand extension trap and confused positioning? Because Patanjali as a brand, solely rides on Baba Ramdev’s image, if Baba Ramdev ever finds himself at the centre of a controversy, will Patanjali’s brand equity take a hit? Will it affect the brand Patanjali? Even if Baba Ramdev does not get into any controversy, what will happen to the brand Patanjali when Baba Ramdev is no more? Who should be the next face of Patanjali? Can the brand survive without a face?

The case is designed to enable students to understand the following key learning points: The concept of marketing mix. Product mix, Promotion mix branding (especially “Person as a Brand”), customer-based brand equity (CBBE) model or brand resonance pyramid.

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CSS 8: Marketing.

The case has been tested and proved significant as a part of executive educative courses. Students and participants are pushed to consider practical options. The audience for this case study could be BBA students, MBA students, postgraduate management students or students who chose marketing as their area of specialization.

• Strategic management courses/modules at the intermediate level.

• Marketing management courses/modules at the entry/intermediate level.

When the instructor wants to discuss marketing models like segmentation, targeting, positioning (STP) or marketing strategy model during the course, he or she may use this example.

This instructor’s manual accompanies the case entitled “Krishivan Agri Tourism: Challenges for Sustainability.” This case study highlights the entrepreneur’s struggles with his resort’s limited audience, lower weekday occupancy and weekday reach. The government’s declaration of a lockdown and the COVID-19 epidemic ultimately led to financial losses and stressed cash flow. The businessman understood the enormous potential of the Indian agritourism market. It was a turbulent time for him to evaluate his strategies to sustain in the market. The case illustrates the owner’s struggle to survive and prosper in a commercial setting. The scenario can be used by the instructors to talk about risk mitigation strategies such as promotion, marketing and strategy analysis. Readers must consider difficulties related to corporate success strategically. The proposed responses to the discussion questions in the instructors’ manual are provided here. It can be taught in management courses to handle topics like marketing management, strategic marketing, STP and entrepreneurship, among others.

Marketing management and strategic marketing in Management courses at the intermediate level.

After reading this case study, the students will be able to identify the various choices available in social e-commerce using network marketing, interpret data-driven decisions in social e-commerce and evaluate their role in scaling business, analyse cost and revenue management in value segments, evaluate technology adoption among the masses using appropriate communication structures and develop customer relationships and manage their sentiments in the era of social media.

DealShare became a unicorn in 2022 and targeted the rural and low-income groups. Based on a networking model for customer acquisition and a hyperlocal supply chain model, DealShare is increasing its customer base at a rapid pace. However, profitability was still a challenge, and converting high volume into high value continued to be a daunting task. This case study delves deep into the challenges co-founder Sourjyendu Medda and the DealShare team faced. It seeks to address key issues: how should DealShare leverage customer network for faster customer acquisition and how should they increase ticket size and profitability? As a data-driven business, what advantages does DealShare have in influencing customers’ buying behaviour using data? Dependence on social media could have a cascading effect on “word of mouth”. How can they manage customer complaints and increase engagement?

This case study has the potential to be used in different settings. In strategic cost management, this case study can demonstrate strategies for cost management in the value-conscious segment. This case study can be used in marketing management courses while teaching “positioning” in business-to-consumer markets and CRM. For second-year management students, this can be used in entrepreneurship and strategic management courses to demonstrate the network effect in social e-commerce start-up businesses. This case study is also relevant for various course modules in graduate management programmes to demonstrate the power of data-driven decision-making in business.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing