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Marketing, strategy, and integrated marketing communication.

The case is suitable for analysis in an MBA level marketing communication course where the theories of hierarchy of effects (HoE) models, push vs pull strategies as well as positioning strategies can be introduced. The case is suitable for analysis in an MBA level marketing course for the module on marketing communications/advertising and promotions.

Sanjay, the regional head of PepsiCo India (eastern region), had been tasked with the preparation of a support plan for a new communication campaign of Mountain Dew, a yellow-coloured drink in PepsiCo's soft-drink portfolio. He had attended a meeting at the headquarters where he had been briefed on the new national campaign roll-out for Mountain Dew – for the first time with celebrity association. While Mountain Dew had been growing its market share in other regions of the Indian market, the Eastern region had been unresponsive to the mass media image building campaigns. During the meeting, the various aspects of Mountain Dew's performance were discussed and Sanjay was asked to prepare a support plan for the national campaign that will help to increase revenues and market share of the brand in the Eastern region.

To understand the complexities of differential impact of integrated nation-wide communications on various segments of the market due to cultural variations, to understand the role of push strategy vs pull strategy in marketing communications, to understand the role of consistency in image between the trade and consumers perception, to understand the impact of celebrity endorsements, an introduction to the HoE communication models and their applications, to understand limitations of the HoE and Think-Feel-Do models in objective setting and understanding the uses of alternative models, to build a communication plan based on pull vs push strategy.

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Emerging markets – marketing and business strategy; social entrepreneurship; opportunity identification; frugal innovation.

MBA; marketing management; specialis ed courses such as entrepreneurship and international marketing. Data rich case, but analytical difficulty is only moderate.

Reboot Systems was conceived as a reverse engineering/refurbishing company for used computers when Rahul Chowdhury and Subbarao came in contact with Anand Tater who had started a small business in the used computer market. The team recognised the potential of the refurbished computer market in India, which was largely unorganised with penetration of personal computers pegged at less than 5 per cent. They identified the opportunity to address the digital divide, caused by lack of affordability and accessibility, by providing inexpensive “as good as new” used computers to those who aspired to own a computer. Additionally, in extending the life of used computers on a large-scale through “frugal innovation”, they hoped to reduce the extent of e-waste generated in the economy. This case provides a rich description of an emerging market characterised by market heterogeneity, social-political governance with poor policy measures, unorganised markets, chronic shortage of resources and inadequate infrastructure. Entrepreneurs hoping to address social issues must tackle these problems at the grass-root level and come up with improvised solutions that address the unique needs of the heterogeneous and resource constrained market. Some of Reboot Systems pressing challenges were in building a viable strategic approach to the market and ensuring scalability in a sustainable way.

An understanding of the characteristics of an emerging market from a macro (environmental) as well as micro (industry specific) perspective, an appreciation of opportunity identification and improvisation in emerging markets as well as differentiating “frugal” innovation from the idea of “Jugaad”, an understanding of the role of strategic vision and mission in accomplishing social and business objectives, an understanding of how to develop sustainability and competitive advantage from a social as well as business perspective.

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Entrepreneurship.

MBA level – entrepreneurship courses, MA level – women empowerment issues, MBA – thriving in unstructured environments.

Saundarya Rajesh, was the founder-president of AVTAR Career Creators (ACC) a talent consulting firm that offered solutions in training, hiring, selection process outsourcing and human resource information studies to over 400 clients. The case describes the progressive journey of Saundarya as an entrepreneur in discovering and exploiting opportunities as they arise at different points of her career. Saundarya did pioneering work for creating flexi-career opportunities that included tools for Flexidizing® and Unbundling® of jobs. She has won many accolades for her work that included Tie Stree Shakti Awards 2011 for excellence in entrepreneurship, Cavinkare's Chinnikrishnan Innovation Award for Outstanding Entrepreneurship 2011 and India Today's Business Wizards of Tamil Nadu, 2011. Saundarya was happy with the fact that there were 23,000 women currently on the AVTAR I-WIN network and there were 13-15 lakh more women whose talent could be harnessed. She dreamt of ensuring that 1.2 million Indian women, who had dropped out of the workforce in the past 10-15 years, could be brought back to contribute productively. While there appeared to be an acceptance of the flexible working concept among the potential employees and employers, several questions about the future potential of such a work-force needed to be answered.

To understand the factors that constitute entrepreneur's alertness such as personality traits, social networks and prior knowledge. To understand the importance of entrepreneur's alertness for identifying business opportunities. To understand types of entrepreneurial opportunities. To understand the opportunity identification triad: recognition, development and evaluation. To understand how to develop a business model in under-defined contexts.

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The rapid consumption of new electronic devices has expanded the volume of electronic waste (e-waste) and created a potential threat to the environment. Recycling of e-waste (eCycling) can help stem the proliferation of e-waste and its environmental threat. In order to increase this positive involvement in eCycling and design effective eCycling programs, a better understanding of eCycling behaviors is needed. The purpose of this paper is to employ the Theory of Reasoned Action as a framework to develop a model to identify the determinants of eCycling behavior.

To assess the model, a survey of 327 university students is undertaken. To analyze the eCycling behavior from the survey data, a structural equation modeling technique is used.

The findings suggest that: attitudes and moral norms positively influence eCycling behavior; the higher the awareness of consequences, the more the eCycling involvement; and perceived convenience is an important factor that leads to more involvement in eCycling.

This research is limited by the student sample and campus environment that might confine the generalizability of the study. Also, additional variables need to be examined in order to better explain eCycling behavior. The result of the study provides insights for organizations to build successful eCycling programs, engage young adults such as college students in eCycling, and increase involvement in eCycling.

This study provides insights that can help supply chain managers to better understand the consumer involvement in eCycling. Managers’ understanding of eCycling behavior would encourage eCycling involvement by placing drop-off units in convenient locations and by creating campaigns that motivate consumers to return their e-waste. An increased consumer involvement in eCycling can help manufacturing companies lower the cost of e-waste across the supply chain and regain the value of returned materials by adopting reverse logistics.

This study contributes to the stream of eCycling literature by investigating students’ eCycling intentions and behaviors on a university campus. The paper develops an understanding of how eCycling involvement might be improved.

Consumer behavior comprises acquisition, consumption and disposition behaviors. Businesses have generally been most concerned about producing and distributing goods and have thus focused on consumer acquisition and consumption behaviors. But as companies increasingly emphasize environmental responsibility and ethical values, they must now attend to consumer disposition with equal ardor. This article seeks to understand consumer disposition processes for marketing.

The article reviews the academic literature and general business literature to illustrate how knowledge of the consumer disposition process can help companies project corporate social responsibility and make better marketing decisions.

This article highlights disposition behavior and explicates the importance of understanding it in a business environment marked by growing production and consumption and little thought of disposition. The contention is that there is very little literature focusing on disposition processes and that it has received inadequate attention among practitioners and academicians. In order to stress the importance of consumer's disposition process, the commentary focuses, first on the environmental issues and the role a company could play in mitigating them when equipped with an understanding of consumer disposition process. Second, the article calls attention to marketing opportunities available to marketers with knowledge of consumer's disposition process.

This article illustrates the use of understanding consumer's disposition process for companies in helping them project better corporate social responsibility and also make better marketing decisions.

There is very little literature available on consumer's disposition processes and its implications for business. Rather than elaborating on the consumer's disposition process itself, this article aims to articulate the importance and uses of this body of knowledge for businesses and the marketing function. A practical approach combined with theoretical inputs attempts to emphasis on the importance of disposition process for businesses.

There has been an increased interest in marketing literature in understanding the role of sensory experience. However, few researchers have addressed multisensory interaction of visual and tactile evaluation for products salient in single sensory modality. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap and investigate how multisensory evaluation influences overall attitude and purchase intentions. Further, the role of individual personality variable in influencing the interrelationship between sensory evaluation and behavioral outcomes are examined.

The data for this study were collected from 126 students who responded to attitude towards the product and purchase intentions after evaluating three experimental tasks. Repeated measures analysis of variance was carried out to test the multisensory interaction hypotheses.

The multisensory interaction of tactile and visual information was found to significantly increase the consumer attitudes for products dominant on single sensory modality of touch. Further, the multisensory evaluation led to greater purchase intentions than visual or tactile evaluation.

The paper is perhaps first to investigate multisensory interaction of tactile and visual sensory information in evaluation of products that are salient in touch properties. The current study further examines the role of individual personality variables in influencing interrelationship between sensory evaluation and purchase intentions.

FieldTurf Tarkett India: challenges and opportunities in new markets.

Marketing, marketing communication and business strategy.

Graduate level and some core courses in undergraduate level.

The case describes the evolution of a start‐up company, Great Sports Infra Pvt Ltd, which had acquired the exclusive dealership of the largest artificial sports surface products company – FieldTurf Tarkett. Great Sports Infra was started as a small business with a capital of INR 5 million, by Mr Anil Kumar who had won the exclusive license to sell the FieldTurf brand of artificial turf in India and the SAARC region. FieldTurf was a well entrenched brand for playing surfaces in several developed countries around the world. The size, scope and consumer base of the Indian market was vastly different from the mature markets in which FieldTurf was a well established brand. Anil had to find a market for the product in India which was a classic context of “existing product entering a new market” – in this case an emerging market. Identifying new markets and targeting them with a relevant marketing mix and communication mix were the dominant challenges faced by Anil. Having developed the market in India, he now faces competition from cheaper manufacturers and limited growth in the sports infrastructure. The students must deliberate on current strategies and suggest strategies for the future growth of the product in this market.

Challenges of an established brand entering a new market in the emerging economies. Using Ansoff's matrix to identify the nature of challenges. Understanding positioning strategy. To understand how to extract IMC strategy from business strategy. Targeting each segment differently but keeping the message consistent following the principles of principles of IMC, i.e. harmony, consistency and synergy. Understanding the role of 6Ms in designing a communication plan. Understanding how to identify appropriate media mix. Understanding the holistic IMC framework.

Teaching notes.