Publications

02 Feb 2016
Blog Post

A Summer Internship in General Management

Like many of his classmates, Andrew Ling (MBA 2015) decided to use the summer between his first and second year to try out something new. Formerly a consultant at McKinsey, he spent his summer working in a marketing and general management... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Products / Retail

07 Jan 2025
Blog Post

Revolutionizing Wellness: Kate Twist (MBA 2008) Shapes the Future of Consumer Health Brands

remain - and someone in your friend group will remember the ‘takeaway’ you need in the moment.” The HBS network also played a role in Twist landing her first brand management position at Estee Lauder. As a... View Details

12 May 2015
Blog Post

A Summer Internship in General Management

Like many of his classmates, Andrew Ling (MBA 2015) decided to use the summer between his first and second year to try out something new. Formerly a consultant at McKinsey, he spent his summer working in a marketing and general management... View Details

February 2021 (Revised July 2024)
Case

White Claw: Defending Market Share as Competition Encroaches

By: Jill Avery

By the end of 2019, two brands accounted for 84% of hard seltzer sales, a segment that had recently taken the U.S. beer market by storm, growing from $3 million in 2015 to over $2.7 billion by the start of the summer of 2020. White Claw was the dominant market leader... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; Alcoholic Beverages; Beer/brewing Industry; Brand Positioning; Growth; Competitive Positioning; Consumer Products; Beverage Industry; Value Proposition; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Competition; Product Positioning; Competitive Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

October 2009
Teaching Note

Inner Mongolia Yili Group: China's Pioneering Dairy Brand (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan

Teaching Note for [308052]. View Details

Keywords: Business Plan; Goals and Objectives; Competition; Research and Development; Globalization; Innovation and Invention; Brands and Branding; Problems and Challenges; Food and Beverage Industry; China

16 Jun 2017
News

Gibson Brands Transforms Guitar-making into Diverse 'Music Lifestyle' Firm

Keywords: Manufacturing

August 2009 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Managing Creativity at Shanghai Tang

By: Roy Y.J. Chua and Robert G. Eccles

Shanghai Tang is a luxury brand that focuses on Chinese-inspired fashion, accessories, and home decoration products. In fall 2008, amidst a growing global economic crisis, Raphael Ie Masne, executive chairman of Shanghai Tang, had to decide what to do with the recently... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Financial Crisis; Employee Relationship Management; Selection and Staffing; Creativity; Apparel and Accessories Industry

February 2025 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Managing Complexity at mymuesli

By: Thomas Graeber and Stacy Straaberg

In April 2009, direct-to-consumer e-commerce muesli brand mymuesli faced a flood of customer questions. The breakfast cereal startup enabled users to order personalized muesli on its website by choosing from 75 organic ingredients for a total of 566 quadrillion... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Decisions; Food; Product Marketing; Product Positioning; Product Launch; Problems and Challenges; Behavior; Competitive Advantage; Customization and Personalization; Segmentation; Internet and the Web; Food and Beverage Industry; Europe; Germany

May 2012
Article

To Zap or Not to Zap: How to Insert the Brand in TV Commercials to Minimize Avoidance

By: Thales S. Teixeira, Michel Wedel and Rik Pieters

Huge amounts of money are spent on TV advertising. In an environment of rising per-viewer rates for advertisers and increased skipping past ads by consumers, it is necessary for advertising managers to understand the determinants of commercial avoidance. In order to... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Television Entertainment; Advertising; Decisions

Find at Harvard

September 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Case

Philanthropy and Brand Building: Jeff Vinik and the Tampa Bay Lightning

By: Stephen A. Greyser and Michael Mondello

Owner Jeff Vinik and top management of the NHL Tampa Bay Lightning are reviewing their strategy and progress in achieving their goals of brand-building and community commitment. Strategic philanthropy is unusual in sport. Tampa Bay is historically a non-traditional... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Business and Community Relations; Sports Industry; Tampa

February 2017
Teaching Note

Paez

By: Jill Avery

Paez, an Argentine start-up fashion brand, sold traditional alpargatas, a sleepy category that suddenly woke up when TOMS, a U.S. company, appropriated the traditional alpargata design, covered it with fashionable colors and prints, and tied it to a social cause.... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; Brand Positioning; Competitive Positioning; Competitive Strategy; Retailing; Go To Market Strategy; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry; Argentina; Latin America; South America; Europe

May 2014
Case

Goldman Sachs: Anchoring Standards After the Financial Crisis

By: Rajiv Lal and Lisa Mazzanti

Goldman Sachs, a longtime venerable financial institution headquartered in New York City, had a partnership culture that was known to value its clients. But when the financial crisis hit in 2008 and Goldman Sachs emerged relatively unscathed, its public image took a... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; Public Image; Corporate Accountability; Reputation; Standards; Financial Crisis; Brands and Branding; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry

23 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Brand Power from Wedgwood to Dell: Part Two

entrepreneurs, says HBS professor Nancy F. Koehn. In Part One of a discussion about her recent book—in the April 16 issue of HBS Working Knowledge—Koehn described the brand-building savvy of three entrepreneurs in the past, as well as their clear lessons for View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

January 2020 (Revised April 2020)
Teaching Note

Brandless: Disrupting Consumer Packaged Goods

By: Jill Avery

Brandless, an online direct-to-consumer seller of upscale private-label consumer packaged goods (CPG), offered consumers a limited assortment of values-conscious products delivered directly to their homes with the simplicity of one fixed $3.00 price point that promised... View Details

Keywords: Brand; Brand Management; DTC; Private Label; Groceries; Packaged Food; Personal Care; Startups; Retailing; Amazon; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Business Startups; Disruption; E-commerce; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; United States

28 Oct 2021
News

The Toxic Effects of Branding Your Workplace a “Family”

November 2013
Teaching Note

Cialis Lifecycle Management: Lilly's BPH Dilemma

By: Elie Ofek and Natalie Kindred

Keywords: Pharmaceuticals; Brand Management; Brand Equity; Brand Positioning; Product Management; Product Strategy; Pricing; Health Care; Health Care and Treatment; Product Marketing; Product Positioning; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Marketing; Product Launch; Pharmaceutical Industry; Health Industry

February 2011
Case

Barceló Hotels and Resorts (A)

By: John T. Gourville and Marco Bertini

Barcelo Hotels and Resorts must decide whether to allow its many hotels to continue to undertake separate promotional campaigns or to run, for the first time, a broad corporate-level promotion. Complicating the decision is the fact that the many hotels in its portfolio... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; Sales Promotions; Brands and Branding; Price; Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Accommodations Industry

June 2024 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light

By: Jill Avery and Celine Chammas

On April 1, 2023, social media content creator and influencer Dylan Mulvaney recorded a promotional post. It featured a video of herself drinking from a can of Bud Light beer, offering a virtual toast to her followers. Alongside the video, she posted a photograph of a... View Details

Keywords: Brand Crises; Brand Management; Influencer Marketing; Boycott; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Communications; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Social Media; Advertising; Social Issues; Public Opinion; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States