Publications

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July 1999 (Revised March 2003)
Background Note

Marketing Strategy--An Overview

By: E. Raymond Corey

An elementary treatment of all aspects of marketing strategy. Intended as a supplement to case discussions in the early stages of an introductory marketing course. A rewritten version of an earlier note. View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy

October 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Case

FARM Rio: Bringing a Brazilian Fashion Brand to the World

By: Isamar Troncoso and Jill Avery

FARM Rio, a twenty-six year old Brazilian fashion brand, had recently put down roots in the U.S. The brand, known for its bold, colorful, nature-inspired tropical prints, was testing the waters in Europe to assess if and how the brand should further expand globally.... View Details

Keywords: Global Marketing; Go-to-market Strategy; Global Branding; Brand Positioning; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Positioning; Market Entry and Exit; Distribution Channels; Expansion; Fashion Industry; Brazil; United States; Europe

August 2018 (Revised September 2019)
Case

Magnus Resch: Transforming the Art Market Through Transparency

By: Henry McGee and Sarah Mehta

Economist and entrepreneur Magnus Resch was on a mission to make the art market more transparent. To that end, in 2014, he began building the Magnus app, which catalogued the price and transaction history of millions of works of art. Users could download the app, take... View Details

Keywords: Art Market; Transparency; Art Pricing; Business Startups; Decision Making; Innovation Strategy; Culture; Business Strategy; Mobile Technology; Fine Arts Industry; Information Technology Industry

27 Feb 2017
Research & Ideas

Reputation is Vital to Survival in Turbulent Markets

School; Tiona Zuzul, assistant professor at London Business School; and HBS Professors Geoffrey Jones and Tarun Khanna—came to their conclusions after reviewing the transcripts of interviews with 69 business and NGO leaders from a variety... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

March 2008
Course Overview Note

Dynamic Markets

By: Joshua D. Coval and Erik Stafford

The Dynamic Markets course at Harvard Business School is organized around the hands-on application of financial decision making in a wide variety of capital market settings. The course relies heavily on in-class simulations of a range of market settings where students... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Decision Making; Capital Markets; Competitive Strategy; Profit; Applications and Software; Information; Strategy; Price; Outcome or Result; Curriculum and Courses; Theory

16 Jul 2014
HBS Case

Marketing Obamacare

Massachusetts' successful health connector (which predated Obamacare) to run it. "When you have a CEO who is an ex-CMO, that is going to put the View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health

July 2010 (Revised January 2017)
Background Note

Marketing Analysis Toolkit: Customer Lifetime Value Analysis (2024)

By: Thomas Steenburgh and Jill Avery

Customers are increasingly being viewed as assets that bring value to the firm. Customer lifetime value is a metric that allows managers to understand the overall value of their customer base and relate it to three customer strategies firms employ: asset... View Details

Keywords: Customer Lifetime Value; Return On Investment; Customer Acquisition; Customer Retention; Customer Churn; ＂Marketing Analytics＂; Marketing; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Value and Value Chain; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Marketing Strategy; Measurement and Metrics; Strategic Planning; Value

October 1992 (Revised September 1993)
Case

Nopane Advertising Strategy

By: David E. Bell

Nopane is a proprietary drug that sells in much of the United States. It faces substantial competition. The brand manager is undertaking an experiment to determine whether ad copy should be emotional-based or rational-based. The data and associated regression results... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Intellectual Property; Advertising; Health Care and Treatment; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

April 1985 (Revised September 1986)
Case

CML Group, Inc.: Going Public (B)

By: William A. Sahlman

Contains a description of some issues confronting management of CML Group as the company progresses toward making an initial public offering. Among the issues and topics addressed in the case are: considerations in choosing an underwriting team, the initial public... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Initial Public Offering; Financial Markets; Financial Strategy; Planning; Cost vs Benefits; Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry

23 Aug 2004
Research & Ideas

Strategy for Small Fish

strategy is to achieve specialization by taking explicit advantage of the opportunities provided by the ecosystem while avoiding the kinds of traps that challenge firms in such environments. Our observation... View Details

Keywords: by Marco Iansiti & Roy Levien

January 2011
Case

Exit Strategy (A)

By: Clayton S. Rose and Justine Kelly Lelchuk

Jeff Brown wondered whether now was the right time to call his boss, and friend, Bernard Tubiana. Brown was a rising star at Deloitte Consulting and three weeks into an important project for Aflac. He was about to receive an offer from Aflac's major competitor,... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Ethics; Employees; Resignation and Termination; Service Industry

January 2015 (Revised July 2019)
Case

Rebranding Godiva: The Yıldız Strategy

By: Rohit Deshpande and Esel Çekin

This case concerns Yıldız Holding’s acquisition of Godiva Chocolatier from its previous owner, Campbell Soup, and its salient strategy in preserving Godiva’s “made in Belgian” brand position. Provenance Paradox, a problem faced by companies in emerging countries trying... View Details

Keywords: Branding; Internationalization; Provenance Paradox; Acquisitions; Positioning; Innovation; Customer-centricity; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Emerging Markets; Product Positioning; Change Management; Innovation and Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Food and Beverage Industry; North America; Turkey; Japan

Article

Repositioning and Cost-Cutting: The Impact of Competition on Platform Strategies

By: Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu

Organizational structures are increasingly complex. In particular, more firms today operate as multi-sided platforms. In this paper, we study how platform firms use repositioning and cost-cutting in response to competition, elucidate external and internal factors that... View Details

Keywords: Platform Strategy; Repositioning; Cost-cutting; Intra-firm Learning; Multi-Sided Platforms; Cost Management; Product Positioning; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Knowledge Acquisition; Journalism and News Industry

Find at Harvard

September 2011 (Revised August 2013)
Case

China or the World? A Financial Reporting Strategy for Hong Kong's Capital Markets

By: Karthik Ramanna, Gwen Yu and G.A. Donovan

Set in 2010, the case discusses the strategic directions Hong Kong could pursue, particularly vis-a-vis China, as it seeks to preserve its preeminence in the region. In 2010, the Hong Kong Exchange announced that it would allow listed Chinese companies to report using... View Details

Keywords: Governance Compliance; Global Range; Local Range; Competitive Strategy; Global Strategy; Globalized Economies and Regions; Financial Reporting; International Accounting; Hong Kong

May 2015 (Revised May 2017)
Case

Colgate-Palmolive Company: Marketing Anti-Cavity Toothpaste

By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez

In October 2013, Colgate-Palmolive Company, the world's leading oral care company, was about to launch its new Colgate® Maximum Cavity Protection™ plus Sugar Acid Neutralizer™ toothpaste in Brazil. Oral care category accounted for 46 percent of Colgate's $17.4 billion... View Details

Keywords: New Product Management; Consumer Segmentation; Global Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility; Healthcare; Sustainability; Health Care and Treatment; Environmental Sustainability; Marketing; Segmentation; Product Development; Product Launch; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Product Positioning; Consumer Products Industry; Brazil; United States

2017
Working Paper

Reinventing the American Wine Industry: Marketing Strategies and the Construction of Wine Culture

By: Ai Hisano

This working paper examines the remarkable growth of wine consumption in the United States since the 1960s. The country is now the largest wine consumer in the world, exceeding the wine-producing European countries such as France and Italy, which had long dominated... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Industry Growth; Transformation; Perception; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

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June 1999 (Revised June 2000)
Case

Robert Mondavi: Competitive Strategy

By: Michael E. Porter and Gregory C Bond

Describes the competitive situation facing Robert Mondavi, the leading premium California winery. Mondavi has been an industry innovator and has recently taken steps to become more international. Mondavi has to cope with growing domestic competition as well as market... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Technological Innovation; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Industry Structures; Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Food and Beverage Industry; California; Australia; Chile