Publications

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August 2024
Case

Keurig: A Return to Growth

By: David Fubini and Patrick Sanguineti

By the early 2010s, Keurig Green Mountain (KGM) had lost the momentum that had made it the name in at-home coffee brewing in North America. Following a series of product missteps, negative media scrutiny, and ongoing challenges to its partner relationships, in late... View Details

Keywords: Turnaround; Mergers and Acquisitions; Decisions; Initial Public Offering; Global Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Going Public; Diversification; Expansion; Food and Beverage Industry

September 2003 (Revised May 2006)
Case

Eyeblaster: Enabling the Next Generation of Online Advertising

By: Elie Ofek

Eyeblaster management has to decide on the best course of action to sustain its momentum from enabling online rich media advertising. Pressure from competitors is forcing the company to re-evaluate its previous marketing strategy that focused primarily on getting... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Marketing Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Performance Evaluation; Digital Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy

March 2020
Case

Hotstar

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Kairavi Dey

Hotstar was an online video streaming platform owned by Star India Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Walt Disney Corporation. Since its launch in 2015, the platform had grown to offer over 100,000 hours of TV content, movies in nine Indian languages... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Television Entertainment; Disruption; Business Strategy; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; India; Mumbai

July 2020 (Revised April 2022)
Case

Paris Saint-Germain: Building One of the World's Top Sports Brands

By: Anita Elberse and David Moreno Vicente

In March 2020, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the president of French soccer club Paris Saint-Germain (‘PSG’) sees his team clinch a spot among the last eight clubs to compete in the UEFA Champions League. Established in 1970 and initially a club with only moderate success, PSG’s... View Details

Keywords: Soccer; Football; Superstars; Talent; Talent Development; General Management; Sports; Entertainment; Media; Talent and Talent Management; Globalization; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Strategy; Sports Industry; Europe

23 May 2016
Research & Ideas

A Little Understanding Motivates Copyright Abusers to Pay Up

Obtaining an image from the Internet is as easy as right-clicking and downloading. We’ve all done it—or, ahem, know someone who has. We rarely think about who created these images or whether we have the rights to use them. This leaves the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Media & Broadcasting; Media & Broadcasting

21 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Lessons for Retailers from the Rebirth of Indie Bookstores

Reinventing Retail: The Novel Resurgence of Independent Bookstores, published this month. A bookstore anthropologist Since 2012, Raffaelli has examined how indie bookstores have survived and thrived in the digital era. The research... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Entertainment & Recreation

June 2018 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Sony

By: Stefan Thomke, Atsushi Osanai and Akiko Kanno

Sony used to be synonymous with "innovation" and "cool products." The case reveals how the company lost its edge and describes the leadership initiatives to restore its former glory. In 2012, Kazuo (Kaz) Hirai becomes CEO and successfully transforms Sony, including a... View Details

Keywords: Customer Experience; Product Differentiation; Transformation; Leadership Style; Technology Adoption; Leading Change; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Japan

June 2020
Background Note

Customer Management Dynamics and Cohort Analysis

By: Elie Ofek, Barak Libai and Eitan Muller

The digital revolution has allowed companies to amass considerable amounts of data on their customers. Using this information to generate actionable insights is fast becoming a critical skill that firms must master if they wish to effectively compete and win in today’s... View Details

Keywords: Cohort Analysis; Customers; Analytics and Data Science; Segmentation; Analysis; Customer Value and Value Chain

August 2022
Case

Meaningful Gigs

By: Brian Trelstad and Rachel Philbin

In October 2020, just a year after founding their company Meaningful Gigs, founders Ronnie Kwesi Coleman and Stephanie Nachemja-Burton prepared for a vital investment meeting with Rethink Education. They had already reached $400,000 in annually recurring revenue (ARR)... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Growth and Development Strategy; Revenue; Education Industry; Technology Industry; Africa; United States

January 2025
Case

Apax Partners: Deciding Whether to Bid for Trader Corp.

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Edward A. Meyer

Apax Partners’ investment committee was schedule to meet on March 21, 2011, to decide whether to invest in Trader Corporation, a Canadian classified advertising business for used automobiles with both print (magazines) and digital (website) distribution. What made this... View Details

Nancy F. Koehn is a historian at the Harvard Business School where she holds the James E. Robison chair of Business Administration. Koehn's research focuses on crisis leadership and how leaders and their teams rise to the challenges of high-stakes situations. Her... View Details

Keywords: media; media; media; media; media; media; media; media; media; media

02 May 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: May 2, 2017

showing a passenger being dragged from a plane. Of all the U.S. air carriers, United should have known the power of social media and public outrage. It had learned years earlier in a prominent case about how fast viral content spreads and... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

Profile

Lisa Cousins

achieve. I entered HBS open to a variety of paths, and when I attended the introductory meeting for the Hospitality & Travel Industry Club, it became clear to me right away that the hotel industry was where I was meant to be - I was... View Details

Keywords: Entertainment / Media; Entertainment / Media

August 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Camera IQ and the Metaverse: Building Augmented Reality Brand Experiences

By: Jill Avery and Rayan Nahas

Camera IQ, a camera marketing software company that empowered brands to create and launch augmented reality experiences (AREs) across social platforms, had just raised an additional $5 million to fund further product development and expand its marketing and sales... View Details

September 2023
Case

The Meteoric Rise of Skims

By: Ayelet Israeli, Jill Avery and Leonard A. Schlesinger

Since its founding in 2019 by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede, Skims, a solutions-oriented brand creating the next generation of underwear, loungewear, and shapewear with an eye toward body-type and skin-tone inclusivity, has experienced a meteoric rise. Kardashian, who... View Details

April 14, 2017
Article

Companies Like United Need to Cultivate Good Judgment, and Free Their Employees to Use It

By: John A. Deighton

United Airlines has pledged to improve its training programs and empower its employees to put customers first in the wake of a video showing a passenger being dragged from a plane. Of all the U.S. air carriers, United should have known the power of social media and... View Details

Keywords: Crisis Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Employees; Training; Air Transportation Industry