Publications

November 2007 (Revised March 2009)
Case

Clear Channel 2006

By: Richard S. Ruback and Leslie Pierson

The Board of Directors of Clear Channel Communications, a radio broadcasting and outdoor advertising company, has to respond to a revised proposal from two private equity firms to take the company private. In November of 2006, the Board had unanimously approved an... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Private Equity; Governing and Advisory Boards; Negotiation Offer; Privatization; Business and Shareholder Relations

Find at Harvard

June 1994 (Revised August 1994)
Case

Cunard Line Ltd.: Managing Integrated Marketing Communications

By: Stephen A. Greyser

Cunard, the world's oldest luxury line company, is confronted with several key issues involving its marketing and marketing communications strategy. One concerns the balance between image/positioning advertising and short-term-oriented promotional... View Details

Keywords: Advertising Campaigns; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Product Positioning; Consumer Behavior; Organizational Structure; Identity; Balance and Stability; Shipping Industry

July 2018
Case

Financing Anghami's Growth

By: Ramana Nanda and Eren Kuzucu

In December 2012, less than two years into the founding of their music-streaming platform Anghami, cofounders Elie Habib and Eddy Maroun found themselves evaluating an unorthodox term sheet. Habib and Maroun needed to make a decision vis-à-vis the proposal put forth by... View Details

May 2014
Case

Groupon, Inc.

By: Krishna G. Palepu, Blythe J. McGarvie and James Weber

Internet coupon site "Groupon" grew revenues rapidly and went public, but struggled to impress investors or operate profitably. Did it have a sustainable business model? Groupon sold coupons called Groupons which purchasers used to acquire goods or services at... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Corporate Governance; Entrepreneurship; Financial Management; Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Organizational Culture; Strategy; Web Services Industry; United States

07 Jun 2010
Research & Ideas

Improving Brand Recognition in TV Ads

perspective, altering the commercials to mimic a pulsing strategy is a virtually cost-free fix for a significant payoff, with zapping rates for some commercials reduced by as much as 25 percent in a lab experiment. If a company is paying... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Media & Broadcasting; Entertainment & Recreation

October 2006 (Revised March 2007)
Case

Production I.G: Challenging the Status Quo

By: Andrei Hagiu, Tarun Khanna, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Masako Egawa and Chisato Toyama

In July 2006, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa wondered how he could further enhance the success and visibility of his animation production company headquartered in Tokyo, Production I.G. For the year ended May 2006, Production I.G. had sales of 5,439 million yen ($47.3 million),... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Competitive Advantage; Markets; Animation Entertainment; Going Public; Growth and Development Strategy; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Tokyo

September 2021
Case

Francoise Brougher (A)

By: Edward H. Chang, Nour Kteily and Kathleen McGinn

Francoise Brougher was a high-powered technology executive in Silicon Valley. After successful stints at Google (where she rose to lead a $16 billion ad sales business) and Square (which she helped take public), she joined Pinterest as its first Chief Operating Officer... View Details

Keywords: Gender Discrimination; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Resignation and Termination; Negotiation

Research Summary

Competing business models

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

Building on the literatures on competitive positioning and the theory of industrial organization, my work seeks to tackle previously unaddressed questions by studying situations where firms compete in dissimilar ways. Some examples of these questions include:View Details

08 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

How to Demotivate Your Best Employees

It would seem to make sense that when companies recognize their workers with awards, they are likely to see a boost in morale and perhaps even inspire them to work harder. It turns out that sometimes rewarding employees for good behavior... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Service

28 Feb 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, February 28

company, DO & CO, growing geographically with its existing businesses while also adding new brands to its portfolio. The company had $1 billion in revenues in 2015 from its three divisions: airline catering; international event... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

Lipstick Tips: How Influencers Are Making Over Beauty Marketing

by third-party product reviews at 59 percent, and beauty professionals at 55 percent. Company advertisements ranked much lower at 44 percent, and public figures and celebrities garnered only 34 percent. In... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Consumer Products; Beauty & Cosmetics

11 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

Doing Well by Doing Good? One Industry’s Struggle to Balance Values and Profits

transforming how work is done and how people are paid for it. This heightened tension between moral and material goals may be nowhere as intense as it is in journalism, a field with strong ethical convictions at its core, but whose business model has been decimated by... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

March 2002 (Revised May 2003)
Case

NeoPets, Inc.

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Elizabeth Kind

NeoPets, a rapidly growing Internet start-up, faces decisions about its international expansion strategy--whether to enter a joint venture with a conglomerate in Singapore to exploit Asian markets as well as which other regions to target. NeoPets allows its... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Global Strategy; Network Effects; Joint Ventures; Business Conglomerates; Age; Internet and the Web; Product Positioning; Digital Marketing; Internet and the Web; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Information Technology Industry; Asia; Singapore

08 Aug 2022
HBS Case

Building an 'ARMY' of Fans: Marketing Lessons from K-Pop Sensation BTS

What would it take to attract customers who are so loyal that they would not only buy your products, but would also lavish your distributors with flowers and purchase advertising to elevate your brand? Ask the minds behind K-pop sensation... View Details

Keywords: by Shalene Gupta; Media & Broadcasting; Music

October 2012 (Revised January 2014)
Case

Building Brand Infosys

By: Rohit Deshpandé and Vidhya Muthuram

Infosys Limited was India's second largest exporter of IT services with annual revenues of $7 billion and a market capitalization of nearly $26 billion in 2012. The company, headquartered in Bangalore, India, had built its reputation as the Indian IT bellwether whose... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Information Technology; Information Technology Industry; India

07 Jun 2023
HBS Case

3 Ways to Gain a Competitive Advantage Now: Lessons from Amazon, Chipotle, and Facebook

Walk into any local coffee shop, and you might see people using Amazon Kindles—but you’re not likely to spot anyone with a Sony Librie, even though Sony was the first company to make an e-reader in 2004. “It was probably a better... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

September 2011 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Brightcove, Inc. in 2007

By: Andrei Hagiu and David B. Yoffie

Brightcove, a technology and services provider to content owners in the Internet television field, aimed to become a media distribution company in its own right. On October 30, 2006, it relaunched its Website—and, in effect, its business. With its new, consumer-facing... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Diversification; Digital Platforms; Business Strategy; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Distribution; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

July 9, 2019
Article

Setting Better Sales Goals with Analytics

By: Doug J. Chung, Isabel Huber, Vinay Murthy, Varun Sunku and Marije Weber

Sales compensation is a critical lever in motivating a salesforce and driving growth in the business-to-business sector: Studies show that revising compensation in line with market trends can have a 50% greater impact on sales than advertisements have, for instance. A... View Details

Keywords: Analytics; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Goals and Objectives

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June 2018 (Revised October 2020)
Case

Global Brand Management of Anheuser Busch InBev's Budweiser

By: Jill Avery

Brian Perkins, chief architect of the $6 billion Budweiser brand, was excited about 2018, in which the company would launch Budweiser into several new markets in Africa and Latin America. He was feeling the pressure to finalize a global brand strategy that would define... View Details