CASE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  You are expected to read the case more than once and prepare the following questions. These will make you ready to participate in the class discussion.

Case 1: Crescent Pure

1. Given that Crescent is PDB’s first entry in the S. sports and/or energy beverage markets, what must PDB do regarding Crescent’s pending launch?
2. What factors should influence the positioning of Crescent?
3. How is the market segmented? At what segment should Crescent be targeted?
4. What are the pros and cons of positioning Crescent as an energy drink, a sports drink, or a healthy organic beverage?

Case 2: Chase Sapphire

1. What is your assessment of the Chase Sapphire Reserve card? Why or why not?
2. Why has Chase Sapphire Reserve been so successful in acquiring customers? Will this success continue over time? Why or why not?
3. The behaviour of individual adopters of the card will vary in how much they spend, whether they pay all of their charges in full each month, and whether they churn( i.e., whether they review their card annually or not). As noted on the top of page 3 in the case, three customer archetypes were transactors, revolvers, and dormant. Assuming the following for each type of customer, how can the Chase Sapphire team best design its product and brand to attract the right customers? Has it been done so successfully with the Chase Sapphire Reserve? Why or why not?
   • Transactors/revolvers:
     • Both spend $16000 per year
     • Credit balance carried: $0 for transactors, 50% of annual spend for Revolvers.
     • Interest rate average: 21%
   • Domants/churners:
     • Spend only enough to earn the sign-on bonus
     • Credit balance carried: $0
     • Do not review card at $450 annual fee
4. How successful will Chase be at retaining Chase Sapphire Reserve customers into their second year? Why? What would you suggest they do to improve their odds of retaining their customers?
5. Over time, the sapphire brand has evolved from a single product into a three-item product line, as shown in Exhibit 5. Going forward, how would you manage the Chase Sapphire brand and product portfolio? Does Chase have the right number of products in the line? Are the features of each product the right features? What changes, if any, would you make to the Chase Sapphire Preferred card given chase sapphire Reserve success? Hat would you do with the no-fee Chase Sapphire product? What, if any, changes should be made to the Chase Sapphire Reserve card?

Case 3: Mekanism

1. How is the advertising landscape changing? How does that impact Mekanism?
2. What role can viral marketing play as a promotional tool for advertisers?
3. What types of brands stand to gain from using viral advertising? Which brands may not?
4. What is Mekanism’s secret sauce for “engineering virality” ? How can they leverage this for growth?
5. Should Mekanism keep focusing on producing viral marketing only, or diversify into producing and distributing other ad content, becoming a full-service ad agency?

Case 4: Uber

1. Do you agree or disagree with Uber’s surge pricing policy? Unfair? Exploitative? What are the risks of this policy to Uber? Given these risks, would Uber modify its policy?
2. Uber has become enormously popular among consumers in a very short period of time. How has the company accomplished this?
3. How well does Uber treat its drivers? From a driver’s standpoint, is it better to drive for Uber, or is it better to drive for a taxi/limo service?
4. How robust is Uber’s operating model?

Case 5: Metabical

1. How does Metabical compare to current weight-loss options?
2. What are the pros and cons of the forecasting methods presented by Printup? If you had to estimate demand for this product, how would you go about it? What would your demand (unit) forecast look like for the first five years?
3. What considerations should be taken into account when making decisions about the package count? What package size would you recommend?
4. What pricing strategy approaches would you suggest Printup explore? What are the advantage and disadvantages of each strategy? What price would you recommend?
5. What impact does your pricing decision have on profitability? What is the ROI over the first five years for each of the pricing strategies identified?

Case 6: AnswerDash

1. Assess AnswerDash’s current go-to-market approach, including customer selection, pricing, communication, and sales efforts. Which aspects do you like? Which ones don’t you like? Optional: Based on the current pricing model, what is the lifetime value of a customer to AnswerDash? (make reasonable assumptions as needed)
2. Calculate the economic value that the AnswerDash product delivers for an e-commerce vs. a Software as a Service customer. Separate between cost savings and revenue lift benefits. (As a starting point, you can consider an organization with 100,000 monthly web visitors and $1,000,000 in monthly revenues.)
3. What is your view on the three primary options AnswerDash is contemplating going forward? Which would you recommend the company pursue?
4. For the strategic option you support, develop a complete marketing strategy and plan, including which companies to target, how to position the value proposition, how to sell to an organization, and what pricing model/format to follow.

Case 7: IKEA

1. What factors account for the success of IKEA?
2. What do you think of the company’s product strategy and product range? Do you agree with the matrix approach described in Figure B of the case?
3. Despite its success, there are many downsides to shopping at IKEA. What are some of these downsides? IKEA’s vision statement (in Figure C of the case) describes how the company seeks to build “partnership” with its What do you think of this vision statement?
4. The fact that IKEA hopes to have fifty stores in operation in the United States by 2013 is an indication of how optimistic the company is about the viability of its value proposition in this Do you think IKEA is being overly optimistic in its growth plans? How would you improve IKEA’s value proposition to make it even more attractive to American consumers?
5. To achieve the kind of growth that IKEA is hoping for, should the company change its product strategy? If so, in what way(s)? What about its product range—are there limitations to be matrix approach? Should the company expand its product lineup to include a greater number of styles and price points? In what other ways should the company consider changing its product lineup?
6. If you had to predict, what do you think IKEA’s value proposition and product lineup will look like in ten years?
7. Some industry observers have suggested that IKEA should open a number of smaller, satellite stores across the United States (e.g., in shopping malls, strip malls, etc.). By offering limited range of IKEA product, there “IKEA Lite” shops would presumably give consumers who do not live near a full-size IKEA would be able to use these mini-outlets to make minor purchase (e.g., purchase a set of mugs, as opposed to an entire living room set). Do you agree with this idea? Why or why not?

Case 8: Instacart

1. Why did Webvan fail? Does Instacart have a better prospect for survival?
2. Might Peapod be a better point of comparison? Does Instacart have better prospects than Peapod?
3. Surge pricing is an important element of Uber’s demand management. Should Instacart consider a similar dynamic pricing model?
4. If you were Instacart’s Consumer experience Manger, assess opportunities to improve Instacart’s user
5. Could Instacart play a part in transforming the structure of its industry as AirBnb and Uber are going to theirs? Does Amazon’s acquisition of whole Foods factor into your thinking?