Case studies
Teaching cases offers students the opportunity to explore real world challenges in the classroom environment, allowing them to test their assumptions and decision-making skills before taking their knowledge into the workplace.
Meghan Murray and Marian Chapman Moore
This case is used in Darden’s “Digital Marketing” course elective. It explores the experience of a niche search firm whose founder attributed her ability to open her recruiting…
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This case is used in Darden’s “Digital Marketing” course elective. It explores the experience of a niche search firm whose founder attributed her ability to open her recruiting firm to LinkedIn and the new model of recruiting it created. LinkedIn Corporation had been one of the most successful companies in the digital media space, with more than 4,000 employees and a market capitalization of over $25.5 billion in August 2013. But few people knew how LinkedIn had grown and how it had become profitable. LinkedIn had multiple unique aspects to explore: its focus on professional--not simply personal--social interaction, the company’s B2B components, and also its marketing positioning from user experience to targeting and growth strategy.
Dustin Moon, Rajkumar Venkatesan and Paul W. Farris
This case is intended to be part of a first-year MBA marketing course or a second-year elective in advertising, integrated marketing communications, market research, or marketing…
Abstract
This case is intended to be part of a first-year MBA marketing course or a second-year elective in advertising, integrated marketing communications, market research, or marketing analytics. It provides students with two real advertising experiments and the challenges involved in executing them. It allows for discussion of the need for advertising experiments, and, at a more general level, the need to measure the return on marketing. Biases surrounding the field experiments provide an opportunity for discussion about the problems with establishing a causal relationship between advertising and sales.
Ronald T. Wilcox and Carlos Michael Santos
Route 11 Chips, a regional potato chip company, is struggling with whether to reduce the number of flavors it markets. Additional flavors add operational cost, but management…
Abstract
Route 11 Chips, a regional potato chip company, is struggling with whether to reduce the number of flavors it markets. Additional flavors add operational cost, but management believes that some of the flavors are important to Route 11's brand image and that trimming the line might damage the brand. Route 11 has also taken a price increase recently and management is interested in finding out if there is additional room to raise prices. To analyze these issues in the case, students have access to five years of data on sales by flavor and package size as well as actual price and margin information (in a supplemental Excel spreadsheet).
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This case was designed to build expertise in conflict management and assertiveness by allowing students to practice saying what needs to be said in challenging situations…
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This case was designed to build expertise in conflict management and assertiveness by allowing students to practice saying what needs to be said in challenging situations. Grounded in the pedagogy of experiential learning, the case consists of three role-play scenarios that exemplify three challenging business situations. In each scenario, two individuals are faced with a possible difference in perspective or goals. The role-play requires students to assume the role of one of the individuals, and each scenario requires another student to initiate the discussion.
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Fritz Jacki, Jenny Mead, Jenny Mead and R. Edward Freeman
Marketing tactics such as pricing, promotion, placement, and product decisions all help business owners create a need for their products or services. What managers seldom realize…
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Marketing tactics such as pricing, promotion, placement, and product decisions all help business owners create a need for their products or services. What managers seldom realize, however, is that the marketing decisions they make primarily to increase sales and market share have a great impact on society at large and thus have significant ethical implications. These seven caselets, which cover a variety of topics (including “the article of the half-truth,” “creative interview tactics,” and “truthfully representing your company”), explore the ethical implications of decision making in the marketing arena.
Rajkumar Venkatesan, Kelly Ateya and Adam Harr
Cardagin, a new start-up in the increasingly competitive space of consumer/merchant apps for smartphones, is reaching an inflection point: decisions it makes at this stage can…
Abstract
Cardagin, a new start-up in the increasingly competitive space of consumer/merchant apps for smartphones, is reaching an inflection point: decisions it makes at this stage can determine whether it becomes a national presence or an also-ran. The CEO needs to demonstrate the value of Cardagin's service to retailers and consumers in compelling ways. The case provides students an opportunity to analyze a new digital venture, explore expansion options, and evaluate the challenges in working with many small businesses, each with its own idiosyncrasies.
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Since the late 1980s, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company has maintained a strong position in the nonstandard auto-insurance market (auto insurance for high-risk drivers)…
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Since the late 1980s, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company has maintained a strong position in the nonstandard auto-insurance market (auto insurance for high-risk drivers). Progressive’s goals in the 1990s are to expand its insurance coverage to include standard and preferred customers (drivers with clean driving records and no accidents). The company never advertised before 1994; as a result, consumer awareness has been very low. Progressive faces strong competition in a varied insurance industry. Companies like Allstate, the nation’s largest underwriter of nonstandard auto insurance, and State Farm, with 21.1% total market share, present a challenge to Progressive as the company strives to make its products available to all drivers. The case focuses on building the company’s brand through advertising and enhancing product differentiation through technology. A teaching note is available to registered faculty, along with a video supplement to enhance student learning.
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R. Edward Freeman, Lynn Manthy and Jenny Mead
Gender in the workplace. Is it still an issue? While it is increasingly easier in the early 21st century for women to work, manage, and take positions of high responsibility in…
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Gender in the workplace. Is it still an issue? While it is increasingly easier in the early 21st century for women to work, manage, and take positions of high responsibility in American business, some issues and difficulties still remain. This series of vignettes touches on some difficult situations—for both women and men—involving sexual and romantic relationships in the workplace, decisions on whether to start a family, dress codes, family obligations, and sexual harassment.
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Marlene Friesen and Elliott N. Weiss
This case outlines the history of JetBlue Airways from its inception in 2000 until 2004. The case provides details of JetBlue's business model and reasons for success. It can be…
Abstract
This case outlines the history of JetBlue Airways from its inception in 2000 until 2004. The case provides details of JetBlue's business model and reasons for success. It can be used in a course on service operations or strategy.
This case is used in the Marketing Analytics elective at Darden. A Sticks executive team is interested in opening a second quick-service restaurant in Richmond, Virginia. But…
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This case is used in the Marketing Analytics elective at Darden. A Sticks executive team is interested in opening a second quick-service restaurant in Richmond, Virginia. But before doing so, the team wanted to gain a better sense of who were Sticks' customers, which location would attract the best customers, and how to best connect with customers. An opportunity to gather survey data presented itself. Would the demographic and psychographic assumptions the team had gathered from talking to people in stores align with the survey answers? And what would the data suggest about where to locate new stores and about what marketing channels and messages to use to promote them?
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- The CASE Journal
- The Case for Women
- Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals
- Darden Business Publishing Cases
- Emerging Markets Case Studies
- Management School, Fudan University
- Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
- Kellogg School of Management
- The Case Writing Centre, University of Cape Town, Graduate School of Business