Ivey Business School (Canada)
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Suntory: Rebranding the Japanese Whisky Highball
Philip SugaiCase IVEY-9B20A017-EMarketing, StrategyFounded in 1899 by Shinjiro Torii in Osaka, Japan, Suntory Holdings (Suntory) boasted a rich history in Japan’s alcoholic beverage industry. It purchased US-based Beam in 2014 for $16 billion, renamed itself as Beam Suntory, and transformed into one of the world’s largest alcoholic beverage makers, reaching total global revenues of more than 2.5 trillion yen ($23 billion) by the end of fiscal year 2018. Now, in 2020, could the Suntory team pull o...Starting at €8.20
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Switz Foods Pvt. Ltd.: Competing against Its Own Creation
Atanu Adhikari; Seema LallCase IVEY-9B20A030-EMarketing, StrategyIn mid-2019, the managing director of Switz Foods Pvt. Ltd. (SFPL), which owned the Mio Amore bakery brand, faced the dilemma of how to tackle its competition. Under a franchise agreement from 1989–2014, the company had manufactured and sold cakes and other food products in Eastern India under the Monginis brand name. Due to the managing director’s innovative and emotion-centric market positioning, Monginis quickly became the number one bakery br...Starting at €8.20
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Wow! Momo: The Making of India’s Quick-Service Restaurant Giant
Atanu Adhikari; Seema LallCase IVEY-9B20A046-EEntrepreneurship, Marketing, StrategyWow! Momo Foods Private Limited (Wow! Momo), a quick-service restaurant (QSR) chain, was a Kolkata-based start-up that sold a variety of momos, a Tibetan food. The restaurant’s specialty was a pan-fried variety of momos prepared to suit the Indian palate.Starting at €8.20
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Nestlé KITKAT in Japan (D): A Trajectory For Future Growth
Philip SugaiCase IVEY-9B17A040-EEntrepreneurship, Marketing, StrategySupplement for product 9B17A037. It was 2017 and the KITKAT brand in Japan was at a critical juncture. The KITKAT marketing leaders sat down for a special meeting to review how Nestlé Japan had been able to create meaning and value for their brand. However, as they began to discuss their options for future growth, they faced difficult decisions: Should they look to export the flavor variations that had become such big hits in Japan to overseas ma...Starting at €5.74
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Innovating Tradition at Hosoo
Philip SugaiCase IVEY-9B18A058-EEntrepreneurship, Marketing, StrategyHosoo was a kimono and textile company, established in 1688 as a traditional Nishijin weaving company. The 11th generation president of the company, Masao Hosoo, had transformed the business from a producer of premium kimono fabrics and kimonos for the luxury market in Japan to a globally respected textile producer for some of the world’s top brands. A great deal of the company’s success in the global market could be attributed to the master craf...Starting at €8.20
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KITKAT in Japan (A): Sparking a Cultural Revolution
Philip Sugai; Adrian SossnaCase IVEY-9B17A037-EEntrepreneurship, Marketing, StrategyIn 2008, the marketing manager for Nestlé Japan’s confectionery business and his team were struggling to redefine the KITKAT brand within the Japanese market. KITKAT as a brand faced a real threat as the retail environment rapidly shifted toward increasingly powerful convenience store chains and consumer preferences shifted toward more novel consumable products. With more than 200 companies competing within Japan’s crowded and relatively stable c...Starting at €8.20
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Nestlé KITKAT in Japan (B): The Roots of Premiumization
Philip SugaiCase IVEY-9B17A038-EEntrepreneurship, Marketing, StrategySupplement for product 9B17A037. The KITKAT team had experienced great success over the past few years by building a powerful and resonating brand and enhancing their production capabilities to enable them to adapt to changing demands from their channel partners. However, the harsh realities of a changing market demographic, and increasingly powerful convenience store chains, created a clear sense of urgency for creative solutions to continue the...Starting at €5.74
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Linc Pen and Plastics Limited: Creating a Brand from a New Product
Atanu Adhikari; Seema LallCase IVEY-9B21A003-EMarketingLinc Pen and Plastics Limited (LPPL) was a 40 year old Indian writing instruments company with a presence in over 50 countries through its sole brand Linc, a value brand that had a brand image of providing good quality products at a low price. Over the past year and half , LPPL had faced margin pressure due to a steep increase in the price of raw materials. In late 2019, Deepak Jalan, the managing director , decided not to disturb the brand equit...Starting at €8.20
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Spencer’s Retail Limited: Store Format and Private Label Decisions
Atanu Adhikari; Seema LallCase IVEY-9B20A077-EMarketing, StrategySpencer’s Retail, a fast-moving consumer goods retail chain in India, had been perceived as an expensive retailer exclusively for high-end consumers. A new sector head took over in 2013 and shifted the store from a positioning statement of “Taste the WorlStarting at €8.20
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Hatsune Miku: Japanese Virtual Idol Ignites Global Value Co-creation
Timothy Craig; Philip Sugai; Lukman AroeanCase IVEY-9B14M110-EStrategyCrypton Future Media, a music software company based in Sapporo, Japan, developed Hatsune Miku (HM), a singing voice synthesizer software program (Vocaloid). Users entered lyrics and melodies to create songs, which were then sung by Hatsune Miku, a 16-year-old female virtual singer featured on the software packaging.Initially targeting professionals, HM unexpectedly caught on among amateurs who produced music, lyrics, artwork and videos, which th...Starting at €8.20