What’s Now? Chapter 19 – Fargreen helps Vietnamese farmers and the planet

by Leave a Comment

fargreen-logo-retina1I have a soft spot in my heart for Fargreen. The startup that emerged from the Colorado State University Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise MBA program (full disclosure, Colorado State is my employer and I served for many years on the advisory board for this program). I also know Fargreen’s founder, Trang Tran. She developed a great idea to help Vietnamese farmers while also lowering carbon emissions. What is not to like? After winning several business plan competitions, Trang is now moving her business forward. This brandchannel article “Yale on Purpose-Driven Startups: Fargreen — Going Far By Going Green” (May 2, 2016) is one in a series with Yale MBA students.

Read the article about Fargreen. Explain how Fargreen ties into macromarketing, micromarketing, and innovative marketing planning — all major topics in chapter 19. 

What’s Now? Chapter 18 – Consumers Willing to Pay More for Products Boasting Fair Trade Logo

by Leave a Comment

FairtradeA research study at the Universität Bonn (Germany) found that consumers are willing to pay more for products that include the Fair Trade logo (see image of logo on left). The logo can be found on a range of products including bananas, coffee, chocolate, and wine. TheUniversität Bonn study found consumers were willing to pay 30% more when the product carried the Fair Trade logo.

In addition, they thought Fair Trade branded products tasted better. Another part of the study asked consumers to sample two pieces of chocolate and determine which tasted better. While the chocolates were identical, one included the Fair Trade logo. the logo alone caused consumers to report the chocolate tasted better. Read more at Science Daily, “Fair Trade Logo Boosts Consumer’s willingness to pay” (August 27, 2015).

The Fair Trade logo appears to reduce consumer’s price sensitivity. Review chapter 18’s discussion of price sensitivity and explain how the Fair Trade logo example influences price sensitivity.  

What’s Now? Chapter 2 – Hungry Harvest Tackles Food Waste and Hunger

by Leave a Comment

hungry-harvest-logo-picture-600The website brandchannel has launched a series of short case study articles. A team of Yale MBA students evaluate a purpose-driven startup and offer some marketing strategy recommendations.  We used a different case from this series in chapter 1. In this case (see “Hungry Harvest – No Food Waste, No Hunger, brandchannel, April 25, 2016), Hungry Harvest tries to tackle two seemingly dichotomous problems – food waste and hunger. It tries to put some of the 40% of produced grown in the U.S. that goes to waste with into the mouths of 50 million poor Americans who don’t get enough food.

From the Hungry Harvest case, give at least one example of each of the elements of the marketing strategy planning process model (see Exhibit 2-9).

What’s Now? Chapter 1 – Startup Sustainable Furniture Company Gets Tips from Yale MBA Students

by Leave a Comment

C1HugoHobyLogoThe website brandchannel has launched a series of short case study articles. A team of Yale MBA students evaluate a purpose-driven startup and offer some marketing strategy recommendations. In “Hugo & Hoby – Quality, Sustainably Sourced Furniture,” (April 27, 2016) you learn about a startup furniture maker that needs to move from making sustainably sourced furniture for friends and family to a wider market.

Read this article and review the recommendations made by the team of Yale MBA students. What concepts from chapter 1 do you see demonstrated in this case study? Can you think of any other ideas for improving Hugo & Hoby’s marketing?

What’s a good corporate citizen to do?

by Leave a Comment

Tide-Pod-blogYou redesigned one of your signature products. Sales are taking off — approaching a billion dollars a year. Then, it comes out that the packaging of your product is so attractive to kids — that many eat it and end up very ill. In just over a year, 17,230 kids under age six were accidentally poisoned by Tide Pods. The product looks like candy, so kids mistakenly ingest it and can get quite sick or die (at least one death has been reported).

This is an interesting case study for P&G — and for your students. Tide Pods’ sales were almost $800,000,000 in the last year. You could show the video below in class or assign this Wall Street Journal article “Detergent Packets Called a Poison Risk” (November 10, 2014, non-subscribers may need to link here) and ask your students “What should Tide do?” What is the socially responsible course of action? What would shareholders want you to do? What would customers expect? What would employees expect?