Emotiv Systems Inc.: It's the Thoughts that Count

Elie  Ofek; Jason  Riis; Paul  Hamilton

Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2009 (Revised July 2012)

Emotiv Systems Inc.: It's the Thoughts that Count

by Elie Ofek, Jason Riis and Paul Hamilton

Abstract

Emotiv is getting ready to launch its innovative brain-computer interfacing (BCI) technology. The company has developed a special headset, called EPOC, and highly sophisticated software that can translate a person's emotions, cognitive thoughts, and facial expressions into digital outcomes. Emotiv wants the technology to be adopted by mainstream consumers and is leaning towards the video game market as its primary initial target. However, it needs to decide whether to continue efforts to convince one of the big three console makers (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii) to enable the EPOC on their platform or to settle for the PC gaming market. Alternatively, the company could have chosen a number of different markets to focus on (such as medical, military, market research). A host of additional marketing decisions need to be made (pricing, channels, bundling a demo game). The case allows students to grapple with the issues of selecting a target application for the launch of an innovation, determining the importance of having a big name partner for the launch by an unknown start-up, considering the wisdom of taking a B2C rather than B2B approach with a novel technology, and using analogous products to forecast demand and sales for a new technology.

Keywords: Technology Adoption; Sales; Technological Innovation; Demand and Consumers; Marketing Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Entrepreneurship; Forecasting and Prediction; Product Launch; Business Startups; Technology Industry;

Language: English

Format: Print

24 pages

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Citation:

Ofek, Elie, Jason Riis, and Paul Hamilton. "Emotiv Systems Inc.: It's the Thoughts that Count." Harvard Business School Case 510-050, October 2009. (Revised July 2012.)

On September 12, 2017, just as Apple’s Tim Cook was unveiling the iPhone X, Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group (CBG), and Glory Cheung, his Chief Marketing Officer, were discussing some key strategic issues regarding Huawei’s smartphone business. Established in 1987, Huawei was the largest telecom equipment company in the world. Huawei established the CBG in 2012 to focus on Huawei-branded smartphone models and within five years had risen to be the No. 3 player in the market in terms of shipments—next only to Apple and Samsung. As they finished watching Cook’s presentation, Yu and Cheung thought about the Mate 10 series, Huawei’s most advanced smartphone that would be launched on October 16, 2017, in Germany. The new models would include Huawei’s proprietary Kirin 970 chipset, which boasted having the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI) mobile processor. They had to decide how to position, communicate, and price the new phones. Yet beyond these near-term decisions, a major challenge facing Huawei was how to make good on Yu’s bold vision to overtake Apple and Samsung in market share within three to five years, while maintaining healthy profits. This task seemed particularly daunting given the difficulties the company had encountered in penetrating the lucrative U.S. market. What would it take for Huawei to be the number one smartphone brand globally?

In mid-2010 the Sealed Air Corporation has to decide on next steps for its novel video tracking technology (called VTID) after unsuccessful attempts to market it in three different industry settings. The company must determine whether its most recent target market, the quick-serve restaurant segment, is still worth pursuing or whether the company should look for a different application and market altogether. The company could also revisit the previous two applications, tracking and tracing processed meat and tracking employee safety practices. At the other extreme, after seven years of R&D and marketing efforts and millions of dollars in expenses, the company could cease attempts to commercialize VTID.

Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2017 (Revised July 2018)

MannKind Corporation: Take a Deep Breath, This Time Afrezza Will Work

Elie Ofek and Amanda Dai

In June 2014, MannKind Corporation announced that after years of development and billions of dollars in expenses, the FDA had finally approved its drug, Afrezza. MannKind would thus be the only company with an inhalable insulin on the market. As an alternative to injectable rapid-acting (or mealtime) insulin, Afrezza boasted a potential market of at least 4 million diabetic patients. Shortly thereafter, Sanofi, a company with vast experience in the diabetic space, became MannKind’s marketing partner and helped launch Afrezza in February, 2015. Although the drug had a black box warning and required doctors to perform a lung test on patients, expectations were high, with some analysts predicting peak sales of up to $4 billion a year. However, those lofty hopes were quickly dashed when Afrezza generated lackluster first-year sales, driving Sanofi to terminate its short-lived contract with MannKind in January 2016. MannKind's management attributed the launch’s failure to a poor marketing approach, convinced that Sanofi, despite its strong global presence and experience, did not effectively address critical barriers to adoption. The company now planned to overhaul Afrezza’s entire marketing strategy. This included rethinking which patients and physicians to target, how to position the drug to engender interest and adoption, how to lower end consumer price, through which media to convey Afrezza's benefits, and how to streamline the process of performing the lung test and getting the drug into the hands of patients. But would all these changes and initiatives, no matter how well executed, be enough to turn sales around? Would Afrezza ever realize the potential that Alfred Mann, the late founder and former CEO, saw in the novel treatment?

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Marketing Strategy; Adoption; Pharmaceutical Industry;

Citation:

Ofek, Elie, and Amanda Dai. "MannKind Corporation: Take a Deep Breath, This Time Afrezza Will Work." Harvard Business School Case 518-031, August 2017. (Revised July 2018.) View Details

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