Marketing Analysis Toolkit: Situation Analysis

Thomas J. Steenburgh; Jill  Avery

Background Note | HBS Case Collection | February 2010

Marketing Analysis Toolkit: Situation Analysis

by Thomas J. Steenburgh and Jill Avery

Abstract

Before managers can begin to formulate marketing strategies for their businesses, they must have a strong understanding of the internal and external marketing environments in which they are operating. In this note, we present three methods for collecting and analyzing information about the internal and external marketing environments firms face: Five C's Analysis, Porter's Five Forces Industry Analysis, and SWOT Analysis. These analyses help students understand the analytical processes by which managers understand themselves, their consumers, and the marketplaces in which they compete. The note gives students a foundation for analyzing marketing cases, as well as providing an analytical structure and process for completing the situation analysis section of a marketing plan.

Keywords: Five Forces Framework; SWOT Analysis; Marketing Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Industry Structures; Strategic Planning;

Format: Print

10 pages

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Citation:

Steenburgh, Thomas J., and Jill Avery. "Marketing Analysis Toolkit: Situation Analysis." Harvard Business School Background Note 510-079, February 2010.

As its Series A extension round approaches, the founders of Hubble, a subscription-based, social-media fueled, direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand of contact lenses, are reflecting on the marketing strategies that have taken them to a valuation of $200 million and debating changes to them that will allow them to grow their business. Ensuring that their marketing dollars were being spent efficiently was critical to the data-driven management team and proving to be complicated as the company moved spending from digital marketing to offline media, which made attribution modeling more difficult. Decisions pertaining to product extensions, channel expansion beyond DTC e-commerce, and geographic expansion were also on the table to prove that Hubble's customer value proposition and operations could profitably scale.

Case | HBS Case Collection | May 2017 (Revised November 2018)

Mavi: Fashioning a Path to Brand Growth

Jill Avery and Gamze Yucaoglu

This case examines the strategic choices and business model with regards to branding at Mavi, a leading Turkish apparel retailer. The case is presented from the perspective of the company CEO and its global brand director who is also part owner. In 2015, Mavi had sales of $419 million, up 20% from the previous year. Growth rates like these were becoming routine at Mavi. But, the path to growth was getting more challenging, and Turkven, Mavi’s private equity partner, was planning its options after seven years of investment. There were three growth levers Mavi could pull, but each involved selecting one growth path while neglecting another. Should the company invest in growth domestically or internationally? Should they change the price positioning of the brand to move upmarket or down market? Which value proposition offered the most future promise: functional differentiation, lifestyle differentiation, or celebrity endorsement? Managers realized that these choices would not only determine the company’s short-term growth trajectory, but also shape the longer-term value of the Mavi brand.

Keywords: brand management; brand architecture; brand portfolio strategy; brand positioning; international expansion; retailing; fashion; pricing; fast fashion; emerging economies; brand extension; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Emerging Markets; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; Global Range; Decision Choices and Conditions; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; Turkey; Europe; Asia;

Citation:

Avery, Jill, and Gamze Yucaoglu. "Mavi: Fashioning a Path to Brand Growth." Harvard Business School Case 517-075, May 2017. (Revised November 2018.) View Details

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Brandless, an online direct-to-consumer seller of upscale private-label consumer packaged goods, offered consumers a limited assortment of values-conscious products delivered directly to their homes with the simplicity of one fixed $3 price point that promised an average savings of 40% versus national brands through the elimination of the BrandTax, the hidden costs the company claimed consumers paid for a national brand. As the venture-funded startup entered the fiercely competitive CPG industry, it was simultaneously taking on both the world's greatest brands and the world's most dominant retailers. Could Brandless change the way consumers bought the essential items that filled their pantries and medicine cabinets? Industry pundits had long predicted both the death of brands and the death of brick and mortar retailing in the contemporary marketplace. Would Brandless be the final nail in the coffin?

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Marketing Analysis Toolkit: Situation Analysis

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