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• Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2009 (Revised May 2019)

  The London 2012 Olympic Games

  John T. Gourville and Marco Bertini

  It's 2009 and Paul Williamson, Head of Ticketing, must finalize ticket prices for the 2012 London Olympic Games. Yet, there are many criteria to consider. First, given the importance of ticketing to the Games' bottom line, he has a strong incentive to maximize revenues. Second, because the entire world will be watching, he wants to maximize attendance-not just at the Opening Ceremony and swimming finals, which are easy sells, but also at events such as handball and table tennis, which are not. Third, he wants to fill seats with the right people-knowledgeable fans who add to the energy and atmosphere of the event. Finally, tickets have to be accessible not only to the world's elite but also to average Londoners, many of whom live around the corner from the Olympic Park.

  Keywords: pricing; Customer Satisfaction; Price; Profit; Revenue; Sales; Sports Industry; London;

  Citation:

  Gourville, John T., and Marco Bertini. "The London 2012 Olympic Games." Harvard Business School Case 510-039, September 2009. (Revised May 2019.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2018

  Four Products: Predicting Diffusion (2018)

  John Gourville

  One job of product managers, marketers, strategic planners, and other corporate executives is to predict what the demand will be for a new product. This task is easier for certain classes of new products than for others. For new consumer package goods, for instance, one can look at past product rollouts, one can look at similar products currently in the marketplace, or one can do test markets—selling the product in a small section of the country to assess consumer acceptance. Quite often, for new products that represent incremental variations or improvements over existing products, marketers do a pretty good job of understanding how that product will be adopted in the marketplace. This is not to say that managers always get it right, as has been made evidently clear in the case of New Coke, dry beers, and the Edsel. However, more often than not, managers of incremental new products predict demand within the right order of magnitude.

  Keywords: marketing; Diffusion Processes; product adoption; Forecasting and Prediction; Demand and Consumers; Adoption; Product Launch; Marketing;

  Citation:

  Gourville, John. "Four Products: Predicting Diffusion (2018)." Harvard Business School Case 519-018, August 2018.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2018

  Idle Hands Craft Ales

  John T. Gourville

  Citation:

  Gourville, John T. "Idle Hands Craft Ales." Harvard Business School Case 519-027, August 2018.  View Details

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