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• Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2019

  La Roche-Posay: Growing L'Oreal's Active Cosmetics Brand

  Jill Avery, Vincent Dessain and Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej

  As 2018 neared its end, Laetitia Toupet, international general manager of L’Oréal’s La Roche-Posay brand reflected on the brand’s achievements over the past year. At €1 billion in revenue, La Roche-Posay had recently become the number one dermocosmetics brand in the world. While Toupet was pleased with this feat, she believed that the brand was at a critical juncture. It was time to make some significant marketing decisions related to brand positioning to try to accelerate La Roche-Posay’s future growth trajectory as dermocosmetics moved from serving a niche market to the mainstream.

  Keywords: marketing; branding; brands and branding; brand management; consumer products; Consumer Products Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; brand positioning; marketing strategy; target market; global brands; global marketing; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Health Industry; France; Europe; Brazil; China; Asia; South America; United States; North America;

  Citation:

  Avery, Jill, Vincent Dessain, and Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej. "La Roche-Posay: Growing L'Oreal's Active Cosmetics Brand." Harvard Business School Case 520-035, October 2019.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2019 (Revised October 2019)

  Glossier: Co-Creating a Cult Brand with a Digital Community

  Jill Avery

  Glossier’s proclaimed strategy was “born from content; fueled by community.” The digital-first, direct-to-consumer beauty brand had experienced rapid growth, with sales up 600% in 2017 and a customer portfolio that grew by threefold. But, its founder, Emily Weiss, was not complacent. Instead, she dreamed of creating the world’s first socially driven brand that inserted its community into the buying experience so that the company was merchandising people, their opinions, and their content, just as much as they were merchandising products. As her team debates marketing strategies for 2018, they recognize the opportunities and challenges associated with managing Glossier’s rapidly scaling brand community. While the community’s support had emerged organically in the past, the team was now debating whether the company’s next phase of growth would need to be fueled by a greater emphasis on paid peer-to-peer sales representatives, professional influencer marketing, paid media, and a physical market presence.

  Keywords: Brands; brand management; brand communication; retailing; e-commerce; DTC; influencer; digital marketing; social media; Startup; internet marketing; big data; crowdsourcing; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Marketing Communications; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Consumer Behavior; Distribution; Growth and Development Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Retail Industry; United States; North America;

  Citation:

  Avery, Jill. "Glossier: Co-Creating a Cult Brand with a Digital Community." Harvard Business School Case 519-022, January 2019. (Revised October 2019.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2018 (Revised October 2019)

  HubSpot and Motion AI: Chatbot-Enabled CRM

  Jill Avery and Thomas Steenburgh

  HubSpot, an inbound marketing, sales, and customer relationship management (CRM) software provider, announced that it had acquired Motion AI, a software platform that enabled companies to easily build and deploy chatbots, fueled by artificial intelligence, to interact with their customers. Before unleashing bot-building technology to its B2B customers, HubSpot first needed to develop some best practices for the use of chatbots for CRM. First, the team had to clearly assess the trade-offs between effectiveness and efficiency associated with the use of bots versus humans to create, nurture, and manage customer relationships. Second, they had to decide to what extent to anthropomorphize the chatbots. How human-like should they be? Was a conversational user interface (UI) the desired solution for B2B CRM, or would a stripped down, more functional UI produce more efficiency for the customers who interacted with the bot? Historically, HubSpot had “practiced what it preached,” using its own products to build its business. The team had to consider whether to use chatbots to nurture and service its own customer relationships and manage the effectiveness and efficiency of its sales funnel. Currently, a team of chat representatives worked with marketing to qualify and prime prospects for HubSpot’s sales team. Could they and should they be replaced with chatbots? Was HubSpot ready for bots to become the face of its brand to its prospective customers?

  Keywords: CRM; sales management; customer service; artificial intelligence; B2B vs. B2C; business marketing; SaaS; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Customer Focus and Relationships; Sales; Salesforce Management; Technological Innovation; Software; Customer Relationship Management; Technology Industry; Service Industry; United States; North America;

  Citation:

  Avery, Jill, and Thomas Steenburgh. "HubSpot and Motion AI: Chatbot-Enabled CRM." Harvard Business School Case 518-067, February 2018. (Revised October 2019.)  View Details

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