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• Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2019 (Revised September 2019)

  The DivaCup: Navigating Distribution and Growth

  Ayelet Israeli

  When the mother-daughter founders of DivaCup set out with a mission to disrupt the menstrual care industry with an innovative product form, they initially struggled to gain legitimacy and convince retailers to carry their unique product. Fifteen years later, the product was available online and in more than 35,000 retail stores worldwide, and the company was struggling with omnichannel distribution challenges and frequent violations of their pricing policy due to intense competition among channel partners. International distribution and the prevalence of gray market sellers were causing large price dispersions across markets, which was harming the brand further. In October 2018, the entry of a formidable competitor, P&G (owner of menstrual care brands Tampax and Always), into the niche product segment causes the CEO and her team to consider the best plan to reposition and differentiate its product to broaden its appeal to users of other product forms, while maintaining its market leadership in the menstrual cup segment. This challenge is made more difficult due to prevalent miseducation about menstrual care and menstrual cups in particular.

  Keywords: female; female ceo; Female Entrepreneur; female protagonist; health ＆ wellness; healthcare; price policies; minimum advertised price; differentiation; positioning; Growth; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Price; Disruption; Distribution; Distribution Channels; Competitive Strategy; Competition; Growth Management; Mission and Purpose; Product Development; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Advertising; Business Startups; Internet; Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Social Issues; Social Enterprise; Retail Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Health Industry; Green Technology Industry; Education Industry; Distribution Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Canada; United States; United Kingdom;

  Citation:

  Israeli, Ayelet. "The DivaCup: Navigating Distribution and Growth." Harvard Business School Case 519-055, March 2019. (Revised September 2019.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2019

  DayTwo: Going to Market with Gut Microbiome

  Ayelet Israeli and David Lane

  DayTwo is a young Israeli startup that applies research on the gut microbiome and machine learning algorithms to deliver personalized nutritional recommendations to its users in order to minimize blood sugar spikes after meals. After a first year of trial rollout in Israel, CEO Lihi Segal and her team are devising a global go-to-market plan for the firm. The team is considering several target markets, ranging from people with diabetes to professional athletes, and distribution strategies including selling direct to consumers or through partnerships with healthcare professionals or insurance companies. Their choices are important because they will affect DayTwo's costs, pricing, positioning, distribution channels, marketing efforts, and product development.

  Keywords: Start-up growth; Startup; positioning; targeting; go to market strategy; B2B2C; B2B vs. B2C; health ＆ wellness; AI; Machine learning; female ceo; female protagonist; science-based; science and technology studies; ecommerce; Applications; DTC; direct to consumer marketing; US health care; ＂USA,＂; innovation; pricing; Business growth; Segmentation; Distribution Channels; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Startups; Science-Based Business; Health; Innovation and Invention; Marketing; Technology; Business Growth and Maturation; Health Industry; Technology Industry; Insurance Industry; Information Technology Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Israel; United States;

  Citation:

  Israeli, Ayelet, and David Lane. "DayTwo: Going to Market with Gut Microbiome." Harvard Business School Case 519-010, March 2019.  View Details

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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | January 2019

  Hubble Contact Lenses: Data Driven Direct-to-Consumer Marketing

  Ayelet Israeli

  Teaching Note for HBS No. 519-011. 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.

  Keywords: DTC; direct to consumer marketing; health care; e-commerce; mobile; digital marketing; attribution; experimentation; experiments; churn/retention; customer lifetime value; internet marketing; big data; analytics; social media; A/B Testing; CRM; Advertising; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Media; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Online Advertising; Acquisition; Growth and Development Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Consumer Behavior;

  Citation:

  Israeli, Ayelet. "Hubble Contact Lenses: Data Driven Direct-to-Consumer Marketing." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 519-056, January 2019.  View Details

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