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

Jill  Avery; Ayelet  Israeli

Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2018

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

Abstract

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: marketing; marketing strategy; Marketing communications; advertising; media; DTC; direct to consumer marketing; brands and branding; health care; e-commerce; mobile; Online Advertising; digital marketing; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Online Advertising; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; North America;

Language: English

Format: Print

23 pages

Educators

Citation:

Avery, Jill, and Ayelet Israeli. "Hubble Contact Lenses: Data Driven Direct-to-Consumer Marketing." Harvard Business School Case 519-011, August 2018.

Brand valuation, the art and science of calculating the economic value accruing to a firm from its use on an intangible brand asset, yields frustratingly inconsistent, discrepant, and therefore, controversial results. While it is widely accepted that brands are long-lived assets that can contribute significant value to firms over time, there is no consensus on how to value them. This note outlines several different methods for valuing brands and exposes readers to the commercial methods most used by firms. It discusses the opportunities associated with valuing brands as well as the challenges.

Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2018 (Revised June 2018)

Christie's and Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi: The Value of a Brand

Jill Avery

A 16th century Renaissance masterpiece, missing for 137 years, believed by many to have been destroyed and then rediscovered less than a decade ago, becomes the most expensive painting ever sold, all the while surrounded by controversy. Did the buyer of Leonardo da Vinci's painting pay too much? Was it real? Did it matter? The sale of Leonardo's painting allows students to reengineer brand equity to understand from what it is derived and how marketing actions influence changes in it. Methods for brand valuation can be discussed and issues related to branding in contemporary times, such as authenticity, legitimacy, authorship, craftsmanship, and storytelling can be used to show how brand value is built and destroyed. Brand partnerships, particularly between and among Leonardo, Christie's auction house, the sellers, the experts who attributed the painting to Leonardo, and the celebrities used to market it, are dissected to understand how brand meaning and value transfer from one partner to another.

Keywords: marketing; Brands; brands and branding; marketing strategy; brand valuation; art collector; arts marketing; value; auction house; auctions; luxury brand; luxury consumers; Luxury Goods; Marketing; Valuation; Marketing Strategy; Arts; Luxury; Value; Brands and Branding; Fine Arts Industry; Italy; United Kingdom; Europe; United States; United Arab Emirates;

Citation:

Avery, Jill. "Christie's and Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi: The Value of a Brand." Harvard Business School Case 518-066, January 2018. (Revised June 2018.) View Details

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Brian Perkins, chief architect of the $6 billion Budweiser brand, was excited about 2018, in which the company would launch Budweiser into several new markets in Africa and Latin America. He was also feeling the pressure to finalize a global brand strategy that would define Budweiser’s value proposition and guide its development and execution around the world. The problem was that Budweiser actually had two distinct brand realities that differed across geographies and that often interfered with each other. He worried whether the company could keep selling a premium brand proposition abroad as the brand's reputation faced challenges at home in the U.S. and whether he needed to force a monolithic global brand strategy everywhere or allow for local market customization. Could Budweiser simultaneously accommodate two or more brand realities?

Faculty & Research

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

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