JUUL and the Vaping Revolution

Michael W. Toffel; John   Masko; Sarah  Mehta

Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2018 (Revised January 2020)

JUUL and the Vaping Revolution

by Michael W. Toffel, John Masko and Sarah Mehta

Abstract

In the summer of 2018, San Francisco–based electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) maker JUUL Labs, was experiencing exponential growth. Sales of its JUUL e-cigarette had increased by 783% over the preceding year, projected revenues for 2018 topped $940 million, and the company had captured over 72% of the U.S. e-cigarette market. The company’s success had thrust it into the spotlight, and JUUL Labs found itself at the center of considerable controversy. Whereas the company’s stated goal was to provide tobacco smokers with a less harmful e-cigarette alternative, JUUL Labs’s products had proven widely popular with teenage high school students who had never smoked. Some advocacy groups and public policy makers speculated that the company had purposefully marketed its products to minors—an allegation JUUL Labs’s executives strongly denied. The company now faced an FDA probe and investigations by at least two state attorney generals. It needed a strategy to deal with its mounting regulatory and public relations problems.

Keywords: electronic cigarettes; E-Cigarettes; vaping; Nicotine Replacement; JUUL; Juuling; Advertising; Online Advertising; Customers; Innovation and Invention; Marketing; Ethics; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Technology; Technology Industry;

Language: English

Format: Print

38 pages

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Citation:

Toffel, Michael W., John Masko, and Sarah Mehta. "JUUL and the Vaping Revolution." Harvard Business School Case 619-006, November 2018. (Revised January 2020.)

Activism seeking to improve labor conditions in global supply chains has led many transnational corporations to adopt codes of conduct and monitor suppliers for compliance. Drawing on thousands of audits conducted by a major social auditor, we identify structural contingencies in the institutional environment and program design under which codes and monitoring are more likely to be associated with improvements in conditions. At the institutional level, suppliers improve more when they face greater risk that NGOs and the press will expose harmful working conditions and when their buyers have experienced negative publicity for supply chain labor abuses. At the program design level, suppliers improve more on average when audits are pre-announced, when auditors are highly trained, and especially when both are true. However, extended analysis reveals nuances to these findings, demonstrating that improvement varies across violation types. For instance, we find that pre-announced audits were followed by greater improvement in OSH practices but not child labor practices. These findings can inform strategies for improving supply chain working conditions.

Case | HBS Case Collection | July 2020

Gera Developments: Leadership at a Crossroads

Christina R. Wing and John Masko

For decades, Gera Developments (Gera) was a boutique family-owned real estate development firm in Pune, India. But since 2000, managing director Rohit Gera had turned the company into a dynamic innovator in housing solutions for urban Indian families. Over the 2010s, Gera had multiplied its area under development threefold; it had introduced its new ChildCentric vision of family housing villages (which incorporated children’s academies in skills from swimming to singing into the real estate complex); and it had expanded its operations from Pune to the nearby state of Goa. Meanwhile, Rohit’s brother Nikhil—a California resident—had invested company funds in several construction projects overseas in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2020, the company stood at a crossroads. With Rohit beginning to envision the end of his managerial career, Gera had several key decisions to make: Should it double down on ChildCentric, introduce new age-differentiated offerings to serve its customers throughout their lives, or return to a more commoditized style of real estate development? To what extent should Gera cast in its lot with Nikhil’s U.S. projects? Should the company consider other avenues for international expansion? And to whom would Rohit pass the torch of Gera’s leadership—his daughter Diya, or an outside professional manager?

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Business Growth and Maturation; Construction; Geographic Location; Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Housing; Leadership Style; Management Succession; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Family Ownership; Family and Family Relationships; Urban Development; Customization and Personalization; Real Estate Industry; Maharashtra; India; United States;

Citation:

Wing, Christina R., and John Masko. "Gera Developments: Leadership at a Crossroads." Harvard Business School Case 621-018, July 2020. View Details

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