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• Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2019 (Revised June 2020)

  Shiseido Acquires Drunk Elephant

  Jill Avery

  On October 7, 2019, the Shiseido Group announced that it would acquire clean skincare brand Drunk Elephant for $845 million, a valuation of 8.5 times sales. Did Shiseido pay too much or too little for this brand asset? How much was the Drunk Elephant brand worth and how could it be valued? Every acquisition had to be measured against the cost of developing and building a look-a-like brand internally. Would Drunk Elephant prove to be an integral part of Shiseido’s future success and what would it take to unlock its full brand value? What kinds of further investments would Shiseido need to make to realize the new brand’s potential? How would the brand fit into the company’s existing brand portfolio of 42 brands?

  Keywords: personal care; Startup; Brand equity; brand valuation; Brand Value; brand storytelling; brand management; Brands and Branding; Valuation; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; Japan;

  Citation:

  Avery, Jill. "Shiseido Acquires Drunk Elephant." Harvard Business School Case 520-052, November 2019. (Revised June 2020.)  View Details

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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | June 2020

  Global Brand Management of Anheuser Busch InBev's Budweiser

  Jill Avery

  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 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 less premium 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?

  Keywords: brand management; global brands; Brand equity; brand storytelling; brand communication; brand positioning; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Global Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; China; Africa; Latin America;

  Citation:

  Avery, Jill. "Global Brand Management of Anheuser Busch InBev's Budweiser." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 520-130, June 2020.  View Details

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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | June 2020

  Brand Storytelling at Shinola

  Jill Avery, Giana M. Eckhardt and Michael Beverland

  Detroit, Michigan, aka “The Motor City,” is known as the birthplace of most of the American classic automotive brands. It is a city filled with the rich history of the industrial age, the pride of American manufacturing, and of the soulful sounds of Motown music. It is also a place more recently known for rustbelt urban decay, with abandoned factories, commercial buildings, and homes covering wide swaths of the city’s neighborhoods, soaring unemployment and homelessness rates, and a sense of despair following the city’s declaration of bankruptcy in 2013, which led to its other nickname, “America’s Warzone”. It was a surprising place to find the headquarters of a new luxury brand.
  In November 2019, Shannon Washburn took over as chief executive officer of Shinola, a luxury watchmaker and purveyor of stylized, retro-chic, and hipster-cool products. Several issues awaited her in 2020. A recent expansion of the brand into lower price point timepieces and into the hospitality sector would have to be monitored, and future brand extensions and brand partnership opportunities evaluated to support an evolving lifestyle brand positioning. As the company continued to expand the Shinola brand into U.S. markets beyond its home state of Michigan and into international markets in Europe and Asia, the brand’s story, rooted in Detroit’s imagery, history, and lore, might have to be reconsidered to better appeal to non-American audiences and those not as culturally familiar with and connected to Detroit. Finally, the company found itself the subject of legal and cultural critique. A “RETHINK SHINOLA” movement, sparked by artist Rebekah Modrak, was questioning its commitment to Detroit. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had recently fined Shinola for unfairly claiming that its products were “made in Detroit,” putting its brand storytelling under the microscope.

  Keywords: brand storytelling; brand management; Brand Management of Places; luxury brand; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Advertising; Luxury; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; United States;

  Citation:

  Avery, Jill, Giana M. Eckhardt, and Michael Beverland. "Brand Storytelling at Shinola." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 520-127, June 2020.  View Details

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