Whenever the small-group discussions in the classroom get noisy, it means one of two things: the students are so interested that they forget they are in a classroom, or there are movies playing in laptops, hidden by the huddle of heads. When these discussions are about marketing strategy in The CMO’s Playbook, it’s the former.

Sometimes we teachers are happy when the class is loud.

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Here is a (hand-made) collage from the cases and contexts that we discussed in the course last year (2023 Jun-Aug). Can you identify all the companies and situations?!

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Here are a few answers.

Coca Cola in India: A product portfolio worth boasting about, but who wants sugar and fizz now? This was (and is, and will continue to be) the dilemma of what is perhaps the world’s best built brand (for a brand backed by hardly any product worth its price). The new year spells interesting times for Coca Cola and more so for Coca Cola India with cannibals and competitors galore.

TiVo in the late 1990s: When you have a product that is on the cutting edge, how do you sell it? And who do you sell it to? The timeless issue that was reprised in the Apple Vision Pro announcement of 2023.

Bournvita: One for the ugh-looking packages of Bournvita-labeled detergent and Bournvita-labeled toilet cleaner, and one for the high-sugar Food Pharmer influencer controversy that is already forgotten!

Red Label: “India’s social network is tea”, why not just label it?! The question is: should you name your brand at the beginning of a beautiful video (and spoil its beautiful evocativeness) or should you just let the beauty play (and spoil the brand recall). I have more to say in this article and not just because I have co-authored a peer-reviewed academic research paper on the benefits of putting the brand first in certain contexts.

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‘The CMO’s Playbook’ is an elective course that I teach to PGP students in the second year at IIMK. This course has consistently evoked strong positive views among students, including comments such as “best professor ever”, “best marketing course so far”, “hands down the best course in the term”, and several others. Each comment is an affirmation that there is a lot to decision making in marketing and that some of these skills can be built in an engaging classroom. I take credit only for designing and naming the course. The learnings are, as always, co-created.

In case you are a marketer or from the industry, pls reach out to me to exchange ideas on how learnings in the classroom can be transferred to corporate life and vice versa. The course will be soon made available beyond the PGP classroom, given the interest from marketing managers – pls share your ideas on what would be useful.

For more context, here’s a write-up about the course The CMO’s Playbook which also provides a summary of the course and my contact details. Here’s a note from last year’s (2022 Jun-Aug) innings, an overwhelming learning experience that left all of us smiling despite all the work.