As the new academic year rises on the horizon, I thought about the cases (in Marketing) that I have taught in past few years and listed the top ten. My best teaching experiences – taking into account the best learning experiences of my students – took place while teaching these cases.

The list is slightly inclined towards marketing strategy, and does not include the good old work-your-way-through-it numerical analysis cases as these are required but do become somewhat boring at times. I have listed only the interesting cases, which really connect with students and sometimes even divide the class!

Most of these cases can be taught across programs and years (perhaps a few are not suitable for the first-year basic marketing course, and many are unsuitable for undergraduate courses) with a little flexibility, creativity, and improvisation from the faculty. Then again, you can’t have a course of just these cases – these are best consumed as the laddus in a diet that otherwise consists of good old dal-chawal-roti-subzi, in my view.

These cases are tried and tested for that ideal combination of fun and learning (in the 750-odd hours that I have taught with cases so far with full-time MBA, executive/online MBA, in-campus MDP, and online MDP participants). Of course, all bets are off if students have not analysed the case prior to the class discussion.

Here’s the list, in the order of most interesting first. Complete case titles are provided at the end.

1. Whatsapp Payments – where to play, how to win, and do so in a market evolving so fast that the where and how keep changing – I hope the managers from UCO Bank have not forgotten our discussion yet!
2. Tanishq – a tad dated, but this case is a hit because you have to choose – the rural customer who wants something which is not the same as what the urban customer wants, but rural is a big market and needs its own positioning – a juicy dilemma of the highest order!
3. Maggi – students’ love for Maggi translates directly to life in the class – this case spreads all the way from crisis-handling and regulator relationship to competitive strategy and social media management – the case can be built upon using the recent (~March 2024) McDonald’s fake cheese almost-crisis.
4. Herman Miller – this one is tricky because the pre-class reading (in terms of page length and case details) is on higher side, but discussing this case is like solving a puzzle – not your simple Rubik’s cube but a really confusing cube that reveals new colors every time your twist it. Need I mention that the case is on sustainability?!
5. Paez – this one is about footwear (!), and not luxury footwear but a home-grown South American brand in a product category rarely seen in cases – the case is on positioning and actually gives students a few options, but if you do your analysis well, all options are bad! What more can you ask of a case?!
6. TiVo – new product marketing for a really, really new product – but this case requires careful handling and pre-discussion prep as television is not something the current generation can relate well to – the context can then segue into Apple Vision Pro, foldable phones, and most new tech products such as smart watches and Alexa.
7. Starbucks – spend $20 million on additional employee hours, or not? Increase customization of drinks, or not? Rely on market research, or not? And beyond the case, questions like: add masala chai and filter coffee to the menu, and dilute the brand but adapt to the Indian market, or not?
8. Puma’s Maya – Virtual influencers are the craze these days, but in the early days when nobody knew what a virtual influencer was and whether it would work, a little-known company in South East Asia decided to build one for Puma – a fun case that can build towards all things virtual, including customer experience and customer engagement, and the growing role of AI in all things martech.
9. L’Oreal Paris – the title might be a little off-putting but that should not deter either the case facilitator or the students – L’Oreal has been doing digital, and quite well at that, for several years now, and it’s great fun to see how they decide on new products using social media listening (and planting).
10. Commerce Bank – this bank, in the case at least, has unique way of trading off a lower interest rate against fun activities (think jugglers and walking soft toys) in the bank branch. Unbelievable and rightly so, but the case gets students thinking – why should finance and banking be boring and tiring to customers?
11. Bonus: Real events –interesting real incidents and decisions not formally written up into cases – the absence of a structured set of facts and a story ready to read is usually compensated by the freshness of the incident – how Budweiser faced the last minute problem in selling its drinks at the Qatar World Cup through the #BringHometheBud campaign, how the same Budweiser dug itself into a hole with an influencer, and how they dug themselves out of the hole by reinforcing their positioning through advertising…

To case teachers reading this, I hope this list is useful and makes you revisit or reinforce your own favorite cases. Am eager to hear and learn from you about your case experiences. Write to me at npriya(at)iimk(dot)ac.in. Equally eager to hear from students!

Complete case titles for the cases above:

1. WhatsApp: Creating and Communicating Value for WhatsApp Payments
2. Tanishq: Positioning to Capture the Indian Woman’s Heart
3. The Maggi Noodle Safety Crisis in India (A)
4. Cradle-to-Cradle Design at Herman Miller: Moving Toward Environmental Sustainability
5. Paez
6. TiVo (first version dated 2000)
7. Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service
8. Puma’s “Maya”: Southeast Asia’s First Virtual Influencer
9. Ombre, Tie-Dye, Splat Hair: Trends or Fads? “Pull” and “Push” Social Media Strategies at L’Oréal Paris
10. Commerce Bank