Storrs London was established over 20 years ago as a printed textile design company selling to fashion designers and manufacturers around the world. The company has built up an extensive catalogue of exclusive textile designs that have all been created in-house to create a distinctive look.

With the growth of global e-commerce and digital sales channels and the influence of social media combined with fast worldwide delivery methods, the company saw a new opportunity. The company was interested in learning if it would be possible to switch from a wholesale only company to a business to consumer company. Anthony Daley, the founder of Storrs London wanted to launch an e-commerce website selling designer sleepwear/loungewear. “All of our designs are printed onto high quality Egyptian cotton fabric which is ideally suited to pyjamas.”

Questions asked by Anthony

• Is it possible to launch a new luxury consumer brand with no ‘Bricks and Mortar’ retail presence – either stand alone or listed in high end stores?
• If yes, how could the brand be launched exclusively through digital marketing (without being supported by features and editorial in fashion newspapers and magazines?).
• Assuming the launch will be primarily digitally led, what mix of social media would you propose to target our key audience?
• Building on from social media mix and choice, what value drivers should inform our key messaging/hashtag strategy/target influencer choice?
  What’s important to our audience eg product quality vs comfort vs ecological credentials vs product country of origin vs charitable alliances. How do we associate ourselves with trending/emerging consumer influences – eg music, film, art and culture?

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With the rise of electric vehicles and many countries rolling out new regulations/mandates in an effort to eliminate internal combustion engine vehicles, vehicle manufacturers must stay on top of their game. Mercedes-Benz is not a company to be left behind and recently announced to restructure itself internally based on the pillars of CASE (connected, autonomous, shared & services, electric). With this change, comes a possible change to the business model of the company.

Our challenge was to conduct primary and secondary research and make a recommendation for the future business model of Mercedes-Benz to allow the company to stay at the forefront of mobility. However, it was important to make sure the recommendation fit Mercedes-Benz and its history.

Question asked by Daimler

What should the business model for Mercedes-Benz be in the context of future transportation (2025+)?

You should include an analysis of the following characteristics as the basis of a recommendation including trend forecasts for the regions:

1. 1. Travel habits
   2. Used transportation system
   3. Mobility costs (today vs. tomorrow)

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Horizons is a young company that has been struggling to gain traction and is in dire need of some marketing expertise. While presenting the company to us, one of the co-founders said that he thought marketing was a waste of money and was not willing to spend any money on it. A push from his co-founder and their advisor (our professor) convinced him to at least consider the idea that marketing is important. Our task was to create a thorough marketing plan for the co-founders to use. We were allowed to go as far as even pitching them a new business model if we saw fit, as long as the core idea of the company remained in place.

The company focuses on experiential learning through events. The idea came from a large event attended by the co-founders called “The Summit” where the experience seemed lacking to them. They were looking to not only deliver experiential learning but also create a more interpersonal connection and a networking opportunity among the participants. The company was targeting more affluent people and had a fairly expensive pricing structure when compared to competitors.

Questions asked by Horizons

1. What does experiential learning mean to people and what are they looking to gain?
2. How do we find and target affluent people?
3. How do we become profitable while still keeping our events small and intimate (15 to 30 people max per event)?

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