Strategic Marketing Cases: Smallville, Midville, & Grandville

The case study method of instruction aims at bridging the gap between instruction and “real-world” experience. This method encourages the development of diagnostic skills and the use of analytical marketing thought in structuring solutions.

Strategic Marketing Cases: Smallville, Midville, & Grandville enables students the opportunity to learn and practice applying marketing theory to actual organizations and marketing environments. Each case study, presents a detailed description of a situation faced by an organization. A case narrative focuses on a problem for which a solution is required; each case has at its core one of the elements of the marketing mix: Product, Price, Place, or Promotion.

Through the utilization of the concepts presented through core marketing courses, students must develop a structured, logical response to the situation. The case method allows students the opportunity to apply theory and practice to near-actual situations. The cases in this book are composites of multiple clients across related organizations and/or industries.

Unlike examples often used in textbooks, cases based on actual situations are rarely as simple and straightforward. The real world is imperfect, has limiting constraints, and is constantly changing. The problems presented in cases can be multifaceted, requiring students to sort through information, discern relevancy, organize facts, determine concisely what the problem is, formulate alternatives, scientifically evaluate the alternatives, choose and defend a particular solution, and determine a method through which to implement the solution.

To allow flexibility and adaptation, three communities have been created as the potential location of the cases. Smallville, Midville, and Grandville were created based upon data collected from three cities in each of the 50 states in the United States. Initially, 83 points of data from 150 cities were collected, mostly from governmental sources, such as the U.S. Census Bureau. The 150 communities were sorted by population size. The smallest 50 were used to develop the city profile for Smallville, a community of less than 100,000. Midville is a representative composite of cities between 10,000 and 250,000. Grandville is a composite of cities greater than 250,000.