I have published a series of cases with the intention of bringing novel viewpoints and teaching modalities to marketing classes. Most can be taught at the undergraduate or graduate level. If you are a marketing professor, please feel free to contact me and I am happy to provide additional materials (info@profgoldsmith.com).

Disney Parks Pricing: Mickey’s Money Moves (2025)

This case explores the evolution of Disney’s pricing strategies at its parks. Over the past 70 years, Disney Parks have struggled with crowd management and guest satisfaction. Several reservation systems as well as incentivized loyalty programs were introduced throughout the years to improve guests’ experiences. Genie+ introduced Disney's latest pricing approach, diverging from FastPass+, which was complimentary with park admission, by charging guests a fee for advanced attraction reservations. This shift aimed to streamline guest experiences while generating additional revenue for the park. However, uncertainties persisted regarding its effectiveness, including long standby lines for non-users, additional charges, and an overall worse experience for most guests. This prompted debates on Genie’s overall impact and resulted in even further iterating on the system.

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Rocky Mountain High: The Cultural Branding of Skiing (2024)

A ski resort has to make critical decisions about its public-facing identity. It is grappling with issues like the balance between mass appeal and niche targeting. Students will use the framework of “the life cycle of cool” to inform discussions they have and decisions they make about how the resort should market itself. Then, marketing students will arrive at a fork in the trail – will “going corporate” result in widespread appeal? Or will a return to the grassroots ‘coolness’ of skiing lead the resort to untapped markets?

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Disney: Galactic Starcruiser (2024)

This case delves into the collapse of the Disney Galactic Starcruiser from a $400 million immersive experience to a $300 million tax write-off. Initially envisioned as a lucrative expansion of the Disney Star Wars universe, the venture spiraled into a marketing debacle within nineteen months. Through an examination of experiential versus material product introduction, product lifecycle, and segmentation, targeting, and positioning strategies in the context of customer lifetime value, students will dissect Disney's missteps leading to the downfall of the Galactic Starcruiser.

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WeightWatchers: Adapting to Ozempic (2024)

WeightWatchers, a long-time leader in lifestyle-based weight loss, made a major change by acquiring telehealth platform Sequence. This strategic pivot under new CEO Sima Sistani marks a departure from the company’s traditional emphasis on willpower and peer support for weight management. WeightWatchers now prioritizes a health-centered approach, recognizing conditions such as diabetes and obesity as medical issues requiring intervention through the use of weight-loss drugs similar to Ozempic. This case explores the difficulties and intricacies of introducing new products and services for a mature brand, and analyzes how that introduction influences overall brand strategy.

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Girl Scouts: How the Cookie Crumbles (2024)

WeightWIn the past twenty years, Girl Scouts USA has faced unprecedented challenges in member recruitment and retention. To help mitigate financial difficulties, the organization has engaged in licensing agreements. These agreements permit their iconic brand to be used across various products and companies, spanning from coffee flavors to shampoo. The licensing agreements, while providing financial relief, pose a significant challenge to the organization's identity and future trajectory, prompting the question: who stands to gain from the extension of the Girl Scouts brand?

RuPaul’s Drag Race: From Subculture to Mainstream (2022)

VH1, MTV, and LOGO were all popular television channels owned by the Paramount television network. One of the most successful shows on LOGO was RuPaul's Drag Race, a reality television show featuring drag queens. Paramount was considering moving RuPaul's Drag Race off LOGO to a different platform within the Paramount portfolio in 2017. Before deciding where RuPaul's Drag Race would air, Paramount needed to determine whether the show could be successful on another platform given its current fan base, how the potential move would affect the show's ratings, and whether the positioning or targeting strategy for the series would need to change if it were moved.

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Liquid Death: Water Made Metal (2022)

Founded in 2017, the canned-water company Liquid Death had raised about US$125 million in venture capital funding and created a strong following within the punk and heavy metal communities. However, the brand was seeking to expand and needed to choose the best growth strategy, which involved deciding which customers to target, whether to develop new products or line extensions, how to continue to use promotions and communications to defend the brand's "cool" and eco-friendly image while appealing to a broader range of consumers, and how to stave off competitive threats.

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Daily Crunch: Marketing a Start-up During a Shutdown (2022)

In December 2020, Laurel Orley, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Daily Crunch, was trying to determine her company’s next move in the midst of a global pandemic. Nine months prior, general business operations and consumerism as it was known had largely shutdown in the United States due to the COVID-19 virus. Her company, Daily Crunch, faced unforeseen setbacks as a result of the pandemic. Daily Crunch primarily sold sprouted nuts and was originally set to launch on Snack Day (March 4th, 2020). However, the go-to-market strategy, which involved in-person sampling and demonstrations at popular food expos, proved no longer to be viable given the shutdown in the United States. The case is particularly useful for teaching about distribution, omni-channel retailing, e-commerce, and marketing for entrepreneurs.

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