annelm kailia celestino

[Silvina Spindler]

Through the analysis of real cases, the case method connects theory to practice. It also favors the development of managerial capacities such as analyzing business problems, balancing different perspectives, presenting viable solutions and deriving power from conviction.

The case method is a learning methodology built on learning by doing and which aims to prepare students for strategic decision-making in companies through the practice of real situations.

After students in groups study and prepare the case, and tackle the problem to be solved, the professor facilitates and guides the classroom debate. Addressing the prognosis prepared by the participants, the professor encourages participation from the entire class in order to deepen the discussion with different points of view stemming from diverse experiences and cultural backgrounds.

This method was first used at Harvard in the early 20th century and has since become hugely popular thanks to its effectiveness in developing knowledge, skills and attitudes among experienced students. These are the benefits:

The Harvard Business School (HBS) introduced the case study method over a hundred years ago and since then case study analysis is used not just in business but also in law and medicine. Students are presented with a case that is essentially a real-life story usually about a company, person or event, that helps students think through business issues and challenges to prep them for their future careers. Questions posed at the end of the cases help students, either individually or in groups, juxtapose the facts of the case with the content learned in the course/topic, and arrive at evaluations and/or decisions. Thus, case study analysis bridges the gap between theory and practice while also helping students develop higher order critical thinking and analysis skills.

Case writing is a skill that can help students navigate many of the expectations of the entry level jobs because it teaches them to identify a problem, recognize the types of information required to evaluate the problem, know where to look for information, learn how to write it up and display their analytical ability by crafting thought-provoking and critical questions that must be answered in order to resolve the problem being faced. While coursework teaches students WHAT to think, case writing can be used to teach the process i.e., HOW to think.

The process began with groups of 5-6 students each, identifying multinationals that had entered an international market, which was significantly different from its country of origin, and was now facing a marketing problem there. To weave together their story, groups began by describing the problem, identifying the information needs, and conducting in-depth secondary research for finding the relevant information from credible sources. Naturally, topics had to be chosen based on the availability of sufficient secondary research on that company, country and industry, since students did not have the benefit of access to internal company documents or interviews with managers or customers. Multiple iterations helped weed out the irrelevant information and drill down deeper into areas that required greater scrutiny. Writing it up articulately and engagingly, to portray the struggles of the protagonist (the company) and the myriad factors to consider in that unfamiliar operating environment, was where the rigor of research meshed with the creativity of storytelling.

Every year, the Harvard Graduate Business Club organises a business case competition for teams across the world, the Harvard Global Case Competition. The teams are asked to answer a high-level business question, using industry, company and financial analyses over a period of three weeks. At the end, the teams submit a Slide Deck of approximately 100 slides. This year, they asked:

My team and I participated not only because it is an exciting project, competing with some of the most brilliant minds across the world, but also because we believe Analytics can provide a different perspective in an area usually built around standard financial analyses. In particular, by using advanced machine learning techniques, we were able to give a different perspective to answer the question of whether Amazon should buy Netflix, reinforcing the standard financial due diligence.

Netflix holds the largest market share, sitting in a unique spot, leading both in terms of Content and Affordability. Other players, such as YouTube, highlight how the streaming market is not a clear-cut sector, having players sitting in between of video platforms, TV and media in general.

Out of all these competitors, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video hold the two spots for market share, having a similar approach to streaming, having a moderately priced subscription that users pay on a monthly basis and focusing content mostly on TV-series and movies.

Specifically, Amazon hosts the entire tech stack of Netflix on its Amazon Web Services platform. Amazon would end up cutting a significant client and buy a tech stack it already owns. Both Netflix and Amazon also invest heavily in recommendation system algorithms like matrix completion. Amazon is not second to Netflix in terms of recommending products.

In addition, the companies have competitive cultures that appear to work for their respective employees. Though similar, they are also different and their combined cultures may bring out the worst in each other to create a toxic environment, driving their greatest assets: their people.

Another extremely important aspect is that if Amazon were to acquire Netflix, they would have a combined control of 55% of the market share, compared to 15% by Hulu. The merged entity would be 266% larger than its next largest competitor. This level of market share would give the merged entity extreme levels of control over the market. The FTC could not not object to a merger of this scale.

We find that in nearly every respect the overall quality of both libraries is identical for both original and leased content. In particular, we see that the quality is almost identical when considering movies, TV-series and original content, with only small variations and the distribution of quality content is the same.

Interestingly, Amazon has far more content than Netflix. The bulk of this difference stems from its massive library of movies, containing over 13,000 titles, over 3.5 times the number of films on Netflix. The platforms have approximately the same number of TV shows, but Netflix does have more original content (815 titles versus 229).

We trained a machine learning-based Decision Tree to understand the major drivers of hype, the maximum Google Trends index for that title over the last year. The tree shows that for any type of recent content, Netflix has more than twice the level of hype. Overall, Netflix is better at generating a spike of interest around its content.

What makes Netflix's marketing going viral is its humor advertising, interaction with customers and personalised advertising, with recommendations catered for you, focused on their content. Amazon Prime Video should, therefore, not acquire Netflix, but instead, improve the virality of its content.

In particular, Amazon should improve how it markets its content. The internal marketing team at Amazon is positioned to make some of these improvements itself, but large improvements like this can be difficult for internal teams, so an outside perspective could help make the shift.

Their experience with traditional media and LA headquarters would help a tech company like Amazon thrive in Hollywood, Their CEO, Andre Filip, is also a veteran of campaigns by, among others, HBO, Universal, and Disney. Their experience with emerging media will help keep Amazon on the forefront of Digital Marketing. ELA played a major role in the marketing of TikTok, a platform key to accessing Gen Z.

To summarise:

• We investigated whether Amazon would benefit from acquiring Netflix
• We started performing the necessary due diligence, analysing the streaming industry
• We leveraged machine learning techniques to analyse the content libraries, finding out that quality is at the same level
• Subsequently, we analysed their ability to create hype, showing that it is Netflix's advantage
• Finally, we recommended for the acquisition of Netflix to not go ahead. Amazon should instead acquire ELA Advertising
• By doing so, Amazon would be able to better engage with a younger audience and create the needed hype to position it as the market leader

Feiner, L. (2019). Netflix is valued like a tech company, but its CEO just said it was a media company. [online] CNBC. Available at: -ceo-breaks-with-big-tech-saying-its-actually-a-media-company.html.

Williams, R. (2019). Amazon quadruples digital ad spending to overtake Netflix, study finds. [online] Marketing Dive. Available at: -quadruples-digital-ad-spending-to-overtake-netflix-study-finds/560769/.

My friend Mary, who drove us to R-Place Restaurant, took her burger apart, eating meat, then toppings, then buns. The last bit of grease-soaked bread was too much for her, though. I ate mine the traditional way, and only made it through about a quarter.

Certainly, vegans can make a fair and compelling series about veganism. Starting in high school, I was trained as a journalist to believe in a neutral, objective approach to reporting, but have come to understand that is bullshit. It pretends journalists or documentarians alike do not have perspectives and are not making subjective decisions in their work, suggesting they are coming from literally nowhere, and is an idea that plagues journalism.

You Are What You Eat often uses appalling imagery, like chickens and pigs smashed together in cages, turtles caught in nets, large pools of blood, feces spraying in the air, salmon in farms with sores on their bodies.

90f70e40cf