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Corkd Building A Social Network For Wine Lovers Case Solution

Solution Id Length Case Author Case Publisher
2212 1117 Words (4 Pages) Peter A. Coles Harvard Business School : 911026
This solution includes: A Word File A Word File

Cork’d was a wine social network that was developed to provide a platform to the users comprising of the individuals as well as the wineries where they would be able to avail several features that would allow them to rate different wines, create shopping lists and engage with the wineries to get the best quality wine. However, the site had a less amount of signups than was expected with major chunk being that of the individuals only. Cork’d was therefore faced with a challenge of increasing the number of signups as the revenue from the signups was its main source of income to develop the infrastructure of the site. Also, the number of wineries that had registered was quite low which was a concerning issue as then the users will not be able to interact with the wineries and this would lead to an unsustainable business model of Cork’d. Another problem is that Cork’d is compelled to maintain a balance between the individual signups and winery signups as too much wineries on the platforms is likely to frustrate them when there will be less number of individual users with who they can interact with and capture their reviews. Hence, Ronga needed to come up with a strategy that was focused on increasing the signups of wineries and the individuals at an optimal rate so that it would help in generating positive value and not result in increased diversion rate form the site if the user base did not see their objectives and goals being fulfilled as they would sign up on the platform.

Following questions are answered in this case study solution

  1. Problem Statement

  2. Analysis

  3. Recommendations

Case Analysis for Corkd Building A Social Network For Wine Lovers

2. Analysis

Looking at the competitive landscape of the market in which Cork’d would be competing, it can be seen that there are a number of players which have contributed to intense level of competition in the market. Matching this with the pricing level of the business, Cork’d seems to be charging exorbitantly for the membership subscription. Also, as previous management did not give much time to Cork’d before, many of its existing users migrated to other platforms. The strategy used by Cork’d in this situation concerned with making use of Twitter by its key brand influence, Vaynerchuck, which helped in diverting a large number of followers to the social site. Use of an influential person seems adequate here as after each tasting episode, the viewers were asked to join the site to leave their reviews. Hence, this helped in the brand awareness of the site. However, for the new users the strategies need to be different as they might not be aware of Vaynerchuck at all. Also, the platform directly engaged with its customers as well as it would extract wine related tweets and correspond with the Ops of those posts, which can be considered a proactive way of marketing. Also, activities to keep new users engaged also seem reasonable as it introduced a badge system for them to keep them incentivized to engage using the app for upgrading their status. Also, for constant user engagement, Cork’d ensured that there are regular updates about new articles on wine on the website and also introduced incentives for active users on the site by promising them a set of rewards, Hence, analyzing the business model, it seems that the strategies undertaken by Ronga to promote Cork’d were quite attractive.

However, based on the analysis, it can be seen that much of the strategies were focused on promoting the interests of the individual wine consumers and not the wineries. This perhaps helps in justifying why there were a fairly larger number of signups of individual users and not of the wineries, the number of which is quite low and would reflect an unsustainable situation for the business. Because this clashes with the initial idea of Cork’d which was focused on establishing a platform where the wineries could easily communicate with the wine consumers, the lack of strategies to communicate with the wineries would place the business in an unsustainable position which is why there is a need to come up with marketing strategies that would attract the wineries.

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