Case 12
Innovative Toys Inc.
Case Objective
1) To provide students with an opportunity to use research-based market analysis in the
development of a channel design.
Problem Situation
Innovative Toys must determine whether the design of a marketing channel that emphasizes
sales of its infant toy line through supermarkets is feasible.
Teaching Suggestions
The main pedagogical value of this case lies in getting students involved in researching the
information and data provided by the research study and then having them support whatever
Case Discussion
Inferences drawn from the research study make a strong case for the feasibility of selling the
infant toy line through supermarkets.
Exhibit 1 shows a very favorable disposition toward toys on the part of supermarket executives
in that all of them rate the profit potential of toys as either excellent (eight percent), very good
accounted for less than two percent of total infant toy sales (Exhibit 5), the low-quality ratings of
toys being sold in supermarkets (Exhibit 6) could partially account for the low sales. This
inference is supported by the data presented in Exhibit 8, which shows that if high-quality and
competitively priced toys were made available in supermarkets, 17.4 percent of the respondents