Brand Builder — Café Cordillera's Sustainability Relaunch

A four-round, advanced brand & sustainable-marketing simulation set inside Café Cordillera S.A., a Costa Rican premium-coffee company in Heredia (2025 revenue CRC 9,600M, 38% gross margin, 22% contribution margin after trade, 140 employees).

Its flagship Cordillera Verde already sources 100% of its green coffee from certified-sustainable Tarrazú cooperatives and pays a verified farmer premium — but consumers don't know it: aided awareness is just 31% versus a multinational rival at 58%, the brand-equity index sits at 42/100, sustainability perception is barely above the category average, and the price premium over private label has compressed from 35% to 22% as shoppers trade down.

A new CMO inherits a board mandate to rebuild Cordillera Verde into the region's trusted sustainable-coffee brand within four quarters — without letting contribution margin fall below an 18% hard floor — just as the rival's high-spend 'Planet Positive' campaign grabs 4 share points on a thinner sustainability story.

Playing the brand-leadership team, you (1) diagnose the brand and craft a positioning where the genuine sustainability asset is the core meaning, not a tactical footer, choosing the target segment, the point of difference and the real proof points; (2) design the campaign's claim architecture — bold broad 'eco' claims that move perception fast but invite a greenwashing complaint, versus specific verified sourcing claims that build durable trust more slowly, plus the proof mechanism and a greenwashing-risk check; (3) allocate the fixed CRC 480M media budget across TV/streaming, digital/social, retail & trade, influencer/PR and D2C performance — trading reach against conversion under the 18% margin floor, with an optional AI-personalization layer to be used as a disciplined co-pilot rather than the captain; and (4) present the integrated four-quarter plan to the board, reporting awareness, brand equity, campaign ROI and sustainability perception honestly against what CRC 480M can actually support, and defending the positioning-campaign-media logic as one coherent system.

The math rewards making sustainability the brand's meaning, claiming the true 100%-certified story with verifiable specifics, an equity-building media mix that respects the margin floor, and disciplined AI use — and punishes the five classic errors: pouring everything into mass-reach TV and breaching the floor, overclaiming into greenwashing, underclaiming and wasting the real asset, bolting sustainability onto a generic position, and either ignoring or over-trusting the AI tool.

Final KPIs track Brand Awareness, Brand Equity, Sustainability Perception and Contribution Margin against the 18% floor.

An advanced simulation for participants used to working with the main frameworks and trade-offs of the subject, designed for executive education and experienced professionals.