We have just published a new edition of Basic Marketing. The latest edition offers more concise coverage, new content (especially big data, analytics, and the latest on digital lives of customers), LearnSmart adaptive learning, and YouTube PowerPoints. Click through to this extended post to read more about the new edition, see a video from one of the authors, and to download samples of the YouTube PowerPoints.
Marketing research can be a challenging concept for students in the introductory marketing course. In our books, this chapter begins with a discussion of the marketing information system and big data. The video below provides a way to take this topic to a deeper level. The 12 minute video allows you to bring Mandy Chessell, an IBM distinguished engineer and master inventor, to your students.
While the topic is a bit on the technical side, an instructor could tie Mandy’s presentation to key concepts from marketing research, including the marketing information system, customer relationship management, and big data. Because of the more technical nature, if this is for introductory marketing students, you may want to show the video in class to you can interpret the more complex issues. If you are using it in a marketing research class, you could possibly assign it as homework and ask students to think about how such data could be collected, managed, and utilized.
As regular readers of T4Ps know, we have been on the big data train for more than a year. The major theme in the recently published 19th edition of Basic Marketing is the impact of big data on marketing strategy.
I am not sure I agree completely with Google chairman Eric Schmidt’s assessment that “Big Data is not overhyped; it’s underhyped” — but I do believe many of our students will be working in marketing jobs that utilize more data and analytics. That quote and some strong arguments for why we need to be teaching our students about big data can be found in “Say It With Me: Big Data, Big Data, Big Data” (CMO.com, April 11, 2013). It is a short read and provides some motivation for those of us teaching the next generation of marketers to keep up with the latest trends.
At Teach the 4 Ps and in our textbooks we don’t like labels for marketing. “Digital marketing,” “services marketing,” etc. We think there is one marketing. There are digital tools that are used for marketing and there is marketing for service businesses.
OK, I climb down from our soapbox. With the caveat that we don’t like the general term, this is still an interesting blog post. We do like looking into the future. So this blog post at CMO Insider, ”Our Digital Marketing Crystal Ball” (January 4, 2013) just popped up on our radar. I know, I missed this for months. Still, it has some interesting insights from a range of CMOs and top executives. These are people who are working in the trenches and knowing what they think is coming will help all of us teach better.
What is that next big thing? Many of today’s trendsetters can be found in high schools. So Jeremy Hobson reporter for the radio program Marketplace visited a New Jersey high school where he interviewed students and a tech teacher. You can listen to the radio story at “The next generation unfriends Facebook” (May 3, 2013). It is 12 minutes long, but worth it. Scroll down for the Audio Extra — a four minute interview with the tech teacher.
While we should be cautious in how we interpret the results of a small convenience sample, there are some quick takeaways that merit attention:
Many of us instructors have a hard time keeping up with today’s kids. They are constantly moving on to the next big thing. This radio story will help keep you up to speed — for the moment at least. It raises interesting questions about segmentation, targeting, technology, social media, and promotion. We have also posted this at Learn the 4 Ps with some questions and hoping for some feedback.
There is always something new in online advertising. Here are a couple of articles and a video that will give you some new information you can share with your students.
First, let’s motivate the topic with some research that shows “Online Ads Best TV Ads When it Comes to Recall” (Visible Measures blog, May 2, 2013). ”Data from Nielsen shows that viewers have much higher recall of online ads than they do of TV ads. Message re call of online ads is double that of TV ads and brand recall is nearly double that of TV. Additionally, viewers tend to like the ads better online than they do on TV.” Click through to the short article to learn some of the reasons for the success of online advertising.
Second, new technology is emerging that allows advertisers to track us across the different platforms we use to access the web. So now, what advertisers learn about us as we surf the web on our laptop can be used to serve us advertising on our mobile phone. They can also target us at specific times of day. This whole topic raises privacy issues, too. Learn more by reading this Wall Street Journal article “Online Ads Can Follow You Home” (April 29, 2013 – non-subscribers may need to click here) and the associated (somewhat technical) video below.
The articles and video have content that will appear in the next editions of our books — but you can share these insights with your students the next time you cover online advertising or want to discuss technology, segmentation, targeting, or privacy.
There is a severe shortage of qualified medical doctors and healthcare professionals in Africa. An organization called Africa Health Placements has the task of trying to address this challenge. It recently developed a direct mail campaign to get the attention of medical professionals. While it would be nice to have data about the success of the campaign — the idea is creative, interesting and gets attention. It also shows a non-traditional use of promotion.
When Cape Town Tourism sought a creative way to increase visits to the South African jewel (see photo to the right), it decided to highlight its “unexpected side.” Cape Town Tourism understands that many of the city’s charms are those “never heard of places” that don’t even make it into the travel guidebooks. They designed a creative Facebook campaign that offered people a “virtual” trip to Cape Town; a trip they could “share” with their friends. Results data from this case study indicate the campaign worked.
I enjoy showing these case study examples (you can find them in our YouTube PowerPoints, too) because they take you through the objectives of a campaign as well as the promotional efforts and results.
I think this will work as an example you can show to demonstrate the marketing of experiences (perhaps in your coverage of product) or in promotion/publicity/social media. We have also posted this at Learn the 4 Ps.
We all know we can “save money” at Walmart — and maybe “live better,” (the other half of their current tagline), too. But have Walmart’s efforts to cut costs and deliver low prices created other problems for the giant retailer? Cutbacks appear to be leading to empty shelves and poor customer service. You can read about these issues at Bloomberg Businessweek “Walmart Faces the Cost of Cost-Cutting: Empty Shelves” (March 28, 2013) and at Business Insider “Wal-Mart Could Be In Big Trouble If It Doesn’t Fix Customer Service Fast” (April 12, 2013).
There are plenty of good examples that might be useful when you cover distribution customer service or retailing. It could also be a good example for cost management and HR-marketing cross functional issues which we have in the implementation and control and cross-functional chapters in Basic Marketing.
Dove has been running its Campaign for Real Beauty since 2004. A major global study it found that only 2% of women around the world describe themselves as “beautiful.” With women as its prime target market, Dove decided to address the issue head on. The campaign’s Evolution and Onslaught videos went viral as they pointed out the challenges for girls and young women growing up in a world that may be overly focused on an unrealistic standard of “beauty.”
The latest video, “Dove Real Beauty Sketches” (shown below), has just been released. If you read about the campaign (for a contrarian view click here) and show the video, you can open a discussion of either social responsibility, the influence of advertising, or both. We have also posted this at Learn the 4 Ps.
In our textbooks we define customer value as “the difference between the benefits a customer sees from a marketing offering and the costs of obtaining those benefits. As I tell my students, we should try to create value by finding new benefits that address real customer needs — and not necessarily by simply cutting prices. If we do it right, customers will be willing to pay more for our products. With the recent downturn, many marketers have forgotten this — and have turned to discounting to deliver customer value. That doesn’t usually enhance the bottom line. Some marketers remember their job and are finding ways to deliver value to customers and their employers. This article in Advertising Age shows “How P&G, Ford, and Wendy’s Are Redefining Value,” (April 22, 2013) — with examples from Chobani and Keurig as well as a counterexample from McDonald’s.
These examples will fit especially well with your coverage of value, price, and product.
