teachthe4ps.com - For instructors of marketing.

Looking for a nice example of differences in consumer behavior across cultures?  I learned something today about consumer behavior in China.  Apparently many Chinese consumers value the bargain — maybe not so culturally unique.  But they go about it in an interesting way.  Many Chinese shoppers go on a group bargain hunt — realizing that they might get a volume discount.  I heard about this on the American Public Radio show, Marketplace (January 22, 2010) “China’s next export:  group shopping?“  Click through to read or listen to the story — I have embedded a video of group shopping below. [Note:  click through to the story to see the video, at first my embedding the video worked, but now it does not.]  I know we have at least a few Chinese readers. Can you add a comment with more insight on this practice?

This article in BtoB (January 21, 2010)  “Case study: How IT company increased response on U.K. e-mail campaign,” offers instructors several benefits.  While the article is short, it shows how an American firm had to adapt its communications approach to get a better response from UK buyers.  The case study includes the adaptations made in an e-mail campaign and the before and after click-through rate.  It is also a good example of the use of e-mail, an important component of the promotion blend in B2B.  Check it out.

Do you want to add vintage ads to your class presentations?  Or do you want to buy posters of vintage ads?  Or just like to look at old ads?  If any of these appeal to you, go to the Vintage Ad Browser.

Last month I connected you with an article about about “Subway’s $5 Footlong.”  These days value sells in the quick serve restaurant industry.  So Quiznos, which had tried to stay a bit more upscale than Subway, responded with a value campaign and its torpedo sandwiches.  Quiznos has had success and you can read about it in this recent article on BusinessWeek’s site, “Damn! Torpedoes Get Quiznos Back on Track” (January 14, 2010)

While Facebook and Twitter garner much of the attention in consumer markets, I am not sure they have as prominent a place in B2B.  That is not to say the web has not made B2B more efficient, webinars are a valuable tool (we have used them as authors to connect with larger groups of instructors and tell them about our books).  I believe that many more firms will have webinars as a key part of the promotion blend.  Check out “Take the Leads with Webinars,” (BtoB, January 18, 2010) for more ideas.

Last week I referred you to a post by Paul Williams at MarketingProfs about an interesting Mini Cooper campaign in Amsterdam (see my post, “Mini Cooper Ad Fires on All Cylinders“).  Now Paul Williams has interviewed the ad agency team behind the campaign — see “Exclusive Story: Behind The Mini Cooper Christmas Box Ads” (MarketingProfs, January 18, 2010).  Your students might enjoy hearing about some of the back story behind the development of this campaign.

This BusinessWeek article “IBM May Not Be the Patent King After All” (January 13, 2010) and related slide show “The World’s 25 Most Inventive Companies” reports…

… a study conducted for Bloomberg BusinessWeek by Ocean Tomo, a Chicago intellectual property consulting firm, concludes that IBM’s collection of U.S. patents over the past five years ranks only eighth in value. No. 1 is Microsoft, which ranked third, with 2,906 patents issued last year.

While this list did not contain any surprises, the order was different than I expected.  Of course the methodology used to make such lists is key.

Oscar Mayer has a new advertising agency and a new campaign.  This New York Times article (“Oscar Mayer Counts on the Joy, Not the Jingles,” January 14, 2010) describes the campaign and shows one of the print ads.   The new television ads were supposed to start last night on the Golden Globes, but as of this morning I did not find them online.  You can check out the associated “Good Mood Mission” website.   Of course it’s hard for those of us of a certain age to get beyond the classic Oscar Mayer jingle.   Advertising Age named it one of the “Top 10 Jingles of the Century,” (click through for the whole top 10 list).  I showed this rendition of the classic in my class last semester — they got a kick out of it.

One of the objectives of this blog is to bridge the gap between editions of our text books. Some of the social media platforms being used today were not widely known just a couple of years ago. And marketing managers are still trying to figure out how to use social media like Facebook and Twitter. So this blog provides some examples you can bring into the classroom. Ford has done a nice job, and Grant McCracken describes their success with last year’s launch of the Fiesta Movement campaign in “How Ford Got Social Marketing Right,” BusinessWeek, January 8, 2010.

Clever ad from Norway.  [NEW:  See comments on this - link to ethics?]