We have posted before about Zynga’s strategy which includes a move away from relying on Facebook.  But it is not clear if that strategy is working, see “Zynga Posts Loss, Sees World Beyond Facebook” (Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2012).  We have also posted this in Learn the 4 Ps.

The article provides great examples to use when you cover competition, consumer behavior, retailing, or discuss the impact of the Internet or technology.

This article would be good to read for examples relevant when you cover price setting — but could also be used to talk about consumer behavior and retailing.

So Samsung tries to make fun of Apple diehards with this latest ad.  Does it work?  I would imagine that Apple fans hate it and Apple haters love it — but those two groups are probably not Samsung’s target market with Galaxy (they are already too loyal).  How does it work for smartphone buyers who are not strongly pro- or anti-Apple?

Either way, this is a good example of comparative advertising.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

I have even written a case that I plan to put in the next edition of our books — since it looks like daily deal promotion is here to stay.  I still question the strategy — which is why it makes for a great case — there is room to debate both sides.  The case made for fun discussion on the first day of class and one of my students tells me she works at a local restaurant that swears by LivingSocial coupons. I have previously questioned if a small business really wants these deal-prone consumers — because the deep discounts almost require them to spend more than the coupon or come back again for it to be a profitable promotion.

A second issue relates to the profitability of Groupon and LivingSocial — the two leaders in this space.  There is already a shakeout occurring among daily deal sites.  With such low barriers to entry, I have often wondered if anyone would really make much profit in this space.  One key is differentiation — and LivingSocial, which copied Groupon in the first place, is working at it (see: “LivingSocial Aims to Be Different from Groupon,“ BusinessWeek, September 22, 2011).  Groupon announced its own new product ideas back in March (“Are Four Words Worth $25 Billion for Groupon?” BusinessWeek, March 17, 2011), but I have not heard if these are working.  For a variety of reasons, Groupon’s IPO has been delayed.

This article provides examples you might find useful when you cover price, competition, marketing strategy planning, new product development or retailing.
 

This article and example could be used as a first day of class marketing example as students could relate to the context, or use it when you discuss competition or personal selling.

These sites rely on the wisdom of crowds — but are all these reviews “real”?  Apparently there is a growing market for posting fake reviews — good ones for your company and even bad ones for the competition.  Our text books include an ethics scenario addressing this exact issue. Sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor rely on our trust in these reviews — so they are concerned about this trend.  This article “A Rave, a Pan or Just a Fake?” (New York Times, May 21, 2011) gives you a bit more insight into how this works and how Yelp is trying to fight it.

In our books we discuss reviews in a new publicity section which covers a wide range of social media.  The article could provide some background when you discuss the ethics exercise in the first promotion chapters in our books — or when you cover reviews and social media.