teachthe4ps.com - For instructors of marketing.

I like this brand extension.  With growth in services, Tide has found a way to leverage one of its strengths (a well-known and well respected brand name) to take advantage of a great opportunity (growth in services, and lack of organized competition in dry cleaning).  Brilliant methinks!  What do you think?  Check out “P&G Looks to Franchise Tide Dry Cleaning” at Bloomberg Businessweek (September 2, 2010).  Also posted at our Learn the 4 Ps blog for students.

The example could work well when you are teaching strategy planning, branding, services, and franchising.

Competition is bringing innovation and change to the vending machine market.  This article “Restocking the Snack Machine” (Wall Street Journal, August 3, 2010 – non-subscribers, click here) tells about some recent innovations.

If the “Get a Mac” campaign is winding down, you may want to review it. Over at AdWeek’s AdFreak.com you can see all 66 (as of this writing) TV spots at “Apple and TBWA’s ‘Get a Mac: The Complete Campaign.” The campaign started in May 2006. Here is one of the earliest ads in the series from October 2006.  [Also posted at "Learn the 4 Ps"]

[NOTE:  This was originally published a couple weeks ago - but I added a new link and with the World Cup now in full swing, I moved it back to the top of the blog]

As you probably know, the biggest sporting event on the planet starts in just a couple weeks.  And maybe the biggest sporting brand on the planet is not a sponsor (Adidas sponsor the World Cup).   That certainly doesn’t mean that Nike is quietly standing by.  Its new soccer (or should I say football for our non-American readers) ad is a three minute epic that was directed by Alehandro Iñárritu– who has also directed movies “Babel” and “21 Grams.”  Trevor Edwards, Nike VP, earlier this month said the ad was “among the best we’ve ever done.” By the way, the ad, titled “Write the Future,” broke the AdAge viral video first week record with 7.8 million views. Check it out…

ADDED 6-15-10:  Read Seth Stevens’ praise for this ad at Slate.com (June 7, 2010), “The Greatest Ad I’ve Ever Seen.”

McDonalds has had great success with its coffee sales. Introducing a pretty tasty line of java, priced below Starbucks during a recession struck a chord with many consumers. Now Starbucks has “…announced that it would sell one of the premium brands it owns — Seattle’s Best Coffee — in Burger King and Subway restaurants, at AMC movie theaters and at supermarkets and coffeehouses across the country, with 30,000 locations in all.” See “Starbucks Hits McDonald’s with Seattle’s Best” in Time (May 25, 2010).

The opening scenario in chapter one in our text books discusses Starbucks and McDonalds. This provides a nice example of competition and from a strategy perspective about the use of Seattle’s best as a “fighting brand” (not a concept we go into in our books).

This is pretty amazing, especially when you look at the graph below.  There are a lot of articles on this recent bit of news, here is an article from Fortune (March 17, 2010) “How Facebook overtook Google to be the top spot on the Internet.”  Where are we headed?   Interesting example to use when discussing competition, the Internet, or social media.  Note – this is only in the United States.

Author Laura Ries provides a post with her perspective on the current Verizon-AT&T battle at her Ries’ Pieces blog, “Verizon and its Atomic Bomb” (January 27, 2010).    We have blogged about this battle before on Teach the 4 P’s.  Laura is the daughter of Al Ries (whose now almost 30-year old book, Positioning:  The Battle for Your Mind with Jack Trout is still full of great thinking).  Laura is no slouch either, a frequent commentator on television news she has co-authored several books with her father and runs a consulting firm.

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)

The Wal-Mart vs. Amazon battle continues to become increasingly intense (see “Price War Brews Between Amazon and Wal-Mart,” New York Times, November 23, 2009). These two competitors have already engaged in price wars over toys, books, and DVDs this holiday season.  Now Wal-Mart is cleverly using one of their strengths relative to Amazon — their physical stores — to their advantage.  This a nice example of competitive advantage, SWOT, and logistics.  Check out “Wal-Mart Uses Its Stores To Get an Edge Online” (see The Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2009 – subscription required, or search the net using the article title).

With the holiday season here, there is more talk about Best Buy — which is also the focus of the chapter opening scenario we use for our retailing and wholesaling chapter.  A BusinessWeek article “Why Tech Bows to Best Buy” (December 10, 2009) the company’s strategy now that its direct competitors have largely gone out of business (see Circuit City) and new competitors Amazon and Wal-Mart are emerging.  Consequently Best Buy has changed its strategy. The article supplements discussions of competition (chapter 3), strategy planning (chapter 4) and retailing.

You can also watch a Wall Street Journal video below, “Best Buy’s Battle Between Sales and Margins” (December 15, 2009) includes an interview ith an analyst who discusses how competition and the need to lower prices has eroded Best Buy’s margins.  A bit more finance oriented, this video might complement a classroom discussion of pricing.