teachthe4ps.com - For instructors of marketing.

How times have changed.  This article starts with the results of a 1957 survey of Americans that showed 80% believed that people who preferred the single life were “sick,” “immoral,” or “neurotic.”  In 1960, 13.1% of U.S. households were “one-person” — today that number has more than doubled to 27.6%.  In some big cities, the number is over 40%.  You can read more about this trend and its implications for realtors, cruise ship operators, and home improvement retailer Lowe’s in “Solo nation:  American consumers stay single” (CNN Money/Fortune, January 25, 2012) or in sociology professor Eric Klinenberg is new book, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone. This article might give you some ideas when discussing demographic trends.  A good question for students might be to ask how companies like Comcast, Starbucks, a restaurant, or a real estate developer might adapt its product to appeal to this consumer.  I have also posted this at Learn the 4 Ps.

“France’s Unlikely Import:  Weight Loss Centers” (Bloomberg Businessweek, January 12, 2012) provides an example of a cultural trend – growing obesity in France — and one firm’s adaptation to a new culture.  The article also explains how another U.S. import — fast food (McDonalds and Pizza Hut have experienced growth in the country) helped France put on that extra weight.  Jenny Craig has adapted its approach to French consumer behavior and palette.  I know we just had an example of international product adaptation, but this one differs and covers a service and good.

I don’t think Martin Lindstrom’s blog post, “Under-Promise. Over-Deliver. And Your Brand’s Fans Will Talk” (Fast Company, January 10, 2012) will surprise those of you teaching marketing. It is a good reminder and might offer some examples to use in class.  On the other hand many of our students don’t think about the benefits of giving customers more than they expect, instead focusing on the costs.  So I have also posted this at Learn the 4 Ps.

Unilever has produced some memorable campaigns – it is behind the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty and those wild Axe ads.

Now Unilever’s using its marketing expertise to change behavior in the developing world — hopefully making its growth more sustainable.  For example, it has had to get creative to promote hand-washing in many parts of the world (see poster used in Indonesia).  Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan aims to cut its  products environmental impact in half while doubling sales.  You can read an interview with the Unilever CEO and better understand how its creative priorities have changed as it tries to change consumer behavior in many ways  – see “Unilever CEO Paul Polman On The Packaged Goods Giant’s Creative Shift” (Fast Company, Co.Create, January 12, 2012).

The Wall Street Journal asked some advertising execs what they see coming in 2012 — and you can read about it in “*&%@#! and Other Ads Trends for 2012” (January 4, 2012 – non-subscribers may need to click here) — or by watching the video below.  There are more trends in the article. It might be fun to ask your students — as I have over at Learn the 4 Ps — to choose one of these trends and evaluate its impact on their career planning.  I think it helps for students to learn to scan the environment and watch the future.

Retailers and packaged goods makers are responding to a shift in consumer shopping behavior.  According to a study by ESPN (yes the sports channel, which may have a vested interest here), 31% of men nationwide are the primary grocery shopper — up from just 14% in 1985.  So how have retailers better appeal to this new grocery shopping man?  Some are creating “man aisles” that put all that “man stuff” in one aisle instead of having is spread across several aisles.  Read more examples and details in ”More men taking reins of the cart” (Chicago Tribune, December 27, 2011).

Internet marketing research firm, comScore, has just published a new white paper, “It’s a Social World: Top 10 Need-to-Knows About Social Networking and Where It’s Headed” (December 21, 2011).  The report is a free download, although you need to surrender some personal data (name and contact info) to get access.  The research cited in the report really shows how prominent social networking has become in the online experience — all across the globe:  “Social networking is the most popular online activity worldwide accounting for nearly 1 in every 5 minutes spent online in October 2011, and reaches 82 percent of the world’s Internet population, representing 1.2 billion users around the globe.”

I have copied a couple of charts from the report below.  The first shows that usage is high (basically 80-85%) across all age groups — and growing.  The second chart shows the average number of hours per month per visitor.  Download the report for more information.

Wow, I guess this is suddenly the hot topic.  Yesterday I posted a couple of stories on retail analytics.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell you about a third, but Holly Finn’s story, “Spying on Your Buying” (Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2011, non-subscribers may need to click here and click “view original” in upper right corner if a white screen shows up) and interview in the Wall Street Journal, but she provides a more optimistic view of these analytics with much less fear of the privacy implications.  Plus the video might add some visual effects that might help in the classroom.

A couple of interesting stories about how retailers utilize high-tech analytics to better understand customer shopping behavior.  I heard “The secret life of discounts” (Marketplace radio, December 16, 2011, link to listen or read the transcript) as I drove to the airport last night to pick up my daughter who was coming home from college.  There are some examples about how stores use analytics to try to remain profitable with consumers conditioned to buy only at a steep discount.

In “Big Brother is Watching You Shop” (Bloomberg Businessweek, December 15, 2011), you can read about retailers using in-store video cameras and tracking your cell phone to better understand how you move through a retail store.  Analyzing video from a Miami store allowed Montblanc managers to more strategically locate merchandising, signage, and salespeople.  The result — a 20% bump in sales.  Other retailers follow customers’ cell phone signals to track and map movement through stores.  This of course is raising privacy concerns.

These two stories can be useful examples for marketing research (where we cover dashboards and marketing models), retailing, and in discussions of privacy.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

AdAge shows us a list of 14 “Stats that Mattered for Media and Marketing in 2011” (AdAge Stat blog, December 12, 2011).  A few of my favorites:

• 71% of P&G’s advertising spending was outside the U.S. — up from 22% in 2011.
• Nuclear families account for just on fifth of all U.S. households, but 34% of the spending.
• Discretionary spending — just over half have less than $10,000 per year to spend on non-essential goods.  A lot of firms chasing less discretionary dollars.

We cover a lot of demographic information in chapter 5 in Basic Marketing, so you might find some of this useful to supplement that chapter.  Of course the advertising spend data works with any advertising chapter.