The often provocative and always interesting Dan Ariely, James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University, wrote a very interesting short article in the Harvard Business Review (May 2011), “The Upside of Useless Stuff.“ My link goes to Ariely’s blog where he reprints the article. While critics contend that marketing just makes people buy useless stuff, Ariely argues that the desire for useless stuff may fuel innovation. We also posted this at Learn the 4 Ps.
A growing concern for global warming and our environment began about four years ago and fueled the growth of brands like Method and Clorox’s Green Works. Then – bam! — the economy tanked. Now consumers have a decision — do they pay a bit more for a greener product? It appears that the economy is winning out. Sales for “green” products have slowed or declined in the last couple of years. Read more in “As Consumers Cut Spending, ‘Green’ Products Lose Allure” (New York Times, April 21, 2011).
It might be interesting to ask students how the economy has affected their purchases. Do they think that these products will pick up in sales after the economy gets back on track?
Here is a great case study. This article provides the basis for a nice story to tell in class or reading to assign. What happens when the company that holds 40% of the carrot market brings in a former Coca Cola marketer to run the company? Well, he conducts research and then brings on big name ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Together they go after new ways to increase our consumption of the orange veggie — and not promoting its healthiness. An interesting marketing tale is told in “How Carrots Became the New Junk Food” (Fast Company, March 22, 2011). And the story is still being written — we don’t yet know if this strategy will work and sell more carrots.
The article will allow you to talk about consumer behavior, market research, positioning, branding, packaging, promotion, and advertising. Good stuff — and a fun example, too. Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.
I want to direct your attention to a great post from Bob Gilbreath over at his Marketing With Meaning blog- “Nordstrom Email Gets It Right” (March 9, 2011). Gilbreath relays a personal experience that is so spot on about what marketing managers should strive for when communicating with customers. Given them something they find useful. When companies develop meaningful content — it engages customers — and then drives sales. Think first about helping customers and sales will follow. Marketing research can help you uncover the needs of your target market. Then a good database goes a long way toward understanding that different customers have different needs.
I have mentioned it here at T4Ps before, but Gilbreath’s book, Marketing With Meaning is a great read. The book had a big influence on revisions to the consumer needs section in our text book – and in others places, too.
Few people will buy a new car unless they have a test drive. So obviously an important marketing objective for an auto retailer is to get customers inside their cars for a drive. Let’ say you have a newly designed vehicle — but most of the new design went on the inside and not on the outside.
Such was the case for the Nissan Patrol — a large SUV model sold in the middle east. When potential customers see the Patrol driving down the road, attention and interest are not peaked. There is no “Wow, that SUV looks sharp, I am going to have to check it out.” That was the problem facing Arabian Automobiles – the exclusive Nissan distributor in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Arabian liked what Nissan had done with the Patrol — there were a lot of upgrades on the inside. So how can they get people to get into and test drive the new SUV? Who do you target?
Check out the clever campaign. It might be fun to put together a slide that outlines the basic issues facing Arabian Motors. You could ask students how the path to purchase worked – making sure they realized the importance of the test drive. Then talk about the new Nissan Patrol — a Google image search will quickly find you a photo to add to your slides. Ask students how you move customers along the path to purchase. Then show the video. Great to use with consumer behavior or promotion.
Good marketers understand the path to purchase — and tie different marketing strategy elements to help customers move down that path. This article at ClickZ, “Social Media Uses Content Marketing to Shop,” (March 21, 2011) shows how different types of online content help a consumer move along in the purchase process. The article is short, but informative and includes good examples. This might provide you with some good examples to use in consumer behavior or in the Promotion chapters to discuss how website content can relate to promotion objectives. Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.
The Temkin Group has a new report out – “How Consumers Give Feedback.“ Knowing Bruce Temkin as I do from following his previous blogging at Forrester and his current blog at Customer Experience Matters, I have little doubt that it is great. But at $195, I don’t think that many academics will be buying it. Fortunately, his teaser figure, which I reproduce below, provides something interesting to share in class. You can right click the image below, choose “Copy image” and the paste it into a PowerPoint to share with your students. The results differ from the pretty dated example some of us might still be quoting — something like “for every good experience we tell 3 people and for every bad experience we tell 9.” But they still support the general notion that we tell more people about very bad experiences than we do about very good ones.
Just yesterday we posted “Get to Know Groupon” with a few articles about Groupon and other daily deal sites. Then today, we get a consumer warning about these sites in “10 Things Daily Deal Sites Won’t Say” (SmartMoney, March 29, 2011). This article brings up all kinds of ethical and strategy questions for marketers — a good supplement if you plan to talk about it in class or buy a daily deal.
More and more consumers are turning to the internet as part of the purchase decision journey. This article, “Consumers Combine Search, Social Media For Purchasing Decisions” (Inc., February 25, 2011) describes findings in a 10 page report titled “The Virtuous Circle: the Role of Search and Social Media in the Purchase Pathway” (links to the full report from GroupM Search) Some of the highlights include the finding tht almost half consumers use a combination of search and social media as part of their purchase decisions — with most of these consumers starting with search and later moving to social media.
The article and report throw around a lot of percentages, but I am always wary of using the percentages that are thrown around in these studies. For one thing this sample starts with Internet users. Second, this study was conducted by a firm in the “search” business. With those qualifications in mind, you can still see that search and social media are playing an increasingly important role in the purchase decision process. I believe that our text books have too much emphasis on outbound promotional activities — like advertising and personal selling — but this report suggest we need to have more understanding of social media and search. The recent edition ofBasic Marketing cranks up our coverage in those areas.
Somehow this article slipped by me – and it is now more than a month old, see “The Future of Selling: It’s Social” (Forbes, December 3, 2011) But it is chock full of great information and ideas from Brian Fetherstonhaugh, Chairman and CEO of OglivyOne Worldwide, one of the world’s largest advertising agencies. He provides some brief highlights of research OglivyOne conducted on sales professionals in the U.S., U.K., Brazil, and China. The results show quite a variance in the role of social media in personal selling across different countries. The article also suggests some strategies for companies and salespeople. While there has been a lot of talk about social media in consumer markets, this suggests opportunity in B2B as well. File under international, social media and personal selling. Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.
