teachthe4ps.com - For instructors of marketing.

Dilbert nails it – as he often does.  When I worked at Kodak management went on a kick to remove the work “problem” from our conversations with customers “call them opportunities.”  This might be fun to show when you cover marketing orientation (that total company effort thing) or customer service.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

The new Phantom jeans from True Religion have a list price of $375 — which is a deal when you consider Gucci jeans can go for $495 to $665.  You might ask the same question I did “How Can Jeans Cost $300?” — fortunately the Wall Street Journal (July 7, 2011 – non-subscribers may have to click here) asked the same question.  The article notes that costs are higher due to material costs and manufacturing — as well as the markups at wholesale and retail.  There is also a nice graphic that lists all of the material, trim, labor and other costs.  On top of that add the advertising costs — and relatively low sales volume.

This article might provide a nice addition to a discussion of branding, pricing, or manufacturing/costs (in Basic Marketing we cover marketing cost analysis and examine costs and production in our cross-functional chapter).

This might be a fun comic to show when you cover marketing research — or cross-functional interaction.  Remember, to bring this into your classroom, you can place your cursor over the strip, right click – “copy image”, and then “paste” it into your PowerPoint.

We have mentioned before (skim these posts for more background) how we like to address the challenge of getting non-marketing majors involved in the introductory marketing course.  I like to do it early by showing them now jobs flowing from every major use marketing concepts.

This post over at Harvard’s Working Knowledge site, “HBS Cases:  QuikTrip’s Investment in Retail Employees Pays Off,” (May 25, 2011) describes how convenience store chain QuikTrip delivers high quality service at low cost.  The case shows how operational and human resource decisions made by QuikTrip result in high quality service and reasonable prices.

The article describes and links to several Harvard Business School cases you could read for even more depth and other examples.  Our text books have a cross-functional chapter where this example could be integrated into class discussion.   The example could also work when you cover quality (we get to that in the product chapters) or retailing.

We have talked about this issue before here at T4Ps — how do we keep the non-marketing majors interested in our principles class?  I have tried two approaches that have demonstrated some success.

First, I want to show my students how marketing interfaces with other functions in a business.  I want to get the non-marketing majors engaged early.  So, during the second week of class, I have students read the cross-functional chapter in Basic Marketing (chapter 20: “Managing Marketing’s Link With Other Functional Areas”)  which describes how marketing strategy requires cooperation with human resources, production, finance and accounting.

Second, I try to show students how knowledge of marketing will help other majors to do their jobs better.  So I add articles from the popular press and sometimes with guest speakers that show how marketing principles help people in other functional areas to do their jobs better.  I will be using this article, “In Hiring, Firms Shine Images,” (Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2011 – non-subscribers click here) next fall to show how human resources uses marketing tactics to recruit the best employees.

Volkswagen’s global market share is about 11% — but it sits at only 3% in the world’s largest auto market — the United States.  Volksagen’s managers hope to change that, so they are re-doubling marketing efforts.  This article, “Volkswagen Rediscovers America” (Bloomberg Businessweek, May 19, 2011), offers some insights into its strategy — but mostly gives a few interesting nuggets of information.  For example, I was surprised to read that as compared to its European counterpart, the U.S. Passat has more legroom, larger control buttons, and a better air conditioning system.  And the U.S. customer gets these extras for for a price of about $8000 courtesy of lower U.S. wages and simplified product design.  VW has just opened its first U.S. manufacturing plant since 1988.

The article offers some examples that can be used when you teach international marketing (product adaptation) and the local factory turns a weakness into a strength.

VW’s 2011 Super Bowl commercial (“The Force” see below)  was one of the most popular — though I must confess I was not a fan.  While I found the ad cute, I didn’t think it said anything relevant about the brand.

This long article looks at operational elements of the drive-thru window for quick-serve restaurants (QSRs). For many restaurants and especially for certain locations, the drive-thru is critical to business; at some Taco Bell locations 70% of the business was at the drive-thru window with 80% of that revenue coming in during a 90 minute lunchtime window! With this in mind, Taco Bell focuses on improving through-speed and quality of the drive-thru experience. This article, “Taco Bell and the Golden Age of Drive-Thru” (Bloomberg Businessweek, May 5, 2011) details many of those strategy changes.

The article provides a nice complement to the coverage of quality management in our text books — as well as our coverage of cross-functional collaboration (with production/operations) in Basic Marketing. Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

Fortune magazine’s annual ranking of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” just hit the streets (February 7, 2011). The package includes a listing and thumbnail sketches of the top employers, a list of 25 from the list that are currently have at least 700 openings each (137,000 available jobs), a slide showing of 25 top paying companies, and more. You can also link to videos to see some of the best employers in action.

My students write personal marketing plans — so they like this information.  Many of them would love to work at Google and from this photo you can see that it looks like a fun place to work.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

Hiring people who know horses and/or farming gives them a leg up when serving Tractor Supply’s customers.  This article,  “Tractor Supply Makes Hiring The Right Staff Pay Off” (Investors Business Daily, January 7, 2011), provides a nice example of customer service and personal selling.  The article also highlights something we talk about in the cross-functional chapter in Basic Marketing — the importance of marketing working closely with HR.  For your students, this also shows them they have a competitive advantage working for a company they are passionate about – so this is also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

A few years ago, my friend Tom Boyd (Professor at Cal State Fullerton) and I were talking about the challenge of engaging non-marketing majors in the intro course.  Tom does some very creative activities in the first couple of weeks of class to demonstrate how all functional areas need to work together.  From that conversation I got some great ideas — at this point I am not even sure which were Tom’s and which were mine.

I now try to achieve two objectives during the second week of class.  I want my students to know:  1) how marketing interacts with other functional areas of the business and 2) how other functional areas of the firm utilize marketing principles.  I now spend the second week of class with guest speakers from IT, accounting, finance, operations, and HR.  These businesspeople talk about both of these issues.  My students also read chapter 20 in Basic Marketing - “Managing Marketing’s Links With Other Functional Areas” along with some other readings that show how other functional areas utilize marketing concepts.  I have received many positive comments from students — and more importantly the non-marketing majors seem more engaged throughout the semester.  Thanks for the ideas Tom.

Now I have a new reading I will use next time, “HR or Marketing:  Who is better equipped to manage employee engagement?” (in Performance Perspectives, January 3, 2011, a publication by the Madison Performance Group, a consulting firm).  The last line of the article says what I want my HR students to understand:  “But to be truly the best at generating connections that drive long term value and loyalty, HR will need to start acting, and executing, like Marketing.”  And for some reason when someone else says it, the students believe it even more.