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Last year we posted about Puma’s efforts to re-position itself in the highly competitive athletic shoe market, “Puma is no longer a sneaker, it’s a lifestyle” (Teach the 4 Ps, May 22, 2011).  I recently ran across a 3 minute case study that provides an update on Puma.  I used this video (Puma | Social Case Study – this YouTube video is restricted from embedding in my blog or in your PowerPoints, but you can link and show it in class)  as a “hook” for my students as we started the first of three chapters on Promotion.

The video and article allow you to walk through the marketing strategy planning process with your students.  Here are some ideas:

• Customers: You can highlight customer needs – many don’t really need the high performance promoted by Nike and Under Armour.  Puma figured they could address the needs of the “after hours athlete.”
• Company:  You can briefly highlight some of Puma’s strengths (solid brand, good distribution, design reputation) and weaknesses (not as much money or strong a brand as major competitors)
• Competitors:  Nike, Under Armour, Adidas — all strong brands with deep pockets.  Each of these competitors also focuses on the hard core weekend warrior (or wannabe).
• Segmentation:  the video gives you an idea about how Puma segments and who they target.
• Differentiation and Positioning:  Puma clearly chooses to position itself as a fun fashion accessory.
• The video gives some examples of product and place decisions — but the focus is on promotion.  The brief highlighting of TV, print, outdoor, and online efforts provides a nice example of integrated marketing communications.

All that — plus a market my students can relate to — this is a winning video clip.  I hope you and your students enjoy it as much as we did.

Some businesses smell an opportunity to really tie together their integrated marketing communications.  They communicate distinct brand identity through the scents that customers smell in their stores or hotels.  Read more at “The smell of success” (Baltimore Sun, January 19, 2012), watch a short Early Show news story (4:35) below, or check out ScentAir Technologies website.  This has also been posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

This is a great case study for a creative, clever, and contemporary campaign put together by the Droga5 advertising agency for Bing.  The 3 minute video tells a great story that will work well in a class on integrated marketing communications.  The case study includes details on the results — which are nice for students to see.  Of course most of your students are in the target market for the campaign and will be familiar with hip-hop artist Jay-Z. We also posted this at Learn the 4 Ps.

As consumers get better at avoiding traditional advertising, marketers keep looking for better ways to get their message in front of consumers.  Enter social gaming — games on sites like Facebook.  P&G’s Bounty brand of paper towels appears prominently in Electronic Arts’ Playfish social game “Restaurant City.”

Often times marketers will just stick their product into a game just to build awareness — even if there is no connection to the brand.  At least in this case Bounty’s appearance in the game reinforces its positioning.  Players who unlock rolls of Bounty towels are able to clean more quickly than the standard paper towels.  They can also unlock a Bounty janitor who is 30% more effective at cleaning than the regular janitor.  A tie-in with Facebook helped Bounty gain more than 500,000 new fans at its Facebook page (how can more than 1.2 million people “like” a brand of paper towlels on Facebook?).  Read more at “P&G’s Bounty Picks Up Fans From Social Gaming” (AdAge, June 30, 2011)

My students love Nike — when I survey them about their favorite brands it consistently ranks #1.  My point – Nike examples play well in class.  Of course any example should be relevant to marketing and this one could work well with a discussion of segmentation, new product development or advertising.

Nike is aggressively going after youth action sports like skateboarding, snowboarding, surfing, trick-bicycling and others – see “Nike Tries to Enter the Niche Sports It Has Missed” (New York Times, June 1, 2011).  Nike’s tactics in these markets are in many ways similar to those it has used in other markets — employing top athletes in each sport to endorse the brand and support it ith dynamite advertising that appeals to its target market.  The video below was released on Facebook (where Nike has specialty pages for various sports) even before it launched on network TV (during the NBA finals).  Nike created the Nike 6.0 sub-brand (see its Facebook page here) just for the action sports market.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

We have been watching in-store promotion efforts (sometimes called “shopper marketing”) grab an increasing share of consumer products firms promotion budgets for years now.  In fact, Joe is conducting some academic research in this area.  The recent editions of our text books have also ramped up coverage here.

This short article “In-Store Marketing on the Rise” (Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2011, non-subscribers click here) includes excerpts from an interview with Dina Howell who heads up Saatchi & Saatchi X, a unit dedicated to shopper marketing.  Howell previously worked in this area at P&G an early leader in point-of-purchase and other in-store promotion.  One of her key points is the importance of making sure in-store is consistent with other mediums — integrated marketing communications.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

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 of Basic Marketing cranks up our coverage in those areas.

Colgate Max White One excels at getting your teeth white.  So the company created an integrated marketing communications program that positions a woman’s smile (and therefore its whitening toothpaste) as a fashion “Accessory.”  Clever idea — see how they pull it off below.  This short (2:11) video fits nicely as a creative example of positioning and marketing communications in Europe (adding an international dimension) no less.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

If you overlook the annoying background music (and the dry narrator voice), this video (4:02 long) provides a pretty good example of integrated marketing communications — with an emphasis on social media.  Skin care and acne medication Clearasil targets teens.  And where are you likely to find them – online of course.  So Clearasil’s ad agency developed a group page at the popular Russian social media site Vkontakte.ru (think Facebook clone – even looks like Facebook).  Users uploaded and shared photos, videos, and stories — motivated by a contest.  They also designed branded apps — like one that used a marker that looked like a tube of Clearasil which allowed teens to remove pimples from photos.  The site was also supported by traditional media — often designed to push people toward the website.

Plenty of good results reported as well — in one year:  1) users uploaded more than 13,000 photos, 2) posted more than 120,000 comments, 3) more than 500,000 people participated in the group or used the app at the social network, and 4) sales grew 30% over the year.

Great example of social media, integrated marketing communications, in an international market.

Clearasil: 4cab36b21ac140.39603595 from BeesAwards on Vimeo.

Little Debbie — those wonderfully tasty (if not so healthy) snack cakes — has started an integrated marketing communications campaign with the goal to boost the number of Facebook followers to over a million.  Much of the campaign involves a 20 city, 8-month tour in an Airstream — where they will give away Little Debbie cakes and seek publicity.   The article describes the plan and gives some information about the competition — which have pretty limited social media efforts.  See “Campaigning for Friends as Much as for Sales” in the New York Times, November 10, 2010.

Some good examples that might be useful when discussing social media, integrated marketing communications — even promotion measurement.