teachthe4ps.com - teaching the 4 ps

Personally, I would probably consider printer/copier paper to be a commodity product.  Obviously you don’t want to think that if you are in this market.  This interview with Double A paper’s Thirawit Leetavorn explains how (Australian firm?) Double A has developed a brand with awareness, differentiation and preference through advertising.  You could follow up this video with a couple of ads — the “Girl on the Copier” doesn’t do much for differentiation, but it’s viral and buzz potential built awarness.  Another add – “No Jam” develops one of its key points of differentiation.  This video series could be used with our books chapter 2 (marketing strategy planning), chapter 4 (positioning), or with a discussion of the product life cycle (market maturity), in Promotion tied to promotion objectives or advertising to create differentiation, or even around pricing.  It’s also nice to show students some international examples.

Another example from China — this one looks at retailing there.  Just published in BusinessWeek, “China: Where Retail Dinosaurs Are Thriving” (January 21, 2010).   This might be useful when talking about consumer behavior in other countries, in retail, or international.

People have long predicted that online shopping and home delivery of groceries would change the market.  Another wrong prediction (see Webvan go down in flames) — and of course they said no one could sell shoes online (tell that to Zappos).  Anyway, I digress.  This January 14, 2010, Wall Street Journal article, “In France, a Drive-Up Grocery Takes Off” (subscription may be required - for “back door” see here) describes a French retailers hybrid version — online order then pick-up.  Would this model work in other cultures?  Or is it uniquely French?

Looking for a nice example of differences in consumer behavior across cultures?  I learned something today about consumer behavior in China.  Apparently many Chinese consumers value the bargain — maybe not so culturally unique.  But they go about it in an interesting way.  Many Chinese shoppers go on a group bargain hunt — realizing that they might get a volume discount.  I heard about this on the American Public Radio show, Marketplace (January 22, 2010) “China’s next export:  group shopping?“  Click through to read or listen to the story — I have embedded a video of group shopping below. [Note:  click through to the story to see the video, at first my embedding the video worked, but now it does not.]  I know we have at least a few Chinese readers. Can you add a comment with more insight on this practice?

This article in BtoB (January 21, 2010)  “Case study: How IT company increased response on U.K. e-mail campaign,” offers instructors several benefits.  While the article is short, it shows how an American firm had to adapt its communications approach to get a better response from UK buyers.  The case study includes the adaptations made in an e-mail campaign and the before and after click-through rate.  It is also a good example of the use of e-mail, an important component of the promotion blend in B2B.  Check it out.

Clever ad from Norway.  [NEW:  See comments on this - link to ethics?]

New products are important, but in these hard times many firms have cut new product development budgets.  Now many firms are learning jugaad - and Indian approach to new product development that focuses on innovation at low costs.  See “India’s Next Global Export: Innovation“” (BusinessWeek, December 2, 2009).  This might help with discussions of NPD or in control and cost management.

This 5 minute video clip is an interview with P&G’s new CEO Bob McDonald and A.G. Lafley, its recently departed CEO. They talk about P&G’s focus on developing markets as its source of growth. They mention that demographics drive this focus. The clip would have a nice tie-in with demographics as we talk about it in chapter 5. While the video clearly demonstrates the opportunity here, it might be fun to show the clip in class and ask students – “what P&G should do with its marketing strategy to appeal to this target market?” it might also provide an example of an opportunity that could be discussed with chapter 2.

A pretty straightforward article (“Europe Inc. Takes Aim at Price-Fixers,” BusinessWeek.com, October 22, 2009 ) that talks about price fixing probes in Europe. Good current examples to use when discussing pricing in class – or the legal environment in chapter 3.

This article (“Fertilizers on Wheels,” The Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2009, no subscription? click here) and short video (2:39, see below) describe the marketing strategies for two different firms selling fertilizer to farmers in rural India.   The video provides an interesting addition to class because it gives students a look at rural India.  The topics covered include selling to businesses, integrated marketing communications, and distribution – all in the international context of a developing country.  I showed this video in class after lecturing from our first promotion chapter.  I asked students to think about why I thought this reflected IMC and to note the different types of Promotion they observed.  A variety of different forms of promotion (even sales promotion) are demonstrated and can be tied to the AIDA model.