teachthe4ps.com - teaching the 4 ps

In many product-markets, consumers make decisions at the point of sale.  In these situations, packaging can be an important differentiator.  I like this little story in Brand Packaging “Häagen Dazs: A Taste-Full Redesign” (July 21, 2010), because it provides:  a) the company’s objectives, b) the results of some consumer research, c) before and after packaging images, and d) some preliminary results.  You can right-click to save each image to your computer if you want to put it into a PowerPoint to make a point in class.  This might be a good example to use in discussing Product or market research.

This was an interesting series I heard on the Marketplace radio show.  Your students might be surprised at how sophisticated segmentation and targeting can be after reading (it is radio and text) “Data mining pushes marketing to a new level” Marketplace, July 26, 2010.  For a follow-up with more information on clusters, see “Hey Baby, What’s in Your Cluster,” (Marketplace, July 27, 2010 – text version of radio story).  [NOTE:  This post is also featured at our companion blog for marketing students - "Learn the 4 Ps".]

I found this interesting infographic “How Much The Average American Spends on Entertainment” over at the VisualEconomics site.  A good infographic presents a great deal of information in an easy to digest format.  I am not sure this is easy to digest, but the information is interesting — and might interest our students.  I could see handing this out (it would look nice in color but with budgets tight I might have to make it in B/W) or assigning it to students to view before class.  I think there is too much information to easily show on a screen in class.  I could see asking students to review the information and find five useful facts for a) Levi’s, b) Sony pictures (movie maker) and, c) Olive Garden Italian Restaurant.   The graphic could be used as an example of marketing research.

CNN is on a roll with the global green consumer.  Earlier today I posted an article and video clip about a store in London.  Now we have an interesting story from China, “Would Chinese consumers ‘go green’ — if given the choice?” (CNN.com, May 4, 2010) including, to my surprise, the following revelation:

Landor recently conducted a brand survey that shows consumers in China are actually more concerned about green issues than consumers in the United States or Europe. For example, 45 percent of those surveyed in China said they consider it very important that a company is green when thinking about which brands to purchase, compared to 23 percent in the United States.

This video clip could be shown along with the earlier one to try to get a better handle on how green affects consumers.  I have seen other studies which suggest Chinese consumers can be very price conscious — one study we cite in our text books indicated a willingness to pay a premium of only 2% for branded products they purchase regularly (as opposed to unbranded products).  In the U.S. and many other developed countries the premium is typically 20% or more.  There can be many reasons for that of course.

The aricle and video clip raise interesting issues around sustainability, consumer behavior across cultures, and international marketing.

It is difficult to find good articles on market research.  This one offers an interesting take on advertising research from an experienced researcher.  It appears in Brandweek “What Do Consumers Think? Don’t Even Bother Asking” (May 3, 2010).  This could provide fodder for a discussion with students about what can market research do?  How can market research be designed to address some of the questions in the article?

I believe that the discussion of a “green premium” makes for a great marketing discussion.  In essence we are trying to teach our students to address target customer needs by designing a marketing mix that addresses customer needs.  We also talk about the importance of differentiation.  This article “Shoppers weigh up green premiums,” (CNN.com, May 4, 2010) includes an example of a shop selling organic produce in London.  The video describes the results of a survey that offers surprising results on the number of people willing to pay a green premium.  I found a bit more on that survey in this article, “UK consumers will pay more for green, but not much more” (Green Wise, September 29, 2009).  A class discussion might also be an opportunity to raise the point (alluded to in the video) about whether attitudes expressed in a survey align with behavior.

One more in the Good Morning America series “The Secrets of America’s Favorite Stores.”  This one takes us into the Gap – an iconic name hat has struggled in for the last decade or so,  “The Gap:  Inside America’s Favorite Stores,” (4:14. Good Morning America, March 31, 2010).   You can find an article and a video with this story.  More so than the others, this particular video references marketing research and consumer behavior insights that guided marketing strategy planning.  The stories both describe market research the gap did to better understand consumer behavior — although it is probably not best as an assignment for market research.  I recommend using it with retailing or consumer behavior.

Observational research is becoming more mainstream for retailers.  You may have read Paco Underhill’s Why We Buy, which describes many interesting elements of consumer shopping behavior.  This article (“In Bid to Sway Sales, Cameras Track Shoppers,” The New York Times, March 19, 2010) offers some current examples and raises ethical questions around consumer privacy.  The article could be assigned, or used as an example when talking about market research, ethics, or retailing.

This is a question many marketing managers are asking today.  Utpal Dholakia, Associate Professor of Marketing at Rice University investigated that question — and it appears that “Facebook changed customer behavior for the better.”   The quick and dirty answer is here on Fast Company.  A longer discussion and better description of the experimental design can be found here at Harvard Business Review.  HBR is the better source, but I was not sure if registration was required to see it.  Both articles are short and to the point.  Thanks for a great study of a timely issue Utpal.

This might be a good example of an experiment that could be used with market research or some useful data when talking about Facebook or other social media in Promotion.

Customer ratings and reviews are not only useful to other customers — marketers can use this information to improve products.  Of course some customers are more vocal — and some products solicit more comments — than others.  Would people care about sink mats?  Like the author of “Rubbermaid Proves the Value of Listening to Customers,” (The 1to1 Blog) I was surprised to see that customers writing reviews.  In my previous life I worked in sales and marketing with Eastman Kodak.  I also saw the power of customer comments when one of my fellow sales reps tape recorded interviews with fine art photographers about what they liked and didn’t like about black-and-white photo papers.  When the R&D folks who engineered and manufactured the paper heard these interviews it had a huge impact — and better products soon followed.  The potential for this form of low-cost market research to influence new-product development, product quality, and various other elements of the marketing mix is tremendous.