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This article (”McDonald’s: the world’s local restaurant,” The Times Online, February 9, 2010) provides some great examples on how successful global firms tweak marketing strategies to better appeal to local markets.  While much of the article is about McDonalds in the UK, there are other examples as well.  This would provide examples for talking about international in general, or in combination with lectures about retailing or product.

It is always great to have marketing examples that show problems with translation in foreign markets.  It is easy to fall back on the classic Chevy Nova (”no va” in Spanish means “no go”) — but this new article will give you some newer and more relevant examples.  See “Don’t Let Your Brand Get Lost in Translation” in Brandweek, February 10, 2010.

As some of you may know, I have done a  fair amount of academic research on trust.  I believe that trust is a very important factor in marketing.  This article cites a recent study on trusted brands, “Study: Amazon.com is most trusted brand in U.S.” (CNET News, February 22, 2010).

Campbell’s Soup engaged in unusual consumer research to make decisions on soup packaging — and consumer will see the results this fall.  The video below and article, “The Emotional Quotient of Soup Shopping,” The Wall Street Journal, February 17, 2010 – subscription may be required, if you do not have a subscription, try entering the title of the article in a search bar for the back door to the article).

For two years, Campbell researchers studied microscopic changes in skin moisture, heart rate and other biometrics to see how consumers react to everything from pictures of bowls of soup to logo design.

This “neuromarketing” approach is a fresh attempt among consumer-good companies to understand how consumers really respond to marketing and advertising.

This video example might supplement a class session on packaging or marketing research.

Seth Godin is great and I always enjoy following his blog.  In this blog post, “The brand, the package, the story, and the worldview,” Godin offers advice to African chocolate maker Madecasse on how putting a story on its package might help its sales.  Could be a good example, or turned into a mini case for discussion.

I am becoming more and more a believer in the power of stories.  I think they help in marketing and for teaching marketing.  If you are interested in learning more about stories, you might read Daniel Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind:  Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future” (this morning I listened to the “Story” chapter on my way in to work) or the Heath brothers “Made to Stick.“  I know we all use stories (extended examples) to supplement our teaching, but what I am reading has me thinking about how I can develop better stories.

My former colleague Jim Pailin, who was in the PhD program with me at North Carolina, worked on a dissertation in this area almost 20 years ago.  And it is still true, “Happy Employees Create Better Customer Experiences” (Customer Experience Matters blog, February 1, 2010).   Jim was particularly interested in looking at this for services — and I am sure that happy employees matter even more in service businesses.  From Bruce Temkin’s blog post you can find a link to Fortune magazine’s list of the 100 best companies to work for.

Last month I connected you with an article about about “Subway’s $5 Footlong.”  These days value sells in the quick serve restaurant industry.  So Quiznos, which had tried to stay a bit more upscale than Subway, responded with a value campaign and its torpedo sandwiches.  Quiznos has had success and you can read about it in this recent article on BusinessWeek’s site, “Damn! Torpedoes Get Quiznos Back on Track” (January 14, 2010)

This BusinessWeek article “IBM May Not Be the Patent King After All” (January 13, 2010) and related slide show “The World’s 25 Most Inventive Companies” reports…

… a study conducted for Bloomberg BusinessWeek by Ocean Tomo, a Chicago intellectual property consulting firm, concludes that IBM’s collection of U.S. patents over the past five years ranks only eighth in value. No. 1 is Microsoft, which ranked third, with 2,906 patents issued last year.

While this list did not contain any surprises, the order was different than I expected.  Of course the methodology used to make such lists is key.

This radio story, from All Things Considered on National Public Radio, examines extended warranties. While many consumer experts advise against buying these warranties, they continue to sell very well. NPR’s story “Peace Of Mind Drives Buying Of Extended Warranties,” includes an interview with Dan Ariely (marketing professor at Duke University, author of the book Predictably Irrational and blog of the same name) who explains the psychology behind this less than rational purchase  We discuss warranties in the first of our two product chapters.  The story also deals with consumer behavior and perceptions of risk.

Update 1-11-10:  I found another article on this topic, see “Don’t Worry, Be Happy:  The Warranty Psychology,” from the New York Times, November 6, 2009.

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.