teachthe4ps.com - For instructors of marketing.

Marketing managers are increasingly paying attention to the customer’s entire purchase experience.  Scholars of the marketing of services have long studied queues and wait times.  Smart companies are finding ways to improve the wait experience — and you can read about some examples in this Wall Street Journal article “Fun for the Whole Family:  The Long Wait in Line” (August 10, 2011 – non-subscribers may need to click here).  This article could be used when you cover services — or more generally as an example of total customer experience.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

Regular readers of T4Ps know that we enjoy Seth Godin’s pearls of wisdom.  In “The ethics of sunscreen,” Godin argues that consumers need regulation to protect them from greedy, self-interested companies.  He uses the behavior of firms that make sunscreen as his example — though he suggests it generalizes to all firms.   I think Godin’s arguments hold up best for credence goods (products for which the utility is almost impossible for a consumer to assess – even after consuming the product). For a contrary view, check out “The ethics of sunscreen” at Often Wrong Never in Doubt (June 27, 2011).  What is a firm’s responsibility?  What are consumers’ responsibilities?

The articles might stimulate a discussion of marketing ethics and regulation in the product or promotion units.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

Over at his Effective Marketer blog, Daniel Kuperman offers a nice summary overview of “Unleashing the Power of Marketing” (an HBR article from last October).  His post, titled “Reinventing Marketing at GE” (July 7, 2011) provides a nice case study example that could be used at one of a couple different areas in the introductory marketing course — with strategy planning, business marketing, or implementation.  In chapter 3 in both Basic Marketing and Essentials of Marketing we use the GE ecomagination campaign as an extended example of sustainability.  I also posted this at Learn the 4 Ps – as Daniel neatly summarizes key marketing roles, some of which our students need to recognize and master to be successful in the long-run.

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).

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.

Amazon sells two variations of its Kindle e-book reader.  You can get a $25 discount if you are willing to put up with “special offers and sponsored screensavers.”   It appears that customers don’t mind the ads — or at least many will tolerate the ads in exchange for the lower price.  The ad-supported model outsells the ad-free model.  This could be the beginning of a new business model.   Read more about it at “Discounted Kindle points to future of ad-supported electronics,” (CNN, July 1, 2011).

Amazon’s strategy could stimulate a discussion of advertising, pricing, or business models.  You might ask students if they would be willing to put up with advertising to save money on an electronic gadget.  You could ask them what price would buy their willingness?  Also, what other products might be good candidates?  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

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.

Brain researchers at Emory University have found that brain scans can help predict the future success of new music.  Oh what is the world coming to?  This would be fun to show as an example of market research or new product development.  It might be fun to ask students what they think of the approach?  The article “Songs Stick in Teens’ Heads” (Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2011, non-subscribers click here) and companion video should be of interest to our student — many of whom have an interest (if only as consumers) in the music industry. We have also posted this over at Learn the 4 Ps.

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.

We recognize that many instructors prefer not to use alcoholic products as in-class examples (and we keep them out of our books).  So we leave it up to you whether to use these creative examples in class.

The beer industry has recently come out with some very interesting packaging innovations.  This article, “Brewers Hope Consumers Will Judge a Beer By Its Cover” (AdvertisingAge, May 16, 2011 – I think that non-subscribers will be able to link to this article).  You can read about Coors Light bottles tell you when they are cold — and Miller Lite’s vortex bottles and nine other examples.  The article offers some brief critiques, suggesting “Why It Works” and “Why It Doesn’t” which might be useful discussion starters in class.  I could see a discussion of selected packaging innovations with a discussion about the appeal to target markets and consistency with positioning.

The examples could obviously be used when discussing product and packaging — but you could them as examples of differentiation.