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Customer referrals have a powerful influence on business buyers and consumers.  We have previously reported on the Nielsen survey that found recommendations from others as the most trusted source of information.  Articles in Inc. are usually practical — and this one fits that bill.  In “How to Get Customer Referrals” (August 27, 2010) you will learn how to get referrals as well as when and how to ask for them.  We all talk to our students about the power of word-of-mouth, but we should make sure they understand that marketing managers can influence customers to offer more referrals.

This Wall Street Journal article, “Luring Shoppers to Stores” (August 26, 2010 – non-WSJ subscribers may have to click here and choose the WSJ.com link) and video (see below) describe how retailers are leveraging technology to try to get customers in their stores.

The high tech POP (point-of-purchase) might provide nice examples to use when discussing technology and the external market environment, promotion, and/or retailing.  The video is only 2:44 and might be nice to show in class.  We have a great new video coming with the 18th edition of Basic Marketing (October 2010) that focuses on a related trend of digital signage.

B2B has always utilized custom communications — usually through the sales force.  But now more and more B2B companies are trying to provide content that is useful and meaningful for its customers — often on their websites.  The forthcoming 18th edition of Basic Marketing (October 2010) really emphasizes this as a source of “publicity” and “found media” (as customers typically search for and find it online).  BtoB Online has a nice article, “Committed to Custom,” (August 16, 2010) that reports on this trend.

Lexmark International is one of the world’s leading makers of computer printers had a problem.  While slow to come around, the trend to the paperless office is real.  That trend significantly reduced demand for printers.  So Lexmark adapted — and offers its customers services to help them print less.  Lexmark helped Coca Cola save $11 million over five years — and sold them 3800 new mostly Lexmark printers.

This article, “After a Jam, Lexmark Turns to Services” (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, August 26, 2010) provides examples for use when talking about goods and services or the product life cycle — as printers settle well into market maturity stage.  It is also interesting to think about this change in the context of personal selling — where Lexmark no doubt had to change its personal selling strategy to a consultative selling approach.

This TED talk from Dan Cobley links physics concepts like Newton’s second law, thermodynamics, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and more with marketing.  Cobley makes the physics concepts accessible and uses some interesting marketing examples to make his points.  There are lessons for branding, advertising, positioning, and more.  The video, “What physics taught me about marketing: Dan Cobley on TED.com” (TED, August 27, 2010) is only 7:39 — check it out below.

One of the primary reasons for this blog is to keep you up to date with the latest happenings in marketing — like how marketers are using Facebook.  This short (3:57) video from the Wall Street Journal explains how the “Like” button is working.   While many firms are jumping into the fray, it is not clear if Facebook pages deliver results.  [Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.]

This is an interesting video from the Wall Street Journal (July 30, 2010) provides a nice, easy-to-understand tutorial that explains Internet cookies.  At 7:14, it is a bit on the long side, but provides a pretty straightforward explanation of a technical issue of importance to our students.  Many of our students (and many of us) may not be familiar with behavioral targeting but it is clearly the future of advertising — unless concerns about privacy hang it up.  This might be shown in class to stimulate a discussion about online privacy.  My students seem to have a wide range of opinions about privacy — I am often surprised by their openness on Facebook for example.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has brought a class action lawsuit against Coca Cola.  CSPI claims that Vitaminwater’s health claims violate FDA guidelines.  Each 20 oz bottle of Vitaminwater contains 33 grams of sugar and 125 calories.  Vitaminwater’s health claims may violate the FDA’s jelly bean policy — where you can’t claim that a jelly bean is healthy because is has no cholesterol.  See “Is Vitaminwater Really a Healthy Drink?” in Time (July 30, 2010).  [Note:  Also posted at “Learn the 4 Ps.”

If the “Get a Mac” campaign is winding down, you may want to review it. Over at AdWeek’s AdFreak.com you can see all 66 (as of this writing) TV spots at “Apple and TBWA’s ‘Get a Mac: The Complete Campaign.” The campaign started in May 2006. Here is one of the earliest ads in the series from October 2006.  [Also posted at "Learn the 4 Ps"]

Here at Teach the 4 Ps we have reported a few times on Old Spice and the wildly successful viral video campaign for Old Spice – “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.”  See our previous posts “Old Spice Commercial Goes Viral…” (Teach the 4 Ps, March 15, 2010) and “Old Spice Revitalizes the Brand with Trendy Advertisements,” (Teach the 4 Ps, July 5, 2010).

Here is an update — the campaign seems to be working to sell more Old Spice.  We knew the viral videos generated views and now we know that sales of Old Spice are going up as well, see “Old Spice Campaign Smells Like a Sales Success, Too” (Brandweek, July 25, 2010).

Now Old Spice and its star Isaiah Mustafa have stormed to the top of the Ad Age Viral Video chart hitting #1 with almost 3 million views in one week in July (and more than 11 million as of this post).   The latest viral video is more of the same but different.

That could be a nice video to show the first day of class — at least the young women in your class will like it.  You could show one of the Axe ads (search YouTube for ideas) to appeal to some of the young men in your classes.