This 4 minute video is from Google UK’s head of Business Marketing. But don’t worry, it isn’t a pitch for Google — at least not directly. It summarizes many of the changes going on in organizational buying and complements what we talk about in the organizational buying chapters in our text books. Bottom line, more and more business buyers are turning to the Internet early and often in the buying process. The video talks about promotion to business buyers — so you might find it helpful to show to your students when you cover organizational buying, B2B, or promotion.
Imagine walking along a city street and seeing your own face in ad for a shirt you are checking out. Or perhaps a friend’s face in an ad inviting you into a restaurant. Technology may not be too far from making this a possibility. How creepy would that be? Or perhaps it wouldn’t be creepy at all. Would we get used to it? This Slate article, “How’d My Avatar Get Into That Sneaker Ad?” (January 4, 2012) lays out this type of scenario as a thought experiment.
There are already examples of parts of this technology. My Virtual Model allows you to build an avatar with your body type and face can be placed on a “virtual model” — allowing you to virtually try on clothing. Lands’ End has used this technology for several years now. What is to prevent Facebook ads from using the photos you post to put you in a Facebook ad? The natural next step, suggested by the article, is that you may walk by a billboard or store and see yourself in an ad. Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.
It might be fun to engage your students in the same thought experiment described in the article as a way to open a discussion into technology, privacy, and ethics.
Internet entrepreneurs in Vietnam are figuring out how to overcome challenges posed by the country’s infrastructure. Among Vietnam’s 88 million people, there is growing interest in the convenience of online shopping. There are now more than two dozen Vietnamese sites copying Groupon’s “deal-of-the-day” concept. These companies adapted the strategy used in more developed countries. So for example, few Vietnamese consumers have credit cards or PayPal style accounts. To over come this, at least one of the Groupon copycats NhomMua, relies on a team of more than 100 moped-driving couriers that deliver vouchers directly to consumers and then collect cash. Read more in this Bloomberg Businessweek article, “Vietnam’s Dot-Com Boom” (January 19, 2012). Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.
The examples here might work well when you cover Place, retail, Price, or Promotion and want to provide an example of how a concept is adapted in international markets.
Some businesses smell an opportunity to really tie together their integrated marketing communications. They communicate distinct brand identity through the scents that customers smell in their stores or hotels. Read more at “The smell of success” (Baltimore Sun, January 19, 2012), watch a short Early Show news story (4:35) below, or check out ScentAir Technologies website. This has also been posted at Learn the 4 Ps.
Here at Teach the 4 Ps we are always looking for good B2B stories — and they can be hard to find. We have reported before on B2B and social media — but admittedly not too often. Yet there is growing evidence that B2B marketers are big users of social media. This post at the Hubspot Blog, “9 Common and Costly B2B Social Media Marketing Mistakes” (January 17, 2012) provides some guidelines you might want to offers your students. Hubspot is part of Inbound Marketing, a consulting firm that has impressed me with their book of the same name and from a talk I saw by Brian Halligan. I highly recommend the book.
You might find this article useful when you discuss marketing strategy, B2B, or social media in promotion.
I don’t think Martin Lindstrom’s blog post, “Under-Promise. Over-Deliver. And Your Brand’s Fans Will Talk” (Fast Company, January 10, 2012) will surprise those of you teaching marketing. It is a good reminder and might offer some examples to use in class. On the other hand many of our students don’t think about the benefits of giving customers more than they expect, instead focusing on the costs. So I have also posted this at Learn the 4 Ps.
Ikea’s target market includes urban young people — many of whom live in relatively small big-city apartments. A lot of Ikea’s offerings are optimized to this segment. One challenge for Ikea is demonstrating how their products make a small apartment bigger. One way is to create a small apartment in their stores — but to get to more customers, you could bring the small apartment to them. Ikea knows its urban market often travels on the metro (subway). So they built a 54 square meter (about 580 square feet) apartment in a Paris metro station. The apartment’s windows allowed customers to see Ikea’s furniture and cabinets in action. Five volunteers lived there for a week — they even threw a party.
This is an interesting example of creative promotion. Ikea got some buzz — so more than just metro riders in one station got to see this. Will it generate interest? Sales? It is a good example of trying to break through the clutter of advertising.
Now Unilever’s using its marketing expertise to change behavior in the developing world — hopefully making its growth more sustainable. For example, it has had to get creative to promote hand-washing in many parts of the world (see poster used in Indonesia). Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan aims to cut its products environmental impact in half while doubling sales. You can read an interview with the Unilever CEO and better understand how its creative priorities have changed as it tries to change consumer behavior in many ways – see “Unilever CEO Paul Polman On The Packaged Goods Giant’s Creative Shift” (Fast Company, Co.Create, January 12, 2012).
I guess this campaign is more than a year old now — but it is fresh and new to me. John St is an agency based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is hard to call any agency an “ad” agency as most — like John St do all kinds of promotional efforts. The clever video below demonstrates a wide range of its services in a cute way. It actually fits as a B2B and B2C example at the same time — and it also demonstrates integrated marketing communications. Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.
An emerging technology is augmented reality (AR). Wikipedia defines AR as “a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.” It won’t be long before shoppers are using AR to help them make buying decisions. I just read about AR in National Geographic, “Revealed World” (January 2012) – be sure to check out the photo montage to get an idea about how this will work. The article suggests that what you can now see on your smart phone is moving to specialized glasses and in a few years may be embedded in contact lenses. National Geographic used the technology in a shopping mall to promote its cable TV channel — see below.
For another example, see what Krystal did with a smart phone app below. I don’t think this really shows the full potential of AR, but it does show a low-cost way to generate some buzz around a brand. I applaud Krystal for dabbling in the new technology.
I think there is something to this technology — it sure seems like potentially useful information for shoppers — at least if you consider what it will be — not what it currently is. For that view, look back at the National Geographic article. It might be interesting to have students read that article or view some examples and ask them, “What could marketers do with this technology?” I do ask those questions in the post for students at Learn the 4 Ps.
