teachthe4ps.com - For instructors of marketing.

I am not sure this really counts as subliminal — but that is the term that ABC News used — so I have an excuse for being sensationalistic as well.  Technically subliminal means “a sensory stimuli below and individual’s absolute threshold for conscious perception” (see Wikipedia – Subliminal stimuli).  The subject, and its effects, remain controversial — see the Wikipedia link for more information.  I digress, no matter the title, our students will enjoy the topic.

The video below (direct link to video:  “Grocery Stores Using Subliminal Marketing,” ABC News, September 23, 2011) addresses how supermarkets merchandise and display products to influence consumer choice.  People are typically conscious of these stimuli — but may not recognize the role of each in getting us to open our wallet or pocketbook a bit wider. I used this video today as an example of psychological variables that affect  consumer behavior.  The video will also work for retailing or promotion for point-of-purchase.. The video is only 2:08, but you do have to put up with a :15 advertisement at the start, so you might want to cue it up before class.

‘Tis the season to sell, sell, sell.  Retailers, and marketing managers more generally, are always looking to give the consumer a reason to buy.  So today we have a couple of articles that show how that works.

First, an article in the Wall Street Journal that describes how retailers create 13 (or more) shopping seasons as a way to encourage more impulse shopping.  There are a lot of great examples of retail promotions in “A Season (or 13) for Shopping” (August 17, 2011, non-subscribers may need to click here).

My second article on seasonal promotions taps into the recently ended Islamic holy month of Ramadan.  International examples are always nice to add as class examples — and I don’t see many examples from the Middle East.  This article in BusinessWeek is short and offers taglines and explanations for campaigns from McDonalds and Tang among others.  See “Islam’s Holy Month:  A Time for Self Promotion” (August 25, 2011).

Wal-Mart has long been positioned as the low-price leader.  Leveraging its supply chain and logistics system, competitors couldn’t match Wal-Mart’s cost structure.  Now at least some consumers perceptions are changing.  In this Wall Street Journal article, “Wal-Mart Loses Edge” (August 16, 2011, non-subscribers may need to click here) we read about recent consumer surveys that show the retailer losing its “lowest price” positioning.  In one survey of 1500 Wal-Mart shoppers, “86% no longer thought it had the lowest prices” while in another survey the number was 60%.  Whichever the number, this is a big problem for a retailer that has long enjoyed a well-deserved reputation for low prices.  While Wal-Mart’s perception of value fades, stores like Dollar Tree are seeing their perception of value rise.

While fewer consumers perceive Wal-Mart as the low price leader, what is the reality?  The article reports mixed objective evidence.  In comparisons with Target, with one study by Morgan Stanley showing that in Chicago Target is about even with Wal-Mart (though Wal-Mart was more than 20% lower priced than Safeway and Supervalu) and another study by Goldman Sachs showing Wal-Mart 6.2% lower than Target overall.

This case study could provide interesting fodder when you discuss positioning.  We define positioning in our books as “how consumers think about proposed or present brands in a market.”  You can remind students that perception is what counts among consumers.

You might recall that a few years ago Wal-Mart changed its tagline from “Always Low Prices – Always” to “Save Money.  Live Better.”  Wal-Mart wanted to appeal to a more upscale crowd and develop a greener image.  Perhaps this change de-emphasized the previous price positioning.  The new dual positioning may not be as clear to consumers — opening opportunities for dollar stores to take the lowest price mantel from Wal-Mart.

This opens the door to a good discussion with your students.  Asking them:  What should Wal-Mart do now?  Change its positioning?  Or try to re-gain the low price position?  Given its history and strengths, it seems clear to me that the retailer needs to regain the consumer perception of value.  Perhaps there is a need for more advertising?  Or should the store revisit the everyday low pricing model it has traditionally used — perhaps the hi-lo pricing models of some competitors have helped confuse the market and harmed Wal-Mart’s positioning.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

I think most of us enjoy showing our students how understanding consumer behavior can help marketers develop marketing strategies.  In “How Online Companies Get You to Share More and Spend More,” (Wired, June 20, 2011), Duke University marketing professor Dan Ariely offers some great examples of how companies take advantage of  our behavioral biases (trick us?).  These can easily be transferred from the article to your PowerPoint slides (right click on an image in the article – then copy and paste into PowerPoint) or just bring the site up in class.  Examples in the article come from Amazon, Facebook, Groupon and more.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

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.

This article “Check Out the Future of Shopping” (Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2011 – non-subscribers click here) and its companion video (3:33) below describe a variety of different technology solutions retailers are employing to make shopping more convenient.  The article provides an excellent example of the influence of the external market environment (for retailers) or when discussing retailing.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

This long article looks at operational elements of the drive-thru window for quick-serve restaurants (QSRs). For many restaurants and especially for certain locations, the drive-thru is critical to business; at some Taco Bell locations 70% of the business was at the drive-thru window with 80% of that revenue coming in during a 90 minute lunchtime window! With this in mind, Taco Bell focuses on improving through-speed and quality of the drive-thru experience. This article, “Taco Bell and the Golden Age of Drive-Thru” (Bloomberg Businessweek, May 5, 2011) details many of those strategy changes.

The article provides a nice complement to the coverage of quality management in our text books — as well as our coverage of cross-functional collaboration (with production/operations) in Basic Marketing. Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

eBay has largely failed in its efforts targetomg Chinese consumers, ceding the market to rival Taobao.  A new effort shows more promise, with eBay leveraging a competitive advantage it has over Taobao.  Many Chinese entrepreneurs have a need that eBay is able to help address.  They need access to global markets, and eBay has access to those kinds of customers.  This article, “How eBay Found a Secret Way into China” (Bloomberg Businessweek, April 14, 2011) describes eBay’s recent strategy with this target market.   This provides a good example of competitive advantage, an update on eBay, and another look into an American firm’s efforts in China.

I want to direct your attention to a great post from Bob Gilbreath over at his Marketing With Meaning blog- “Nordstrom Email Gets It Right” (March 9, 2011).  Gilbreath relays a personal experience that is so spot on about what marketing managers should strive for when communicating with customers.  Given them something they find useful.  When companies develop meaningful content — it engages customers — and then drives sales.  Think first about helping customers and sales will follow.  Marketing research can help you uncover the needs of your target market.  Then a good database goes a long way toward understanding that different customers have different needs.

I have mentioned it here at T4Ps before, but Gilbreath’s book, Marketing With Meaning is a great read.  The book had a big influence on revisions to the consumer needs section in our text book – and in others places, too.

Few people will buy a new car unless they have a test drive.  So obviously an important marketing objective for an auto retailer is to get customers inside their cars for a drive.  Let’ say you have a newly designed vehicle — but most of the new design went on the inside and not on the outside.

Such was the case for the Nissan Patrol — a large SUV model sold in the middle east.  When potential customers see the Patrol driving down the road, attention and interest are not peaked.  There is no “Wow, that SUV looks sharp, I am going to have to check it out.”  That was the problem facing Arabian Automobiles – the exclusive Nissan distributor in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.  Arabian liked what Nissan had done with the Patrol — there were a lot of upgrades on the inside.  So how can they get people to get into and test drive the new SUV?  Who do you target?

Check out the clever campaign.  It might be fun to put together a slide that outlines the basic issues facing Arabian Motors.  You could ask students how the path to purchase worked – making sure they realized the importance of the test drive.  Then talk about the new Nissan Patrol — a Google image search will quickly find you a photo to add to your slides.  Ask students how you move customers along the path to purchase.  Then show the video.  Great to use with consumer behavior or promotion.