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.
Let’s get up to speed on Groupon. I definitely missed this one. I thought the Groupon thing was just kind of a niche idea; I thought it would never take off and hoped it wouldn’t. We don’t need to make consumers more price sensitive – do we? I also thought they were nuts last year for turning down a $6 billion buyout offer from Google.
What is Groupon? Groupon is the most well-known of a variety of different “Deal-of-the-day” websites. Groupon is now in more than 250 geographic markets around the world – with most promotions for small local firms. Customers sign up to receive a daily e-mail with a deal like “Get $20 worth of pizza from Giovanni’s Pizza for only $10.” If you want to buy the discount – you have to buy that day. The retailer and Groupon typically split the $10 – about in half though that varies. So a retailer receives $5 for a coupon that gives a customer $20 worth of pizza. This raises a variety of interesting questions – good in-class discussions – about when this might make sense.
Well Groupon appears to be here stay—so I have a few different articles to get you up to speed. From a teaching perspective there are two issues. First, there are real questions about whether using Groupon makes sense for small businesses (the subject of the first three articles above). It might make sense for a company trying to attract new customers – and confident it can retain them. For different perspectives on this issue, see: “Is Groupon a Good Deal for Small Business?,” (Fox Business, January 27, 2011). And do we want to attract the deal-prone consumer — will they be loyal and profitable? For one perspective on this issue see “Beware of Innovations from Daily-Deal Sites,” (Harvard Business Review, March 25, 2011).
On the other hand, it makes little sense to send out a deep discount coupon to your regular customers. The first two articles above all deal with that issue. Second, there are concerns with Groupon’s long-term marketing strategy. With few barriers to entry, new competitors are springing up all over. This has given small businesses buying power vis a vis Groupon and its competitors (see “Burned by Daily-Deal Craze, Small Businesses Get Savvy,” Wall Street Journal, March 24, 2011 – non-subscribers may have to click here or check out the video below). It also naturally leads to questions about Groupon’s strategy moving forward. With few barriers to entry, how can Groupon get a sustainable competitive advantage? Groupon is trying – check out “Are Four Words Worth $25 Billion for Groupon?” (Bloomberg Businessweek, March 17, 2011) to read about how Groupon is trying to move ahead with a new location based strategy.
As you can imagine, Groupon could be used to discuss consumer behavior, sales promotion, retailing, and marketing strategy planning.
One of our favorite companies here at T4Ps is Zappos. We also feature them in our text book. The online retailer is always innovating. Now they are using their own employees in online videos — they have produced 58,000 short videos of employees (not professional models) showing off its shoes and other apparel. The use of employees can build trust — and seeing someone actually using a product can increase its appeal. Zappos also conducted an experiment – showing the same products with and without a video. They found sales averaged 10% higher when a video accompanied the item. Check out “A New Sales Model: Employees” (Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2011 – non-subscribers may have to click here).
This example would be helpful when talking about marketing research, retail, or promotion. Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.
Is the future location of retail in Facebook? Maybe it is one more channel for many retailers. This article, “Fashion Retailer Asos Sets Up Shop on Facebook,” (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, February 17, 2011) describes one retailer’s efforts to target “moppers” (mobile shoppers). Online fashion retailer Asos has a store in Facebook with a smartphone app on the way.
We are seeing more examples of businesses that are effectively leveraging social media that works with customers. This article describes a New York City baker that has found success — and almost 3000 likes on Facebook. This short article “A Bakery Gets Sweet Returns From Social-Media Blitz” (Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2011, non-subscribers may need to click here) offers examples and qualifies the example by suggesting that bars and restaurants may be special cases with social media. Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.
Like many people, I have a vague idea about how Google goes about generating its search results. I am also aware that many firms employ search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to try to climb high in the Google search rankings. This article “The Dirty Little Secrets of Search” (New York Times, February 12, 2011). gets behind the scenes and describes how J.C. Penney climbed its way to the top of the search charts. The article is kind of long, and goes well beyond what we might typically cover in an introductory marketing class. But for many firms, especially online retailers, SEO can be a very important source of customers. This behind the scenes peak is fascinating. It raises ethical questions, too.
