teachthe4ps.com - For instructors of marketing.

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.

Unilever has produced some memorable campaigns – it is behind the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty and those wild Axe ads.

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).

Now Guy Kawasaki is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and a big name author in the tech community — I think this is his tenth book.  He already has an incredible network.  With the publication of his new book – Enchantment:  The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions, Kawasaki relied on low-cost forms of social media to get the word out and drive great initial sales. Read about it at Mashable “HOW TO:  Launch Any Product Using Social Media,” (March 31, 2011)

The book is already on the bestseller lists at the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.  In other words, it worked.  This is a great case study on how to use social media.  While the case study looks at the launch of a book by an already successful author, I think that with some in-class discussion, you can see how the ideas can be applied to other product launches.  It might make for an interesting exercise to ask students how these ideas could be adapted to launch a new dog food, hip hop band, or snow board.

This example could be used when talking about marketing strategy planning, promotion, publicity, or social media.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

The Jennifer Aniston Smartwater viral video — that spoofs other viral videos — rose to the top of the AdAge viral video chart last week.  Because of the spoof — it might lead to some discussion about what makes a video viral.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

OK, we love Zappos here at Teach the 4 Ps (see previous posts).  Yet it is great to see examples of how “knock your socks off” customer service fuels positive word-of-mouth.  Read the post over at The Consumerist, “Zappos CSR’s Kindness Warms Our Cold Hearts” (January 17, 2010) for yet another example — be sure to read the comments, too.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

This Wall Street Journal article, ‘Tweeting to Sell Cars,” (November 14, 2010 – non-subscribers may have to use this back door link) describes the efforts of Lexus and Ford to get social media “opinion leaders” to tweet about their cars.  The article also notes the legal restrictions imposed by the FTC.  Good social media example.

What drives word-of-mouth?  This short article at eMarketer “Good Experiences Motivate Women to Share Product Info,” (October 22, 2010) presents research that shows why women seek and share information.  As an online survey, I am a bit suspicious of the representativeness of the sample, but it does give some insights to an important issue.

In the new edition of our book, Basic Marketing (which published last week – hurray!) we emphasize the role of useful content as an element of online promotion.  Branded content ties a brand to some form of entertainment or useful information.  It goes beyond sponsorship because typically the content is “found” when customers search online — or it is passed along to friends (think viral ad).  See our new book for more. Levi’s gives an example of branded content when it brought rock band Nada Surf live to the Levi’s Facebook page.  Levi’s picked up 45,000 new “Likers” with the promotion.  As you may know, after a Facebook user indicates they “Like” a brand, the brand’s content appears on the user’s Facebook news feed — and can be seen by the user’s friends.  Read about it in “Levi’s Rocks Facebook With Branded Content,” (ClickZ, October 29, 2010)

Many moms can relate to this story – “Mom always does her very best.  But, face it, motherhood is never easy.”  Consequently, many are likely to enjoy the video — and pass it along to their friends.  I like the idea of a more targeted viral video.  It also fits into a campaign by 8th Continent that you can find at  the brand’s Facebook page.

Potential in-class exercise when covering promotion objectives.  Show the class the video and Facebook page and ask them to tell you the promotion objectives.  You could ask what they think of the execution, whether the campaign will work, and how it might be improved.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.