teachthe4ps.com - For instructors of marketing.

Wow!  I am continually amazed at how our privacy is compromised on the web.  Interestingly, I am not sure our students care all that much — they post on Facebook about their love, life, and escapades where it is broadcast to their 684 “friends.”  Anyway, be wary when you use web coupons because “Web Coupons Know Lots About You, and They Tell,” (The New York Times,April 16, 2010).  In our books we discuss privacy in the last chapter — so it might fit as an example in these last weeks in class.  It might also be a useful ethics topic in pricing.

Here’s another example of a marketer experimenting with social media.  This article (“Rubbermaid Social Media Effort Thinks Inside the Container,” ClickZ, October 8, 2009) describes how Rubbermaid gave a popular blogger (Leanne Ely – a nutritionist and author) a kitchen makeover.  Ely then blogged about the makeover experience and was able to offer Rubbermaid coupons to her 50,000 readers.  The article provides links to Ely’s blog and specific results of downloaded coupons.  This example shows how easy it is to measure results from certain types of online promotions.

“A Clip-and-Save Renaissance,” The New York Times, September 23, 2009.  There are lots of stories about how increasingly frugal consumers are responding to the current economic downturn.  Coupon redemption has declined since its peak in 1992, but in 2008 and 2009 that trend seems to be reversing.  The article offers examples that could be used in discussions of consumer behavior, the economic environment, segmentation, and pricing.