teachthe4ps.com - teaching the 4 ps

Seth Godin is great and I always enjoy following his blog.  In this blog post, “The brand, the package, the story, and the worldview,” Godin offers advice to African chocolate maker Madecasse on how putting a story on its package might help its sales.  Could be a good example, or turned into a mini case for discussion.

I am becoming more and more a believer in the power of stories.  I think they help in marketing and for teaching marketing.  If you are interested in learning more about stories, you might read Daniel Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind:  Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future” (this morning I listened to the “Story” chapter on my way in to work) or the Heath brothers “Made to Stick.“  I know we all use stories (extended examples) to supplement our teaching, but what I am reading has me thinking about how I can develop better stories.

This 5 minute video clip is an interview with P&G’s new CEO Bob McDonald and A.G. Lafley, its recently departed CEO. They talk about P&G’s focus on developing markets as its source of growth. They mention that demographics drive this focus. The clip would have a nice tie-in with demographics as we talk about it in chapter 5. While the video clearly demonstrates the opportunity here, it might be fun to show the clip in class and ask students – “what P&G should do with its marketing strategy to appeal to this target market?” it might also provide an example of an opportunity that could be discussed with chapter 2.

This article (“Fertilizers on Wheels,” The Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2009, no subscription? click here) and short video (2:39, see below) describe the marketing strategies for two different firms selling fertilizer to farmers in rural India.   The video provides an interesting addition to class because it gives students a look at rural India.  The topics covered include selling to businesses, integrated marketing communications, and distribution – all in the international context of a developing country.  I showed this video in class after lecturing from our first promotion chapter.  I asked students to think about why I thought this reflected IMC and to note the different types of Promotion they observed.  A variety of different forms of promotion (even sales promotion) are demonstrated and can be tied to the AIDA model.

“PC Makers Cultivate Buyers in Rural China,” The Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2009 [subscription required or google the article title].  This short article describes how PC makers have adapted their marketing mixes to better meet the needs of relatively low income rural Chinese.