Teach the 4 Ps is back!

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I apologize for the lack of blog posting for the last few months. During the spring, my revision of Essentials of Marketing, took up more of my time than originally planned. Teach the 4 Ps got squeezed. Then, I fulfilled a long-time goal and rode my bike across the country. I was blogging (about the ride) for a couple of months, but not about marketing. After my bike ride, I came back to a long “honey-do list,” more work on the book, and prep for fall classes.

Of course, all that thinking and reading for the forthcoming 18th edition of Essentials gave me a lot of ideas for posts this fall. I plan to make 1-2 posts a week in much the same manner we usually do—offering you links to articles and videos that might offer some examples and topics for your marketing classes. I hope you find some of them helpful to your teaching.

Another company selling by subscription: BMW offers heated seats at $18 a month

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Here at Teach the 4 Ps we find subscription pricing for traditional products to be unusual—but apparently growing in popularity. We have previously posted on subscription to Panera coffee, Taco Bell tacos, and Nike shoes. Now you have one more crazy example to add to your list, “Why BMW is offering heated seats on a monthly subscription” (CN Business, July 14, 2022). Apparently this is the start of a trend that might grow in the auto industry. These examples might be used to stimulate a discussion on this pricing model.

A discussion might start by asking students if they have anything they buy as a subscription? Some might mention newspapers, magazines, cable/streaming TV (Netflix, Hulu, Disney+), or perhaps websites. Then I provide the examples shown here and ask students why these products are being offered as subscriptions? At least one answer is This can be discussed in Chapter 2 (customer lifetime value) or when you cover pricing (Chapters 17 and 18).

#tiktokmademebuyit

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TikTok is the hottest social media platform today. Its users are the most valuable commodity for many brands today. NPR podcast The Indicator, looked at how “TikTok made me buy it.” This episode tries to answer the question, posed by a TikTok user in the podast, “Why is TikTok so good at making me buy things?”

I love how it was explained in the podcast by Jamie Gutfreund, CMO at the influencer marketing firm Whalar. “This is not advertising. It’s discovery. People feel smart when they discover something. They’re not being sold to. They’re discovering something that has been presented in an entertaining way by somebody that they trust that’s telling them a story that they found on their own terms in their own time.”

This seems to be the best of all worlds here. We know that referrals from friends have a strong influence on our buying decisions. And while paid influencers are not our friends, they can influence. I think the playful, entertaining TikTok platform lowers users’ guards. Their defenses down, they are more open to the ideas presented on TikTok. Combine that with TikTok’s powerful algorithm (which is so good at delivering the content people like) and you have the ultimate platform for influencers. If this story is any indication, Facebook and Instagram are in trouble.

For a little in-class fun, check out the tiktokmademebuyit page. Pick one or two of the TikToks and show them in class. Ask student what makes them work? Maybe misspelling “business” so that the “ad” looks more credible?

Competition: Good for Innovation and Consumers

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For many years home internet service providers like Comcast and Charter faced little competition. Now “Comcast and Charter face a grim new reality: action competition,” (Fast Company, August 30, 2022). They often bundled internet service with cable television offerings to retain customers. Now things are changing. Mobile phone companies, including T-Mobile and Verizon, are offering cheap, fast, home internet service.

This contemporary example can be used in Chapter 1 (where we talk about marketing’s role in innovation and how competition brings better products to market) and Chapter 3 (where we cover competition and technology).

TrendWatching for Purpose-Driven Innovation

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I really enjoy getting my weekly email from Trendwatching. What is TrendWatching, let them answer that question: “TrendWatching is a purpose-driven trend firm, inspiring business professionals to launch sustainable innovations that benefit people and planet.” TrendWatching is the source of many of the Marketing for a Better World (#M4BW) examples we sprinkle across Essentials of Marketing. If you want to show students that business can have a positive impact on the world, sharing examples like these in your class might give them a better attitude and hopefully inspire them to do more:

  • Pottery Barn’s “The Accessible Home” product line has taken some of its most popular products and redesigned them serve people of all abilities. TrendWatching’s short article calls this trend “OMNIBILITY” and explains why this trend is happening now. products more accessible. It is the right (and maybe profitable) thing to do. (Chapter 3 on social trends, Chapter 9 on new product development, and Chapter 12 on retailing, specifically targeting new customers.)
  • It will take millions of small (and hopefully many large) actions to reduce the impact of climate change. Here you can read that “Hoopsy introduces paper pregnancy tests to slash single-use plastics.” (Chapter 8 on new product development, Chapter 19).
  • Dove has long been a leader in Marketing for a Better World (#M4BW) and we have featured them in previous blog posts. This time Dove Canada sswitched its gold logo to gray on social media to support ageism and sexism in the workplace.
  • Insurance company Lemonade is a purpose-driven tech firm. If you don’t know Lemonade, you will have fun reading about them in the forthcoming 18th edition of Essentials of Marketing (available ~February 2023). Now the company is leveraging its artificial intelligence to offer an insurance option for millions of smallholder farms. The company plans to track weather and automatically pay farmers if a flood or drought occurs—farmers don’t even need to file an insurance claim! Read more here.