Focus and Approach…

by Leave a Comment

I saw this cartoon and it reminded me of many meetings I was in while working in various marketing roles.  As marketers we often have an abundance of information to consider and goals to achieve.  Figuring out where to start and how to create a cohesive strategy is a challenge many businesses, large and small, struggle with.  In Essentials of Marketing we provide a framework and process for creating a marketing strategy.  It all starts with bringing in information from your customers, company, competitors, and external market environment (context).  From there the process organizes and filters that information, applies segmentation and positioning approaches, and at that point creating your marketing mix becomes much more straightforward.  A diagram of the process is shown below and more information can be found in our book.  Chapter 2 provides an overview of the process and then each subsequent chapter dives into detail on one of the components.

What’s Now? Chapter 19 – Fargreen helps Vietnamese farmers and the planet

by Leave a Comment

fargreen-logo-retina1I have a soft spot in my heart for Fargreen. The startup that emerged from the Colorado State University Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise MBA program (full disclosure, Colorado State is my employer and I served for many years on the advisory board for this program). I also know Fargreen’s founder, Trang Tran. She developed a great idea to help Vietnamese farmers while also lowering carbon emissions. What is not to like? After winning several business plan competitions, Trang is now moving her business forward. This brandchannel article “Yale on Purpose-Driven Startups: Fargreen — Going Far By Going Green” (May 2, 2016) is one in a series with Yale MBA students.

Read the article about Fargreen. Explain how Fargreen ties into macromarketing, micromarketing, and innovative marketing planning — all major topics in chapter 19. 

What’s Now? Chapter 2 – Hungry Harvest Tackles Food Waste and Hunger

by Leave a Comment

hungry-harvest-logo-picture-600The website brandchannel has launched a series of short case study articles. A team of Yale MBA students evaluate a purpose-driven startup and offer some marketing strategy recommendations.  We used a different case from this series in chapter 1. In this case (see “Hungry Harvest – No Food Waste, No Hunger, brandchannel, April 25, 2016), Hungry Harvest tries to tackle two seemingly dichotomous problems – food waste and hunger. It tries to put some of the 40% of produced grown in the U.S. that goes to waste with into the mouths of 50 million poor Americans who don’t get enough food.

From the Hungry Harvest case, give at least one example of each of the elements of the marketing strategy planning process model (see Exhibit 2-9).

Retail winners and losers

by Leave a Comment

Bring a guest speaker to class. In this short 2 minute video the founder of consulting firm L2 offers his take on winners and losers in retail. Before you show the video, you might ask your students who they believe are winners and losers in today’s retail environment — and of course why? If the conversation wanders, you might focus them on the elements of marketing strategy — target market, Product, Place, Promotion, and Price. Then you might share the thoughts of an expert in the video below:

Winners and Losers: Retail from L2 Think Tank on Vimeo.

 

Managing Product Lines

by Leave a Comment

mercedes1audiProduct line management is a challenge in many industries — and the car market has especially difficult decisions to make. One of the questions relates to product line length — the number of individual products in a product line.

Some automakers often have a higher end model not so much for sales as to enhance the image of the brand — think Chevrolet Corvette. On the other hand, a high end automaker may produce a lower, entry level model to help consumers (perhaps those younger or on their way up) to begin using the brand. In this case a brand hopes the customer later buys the higher priced (and usually more profitable) products and generates high lifetime value. A risk is that the lower end model makes the brand less exclusive — one of the primary appeals of a higher end brand. To learn more about this phenomena in the automobile market, and to get a good example for class discussion, see “The Downside of Low-End Luxury Cars” (Bloomberg Businessweek, July 17, 2014).