• Home
  • About
  • Archives
  • Our Book
  • Contact

Target’s Mysterious Price Changes

February 24, 2019 by Jon Firooz Leave a Comment

This 5 minute news video covers some very interesting pricing strategies employed by Target.  Using location awareness, Target will change prices within their app making products more expensive when you walk into the store.  The video includes an interview with a University of Minnesota marketing professor who provides his hypothesis for why Target might be using this variable pricing model.

Beyond showing a more sophisticated pricing strategy, this is an opportunity for an ethical discussion with students as well.  Is it okay for Target to behave in this manner?  When you load the Target app it asks if it can track your location so it can keep track of your favorite store and help you navigate the store.  Should they have to disclose that they may change product prices based on your location as well?  If they did so, would that make it okay?

Filed Under: Chapter 12, Chapter 17, Chapter 19 Tagged With: ethics

Ever-Increasing Airline Fees

October 21, 2018 by Jon Firooz Leave a Comment

Jet Blue and United Airlines recently raised their checked baggage fees from $25 to $30 for the first bag checked (see this article to read more).  Just 10 years ago checked baggage fees were unheard of but they are the norm today and airlines are increasingly looking for ways to add charges and fees to improve their bottom line.  Air travel is basically commoditized and, as a result, leisure travelers tend to search for the lowest price when booking travel.  This significantly hurt airline profitability until they started charging additional fees for checked bags, carry-on bags, early check-in, seat reservation, leg room, in-flight snacks, entertainment, and more.  Now airlines can benefit from the high margin they get on these fees yet still advertise low fares.

This topic presents numerous angles for a conversation with students.  Is it ethical for airlines to advertise low prices when the end price a consumer will pay will likely be significantly higher?  Why were the airlines able to enact this trend in adding supplemental charges?  i.e. if one airline started charging for checked bags, why didn’t others push free bags as a differentiator?  How does the airline industry’s status as an oligopoly affect this market dynamic?  How do business travel and loyalty programs make it easier for airlines to push price increases like this?

 

Filed Under: Chapter 03, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19 Tagged With: airlines, ethics, margins, pricing, travel

IHOP Publicity Stunt

September 2, 2018 by Jon Firooz Leave a Comment

Over the summer one of the most talked about marketing campaigns was the IHOb campaign.  The International House of Pancakes announced they were changing from IHOP to IHOb and later announced that the “b” stood for “burgers”.  Shortly afterward they admitted it was all a publicity stunt to help build awareness of their line of burgers.  This campaign has potential for a couple of class discussions.  First, was it successful?  Clearly they succeeded in getting people talking about their company but whether it drove sales is more ambiguous.  This article from the USA Today suggests it did not drive a material increase in sales.  Another article from geomarketing.com indicates that there was an increase in male traffic but the net result was negative due to lower traffic by females.

Another angle to discuss is the ethicality of the campaign.  Is it ethical for a company to say “we’re changing our name” when they have no intention to do so?  Does this create a bad precedent or does it cause other companies to push the boundaries of deceptive marketing?  How far is too far when trying to gain publicity?

Filed Under: Advertising, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 19, Ethics, Promotion, Publicity, Uncategorized Tagged With: ethics, food, ihob, ihop, Restaurants

Facebook Loses Face

March 28, 2018 by Jon Firooz Leave a Comment

It was recently discovered that back in 2015 Facebook allowed 3rd party Cambridge Analytica to access private data from over 50 million Facebook users without consent from those users.  Cambridge Analytica used that data to build psychographic profiles and use those profiles for targeted political campaigns.  Facebook actually discovered the issue in 2015 and told the offending parties they needed to certify that they deleted the data but they didn’t verify that deletion and they never notified users.  Now it looks like that data was not deleted and has continued to be used for political purposes by Cambridge Analytica.  You can read more about the incident in this article.

Facebook has received a fair amount of negative publicity recently that continues to erode their brand and the trust their customers have in them.  Ask your students how Facebook should respond.  Ask if they think the negative publicity will actually have a material impact on the number of facebook users or ad sponsors.  If students say it won’t have a material impact, ask whether Facebook should do anything about it or not if that’s the case.  This can lead to a rich discussion that covers business ethics, opportunities for competitors to differentiate, opportunities for startups, and more.  What role should the government play, if any, when it comes to regulating use of consumer information for marketing or other purposes?

Filed Under: Chapter 08, Chapter 19 Tagged With: brand rejection, ethics, Facebook, Privacy, social media

The Invention of the Price Tag

March 14, 2018 by Jon Firooz Leave a Comment

The video linked here is a short 3 minute video sourced from NPR’s Planet Money.  It provides a brief, entertaining perspective on the history of the price tag.  Students may be surprised to know that haggling was standard practice in this country for many years.  The video does a good job of discussing not only the change itself but also various factors that led to the change – ethical considerations and issues with scale.

 

 

Filed Under: Chapter 17, Chapter 19 Tagged With: ethics, haggling, price tags, pricing

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Categories

  • #M4BW
  • Advertising
  • B2B
  • Chapter 01
  • Chapter 02
  • Chapter 03
  • Chapter 04
  • Chapter 05
  • Chapter 06
  • Chapter 07
  • Chapter 08
  • Chapter 09
  • Chapter 10
  • Chapter 11
  • Chapter 12
  • Chapter 13
  • Chapter 14
  • Chapter 15
  • Chapter 16
  • Chapter 17
  • Chapter 18
  • Chapter 19
  • Competition
  • Consumer behavior
  • Cross-functional
  • Customer service
  • Demographics
  • Ethics
  • External market environment
  • Flip Exercise
  • Integrated marketing communications
  • International
  • Legal
  • Logistics
  • Market research
  • Marketing strategy planning
  • New-product development
  • Place
  • Positioning
  • Price
  • Product
  • Product life cycle
  • Promotion
  • Publicity
  • Retailing
  • Segmentation
  • Selling and Sales Mgmt
  • Service
  • Social media
  • Social responsibility
  • Strategy planning
  • Sustainability
  • Teaching Technology Tips
  • Tips for Teaching
  • Tips for Technology
  • TV Commercial
  • Uncategorized
  • Video
  • Viral campaign
  • What's Now?
  • Word-of-mouth

Archives

  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019

Copyright © 2021 · Lifestyle Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in