The marketing strategy planning process model in this Prezi presentation provides an overarching framework for our marketing text books. Even if you are not using Essentials of Marketing or Basic Marketing, you will probably find the model and Prezi overview will help you better understand marketing strategy planning. I believe this will require Flash animation — so you may not be able to view it on an iPad. Here are some keys to operating the Prezi:
Click “More” and have it play full screen — the effects are much better.
Use the forward/back arrow to move forward/back through the presentation one step at a time
When you come to some of the embedded videos, simply hover your cursor over the video and you will see the “play” arrow. If you click the video again, it will get larger
For readers of our books the narration should be straightforward to figure out — probably for most viewers.
Note that the chapter numbers correspond to Essentials of Marketing — and will differ slightly for Basic Marketing.
For everyone — this is my first Prezi. There are some things I have learned — you need to have a high resolution version of any model you zoom into. I am working on fixing that. Please tell me what you think? Does this model and this type of presentation help you to better understand marketing strategy planning?
Well there it was — another Super advertising day — and a good football game to boot. There are tons of day after opinions on yesterday’s ads, and their insights are probably better than mine. I looked through a number of sites and wanted to recommend the following.
The Wall Street Journal, which has its own reader poll and comments from a wide range of advertising experts in “Auto-Industry Ads Score at the Super Bowl” (February 6, 2012 – non-subscribers may need to click here). The article lauds the “Halftime in America” ad below — while their early poll results favored the Seinfeld/Leno Acura NSX ad (also below).
As of this moment, the USA Today online admeter (not their focus group which reports tomorrow) shows a top five with the two Doritos ads (created in a contest), Bud Light’s “Weego,” M&M’s “Just My Shell,” and Volkswagen’s “Dog Strikes Back.”
You can also find plenty of pundits all over the web, but I found one of the more thoughtful analyses at the Influential Marketing Blog in the post titled “The Best and Worst Of Super Bowl Marketing Strategy 2012” (February 6, 2012).
Read one or more of these articles — they offer sometimes contradictory critiques. Then offer your own opinions — but back them up with good reasons. Which ads do you think are most effective? least effective? Why? What makes for a good Super Bowl advertisement?
How times have changed. This article starts with the results of a 1957 survey of Americans that showed 80% believed that people who preferred the single life were “sick,” “immoral,” or “neurotic.” In 1960, 13.1% of U.S. households were “one-person” — today that number has more than doubled to 27.6%. In some big cities, the number is over 40%. You can read more about this trend and its implications for realtors, cruise ship operators, and home improvement retailer Lowe’s in “Solo nation: American consumers stay single” (CNN Money/Fortune, January 25, 2012) or in sociology professor Eric Klinenberg is new book, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.
What other brands could change their marketing mix to better address the unique needs of singles or those living alone?
Fortune magazine just published its list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” (January 20, 2012). The usual players — Google, Boston Consulting Group, SAS Institute, and Wegmans Food Markets — top the list again. What I really like about this year’s list is a slide show feature titled “They’re Hiring.” This feature lists 25 companies that have at least 700 job openings. Even better, each featured company includes a section where one of the company’s recruiters offers “Secrets to impressing their recruiters.” This is good stuff to know as you prepare your personal marketing plan.
Scroll through all 25 companies in the “They’re Hiring” slide show and read the advice offered by each company’s recruiter. How will this help you in your job search?
Some businesses smell an opportunity to really tie together their integrated marketing communications. They communicate distinct brand identity through the scents that customers smell in their stores or hotels. Read more at “The smell of success” (Baltimore Sun, January 19, 2012), watch a short Early Show news story (4:35) below, or check out ScentAir Technologies website.
Place yourself in the marketing department for ScenAir. What types of businesses would be good opportunities to pursue? Go beyond those mentioned in the article and video. How could you promote the product to your new target market?
Today’s consumers put less stock in advertising as compared to recommendations from friends. So how does a company get its customers talking about its products. According to Martin Lindstrom “Under-Promise. Over-Deliver. And Your Brand’s Fans Will Talk” (Fast Company, January 10, 2012).
What do you think? When is the cost of “over-delivering” likely to offset the costs? Are there certain product categories or types of brands where this is more beneficial?
FastCompany magazine often takes an idea and pushes the boundaries — but I find their observations are usually prescient. They point out that the business world is becoming increasingly chaotic — making career planning darn near impossible, at least in the long-term. This brave new world rewards the agile and opportunistic. This article, “This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business” (January 12, 2012) introduces you to seven people — representing a broad demographic cross-section — who are thriving in this macroenvironment. The article suggests the skills that may be needed as well. A companion article, “The Four-Year Career” describes a 28-year old woman’s early career path (FastCompany, January 12, 2012). The idea here is that our students should probably be career planning for relatively short time horizons — four years as opposed to twenty.
For another perspective on career planning, read “To Find Happiness, Forget About Passion” (HBR Blog Network, January 13, 2012) the author suggests that young people should be focused on problems they can contribute to solving. Reading the comments (189 and counting as of today) — will give you a much richer perspective.
As you develop your personal marketing plan, make sure you understand the crazy macroenvironment you are heading into. Make sure you have the attitude, expectations, and skills needed in this new world.
I guess this campaign is more than a year old now — but it is fresh and new to me. John St. is an agency based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is hard to call any agency an “ad” agency as most — like John St. — do all kinds of promotional efforts. The clever video below demonstrates a wide range of its services in a cute way. It actually fits as a B2B and B2C example at the same time — and it also demonstrates integrated marketing communications.
An emerging technology is augmented reality (AR). Wikipedia defines AR as “a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.” It won’t be long before shoppers are using AR to help them make buying decisions. I just read about AR in National Geographic, “Revealed World” (January 2012) – be sure to check out the photo montage to get an idea about how this will work. The article suggests that what you can now see on your smart phone is moving to specialized glasses and in a few years may be embedded in contact lenses. National Geographic used the technology in a shopping mall to promote its cable TV channel — see below.
For another example, see what Krystal did with a smart phone app below. I don’t think this really shows the full potential of AR, but it does show a low-cost way to generate some buzz around a brand. I applaud Krystal for dabbling in the new technology.
I think there is something to this technology — it sure seems like potentially useful information for shoppers — at least if you consider what it will be — not what it currently is. For that view, look back at the National Geographic article. What else could marketers do with this technology? Be creative and think of new applications, ideas, or brands AR might help.
Human beings are actually not very rational decision makers — there is a great deal of evidence to that effect. We are subject to predictable biases. Increased computing power and better databases are allowing companies to use analytics and make better (unbiased) decisions. This is sparking the rise of new companies that can analyze data and some new applications. You can read more in “So, What’s Your Algorithm?” (Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2011 – non-subscribers may need to click here).
Read this article and think about how other firms (beyond the Schwan’s example in the article) could use “big data” to make better marketing decisions? Also, how do you think trends like this will impact your future career — answer by referencing your career?
