learnthe4ps.com - For students of marketing.

This article in the New York Times describes how some stores are adapting their marketing mix to better meet the needs of budget shoppers.  See “Stores Scramble to Accommodate Budget Shoppers” (September 21, 2010).  What other creative marketing mix ideas can you think of for this target market?  Think about each of the four Ps.  Also, be creative — share some bold ideas that may not be practical.  Breakthroughs come from radical thinking!

This is a nice example of marketing research – museums are hiring researchers to observe visitors and record what they see. See “The Museum is Watching You” (Wall Street Journal, August 18, 2010 – click here if the title link doesn’t work).

…watches where visitors stop, whether they talk or read, how much time they spend. He records his observations in a handheld computer, often viewing his subjects through the display cases or tiptoeing behind them to stay out of their line of sight. “Teenage daughter was with, but did not interact, sat on bench, then left,” read his notes of one visit.

The article provides a good example of marketing research in a nonprofit context.  What are the advantages of this type of research for the museum?  What are downsides or risks?

UPS has a new ad campaign.  “That’s Logistics” – targets small and medium size businesses. See this article, “UPS Leaves ‘Brown’ for New Love (Wall Street Journal, September 13, 2010 or click here if the link to the article doesn’t work) for more details.

Package-delivery giant United Parcel Service Inc. is launching a global ad campaign to promote its expanding logistics business to small and medium-sized businesses that want to sell their wares globally.

What do you think of the advertising campaign?  Will it attract the attention of its target market?  What do you think are UPS’s promotionl objectives?

What do you think of a company that replaces its products before you even ask? Well that is what Rogue Wallet did. Check out this story over at the Consumerist blog, “Rogue Wallet Replaces Entire Batch of Bad Wallets, Stuns Customer,” (September 15, 2010).   What are the costs and benefits of this type of move?  Is this a smart move? Too much customer service?

I think that all students (of any major) should write their own personal marketing plan.  This should guide their career planning and help them achieve their goals.  One aspect of the personal marketing plan is to set objectives.  This might include short- and long-term earning goals.  Everyone is different — and you know yourself best — but this article, “At What Price Happiness?  $75,000” (Inc., September 7, 2010) provides some data on the subject.

This article describes a brand extension – where a brand is taken to a new product category.  Tide is known for detergents — and it hopes that its reputation for cleaning carries over to the dry cleaning business.  Tide has found a way to leverage one of its strengths (a well-known and well respected brand name) to take advantage of a great opportunity (strong growth in services, and lack of organized competition in dry cleaning).   Check out “P&G Looks to Franchise Tide Dry Cleaning” at Bloomberg Businessweek (September 2, 2010).

What do you think of Tide’s strategy?  Do you have any suggestions about its target market or marketing mix?  What might be important to Tide’s success?

If you are not familiar with Ryanair’s low-cost business model, this article “Ryanair’s O’Leary: The Duke of Discomfort” (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, September 2, 2010) will bring you up to speed.

What do you think of Ryanair’s approach to air travel?  Does the low service, low price model work for you?  What if the plane’s only had one pilot?

This blog isn’t all about marketing.  We like to pass along study tips when we see them.  This article, “Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits” (New York Times, September 6, 2010)  challenges some of the advice I have been giving my kids and students about studying.

Branding is covered when we look at Product.  This article “Store Brands Give Name Brands a Run for the Money” (brandchannel, September 8, 2010) summarizes some of the findings from a new Consumer Reports study on “Store brands vs. name brands” (October 2010).

What is your experience with store brands?  Will you try them?  Do you think they quality is as good as comparable national brands?  Retailers usually make better margins on store brands — so they like to promote them.

Creativity is such an important skill for today’s businessperson.  While we often think of creativity around marketing — and particularly advertising — creativity is key to all types of problem-solving.  And that is what good business people do, they solve problems.  For marketers today, you need to be creative across the marketing strategy planning process.

This excerpt of a presentation by John Cleese at the Creativity World Forum encapsulates so many useful ideas in just under 11 minutes. Cleese is best known for the television and later movie series titled Monty Python’s Flying Circus.  He also made other movies.  Anyway, the man is brilliant and offers us some great food for thought on creativity.