learnthe4ps.com - For students of marketing.

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.

The heavy equipment market is dominated by Caterpillar, Deere/Hitachi, and Komatsu, which together account for an 82% market share for excavators weighing at least eight metric tons.  A new kid is trying break in to this market.  Chinese construction equipment maker Luogong has signed up one of its first dealers in the U.S. with Syracuse, NY based Stephenson Equipment.  See “China Treads on New Turf” (Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2011, non-subscribers may need to click here) to learn more.

Outline Luogong’s marketing strategy — target market, product, price, place, and promotion — as noted in the case.  Do you think they will be successful?  Can you think of other marketing strategy ideas that might help Luogong succeed in the U.S. market?

Here at L4Ps, we are always looking for interesting B2B cases. We know that students sometimes find B2C more interesting.  We also know that many of you will be working for B2B companies where growth opportunities are going to be found abroad.  Such is the case for John Deere.  Deere’s stretch goal of doubling sales in the next 8 years will not happen in the slow growth construction and farm equipment markets in North America. So Deere needs to look at international opportunities.

Here is a good article “Deere Enhances Focus on Russia” (Wall Street Journal, March 25, 2011 — non-subscribers click here) featuring one of our favorite companies John Deere.  What if you were a marketing manager heading into Russia?  What information would you need to know to develop an effective marketing strategy?

As we get closer to the end of the semester we get closer to covering pricing.  This is always a challenging topic.  It is nice to see a couple of recent Wall Street Journal articles that address timely pricing challenges. In “Dilemma Over Pricing,” (WSJ, October 21, 2010) rising commodity prices are pressuring profit margins at companies ranging from General Mills to Domino’s and Harley Davidson. Of course the economy has many cautious, price sensitive customers — so firms are treading carefully. In “Raising Prices Pays Off for Some,” (WSJ, October 27, 2010), you can read how a few small companies have raised prices in the current environment.

What do you think about setting prices?  What should firms do when their costs go up and customers are price sensitive?

Some B2B firms have jumped on the social media bandwagon.  Attracted by the relatively low costs.  But it seems to be rough going:  “For ‘B-to-B’ Companies, Finding Facebook ‘Friends’ Can Be a Struggle,” (Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2010 – non-subscribers link here and click on article).

What do you think? Where are the opportunities for social media with B2B?  Are some industries better targets?  How could a B2B company make its Facebook page and news feed more useful?

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?