learnthe4ps.com - For students of marketing.

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?

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?

A couple of interesting stories about how retailers utilize high-tech analytics to better understand customer shopping behavior. I heard “The secret life of discounts” (Marketplace radio, December 16, 2011, link to listen or read the transcript) as I drove to the airport last night to pick up my daughter who was coming home from college. There are some examples about how stores use analytics to try to remain profitable with consumers conditioned to buy only at a steep discount.

In “Big Brother is Watching You Shop” (Bloomberg Businessweek, December 15, 2011), you can read about retailers using in-store video cameras and tracking your cell phone to better understand how you move through a retail store. Analyzing video from a Miami store allowed Montblanc managers to more strategically locate merchandising, signage, and salespeople. The result — a 20% bump in sales. Other retailers follow customers’ cell phone signals to track and map movement through stores. This of course is raising privacy concerns.

What else could stores learn by carefully analyzing video of consumers shopping?  Does it bother you that your cell phone signal allows you to be tracked while you shop?

Marketing is most interesting when you can see many of the concepts you learn tied together.  This article, “Philly Cream Cheese’s Spreading Appeal” (Bloomberg Businessweek, December 12, 2011) shows how some of the different elements you have been learning about in marketing can be tied together – with successful results.

Sales of Philadephia brand cream cheese were pretty much flat (mature or decline stage of the product life cycle) for most of the last decade. Then Kraft researchers (market research) noticed that heavy users of the product were using cream cheese (consumer behavior) as an ingredient in their cooking — not simply as a spread for bagels. Starting in Europe back in 2008, Kraft’s brand managers tapped into social media and the Internet to gather and share recipes using Philadephia brand cream cheese, they promoted it on cooking shows and with contests (Promotion). In the U.K. the share of customers using cream cheese as an ingredient (effective repositioning) has almost doubled to 37% — and sales are up 20% in Europe (results).

This is a great case study of a successful brand revitalization.  Check out the article for more details on the strategy.

The iPhone has considerable market share and mind share among consumers. So how do you break into that market? Maybe you start by copying Apple’s iPad and iPhone. Then you try to differentiate your phone with a larger screen and 4G connection speed. Samsung’s Galaxy 2 S phones have received good reviews.  But then how do you battle that Apple mystique?

These Samsung ads don’t appear to be targeting Apple loyalists who stand in these lines — they are already too loyal to Apple.  And obviously it hits a niche that just hates Apple — but Samsung and Android phones already have a reasonable share of those customers.  The question is, does it work with the larger market segment of customers looking for smartphones and not Apple lovers or haters?   What do you think?  Should Samsung be promoting phone features or image?

It seems that it will only be a matter of time before our cell phones also act as our wallets. They can already act as our phone, videophone, e-mailbox, newspaper, handheld gaming device, music player, GPS, camera, video recorder… Will it change a baby’s diaper some day? That’s an app I haven’t seen yet.

Sorry, I digressed. Katie Boehret wrote a Wall Street Journal review of a new Android smartphone app, “Google Mobile App Aims to Turn Phones Into Wallets” (September 21, 2011, non-subscribers may need to click here).

Read the article and share whether and how you think this app might change consumer shopping behavior?  I know the article doesn’t address this directly, but you will find it useful to anticipate the effects of technology on customer behavior.  So practice your speculation here.

Recent research finds that consumers enjoy online shopping on tablets (like the iPad) more than they do on their standard PCs. All kinds of measures — from conversion rate (orders divided by visits) to order size — are showing this trend. This knowledge is driving online retailers to invest in optimizing the online experience for the tablet shopper. This Wall Street Journal article, “Tablets: Ultimate Buying Machines” (September 28, 2011, non-subscribers may need to click here).

What else do you think that retailers could do to enhance the tablet shopping experience and encourage more sales?  If you have a tablet, do you use it to shop?  If not, try downloading the Amazon.com shopping app — they have two.  Compare that to the shopping experience through the regular website with a browser?

The business side of online games is quite fascinating.  Zynga’s online games for Facebook including – FarmVille with 10% of all Facebook users growing virtual crops online.  Zynga has been adding new games like FishVille and CityVille to appeal to others.

The business has many interesting angles for learning more about marketing.  Consider the following concepts:

• Price and the freemium business model.  Freemium refers to a business model where most customers use a product for free, while a few power users cover costs.  More than 95% of Zynga’s 150 million monthly visitors pay nothing to play its games.  The other 5% pay hundreds and even thousands a year for virtual products that enhance their gaming experience.  For example, $5 might get you a chicken in FarmVille, a skyscraper in CityVille, or an anglerfish in FishVille.  Of course they love to sell these low cost virtual products…
• Fixed and variable costs.  There are minimal fixed costs for creating a new anglerfish, but the variable cost of producing hundreds of thousands of them is very small.  Almost no variable cost.Segmentation and targeting.  In this post at TechCruch (“Who Spends The Most Money In Freemium Games?” September 8, 2011), you can see by age group, who uses mobile freemium games — and who “spends”.  Not surprisingly, while more than half of users are under age 24 — this younger market contributes just 21% of the spending.  Consequently, most of the action in online games targets an older demographic.  And of course a little analytics can identify what products encourage spending…
• Marketing research.   In “Virtual Products, Real Profits,” (Wall Street Journal, September 9, 2011, non-subscribers may need to click here), Zynga’s president of data-analytics says, “We’re an analytics company masquerading as a games company.”  Zynga analyzes game player behavior and adapts the game to get players to play longer or spend more.  For example, after finding that FishVille players bought the translucent anglerfish much more often than other sea creatures, they created more variations on the anglerfish.

Do any of you play these games?  What ideas do you have for improving the customer experience?  What ideas do you have for generating more revenue?

Two recent reports suggest that online reviews and other forms of social media are having a growing influence on consumer buying behavior.  This post at Marketing Charts “Customer Reviews Affect 6 in 10 Online Shoppers” looks at the effects of a variety of different social media on buying.  A blog post at Marketing Pilgrim, “80 Percent of Shoppers Change Purchase Decision Based on Negative Reviews [Research]” (August 31, 2011) highlights research conducted by Cone, a Boston-based marketing agency.  The research demonstrates growth – by comparing 2010 and 2011 – in the use of social media in making purchase decisions.

What about you?  Do you use social media to make purchase decisions?  What type do you use?  Do you trust social media as a source of purchase information?

Marketing managers are increasingly paying attention to the customer’s entire purchase experience. Scholars of the marketing of services have long studied queues and wait times. Smart companies are finding ways to improve the wait experience — and you can read about some examples in this Wall Street Journal article “Fun for the Whole Family: The Long Wait in Line” (August 10, 2011 – non-subscribers may need to click here).

How important do you think it is for a company to manage queues?  For what types of businesses is this most important?  What other ideas do you have — or have you seen other marketers use — to more effectively manage lines?