learnthe4ps.com - For students of marketing.

Mattel’s Hot Wheels have a mom problem. Many toy purchases are made by mothers. Moreover mothers often (and more frequently than fathers) supervise their children’s playtime. But many moms don’t understand “car toys” like Hot Wheels. On the other hand, according to Mattel research, moms have a pretty good feel for action figures. I guess that Batman and Buzz Light Year action figures are a lot like the dolls most moms played with when they grew up. Consequently, moms are being blamed for three years of flat sales of  Mattel’s big three car toy brands (Hot Wheels, Matchbox, and Tyco R/C).  Or, maybe more appropriately, they are blaming themselves for not understanding moms.  So Mattel marketing managers are making an effort to change this.

This Bloomberg Businessweek article, “Mattel’s Mom Issue: They Really Don’t Get Hot Wheels” (February 21, 2013) describes this problem in more detail, along with a focus group of mommy bloggers where Mattel executives tried to better understand this problem.

Read the article. Do you agree with Mattel’s diagnosis of the “mom problem”? If you were the brand manager for one of Mattel’s car toy brands, what would you do to jumpstart sales?

Retailers have become increasingly savvy in their merchandising strategies.  These two slide shows  are designed to show consumers how to save money at two of America’s most successful retailers.  They also offer insights into the sophistication of today’s retailer.  These examples should be particularly relevant because many of our students shop at Target — and probably aspire to shop more at Whole Foods.  See “How to Shop Target Like a Pro,” (January 3, 2013) and “Whole Foods Cracked” (November 21, 2013).  We have also posted these at Learn the 4 Ps.

What other tricks of the trade have you seen at Target?  Whole Foods?  What other retailers have impressed you?  Offer some examples of their marketing strategies?

In spite of an aggressive advertising campaign (the ad below for example, was one of  the 10 most viral tech ads of 2012), a nice looking product with a cool cover/keyboard feature, and the Microsoft brand name (is that an advantage?), the Surface tablet appears to be falling short of sales targets.  An article at All Things D suggests that a ”Lack of Distribution is ‘Killing’ Surface” (December 5, 2012).

What do you think?  Is Place the problem?  How about Price?  Promotion? Product?  Target market?  Which of these marketing strategy elements are the biggest reasons for the slow initial sales of the Surface?

Seth Godin has a great way to simplify complicated ideas.  As we all know, marketing can be complicated.  At some level, marketing is all about making “Useful and believable promises” (Seth Godin’s Blog, October 10, 2012).

How does Nike make itself more useful?  More believable?  How does Walmart make itself more useful?  More believable?

Many readers of Learn the 4 Ps may not be old enough to have purchased vinyl records.  But even in the possibly 20 years many of you have been around, the product-market for music has changed dramatically.  Two big drivers of change have been technology and consumer behavior. A couple of recent articles from CNN.com “Young listeners opting to stream, not own music,” (June 16, 2012) and “Teens’ first choice for music listening? YouTube” provide some insights into the latest trends.

These changes have forced musicians to find new ways to make money. A recent NPR series highlighted some of the new models, see: “How Musicians Make Money (By The Fraction Of A Cent) On Spotify (September 26, 2012), “Crowd Funding For Musicians Isn’t The Future; It’s The Present” (Sepember 25, 2012) and “YouTube Shares Ad Revenue with Musicians, But Does It Add Up?” (September 27, 2012).

This raises some questions:  What would be a good marketing strategy for a musician today?  Think about the entire marketing strategy — target market, product, price, place, and promotion?  How important is marketing for today’s musician?  Do you think it is more or less important than in the past?

Japan’s population is aging rapidly — by 2025 its median age will be 50 years old.  The country’s largest mobile phone network operator, DoCoMo, is going after that target market by designing smart phones for the elderly. The older demographic might be a good one for smart phones — right now only 6% own one. But maybe there is a reason only 6% have smart phones. This reminds me of the story of the two shoe salesmen sent to Africa to see if there was a market for their product. One reports back, “This is a terrible business opportunity, no one wears shoes here.” The other reports, “This is a great opportunity, no one wears shoes here.”

DoCoMo sees opportunity, and they have designed voice controlled phones (like iPhone’s Siri) and phones with on-screen buttons that automate common activities like writing an e-mail. This Bloomberg Businessweek article, “DoCoMo Looks for Growth Among Japan’s Elderly,” (June 28, 2012) also describes some of DoCoMo’s promotion efforts.

Read the article, check out the video clip.  What else could DoCoMo do to make smart phones more appealing to elderly Japanese?  Think about all four Ps.

Marketing Charts summarizes research conducted by BIGInsight in “Creative Grocery Shopping The ‘New Normal’ Post-Recession” (May 22, 2012). Somewhat surprising was the finding that consumers are spending more on groceries now than they were before the recession (maybe less eating out? — they don’t say). Not surprising is how consumers have changed their shopping behavior – preparing more lists, using more digital resources before they go shopping, shopping closer to home and visiting more stores. You can find the exact data in the article.

Take a read through the article.  Do you think that this is the “new normal” or will shoppers return to pre-recession habits after they feel more flush?  How do you think this will affect the marketing strategy for Coca Cola?  For a major grocery store chain?

Interesting little story of social entrepreneurship on NPR, “Company Ties Shoes And Ethics Together” (April 7, 2012). Gideon Shoes was born out of a desire to support The Street University, a retreat for marginalized kids in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia.

The shoes are not cheap ($190 – $320 a pair), in part because the company emphasizes production in safe, ethical, highly monitored conditions — significantly raising production costs. The company has done a marvelous job generating publicity, but right now is selling just about 60 pair of shoes per month.

The story brings to mind another social entrepreneurship venture in the shoe biz — Toms (read or listen to more at “‘Soul Mates’: Shoe Entrepreneur Finds Love In Giving,” NPR All Things Considered, November 26, 2010).

Read or listen to the story about Gideon Shoes.  Keeping in mind the company’s values and limited resources, what marketing strategy advice do you have for Gideon Shoes?  Offer a target market and make some suggestions for Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.

Did you know that only 40% of British households own a dishwasher? That compares to 78% market penetration in the U.S., 77% in Germany, and 52% in France. Did you also know that dishwashers are more economical and use less water than washing by hand? So why aren’t the British buying more dishwashers? It appears that at least part of the problem comes from a lack of understanding about the benefits. You can read about a marketing strategy that hopes to change these numbers in “Will More Britons Buy Dishwashers?” (Bloomberg Businessweek, March 22, 2012).

Changing engrained consumer behavior can be a challenge.  It is not like appliance makers have not been trying hard to get the Brits to buy more dishwashers.  What do you think of this marketing strategy? What other ideas can you think of that might work?  What assumptions about British consumer behavior are you making with your suggestions?  If you understand your assumptions you can do market research to test those assumptions.

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?

NOTE (January 17, 2013):  Sorry.  I expected this to be somewhat self-explanatory.  I figured that professors could show it in class with some added narration.  I thought students might get something out of just clicking through on their own. Prezi does not have good sound elements — where it is easy to add narration.