News You Can Use
Last Updated: May 21, 1997
Keep up to date with happennings that affect the marketing world by selecting an article below:
Article 1: The New Hucksterism
Source: Business Week Magazine July 1, 1996 pp.76-84
Hot Link: http://www.businessweek.com/1996/27/b34821.htm
Related Topics: Ethics in Marketing
Summary: The current generation is skeptical of any sales pitch. In this postmodern advertising, sales messages, once clearly labeled, have been woven subtly into the culture. Stealth pitches are embedded in movies, TV shows, or made into their own tiny entertainments, complete with fictional histories. Ads and even products are packaged to hide the big bucks marketing machines that created them and to obliterate the line between advertising and entertainment and in some casesadvertising and real life. Lots of terrific examples including "The Spot" an internet soap opera built around its advertisers, Diet Coke on TV show "Friends", Seinfeld characters shopping at Price Club and eating Junior Mints, commercials within infomercials, and Martha Stewart, the living brand.
Class Application: Most students think of marketing as the same as advertising and promotion.
arter one explores how marketing discovers consumer needs. This article is an excellent example of
the discussion over whether marketing discovers consumer needs, or whether it creates a popular will that
didn't previously exist. Most students will be familiar with the popular culture examples in the article.
Ask the students if these are examples of marketing, as it is defined in the arter.
Article 2: A Refreshing Change: Vision Statements that Make Sense
Source: Fortune Sept.30, 1996 pp.195-96
Hot Link: http://pathfinder.com/@@OQGIVQQ2k24pCR/fortune/magazine/1996/960930/lea.html
Related topics: Environmental Scanning
Summary: Often, companies work up vision statements by identifying their constituents (customers, employees, etc.), the markets they serve, the pieces of the value chain (manufacturing, wholesale, retail, an so on), they most covet, and how their portfolio of businesses matches them. However, this may lead quickly into disputed territory: Marketing pushes for new lines of business, manufacturing wants to stick to its last; with no empirical basis for resolving the dispute, the twain never meet. Instead, first agree on changedrivers, then in step two figure how each of these incoming waves will affect the value chain. This creates a list of threats and opportunities affecting every line of business. Then finally with a shared view of the world, take a disciplined look at the capabilities and assets the company has or must get if it's to dodge threats, exploit the opportunities and ride the waves.
Class Application: At the beginning of this article is a clever "make your own vision statement" choosing appropriate buzz words from column A, column B Have the students do this using Ford, General Motors and Motorola. Then show them the actual misson/vision statements for these companies. They can be found in a book called Mission Statements.
Article 3: Are You As Good As You Think You Are?
Source: Fortune Sept 30, 1996 pp142-52
Hot Link: http://pathfinder.com/@@OQGIVQQAQ2k24pCR/fortune/magazine/1996/960930/bes.html
Related Topic: Information Technology
Summary: Compare your company with the fastest, smartest, most flexible, and efficient companies around. Looks inside Chrysler, Andersen Window, MBNA and Chevron corporations. What these companies have in common is that they are known as management meccas, places where people come to learn how the best do it. Typically there is no charge for benchmarking visits. The idea is to foster a free exchange of informationit's the business world equivalent of doctors sharing their findings with the medical community at large.
Class Application: If quality is a competitive advantage, ask the class how consumers recognize quality. Are consumers expert enough to recognize it on their own, or can they be influenced by marketing? Make an alphabetical list of car brands. Then re-order the list according to quality. Why would anyone buy cars near the bottom of the list?
Article 4: The Makeover
Source: Forbes Dec 2, 1996 pp135-140
Hot Link: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/120296/5813135a.htm
Related Topics: Ch 5 Global Marketing
Summary: With 2.2million Avon ladies now out selling for it, Avon has adjusted neatly to the demographic change that nearly wrecked it: As its potential customers left the kitchen for the work force, Avon ladies were finding that no one was at home when they pressed the doorbell. But now about 50% of all Avon sales calls are made at the workplace. There are more women in the workforce. They have more financial clout, but less time. Avon is now in the position, by phone, fax and mail, to get cosmetics to themto deliver by hand to home or office at a value they can't beat.
Classroom Application: As baby boomers retire and leave the workforce, who will replace them? What other target markets should Avon identify? What product changes may need to be made for them?
Article 5: Soccer Mom, Enter If You Dare
Source: Business Week Nov 25, 1996 p163
Hot Link: No link available
Related Topics: Mail Order
Summary: TSI sells soccer equipment. Period. Enough to power 5 straight years of 100% revenue growth to $26million in 1996. In the past decade high school soccer participation has increased by 81%, youth registration in soccer leagues has doubled, and the number of colleges fielding women's soccer teams has tripled. Soccer is so wildly popular that it would have been almost impossible for a soccer-related business not to make money over the past few years.
Class Application: How long can TSI ride the wave? What are the strengths and weaknesses of focusing a
business on such a large and powerful wave? What other companies are now in existence that focus on singular trends?
Article 6: The Spirited Brawl Ahead Over Liquor Ads on TV
Source: Business Week Dec 16, 1996
Hot Link: No Link
Related Topics: Cultures
Summary: The Distilled Spirits Council (a Self Regulatory Organization), worried by flagging sales, scuttled its voluntary ban against broadcast ads. If liquor companies persist in advertising on TV the FTC has the muscle to fight back. But the agency's case faces legal difficulties. It must prove that the ads not only target underage consumers but have a harmful effect on them, such as inducing them to drink. Should the FCC deadlock on the issue, Congress is likely to do little more than preach against marketing harmful products to kids. Regulators and lawmakers may have to hope that a public outcry forces the industry to back down.
Class Application: In whose best interest should an SRO operate? Should ethics in marketing change based
on the sales volume?
Article 7: Absolute Folly? Liquor's TV Foray May Create a Backlash Against All Alcohol Ads
Source: Business Week Nov 25, 1996 p. 46
Hot Link: No Link
Related Topics: Demographics
Summary: Liquor companies assault on the airwaves is driven by a two decade drop in liquor consumption. In contrast, wine and beermakers which rank among TV's biggest advertisers have seen sales jump during the same period. Distillers figure their best shot at reversing the decline lies in attracting Generation X consumers. So they've spent millions on new print campaigns aimed at them. But nothing reaches that group as well as television. Even if efforts to get on television fail, spirit makers still could come out ahead. In the current political climate, regulators may even crack down on all alcohol ads. That at least, would level the playing field. Liquor execs insist that their TV ads will avoid time slots that appeal to kids. That could be a hard promise to keep. Spillover to an underage audience is inevitable. Seagram's advertises on the back page of the December issue of Spin magazine, where 48% of the readers are under age 21.
Class Application: If spillover cannot be avoided, should alcohol be prohibited from marketing altogether?
If so, what other products may fall under the new law? Milk, too much fat in kids leads to obesity related illnesses
later in life. Ditto peanut butter.
Article 8: Sundae School
Source: Inc. Magazine Dec 95 p. 29
Hot Link: http://www.inc.com/incmagazine/archives/12950291.html
Related Topic: Distribution
Summary: A CEO tells why it is so difficult to be socially responsible when creating daily business policies. Several years ago I had a run in with Ben and Jerry's when I tried to launch a retail pint ice cream business in Texas. The crucial factor to a successful wholesale ice cream business is access to a quality distributor. I could not obtain distribution access because B&J discouraged distributors from carrying competitive products. Ironically B&J faced the same problem 10 years ago as a small growing company. Ultimately, I could neither gain distribution access nor get the retail business to take off. One could make the case that a socially responsible business like B&J would promote free competition between small and large companies in the marketplace, allowing greater selection and quality for the customer. But I believe that as a publicly held company in a competitive market with fiscal responsibilities to its group of stakeholders, it chose the best possible course for its constituencies.
Class Application: Who are the stakeholders in a corporation? Rank them according to priority. Does the
priority change depending on the situation? How have B&J priorities changed over time? What were the changedrivers?
Article 9: Why the WTO is Stuck in the Mud
Source: Business Week Dec 16, 1996 p.50
Hot Link: No link
Related Topic: Control through Self-Regulation
Summary: Two years after negotiating a pact to end most tariffs on goods and setting up a mechanism for mediating disputes, officials from the US, Europe and Asia still can't agree on the next steps. Sharp disputes remain on setting standards for labor conditions, the pace of opening protected markets to info technology and China's entry into the group. Western governments want open markets, while much of Asia sees these initiatives as unwarranted intrusion into their societies.
Class Application: Should the US impose its workplace or product safety standards on the rest of
the world? What would happen if these laws were passed?
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