Week 6 EOC: Me X 3 (times three)

  In the world of consumer products and consumption, I find myself being brand loyal on very specific items.  Mainly due to their superior quality and longevity with their market share, I am confident I am using the best product from companies I have grown to trust.   For example, nothing shall ever replace my Skippy brand peanut butter.  Why?  Because to me, it’s the best. It is creamy,and as i was first introduced, naturally creamy.  Not because they added extra lard to make it smooth, but because they beat the peanuts into a creamy submission.  This is the flavor I am loyal too.

"...a company must identify the parts of the market that it can serve best and most profitably. It must design customer-driven marketing strategies that build the right relationships with the right customers." (Fundamentals of Marketing; pg. 175)

My second product that I am brand loyal with is Downy Liquid fabric Softener.  There was a time in my life when we only had a few choices in this product. And for most of my childhood Downy was the only choice.  Did this create my brand loyalty?  No. I tried other, cheaper, various fragrances, dry sheet and liquid alike.  I came back to downy for a few reasons. I appreciated how long downy held onto the market share in liquid fabric softeners, but more importantly, that they understood environmental impact they make on the world. This is something protector & gamble became aware of in the 1980's. How their products can change, effect and assist the world.  They became ecologically aware that they needed to take responsible for being a super power company.  This pleased me as a customer and made me lifetime loyal.  Now when I use their product I know where some of the profit margin is going; to the the Downy "Touch of Comfort" fund.  Giving hospitals, workers, patients and volunteers funds for quilts.  i am sure they are Downy clean as they are being distributed.

"The brand’s full positioning is called its value proposition— the full mix of benefits upon which the brand is positioned." (Fundamentals of Marketing pg.193)

  My final item that completes my times three post is my one and only brand of Tea. Lipton Tea.  Now, I have become flexible on how I consume this product and in what packaging I purchase this item in. However, let me set the record straight.  When I first introduced to Lipton tea, it was in the form of tea bags that went through a process called sun stewing. We literally hung the tea bags in a large mason canning jar, in the sun, until it was brewed. Not until the mid 1970's did the instant in the jar become available.  There was something about the taste, the rich flavor, the aroma of the Lipton brand that made me loyal.

"The seller can ignore segment differences and target broadly using undifferentiated (or mass) marketing. This involves mass producing, mass distributing, and mass promoting about the same product in about the same way to all consumers: (Fundamentals of Marketing; pg 186)

Lipton's mass media marketing style worked, because for awhile, they owned the instant tea market.  But it was the way the segmented their product into variations of the same thing to accommodate their customers.  What if they had no water available? They could purchase bottled tea.  What if they prefer brewing their own? Guess what, the original bags are still made today.

   These are just three items I have chosen to share with in "Me times three."  trust me, there are many more, for even more stranger reasons.  A company must adjust and listen to the consumers in order to survive. The consumer has become more fickle, more demanding and customer service oriented. Overall, it is clear to me, the big companies, do pay attention to what the consumer wants.  If they didn't (over my 40 year life span) they would not be in business today.

Week 5 EOC: Social Networks and Job Hunting

Building Trust, but Not Value

 Late Saturday, employment website Monster.com launched a professional networking app on Facebook called BeKnown. Users can import work history details from Facebook, LinkedIn, and Monster.com, connect with contacts from these sites, Twitter, or their email, and browse jobs posted by these and their second degree connections.
However, BeKnown does not let recruiters search for job candidates by parameters such as qualifications or work history unless they’re already connected to them. This significantly reduces the service’s value to recruiters, which in turn reduces the value of maintaining a profile on the app to users, as there’s little chance of being passively recruited.
Users may therefore be better off joining a more populated professional network such as LinkedIn or BranchOut, or browsing job boards than having to rebuild their graph on BeKnown.

Brand Ambassadors: Employing Real Customers to Get Out the Word on  Understanding Consumer and Business Buyer Behavior. (Fundamentals of Marketing; Chapter 5 page 143)

The major missing functionality of BeKnown is actually a conscious choice by Monster. The company has decided not to currently allow recruiters to search the profiles of all the app’s users for people who meet the criteria for certain jobs. This is ability is both crucial to recruiters who need to find candidates outside their network, and to users who want to be eligible for discovery based on their skills by recruiters they’re not connected to. Without this feature, users may as well just browse Monster.com.

"Matt Mund, Monster.com's vice president of product management, acknowledged that Facebook as a recruiting platform is growing rapidly. The company, which hosts a job board and other recruiter services, launched its own Facebook app, dubbed BeKnown, in June, and the application now has nearly 800,000 monthly users,according to AppData.com, a market research group. Over the next couple of weeks, the company plans to launch a program where companies can offer employees cash rewards for making referrals through the app."(Job Recruiters Turn to Facebook to Find Candidates -Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved)

  If the creators of BeKnown, truly want to become leaders in the job hunting market, in this high unemployment era, they may want to reconsider their parameters of job searching and qualifying applicants.  Why not have a search engine that acts like a head hunter? Maybe monster will pick up the proverbial dropped ball.

Source: Job Recruiters Turn to Facebook to Find Candidates - WSJ
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/06/27/monster-beknown/

Week 4: EOC : Consumer Vs. Buisness Marketing

The most obvious difference between the two concepts is that business marketing tends to concentrate on the sale of goods and services between businesses. On the other hand consumer marketing is just that…it tends to concentrate on the sale of goods and services to consumers.

Consumer buyer behavior refers to the buying behavior of final consumers—individuals and households that buy goods and services for personal consumption. All of these final consumers combine to make up the consumer market. (Marketing An Introduction: page 4 )

Despite this long history, Only in the last twenty five years has the real understanding of the concepts of business marketing take place. During this period various professionals defined the characteristics of business marketing and defined rules which would shape marketing strategy. Ordinary entrepreneurs now had an opportunity to apply some of these concepts to their own organizations with success by data collecting on demographic, psychological and social factors.

Cultural factors exert a broad and deep influence on consumer behavior. The marketer needs to understand the role played by the buyer’s culture, subculture, and social class.A consumer’s behavior also is influenced by social factors, such as the consumer’s small groups, family, and social roles and status.Two or more people who interact to accomplish individual or mutual goals.(Marketing An Introduction: page 6, 12,13 )

Consumer marketing has been visible to the public, both formal and informal. Seeking the key to consumer's buying decisions and how to control this power.  Furthermore it has been repeated over and over again to the extent that the consumers have entered some form of clandestine pact with the retailers to develop conventions and systems that ease the path towards trade.

A person’s buying choices are further influenced by four major psychological factors: motivation, perception, learning, and beliefs and attitudes.(Marketing An Introduction: page 23)

 Finally, Issues such as credit and barter as well as the cycles of pricing are quite familiar to most consumers, making them less comfortable with the concepts of business marketing. This tends to be the domain of  management and long standing retailers. However because of the inter-connectivity of economic activity, there is scope for both types of marketing to be working together. In layman's terms, give the consumer what they want and they will show brand loyalty, hence good profit margins.

Week 3: EOC: My Demographics

    Generation X is a term used to describe a group of people born from 1965 to the mid or late 1970s in the United States and Canada. This generation follows the powerful Baby Boomer (born 1946-1964) generation which spiked after World War II. Although the term Generation X is used to describe people born in this time period, it has also been used to describe anyone who is “twenty-something” at the time. The biggest impact that Generation X has had on popular culture probably began in the 1980s and peaked in the 1990s.

"While the term Generation X can be used to describe a wide group of people, it has come to be popularly accepted that members of this generation, wrought in the shadow of the Baby Boomers, felt alienated and disenfranchised by the cultural icons of the time. “X” described the lack of identity that members of Generation X felt — they didn’t know where they belonged.  The just knew they did not belong in the overbearing generation of Baby Boomers"(NAS Insights: Getting to Know Generation X,” 2006)

   The media played its part in promoting the Generation X stereotype by portraying them as grunge-listening, Starbucks-drinking, flannel-donning slackers who were quietly revolting against their overachieving, conservative Baby Boomer parents or older siblings. While the term Generation X has been used by a more punk faction of the generation, 

“Increasing parental divorce rates and higher employment for their mothers made them the first generation of latchkey kids. Although they seek success, they are less materialistic; they prize experience, not acquisition.”(Analyzing the Marketing Environment (page 15)

I want my MTV.... the theme song for many Gen Xers, as our world became smaller and the world of mass communication brought our borders closer together.  In turn, increasing our world of commerce and trade of products, merchandising and media. 

“Once labeled as “the MTV generation” and viewed as body-piercing slackers who whined about “McJobs,” the Gen Xers have grown up and are now taking over. They are increasingly displacing the lifestyles, culture, and values of the baby boomers. They are the most educated generation to date and they possess hefty annual purchasing power. However, like the baby boomers, the Gen Xers now face growing economic pressures. Like almost everyone else these days, they are spending more carefully.^{" (}Consumer Behavior 2009, chapter 27 (Atlanta, GA: Richard K. Miller & Associates, 2009).

 While Gen-Xers probably feel passionate about some things, in general they have been portrayed as apathetic, disaffected twenty-somethings with no course in life.This may be the general view point, but most gen Xers will tell you their free style way of life was a trickle down effect from their free-loving, peaceful protesting baby booming parents.  More so, we did also get the need to save and shop wisely from the Baby Boomers. 
    In closing,  the lack of identity for the Generation x demographic group...is the identity. This group may not have know where they wanted to go, but the definitely know where they did nor want to go!
 
Source:   
Marshall Lager, “The Slackers’ X-cellent Adventure,” CRM Magazine, November 1, 2008, pp. 30–33.

Week 2: EOC: Boston Consulting Group - Video Games

    In the world of portfolio planning, the Boston Consulting Group has developed a method, a marketing strategy to build customer relations, referred to as the Growth-Share Matrix.  This strategy allows SBU's to be categorized into 4 basic groups; cash cows, stars, questions marks and dogs.
   After reading the article in the Wall Street Journal (JULY 28, 2009; Videogame Makers Can't Dodge Recession; By YUKARI IWATANI KANE) It is clear to see how the matrix is a true working strategy.
Here is my analogy: 

• Star: download digital data . i phone games
• Question Mark:  Wii / Nintendo
• Cash Cow: PlayStation
• Dog: X box (Microsoft)

"Many console and PC game sales are also being cannibalized by digitally downloaded games and alternative entertainment sources like Apple Inc.'s iPhone, which offers thousands of games that can cost only 99 cents or even nothing at all." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124865158612682399.html)

So what does this mean for the gaming industry?  How about drop in hardware sales or software sales?  Most importantly, would this impact the retail costs? Experts say yes.

"Analysts expect Sony to cut the price on its PS3 by about $100 this year, leading to price cuts by Microsoft on some of its Xbox 360 models. The PS3 starts at about $400, compared with the equivalent Xbox 360, which costs about $300. Though Nintendo has said it won't cut prices on its $250 Wii this year, it is expected to do so indirectly by bundling games with the console." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124865158612682399.html)

So what is the solution to a diminishing demand? Should gaming companies stop producing hardware?  Or should they concentrate on SBU's that enhances their customer base and market share? The leaders at Compuware suggest expansion into IT that optimizes applications.

“Organizations today depend on the rapid development and delivery of high-performing applications to drive revenues, customer satisfaction and brand,” said Compuware Chief Executive Officer Bob Paul. “To meet these demands effectively, IT organizations must have visibility into the performance of every transaction, from development, through test and in production. Together, Compuware and dynaTrace APM solutions allow IT to meet business demands for performance and agility through unbeatable insight into the user experience – whether in cloud, complex or traditional environments.”  (http://www.compuware.com/about/r/Compuware_Acquires_dynaTrace_press_release_final.pdf)

Although the recession and unemployment may factor into a consumers buying power; the desire to game will always remain. Consumers are demanding faster downloads, lower game costs, better graphics and interaction with others. The world wide web was listening and so was the creators of "Happy Cloud."

"Gamers don't want to wait overnight for a download that might get interrupted," says Eric Gastfriend, VP and GM of Happy Cloud. "Happy Cloud offers instant accessibility for top quality PC games. Our technology enables a seamless trial-purchase flow that gives publishers a hassle-free way to expose their games to new audiences. We're launching today with 10 games from 3 publishers, and we will be rapidly expanding the catalog post-launch."( http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/07/18/prweb8649125.DTL#ixzz1SU4tQpcj )

 Games have always been an entertainment to pass time. Cards, dominoes and board games have stayed around for hundreds of years for a reason.

Happy Cloud is opening to customers in the U.S. with games from publishers including Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment, Paradox Interactive, and Frictional Games. No support is required from publishers or developers to bring the games to the cloud on the Happy Cloud. Try or buy a new game today at www.thehappycloud.com.

Source:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/07/18/prweb8649125.DTL#ixzz1SU6qHoiT

Week 1: EOC: Great Customer Service

 I often became frustrated by the way management would handle what I like to call, "customer situations."  This is merely my term for problems.  Let’s face it; we have all had problems with customer service.  Like the time I brought in a sandwich card (with NO expiration date) at the local franchised sub sandwich store, only to be told, it was worthless and no longer honored.  What did I do? I spoke with the manager, debated the lack of expiration date, and was told, "Sorry, corporate policy." It was obvious, my business was not important to them. So, I walked out and went down the street to the competition, Joe’s subs.I told the staff about my customer service at their competitors and guess what Joe's did? They made my meal "complimentary."

"Marketing, more than any other business function, deals with customers. Although we will soon explore more-detailed definitions of marketing, perhaps the simplest definition is this one: Marketing is managing profitable customer relationships. The twofold goal of marketing is to attract new customers by promising superior value and to keep and grow current customers by delivering satisfaction." (Marketing Creating & Capturing; pg 4)