Nilewide Marketing Review articles from April 2003

Nilewide Marketing Review archives from April 2003

Shrinking the megabrand.
April 27, 2003... Leading manufacturers, including Unilever, Danone and Procter & Gamble, have embarked on a strategy based around a few big brands. They intend to focus on only their megabrands, rather than risk spreading themselves thinly across many brands....

Luxury and the sacrificial consumer.
April 27, 2003... Almost by definition luxury brands sacrifice volume for high margins, but now, in the US, there seems to be a new kind of luxury brand that combines volume with high margins. These new luxury brands are not at the super-premium end, but just...

Experiences to commitment.
April 27, 2003... It may be argued that we are moving from a concept of branding that is about the management of perceptions, to one where it is about the management of the experience. In the era of managing perceptions brand success related to awareness and...

Mixed up about metaphors.
April 27, 2003... The usefulness of metaphors in marketing may also make them marketing's worst enemy. This is because metaphors can obscure meanings as well as clarify them. When a metaphor is widely used, it can easily be misperceived to be a term with a...

It is still about talk.
April 27, 2003... A recent study of the way mobile phones are used in the UK confirms that people use them to talk to each other and that talk is not cheap. While mobile penetration is high (nearly 80% of individuals own one) about 75% are on pre-paid plans...

Pluralism in research.
April 27, 2003... Like many other disciplines, market research into consumer behaviour is characterised by many different methodologies that can easily seem to be at odds with each other. This is unfortunate, because choosing one methodology over another may...

Spontaneous shopping.
April 27, 2003... While some people like to plan their shopping trips, others are happy to just wander the aisles and try whatever catches their eye. It seems that this may partly be based on cultural differences. Recent point-of-purchase (PoP) research found...

Demise of a megabrand?
April 27, 2003... As the Golden Arches spread across the planet, it appeared that McDonald's was unstoppable. Now, with the first loss in almost three decades, widespread dissatisfaction with its customer service and continuing obesity litigation, the...

Back to new basics.
April 27, 2003... Despite all the technological options and the fee-based disincentives to use bank branches, it appears that customers still prefer branches when it comes to opening new accounts and buying other financial services products. In the US, this...

The most attributes, not the best.
April 13, 2003... Brand image is generally seen as the key to positioning and positioning is a key factor in brand loyalty. Based on this belief, a number of strategies are employed, including the single key attribute position, a collection of related...

More salience, less defection.
April 13, 2003... The question of what makes a brand salient is an important one, because every brand wants to be "top of mind", which is of course, impossible. A better perspective may come from widening the definition of salience, to being the "probability...

Time for a reality check.
April 13, 2003... Understanding and predicting consumer behaviour is at the very heart of marketing, which makes it all the more surprising, and problematic, that the majority of academic and practitioner consumer research is conducted in artificial...

Why testing is to blame.
April 13, 2003... The continuing high failure rate for new products should be a concern for all managers and researchers. US studies suggest that less than 10% of truly new products are still on the market after 3 years and the costs of failure impact on many...

Advertising as a part of production.
April 13, 2003... One way to resolve the continual debate over the allocation of funds to advertising, is to consider advertising as a factor of production, like R&D, labour, manufacturing, and raw materials etc. This would allow us to use economic planning...

Naming rights boost share price.
April 13, 2003... While sponsorship is an increasingly important marketing tool, measuring its effects remains mired in similar problems those that continue to plague disciplines such as PR. Success is all too often measured in column inches or through...

Easy as pie.
April 13, 2003... One should be wary of anyone who claims to have easy answers to the current difficult trading environment. But one company, the easyGroup, claims a number of strategies provide the answers for its stable of companies, easyJet, easyCar and...

Women are still invisible.
April 13, 2003... While the advertising industry has come a long way in its treatment of women, a new study suggests it still has much further to go. Women still feel patronised by ads (65% of 35-45 year olds), think advertising is old fashioned compared to TV...

Men are feeling negative too.
April 13, 2003... Advertising has always come in for a lot of criticism about its portrayal of women, but a new study shows many men are not too happy with it either. They are just as critical of stereotyping, are tired of being talked to in reference to...

It's the little things that count.
April 6, 2003... It is only to be expected that managers and their service partners tend to spend most of their time managing and monitoring the things they spend most money on. Marketing is no different with most management attention directed to the big...

Trust is not everything.
April 6, 2003... There is no shortage of surveys that show trust in corporations, governments and so-called experts is declining. Underlying much of this interest in trust is the belief that, when people trust the brand or company they will be favourably...

What is trust anyway?
April 6, 2003... Trust, or the lack of it, in companies, brands and institutions continues to be a pressing issue. It is made even more relevant by events, such as the Iraq war, a growing feeling of insecurity, and new developments in corporate governance....

Communities co-create meaning.
April 6, 2003... The way the Internet encourages the formation communities, in particular brand communities, offers managers a continuous real time view of the brand. These communities are usually set up by enthusiasts (those that aren't are not as trusted)...

When it's time to say goodbye.
April 6, 2003... While much is said about the need to have relationships in business, very little is said about ending them. The literature is scant on methods of dissolution, although it does recognise 3 major types of exit: mutual decision, supplier or...

The targeted pricing game.
April 6, 2003... The practice of targeting another company's customers with a one-to-one price promotion is widely used, but is not well understood. This is because it is thought to ultimately bring down prices for everyone, as suggested by the prisoner's...

Why we're agog at Google.
April 6, 2003... Google is one of the Internet's success stories, claiming that its brand recognition is as high as Coke's. It is this level of boldness that characterises the company and at a time when most companies are hunkering down, Google is taking...

Wi-Fi frees the Net.
April 6, 2003... The next trend in the evolving Internet world is Wi-Fi, and it may even be free. For those in the know, and customers at Starbucks, wireless access anywhere, anytime, is already a reality. Since broadband can give many people simultaneous...

Making branding human.
April 6, 2003... With all the focus on shareholder value and corporate efficiency, it could be argued that the humanness has gone out of branding. This is in spite of the constant talk about relationships. Even such mantras as "put the customer first" are...