Nilewide Marketing Review articles from April 2004

Nilewide Marketing Review archives from April 2004

Careful what you measure.
April 4, 2004... Managers today have an obsession with measurement, as reflected in the mantra, "what gets measured gets managed". However, this can have many side effects, not all of them desirable. For example, if raw sales are the focus, then it is possible...

Unlocking the breadth of trust.
April 4, 2004... The fact that trust quickly becomes a habit means that it tends to receive less scrutiny than it deserves and is often considered rather superficially. The popular view is that trust derives from affinity and esteem, or that we trust people...

The black art of forecasting.
April 4, 2004... Accurately forecasting business cycles is to many managers a black art of economists and these forecasts are often incorrect. Yet, if managers have an understanding of the business cycle and use it as a key tool for decision-making, they are...

Less military thinking.
April 4, 2004... It is very difficult to talk about business without using some military metaphors. Even in ancient Greece, bankers and traders were criticised for treating business as if it were a conflict with winners and losers. The early traders even...

A product that generates loyalty.
April 4, 2004... In many discussions on loyalty, it is often unclear as to exactly what or who is the focus of the customer's loyalty. For example, a customer may be loyal to the product, brand, supplier, group of stores, or an individual store. Loyalty to the...

Persuasion through wishes or duties.
April 4, 2004... The way we perceive an ad depends on many factors, but motivation is one of the most important. Some people are primarily motivated by what they ought to be doing (oughts), which often means that they are trying to prevent some unwanted result...

The irony of brands.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2004... Today's young people are well aware of how marketing works and they often know more about brands than companies realise. However, merely knowing more about brands does not mean that they are more engaged with them. In fact, it appears that...

Video games go mainstream.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2004... Video games are now a US$9.4 bill industry, bigger than the movie box office. They have become mainstream and the key media to reach young people, especially young males. The average gamer is 29, 33% are female and young people consistently...

Information overload.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2004... One of the main benefits of the Net is also one of its main problems. It can be used to deliver large amounts of information, but with this comes the risk of information overload. This risk exists, not just for information in general, but for...

The grey tsunami.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2004... As western countries experience the slow aging of their populations, so it might be expected that the Internet will attract older people and lose its young, trendy image. An American Pew Internet survey found that 22% of people over 65 use the...

Doing what matters.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2004... It is human nature, and probably in the nature of organisations, to attend to what seems most urgent, rather than the more difficult everyday tasks. This is because urgency leaves little room for thought, or even for the taking of...

Searchability.
April 18, 2004... One of the critical changes wrought by the Internet has been the increasing importance of searching for a product or brand. The Net has made it easier to search and led people to become increasingly reliant on Internet search engines, and other...

Reverse direct marketing.
April 18, 2004... The traditional rule that companies make and sell while customers buy and use is fast becoming outmoded. A new concept - reverse direct - means that customers can now say what it is they want to buy, and sellers compete to give them what they...

The need-state portfolio.(market segmentation)
April 18, 2004... Segmentation of need-states is not a new idea, but it is one that is likely to become more common. This is because there is a growing realisation that people buy from a portfolio of brands in most categories and that the choice of brand may...

The frequent flyer fiasco.
April 18, 2004... While frequent flyer programmes have been offered by most airlines for years now, they have not been as successful as hoped. This is because they have not created the kind of loyalty that the airlines wanted, and at an optimal cost for keeping...

The stability of brands.(Brief Article)
April 18, 2004... A natural tendency of humans is to ascribe human qualities to inanimate objects. This is also the case with the concept of the brand, which has been described in terms of its personality. The more popular approaches are based on the Big 5...

Generic ads affect brands.(Generic advertising)
April 18, 2004... Generic advertising in commodity markets, such as milk, fruits and meat and livestock products, has been shown to increase overall demand for the category. However, there have also been a number of court challenges to compulsory contribution to...

Materialism goes on.(Brief Article)
April 18, 2004... The demise of materialism has been a popular prediction since the turn of the century and even more so since September 11, 2001. Proponents have cited a host of trends to support the prediction, including the drop in happiness in spite of...

Super mix models.(marketing )(Brief Article)
April 18, 2004... Market mix models have improved greatly since 2000, according to both academics and consultants. They are increasingly widely used in industries as diverse as grocery, financial services, telecoms, and pharmaceuticals. Their popularity clearly...

Sponsors and knowledge.(Brief Article)
April 18, 2004... One of the obvious goals of event sponsorship is to build the brand, but the success of sponsorship is a chicken or egg question. The key audience for any sponsor is of course those people who are knowledgeable about the event and by some link...

Search me.(Google Inc)
April 18, 2004... The success of Google (as seen through the phrase "to Google" being popular shorthand for searching) may be its strength and weakness. The risk for Google is that it becomes a category-defining expression, similar to Hoover, Kleenex or...

Thinking about thinking.(analysis of marketing)
April 25, 2004... Analysis A cynic might suggest that once economists stop believing in rational economic man, the world really has changed. Yet some economists, led by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman (1), accept that we simply do not think about all the...