Nilewide Marketing Review articles from April 2005

Nilewide Marketing Review archives from April 2005

Measured, but not read?(assessing effectiveness of marketing campaigns - measurement and methods)
April 3, 2005... Analysis A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures. Daniel Webster, US diplomat It is a brave man or woman who opposes the prevailing wisdom that accountability is the key to marketing's future....

Have a good TRIP.(research of marketing models)
April 10, 2005... Malcolm Gladwell's tipping point captured the imagination of many in the business world. And we should not be surprised that Irish academic, Steven Brown, invented his own version, the Tripping Point. This is the point at which everything goes...

Leaving space for imagination.(marketing as per consumer behaviour)
April 10, 2005... Postmodern theory offers many ways of looking at consumption behaviour, in particular, how people frame their self and social identities. Much of the talk about fragmented markets and the inability to pin the consumer down is based on the...

Make it easy.(analysis of marketing models)
April 10, 2005... The principles of lean production have taken hold in manufacturing and there are many companies that have become leaner to become more efficient. This concept must now be applied to the customer - lean consumption. For too long, customers have...

A capital idea.(analysis of marketing models)
April 10, 2005... The concept of customer capital offers some important directions for marketing, but whether it will help to overcome marketing's poor standing with boards is another question. Tim Ambler points out that, while the concept has benefits for...

Product or brand?(marketing)
April 10, 2005... Despite the books, academic research and views of a multitude suppliers to marketing departments, many companies still think product rather than brand. While the textbooks and brand experts suggest this will damage these companies, it appears...

It's about the strategic decisions.(strategic planning in businesss)
April 10, 2005... In their new book, Blue Ocean Strategy, Kim Chan and Renee Mauborgne suggest it is the way senior managers think about strategy that limits most of them to fighting in diminishing markets instead of creating high growth potential in new...

Marketing ironies.(Brief Article)
April 10, 2005... It is undeniable that, the more labour saving devices we have invented, the more hours we seem to spend working. In the corporate world, in spite of automation, reengineering and efficiencies, average work time is increasing, especially outside...

No more stereotypes!(study of feminists)(Brief Article)
April 10, 2005... Many people believe feminists have led the deluge of complaints against advertising that is seen as stereotyping or sexist. In a number of countries, it is known that serial complainers tend to be older, white collar females, with strong...

Relationship marketing and gender.(research)(Brief Article)
April 10, 2005... While the popular press has focused on the differences between males and females and its implications for relationships (eg, Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus), it is interesting that relationship marketing in all its forms has failed...

When you feel like it.(research on consumer preferences)(Brief Article)
April 10, 2005... Most people vary in their desire for variety in their consumption; sometimes they seek it and at other times they prefer to stay with what they know and trust. Some research suggests that we are more likely to look for variety when in need of...

Watch your language!
April 17, 2005... It seems inevitable that for marketers the coming year will be harder than the last, with the plethora of problems now well known including everything from fragmenting media, to the rise of discounters and home brands. As a consequence managers...

A lost soul?
April 17, 2005... As an employee's commitment to and engagement with the company and brand remain the key to much brand success, it is interesting to reflect on the current status of the search for meaning or soul in the workplace. The corporate soul movement...

Recreation of value.
April 17, 2005... Don Schultz and his partner have suggested that marketing should destroy and recreate the 4Ps, by concentrating on the demand side - taking the view of the customer. They call it SIVA - solutions (products), information (promotion), value...

Is the customer or the company satisfied?
April 17, 2005... The mantra of customer-centrism and satisfying the customer continues to echo through the corridors of business. There is no denying its intrinsic appeal - satisfied customers are more likely to buy again and, if we know what the customer...

Long road to customer focus.
April 17, 2005... Despite all the money spent on CRM and the advice of countless experts, many companies have got no closer to their customers. This is probably because, all too often, getting closer to customers has meant building an information technology...

Same end, different path.(Brief Article)
April 17, 2005... There is a great deal of research on how consumers respond to advertising, but even before that, the ad agency and client manager must evaluate it. It might be expected that the agency and the client manager would see the ad in different ways,...

Ideas not agreement from online groups.(Brief Article)
April 17, 2005... Despite the wide penetration of the Internet, there remain concerns over the use of computer-mediated focus groups. This is despite the benefits, in particular, the increased generation of ideas compared to traditional groups, appearing to be...

What boards are really thinking.(Brief Article)
April 17, 2005... It is often stated that marketing has a poor reputation in the boardrooms of major companies all over the world. Yet, in the wake of many corporate scandals, it is not surprising that boards have been more consumed by other aspects of business,...

Finding a voice.(Brief Article)
April 17, 2005... Since the advent of the internet, it has become more common for amateurs of every persuasion to have a voice. Blogging is one example, where anyone with a talent for expressing themselves in the context of other voices, can be widely read. In...

Why marketing loves HR.(Brief Article)
April 17, 2005... Many definitions of the brand include some understanding that the people within an organisation, in some way, "live" the brand. This becomes impossible unless marketing and HR are working together to facilitate this approach. In fact, there are...

The new doesn't replace the old.
April 24, 2005... The act of marketing has been done ever since there was economic trade. Despite perceptions that marketing is new, traders have always built relationships with customers and, in today's terms, built their own brand equity. Early scholars, such...

Where to for FMCG?(Fast Moving Consumer Goods)
April 24, 2005... The glory days for the major consumer goods companies seem to have disappeared, amid recent rounds of profit warnings and major acquisitions. According to McKinsey, this is because the main strategies of the 1990s have run their course. The...

Back to the centre.(Booz-Allen Hamilton)
April 24, 2005... Booz-Allen Hamilton has many similar views to McKinsey on the best directions for struggling consumer goods companies. However, Booz-Allen focuses its attention on organisational issues, such as the recentralising of power within these...

Strategic segmentation.
April 24, 2005... Segmentation is being integrated into most parts of large US companies and in some companies, such as Sony, is being used to drive strategy development and corporate structure. But there are weaknesses in many companies' approaches to...

Plan, process and implement.
April 24, 2005... While there may still be debate about the absolute benefits to business performance from segmentation as a strategic tool, there is anecdotal evidence that at least some companies benefit from its use. The fact many have not taken segmentation...

Responsibility for the data.
April 24, 2005... Despite the image of ever more accurate data in marketing research, the reality is that the sources of data and how they are used have serious limitations. Instead of avoiding these issues, it may be time, as a number of leading researchers...

No business acumen.(funds needed for marketing department)(Brief Article)
April 24, 2005... The image of marketers continues to be on the wane, as a McKinsey survey of 30 European CEOs and CMOs shows that more than half of the CEOs are less than impressed with the business acumen of their heads of marketing. They complain that they...

Happy means healthy.(happiness cures diseases)(Brief Article)
April 24, 2005... While we know that we adapt to the things that make us happy (reducing their ability to do so) it is now increasingly apparent that happiness is good for us physically. A range of medical research projects have come up with results that suggest...

Make it easy to process.(Brand identity)(Brief Article)
April 24, 2005... It is widely acknowledged that what people know about a brand influences their preference for it. More recent research suggests that ease of processing information about the brand is also very important. This comes from a series of studies...