Nilewide Marketing Review articles from January 2005

Nilewide Marketing Review archives from January 2005

Not happy, technically.(influence of technology on society)
January 23, 2005... One of the fascinating aspects of technology is that it pervades every area of life and yet it is difficult to remember exactly how this happened. According to James Surowiecki, it is because many decisions about new technologies are based on...

Doing good, good business.(Nike Inc.)
January 23, 2005... In nearly 15 years, Nike has gone from being the epitome of the worst global labour practices (perhaps an unjust mantle) to one of the leaders in addressing global supply chains and their impacts on developing countries. In this transformation,...

How to plan for surprises.(business predictions)
January 23, 2005... There seem to be two types of people: those who believe that it is impossible to predict the future, and those who think it is possible to foresee and avoid nasty surprises. Authors of a new book, Predictable Surprises, believe that many...

Be cautiously inventive.(conservative innovation - marketing concept)(Nicholas Carr)
January 23, 2005... There are many claims that the first mover has an advantage with a disruptive innovation, and there are just as many supporters of the view that second movers or fast followers become market leaders. Business writer Nicholas Carr proposes a...

Quick thinking!(Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking)(Malcolm Gladwell)(Book Review)
January 23, 2005... Most people will be familiar with Malcolm Gladwell's "tipping point", though it was the economist, Thomas Schelling, who first explored the idea. Howard Schultz even publicly attributed the success of Starbucks to the concept of the tipping...

How to be insightful.(business planning)
January 23, 2005... The quest for insight may gradually be bridging the divide between the collection of more and more data and creative thinking. Even so, there is still a lack of understanding of what insight really is and how it is generated. One perspective,...

The herd is in our genes.(decision making)(Brief Article)
January 23, 2005... Irrational exuberance may have led to the dot-com craze and other economic bubbles but, while many may have lost money, this form of herd-like behaviour may be part of our genetic make up, due to its potential positive effects. Being part of a...

The frustration of IT.(Information technology services and consumers)(Brief Article)
January 23, 2005... The emphasis on brand building and brand awareness in technology sectors may be adding to consumer frustration and reducing the probability of purchase. This is because consumers experience at least two types of frustration in technology...

Stealthy or sneaky?(Advertising campaigns)(Brief Article)
January 23, 2005... It may be harder to create advertising that cuts through, but there is no shortage of techniques under the umbrella of "covert" or "stealth" marketing. Moreover, this form of marketing is nothing new, as tobacco companies used it in the 1970s...

Fail to see.(failed business plans - reviewing)(Brief Article)
January 23, 2005... It is common practice to look at successful companies and see what strategies and processes they used to get there. Unfortunately, this creates a bias towards learning from successful companies, and ignores the lessons from companies that...

Superpremium beware!(superpremium brands)
January 30, 2005... Growing interest in premium and superpremium brands often fails to recognise how different these brands are from mass market brands, and how many fall by the wayside as marketers try to push them into more mass markets. The fundamental basis of...

Mass luxury and eventing.(Product differentiation)
January 30, 2005... The separation of markets into discount and luxury (or premium plus) stratas is set to continue if the futurists in a number of countries are to be believed. However, the German Future Institute points out that the two are not mutually...

Keeping the ambiguity.(business and the arts)
January 30, 2005... There has been no shortage of encouragement for business people to look outside the world of business if they are to better understand the realities of decision-making and the world. However, insight into what may be learnt has been limited,...

Beating the competition.(competitive strategy)
January 30, 2005... McKinsey argues that we are entering a period of even more intense competition driven by the burgeoning supply side of production. There is an oversupply of cheap global labour, capital, capacity, infrastructure and information, and it is going...

Why choice is good for you.(marketing trends)
January 30, 2005... The recent press on the abundance of choice in daily life has tended to be quite negative, thanks to Schwartz's book, The Paradox of Choice. Yet, his belief that there is a link between choice, clinical depression and suicide, may be stretching...

What searchers don't know.(search engines)
January 30, 2005... Search marketing is one of the hot areas of marketing on the internet, but a recent US study raises serious questions about what search engine users know about the way paid results emerge on search engines. The study by Pew Internet in the USA...

Freedom of speech?
January 30, 2005... Amid calls for tighter regulation of advertising to children (and of some products) to combat obesity, there are growing protests that such regulation impinges on the right to freedom of speech. This is especially so in the USA where freedom of...

Love the one you're with.(brand positivity effect )(Brief Article)
January 30, 2005... In a world of multitudinous choice, it may seem unlikely that anyone ever considers a brand in isolation. However, consumers are often faced with a single brand and have to evaluate it in isolation, for example, a brand on display at the end of...

TV for tots is a turn-off.(children and television)(Brief Article)
January 30, 2005... TV for children has always been an emotive topic, and continues to be so because children seem to be growing up so rapidly. While it used to be five and six-year-olds watching Sesame Street, they now tend to be three or four. This trend is...

More than a man or woman.
January 30, 2005... One of the most basic demographic factors, one's biological sex, is often taken for granted. Yet classifying someone into either male or female overlooks the fact that a woman may have many masculine traits or a man may possess some female...