Nilewide Marketing Review articles from June 2006

Nilewide Marketing Review archives from June 2006

Slowly turning green.(sustainability)
June 4, 2006... Sustainability is widely discussed, but its role in business remains uncertain and, in many companies, entirely absent. Part of the problem is that companies have either ignored it or, as niche brands, thrown themselves wholeheartedly into it....

The pursuit of happiness.(marketing)
June 4, 2006... Marketing is heavily involved, whether it likes to admit it or not, in the pursuit of happiness. The study of happiness is relatively new and, in spite of growing wealth, the statistics still stubbornly show that we are not becoming happier....

The dangerous delights of data.
June 4, 2006... Business press headlines continually extol the virtues of numbers ("Math will rock your world" BusinessWeek). Yet this love affair may be reaching its nadir, as managers over-rely on numbers and forget that numbers can analyse, justify and...

Scientific myopia.(Brief article)
June 4, 2006... The troubles with marketing and market research continue to feature heavily in academic and practitioner media, but all too often there are few proffered solutions. UK academic Nigel Piercy, in an old fashioned rant, hones in on the key...

Hourglass figures.
June 4, 2006... Demographics have a considerable influence over our lives yet they are often overlooked or misunderstood. The wide range of terms to describe, for example, the Millennials (Generation Y, Echo-Boomers, Net Generation) also creates confusion...

Watch where you look.(managers play a vital role )
June 4, 2006... While many companies keep an eye on what their competitors are doing, they may miss the weak signals that come from other sources. Passive scanning is where managers continually use familiar sources, such as market research, trend reports or...

Why Dennis is a dentist.(dentists are more in the name of Dennis)(Brief article)
June 4, 2006... In America. there are a disproportionate number of dentists named Dennis. The reason for this is "implicit egotism": people like to focus on things that remind them of themselves or enhance their self-image. They seem to prefer products or...

The hard truth about reputation.(Brief article)
June 4, 2006... In the battle for sales or market share, it may be tempting to dismiss the "softer" matters like reputation. But if a survey by MORI (UK) and Hill & Knowlton is correct, financial analysts are deeply concerned about reputation and will use it...

Careful how you label it.
June 4, 2006... The way a product is labelled is controlled by regulations, but it also influences how consumers perceive it. A study that compared consumer reactions to supplements versus drugs has some fascinating implications for their behaviour. When using...

What makes us act?(marketing)(Brief article)
June 4, 2006... While marketers are interested in changing people's behaviour, it can be very difficult to find the most effective way to do it. Fear appeals have been widely used with mixed results. However, a recent study claims that this is because fear...

Marketing to avatars.
June 11, 2006... Commercial interest in online games and fantasy worlds reflects estimates that over 10 million people are spending US$10-15 per month and 10 hours per week, to be part of these worlds. At present, most marketer interest centres on product...

Thinking your own thing.
June 11, 2006... In his well-known Posh Spice and Persil speech, Jeremy Bullmore made the point that great brands are famous. Even though the brand is a company's most valuable asset, being famous means this asset resides in the minds of consumers and is owned...

Making a choice for others.(gift giving)(Brief article)
June 11, 2006... Gift-giving, for many people, is fraught with indecision and anxiety. People typically think that others will want more variety and become satiated more quickly than they do. This leads them to make more choices than they would for themselves....

It's about brand feeling.(advertising gains importance)
June 11, 2006... So much of advertising today is based on getting somebody's attention when they are distracted by the mass of everyday stimuli. The belief is or was that attention leads to interest and if someone is interested then they will be persuaded to...

Digital R Us.(online advertising growing)
June 11, 2006... The advertising world is divided into those who still believe in mass media advertising and TV and those who think that digital media will eclipse everything. Statistics that show US magazine ad revenues are declining at 2% per year, and...

A magpie science.
June 11, 2006... One of the earliest management works, In Search of Excellence, legitimised management and created a new genre of business publishing that has shown no signs of abating. This is because managers have a hunger for new ideas and, the more...

Which comes first: ads or PR?
June 11, 2006... All elements of the marketing mix have a role to play in marketing planning and, depending on markets and competitive positions, some are more effective than others. It is widely quoted that PR is more effective than advertising for many...

The cost of pricing research.(marketing)(Brief article)
June 11, 2006... Price research is one of the most fundamental but difficult of marketing tasks. Hypothetical approaches, such as conjoint analyses and contingent valuations, give significantly higher price recommendations than real approaches, such as...

What next for focus groups?(qualitative research)(Brief article)
June 11, 2006... Focus groups remain the backbone of qualitative research, but it is worth pondering whether the way we think about focus groups has changed over the years in line with marketing managers' needs. Focus groups originated in the 1930s, based on...

People are disposable too.
June 11, 2006... The trend for layoffs or downsizing is relatively recent, according to the author of a new book about its consequences. Layoffs used to be a sign of corporate failure; now they are viewed as economically expedient ways to deal with cost...

The mind/brain conundrum.
June 18, 2006... Descartes argued that the mind and brain are made of different stuff, but our fascination (bordering on obsession) with brain science may be leading us towards an equally dangerous position. The more we study the...

Not so simple simplifying.
June 18, 2006... It is easy to divide people into voluntary simplifiers (or as having anti-materialist or environmentalist beliefs) and non-voluntary simplifiers (more common). However, most people are likely to fit somewhere in...

Picking partners.
June 18, 2006... Partnering with other brands is an increasingly popular way to cost effectively differentiate offers and potentially add brand values or change images. It is well recognised that smaller brands often benefit more from...

ROI is too short term.(Return on investment)
June 18, 2006... The need for demonstrable ROI on marketing expenditures is inherently positive, although it can be easily misused. There is no doubt that it helps to focus thinking on what and why actions are being taken. It also...

Beyond strategy.
June 18, 2006... Belief in the centrality and power of strategy seems to permeate business and many consulting firms benefit from helping to understand and shape company strategy. This assumes that creating a strategy is the only way...

Why fans are fans.
June 18, 2006... The passions and perils of sponsorship have been reawakened by the World Cup. Despite the hype sponsors are concerned that recognition of their sponsorships is not as high as it might be. This begs the question of how...

Is search on the money?(Google Inc.)
June 18, 2006... One of the reasons behind Google's success was its development of a search engine that prevented manipulation of search results from the use of tags and multiple keywords to rise up the search results. For a few...

Try before you buy.
June 18, 2006... The idea that customers can be actively involved in innovation is not new but seems to be gaining respect. While some creative departments may be threatened by the idea of customers intruding on their turf, others appear...

Leave it to the experts.
June 18, 2006... Most people would agree that customer service is dropping, whether because it has become too expensive or because our standards have become impossibly high. However, there are probably many times when policies prevent the...

Discounting customer worth.(Brief article)
June 18, 2006... Customer relationship software increasingly allows us to link customer lifetime value to acquisition costs and marketing tactics. It demonstrates that customers acquired at a discount have lower lifetime values. US...