Nilewide Marketing Review articles from March 2006

Nilewide Marketing Review archives from March 2006

Why are we depressed?
March 5, 2006... One conundrum for all wealthy countries is that, in spite of being well off, we face rising problems with divorce, drugs, crime and depression. US psychologist Martin Seligman goes so far as to suggest the west is facing an epidemic of...

The next innovation target.
March 5, 2006... Given the obsession with innovation, it is surprising that most of the thinking on innovation in business is restricted to technology and products. As Gary Hamel points out, most of these innovations are rather easily copied and their...

Measuring ethics.
March 5, 2006... Ethics is a topic that is never far away from the business and marketing media today. This is in some ways odd as most companies devote considerable time to ethical matters. One perspective on why there is an apparent gap between the interest...

See your brand in court.
March 5, 2006... In July 2005 the Wall Street Journal suggested that the CEO of chipmaker AMD knew that a lawsuit against larger rival Intel was just as much a branding exercise as a challenge to Intel's behaviour. However, most companies do not consider the...

Advertising, generally.
March 5, 2006... In recent times, advertising has been much maligned. It is fashionable to criticise it and it seems few people are willing to question many of the myths of advertising: it shapes consumer preferences, repetition makes it effective, the effects...

The dawning of cost per response.(Brief Article)
March 5, 2006... Mainstream advertising has always been the domain of larger businesses. While local newspapers and the Yellow Pages have generated revenues from small businesses, major search engines are now developing the tools that will truly appeal to small...

Glocal mergers and acquisitions.
March 5, 2006... Mergers and acquisitions frequently stir up emotions related to the loss of local companies to foreign buyers. The usual cry from embattled CEOs and boards is for a form of protectionism based on nationality or culture. "They do not understand...

When more is less.(Brief Article)
March 5, 2006... In business the economics of scarcity seem so fundamental that we ignore them. It seems obvious that the more we produce, the more value we create, within certain constraints and conditions. These economics of scarcity also apply to how we...

Surfing just for fun.
March 5, 2006... The two major uses of the internet are email (52% of net users on any day) and searching (38% of users on any day) but, in 2005, US internet researcher Pew Internet found that simply surfing with no particular purpose had become far more...

The changing brain.
March 12, 2006... Research into the structure of the brain has excited not only scientists but many marketers. While the developments are important it is becoming clear that some of our most basic beliefs about the brain will have to change. Perhaps the most...

Middlescence =; fed up with work!
March 12, 2006... The baby boomers are the wealthiest generation to date, but they could also be the generation most dissatisfied with their work. As they approach retirement age, they appear to be working more, enjoying it less, and looking for alternatives. Of...

Misplaced loyalty.
March 12, 2006... Retention marketing (or loyalty marketing) has received far more attention from academics, and investment from many practitioners, than acquisition marketing. The primary reason is the widespread acceptance of the purported extra value of...

Loyalty cards run hard to stand still.
March 12, 2006... While much has been written on loyalty programs, both positive and negative, there is still relatively little rigorous analysis of their success in real, competitive markets. Indeed much of the discussion of loyalty programs is based on the...

One or more channels?
March 12, 2006... One perennial question for marketers is whether to go direct or use indirect distribution partners. It is interesting that many companies are increasingly using both strategies concurrently, despite the risk of channel conflict and the...

RFID: more than a barcode?
March 12, 2006... The battle lines over the future of RFID tags appear to have been drawn. On one side, retailers claim convenience and efficiencies from using tags will lead to great acceptance. For example, the tags should be able to track items placed in a...

Search as the interface.
March 12, 2006... As search company shares come under pressure from analysts concerned about their ability to maintain advertising revenues, a co-founder of both Wired and The Industry Standard, suggests we may be missing the point about search. While...

RSS feeds avoid charges.(really simple syndication)
March 12, 2006... The announcement by AOL and Yahoo that they would work with Goodmail to offer preferential service for a fee of 25 US cents for bulk emails has created significant controversy. (They would initially guarantee delivery to an inbox with all...

From the popular to the obscure.
March 12, 2006... Nothing demonstrates the reality of over communication more than the net, with the estimate that in 2002 the amount of new information created was the equivalent of 30ft of books for every man woman and child on the planet. As the creation of...

Penney for your thoughts.
March 12, 2006... As markets split into discount and premium, it is conventional wisdom that the midmarket is no-mans land and a dangerous place to be. This view seems to be confirmed by mergers at the ends of the spectrum and traditional midmarket retailers...

Branding for losers.(Brief article)
March 19, 2006... The language used in branding is often so complex that it appears as if branding itself is a complex exercise. Much of the jargon is metaphorical, and littered with "peeling back brand onions", "brand pyramids" or "breakthrough creatives". At a...

RM cannot hide sameness.(Relationship marketing)(Brief article)
March 19, 2006... Relationship marketing (RM) has made many claims, but the problem for most marketers is that some customers maintain their relationship while others leave, especially in the common low involvement categories. Clearly, these customers are...

The message is only the beginning.(Brief article)
March 19, 2006... Communication is important, but even persuasive communication is still a long way from changing ingrained behaviours. The smoker will still light up when looking at an anti-smoking ad, after reconciling the conflicting thoughts that smoking...

Why the tale gets worse.(Retailer industry)(Brief article)
March 19, 2006... The importance of negative word-of-mouth, as opposed to customers complaining to a company, is being reinforced in many industries. Christmas 2005 again highlighted the problem in the US. At this time, only 6% of shoppers who experienced a...

Once upon a time….(marketing literature)(Brief article)
March 19, 2006... In 2004 The Economist made a wry observation about management books: "The formula seems to be: keep the sentences short, the wisdom homespun and the typography aggressive; offer lots of anecdotes, relevant or not; and put an animal in the title...

Feeling rushed.
March 19, 2006... Time may be money but it is also the resource many people lack. About 26% of US women and 21% of US men always feel rushed. Working women feel more rushed than working men and mothers of under 18 children feel more rushed than fathers. But is...

The risks of new.(technological innovations)(product survival)
March 19, 2006... Just as history is littered with companies who nobly failed with their technological innovations, the literature is full of competing opinions as to whether it is the pioneers or the followers who succeed. It seems likely that both are true in...

First brand is the luckiest.(consumer behavior)
March 19, 2006... While much brand purchasing is habitual, there are times when people are forced to reassess their habits. These include new lifestages, for example, moving house, having a child, starting college, or the launch of new subcategories, such as a...

Choking on features.(competitive market)
March 19, 2006... Adding new features to create temporary differentiation in competitive markets appears to be standard today, as witnessed by the massive number of features on the latest mobile phones. Adding extra features is supported by many common market...

A good choice: it feels right.
March 19, 2006... People make choices every day, but economic theory says that the way they make the choice should not affect their idea of the value of that choice. The theory of regulatory fit contradicts this theory. It says the manner in which someone...

The real or virtual me?(advertising methods)
March 19, 2006... The idea that advertising has always aimed for the ideal self, rather than the normal self, is the basis on which many brands are promoted. On the internet, people are able to be their normal selves, their ideal selves, or any other character...

Violence in ads is still a taboo.
March 19, 2006... One of the ways that ads try to break through the clutter is through the shock value of those perennial taboos: sex and death. Although today it may be tempting to think that neither sex nor death should have the power to shock anymore. But a...

Searching for a future.
March 26, 2006... Analysis Communications dominate much of marketing's thinking and actions, yet there is no doubt that marketing should be far more than communications and promotions. Companies expel a constant barrage of information, in a multitude of...