Nilewide Marketing Review articles from May 2004

Nilewide Marketing Review archives from May 2004

Making social networking pay.
May 2, 2004... Social networking is nothing new as people have been exchanging information through social groups since time began. Although, today the common use of the term social networking seems to revolve around the potential ways that IT can be used to...

An end to the bombardment?(marketing and advertisement)
May 2, 2004... In a widely reported speech, to the leaders of the US ad industry at their 2004 annual conference, the head of US research company Yankelovich drove home that it is not just the pariahs of spam and outbound telemarketing that are disliked by...

Another macho boast.(business creativity)
May 2, 2004... Consultants and academics have long preached the importance of becoming more innovative and in turn devised and promoted a range of processes and organisational structures to hasten innovation. However, this flies in the face of an increasing...

The benefits of playing hard.(business success)
May 2, 2004... Judging by the success of books, such as Who moved my cheese? or Fish!, and by headlines, such as "Can anyone stop Toyota?" or "Is Wal-Mart too powerful?", business is currently concerned with issues beyond just power and winning. Then again,...

Seven myths of governance.
May 2, 2004... If the amount of media space is anything to go by, companies are paying more attention to the need for better corporate governance. However, like any other hot topic, corporate governance is shrouded in myths. One is that companies that already...

Ethics and neuromarketing.
May 2, 2004... The use of medical imaging technology to understand how the brain works and then how it responds to different products and marketing activities has created significant excitement among some marketers, and major companies have begun preliminary...

Reality research.(ethnography)(Brief Article)
May 2, 2004... The use of ethnography in market research has been around since the 1930s but more recently has fallen out of favour, because the quantitative side of research is seen as more actionable (and more affordable). Ethnography today has been...

Gee! Mail with ads.(Brief Article)
May 2, 2004... Everyone looks to Google as a fine example of what to do with the Internet. However, its latest offer may not be what many had hoped for. It plans to offer a free email service, called Gmail, which gives users 1GB of storage and the ability to...

Caught the virus?(viral marketing)
May 2, 2004... The Internet has hastened the trend for viral marketing, although the use of the word, "virus" may be more accurate than intended. In spite of research into the common cold, there are no more answers about that than there are about viral...

Is choice making us unhappy?
May 9, 2004... The belief that we want more choice is a fundamental driver of markets today. It is also the mantra that drives privatisation of public assets and it underpins the push to customisation. Yet, as choice has risen dramatically, particularly in...

Choice in the brain.
May 9, 2004... Studies using brain imaging, such as functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fMRI), MEG or PET, are in their infancy. However, they offer insights into the way people make consumption decisions, and could potentially change the nature of market...

Kids have their say.
May 9, 2004... Few parents would be surprised to learn that, while shopping with their parents, children try to influence a purchase every two minutes. How children influence household purchases should therefore be a pressing concern for all marketers....

Beyond ROI for online.(Returns on Investment)
May 9, 2004... The online media industry, from search sites to direct response media and marketing professionals, continues to hitch its wagon to accountability, or ROI, as its key differentiator from more traditional media. Yet, it seems to be that as the...

A long way to CSR.(Corporate Social Responsibility)
May 9, 2004... A recent UK conference, organised by Spiked and Hill & Knowlton, highlights that while Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), is now an industry in its own right and an issue for all companies, its future and potential benefits are still hazy....

Harnessing the laws of nature.
May 9, 2004... It was Stephen Hawking who said, "I think the next century will be the century of complexity", and in the past few years, complexity science has found its way into management. This is because an organisation is a living entity and, in turn,...

Out of stock.(consumer behavior)(Brief Article)
May 9, 2004... At any time in stores all over the world, about 8% of goods are out of stock. This would not be a problem for the retailer if the customer simply substituted something else. But shoppers actually have five options: substitute the same brand,...

Internet users mature.(Brief Article)
May 9, 2004... Pew Internet has been regularly tracking US Internet use and trends there tend to be replicated elsewhere (except for parts of south-east Asia which precede America technologically). The most recent figures suggest that use of the Internet is...

I want it, but you buy it.(loyalty of consumers)
May 16, 2004... Loyalty has been much discussed in the literature and is clearly one of the main obsessions of business. A loyal customer, by anyone's definition (and there are many definitions), is more valuable than a disloyal one. However, there is one type...

Managing the customer portfolio.
May 16, 2004... In the early days of marketing, it was important for companies to opt for economies of scale. Today, they are more likely to seek to initiate and develop relationships with their customers. However, concentrating on existing customers may...

Interactive advertising revisited.
May 16, 2004... Interactive advertising is a broad term whose meaning is often confusing and variable. Most definitions agree that it involves information presented through some technological means, such as a computer or mobile phone. It also offers sustained...

A story for each goal.(Brief Article)
May 16, 2004... Storytelling is a more established practice in business these days, though it may still appear non-rational or flimsy to some managers. In fact, there are rules for telling a story that, if broken, can lead to the opposite effect than that...

Too much responsibility?(corporate social responsibility)
May 16, 2004... It appears that many companies are taking their responsibilities towards society very seriously. Kraft's decision to fight obesity, Microsoft's decision to close down its chat rooms, and many community-type activities by major companies suggest...

Keep the walls up.(business competition)
May 16, 2004... It is currently fashionable to claim that the days of the traditional company are numbered. Technology can facilitate the seamless collaborations of groups for ad hoc or continuing projects and, with transaction costs forced down, many...

Pricing the bundle.(product pricing)
May 16, 2004... It is common practice to bundle products together and make the offer price less than the total price of each component product. Previous research has claimed that people are more likely to value the discount on the focal product (the one they...

Share the innovation risk.(business creativity)
May 16, 2004... Any kind of innovation carries a risk, sometimes substantial, and companies need to do all they can to optimise that risk. One possible way is to have other companies, even competitors, subsidise the risk. Rather than look for a market premium...

When promotions fail.(Brief Article)
May 16, 2004... Many companies have over-promised in their promotions and been unable to deliver rewards, such as Hoover and Pampers. Yet how this affects the attitudes and intentions of customers and non-customers is not well known. A study of the effects of...

The network is the new currency.
May 23, 2004... Analysis "I think the next century will be the century of complexity." Stephen Hawking. Anyone who is still attempting to work out how to use the latest computer, their new mobile or DVD player, how advertising works, or how to juggle...

Promoting kinship.
May 30, 2004... Many people will claim they could live without some of the latest technologies (unless they are under 25). Yet losing a mobile phone or access to email, can seem like a catastrophe. This is because these technologies connect us to other people,...

The experience of value.
May 30, 2004... The history of marketing has seen a shift from a production, product-oriented view to one that considers the customer experience. While customer value was once considered to be "the sum of the benefits minus the costs incurred in acquiring the...

Nothing for the herd.(advertising)
May 30, 2004... If people are essentially social creatures (or as Mark Earls puts it, "herd-like") then we need to reconsider a number of key areas of marketing. Advertising is one discipline that will obviously struggle with this idea, with its heritage of...

Understanding dynamic markets.
May 30, 2004... The interest in econometrics has been primarily directed at the effects of promotional activities rather than changes in a market structure. Much of the modelling of markets has been directed at stable markets, primarily because markets rapidly...

Cynical about clusters.
May 30, 2004... Cluster analysis is a widely used segmentation tool, and is now a core part of most CRM packages. There is little doubt about its potential usefulness as a tool, but only if managers know how to use it properly. This is particularly important...

Lessons from anthropology.(marketing)
May 30, 2004... Marketing is accustomed to drawing ideas from other disciplines, especially those that shed light on human nature. Surprisingly, anthropology is one area that marketing has neglected, even though it looks at the origins and social relationships...

Enjoy the difference.(Brief Article)
May 30, 2004... The difference between enjoyment and pleasure does not seem to be addressed in many marketing communication programs. Pleasure is a powerful motivation and it makes us want to satisfy existing needs, so we can achieve equilibrium, comfort and...

Global cooling towards USA.(Brief Article)
May 30, 2004... A recent Harvard University study looked at the attributed American-ness and intentions to purchase for Nike, Kraft, Motorola, Exxon-Mobil, Ford, Coca-Cola and Pepsi in three Islamic countries. It found that American brands had not suffered...

SMS TV.(Brief Article)
May 30, 2004... During 2003, 3.9 billion text messages were sent in Australia, or 294 SMSs per mobile user. The question is how to profitably harness this phenomenon for marketing. One method is harnessing the power of SMS with TV, already seen in sports...

The use of personal information.(Brief Article)
May 30, 2004... Much has been written about privacy and the value of personal information, yet it is often assumed that customers who have a relationship with the company will be more receptive to other offers. A recent academic study suggests this is not the...