Nilewide Marketing Review articles from October 2003

Nilewide Marketing Review archives from October 2003

Going further.
October 26, 2003... Analysis One need only open a marketing or business publication to know that many people think marketing is in trouble. However, this is not a recent phenomenon - as far back as 1999, we wrote a 2-part Analysis on the state of marketing...

Hypocrisy of customer focus.
October 19, 2003... The rhetoric of customer focus flows freely and profusely, but there are still so many things that are unpleasant for customers that it can only be rhetoric. For example, the difficulty of taking the plastic wrapping off a CD, the security...

"One P" marketing.
October 19, 2003... The 4Ps are usually seen as the backbone of marketing strategy, although they have been variously added to, and criticised for not being a true theory. In a recent speech, Philip Kotler claimed that marketing was neglecting price, place and...

Making marketing truly professional.
October 19, 2003... Many commentators have suggested that marketing is increasingly out of synch with the rest of corporate culture, because it can not meet the accountability and cost control demands that are the norm today. Most of the emphasis on overcoming...

You need to acquire and retain customers.
October 19, 2003... Linking marketing expenditures to profitability and growth must be one of the keys to re-establishing marketing's credibility with senior managers from other disciplines. One potential tool is the development of a scorecard that links the...

Be wary of surprises!
October 19, 2003... Most people like surprises, but only if they perceive them as positive. This is why it is difficult to surprise someone without previous knowledge of their personality or circumstances. Companies that try to use surprise as a marketing tool...

When the decision is already made.
October 19, 2003... Much market research is commissioned and subsequently abandoned because the results do not concur with what was expected. The decision-maker comes to the research with a fixed idea of what they want to prove. This is why the decision-maker is...

The threat of PVRs.
October 19, 2003... There is constant speculation about the ultimate impact of Personal Video Recorders (PVRs), such as TiVo, particularly the widespread skipping of ads. The Yankee Group forecasts that, by 2007, 20% of US households will subscribe to PVRs and,...

Privacy is an opportunity.
October 19, 2003... Privacy and security on the Internet have become too important to ignore, and for many companies, are a necessary burden. However, whether they are seen as a burden or an opportunity depends on how companies approach their obligations. Seen...

Regaining the strategic role.
October 19, 2003... Ad agencies lament the fact that they have lost their senior strategic role with clients, often to management consultants, but have not seriously addressed why. One reason, among many, is that agencies have abandoned their market research...

Is advertising news?
October 19, 2003... Consumers are not the only stakeholders who are exposed to advertising. Investors also see the ads of the companies they hold, and assess that advertising from the point of view of investment or news, rather than consumption. It might be...

The problem with gurus!
October 12, 2003... Marketing is a relatively young discipline that lacks a significant body of data to support many of its activities. Unsurprisingly, it is also very susceptible to fads and the perceived wisdoms of gurus, many of which go unchallenged....

Innovation and aging markets.
October 12, 2003... All the emphasis on the aging population seems to miss an important issue for marketers: there are fewer young people entering adulthood, which is when people make many choices about their favoured brands. For example, 3.5% of Europeans in...

Location, not attraction.
October 12, 2003... Marketing has two main roles: attracting customers to the offer, and taking the offer to customers, or in other words, attraction and distribution. Attraction continues to take the major share of marketing spend and in many ways appears to...

Satisfaction is not simple.
October 12, 2003... The lack of a direct link between satisfaction, loyalty and profitability is well recognised. It is attributed to a range of factors, including adapting to new service levels, competition and the problems associated with asking about...

Reciprocity in relationships.
October 12, 2003... One of the elements of a stable relationship, in marketing and in personal life, is reciprocity. Through reciprocity people mutually experience economic and social gain, and learn to trust one another. Reciprocity is even more important due...

The meaning (or lack) of dialogue.
October 12, 2003... While relationships and dialogues are the focus of current strategies, how these words are used may have little to do with their real meanings. The word "relationship" has been frequently dissected and discussed, but the word, "dialogue" may...

No resistance to rumours.
October 12, 2003... Rumours are nearly always negative and this probably reflects our innate need to know and be prepared for possible harmful events. We don't really need to know a good thing will happen because its outcome is welcomed. This means that much of...

Too much choice?
October 12, 2003... Much has been written about the impact of giving people plenty of choice, but the results are equivocal and depend on the situation. Recent research suggests it depends on whether someone knows what their ideal choice looks like. If they do,...

Why we give gifts.
October 12, 2003... Gift-giving is common across both genders, many cultures, and throughout history. However, evolutionary psychology (EP) suggests that the reasons why and the way men and woman give gifts, are based on their reproductive needs. Men tend to...

Incommunicado.
October 12, 2003... If marketing is losing its relevance in the current climate, then we should be looking for some answers. Many statements about why it is losing its relevance - fragmented media, media savvy consumers, and lack of metrics - are already old hat...

Disconnected from commerce.
October 5, 2003... Few commentators have had anything good to say about marketing in recent years and there seems to be widespread agreement that it has lost its way, become irrelevant, and become increasingly disconnected from commerce. The glory days of...

Who and what is real?
October 5, 2003... As technology now pervades everyday life, it is increasingly redefining what it means to be human. Even the simplest technologies raise difficult questions about how they serve and define us. For example, PowerPoint may be an appropriate...

Evolution is why we do it.
October 5, 2003... While evolutionary psychology (EP) is a relatively new field, advertisers have been unwittingly using its principles for many decades. Some might even claim that the campaigns with most chance of success and survival are those based on EP...

Uncertainty in research.
October 5, 2003... According to the uncertainty principle, it is impossible to measure two things at the same time, say, speed and direction, without losing precision for one of them. This is because different instruments are used to measure each one, and what...

The price of what?
October 5, 2003... It is commonly thought that products should be priced differently from services. Yet, assuming that they are implicitly different says that products are priced according to the thing itself and services according to the service offered. In...

Fight spam or lose the Net.
October 5, 2003... With spam now accounting for roughly 60% of all email received by employees of major companies and significant falls in consumer confidence about online security, the Internet is losing its appeal to both business and consumers. This is even...

The high cost of sponsorship.
October 5, 2003... The cost of major sponsorships appears to be tied to a PR model of effectiveness, which links cost to length of time the logo appears on TV. However, the continued use of this approach will inevitably lead to higher sponsorship costs and less...

The globesity business.
October 5, 2003... The current obsession with diets, health and fitness has already offered many opportunities to marketers. However, the growing problem of obesity, termed "globesity" by the WHO, seems to have frequently been met with government and business...

Mixed media.
October 5, 2003... Until recently, books have mostly been promoted using yet more text in newspapers and magazines. Now it is becoming more common to create short online promotional films, a big step for traditionally conservative publishing groups. While these...

Paying the hidden price.
October 5, 2003... Fears of deflation and falling prices in the USA may be overrated, as many companies are charging hidden fees. These fees do not show up in the consumer price index, make Internet comparison shopping difficult, and cause other companies to...