Advertising by the state

In many countries, the state is one of the leading spenders on advertising. This was true in the UK up until the summer of 2010. Then, as part of a review of spending the decision was made to slash staff and budgets [1] for the department responsible for organising and commissioning government advertising campaigns. Such spending was described as a waste of tax money.

What purpose did these campaigns have? Often, their messages were about community or health issues. An example from just last year would be the campaign run to help prevent the spread of Swine Flu. Catch It, Bin It, Kill It.

At the turn of the year in 2010-11, medical statisticians tell us that the proportion of the population with ‘flu is significantly higher than for the same period last year[2]. There are probably a number of reasons for this, but one of them is that the advertising campaigns reminding people how to stay healthy didn’t turn up on posters and TV.

This has created a dilemma for the UK government. The more people that catch flu, the more contagion spreads. The more people get ill, the more people die. That is – there is a link between the money spent on advertising and how many people will die. Acknowledging this, the government has reversed their decision in respect of the Catch It, Bin It Kill it campaign, and this will now run again.

A related issue is that of how profit making companies latch onto government campaigns, hoping to draw on their credibility – sometimes by imitation of phrase or image - to sell their own products.

[1]  Government advertising budget slashed http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10851273

[2] Flu deaths continue to increase: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12094135

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Extreme Retail Bravery

Here is a picture of a small retailer that has recently opened near where I live. As you can probably guess from the picture, this is an independent newsagent/grocers. Based on your experience with similar retailers you can probably infer what categories of products it sells. There will be newspapers and magazines, a plethora of chocolate bars. Cigarettes and some alcoholic drinks will be on the back wall. A limited number of shelves will stock common food and household items – detergents, snacks, soft drinks in a branded refrigerator. It seems a reasonable guess that this is a family business.

I visited this shop a couple of weeks ago. Products were reasonably priced, the physical environment was basic but clean and the service was prompt and polite. I have no doubt that the people running the shop are dedicated, committed and will work hard. The area in which it is located is very near to the city centre and sees a lot of foot-traffic through the day, and of types of people that are quite likely to want something this shop offers.

So then – this is going to be a successful small business, one of the many hundreds of thousands of its type across Europe that trade, providing convenience to millions of customers and contributing greatly to employment, social mobility and economic development?

No. This shop is a Dead Man Walking. It was dead before it ever opened. I’m not sure how long it will last, but I will be surprised if it is still there in a year, and amazed if it is still there in two.

Why am I so sure? The answer lies mostly in what is happening on the other side of the street.

And there we have it, the cause of death.  Colonel Mustard, on the High St, with the metaphorical lead pipe. If you are in the UK, you have a Tesco near you. You probably have several. Notice those were statements, not questions.

Why is this Tesco going to kill our retail David? Let us consider a few of the reasons, and this list ends when I get bored of typing, not because I’ve run out. If you disagree with me – put yourself into the position of someone walking along the street in need of something trivial – your lunch, a newspaper, some cigarettes, a lightbulb.

Which of the two is going to have the best prices? Which the best range of products/number of choices? In respect of fresh food and vegetables, where will quality be higher? Which shop is likely to offer you everything you want in one stop? Which is most likely to be open early in the morning or late at night? Which will have full rather than empty shelves. If you are in a group of people, where will everyone automatically go without negotiation.  Which is most likely to accept your credit card.

In short – what can the small independent retailer do better than Tesco, when considered from the perspective of the customer?

What has just been described there is a very local issue. Nationally, this issue of larger companies beating up the little guy is of social, cultural and political importance. The BBC webbie has a news story on this topic today, in support of a programme this evening [1]. If you read the story, be sure to look at the attached graphics and perspectives from local residents, farmers, small business owners and unions[2].

This particular Tesco has form – the previous enterprise in the space now occupied by our poor little newsagent was previously occupied by an off-licence, selling alcohol. They went bust, and I think we can probably guess why.

I take no joy in my prediction. I have no reason to think the newsagent is owned and run by anything other than decent, hard-working people. I hope there are not bankruptcies, I hope there are not divorces.

Merry Christmas!

[1] Growth of the 'big four' supermarkets - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12039041

[2] For and against - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11936730

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Branding and the sexualisation of children

A strong brand - one that is appealing to consumers - can be an important asset for an organisation, whether it is a charity, or a commercial organisation.

Here is a brand spokesman describing the brand of the company she works for:

“A brand that is urban, trendy, stylish and sophisticated,” [1]

How fantastic. What is the brand exactly? Playboy.

And there we see the instantly recognisable logo of a company with a rich heritage dating back fifty years or more. Ahem.

Branding can be a contentious issue though. Here is an example. Should a brand with a sexual component be permitted to appear on products intended or often used by children? For example, should an obviously sex related brand like Playboy appear on something like a pencil case?

If you could change the law, would you prohibit this? The current UK government is thinking about it seriously. A minister has recently said:

“Parents often find themselves under a tidal wave of pressure, buffeted by immense pester power from their children for the latest product, craze or trend. I want this review to look at how we can equip parents to deal with the changing nature of marketing, advertising and other pressures that are aimed at their children.” [2]

The boss of a ‘family’ charity – The Mothers Union – Reg Bailey [3] has been tasked with reviewing the situation and reporting some recommendations. He has asked for the British public to send him examples of “products of concern”. As a devout Christian, I suspect he may find the contents of packages he receives to be eye-opening....

[1] From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7415538.stm

[2] From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11923107

[3] Reg may not actually be a mother himself, I’m just playing the percentages here.

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Marketing data - visualisation and interpretation

When I find myself discussing what contemporary students are better or worse at than their forebears, one topic that crops up regularly is the ability to comprehend and manipulate numerical data – maths and stats related skills. It is a matter of deep regret to me that the curriculum across the UK Business School sector is becoming more and more a-numerate year on year as students [and staff!] become more innumerate. Foreign students  regularly express their surprise at the low level of ability of even the very best UK students.

One of the ways this impacts on the teaching and learning of marketing related topics is the way in which you present and discuss data. Enter stage-left a new hero of mine. David McCandless describes himself as a data journalist and information designer. What that means is that he takes often complex and large sets of numerical data, and thinks of clever ways to present them in graphical form – so that they can be understood, comprehended and interpreted at an at least surface level.

You may have seen David’s work on a printed newspaper page or more likely on the equivalent website. One he did a while back was about the amount of oil being spilled in the gulf by BP in comparison to other oil leaks – that one went viral. Many of these representations are relevant to marketing activities, but let us just pick a couple of examples.

1.       World Map of Touristyness: Map of Touristyness . This map takes file tags from a photo sharing site and compiles them with geographical co-ordinates to show where tourists go – or at least where they take their photos!

2.       The colours used in products, packaging and advertising is very heavily culture dependent. This wheel compares and contrasts social/cultural perceptions of colours around the world: Colours in Cultures

3.       There are a great many types/brand of carbonated beverage available. So how many companies actually manufacture and market them? It might be a fewer than you think: Soft Drinks - note the link at the bottom for zooming/exploring

4.       Finally for now – places and people are different. Every country is the best/most prominent for something. Here is a not completely serious visualisation of that: Every Country is the Best at Something

Seeing as David has so kindly presented us with these free toys, we should return the favour! He has a very interesting looking book, and I'm sure I'll pick up a copy sooner or later: Information is Beautiful

Why do overseas students study marketing in the UK?

OK I've been thinking again. Yes, I know I should probably give it up. Anyhow, this time it was about why a lot of students from other countries come to the UK to study marketing. Here is what I came up with. However, I would be very, very (I mean very) interested in the views of marketing students about this. In a sense, I am using this blog to do a little market research. So there you are, real marketing in action at the Marketing: An Introduction blog spot.

1. My feeling is that overseas students want and expect a traditional UK educational experience. They probably need frequent/daily contact with peers and tutors throughout the year in order to feel properly part of the institution and the British educational culture (which they value). They are NOT just here for the qualification, as some people seem to think. They want much more than JUST the qualification.

2. In general, more work-experience integrated into the programmes is a good thing (within reason). However, not all students will want it, so should internships be optional rather than compulsory?

3. The CIM is the premier professional body, and business schools need to stay close to them. Other professional bodies may be desirable, but are less valuable. The key professional bodies, other than CIM, are IDM, DMA and MRS. (Are they? Do students care about professional bodies at all?)

4. There is a limited range of programme titles that will attract substantial student numbers. We mustn't try to get cute by using innovative programme titles - the students will just not come. Students want programme titles that give a sense of authority, not programme titles that reflect the latest fad.

5. Presumably WOM [sorry, word-of-mouth] - by which these days I mean largely social media - is just going to become more important. If a student is having a bad time, then friends at school back home will hear about it. Not long ago, this was not the case. This has important ramifications.

6. Overseas students come here because it's Britain/a major city/English-speaking and a reputable educational institution. They like qualifications that combine marketing and management. They want to experience a proper UK education; they want to respect their tutors for their expertise, wisdom and kindness. They want to be treated well, and have problems resolved swiftly. Yes, they want some preparation for work, but they don't actually want a highly vocational training-like programme - that doesn't conform to their idea of a traditional UK university education. They want a nice combination of the intellectual and the practical. They want to feel educated, that their horizons were widened by their time at a British university. Obviously they want employment-relevant stuff as well - but NOT only that stuff.

Social Media - for Business to Business Marketing as well as Consumer Marketing

I've been spending a little time recently thinking about how useful social media are for business-to-business marketing (B2B). A few weeks ago I attended an excellent training event, organised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing, with the rather melodramatic title of 'Digital Marketing Bootcamp'. Mostly this was concerned with B2C, rather than B2B. I think most marketers would recognise the relevance of social media to consumer marketing. But what about B2B? This I had to check out for myself.

Now, the ever helpful Dr. Harker has already assisted me in my embryonic stabs at using Facebook, while some time ago, more or less in complete ignorance, I signed up to something called LinkedIn. At the same time, I have one or two extremely up-to-date colleagues who are never without their iPhones and iPads, and whose every movement I can follow through foursquare, twitter and Facebook. I reckon this means that I am probably a little ahead of the social media curve compared to most people in their sixth decade of life.

It turns out that Facebook is already used to some extent for B2B - meaning, you can find quite a few B2B Facebook fan pages. (Although, in a recent development, you don't become a 'fan' any more, you just 'like' them. But I guess they're still called fan pages.) Two interesting, and contrasting, ones to look at are www.facebook.com/sodexocareers and www.facebook.com/cisco. The Sodexo Facebook page has lots of interesting exchanges between people who work in the catering business, with advice provided by Sodexo on how to register your c.v., how to apply for jobs with Sodexo, what jobs are coming up, and so on. So it's basically a recruitment site. The Cisco page is a different matter, and has a great deal more going on. There are clearly aspects of 'soft' corporate marketing - like nice, friendly posts from senior execs. But there is also genuine mutual cooperation going on to exchange useful information - it looks like a useful user community for techies who like to play with Cisco systems. So, there is some 'co-creation of value' going on here, as we marketing academics like to call it.

LinkedIn is clearly the social network that is designed for business professionals. You can use the search facility at LinkedIn, for example, to look for purchasing professionals in the environmental services industry (I just did). Then, potentially, you have the makings of a B2B marketing list. However, compared to Facebook, LinkedIn is a midget. One question doing the rounds at social media blogs is whether Facebook could just wipe LinkedIn out if it chose to.

Right now, the use of social media in B2B marketing is embryonic and evolving rapidly. No doubt there will be plenty of opportunities for bright marketing graduates over the next few years!

Lovefilm and Blockbuster

In the last post I mentioned that my VCR had been taken out and put down for humane reasons. I also noted that for organisations that were founded and grew on serving markets related to video rental, the advance of technology was a significant issue.

Blockbuster evolved, moving from cassettes to discs, and from films to a range that included games, TV series and an unhealthy amount of sweets and chocolates. That kept them going for a while - but about 8 years ago a severe blow was struck by a new entrant - Lovefilm

Lovefilm operates in a very different way to the traditional video rental companies like Blockbuster. Disc only - for films and games. No retail outlets - customers/subscibers receive films and return them via mail. Films have no time limit, and you can choose a package to allow you a fixed number of titles at home. You pay by the month, not by the film.

Plus points - no need to watch a film the night/weekend you rent it. No having to return the films to the retailer you got them from. Subscription means you know exactly how much you will be paying. Management of your films/account online 24/7. Downside? You queue films, but can't be sure of which ones you'll get. There will probably be a two day delay between a disc being dispatched and it ariving in the mail - the same the other way as you return discs.

This model was replicated by other firms - most notably Amazon. Over time though, through brand building, stock management and superior customer services, Lovefilm bought or defeated most rivals - even taking over the Amazon service. Poor old Blockbuster has tried to catch up, but never quite managed it. I'm afraid I don't hold out much hope for their survival in the long term.

Lovefilm came to dominate their market by taking advantage of possibilities allowed by adopting a different supply chain. They in turn though are coming under pressure from technological developments - namely, digital distribution.

Consumers now have a number of options to receive and watch media they haven't had before. The BBC iPlayer, Freeview/Sky boxes with ability to revord HD programmes and of course internet based distribution - legal or otherwise!

A recent option is the new Apple TV product. Why wait for the film in the mail when you can select and view it within moments?

Lovefilm haven't been caught out by these developments, and now offer films to view on your home PC as well as discs in the mail. What remains to be seen is if this hybrid approach can compete against purely digital distribution - and the ability to conveniently watch on the living room TV, rather than a computer screen.

Not to worry the Lovefilm management, but I've been a subscriber since 2002, and I'm now thinking of cancelling.

Products have lives

My family got our first video recorder in 1982. It was a Betamax! I remember that the shop we bought it from also supplied us with a hookie copy of ET - picture quality not bad, but ten minutes from the middle missing.

My first personal VHS machine was bought on my nineteenth birthday - 1992. First films I bought for myself were Highlander and The name of the Rose. Over the next five years I built up quite a collection of films before shifting onto DVD, then Blu-Ray. I kept a VHS machine so I could still play the movies I had but didn't like enough to upgrade to DVD - until now.

This evening I threw out my VHS recorder - I caved in and came back from the shops with an Apple TV. Most shops stopped selling VHS machines a few years ago, at least in the UK.

As technology advances, new products are introduced, and old ones die. This has significance for firms operating in markets that support the hardware - such as the many movie-rental outlets that have pretty much disappeared from the High St.

Time passes

This blog is about marketing - not physics - but many students experience a time-is-relative phenomenon, especially when they are new to university life. Simultaneously, they feel like they have only just arrived and yet some arithmetic work with a calendar will tell them they are about a 1/4 of the way through the year with respect to teaching. Those of them that reflect on that may consider whether or not they have achieved all they should have done by this point - reading, writing, and researching - and when they realise that they have not it should give them pause for thought.

Guest Post: How I ended up studying marketing

This post is written by a guest contributor. Kevin started his degree at Strathclyde in September of 2010.

'I started my university career at Muenster University doing Business Administration (BSc). As time went by I figured that my main interest is based in marketing and I went to talk to my student adviser asking how to put more focus on the subject which suited me most. When he told me that there was no chance to do so, I decided to look for other alternatives.

Meanwhile a friend of mine started studying at Strathclyde Business School and kept telling me how much more interesting it is to study in Scotland than in Germany. In 2009 she invited me to stay a couple of days in Glasgow and I saw my chance to sneak into a first year marketing lecture, held by Dr. Harker. After reading a few chapters of “marketing an introduction” and some other English marketing books I decided to take the risk, leave the 2^nd best German Business school and start over as a 1^st year fresher at SBS in 2010.

The first weeks went past quite quickly and I met a lot new friends. SBS puts lots of efforts into the integration of foreign students; therefore I never experienced a feeling of not being welcome around here. The marketing lecture worked out as expected. Continuous work and preparation before the lectures and tutorials is essential; no surprises there. All in all I don’t regret that I chose to come to Glasgow and I can’t wait for what’s coming up next'.

Wikipedia and your assignment focussed research

Socially and culturally, Wikipedia is a very interesting thing. Can it be helpful in the preparation of an assignment as part of the research and reading done?

The advice I tend to give is that Wikipedia is something it is OK to start with, but you must be sure not to finish there - more reading and research will be required.

Some Wikipedia entries are very short or haven't been updated recently. Others contain bias or significant omissions or unsupported opinion or conjecture. Generally though, the most useful part is the list of references and sources of information at the end of the entry - indicating where the information came from. Reading through that list is a good way to get the research-ball moving.

Should you include Wikipedia in your list of references? Well now, Wikipedia as one of 5 websites in your reference list looks very poor, but the same entry alongside a couple of dozen references with a mix of other websites, journal articles, market intelligence reports and printed books doesn't have the same negative impact or a reader trying to evaluate the quality and quantity of your research.

A few important things about marketing coursework

It seems likely that at about this time of year you will have at least one coursework assignment. Here a few points about how good grades can be encouraged to appear

• Have a plan. You'll have other things to be getting on with in your life - inside and outside study. No one is going to plan your time for you, so you'll have to get organised. Make sure you know when your deadline is.
• Get on with it! Don't prevaricate. Good work is easier when you have time to read and research and then put your thoughts together coherently - use all the time you have, don't assume you can throw something together at the last minute and still pass. Standards are likely to be higher than you have encountered before if this is your first university semester. Work that has been rushed is painfully obvious to the experienced eye. You aren't fooling your marker - so who are you fooling?
• One of the points addressed in an earlier post was that marketing covers so many issues and perspectives simultaneously - make sure you have a reasonable strategy. Will you cover all points with equal care, or are there elements of the situation/problem that you think need more time and attention?
• Try to think quality, not quantity. That is a glib phrase - but it has an important meaning for us here. Psychologically, you might find the number of words you're given as a target challenging. At some point - if you've done enough reading and research - it will slip to being a number you'll worry about getting under - not over! If this change doesn't happen, that is a clear sign you haven't done enough preparatory work. The best quality work by students has been edited and re-edited. Submitting your first draft is not something to do if you want a good mark.

Dealing with the problems

In the last post I noted some of the things that can make being a marketing student difficult.

The problems I identified were:

1. Information overload
2. Subject diversity
3. Heirarchy of knowledge

So if these are problems, how to solve them? Alas a real solution isn't possible - rather a marketing student must try to ameliorate them - reduce them to something that is manageable rather than overwhelming.

1. Information overload. In the medium term, you will become used to the volume of information. You can help this process by going to class, reading the materials suggested - as a minimum, doing better will require extra reading and selection of things to read. Try to avoid being left behind by ignoring the reading - it might be impossible to ever catch up.
2. Subject diversity. There will be elements of the subject that you intuitively grasp - either because of the way your brains works or previous experience and/or education. Be glad of these. More importantly, there will be elements that you find difficult or uninteresting. Consumer behaviour might be a good example of the former for many students, market research [maths!] of the latter. Don't ignore these problematic topics - don't label them as boring when what you mean is that you find them difficult. Athletes work hard on their weaknesses - a footballer's weaker foot for example - rather than pretending they don't exist. You should do the same - work out which bits you understand and which bits you don't and manage your study time accordingly.
3. Heirarchy of knowledge. How do you start studying marketing? That is a tough question. From the perspective of those teaching/training rather than learning it isn't obvious either. If you look at a lot of the textbooks, there are groups wrt approach. Some start off with the marketing concept, others with the role of marketing within an organisation. My personal preference though is to begin with looking at consumer behaviour. As someone new to the subject, you might not have much work experience if you are quite young - or have been involved in marketing issues in your previous professional life. What you will have some experience of is of being a customer and consumer [refer to your favourite glossary!]. My experience in that looking at selected elements of consumer behaviour is something that most peope are able to 'get', and from there we can link to segmentation, branding and many other key topics.

If you have a problem - think how to deal with it and put your plan into action. Don't let small problems grow into big ones.

Is marketing hard to study?

Here is a question you might not have asked yourself before you signed up to take a class in marketing:

Is marketing a hard subject to study?

My answer – as you might have already come to expect from an academic - is that it depends.

What can make it hard? Having observed thousands of marketing students over the years I have noted that there are three things that can commonly cause a problem – even for bright students – over and above issues that apply to all new students:

1.       Information overload.  A thing that often surprises new university students is that whilst the general complexity of ideas they must engage with is something that is not beyond them, the sheer quantity of information – pages to read, A/V materials to watch, lecturers to listen to – is an order of magnitude higher than anything they have encountered before.

2.       Subject diversity. One of the descriptions I give of university marketing education [as opposed to professional training] is as a subject that pinches the shiny bits from social sciences and applies them in a commercial context. One day learning about marketing might require you to be a psychologist [consumer behaviour], the next might require you to be a sociologist [cultures of consumption] or an anthropologist [market segmentation]. Alongside these social science hats, marketing students must sometimes be technologists, economists, statisticians and so on. Some people have a genuine and deep talent in a narrow area – the maths wizard who can’t tie his own shoelaces. Marketing students that do well tend to have a wider knowledge and skill set. Jack-of-all-trades. Of course, the second half of that saying is master-of-none, and we’ll talk about that in the next blog post

3.       Hierarchy of knowledge. That is a very posh phrase – what can it mean? Do you remember how you started studying mathematics? 2+2=4. After you mastered simple addition you would have moved onto subtraction, then multiplication and finally division. Years later and you might have been capable of second-order partial differentiation whilst picking your nose – but each and every intervening stage would have been built on the knowledge and skills you gained in the last. Marketing isn’t really like that. The way forward isn’t always clear and even selecting a starting point can be difficult.

Each of those can represent a real problem. Taken together, they can be a real killer. In the next post I’ll talk about you can manage these difficulties and outline the positives of being a marketing student.

Who should read this blog?

Hello and welcome.

This is a new blog in support of the textbook ‘Introduction to Marketing’ – published by FT Prentice Hall and written by Armstrong, Kotler, Harker and Brennan. I’m Michael Harker, the third on that list and I am an academic at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.

This book is intended to accompany introductory classes in marketing – and if you are a student of marketing it is likely that you will be using this book [or a similar/competing textbook] to help you with your studies. If so, then keeping up with the contents of this blog might be helpful to you.

Who else might find it worthwhile to read these postings? If you are teaching rather than studying business in general or marketing in particular I hope you will find useful items here. Professional marketers often comment on the value and relevance of the training and education they received – I hope I will be able to encourage them to provide comment and feedback on the knowledge and skills they apply to their jobs everyday.

So, what sort of content will this blog have? It seems to be that the best blogs keep a strong theme but provide a variety of material on or around it, so here are my initial thoughts on what you might expect to see here:

1.       Discussion of basic concepts and processes in marketing

2.       Review and reflection of marketing-related news stories

3.       Examples of marketing practice – good and bad

4.       Considerations of problems and issues that confront students of marketing

Enough for a beginning I think.