Week 8: Pricing/ Channels and IMC

This week I read chapter 8 in the Handbook, watched the lectures and listened to the bean cast.  The bean cast had some interesting points about pinterest.com.  This site is making huge waves as a marketing tool.  It has driven a lot of traffic to my wife's website and I think we have a lot of room for growth through it.  

1. Reflect on a firm or product you like which you believe is highly effective in bringing all the elements of the Mix together to create beautiful symphony for their consumers.
1. TurboTax.  Taxes are a huge hassle that most people have to go through each year.  It is by far a sexy product that is the envy of product development people and marketers, but Intuit has done a great job with the marketing mix on this.  The product is very easy and error proof from my experience and held true to their promotion of getting your biggest tax refund, when I tested it out against taxact (took back $2k from the gov't). The place is very convenient, of course by having it online and via an iPad app.  They follow a freemium model giving some basic features away for free, while charging for more in depth features.  Of course you don't pay until the very end in a try-before-you-buy sort of way. Another aspect about place, is that I see ads for turbo tax with bank of America and Mint.com which are key areas that its target market frequent.
2. Who are the target audience for the company's market offerings? 
1. Individuals or small businesses that need to file taxes and are slightly computer savvy. They want to save money/time over going to a place like H&R Block. 
3. What are the tangible products the company offers?
1. A very slick web interface with links to help and support about each topic.  They also have partnered with payroll companies to import W-2 information. A very thorough yet simple process that they walk you through. 
4. How does the company utilize price, and place to enhance the value of its offerings and why do you think there choice work well together?
1. They let you have the basic product for free on their website which can be done at home or anywhere you are. It works great together because there is very little risk (time being the main one) to doing taxes this way.  The also offer several discounts based on links.  The best I found was from BoA for 35% off. 
5. Does the company have a unique approach to communications with their target audience?  How is the approach well suited to the other elements of their mix?
1. They do some very common things such as web advertising, email reminders to past customers (CRM is pretty good) etc.  Not sure if they are doing anything unique, but they are doing things very well.  They use mint.com (another intuit company) to advertise in a very integrated way, but they should be doing this...nothing novel.

Week 7

This week, my team and I have spent a lot of time working on our portion of the marketing plan.  The product we are developing is something that I wish I had, which makes this a little easier.  


This week we discussed the case study about the Cleo soap.  

1. What are the major issues in the Cleo Case from the perspective of the product, and pricing?
1. Research: The results of the research had some impressive numbers seemingly confirming the conjecture that Cleo soap will be successful in Canada.  However, there were some shortcomings (see below).
2. Shelf Position: This soap ended up being pushed to the bottom of the rack, out of the prime view of customers meaning that they wont see it right away.  This was likely due to Colgate's stance with the retailers.  They were not bending over backwards to please the retailers and to keep them happy.  The pull strategy they were focusing on would not work alone unless people were going into the store looking for it out right.  Soap may not have that kind of influence on Canadians.  No deal unit cost, off invoice allowance or feature price was given to benefit retailers and sweeten the deal to move the product. (Dove provides all of these).
2. Are there issues with the market research?
1. Yes.  Both types of research conducted was done in Toronto.  This metropolitan city is very different than Quebec.  Furthermore, English is the predominant language in the province of Ontario (where Toronto is), and does not have the same strong French connections that Quebec has.  This seem to me like doing market research in NYC and selling in South Carolina!
3. What organizational issues come in to play in the case?  Who are the players and how do their positions in the company impact the market entry?
1. There are organizational issues with a lack of solid process for research and marketing strategy.  The key players are Bill Grahm (Boss) based in NY who is willing to listen.  Steve Boyd is trying to get ahead by working on this project as he is working his way up in the company. Ken Johnson is skeptical about this type of market segmentation and wants a universal soap strategy.   Stan House is enthusiastic about Cleo.
4. Did they make the right choice?  Why or Why not? 
1. They did not make the right choice because the soap tanked.  They should have done more research about where to market the soap.  Maybe research would have shown that Quebec is not the right place to launch and Toronto and NYC are the right place.  It was also poor insight to not play to the retailers needs and wants in order to get them to push the soap.  
5. Are companies today any better than Colgate 20 years ago or do they still make some of the same mistakes?
1. I'm sure they make many of the same mistakes now.  It seems like a combination of organizational issues (personality, leadership turnover, frequent process changes) will always plague businesses to some extent.  

Week 6: Product Development Management

This week I read or watched the following:

• Ch 6 Marketing Handbook: Product development is fun and fascinating.  I am working right now to refine and more effectively use a new stage gate NPD process as a project manager in R&D. 
• Colgate Palmolive Case Study
• Form Ruins to Riches (Apple): Very interesting to see the evolution of Apple over the years and see the lessons that one of the greatest companies learned over the years.  It is crazy hearing the reaction of the crowd to the Microsoft cooperation and seeing Gates present at Macworld via webcam. 
• Rory Sutherland Tedtalk: That guy is entertaining; both because of his interesting points and his delivery. The perspective he has for value is strange to think about, but makes sense. 
• David Bell video: I really didn't think I needed an iPad (in addition to a smart phone and laptop) until I got one...now I feel like my wife and I each need one.  Bell found that consumers don't know what they want until they have it in front of them. 
• Camtasia videos:  Great to see a NPDP from the marketing side of things.  I am in NPD from an engineering/operations background working with marketing people. 

Questions from the week: 

1. Consider various "products" you use.  Can you think of the various levels of this product?
1. Core Product: Peace of mind, restoration of files. Actual Product: Automated backup service. Agumented Product: More storage to not have to select which areas are backed up, Sharing capabilities. 
2. Core: Transportation, access to different locations.  Actual: Car.  Augmented: Extra floormats, car wash, wheel spinners etc.
2. Products are tools (drill) that provide consumer benefits.  If the a better tool comes along that provides the same core benefit but is easier to get, cheaper, or more fun then the old tool will be obsolete.  Can you think of cases where products have become obsolete? 
1. Portable music: Cassette tapes. CDs (almost). Mini Discs.
2. Memories: Film
3. More examples are here
3. Considering the diagram of page 102 of your text how do you think product development has been affected by shorter product lifecycles?  Has technology affected product development? 
1. Shorter product lifecycles means that product development needs to be faster to market and more cost effective or higher payouts. 
2. Technology has affected product development by providing tools to more effectively analyze the products, crowdsource better and test concepts more widely. 

Week 5

For this week my team and I worked on our case memo for The Fashion Channel.  It was interesting to read and think about the segmentation of television networks and how broadcast advertising can be narrowed down by the specific content.  I've noticed that when I watch TV episodes on Hulu, the commercials vary depending on which type of show I am watching.  This shows how advertisers study which consumers watch different shows and must have similar research results to the TFC case study.  I wonder what cluster I'd be categorized in.  Who would pay the most for my eyeballs on their advertisement?  

I definitely appreciate relevant advertisements over ads that are about something that I am not interested in. I would much rather see an ad telling me about a cool new phone that I hadn't seen or an upcoming movie that I'd be interested in than an ad for a rascal scooter (remember those?). Come to think of it, I haven't seen a rascal scooter ad in a long time. They must be getting better at STDP! Or maybe I just stopped watching Golden Girls.

Another place I noticed targeting is on iPad apps.  I have interest in getting a pilot's license and have been playing flight games and training apps which have very targeted ads (for the free versions).  There are probably different clusters that advertisers see that use these apps.  Some may be interested in flight schools, while others are interested in remote control toys and others interested in racing or military games.   Some of the ads I saw were for things like auto insurance since people playing this game probably drive and would be likely to use the Internet for insurance research.