If you’re a national or international company with marketing authority and practices spread across various locations, or if you have a diversified group of products or businesses that call for different marketing approaches, how can you maintain a consistent marketing strategy that is aligned with the company’s overall priorities while still giving local functions the […]
Read More… from How a Marketing Doctrine Overcomes the Flexibility Vs Consistency Conundrum
Does a Chief Marketing Officer help a company, or is this position a ‘C’ that doesn’t earn its place in the C-suite? In 2008, an influential research study by Pravin Nath of the Drexel University (now at Oklahoma) and Vijay Mahajan of the University of Texas came to the conclusion that a CMO neither adds […]
As reported in a 2013 Advertising Age article, Geico Insurance’s ubiquitous talking Gecko was launched as a trial balloon. There had been no prior marketing research, and certainly no intention of creating a long-running marketing character who now has a book and appears in life-size form at sporting events. However, As Geico CMO Ted Ward […]
While material purchases are purchases of tangible products that one intends to keep, experiential purchases are purchases of products that must be experienced. Restaurant meals, movies, or vacations are examples of experiential purchases. While there is no official categorization of products into experiential or material, most consumers intuitively know the difference. Through an analysis of […]
Read More… from Buyers of Experiential Products and Consumer Reviews
How well is your company performing? For many companies, the answer to this question comes through customer satisfaction surveys, which tell companies where they are successfully meeting customer expectations and where they are falling short. Although subjective — that is, based on the customer’s subjective opinion of the company’s performance — customer satisfaction surveys are […]
Read More… from What Companies Learn from Customer Satisfaction Surveys
When people do good things, they reward themselves. This is the conclusion of a number of previous studies into the psychology of doing good deeds. Two researchers from Harvard Business School and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business explored through their own series of studies the business implications of this previous psychological research. The researchers […]
Read More… from Reusable Grocery Bags: How Green Customers Help the Environment-and Your Business
Companies struggle with two apparently contradictory goals. They want their brands to be central in their category — in other words, the brand of record, similar to the position held by Coca-Cola in the soda category or McDonald’s in fast food. At the same time, however, they want their brands to be distinctive, standing out […]
Read More… from Mapping Brand Strategy: Balancing Centrality Vs Distinctiveness
Customers can stop interacting with a company in one of two ways: they inform the company that they are leaving (such as when they cancel a subscription to a magazine) or they simply stop interacting with the company. Unsatisfied patrons of a theatre, for example, may decide to seek their entertainment elsewhere. The company has […]
Read More… from Tracking Customers Who Leave Without Saying Goodbye
There are a variety of product-related services that manufacturers offer their customers. New research pinpoints the following different categories of services: Complementary services help customers feel more comfortable buying the product because they either smooth the sale and use of the product or they adapt the product’s functionality. Complementary smoothing services — such as financing, […]
Read More… from Adapt Your Choice of Product-Related Services to the Industry Life Cycle
A website today is indispensable for any retail operation, no matter how small. The Internet is an integral part of the shopping experience. Not every online retail experience is the same. Grocery stores might offer coupons, office supplies stores might offer coupons and the opportunity to purchase products, and sites such as BarnesandNoble.com are full-service […]
Read More… from The Unexpected Impact of Click and Collect Retail Programs
