This week's highlights (with applicable teaching topics):
- The Hot Blond – New Product Development, Environmental Scanning, Target Marketing, Product Positioning
- Don’t Drink the Water – Competition, Market Share, International Marketing
- Downsizing TV – Environmental Scanning, Marketing Research, New Product Development
- General Mills Spoons Up Digital Fun - Advertising, Campaigns, Packaging, Promotion, Social Media
The Hot Blonde
- The Article: The Hot Blonde in the Coffee Shop: A Lighter Roast, The Wall Street Journal.
- The facts: Numerous coffee shops such as Starbucks and Petes are targeting customers that do not like the dark-roasted brews that have been the rage for years with coffee connoisseurs. And high-end coffee houses are now saying they only sell light roast, because dark roasting ruins good coffee! The economic downturn has driven coffee companies to add products and new customers.
- Classroom uses: This is a great article to highlight how markets change, and how differentiation really works in the market-place. You can either assign this to the class to read and then discuss it – or highlight from the article to illustrate any of a number of specific marketing concepts – this is a treasure chest of an article!
Don’t Drink the Water
- The Article: How Coke and Dannon Are Fighting to Dominate the World’s Largest Bottled-water Market, Forbes.
- The facts: Mexico is the world’s largest bottled water market, which may be worth $13 by 2013, and the world’s two largest bottlers have noticed. Currently they are closely matched in their market share with Dannon slightly ahead.
- Classroom uses: Again, this is very interesting article – with a lot of great material that will illustrate what marketing is all about. I would suggest asking students to research - before coming to class – the top three or four international markets for bottled water. Have them bring that information into class and use that and the information from the article to kick off the class.
Downsizing TV
- The Article: Report: 13% of Subscribers Cancelling or Downsizing Pay-TV Services is from Home Media Magazine.
- The facts: This article explains that, in a survey of 7,000 internet interviews, 13% of pay-TV (cable, satellite, etc.) subscribers plan to cancel or downsize their TV service. Phil Leigh with Inside Digital Media said that, "services such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and Amazon have successfully pioneered ways to capture viewers’ interest in 'long tail' content that can be catered to individual interests.” It goes on with a pretty good comment on the long tail theory.
- Classroom uses: This is a rich article – imagine how much media has changed just since your students have been born, but even more how it continues to change at a break-neck pace. Do a poll in class and see how your students are currently watching video….create a slide with the data from the research if you really want to look on top of it!
John General Mills Spoons up Digital Fun
- The article: General Mills spoons up digital fun on cereal boxes from USA Today.
- The facts: Watch Mark Addicks, CMO of General Mills, in the Betty Crocker Kitchen talking about radical digital recipes for packaging. He is especially trying to reinvent cereal packaging; the average consumer checks out his or her cereal box 12 times.
- Classroom uses: Play the 3:23 video in class, which will be a great way to start a discussion on what Addicks is trying to do with QR codes, augmented reality, social media and other unique promotional ideas.
