This week's highlights (with applicable teaching topics and links to discussion below):
- Tech and Generations - Marketing environment, Demographics, Segmentation
- Social Media Skills and Marketers - Social media
- In a Graying Population, Business Opportunity - Demographics, Marketing environment (video included)
- An A/B Testing Example - Advertising
- Groupon Pulls Controversial Ads - Advertising, Public relations
- The article: Baby boomers buy e-readers, teens tout iPods: Pew survey reveals gadget demographics, from Yahoo! News.
- The facts: While the findings are not startling, the results of a recent Pew survey of American adults' use of technology illustrate generational differences.
- Classroom uses: Useful for a discussion of demographics related to the marketing environment, segmentation, and consumer behavior.
Social Media Skills and Marketers
- The article: Social-Media Experts Top List of Marketers' Digital Hiring Priorities, from Advertising Age. (Note - this article is currently available without a subscription, but will eventually be available to subscribers only.)
- The facts: About a third of marketers in a Society of Digital Agencies are looking to hire individuals with social media skills this year. While the sample consisted of organizations active in digital marketing, this still demonstrates the importance of ensuring that marketing majors develop social media skills.
- Classroom uses: If you emphasize social media in a class, this article adds motivation for these activities.
In a Graying Population, Business Opportunity
- The article: In a Graying Population, Business Opportunity, from The New York Times (includes a video)
- The facts: The article opens with a discussion of the Age Gain Now Empathy System (AGNES), a suit that helps the wearer to appreciate the physical challenges faced by the elderly (including a link to a five-minute video filmed at the AgeLab at MIT, where AGNES was developed). It moves on to talk about business opportunities arising from the aging of the large baby boom generation.
- Classroom uses: Good for a discussion of segmentation, the impact of the marketing environment, or the product development process.
- The article: A/B Testing Creatives for ReTargeting, from ReTargeter.com
- The facts: ReTargeter, an online ad agency, provides examples of testing they performed on different versions of online ads.
- Classroom uses: This article is fairly specialized--too detailed to fit into a Principles class. But it would be useful in an IMC class to talk about ad testing, or in an e-marketing class to show how A/B testing of display ads is done.
Groupon Pulls Controversial Ads
- The article: Groupon Says Super Bowl Ads "Execution Was Off," Pulls Them From TV, YouTube, from Fast Company.
- The facts: Groupon, the social couponing site that has been making headlines for months, made some less desirable headlines resulting from a series of edgy ads, including one featuring Timothy Hutton that ran on the Super Bowl. Each ad started with a heartfelt discussion of an issue (in the case of the Hutton ad, threats to the Tibetan culture), followed by an abrupt segue to a related Groupon offer (in the Hutton case, for Himalayan fish curry at a Chicago restaurant). What wasn't obvious to viewers was that Groupon's "Save The Money" campaign provides matching donations to a variety of causes, including The Tibet Fund. Absent that connection, the ads came across as crass and insensitive instead of edgy.
- Classroom uses: A good current example of a PR problem. Also, you can discuss the view of some cynics that Groupon benefited regardless (based on the "There is no such thing as bad publicity" argument).
- Going deeper: Visit Pearson's My Marketing Community website for more discussion of the issue, including articles tracing the progression of Groupon's attempts to manage response to the situation.
