This Week in Marketing: October 16, 2011

This week's highlights (with applicable teaching topics and links to discussion below):

 

Why Wait in Line for an iPhone?

  • The article: Why do people wait in line for iPhones?, from Computerworld.
  • The facts: Every new iPhone release has been met with lines out the door at Apple stores, and despite lackluster reviews from tech bloggers, the recently-released iPhone 4S is no exception. This article discusses the experience of joining the crowd the night before the new phone's release.
  • Classroom uses: Between the iPhone 4S release and Steve Jobs's recent death, Apple has been written about extensively in recent days, making it an especially timely topic for classroom discussion. This makes a good example of a special kind of customer loyalty, where waiting overnight to be among the first to get the product offers a special experience--one that enhances the product's value.

No Girls Allowed

  • The article: Dr. Pepper's "not for women" campaign: sexist?, from The Week (includes a video of the controversial ad).
  • The facts: Dr. Pepper Ten, a new ten-calorie soda, is being sold to a target audience of young men using an interesting approach: its advertising specifically says the drink is not for women. The conventional wisdom is that men consider the term "diet" to be too feminine, yet they are concerned about health and fitness. Coke Zero and Pepsi Max were both introduced to target this audience; however, Dr. Pepper Ten is different in that it does in fact have a small number of calories (hence the "Ten" in the name). The advertising campaign has been criticized for sexism; the article offers differing opinions on the validity of this claim.
  • Classroom uses: Ask the classs for their opinions--is this sexism, or just a tongue-in-cheek way of attracting the attention of the drink's target market? You could go on to offer other examples that expose some of the ethical traps that can be encountered when making targeting/positioning decisions (junk food ads for kids, lottery ads targeted at the poor, and so on).

Steve Jobs, Marketing Icon

  • The videos and articles: 1983 Apple Keynote - the "1984" Ad Introduction (Youtube video), Steve Jobs on marketing and identifying your core values (from Presentation Zen), and The Greatest Marketer of the Age (from AdWeek).
  • The facts: Since his death on October 5, thousands of articles have been published about Jobs, most touting his unique vision and its role in transforming consumer electronics. The video of his 2005 Stanford commencement address has been viewed over twelve million times. The videos linked here show Steve Jobs the marketer. The first shows a 28-year-old Steve Jobs presenting the famous '1984' TV commercial to the Apple faithful in advance of its airing on the 1984 Superbowl; the second, taped in 1997 (unfortunately, the sound is somewhat fuzzy), shows Jobs on his return to Apple, charting out a strategic course to save the company he and Steve Wozniak founded, and introducing Apple's "Here's to the crazy ones" ad, another well-known campaign.
  • Classroom uses: Both videos and ads establish Apple as an alternative for independent thinkers, outside the common mold, who pursue their goals with passion. Both (but especially the 1997 one) illustrate a company establishing a mission and vision.

The Changing Shape of Families

  • The articles: Definition of 'Single Mom' No Longer Singular or Stigmatized, and What's a Typical Household Look Like? Just as Likely to be Headed by a Woman, from Advertising Age. (Freely available now; may require subscription for access in a week)
  • The facts: The so-called traditional family, with a mother, father, and children, describes only about twenty percent of US households. In particular, many more households today are headed by women. These two articles discuss recent trends in family structure.
  • Classroom uses: Can be used in a discussion of demographics in a Principles or Consumer Behavior class, or for a more in-depth discussion of family influences in a Consumer Behavior class. Discuss the trends, and then ask students for examples of how marketers in some product categories (perhaps restaurants, automobiles, and home improvement warehouses like Home Depot) might respond to these changing trends.