Nielsen Pantene Case

Nielsen/Pantene Case

Key learning:

• Utilizing outside source to determine the true root cause of the actual decline in profit share was an extremely valuable expenditure for Procter and Gamble.
• This broad market view actually pinpointed the areas of improvement in regards to Pantene's market share decline as well as giving them insight to other product lines and how they fair in the market overall.
• This study identified packaging issues or improvements that could increase customer appeal.
• Indicated that Garnier's entrance into the US market was not the real issue behind the decline.
• Proved that cost was not an issue but the need to promote the brand was needed. Our group felt that coupons and limited time offers would help to increase product flowing to more homes without decreasing price. 
• We never pondered the facts in regards to the other product lines and other ways to increase revenue on their behalf to offset this fact. Dr. Kohne brought this to our attention as another way of viewing the data provided by Nielsen.

Group collaboration:

• The group agreed that the method of using Nielsen Research to determine the root cause was important. This enabled Procter and Gamble the much needed data to make an educated decision as to how to correct this issue.
• The method of utilizing "winning Brands" to find the solution was ingenious.
• For the most part we agreed that the issues, stated per the graphs, was packaging and promotion. Our solution to reinvent the packaging and develop a sale/coupon program to bring in additional customers was the best way to correct the situation.

The NFL is a brand. Has its brand equity diminished?

The NFL is a brand.  Has its brand equity diminished? 

Week 2 Questions:  The NFL is a brand.  Has its brand equity diminished? 

Ratings for NFL games have recently declined.  Greg Cote in the Miami Herald shared his thoughts in his opinion column “NFL’s declining TV ratings a needed slap in face for sport that has itself to blame.”

Link to his column which appeared on 11/2/16: http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/greg-cote/article112127422.html

1. To what do you attribute the ratings decline?  Why?Support your ideas with evidence from the articles (or what you would need to gather to confirm or disconfirm your beliefs.)  

It appears that there are several solid reasons for the ratings decline. From the Kaepernick national anthem controversy, Tom Brady's delflategate scandal, the world series having 2 teams that have not won a pennant in so long playing against each other, the presidential debate, and the basketball playoffs. All of these issues together indicate a reason for such a decline.

2. What could or should the NFL do differently in the future to improve ratings? 

Maintain better control of their players, work with the cable/satellite providers to offer games that the areas want to watch. They could advertise more but given the other events that were taken place during the same time frame, it would probably be a waste of money. I stopped watching because these guys are supposed to be role models and yet they are allowed to break the law or cheat and nothing happens.

3.      …Satisfy its advertising customers who expect millions of viewers?

  

How can anyone guarantee viewers, sure they did not meet the expected ratings but like everything else in business there are no guarantees. If the advertisers felt strongly about the controversial issues with the player’s, then they would pull their funds. However, in real life gossip and scandal sells stuff.

4.      Is the problem something the NFL can control and change (controllable such as players’ behavior on and off the field, bad matchups) or external factors outside of the NFL’s control (i.e. TV viewership in general is down)?

Yes, the NFL has the ability to control their players. They should be held to higher standard given their position as role models to our young people. The emulate their idols and by allowing this to continue they get the idea that there are no consequences for wrong doing. As far as the other events, the rating drop was out of there control. With that being said, they could have investigated the idea of changing the days the games aired.

5.      You have just been hired as a consultant to help answer these questions.  What strategies or tactics do you recommend to improve the situation?

Watch the ratings and identify any and all significant television events that may or may not hinder viewers from following their teams. Once these have been identified then approach the cable/satellite providers to air the games on different days. Roger Goodell obviously needs to either deal with the controversies with a press conference and start making examples of these players. Kaepernick has a valid point and this may or may not have had an effect on the rating decline. Another area that they need to look at is collecting data, lots of data to see who is watch and who is not. Survey more people and advertisers to get their view points, the more information the better. This would give Goodell the information he needs to understand the effects that these controversy’s are having on rating and advertisers. 

Chapter 18: Managing Marketing Responsibility in the Global Economy

Chapter 18: Managing Marketing Responsibility in the Global Economy


Internal Marketing

• Marketing succeeds only when  all departments work  together to achieve customer goals: when engineering designs  the  right  products, finance furnishes the  right  amount of funding, purchasing buys  the  right  material s, production makes the right products on the night schedule, and accounting measures profitability in the right ways.

• Organizing the Marketing Department

• Functional Organization- In the most common form of marketing organization, functional specialists (such as the marketing research manager) report to a marketing vice president who coordinates their activities.
• Geographic Organization- A Company selling in a national markets often organizes its sales force (and sometimes its marketing) along geographic lines.
• Product or Brand Management Organization- Companies producing a variety of products and brands often establish a product-(or brand) management organization.
• Market Management Organization- When customers fall into different user groups with distinct buying preferences and practices.
• Matrix-Management Organization- Companies that produce many products for many markets may adopt a Matrix organization employing both product and market managers.
• Relationships with Other Departments
  • All department need to “think customer” and work together to satisfy customer needs and expectations.
• Building a Creative Marketing Organization
  • Many companies realize they’re not yet really market and customer driven – they are product and sales driven.
  • Transforming into a true market-driven company requires, among other actions:
    1. Developing a company-wide passion for customers
    2. Organizing around customer segments instead of products
    3. Understanding customers through qualitative and quantitative research

Socially Responsible Marketing

• Effective internal marketing must be matched by a strong sense of ethics, values, and social responsibility.

Corporate Social Responsibility

• Socially Responsible Marketing calls for making a three-pronged attack that relies on proper:
  • Legal Behavior- Organizations must ensure every employee knows and observes relevant laws.
  • Ethical Behavior- It’s not easy to draw a clear line between normal marketing practice and unethical behavior.
    • Certain business practices are clearly unethical or illegal:
      • Bribery
      • Theft or trade secrets
      • False and deceptive advertising
      • Exclusive dealing and tying agreements
      • Quality or safety defects
      • False warranties
      • Inaccurate labeling
      • Price fixing or undue discrimination
      • Barriers to entry and predatory competition
  • Social Responsible Behavior- People want information about a company’s record on social and environment responsibility to help them decide which companies to buy from, invest in, and work for.
• Sustainability- the ability to meet humanity’s need without harming future generations – now tops many corporate agendas.
  • Green washing- gives products the appearance of being environmentally friendly without living up to that promise.
• Cause-Related Marketing- links the firm’s contributions toward a designated cause to customers’ engaging directly or indirectly in revenue-producing transactions with the firm.
  • Corporate Societal Marketing- (Minette Drumwright and Patrick Murphy defined) Marketing efforts “that have at least one non economic objective related to social welfare and use the resources of the company and/or of its partners.
    • A successful cause-marketing program can improve:

• Social welfare
• Create differentiated brand positioning
• Build strong consumer bonds
• Enhance the company’s public image
• Create a reservoir of goodwill
• Boost internal morale and galvanize employees
• Drive sales
• Increase the firm’s market value

• Specifically, from a branding point of view, cause marketing can:

1. Build brand awareness
2. Enhance brand image
3. Establish brand credibility
4. Evoke brand feelings
5. Create a sense of brand community
6. Elicit brand engagement

• Social Marketing- by nonprofit or government organizations furthers a cause, such as “say no to drugs” or exercise more and eat better.”

Chapter 17: Managing Personal Communications

Chapter 17: Managing Personal Communications

• Direct Marketing- the use of consumer-direct channels to reach and deliver goods and services to customers without using marketing middlemen.
• Direct-order Marketing-  a fast growing avenue, partly responsible to high and increased costs of reaching business markets through a sales force.
• The Benefits of Direct Marketing
• Consumers short of time and tired of traffic and parking headaches appreciate:
• Toll-free numbers
• Always open web sites
• Next day delivery
• Commitment to customer service
• Direct marketers benefits:
• Buy a list containing names of almost any group (left-handed people, millionaires)
• Customize and personalize messages to build customer relationships
• Reach interested prospects at the right moment
• Easily test alternative media and messages
• Measure responses to determine profitability
• Direct Mail
• Sending an offer, announcement, reminder, or other item to an individual consumer.
• Objectives- Marketers judge a campaign's success by the response rate.
• Target markets and prospects- Direct marketers apply the RFM (recency, frequency, monetary amount) formula to select customers according to:
•  how much time has passed since their last purchase
• how many times they have purchased
• how much they have spent since becoming a customer
• Marketers also identify prospects on the basis of:
• Age
• Sex
• Income
• Education
• Previous mail-order purchases
• Occasion
• Offer Elements
• Five elements of the offer strategy:
• The product
• The offer
• The medium
• The distribution method
• The creative strategy
• Five components of the mailing itself:
• The outside envelope
• Sales letter
• Circular
• Reply form
• Reply envelope
• Testing Elements
• Great advantages of direct marketing:
• Ability to test
• Under real marketplace conditions
• Different elements of an offer strategy
• Products
• Product features
• Copy platform
• Mailer type
• Envelope
• Prices
• Mailing lists
• Measuring Success: Lifetime Value
• By adding up the planned campaign costs, the direct marketer can determine the needed break-even response rate (net of returns and bad debts).
• Catalog Marketing
• Companies may send full-line merchandise catalogs, specialty consumer catalogs, and business catalogs, usually in print form but also as DVDs or online.
• Telemarketing
• The use of telephone and call centers to attract prospects, sell to existing customers, and provide service by taking orders and answering questions.
• Inbound telemarketing- receiving calls from customers
• Outbound telemarketing- initiating calls to prospects and customers.
• National Do Not Call Registry- established in 2003 - consumer telemarketing lost most of its effectiveness.
• Other Media for Direct-Response Marketing
• Direct marketers use all major media. Newspapers and magazines, radio ads, infomercials.
• Customer Database and database Marketing- a proprietary customer database can provide a company with significant competitive advantage.
• Companies can use their databases in five ways for direct marketing:
1. To identify prospect
2. To decide which customers should receive a particular offer
3. To deepen customer loyalty
4. To reactivate customer purchases
5. To avoid serious customer mistakes
• Five main problems can prevent a firm from effectively using database marketing:
1. Some situations are not conducive to database marketing.
• Building a customer database may not be worthwhile when:
1. The product is a once in a lifetime purchase
2. Customers show little loyalty  to a brand
3. The unit sale is very small so customer lifetime value is low
4. The cost of gathering information is too high
5. There is no direct contact between the seller and ultimate buyer
2. Building and maintaining a customer database require a large investment.
3. Employees may resist becoming customer-oriented and using the available information
4. Not all customers want a relationship with the company.
5. The assumption behind CRM may not always hold true.
• Public and Ethical Issues in Direct Marketing
• Direct marketers and their customers usually enjoy mutually rewarding relationships.

Chapter 16: Managing Digital Communications

Chapter 16: Managing Digital Communications

Social Media

• Means for consumers to share text, images, audio, and video information with each other and with other companies, and vice versa.

Social Media Platforms

• Three main platforms for social media:
1. Online communities and forums-created by consumers or groups of consumers with no commercial interest or company affiliation.
2. Blogs- regularly update online journals or diaries, have become an important outlet for word of mouth.
3. Social networks- An important force in both business-to-consumer and business-to-business marketing.

Using Social Media

• Social media are rarely the sole source of marketing communications for a brand.
• Social media may not be as effective in attracting new users and driving brand penetration.
• Brands and products vary widely in how social they are online.
• Consumers are most likely to engage with media, charities, and fashion and least likely to engage in consumer goods.
• Consumers may use social media to get useful information or deals to enjoy brand-created content, a much smaller percentage way to engage in two-way conversations with brands.
• Marketers must recognize that when it comes to social media, only some consumers want to engage with some brands and, even then, only some of the time.

Word of Mouth- Social media are one example of online word of mouth. Word of mouth (WOM) powerful marketing tool.

• Forms of Word of Mouth
• Viral Marketing- a form of a online WOM or "word of mouse;" that encourages consumers to pass along company-developed products and services or audio, video, or written information to others online.

Creating Word-of Mouth Buzz

• Certain steps can improve the likelihood of starting positive buzz:
• Identify influential individuals and companies and devote extra effort to them
• Supply key people with product samples
• Work through community influential
• Develop word-of-mouth referral channels to build business
• Provide compelling information that customers want to pass along.

Measuring the Effects of Word of Mouth

• Many marketers concentrate on the online effects of WOM given ease of tracking them through advertising, PR, and digital agencies.

Chapter 15: Managing Mass Communications

Chapter 15: Managing Mass Communications


Events and Experiences

• Becoming part of a personally relevant moment in consumers' lives through sponsored events and experiences can broaden and deepen a company's or brand's relationship with the target market.

Events Objectives

• Marketers report a number of reasons to sponsor events:
1. To identify with a particular target market or lifestyle
2. To increase salience of company or product name
3. To create or reinforce perceptions of key brand image associations
4. To enhance corporate image
5. To create experiences and evoke feelings
6. To express commitment to the community or on social issues
7. To entertain key clients or reward key employees
8. To permit merchandising or promotional opportunities

Major Sponsorship Decisions

• Making sponsorships successful requires choosing the appropriate events, designing the optimal sponsorship program, and measuring the effects of sponsorship.
• Choosing event opportunities
• The event must meet the brand's marketing objectives and communicate strategy
• Match the target market
• Have sufficient awareness and favorable attributions
• Possess the desire image
• Be able to create the desired effects
• Designing sponsorship programs
• Many marketers believe the marketing program accompanying an event sponsorship ultimately determines success.
• Event creation- a particularly important skill in publicizing fund-raising drives for nonprofit organization.
• Measuring sponsorship activities
• Suppy-side- method for measuring an event's success assesses media coverage .
• provides quantifiable measures, equating media coverage with advertising exposure ignores the content of the respective communications.
• demand-side- method identifies the sponsorship's effect on consumers' brand knowledge

Creating Experiences

• Experiential marketing- not only communicates features and benefits but also connects a product or service with unique and interesting experiences.

Public Relations

• Not only must the company relate constructively to customers, suppliers, and dealers, it must also relate to a large number of interested public.
• Public- any group that has an actual or potential interest in or impact on a company's ability to achieve its objectives.
• Public Relations (PR)- includes a variety of programs to promote or protect a company's image or individual products.
• PR departments perform the following five functions:
1. Press relations- Presenting news and information about the organization in the most positive light.
2. Product publicity- Sponsoring efforts to publicize specific products
3. Corporate communications- Promoting understanding of the organization through internal and external communications.
4. Lobbying- Dealing with legislators and government officials to promote or defeat legislation and regulation.
5. Counseling- Advising management about public issues as well as company positions and image during good times and bad
• Marketing Public Relations (MPR)to support corporate or product promotion and image making.
• Publicity- the task of securing editorial space as apposed to paid space in print and broadcast media to promote or hype a product, service, idea, place, person, or organization.
• MPR goes beyond simple publicity and plays an important role in the following tasks:
• Launching new products
• Repositioning mature products
• Building interest in a product category
• Influencing specific target groups
• Defending products that have encountered public problems
• Building the corporate image in a way that reflects favorably on its products.
• Major Decisions in Marketing PR
• Management must establish the marketing objectives, choose the PR messages and vehicles, implement the plan, and evaluate the results.
• Awareness- placing stories in the media to bring attention to a product, service, person, organization, or idea.
• Credibility- communicating the message in an editorial context.
• Enthusiasm- with stories about a new product before launch.
• Promotion cost- MPR costs less than direct-mail and media advertising.
• A better measure is:
• change in product awareness
• comprehension
• attitude

Chapter 14: Designing and Managing Integrated Marketing Communications

Chapter 14: Designing and Managing Integrated Marketing Communications

The Role of Marketing Communications

• Marketing communications- are the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade, and remind consumers-directly or indirectly-about the products and brands they sell.
• The Marketing Communications Mix- consists of eight major mods of communication.
1. Advertising- any paid form of non personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor via print media, broadcast media, network media, electronic media, and display media.
2. Sales promotion- Short-term incentives to encourage trial or purchase of a product or service including consumer promotions, trade promotions, and business and sales force promotions.
3. Events and experiences- Company sponsored activities and programs designed to create brand-related interactions with consumers, including sports, arts, entertainment, and cause events as well as less formal activities.
4. Public relations and publicity- Programs directed internally to employees of the company or externally to consumers, other firms, the government, and media to promote or protect a company's image or individual product communications.
5. Online and social media marketing- Online activities and programs to engage customers or prospects and directly or indirectly raise awareness, improve image, or elicit sales.
6. Mobile marketing- A special form of marketing that places communications on consumer's cell phones, smart phones, or tablets.
7. Direct and database marketing- Use of mail, telephone, fax, e-mail, or Internet to communicate directly with or solicit response or dialogue from specific customers and prospects.
8. Personal selling- Face-to-face interaction with prospective purchasers for the purpose of making presentations, answering questions, and procuring orders.

Communications Process Models

• ·         Marketers should understand fundamental elements of effective communications
• ·         Two models are useful: macro model and micro model
• ·         Response hierarchy models- Theses models assume the buyer passes through cognitive, affective, and behavioral stages in that order.

Developing Effective Communications

• ·         Basics steps of developing effective communications:

o   Identifying the target audience

o   Setting the communications objectives

o   Designing the communications

o   Selecting the communication channels

o   Establishing the total marketing communications budget

Set the Communications Objectives

• ·         Establish need for category- establishing a product or service category as necessary for removing or satisfying a perceived discrepancy between a current motivational state and a desired motivational state.
• ·         Build brand awareness- Fostering the consumer’s ability to recognize or recall the brand in sufficient detail to make a purchase.
• ·         Build brand attitude- Helping consumers evaluate the brand’s perceived ability to meet a currently relevant need.
• ·         Influence brand purchase intention- Moving consumers to decide to purchase the brand or take purchase-related action.

Design the Communications

• ·         Formulating the communications to achieve the desired response requires answering three questions:

o   What to say

o   How to say it

o   Who should say it

• ·         Message Strategy- in selecting the message strategy, management searches for appeals, themes, or ideas that will tie in to the brand positioning and help establish point-to-parity or point-to-difference.
• ·         Creative Strategy- the way marketers translate their messages into a specific communication.

o   Informational appeal- elaborates on product or service attributes or benefits.

o   Transformational appeal- elaborates on a non product-related benefit or image

• ·         Message Source- the source’s credibility is crucial to a message’s acceptance.
• ·         The three most often identified sources of credibility are:

o   Expertise- the specialized knowledge communicator possesses to back the claim.

o   Trustworthiness- describes how objective and honest the source is perceived to be.

o   Likability- describes the source’s attractiveness, measured in terms of candor, humor, and naturalness.

• ·         State of congruity- if a person has a positive attitude toward a source and a message or a negative attitude toward both.
• ·         Principle of congruity- implies that communicators can use their good image to reduce some negative feelings towards a brand but in the process might lose some esteem with the audience,

Select the Communications Channels

o   Communications channels may be personal and non personal. Within each are many sub channels:

o   Personal Communications Channels- let two or more persons communicate face to face or person to audience through a phone, surface mail, or e-mail.

o   They derive their effectiveness from individualized presentation and feedback and include:

§  Direct marketing

§  Personal selling

§  Word of mouth

·         We can draw further distinction between:

1.      Advocate channels- consist of company salespeople contacting buyers in the target market.

2.      Expert channels- consist of independent experts making statements to target buyers.

3.      Social channels- consists of neighbors, friends, family members, and associates talking to target buyers.

·         Personal influence carries especially great weight:

1.      When products are expensive, risky, or purchased infrequently

2.      When products suggest something about the user’s status or taste.

Non personal (Mass) Communications Channels

• ·         Communications directed to more than one person and include advertising, sales promotions, events and experiences, and public relations.

Integration of Communications Channel

• ·         Although personal communication is often more than mass communication, mass media might be the major means of stimulating it.
• ·         This two-step flow has several implications:

o   First, the influence of mass media on public opinion is not as direct, powerful, and automatic as marketers have supposed. It is mediated by opinion leaders and media mavens, people who track new ideas and whose opinions others seek or who carry their opinions to others.

o   Second, the two-step flow challenges the notion that consumption styles are primarily influenced by a “trickle-down” or “trickle-up” effect from mass consumption styles are primarily within their own social groups and acquire ideas from other opinion leaders and others engaged with media if possible and let them carry the message to others.

Establishing the Total Marketing Communications Budget

• ·         Marketing communications budgets tend to be higher when there is low channel support, the marketing program changes greatly over time, many customers are hard to reach, customer decision making is complex, products are differentiated and customer needs are non homogeneous, and purchases are frequent and quantities small.

Chapter 13: Managing Retailing, Wholesaling, and Logistics

Chapter 13: Managing Retaining, Wholesaling, and Logistics

Retailing- includes all activities in selling goods or services directly to final consumers for personal, nonbusiness use.

·         Retailer- or retail store is any business enterprise whose sales volume come primarily from retailing.

Types of Retailers

·         Retailers can position themselves as offering on of four levels of service:

1.      Self-service- the cornerstone of all discount operations.

2.      Self-selection- customers find their own goods, though they can ask for assistance

3.      Limited service- these retailers carry more shopping goods and services such as credit and merchandise-return privileges.

4.      Full service- Salespeople are ready to assist every phase of the “locate-compare-select” process.

·         Nonstore retailing- has been growing much faster than store retailing, with the rise in e-commerce and m-commerce.

·         Nonstore retailing falls into four major categories:

1.      Direct marketing

2.      Direct selling (aka: multilevel selling & network selling)

3.      Automatic vending

4.      Buying services

·         Corporate retailing organization- organizations achieve economies of scale, greater purchasing power, wider brand recognition, and better-trained employees than independent stores can usually gain alone.

The Modern Retail Marketing Environment

• ·         The retail marketing environment is dramatically different today from what it was just a decade or so ago.
• ·         Technology is profoundly affecting the way retailers conduct virtually every facet of their business
• ·         Technology is used to produce forecasts, control inventory costs, and order from suppliers, reducing the need to discount and run sales to clear out languishing products.
• ·         Technology is also directly affecting the consumer shopping experience inside the store, including experiments with virtual shopping screens, audio/video presentation, and other applications.
• ·         Shopper marketing- the way manufacturing and retailers use stocking displays, and promotions to influence consumers actively shopping for a product.
• ·         “Marketing insight- the growth of shopper marketing” describes the important role technology is taking in the aisles.

Retailer Marketing Decisions

• ·         With this new retail environment as a backdrop, we now examine retailers’ marketing decisions in some key areas:

o   Target market- defines and profiles the target market

o   Channels- based on a target market analysis and other considerations

o   Product assortment-the retailer’s product assortment must match the target market’s shopping expectations in breadth and depth.

§  Destination categories- play an important role because they have the greatest impact on where households choose to shop and how they view a particular retailer.

o   Procurement- stores are using direct product profitability (DPP) to measure a product’s handling costs from the time it reaches the warehouse until a customer buys it in the retail store.

o   Prices- a key positioning factor and must be set in relationship to the target market, product-and-service assortment mix, and competition.

§  Most retailers fall into the:

·         High-markup, low-volume group

·         Low-markup, higher volume group

o   Services- retailers must decide on the service mix to offer customers.

o   Store atmosphere- every store has a look and a physical layout that makes it hard or easy to move around.

o   Store activities and experiences- the growth of e-commerce has forced traditional brick-and-mortar retailer to respond.

o   Communications- retailers use a wide range of communication tools to generate traffic and purchasing, including:

§  Advertising

§  Special sales

§  Money-saving coupons

§  E-mail promotions

§  Frequent-shopper-reward programs

§  In-store food sampling

o   Location

§  Three keys to retail success are: “location, location, and location”

§  Central business districts- the oldest and most heavily trafficked city areas, often known as “downtown.”

§  Regional shopping centers- large suburban malls containing 40 to 200 stores

§  Community shopping centers- smaller malls with one anchor store and 20 to 40 smaller stores

§  Shopping strips- a cluster of stores, usually in one long building, serving a neighborhood’s needs for groceries, hardware, laundry, and more.

§  A location within a larger store- concession spaces taken by well-known retailers like Starbucks inside larger stores, airports, or schools; “store-within-a-store” specialty retailers located within a department store.

§  Stand-alone stores- freestanding storefronts not connected directly to other retail stores