Marketing/sales

Podcast: Kellogg on “analysis paralysis” in marketing

October 10, 2008 6:19 pm by Adam Jones

Marketers used to struggle to get all the information they wanted about their customers, says Tim Calkins, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Now, thanks to the internet and other advances, the opposite is true: many marketing departments have access to so many facts and figures that “analysis paralysis” has set in.

In a new FT Management podcast, Prof Calkins says the profession needs to become less preoccupied with gathering information and more concerned with translating insight into action – especially now that deteriorating economic conditions have made companies question all costs that do not have a clear payback.

He warns: “If all you do is know your customer really well, that doesn’t help you.”

Continue reading: “Podcast: Kellogg on “analysis paralysis” in marketing”

Posted in B-schools, Hard times, Marketing/sales, Podcasts | Permalink

All the world’s a marketing opportunity

October 8, 2008 3:05 pm by Stefan Stern

Look, I’m not against people having fun, ok? We all need cheering up a bit right now. But when I received an invitation from a management consultancy recently to attend a Shakespeare-themed party at London’s Globe theatre, very near the FT’s offices, I’m afraid my heart sank.

The invite came in a black cardbord tube. Inside was a scroll of pseudo-aged parchment. “Where art thou?” our potential host asked. We were being invited to an evening of “Shakespearean merriment”. We would be offered, of course, “a goblet” of wine, a “light feast” and – God forbid – “a jester or two”.

I didn’t reply. “If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything,” as some of us were taught as children.

But then I received another e-mail asking again if I could attend. “If music be the food of love, play on”, the invite began. The host may not know that when Orsino utters those words at the start of Twelfth Night he goes on: ”Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.”

The party is on tomorrow (Thursday) night. I’m not going.

Posted in Marketing/sales | Permalink

Retailers should not skimp on staffing in downturn

October 2, 2008 2:39 pm by Adam Jones

With consumer spending under pressure in various major economies, retailers are particularly exposed right now. The tempation, as ever, will be to cut staffing. New research from Harvard Business School suggests that would be a bad idea.

Zeynep Ton, an assistant professor, studied one large retailer and found that there was a link between increased spending on staffing and increased profits. However, this wasn’t because of better customer service.

It was actually because extra payroll expenditure led to improvements in the fulfilment of some basic, behind-the-scenes tasks, such as ensuring that stock was on the sales floor and not the storeroom, returning unsold items and keeping display shelves tidy.

On a similar topic, one Wharton professor has criticised a new system for getting the most out of staff at the Ann Taylor clothing chain, saying the Darwinian software – which allocates prime shifts to the best sales people – was like “squeezing blood out of a turnip” .

Posted in B-schools, Hard times, Marketing/sales | Permalink

P&G’s rural approach to online branding

October 1, 2008 1:47 pm by Adam Jones

Emma Jenkins, the UK head of interactive marketing at Procter & Gamble, has a snappy way of explaining a common mistake made in online brand management.

She believes that too many brands engage with online communities on a temporary basis when they have a particular marketing initiative instead of building a permanent dialogue.

It is like moving to a village, knocking on doors frantically to announce your presence and then disappearing two weeks later, she told the UK Association of Online Publishers summit today.

“A community is not a campaign,” she declared.

Posted in Marketing/sales | Permalink

Pick of the week

September 26, 2008 12:29 pm by Adam Jones

It might not seem like it at the moment but Robert Peston is not the only business journalist at the BBC. Peter Day is still offering excellent insights into management fundamentals on BBC radio.

The latest edition of his ‘In Business’ show – which can be heard online or via podcast download – covers branding and new product development. Learn why prosaic lower-sodium soups were a hit for Campbell’s, and why eggs shouldn’t go in the toaster.

I was delighted to hear him chat to John Murphy, a branding expert I once interviewed for an article on brand euthanasia. Mr Murphy founded one of my favourite brewers, St Peter’s. If you are in London and need a calming pint after another week of grim uncertainty, head for its Jerusalem Tavern.

Elsewhere:

Posted in Hard times, Leadership, Marketing/sales | Permalink

How to focus on customers without going overboard

September 23, 2008 1:09 pm by Adam Jones

How much time should bosses spend with customers? Too little means you are out of touch. Too much means you are neglecting CEO duties. Harvard Business School professor John Quelch has a three-pronged strategy for avoiding both extremes:

Bosses should monitor 3 or 4 measures of the health of customer relationships (tailored to the strategy of their business);
They should invest in understanding customers better, either through regular trips to the front line or through more formal studies;
They should also develop marketing skills within the organisation and promote more marketing specialists to general management positions.

He says that every CEO should spend at least 10 per cent of their time on these three things: “Running around visiting customers is simply not enough.”

Posted in Leadership, Marketing/sales | Permalink

Pick of the week

September 19, 2008 11:51 am by Adam Jones

The week of reckoning is almost over. For a cheery reminder of normality, watch the FT’s Richard Edgar prowling the aisles of the new Emirates A380 “super jumbo”. Marvel at the shower in first class! Quake before the endless prairie of economy class!

Elsewhere:

Tom Peters on the difference between customer loyalty and customer bribery;
Donald Trump insists he isn’t tremendously worried that “there will be more people looking for jobs than will be looking for apartments” in New York;
Freek Vermeulen rants about inflexible corporate strategies.

Posted in B-schools, Expat/travel, Hard times, Marketing/sales, Strategy/ops | Permalink

Column: bosses with a thirst for change

September 16, 2008 3:04 am by Stefan Stern

In the good old days, before the Berlin Wall came down and when things were so much simpler than they are today, thirsty visitors to the still divided city had a choice. Should they opt for a Berliner Kindl beer, as brewed in West Berlin, or instead down a bottle (or two) of the Berliner Kindl that was available in the East?

In one of those quirks of history that characterised the cold war, the Kindl name was preserved on both sides of the Iron Curtain. In East Berlin some were sceptical about their version of the beer. “Berliner Kindl: oben Schaum und unten Schwindel” ran the joke – “a frothy head with nothing underneath”.

But then came the fall of the Wall in 1989, and the coming together of the two German states. Surely the enfeebled East German brewing industry, like so much else in the country, was set for collapse or takeover by the muscular west? That’s what looked like happening at first. East German consumers, long denied the glitzy brands which they could see being advertised nightly on their west-facing TV sets, sated their thirst for western products: West Berlin’s Kindl triumphed.

Continue reading: ‘Bosses with a thirst for change’. Please post comments below.

Posted in Marketing/sales, Strategy/ops | Permalink

Pick of the week

August 29, 2008 1:46 pm by Adam Jones

Last week I pointed out that McKinsey was offering to take a bullet for Wall Street by suggesting that it might not be a bad idea for investment banks to spend less on consultants.

Now the Sydney Carton of the consultancy world has a new insight likely to please bankers. A couple of its directors have co-authored an article declaring that the best companies view downturns as a good time to make acquisitions.

McKinsey isn’t suggesting that every company will be in a position to find the funds to purchase rivals. But for financially-solid businesses its advice seems plausible – and it certainly won’t hurt the flow of M&A fees into the investment banking industry.

Elsewhere: