Product advertising versus ideas advertising

Social marketing programs which promote the use of a product, such as a condom, have certain advantages over programs which simply try to convince people to change their behavior. Of considerable importance, the success or failure of a social marketing program can be readily assessed through the level of sales of the promoted product. Most programs designed to alleviate poverty or advance social goals are extremely hard to measure, often leading to program inefficiency and even undetected failure. However, when a socially motivated program depends upon product sales, those sales can be quickly measured. Even though sales statistics alone are not enough to accurately judge the impact of family planning programs, they can still say much about relative program efficiencies. The brand advantage of promoting and selling branded products is also explained.     

Managing for customers and employees in Hong Kong: The quality and teamwork challenges

Service marketing, total quality management, and human resource management researchers have proposed that employee teamwork is a foundation for service quality. North American research suggests that developing cooperative relationships and constructive controversy among employees can empower employees to serve customers and to strengthen their work relationships and commitment to the organization. Chinese employees in an American-style restaurant in Hong Kong were interviewed on specific incidents that affected service quality. Correlational and structural equation results support the hypotheses that cooperative goals help employees discuss their diverse views open-mindedly and that this constructive controversy results in quality customer service. Competitive and independent goals were largely negatively correlated with dynamics and outcomes. Results were interpreted as suggesting that service teams should develop strong cooperative goals and the skills and procedures of constructive controversy. Deutsch's theory of cooperation and competition, although developed largely through North American research, seems useful for understanding and developing service quality teamwork in Asia.     

Frequency Marketing Programs

Frequency marketing programs, a type of long-term consumer sales program, have become extremely popular in recent years. However, a certain amount of confusion surrounds exactly what constitutes a frequency marketing program and how the pro- grams differ from other forms of promotion. A promotional frame- work is presented which classifies various types of consumer sales promotion. Frequency marketing is positioned as a subset of patron- age reward programs. Further, the researchers discuss the goals and defining guidelines for establishing successful programs. Four his- torical examples are included to illustrate the use of the programs.     

销售风格与顾客合作倾向的实证研究

在营销活动过程中,推销员的销售风格往往对顾客的购买合作意愿起到至关重要的影响。采用实证方法,检验和发展推销方格理论不同风格的推销员遇到防卫型顾客时,何种风格的推销员更有可能完成任务。研究结果修正了传统的看法:防卫型顾客对强力型与技术型推销员的购买意愿有显著差异,且对技术型推销员的购买意愿高于强力型推销员,表明技术型的推销风格更易为人们所接受。     

Competitive Actions of Small Firms in a Declining Market

Small firms, through their flexibility advantages and closeness to customers, potentially can increase their sales volume in economic downturns. The decline in U.S. housing construction (beginning in 2006) provided an opportunity to develop and test four hypotheses predicting the attributes and marketing actions associated with successful companies supplying housing markets. Smaller firms and those producing made‐to‐order products were most likely to have realized increased sales volume. These successful firms were not engaged in several marketing actions hypothesized to increase sales volume in a declining market. Small firm competitiveness was based more on working closely with customers to produce fully customized products.     

Goal interdependence and quality in services marketing

Service quality is considered an important competitive edge because it generates repeat sales, positive word of mouth, customer loyalty, and competitive product differentiation. This study examines the impact of a company's cooperative or competitive orientation and the service provider's warm or cold communication style on customer evaluation of service quality. Results from 83 participants in a simulated bank interview experiment indicate that when the bank communicated a cooperative orientation they perceived it as offering a higher-quality service than when it had competitive or individualistic goals. The warmth of the service personnel contributed to high-quality service, liking the bank representative, future confidence in dealing with the bank, satisfaction with the interview, and willingness to be interviewed by the bank representative in the future. These results were interpreted as suggesting that companies who can demonstrate a strong cooperative orientation toward customers and whose service providers demonstrate warmth will be considered to offer high-quality services. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Meta‐marketing: Unifying organisational focus to achieve marketplace goals and objectives

Marketing and sales have not received the same emphasis from western leadership that they have in Japan. In the American model, one group markets, another sells, another designs and manufactures, and another sets organisational goals and objectives. Each area becomes separate and isolated without a common focus. Well‐designed meta‐marketing strategies directed by senior management can facilitate rapid and productive responses to changing environments.

To excel in a global economy, the field of marketing must take a new position, rethinking its fundamental relationship to all aspects of the organisation and its external environment. The perception of marketing must move beyond its present paradigm. To improve profits and sales by x percent each year is limiting. A business should expand in relation to potential, not last year's profits. A marketing focus must be designed that will increase market share, growth, short‐ and long‐term profits, and employment. Leadership can improve productivity by directing all employees to reflect a common corporate marketing and sales focus.     

Exploiting the installed base using cross-merchandising and category destination programs

We investigate two ways to increase sales and customer loyalty by taking advantage of a store's installed base of current customers. We propose a classification of products into two types. Products of Type 1 are products for which consumers have a loyalty to a specific retailer and, as far as possible, always shop at that retailer for these products. The other products (Type 2) are not associated with any retailer and are bought at whichever retailer consumers happen to shop when they plan or remember to buy the product. With this in mind, we test the potential of two marketing tools to help retailers increase their share of sales of the Type 2 segment. Using a category destination program we show that one can successfully transform Type 2 into Type 1 products. Using cross-merchandising promotions, we show that one can increase the sales of Type 2 products thereby gaining a larger share of discretionary purchases than what one would receive from a straight random allocation. Both series of tests yielded significant increases in sales and profits and were deemed successful by the retailers who implemented them.     

Drivers of peak sales for pharmaceutical brands

Peak sales are an important metric in the pharmaceutical industry. Specifically, managers are focused on the height-of-peak-sales and the time required achieving peak sales. We analyze how order of entry and quality affect the level of peak sales and the time-to-peak-sales of pharmaceutical brands. We develop a growth model that includes these two variables as well as control variables for own and competitive marketing activities. We find that early entrants achieve peak sales later, and they have higher peak-sales levels. High-quality brands achieve peak sales earlier, and their peak-sales levels are higher. In addition, quality has a moderating effect on the order of entry effect on time-to-peak-sales. Our results indicate that late entrants have longer expected time-to-peak-sales when they introduce a brand with high quality.     

大学生旅游行为及景区营销策略探讨

随着中国经济的发展以及高等教育改革的不断深入,大学生旅游市场显示出前所未有的重要性。与大众游客相比,大学生潜在游客具有出游欲望强、旅游信息来源及出游方式多样化、注重产品的经济性、出游动机求知性明显以及消费行为较为理性等特点。在游客终生价值理念的指导下,旅游景区只有重新整合信息及销售渠道,建立并完善景区市场营销系统,为大学生游客提供差异化的产品服务组合才能确保其可持续营销战略得以贯彻和实施。     

A study to identify the training needs of life insurance sales representatives in Taiwan using the Delphi approach

This article reports a study conducted to identify the needs for continuing professional development for life insurance sales representatives and to examine the competencies needed by those sales representatives. A modified Delphi technique was used. Most life insurance companies in the USA implement an education and training plan advocated by the Life Office Management Association. Insurance companies in Taiwan implement similar education and training plans, but they do not seem to result in the successful performance of their sales representatives. Besides augmenting knowledge of various financial products and marketing approaches, this study also suggests that life insurance companies need to train their sales representatives to an adequate standard in competencies of problem solving, communication, information technology utilization, culture compatibility, emotional intelligence, collective competence and ethics.     

Unlocking the Power of Integrated Marketing Communications: How Integrated Is Your IMC Program?

The future of advertising and marketing communications will be marked by an increasingly diverse collection of new digital options added to the traditional media and communication options already available to marketers. By taking advantage of the unique strengths of different communication options, and combining them and sequencing them strategically, marketers have the opportunity to drive sales and build brands in ways never before possible. Doing so, however, will require new concepts, new tools, and new thinking. Toward that goal, this article describes seven integrated marketing communications (IMC) choice criteria that marketers can use to judge how effectively and efficiently they have assembled their IMC programs. The article also outlines five priority areas for future research to help further guide the successful design and implementation of IMC programs.     

Sponsorship leveraged packaging: An exploratory study in FMCG

The concept of 'internal marketing' has received considerable coverage in the literature, but even its most ardent supporters have noted problems in translating the concept into reality. This paper discusses the findings of an exploratory case study carried out within 35 UK high street retail banks. Internal marketing is an initiative adopted by the organizations studied in order to nourish a marketing orientation.The implementation approach shapes the nature and form of the internal marketing communications that organizations adopt. Even though UK retail banks intend to implement internal marketing effectively, in reality the current implementation approach appears to be counter-productive to the achievement of the core aims of the initiative. The core finding from this exploratory research suggests that there are substantial barriers to the successful implementation of internal marketing within the banks studied, barriers such as the focus on short-term sales goals, the lack of a formal and 'holistic' implementation approach and the creation of 'personnel discrimination' and negative internal competition.     

Individual Decision-Making in Organizations: Contribution of Uncertainty and Controversy in China

Uncertainty has been thought to challenge the cognitive capabilities of managers and thereby undermine their decision-making abilities. However, managers who experience uncertainty in that they are unsure of the adequacy of their own position may open-mindedly consult with their colleagues in the organization before they make the decision. A sample of 122 Chinese mainland managers described and rated a critical incident when they tried to make a decision. Regression analyses indicated that to the extent that managers initially felt uncertain about the solution they engaged in constructive controversy, i.e. the open-minded discussion for mutual benefit, which, in turn, led to effective decision-making. Cooperative goals further moderated the association of uncertainty with cooperative goals such that the positive association was stronger with less cooperative goals. These results underline the positive role of uncertainty in solving difficult problems, especially under competitive goals.     

Do channel members value the multiple-cooperation strategy?

When the manufacturer distributes his products through online and traditional channels, what type of innovative marketing strategy can be utilized to solve the channel conflict and improve the performances of all channel members? Our research addresses this important question by initiating a triple cooperative strategy for channel members to employ in a manufacturer – retailer dual-channel supply chain. Our results show that when the product is less compatible with online channel than with traditional channel, channel members can utilize a triple cooperative strategy to improve channel coordination and their individual performances effectively and efficiently. First, the manufacturer can utilize supportive retail sales effort as a valuable coordination mechanism to improve the performances of all channel members in the dual-channel distribution. Second, a channel coordinative price strategy can be utilized to further improve the performance of whole channel. Finally, a profit sharing mechanism is needed to create a Pareto result for both the manufacturer and the retailer. Furthermore, we extend our model to study the value of triple cooperative strategy in a manufacturer – two competitive retailers supply chain and derive the optimum marketing strategy.     

Cooling off and backing out: Understanding consumer decisions to rescind a product purchase

Consumers sometimes have the right to exit a sales contract during what is known as a cooling-off period. Sales process research generally does not address cases when consumers withdraw from sales contracts during this period. Since securing product sales involves substantial marketing and sales costs, a need exists to better understand not only consumer rescission decisions and their legal context but also the managerial implications of the cooling-off period. This exploratory qualitative study examines purchase rescinding and develops a conceptual model using timeshare as the context. Results suggest that rescission relates to a mismatch between product features and personal circumstances, post-purchase concerns about product value, reassessment of financial capability, reflections on sales presentations, and cautionary influences of reference groups.     

Marketing control and performance in early-growth companies

This article examines the relationship between market performance and marketing control systems used by early-growth electronic component and instrument manufacturers. Essentially, “marketing control” means keeping things on track. Long pushed aside by the excitement of planning and organizing business ventures, controlling operations, particularly marketing operations, has received little attention. This is regrettable because control is the only mechanism which ensures that resources are allocated efficiently and that strategic objectives are met. Also, for the early-growth high tech company, which is already in a state of flux, developing an appropriate marketing control system is essential to its ability to meet and respond to the recurring challenges brought about by the pace at which change is occurring.In this article the author examines the issue of marketing control from a theoretical as well as an empirical perspective. First, the author presents a framework for evaluating the marketing control system within a company. The core of the framework presents the essential elements of marketing control: feedback and corrective action. Bounding the core is:

1. 1. The Formal Marketing Organization. Delimits the company's capability to enact the control processes.

2. 2. Marketing Culture. The subjective, interpretive aspect of organizational life, which determines what control components and marketing structure are valued in the company.

The framework is used to analyze the marketing control systems of 20 early-growth high tech manufacturing companies. Four hierarchical configurations of the control system elements are identified and the companies assigned to one of the following configurations:

1. I. seeking some sales.

2. II. making good on sales.

3. III. seeking profitable sales.

4. IV. making profitable sales.

Four companies possessed none of the elements of control. There were merely operations which produced results. As a consequence the companies were judged to be generally unsuccessful in focusing their resources on the markets that they wished to serve. In addition, the market performances of these firms, relative to others in the sample, were poor. Ten Stage II companies, in their attempts to expand sales and to remedy logistical problems associated with making deliveries on sales, had developed formal sales departments. Unlike the four companies which were placed in Stage III, these companies put little emphasis on the financial accountability of sales and marketing. Consequently, their abilities to evaluate or steer profit performances mitigated against their achieving high levels of market performance. Only two companies were judged sufficiently different from other companies to warrant placement in Stage IV. These companies focused on developing marketing structures and reporting procedures which provided real time feedback on market performances. Because of this, they appeared able to identify market opportunities that were defensible in the long run and in which they could exercise control over profits.In conclusion, the findings indicate that greater control of marketing operations correlates with stronger market performances. When performance is measured in terms of absolute sales, sales growth. cumulative cashflow and profitability, companies with more evolved marketing control systems perform noticeably better than do others in the sample.     

Strategy transition and marketing innovation of a vertical search engine: The case of Kuxun company

Kuxun is an online travel search company in China. This paper describes the transition and innovation of the company’s marketing strategy, from comprehensive information search to online travel search. It shows how Kuxun has successfully achieved strategic market transition from “all-round” to “specialized” through efficient market segmenting, targeting, and positioning (STP). The case also illustrates how Kuxun has become the top brand of Chinese online travel search by carrying out various types of innovative network marketing, including interactive experience marketing, precision marketing, and cooperative marketing.     

Practical Economics and Computing at Brand Level

You cannot make good marketing plans without estimates of the likely effects of your actions. But many decisions are taken—for example, whether to spend more or less on advertising—with little analysis of the results of such changes in the past. Meanwhile the data, which might reveal useful relationships between actions and sales effects, receive only cursory inspection. And economic theorists spend little time helping manufacturers at the level of the brand. A few advertising agencies appreciate that their own work would be better valued, and their clients would receive better advice, if they looked harder for the sales effects of advertising and other marketing decisions. Leo Burnett is one of these forward-looking agencies, and this paper describes some of the work they have carried out.