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Marketing This file contains the following short items on marketing:
Marketing means persistence A New Equipment Digest Magazine study found that 63 per cent of the prospects who asked for information about a product took three months or longer to buy. And nearly 20 per cent took more than a year. Other studies suggest that 80 per cent of all sales close between the fifth and ninth contacts. AmEx to sell data American Express knows how much you buy, from whom and
when you bought it. And now that information is for sale. Scarier still, AmEx is working with KnowledgeBase Marketing. If you're American, that company knows how old you are, how many kids you have, where you live and
who you've been married to. In May, AmEx promised not to sell info on specific customer transactions, and said that customers can write or call AmEx to have their information cut from the data &ldots; if they find
out about the plan. Survey says ... trouble! Writing in the June 8 issue of Marketing News, marketing researcher James Nelems warned that marketing research is falling victim to nation-wide concerns over privacy and to the increasing number of telemarketing calls. Much marketing research is actually "sugging" ("selling under the guise" of research) or "frugging" ("fund-raising under the guise"). Even Ann Landers has warned her readers not to answer phone surveys. As a result, response rates to genuine marketing research calls have dropped to around 50 per cent in the United States. Marketing, synergy and Disney The entertainment industry is dominated by synergy, the idea that TV, film, books and music should all tie into each other. But this can create
unexpected PR problems. Disney, for example, is the most aggressive practitioner of synergy, sometimes shockingly so. In a recent episode of the otherwise superb TV show "Sports Night," one of the crustier
characters has her heart melted by the theatrical presentation of "The Lion King." "The Lion King" is a Disney show. "Sports Night" is produced by Disney's production company for ABC,
which Disney owns. And "Sports Night" is modelled on ESPN. Guess who owns ESPN? More seriously, the president of ABC News killed a story on Disney hiring pedophiles. Why? It's hard to say, but it may have
something to do with Disney honcho Michael Eisner, who last September said, "I think it is inappropriate for Disney to cover Disney." The issue is the cover story on this month's "Brill's Content."
A marketing "oops" This past week we found in our mailbox a
flyer offering a bigger bang for our buck and a better deal. We were enticed by no down payments or monthly payments until 2001. We were tempted by scratch and win boxes, Air Miles reward points and a free coffee mug.
However, what this full-colour, glossy brochure forgot to do was tell us what products were being sold and, even more importantly, who was selling them. With a little squinting, we managed to see the Brick mentioned in
the tiny legal fine print, but there was no address, no phone number and no Web site. We bravely predict disappointing results for this promotion. "Blair Witch" upends marketing To insure a big hit, you pay exorbitant salaries to movie stars and sink a fortune into marketing, right?
Well, maybe not. Increasingly, big-budget movies are flopping, while smaller movies are earning a much greater return on investment. The most extreme example of this has been "The Blair Witch Project," a
movie made for under $US50,000 plus post-production costs, purchased for $US1.1 million and projected to make more than $US100 million. Not only does this movie have no stars, but its marketing strategy was completely
counter to Hollywood's conventional wisdom, concentrating as it did on the Internet, college campuses and the alternative press rather than on major media.
But this weirdo strategy created a buzz of anticipation among key opinion-leaders. And if this strategy can work for a movie, then it can probably work for anything. "Blair Witch" suggests that a good PR or
marketing campaign can work by concentrating scarce resources on influential niches and letting word of mouth carry the message from there. This is especially true for those of us trying to reach specialized audiences
in the first place. New marketing research The March 14 issue of
The Economist
dwelled on Lord Leverhulme's famous words, "Half of my advertising is wasted -- the trouble is, I don't know which half." Or, more exactly, it looked at why only a third of promotions pay for themselves, specifically promotions built on discounts.
Thinking of expanding your offering instead? Think again. Yale University found that increasing choice in a product line only paralyses potential customers, who then buy nothing at all. The Harvard Business
School found that customers prefer greater choice only if it is along one factor, such as price or size. Meanwhile, a study by CDB Research & Consulting in the United States suggests that only a quarter of
supermarket shoppers notice point-of-purchase displays. Of these, only two in five will actually buy, and these tend to be young, single and less affluent. Pepsi contest backfires Contests aren't a laughing matter. Ask Pepsi. Its Pepsi Stuff promotion was meant
to entice Generation-Xers with prizes that could be earned with points from purchases. You could get a T-shirt for 80 points, a leather jacket for 1,200 points&ldots;and a Harrier jet for seven million points. Ha,
ha, ha. Who could gather seven million points? Enter Seattle student John Leonard, who used a legal loophole that let him buy points. Claiming that the jet was a joke, Pepsi offered Leonard all of three cases of Pepsi
instead. Leonard sued. He may not win, but the national embarrassment leaves the score: Gen-X: 1; Corporate America: -7,000,000. Be alarmed Gerald Michaelson, in Building Bridges to Customers, suggests viewing customer problems with ALARM: apologize, leap into action, ask for advice, refuse to argue, make amends.
Cornerstone is a writing and editing firm that uses marketing and PR principles to create "words you can build your business on." Call us from anywhere in the world for rush work.
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