Just Marketing

A modest diagnosis of India's infrastructure woes

2012-02-19T00:01:00.001-05:00

I just got back from Hong Kong, and on the way back I stopped in India, as I usually do. India had been on a tear, economically speaking, for much of the first decade of this century, but appears to have paused for a breather over the last few months. Things are a tad slower than the frenzied pace of just a few years ago; the confidence (hubris?) has mellowed just a little; the shine – well

Marketing lessons from the financial crisis

2012-02-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

The saying “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan” goes back at least as far as Tacitus (around 100 B.C.). So calling the financial crisis of 2008 a financial crisis, has the benefit of finding at least one father for that failure: the field of finance, and its real-world embodiment, Wall Street. But calling it a financial crisis may obscure some of the lessons to be learned from

GAFA, the new face of marketing

2012-02-05T00:01:00.000-05:00

It is a misconception that the dominant businesses of Silicon Valley are technology companies. Sure, when you think of the venerable old names such as Intel and HP, semiconductor chips and hardware based on those chips come to mind. But just as the 1980s saw the Valley shift to software, and in the 1990s the Valley rode the internet boom, the present century has so far been about consumers and

Just Marketing and the INSEAD Blog

2012-02-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

Starting this past week some posts from the Just Marketing blog will also appear on the INSEAD Blog.

Are business school rankings good for you?

2012-01-29T00:01:00.000-05:00

Whether you're a prospective student, a recruiter, or a donor, use business school rankings with caution. Since BusinessWeek launched them in 1988, and the Financial Times developed a more international and comprehensive version a few years later, business school rankings have become increasingly important in the decisions and choices of MBA candidates, recruiters, and even donors. The

Hour glass theory

2012-01-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

Citigroup calls it the Hour Glass Theory. As income inequality increases, consumers are polarizing into two groups – the few looking for high-end, highly differentiated and high value-added products, and the many looking for value, and sometimes extreme value. The middle, which was the staple target market of consumer goods companies since at least the mid-twentieth century, has shrunk,

Green consumers, Canada?

2012-01-15T00:01:00.000-05:00

It’s official as of early December 2011. Canada gave up on its Kyoto commitments. The Canadian government has announced its intention to withdraw. There was no way we were going to meet the targets anyway, so why suffer the embarrassment of failure when you can quit in a huff and pretend it is someone else’s fault? Green indicates countries that have ratified the treaty; Dark green are

Pink shades for everyone!

2012-01-08T00:01:00.001-05:00

Economic slowdowns, recessions, and even depressions are made worse than they should be because of psychological effects. In the expectation of an economic downturn businesses hold off on investments, consumers delay big ticket spending, and save rather than spend. The more talk there is of recession, the more a recession is likely. Recession becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The

Is RIM going the way of Nortel?

2012-01-03T20:27:00.000-05:00

“To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” - Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I <!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-CA X-NONE X-NONE

Top 10 2011

2011-12-26T00:01:00.000-05:00

A big Thank You to Just Marketing readers. The blog was launched in late March 2011 with the hope of addressing "why we do what we do" in a crowded blogosphere of marketing blogs that mostly tell us "how to do what we want to do." The blog has had a great first year. We’ve had distinguished guest posts by Dan Ariely, Mark Binns, John Bradley, Mike Dover, Jay Lebo, Martin Roll, Jeff

Santa Claus, The Real Thing?

2011-12-18T00:01:00.029-05:00

Spoiler Alert: don't read if you believe in Santa Claus. In the 1920s, The Coca-Cola Company was looking to nudge consumers into drinking more of its eponymous drink during the winter months, when sales traditionally slumped. In 1922 the company launched the “Thirst Knows No Season” slogan. Then someone hit upon the idea of associating the brand with that icon of winter, St. Nick (

Lousy choices

2011-12-11T00:01:00.000-05:00

In a free market, the choices consumers make guide the allocation of the economy’s resources. But what happens if consumers make lousy choices? The consumer is king. We’ve all heard that. To some, it may mean that front-line salespeople should treat consumers well - that the consumer is always right. But it has a larger meaning too: the consumer’s choices backed by dollars guide producers

Where do you find your most useful ideas?

2011-12-04T00:01:00.000-05:00

Where do you get your best ideas? Are they all from within your industry? Many of the managers I know and speak with are constantly curious -- they seek out ideas, incessantly ask questions, read the business press, attend conferences, network, seek out consultants, or even sign up for training and management development courses. Their goal is to find new ideas, the best ideas, and take them

Mixing business and beliefs

2011-11-27T00:01:00.001-05:00

Lululemon, the Starbucks and Whole Foods of the yoga market, has stretched too far according to some of its customers. Elevating the world from mediocrity to greatness The company’s shopping bags carry a cryptic “Who is John Galt?” line taken from Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s objectivist opus. This has created a bit of a storm in the media teacup. Should businesses trying to sell stuff

Don't ask consumers what they want

2011-11-20T00:01:00.000-05:00

Asking consumers what they want is so passé. There was a time when brand and marketing managers would not think of making a decision about the product, its features, packaging, and even pricing without asking the consumer first – mostly through surveys. Lengthy questionnaires were always being designed, tested, administered, analyzed, and interpreted. Management meetings were called to

Marketing, dreams, and Hollywood

2011-11-13T00:00:00.000-05:00

I was watching Inception for the fourth time the other day – it was like being in a dream (inside (inside a dream) a dream). I finally got it. I think. Hollywood and the marketing industry have a lot in common: both create fantasy worlds that spark our imagination. Both build dreams. Hollywood’s goal is to entertain (and some of the more ambitious movies also aim to make us

Victims of Marketing

2011-11-06T00:02:00.094-04:00

The In Flanders Fields museum in Ypres, Belgium, is a stark reminder of the folly of war. The unmistakable message one comes away with is that war is tragic; war is a mistake. One we should not repeat. Yet, as I emerged from the museum’s somber lighting and thought-provoking exhibits into the afternoon sunshine, it was hard not to think of the number of times the mistake has been repeated

A back-handed compliment to the power of marketing

2011-10-30T00:01:00.001-04:00

Does Marketing serve existing consumer needs, or does it create them? Sooner or later, a version of this question inevitably pops up when you’re trying to explain marketing to the general public. One response to the question is to dismiss it with another: why does it matter? As long as marketing influences consumer behavior, should it matter whether it serves pre-existing needs or

Trick or treat?

2011-10-23T00:01:00.000-04:00

This is a guest post by John Bradley. John spent 24 years spreading happiness and tooth decay in marketing with Cadbury before switching careers into writing. He is currently working on his third book. You’d think Halloween is a treat for candy makers. But it’s more like Nightmare on Elm Street that is played out for manufacturers and retailers in the Halloween loot bags being

Fair Trade?

2011-10-16T00:01:00.000-04:00

Hardly a week goes by without yet another milestone for “ethically labeled” products. You know, the products that are labeled “Fair Trade,” “Organic,” “Green,” and so on. Here’s a recent report, for example, that says that 10,000 products are now sold with a Fair Trade certification in the U.S., and that sales of such products are up 63% in the last QUARTER! In markets such as the United

BRICs: the sub-plot thickens

2011-10-09T00:01:00.000-04:00

The dominant story that jumps out when you examine global trade data for the past decade, or even two, is the one everybody knows about: the almost vertical rise of China as an export and import powerhouse. But there is a sub-plot that gets less attention: the rise of BRIC to BRIC trade. This is the fastest growing part of global trade. It challenges many of the assumptions on which

Brand network effects

2011-10-02T00:01:00.000-04:00

You’re familiar with network effects. You know, the idea that if you had the only telephone on the planet it would be as useful as an inflatable dartboard. Conversely, the more phones there are on the planet, the more each phone becomes valuable – now you can actually call someone. The idea is extended to software: the reason the world uses Windows is not because it is the best

Did Netflix overlook consumer inertia?

2011-09-25T00:01:00.079-04:00

This is a guest post by Sam Vasisht. Sam is president of 21TechMedia, a Boston-based firm providing market entry and market growth strategy consulting for tech companies. More of his contributions to industry publications and other posts can be found on his blog at www.techmediatalk.com, and you'll find him on twitter @21TechMedia. With everything being said about the Netflix

"Marketing" in the 20th century

2011-09-18T00:01:00.011-04:00

I was playing around with the Google Ngram viewer to see how often the term “marketing” appears in books during the twentieth century.Here are some of the charts I came up with. In the comments section, please feel free to share your thoughts on what you see in the charts, and if you’d like to suggest other graphs, I’ll do a follow-up post. The term “marketing” appears to have made steady gains

What the heck is a brand anyway?

2011-09-11T00:01:00.001-04:00

We use the term “brand” with such frequency, such alacrity, and such assurance, you’d almost think we know what it means. So what does it mean? Fact is, we use "brand" to mean many things. Many different things. So I thought I’d start a glossary of the different meanings of the term brand. Please feel free to add to the list in the comments section below. A brand is a name that a seller