Week 12 - Social Media

This appeared on my wife's Facebook newsfeed, its going to cost me $20.

 

To celebrate my week off between semesters my wife and I are going to Las Vegas.  We’re really excited to check out Sin City, but we’ve never been and have had to spend a lot of time researching.  To this end, social media has played a very integral role in the planning of our Vegas trip.

The first step in planning a Vegas trip is choosing the hotel.  We wanted a hotel with a really cool room, nice pool, and all for a good price.  We ended up reserving a room at the MGM Grand.  After booking our room we elected to be on an email distribution for Hotel deals & info, but we were also encouraged to join their Facebook page and twitter account.  So we joined these streams of social media and over the last few months have received lots of information about the MGM Grand and everything it has to offer.  Before you know it I’m sharing pictures of meals I think my wife would enjoy, we’re talking about shows, and various package deals at the restaurant.  MGM is winning more of our vacation dollars before we even step foot in the hotel.

MGM’s social media messages revolved around deals and attraction info.  And every communication has a really fun carefree vibe.  Their messages were most commonly communicated through pictures.  In fact, every Facebook post included a picture.  Using a picture is a very effective way to catch a consumer’s attention in a crowded newsfeed.  This type of advertising is also very effective because it’s reaching you in a setting where you’re choosing to consume information.  When you log on to these sites you’re choosing to hangout and digest information.  MGM has never once sent me any junk mail and their email spam is very minimal.  I don’t think these forms of advertising are becoming obsolete, but they’re definitely falling out of favor.  I think companies like MGM are realizing there are more effective ways of reaching the consumer.

Week 10 - Brand Valuation

I grew up a huge Michael Jordan fan and one of my fondest MJ moments was the 1992 Dream Team.  Like most young men at the time I was star struck watching NBA legends team up to destroy the competition.  But when it came time for the Dream Team to accept their Gold Medals, MJ arguably had his toughest moment of the Olympics.  The athletes were required to take the gold medal podium wearing Reebok warm-up gear.  To some of his teammates this wasn’t a big deal.  But MJ is Air Jordan; he’s the face of Nike.  This was not acceptable. In 1992 Michael was at the pinnacle of his greatness and to stand on the Gold Medal podium wearing Reebok would have been an insult to him and Nike.

Michael Jordan and Nike are synonymous with one another.  Their respective brands are intertwined.  The value of both brands would suffer without one another.  Nike cannot replace MJ with a more popular basketball player (there isn’t one) and MJ can’t sell shoes with anyone but Nike.  MJ helped build the Nike brand and make it a symbol of excellence in pro sports.  For example, Lebron James was courted by many shoe companies when he entered the league, but it was said his personal brand would suffer if he went with anyone but Nike.  Nike represents the best, and going with Nike was a badge of honor Lebron had to accept if he wanted to be the best. 

Nike is my favorite brand because of MJ.  I wear Nike because I grew up watching #23 play the game in Nike.  Most men view athletic competition as battle, and if you’re going into battle you need the best equipment.  So when I go out to play Ultimate Frisbee this week I’ll put on my Nike shorts, my Nike shirt, my Nike socks, and finally my Nike cleats.  The Swoosh is everything; it’s a sign of excellence and dedication to the game.  When your competitor is wearing Nike you know you have to take them serious.  My wife thinks I’m a fool for wearing expensive Nike stuff, but she doesn’t understand.  I’m going into battle, and I’ve seen the greatest go into battle a hundred times and he always wore Nike.  I think I’d be a fool to wear anything else.

Jordan went to the podium in 1992 and accepted his Gold medal, but nobody saw him wearing Reebok.  Jordan tactically draped an American flag over his right shoulder to hide the logos.  There was too much at stake to risk wearing Reebok for 15 minutes.  MJ and Nike had to protect their brand and the influence it eventually had on my generation.

Week 9 - Culinarian Cookware

Culinarian should run a price promotion to hit the objectives outlined by the CEO.  I believe this for a few reasons.

The 2004 promotion was not a flop like the consultants suggested.  The consultants made a lot of questionable assumptions and I agree with Victoria Brown’s critique.  First, to estimate the cannibalization of the DX1 line, the consultants estimated DX1 revenue growth should be exactly the same as the year before without the price promotion (+24%).  With the CX1 price promotion the DX1 line only grew sales by 21%, so they assumed the (3%) variance was cannibalization and deducted the lost profit.  I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume, all else constant, revenue growth will be the same as the year before, it’s too simplistic!  There was likely some cannibalization, but none of the product lines had negative year-over-year sales growth.  There doesn’t appear to be enough info for the consultants to accurately assess cannibalization.  The other two critiques were related to inventory savings and overhead cost allocations.  If overhead costs are not changing dramatically there’s no reason to add this to the analysis.  If there are incremental increases to the SGA budget specifically for this price promotion, then they should be factored into the analysis, but I didn’t see anything like this in the case.  The inventory savings related to production falling behind schedule is silly.  It’s not a hard savings and definitely not a repeatable incident that you would plan on happening during another price promotion.

So the consultants were wrong about the 2004 sales promotion and it was actually a success for Culinarian.  In fact, the sales promotion for the lower price CX1 line may have increased (not cannibalized) the sales of Culinarian’s more expensive product lines.  In 2004, total cookware sales in the United States, excluding aluminum cookware (cheaper cookware), increased 6% & 16% for copper and stainless steel cookware respectively.  Culinarian’s more premium brands (made of copper and stainless steel) had year-over-year sales increases of 9%, 30% & 20%.  I think this evidence suggests that some customers were drawn to Culinarian’s products by the CX1 price promotion and decided to buy a more expensive version of the cookware instead.

Based on the analysis of the 2004 price promotion and the objectives of the CEO, Culinarian should run another price promotion.  Culinarian’s distribution network clearly prefers some form of regular price promotions, so this could only help the company widen its distribution network.  But action will need to be taken to remedy the situation of retailers pocketing the promotional savings.  While price promotions may not be common with premium cookware brands and threaten Culinarian’s prestigious image, they’re ultimately necessary to accomplish the CEO’s objectives of a wider distribution network, increased market share, and consistently strong revenue growth.  Culinarian’s marketers will need to do a better job positioning the product in the mind of the consumer to maintain their prestigious image.  The other key part of another price promotion is the effective use of Advertising.  Culinarian spends 4% of sales on advertising and only 4% of people purchasing cookware has seen a Culinarian Ad.  A more efficient use of advertising dollars in concert with price promotions will be necessary to meet the CEO’s objectives.

Week 8 - America runs on Dunkin

One of my favorite companies is Dunkin Donuts.  Growing up and working in Connecticut it’s hard to avoid them.  Dunkin Donuts is one of the most successful companies in America, and I believe they do a great job of managing their marketing mix.

Dunkin’s target audience is anyone “on the go”.  This definition targets a lot of people who occasionally or always find themselves in a situation where Dunkin Donuts can add value to their situation.  On the go could mean the typical person going to work every day, it could be the person bringing breakfast to Church, or the shopper on the go who needs an afternoon pick me up.  All of these people have a need for coffee or a quick breakfast.  Either way, Dunkin Donuts will get them what they need and fast!

Dunkin Donuts satisfies their on the go customers with many different products.  Dunkin Donut’s primary product offering is coffee and donuts, which create a caffeinated and sugary cocktail that could jumpstart anyone’s morning.  But over the years Dunkin has broadened their menu with espresso drinks and breakfast sandwiches to meet the more diverse tastes of their customer base.  Dunkin also offers products to customers in the afternoon.  In addition to coffee all day, they have ice teas and lunch sandwiches.  Dunkin also has product packaging that caters to large groups making it easy for someone to stop in and buy breakfast for the office.

Dunkin Donuts utilizes price and place to enhance the value of their offering.  Customers, who are on the go, are already stressed or have some type of burden.  So Dunkin creates an easy, low cost experience for these busy individuals.  Dunkin does this by having many locations spread out across high traffic areas.  Particularly in the North East, you can’t turn around without walking into a Dunkin Donuts.  Dunkin is always “on the way” to where you’re going, and you typically do not have to hunt for a Dunkin Donuts.  The second thing they offer is a low cost experience.  Dunkin offers low cost coffees and low cost combo meals if you choose to add some type of food to your beverage.  Compared to Starbucks, you can’t get a coffee and food for the same cost of an espresso drink.  Dunkin Donuts are easy to find and do not put a big dent in your wallet, so you never think twice about stopping in one.

Dunkin’s latest communication strategy has relied on the “America runs on Dunkin” theme.  This theme ties in the other elements of their product mix perfectly.  America RUNS on Dunkin is perfectly targeted at individuals on the go.  Dunkin identifies itself as the fuel that America runs on.  An essential ingredient to any trip!  To communicate this message Dunkin uses TV ads (showing people on the go), radio ads (in the cars of people on the go), billboards (targeting on the go commuters) and web / email advertising that people on the go can use to get coupons and new product information.

Week 7 - Cleopatra Case

This is Cleopatra from HBO’s Rome. This Cleopatra was also lazy and rested on her laurels.

 

The Cleopatra soap case underlines the importance of market research and proper planning.  The team at Colgate was blinded by the surprise success of Cleopatra soap in France and assumed it would also be a runaway success wherever people spoke French.  Here are my thoughts.

First, Colgate wanted to sell the product in Quebec.  The team was already convinced the product would do great in Quebec, because you know they speak French, but wanted the “proper” market research to confirm their beliefs.  So, naturally they went to Toronto to conduct their market research.  Geography lesson, Toronto is not in Quebec! It’s in Ontario!  And English is the dominant language in Toronto, so they shouldn’t even like Cleopatra soap, right?  But none the less, Torontonians did like the soap and validated Colgate’s belief to push ahead in Quebec.

This led Colgate to use the same advertisement they used in France.  The advertisement in France is very Egyptian and provocative.  The ad tested very well with the Toronto group (50% reacted positively), so the team assumed it was well suited for the Quebec market.  However, it was later discovered that only 37% of people in Quebec reacted favorably to the ad.  For a soap being pushed as premium niche soap, this was not a good start.

The failure of the ad to create positive customer awareness complicated the pull strategy Colgate was relying on.  The case said that Colgate was trying to “generate enthusiasm” and needed the “best ever media and consumer promotion schedule”, but it appears that the Cleopatra French ad proved to be a stumbling block out of the gate.  Because people did not react favorably to the advertisement sales suffered and consumer demand did not persuade retailers to free up shelf space through the pull strategy in an already saturated soap market.  Finally, because the product was not being properly pulled to retailers’ shelves, consumers who did want the product could not find it!  The number one response to “why haven’t you tried Cleopatra?” was “it’s not available where I shop”.  30% of people who wanted the product could not physically buy it.

The sad part of this was Colgate had a winner on its hands and it just botched the implementation.  Cleopatra was really well liked by those who bought it!  About 30% of customers who tried Cleopatra soap used it all or most of the time.  This was the highest conversion rate for any of the competing soaps.  The closest competitor was Dove at 21%.  I would recommend that Colgate retool their marketing approach for Cleopatra and adjust the advertising, or bite the bullet and invest in a push strategy.

Week 6 - Product Obsolescence

Product life cycles can vary depending on the product.  Some products have a very long product life cycle.  The wheel is a pretty good example, even most things that fly need wheels.  But other products can have very short life cycles.  I like to think of championship t-shirts for professional sports teams.  Once a team wins a championship their fans buy memorabilia, most often t-shirts, to celebrate the moment.  It’s an emotional purchase.  The life cycle for these items can be a matter of weeks.  But nothing hastens the life cycle of a product like obsolescence.  When a product becomes obsolete it’s because the customer need it was serving is now being served more efficiently by another product or service.  More efficiently can be quicker, cheaper, simpler, you name it.

A great example of this is the typewriter.  If I were getting my MBA 30 years ago I might be writing this paper/blog post on a typewriter.  Originally, the typewriter was a vastly more efficient form of word processing than writing something by hand.  With a typewriter users could write something quickly and without have to worry about the legibility of hand writing.  In the 1990’s the typewriter became obsolete with the mass appeal of personal computers.  Personal computers gave users the same keyboard functionality as a typewriter, but now they could edit their document on a computer screen and print when ready.  Not to mention their document became a digital document that could be transferred via email.  The personal computer became an easier and more efficient tool for word processing and effectively ended the product life cycle of the typewriter.

 

Various forms of Media like music and movies are another good example of product obsolescence.  When I first became interested in music I was listening to it on cassettes.  I have no fond memories of using cassettes and CD’s quickly made cassettes obsolete.   CD’s gave consumers a better listening experience with improved sound quality and ease of changing songs.  No more did you have to fast forward or rewind to get to the song you wanted!  The same transition happened as movies transitioned between VHS to DVD to Blu-ray.  But now the tangible product of a CD or DVD is being replaced by digital distribution.  Consumers are starting to prefer to own their media in the digital space via ITunes, Netflix, or Amazon.

 

 

Week 4 - Segmentation and Customer Obsession

Successful businesses obsess over their customers. One of the primary tools businesses use to accomplish this is segmentation. Segmentation is the identification of clusters of consumers with homogeneous purchasing behavior. More specifically, segmentation is identifying customers with similar needs, habits or attitudes that can be addressed through marketing. Without segmentation businesses have no choice but to market their product very broadly. Segmentation facilitates the process of customer obsession through identifying different customer segments for a business to target. Once a business has identified the market segments, they evaluate them and choose a market(s) to target. The next step is to create a positioning strategy that differentiates the business’s product offering and emphasizes selling points that customers in that market would find meaningful. This process allows the business to focus with precision on specific markets with specific products and marketing strategies. Ultimately, this process should reveal the unmet needs of customers and create a product to meet those needs. This process and the constant reevaluation of segmentation breeds customer obsession and one company that does this very well is Procter and Gamble.

P&G sells products that are generally targeted to everyone, so do they use segmentation? Yes. I’m going to steal from Dr. Talbott’s lecture and use P&G’s Tide as an example. Tide is a laundry detergent that conceivably (and hopefully) everyone that is responsible for washing clothes would be interested in. Laundry detergent isn’t necessarily a product that screams the need for a variety of choices, but that’s exactly what Tide has discovered. Through segmentation, Tide has discovered many different market segments and has created specific products for those segments. Take a look at the picture below. On the left, the product filter identifies six needs that Tide addresses and five different ways of applying it! Obsessing over the customer through the process of market segmentation has allowed Tide to discover niche segments that their one-size-fits all product was not addressing. The picture below is a screenshot of the Tide home page, and a basic Tide isn’t even on the front page! Segmentation leads to obsession, and obsession leads to this many types of laundry detergent!

 

 

Week 3 - Finding the Perfect Game of Halo

Readings - Ch 3 & 4

Videos - Talbott lecture, Rosling, Gladwell, Shiv, Google Car

Article - Product Flops 2012

 

 

The Gladwell video about choice and the variability of our tastes was very interesting. When I think of recent examples of what Gladwell was talking about I think of Halo. Halo is a popular video game about space marines killing aliens. Nothing too original, but where Halo really thrives is online multiplayer. Online multiplayer can best be described as dropping a bunch of gun-toting humans into a virtual world and telling them to go shoot each other. Online multiplayer is the primary draw for any online first person shooter game, so it’s critical that these games deliver a great multiplayer experience. Halo does this in two important ways.

First, Halo gives gamers an incredible amount of choice when it comes to what type of game to play with other people. Do you feel like just using sniper rifles? There is a game mode for that. Do you want to work with a team? There’s a mode for that. Want to go it alone? Yup, there’s a mode for that? Want to be a part of a large battle with tanks and airplanes? Check. Want to play a virtual game of rugby? Check! Want to play Zombie survival mode? Yes, it has that to. Halo’s different game modes cater to the many individual tastes of their many different customers. All of their customers have the shared desire to stroll around a virtual world with a machine gun, but that are many different ways you can enjoy that experience. Some modes are serious, while others are light-hearted. Some modes stress teamwork, while others promote individual skill and the list goes on.

Second, Halo strives to put you in the perfect multiplayer game. Halo does this by calculating your individual skill. Basically, they measure how good you are. You’re assigned a skill level, and each time you play you’re placed in matches with players of similar skills. Then at the end of each game Halo gathers your new performance data and adds it to your existing data to calculate a new skill. This is a great feature that allows new gamers to learn the ropes while keeping the virtual Navy Seals at bay. It’s best for everyone when people of varying skills are kept out of the same game. When this happens the game becomes too easy for some and very demoralizing for others. Recently, Halo took this a step further and started calculating individual skills for all of their game types. So for example, players now have a respective skill level for team death match, king of the hill, and capture the flag. Halo did this because they realized that most gamers excel in a few game modes while struggling in others, so an overall skill didn’t capture this level of variability between game modes.

These two important features of Halo allow it to deliver an unparalleled gaming experience that delivers an experience individually tailored for each customer.

Week 3 - Dr. Rosling

 

Dr. Rosling’s lecture provided many valuable insights into the health and wealth of developing nations.  He was not trying to solve the problems of the developing world, but he illustrated how you could harness data to debunk myths and make informed decisions.  The dataset that I found the most interesting was the one regarding child survival and GDP per capita.  Rosling showed that there was a strong linearity between child survival and wealth.  This was not a surprise, but once he broke out the continents and regions of the world into individual plots on the graph it become more interesting.  Sub Saharan Africa was plotted very low on the graph (low GDP and child survival), but once you exploded the data you could see that there was more variability among the countries.  From this you could identify what countries have had more success than others.  Rosling then went down even deeper into the data to show how there was variability within the country depending on the GDP per capita of citizens.  I believe the point Rosling was making about this dataset was the need to drill deeper into the data.  Once you drill into the data you can ask better questions and possibly prescribe better solutions for what you are trying to solve.  The same thing can be applied in Marketing.  We can segment our markets into consumers with homogenous buying habits and target specific products to deliver value to them.  If we don’t segment and instead prescribe a one size fits all solution we will likely fall short of our ultimate goal.

I also enjoyed the visual presentation of Dr. Rosling’s data.  I think if you muted his dialogue, or couldn’t understand his accent, you would understand most of what was being presented.  The visuals clearly showed trends over time, especially the first dataset on family size and life expectancy.  Rosling was debunking a myth held by his students that said there are two distinct groups in the world: one with large families and short life expectancies, and the other with smaller families and longer life expectancies.  This was true in 1960, but as Rosling set the data in motion it became clear that third world countries are now also having smaller families and enjoying longer life expectancies.  Basically, the visual demonstrated the point much better than Rosling could have ever said it.  The dataset covering daily wages also benefitted from the visual illustration of the point Rosling was making.  The visuals also showed the clear relationship between variables, especially the child survival rates and GDP per capita. Rosling’s powerful visuals were able to take larges sets of data and wield them into a strong concise message.

Week 3 - Researching and Understanding Customers

I believe my company understands its customers.  I work for Carrier, and we sell many things, but my segment of the business deals with residential furnaces.  Our end customers are home owners who desire to live in a warm house when it’s cold outside.  Carrier understands that most of these customers had little to no input deciding which furnace sits in their house.  Most customers just want the big metal box to work and do its job efficiently.  By and large, our end customers do not have a particular brand loyalty.  I believe this point was proven recently during a friendly chat with a neighbor. 

This neighbor, who works in marketing, made the statement that my company was failing at marketing our products because he didn’t know anything about them.  He said he had just replaced his old furnace and was not even aware of the fact that Carrier sold furnaces!  So surely our company was failing at targeting home owners in his situation.  I work in Finance, so I didn’t want to get into defending Carrier’s marketing strategy with a marketing guy, so I chose not to argue with him.  But, I did ask him what brand of furnace he ended up purchasing for his home.  I said, “Was it a Lennox, Trane or Bryant”?  He paused for a while and then said, “I actually don’t know what brand it is”.  Oh, OK then!

Carrier is aware of this, so while they are not our end customers, we pay particular attention to researching the needs of our dealers.  Quick overview of our business: Carrier builds furnaces, sends them to distributors, distributors sell them to dealers, dealers are the people home owners and builders call to install and service furnaces.  Dealers are our salesmen.  Dealers make money selling and servicing furnaces.  So, recently we started designing furnaces that cater to the needs of our dealers.  Dealers want furnaces that are not time consuming to install and service.  So, to find out how we can design a better furnace for our dealers we researched the specific problems they encountered on the job site.  Then we addressed their concerns by incorporating job site specific fixes into the design of our new furnace.  Most of the modifications are things a home owner would never notice.  We hope a preference for working on our product will create brand loyalty among dealers.  Once we create brand loyalty amongst the dealer community the theory is they will be more likely to sell and recommend our product to the real end customer.

Week 2 – Addressing Customer Needs

Like I mentioned in my previous blog post, UTC is a large conglomerate with five different companies. Over the years I’ve learned a lot about these companies and I believe they do a great job of focusing on the needs of our customers.

My company has been increasingly focused on the need for increasing efficiency in large buildings. UTC offers a suite of products to address individual needs, but packages them in a way that creates even more value for the customer. One example of this is the synergy between Otis and Fire & Security (F&S) products. In a large high rise building there is significant building traffic when everyone arrives for work. Elevators can get backed up and once you get onto a packed elevator car it can take a while to reach your destination. To alleviate this morning traffic, and to provide efficient travel throughout the building, Otis elevators and F&S security scanners step in and direct traffic. To accomplish this, employees swipe their badge to enter the building and based on the floor of their office a screen directs them to a waiting elevator car. Based on the incoming badge swipes, the elevators are assigned a mix of employees to bring to similar parts of the building. The security scanners and elevators serve specific security and transportation needs, but together they provide a greater benefit to our customers.

Ecological considerations have challenged our company to adapt to a greater demand on product efficiency. So not only is it good enough to produce a superior product, we also have to address our customers desire to protect the environment. Pratt & Whitney designs jet engines, and their most recent engine is focused directly on our customer’s desire for eco-conscious air travel. Our newest engine uses a lot less jet fuel and is much quieter than previous jet engines. Another example of this is our newest Otis elevators with ReGen Technology. When the elevators are descending down the elevator shaft they store the energy that is created and use it to ascend back up the elevator shaft. Both of these products allow our customers to address ecological demands.

Sikorsky is a helicopter manufacturer, but it specifically meets the need of getting people to destinations not reachable by conventional means of transportation. So we have helicopters designed for travel to oil rigs, metropolitan areas, war zones, and types to handle search and rescue activities. But we also build small planes that allow people to fly to destinations that cannot be reached by larger planes. Sikorsky has always been a helicopter manufacturer, but it knows it’s in the market of transporting people to those “hard to reach” places!

Week 2 - Understanding Our Environment

Week 2

Read Ch 2 (done)

Video – Week 1 recap (done)

Video – Week 2 & 3 topics (done)

 

                I work for a conglomerate called United Technologies (UTC).  UTC is comprised of five very large companies, each of which has revenues in the billions of dollars.  At a high level, UTC’s primary markets are Aerospace and Building solutions.  We don’t build planes or buildings, but we do build jet engines, elevators, escalators and HVAC systems.  Learning about the SWOT analysis tool and specifically how companies assess their external environment has given me a new perspective on my company’s strategic moves.  There are seven elements to an analysis of a company’s external environment and I believe the three most important ones for my company are: political-legal, economic, and demographic.

                The government is a very important consideration for UTC, and any budgetary and legislative decisions can have a significant impact on our business.  A lot of my company’s products rely on Defense Department budgets and depending on which party is in power, could mean boom or bust!  Legislation can also have a significant impact.  In my factory alone we were preparing to build a new production line to satisfy a new EPA ruling on furnace efficiency until there ruling was reversed.  Three years ago this efficiency ruling was identified as an opportunity to sell more high-efficiency furnaces, so my company started upgrading their product line and production capacity.

                Economic trends also play a vital role in our company’s strategic decisions.  We closely monitor broad indicators of economic health and then more specific ones like housing starts.  In our factory we make production and staffing decisions for the next year based on the size of the market and our market share.  If we see an uptick in housing starts we might increase production, but if we see a fall in household income we may change our product mix in favor of lower cost units.

Demographic trends are critical to the success of my sister company Otis.  Otis is a manufacturer of elevators and escalators.  Otis makes money be selling new equipment (OEM market) and servicing existing equipment.  To succeed in the OEM market Otis needs to be very active in emerging markets.  The most important emerging market is China.  Years ago Otis noticed the urbanization trend happening across China as populations shifted from the countryside to the cities.  So, to take advantage of this trend, and the eventual construction of many new buildings, Otis moved their entire business development group to China!  These boots on the ground were also given a new elevator that would compete in lower cost low-rise residential buildings specific to the Chinese market.

Week 1 In Review

Week 1 Material:
Chapter 1: Marketing Planning  (complete)
Marketing Myopia (complete)
Jeff Bezos Video (complete)

I really liked the Jeff Bezos video, but I was left with one main takeaway after his presentation: what is Zappos?  I had no clue, so I quickly looked it up to see what the fuss from Bezos was all about.  Turns out Zappos is an online site for shoes and clothes.  It's main claim to fame being female shoes.  OK, that's probably why I had never heard of them.  After reading the marketing planning chapter in our text it's clear that this was probably an unintentional side affect of their plan.  Why market their services to me? I could tell my wife about Zappos, but that seems like an unlikely way to drive traffic (men telling their wives to go shoe shopping??).  This ineffective advertising would more than likely drive up their cost per customer acquired.  So, I'm guessing if I looked into my wife's Cosmo or Vogue magazine I'm more likely to find a Zappos' ad than in my ESPN the magazine.  Based on Bezos support for Zappos I can only assume Zappos knows their customers very well, knows what they need, where to find them and how to get their attention!  So, when Zappos put their long term marketing plan together I was not apart of it and for good reason!

 

The overriding theme of the first three assignments was the importance of focusing on the customer.  It's a very simple concept and sounds kind of obvious.  But I can see how the focus can easily stray from the customer in a big successful multinational corporation like mine.  The Levitt article mentions the importance of having a CEO with a singular focus on the customer.  What if your CEO didn't have that focus?  What if your CEO was a Finance guy? Maybe the focus would be on cost cutting and margin expansion.  What if the CEO is from Operations? Maybe the focus is on lean manufacturing and quality.  What if it's an Engineer, and your company is so R&D focused that it's inventing products for the sake of inventing products.  These are all good strategies a company should have to address the wishes of shareholders, but not one can be the singular focus ahead of the customer!  Reading the Levitt article and thinking about the dangers of pigeon holing the focus of your company only stresses the importance of having a customer focused organization.

 

I work in Finance, I live in excel, I'm a go by the numbers type of guy, so Marketing is new territory for me.  The complexity of the marketing plan in the first chapter was very interesting.  When I think of marketing I think of advertising and Mad Men.  I also think of sitting with my Dad watching commercials and after almost every commercial him saying, "That was stupid".  It's interesting that some of these ads are the promotional product of a complex marketing plan.  Company X decides they want to meet a customer need,  they tailor a product for that need, they choose the market, they set the price,  and they choose the form of communicating that product and in some cases it ends with my Dad saying, "That was stupid".  I'm excited to learn more about creating a marketing plan in the weeks ahead!

Introduction

It's great to be back in school!  I turned 30 and started my MBA at Kelly last week.  I don't feel old, but maybe the stress of work, an MBA and most importantly a toddler will get me there.  Either way, I'm excited to be furthering my education at Kelly and looking forward to the challenge.

 

I'm currently a Financial Analyst for Carrier based in Indianapolis, IN.  Carrier is a world leader in the HVAC industry.  I work with the plant operations, and where I'm based Carrier manufactures all of their gas furnaces for the North American market (about 6,000+ furnaces a day).  Before I landed in Indianapolis, I spent two years in Connecticut working for Carrier's parent company United Technologies (UTC).  While in CT, I was apart of UTC's Financial Leadership program.  This program allowed me the pleasure of rotating through the different business units of UTC while experiencing different accounting and finance positions within the company.  I rotated through four outstanding companies: Carrier, Otis Elevators, Sikorsky Helicopters and Hamilton Sundstrand (Aerospace/Flight systems).  It was a great experience and the best position for me fresh out of college.  Completing my backward trek through my background, I attended the University of Kentucky and graduated in 2008 with degrees in Finance and Political science and a Minor in History.

I'm also married to my high school sweetheart and the proud father of an amazing two-year old boy.