# How CEOs Should Work With Customers
Customers are the source of all cash flow. Organic growth depends on
developing relationships with new and existing customers. And future
growth prospects are baked into stock market valuations of companies.
Yet an increasingly high percentage of Fortune 500 CEOs have not come
up the ranks through marketing or sales. At the same time, in many
companies, the chief marketing officer position turns over every two
years. Facing the current economic downturn, companies need marketing
skills more than ever. But while every corporate mission statement pays
lip service to respecting customer needs, actual customer expertise is
typically a mile wide and an inch deep. Marketing expertise depends on
customer insights. These insights cannot be gleaned from looking at
market research data on a computer screen. Just like politics, all
marketing is retail. The customer votes every day at the supermarket
ballot box. To be customer-oriented, executives must get out and..
How to Market in a Recession
"Recession is possible." Fed Chairman Bernanke has used the R word in
this week's Congressional hearings. That in itself makes a US recession
more likely. The proposed $700 billion bailout will apply a temporary
"bandaid" to the current dire economic situation, or, to use current
parlance, put lipstick on a pig. The pressure for tax rate increases at
Federal and State levels will increase; expect accelerated
privatizations of public infrastructure as elected officials do
everything to avoid the day of reckoning. Consumers will be poorer or
feel poorer. They will be more frugal and cautious in their
expenditures. Reassuring the consumer, holding her hand in a "we're
going to get through this together" manner is a vital ingredient of
successful marketing during a recession. Value brands with low cost
structures such as JetBlue and Wal-Mart will do well. Fighting brands
-- low priced brands supported by minimal advertising and competing...
How Recession Will Accelerate Consumer Downsizing
Watch out for a new brand of consumer in 2008: the middle-aged
Simplifier. She finds herself surrounded by too much stuff acquired.
She is increasingly skeptical in the face of a financial meltdown that
it was all worth the effort. Out will go luxury purchases, conspicuous
consumption, and a trophy culture. Tomorrow's consumer will buy more
ephemeral, less cluttering stuff: fleeting, but expensive, experiences,
not heavy goods for the home. The economic boom of the 1990s fuelled
consumption and democratized access to a wider than ever spectrum of
goods transforming former luxuries into "must-have" necessities.
Millions played the lotteries or aspired to what they viewed on
"Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous". As they grew richer, pressure
increased on those below to trade up. And, as they traded up, pressure
increased in turn on the well-off to buy even more--the second home,
the big screen TV and the latest sport-utility...
How Marketing The American Dream Caused Our Economic Crisis
he current economic crisis has been blamed on the greed of Wall Street,
on bankers' excessive leveraging of assets, on irresponsible banks and
mortgage brokers who fabricated applications for no downpayment home
loans knowing that the risks could be readily laid off on unsuspecting
third parties. But underpinning the collapse of the housing bubble is a
demand-side problem - the American Dream - that has been hijacked in
countless political speeches from an embodiment of America's core
values into a crass appeal to materialism and easy gratification. Right
wing politicians touting the American Dream consistently advocate lower
taxes. The more money citizens can keep, the faster they can attain
their dreams. But these same politicians are consistently unwilling to
raise taxes when required. The massive budget deficits run up during
the last eight years of war (now projected at 3.8% of GDP in 2009)
reflect a Federal government living beyond...
How Better Marketing Elected Barack Obama
When the book is written on this election, it should not be titled "The
Making of a President," but "The Marketing of a President." Barack
Obama's campaign is a case study in marketing excellence. True, it was
always going to be a Democratic year. An unpopular war, an incumbent
Republican president with rock bottom approval ratings, and many
Republican incumbents retiring from Congress as a result all meant that
change was in the air. Add to that the economic meltdown that decimated
millions of 401K retirement plans and undercut any Republican claim to
be the better steward of the economy. But, even so, for an
inexperienced single term African-American senator tagged with the most
liberal voting record to defeat the heir apparent in his own party and
then go on to hold off the much-vaunted Republican machine is a truly
remarkable achievement. Much of it has to do with Obama's...
How General Motors Violated Your Trust
In a fascinating mea culpa, General Motors has finally discovered the
consumer (also known as the taxpayer). Desperate to achieve bailout
funding, GM admitted in a December 8 advertisement titled "GM's
Commitment to the American People" that it had "disappointed",
sometimes even "violated" the "trust" of American consumers. The
advertisement went unsigned and was published only in Automotive News.
I support loaning money to GM to keep the company afloat. The state of
the US economy is too perilous at this time to contemplate the
alternative. But I am far from convinced that my tax dollars will be
well-invested. Sadly, this year marks General Motors 100th anniversary.
A proud - perhaps too proud - company that lost its way in the global
marketplace. Perhaps the current crisis will galvanize the forces of
change. Or perhaps the weaknesses in the company's culture -
specifically, the lack of consistent attention to excellence.
How Marketing Succeeded (But Still Fails To Impress)
Many dismiss marketing as manipulative, deceptive and intrusive.
Marketing, they argue, focuses too much of our attention on material
consumption. More recently, Benjamin Barber, in his 2007 book,
Consumed, claims that marketing is "sucking up the air from every other
domain to sustain the sector devoted to consumption." He is correct.
Coca-Cola, Nike and Starbucks command more loyalty among many consumers
than any political party, trade union, church or mosque. Indeed,
Starbucks founder, Howard Schultz, sought to make his coffee shops the
"third place" in our lives, after home and work. Marketing is an
American success story. No country on earth is better at marketing than
the United States. The latest Interbrand listing of the most valuable
global brands reveals seven American brands in the top ten and sixty in
the top hundred, more than twice the expected numbers based on the
United States' command of 28 percent of the...
How Starbucks' Via Helps its Consumers Fight the Recession
Starbucks' launch of Via shows great commercial courage. And commercial
courage is what consumers need in the face of this recession. The
courage not to lower prices on existing services, but to innovate, to
provide new solutions that offer unprecedented value. Instant, soluble
coffee has long been the unspeakable wasteland of the coffee business.
Conventional wisdom would be that no premium brand should go near it.
But Howard Schultz's vision from day one has been to bring quality
coffee to the mass market. Via continues that effort. Look at the
packaging. Taste the product. Via is going to redefine and reenergize
the instant coffee subcategory. It will offer time-strapped Starbucks
loyalists a chance to stretch their dollars and sustain their Starbucks
brand consumption frequency. It will also offer non-Starbucks users an
affordable entry point into the Starbucks world; after trying Via, they
may want to visit a store for the..
How CMOs Should Function in a Recession
Some good news for marketing heads: Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are holding on to their jobs longer. Spencer Stuart's annual survey of CMO tenure at the 100 most advertised brands in the USA reveals average time on the job has risen to 28.4 months from 26.8 months in 2007 and 23.2 months in 2006.
CNN Web site targeted
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- CNN was
targeted Thursday by attempts to interrupt its news Web site, resulting in
countermeasures that caused the service to be slow or unavailable to some users
in limited areas of Asia.
Software company's publicity gag goes awry
(IDG) -- It started as a marketing gimmick, meant to draw attention to Inform
AG's security software, in advance of the CeBIT trade fair. But a few recipients
took the German company's direct-mail pitch -- in the form of a blackmail letter
from a shadowy underground organization -- all too seriously.
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