Monthly Archives: August 2022

World Population Grows to 8 Billion in 2022

Marketers understand the importance of doing research and analyzing demographic factors such as population, gender, education, age, economics and geography. This is why they continually track environmental factors – these factors are important in an organization’s strategy and growth.

Recently, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs estimates that the global population, while growing slowly at under 1%, will still reach 8 billion people by mid-November, 2022; 8.5 billion by 2030; 9.7 billion by 2050; and 10.4 billion in 2100. This equates to a 31% increase in Earth’s population by the end of the century.

Half of the world’s population lives in seven countries: China (1.426 billion), India (1.417 billion), United States (338 million), Indonesia (276 million), Pakistan (236 million), Nigeria (219 million), and Brazil (215 million). And, next year (2023), India will exceeds China’s population and become the most world’s most populous country.

Population growth is very unequal though; just eight countries will account for more than half of the global population growth before 2050: Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Tanzania.

While some countries will experience economic growth per capita, the increasing number of older citizens will pose problems with health care and senior care. By 2050, people ages 65 and older will account for 16% of the global population, up from 10% in 2022.

And let’s not forget the importance of social factors on population. The coronavirus pandemic plays an important part of the slow population growth as well as economic impacts.

The world keeps spinning!

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Discuss the importance of environmental scanning.
  2. Show the World Population Clock: https://www.census.gov/popclock/
  3. In class, have teams of students examine different topics within the site.
  4. Video of U.N. Population Report: analysis: https://youtu.be/bZZ9gFnCzCM
  5. The U.N. World Population report can be accessed at https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/wpp2022_summary_of_results.pdf
  6. Optional: Assign students to read the report and report on critical information. The report may be divided into sections for different teams.
  7. Based on their analysis, what are the issues and risks that might occur for organizations?
  8. What should organizations do to prepare?

Sources:  Hackett, C. (21 July 2022). Global population projected to exceed 8 billion in 2022; half live in just seven countries. Pew Research Center; Tsui, K. (11 July 2022). World’s population to hit 8 billion before year’s end. Washington Post.; other news sources.

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Mattel Reboots Older Brands

Consider classic Mattel toys such as Barbie, Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Jurassic World, Star Wars, American Girl, Masters of the Universe, Monster High, Thomas & Friends, and many more. What are your  favorites?

And of course, since it was founded in 1945, Mattel also had many toys over the years that are no longer in play.

Barbie (one of Mattel’s oldest brands) must have been lonely and looking for her old friends as Mattel has now reintroducing several older toy lines that have not been on the shelves in decades! Welcome back to Major Matt Mason, Big Jim, and Pulsar. (All lines that students, and most likely their parents, are unfamiliar with.)

The revitalized toys will be launched under the banner of “Back in Action” as a way to revive old brands and capitalize on Mattel’s intellectual property. Mattel is also using Comic-Con as an important marketing tool for launching the toys lines. To help sell toys into the collectible market, the action figures will be in smaller sizes.

The reintroduction of old brands is not unusual in toys. Consider how Mattel capitalized on its older Masters of the Universe toys. These were introduced in the 1980s and eventually grew to a $2 billion franchise. As it lost sales, Mattel shelved the intellectual property, but revived it years later as a collectible. Then last year an animated series from Netflix for adults and children reemerged, accompanied by the Masters of the Universe toy line (He-man!).

Welcome back to the old brands!

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Discuss the stages in the product life cycle. What are the marketing objectives in each stage?
  2. Divide students into teams. Have each team draw a PLC and place toys into each stage of the PLC.
  3. How do toys move through the PLC?
  4. Why bring back the older toy lines?
  5. View a timeline of Mattel’s evolution: https://corporate.mattel.com/history
  6. Also show Mattel’s brand portfolio: https://corporate.mattel.com/brand-portfolio
  7. Student teams: Develop a marketing campaign for one of the three toy lines. What elements are needed?

Sources:  Schmidt, G. (19 July 2022). Mattel opens its vault to revitalize dormant brands. New York Times.

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Datsun and Internet Explorer Bite the Dust

As we’ve written in previous articles, no product lives forever. There are always new innovations, trends, social forces, competition, and technologies that push products forward. Ultimately, every product eventually reaches its final stage in the Product Life Cycle (PLC) – decline/harvest – when the product is put to sleep and resources are reallocated to up-and-coming new products.

Two more products joined the eliminated list: Microsoft Internet Explorer and Datsun cars.

Datsun helped Japanese car manufacturers break into the American and European market after World War II. In its heyday, 20 million Datsun cars were sold in 190 countries across the world. The Datsun name was phased out in the 1980s, only to be revived 30 years later as “an important part of Nissan’s DNA.” However, Datsun eventually reversed the decision, making Nissan the primary company brand for the auto maker.

Joining Datsun on the gone-but-not-forgotten product list is Internet Explorer – the Web browser that many say really started the popularity of the Internet. First launched in 1995, IE was the dominant browser for many years, reaching 90% of users in early 2000s. But competition from Google Chrome, Apple’s Safari, and Mozilla’s Firefox finally proved to be too much. All is not lost however; in its place will be Microsoft Edge browser.

Farewell to our old favorite brands.

Welcome to the newcomers!

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Discuss the stages in the product life cycle. What are the marketing objectives in each stage?
  2. Divide students into teams. Have each team draw a PLC and place various products and services into each stage?
  3. How are cars moved through the PLC?
  4. How does technology move through the PLC? What are the adoption cycles?
  5. Show video of Internet Explorer death: https://youtu.be/wZoZV6GjzPA
  6. We’ve seen other products revived after being declared “dead.” What would it take to revive these two brands?

Sources:  Jacobsen, R. (15 June 2022). Internet Explorer has retired. Associated Press.; Nissan signals end of road for Datsun cars. (25 April 2022). BBC News.; other news sources.

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