Tag Archives: product differentiation

by | Tuesday, June 23, 2020 · 7:44 am

Should Marketing Mention the Coronavirus?

Let’s face it – marketers are always on the lookout for new opportunities to sell products and services to consumers. This is true in bad times as in good. However, marketers must also be sensitive to what is happening in consumers’ lives and in the general marketplace. It is not wise (or ethical) to take advantage of someone’s suffering or fear in order to make a sale.

It can be tough though. Retail sales have been declining since March and had their largest drop in April as employees worked from home and stores and restaurants were shuttered. Shopping has also shifted from brick-and-mortar stores to online and ecommerce. People are nervous and anxious about their current situation, and about their future. They are also isolated at home and crave human connection. What should a marketer do?

This brings us back to basics: focus on the target market. What is the message the customers want to hear, need to hear, and will respond to positively? Messages should be calm and positive, not scaring to consumers. Stay with the basics of marketing principles: understand the customer, stay connected, alter the tone of messages, stick to the facts, and listen.

Stay connected with consumers. Be honest. Be safe.

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Poll students: What is their opinion about marketers’ responsibility in times of crisis?
  2. Specifically for the coronavirus pandemic, should companies promote their goods and services by using a painful situation to their advantage?
  3. Show a video about marketing during crisis: https://youtu.be/vmEJZ08rBoM
  4. Divide students into teams. Have each team research how various companies are addressing the coronavirus pandemic in their advertising and marketing. (Suggestions: Nike, Coca-Cola, Toyota, Tide, etc.)
  5. What is being done correctly? What should be changed?
  6. In teams, assign a product to the teams and have the students develop a marketing campaign that uses the pandemic in a way that shows a value to consumers.

Source: Ad Week; New York Times; other news sources

 

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by | Wednesday, October 9, 2019 · 6:43 am

Where’s the Meat?

In case you haven’t noticed, there are a growing number of meatless ‘meat’ products now available at both grocery stores and restaurants. In the past few months alone, several fast food chains launched chicken-free chicken and meatless burgers to their offerings, and all seem to delight customers who are looking for plant-based alternatives to meat.

In one instance, KFC supplied an Atlanta franchise with faux-meat chicken from Beyond Meat called the ‘Beyond Fried Chicken’. Customers arrived before the doors even opened and the restaurant sold out of its supplies in just five hours! Of course, social media was responsible for the rush to test, but nonetheless, selling out what was supposed to be a several day experiment in less than a day says a great deal about the changing consumer tastes.

Burger King is already established in the meat-free burger category and has been selling the ‘Impossible Burger’, using the plant-based patties from Impossible Meats. White Castle is also in the mix with its ‘Impossible Slider’ (also from Impossible Meats), also sold nationwide.

And last, but not least, McDonald’s has jumped into the meatless game with its ‘PLT’ burger from Beyond Meat – plant, lettuce, and tomato. While today the PLT is only available in Ontario, Canada, it seems likely to make the move to a national distribution as well.

What’s going on? What are these new ‘meats’? The term ‘meatless meats’ is a contentious point, but the products are made by combining plant-based fats, binders, fruit and vegetable-based colors and flavor to create a fibrous texture of meat (no animal components). While these types of products have existed for a number of years, they were commonly marketed only to vegetarians and vegans. Today’s new plant-based meats are aimed directly at meat-eaters, particularly consumers who are concerned about climate change and eliminating animal products from their diets. However, plant-based meats are not typically as healthy as eating unprocessed vegetables and beans and meat consumption is still increasing worldwide. The burgers are often high in calories and fats.

Are you hungry?

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Review meatless meat products and meals as needed:
    1. McDonald’s PLT burger: https://youtu.be/StVR1njx2ow
    2. KFC meatless chicken: https://youtu.be/U-imMy7Ohik
    3. Burger King Impossible Whopper: https://youtu.be/N9FED3jkNTo
    4. Impossible Whopper: https://www.bk.com/menu-item/impossible-whopper
    5. The Better Meat Co: https://www.bettermeat.co/
    6. Beyond Meat: https://www.beyondmeat.com/
    7. Impossible Foods: https://impossiblefoods.com/
    8. Carl’s Jr Burger calorie: https://www.carlsjr.com/menu/nutritional_calculator/beyond-famous-star-with-cheese
  2. Discuss the five factors of an environmental scan: Social trends, technology trends, competition, economic trends, and legal/regulatory factors.
  3. Divide students into teams. Have each team use their laptops or mobile devices to discover at least two points in each of the five categories of an environmental scan.
  4. Debrief the exercise by compiling information on the white board.
  5. Do these factors show why companies are embracing the new foods?
  6. Extra video: If students are interested, a scholarly video about climate change and food can be found at: https://youtu.be/8miQs3mPGu8

Sources: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age, Associated Press, and other news sources

 

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by | Friday, December 21, 2018 · 7:54 am

“Bear Resistant.” A Label that is Rigorously Tested.

Truth in advertising is important. Consumers today have a built-in detection system to weed out unrealistic and over-hyped claims that aren’t true. If a product makes a promise, then it should live up to it. We question claims such as organic, natural and others. These labels and promises are important, especially when it comes to the backcountry and using gear labeled ‘bear resistant.’ A broken promise for ‘bear resistant’ products means that both bears and people are in danger! (A saying in the mountains is that “a fed beer is a dead bear” – meaning that bears habituated to human foods are in danger from the humans.)

How does a product earn a ‘bear resistant’ badge? It’s simple. The bears are the actual product testers. Yes, 600-pound, hungry grizzle bears are the product testers at non-profit organization The Grizzle and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, Montana. In order to keep bears and people safe, containers are put through rigorous testing by bears at the rescue center.

Picture it: Seven grizzles. Smart, large, and the ultimate sniff machines. Products are baited with the bears’ favorite foods. Coolers are padlocked (bears can open handles and latches), then placed in the bears’ enclosure. Bears go at it in their habitats, trying to break in and gain a food reward!

Once the bears start their “testing” process, the timer counts an hour to see if the bears can get into the coolers. Biting, smashing, bouncing, basically anything goes by these diligent product testers. If it passes – it gets certified as “bear resistant.” And if the bear gets in, then manufacturers review the video footage to see how the product fares with the grizzles. Some of the products that earned bear resistant badges are Bare Boxer, Bear Keg, Wise Backpack, Big Daddy, and more food canisters.

This has to be the ultimate in product testing.

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Put students into groups. Have each group come up with common product labels and claims (e.g., organic, all natural, etc.). What is their opinion about how the claims are verified?
  2. Show the bear testing video: https://player.vimeo.com/video/296016960
  3. View the Web site for product testing: https://www.grizzlydiscoveryctr.org/research/product-testing/
  4. List of bear resistant products: http://igbconline.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/181026_Certified_Products_List.pdf
  5. Have students develop positioning maps for outdoor products.
  6. How should the certification be used in marketing the products?

Source: Housman, J. (20 November 2018). This is how bears decide if gear deserves the ‘bear resistant’ tag. Adventure Journal; Outside magazine.

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