Critical Insights Vol. 1 Issue 3

STRATEGY & MARKETING

Marketing In a Weak Economy

Experts' views from the Wharton Marketing Conference: 1) recent research shows that 80% to 90% of people are willing to trade off or trade down when it comes to shopping and many of those customers might not bounce back with the economy; 2) trading off and trading down is not happening across the board - the middle range of products has suffered far more than the top-of-the-line items; 3)general consumer pullback masks some interesting dynamics that marketers could benefit from. People are starting to change what they're doing with their time and that's where opportunites emerge. The experts discussed about the issues of high consumer anxiety, threat of private labels, and keeping up with consumers...

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Targeted Ads in the Works

Marketers have long dreamed of a day when they can stop blasting ads out to the world at large, and instead send TV commercials for Pampers, Chevrolet and Barbie dolls only to those people in the market for diapers, a new car or a child's toy. Comcast Spotlight, the ad-sales unit owned by Comcast Corp., and Starcom MediaVest Group, the media-buying unit of France's Publicis Groupe, have completed a second test of technology that delivers different ads to different households, and they say the ads in both cases have proved to be about one-third more effective in keeping audiences from tuning them out. They also believe the time is drawing nigh for discussions about creating a business model around the new ad format…

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Top 10 Tools to Measure User Experience

Pragmatic Marketing proposes 10 tools for user experience improvements: 1) heuristics; 2) expert review; 3) web hits/usage; 4) user testing; 5) session analysis; 6) online surveys; 7) A/B and multivariate testing; 8) eye tracking; 9) emotion/trust measurement; 10) neuro-marketing…

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INNOVATION IN BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY


In the midst of Recession, People Want Value, Innovation

CEO Thomas Falk did things most executives ran from during the recession: He plunged money into innovation and marketing, and raised prices…

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Where innovation creates value

Value innovation is defined as delivering exceptional value to the most important customer in the value chain all the time, every time. Unlike other forms of innovation, the most important customer can be internal or external to the organization. Exceptional value can be delivered in many other ways besides a new product or service. It could be a new process, a new way of going to market or business model, a new way of delivering the product or service, new packaging, or new services. Any organization of any size, whether for-profit or not-for-profit, an association, a government agency, a school board and so on can use the value innovation methodology. Support groups within an organization such as IT, finance, purchase and human resource can use these tools to deliver much greater value to the most important customers in their business units…

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Is This Innovation Too Disruptive for My Firm

One of the trickiest decisions in business is to assess: is this innovation too innovative for my firm? You need to decide whether the core business will embrace the new product or service or reject it. Xerox, which invented the laser printer, Ethernet, and the personal computer, actually rejected the new computer and network — but adopted the laser printer. Why?

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A Little Chip Designed by Apple Itself

The most notable aspect of Apple's new iPad is the A4, the chip that powers the tablet device and was developed in house. As we first highlighted last week, the A4 chip is the first fruit to come of Apple's 2008 acquisition of P.A. Semi, a low-power chipmaker. Recent upticks in supplier and channel risk have made vertical integration an especially attractive strategic decision for many firms. In periods of increased volatility, a collection of diversified businesses provides executives visibility into currently volatile leading indicators of performance, and this information could lead to smarter capital-allocation decisions…

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LEADERSHIP & ORGANIZATION

Having Fun with Cutting Up Oxen

A cook was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-Hui. With each blow of his hand, each hoist of his shoulders, each step of his foot, each thrust of his knee, each hiss of cleaved flesh, each howl of the axe, all were in perfect harmony – rhythmical like the dance of the mulberry groves, simultaneous like the chords of Ching-shou…

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Why Your Friend Becomes Hostile?

You are a caring person and you love to help people when they face difficulties. Then an unexpected episode happened. A person you have helped wholeheartedly became hostile to you out of the blue, accusing you of being exploitative and manipulative – a conspirator all along. “How could you do that to me? I wish I had found it out earlier” the distressed person says while you are shocked by the attack. How could that happen? A very interesting series of research reported on Science recently shed lights on the weird things like this one…

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How to Get Along With Frenemies

Here are what you should do: 1) stick to the facts; 2) don't take it personally; 3) talk it out; 4) if you can't talk it out, work it out; 5) while you are working it out, spread it out; 6) if all else fail, relax; 7) rinse and repeat…

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