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Chronicles a day in the life of a Royal Corp. salesperson, Mary Jones, part of the Royal Reproduction Center (RRC) division. The RRC division specializes in high-quality turnaround copying and printing services. Division salespeople are responsible for selling copying/printing services, the Royal 750 color copier, and the Corporate Copy Center (CCC) concept, which involves equipping a client company with a staff and copiers to operate an on-premise reproduction operation. Focuses on Jones' difficulty in selling the CCC concept. Presents the daily sales activities of a business-to-business salesperson and the buyer behavior process of two different types of services (CCC and printing) and a product (color copier). Also reveals the difficulty of selling a new concept, typical problems that salespeople encounter, and the importance of understanding buyer behavior and the purchase process of a new product.

Combining design-process experts with business-content experts creates a capacity to envision and realize futures that are both desirable for stakeholders and viable for organizations. The authors, from leading design firm IDEO, show how organizations can look to tools from the field of design to help their leaders get in touch with their stakeholders' unarticulated needs and desires, and intentionally imagine and create futures based on the one thing that seems to remain relatively stable, even in times of great change: human behavior. When made a part of an organization's work processes and competencies, the design tools they describe can enable an organization to embrace change as a normal part of managing its business.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Case studies suggest that companies, including Avon, Stonyfield Farm, and Starbucks, have benefited from marketing initiatives associating the company with a socially beneficial cause. But how should managers allocate dollars between social-cause marketing and other types of marketing programs? The authors use a market-research technique called "conjoint analysis" to help managers evaluate the relative benefits of various types of affinity marketing programs, including sponsorship of social causes, sports, or entertainment events. Conjoint analysis involves creating a variety of hypothetical brand profiles that contain combinations of brand attributes; by asking consumers to rank the profiles, researchers can gain insights into how different brand attributes affect consumer preferences. For some of the products studied, affiliations with social causes had more positive effects on consumer rankings than affiliations with sports or entertainment events. However, this was not always true; for example, it was not the case for the milk brands studied, suggesting that the effect of social-cause marketing initiatives may vary by industry. Also discusses how brand managers can use conjoint analysis to compare potential marketing initiatives.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. New products suffer from notoriously high failure rates. Many fail, not because of technical shortcomings, but because they simply have no market. Not surprisingly, studies have found that timely and reliable knowledge about customer preferences and requirements is the single most important area of information necessary for product development. To obtain such data, many organizations have made heavy--but often unsuccessful--investments in traditional market research. The authors provide an alternative. Companies including Threadless, Yamaha, and Ryohin Keikaku have integrated customers into the innovation process by soliciting new product concepts directly from them. These firms also ask customers to commit to purchasing a new product before the companies commence final development and manufacturing. This process--called "collective customer commitment"--can help companies avoid costly product failures. In essence, collective customer commitment enables firms to serve a market segment efficiently without first having to identify that segment and helps convert expenditures in market research directly into sales.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Despite considerable research on customer retention and word-of-mouth referrals, it has always been difficult quantifying their contributions to the bottom line. Using a metric known as "net promoter score" (NPS), the author believes firms can measure the dollar value of customers based on satisfaction levels. A survey of thousands of customers in six industries reveals that customers tend to cluster into one of three categories: promoters, passives, and detractors. Promoters represent more than 80% of the positive referrals a company receives, whereas detractors represent more than 80% of the negative word-of-mouth. NPS is determined by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. Using this data, a firm can quantify the value of a customer by tracking five categories: retention rate, profit margins, spending, cost efficiencies, and word-of-mouth. The firm can then use NPS to make strategic decisions by targeting its efforts to leverage the most value for its customer service dollar.

The hot breakfast cereal division of Quaker Oats was in serious decline, and the increasing American preference for speed and convenience at breakfast did not bode well for the category. The senior VP overseeing the hot breakfast division has been given an ultimatum by the CEO to turn the company's namesake product line around. She develops a marketing plan, but will it work?

Quantifying the efficacy of marketing is an age-old challenge. As John Wanamaker said a century ago, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." The big difference today, however, is that the Internet enables detailed tracking of marketing campaigns in real time, or near time. Exemplifies how to leverage the Internet to dramatically improve the efficacy of marketing. Centers upon the Microsoft Security Guidance marketing campaign, which was designed to change IT professionals' perception of Microsoft's software product security. The integrated marketing campaign involved print media, analyst relations, and online advertising. The advertising was designed to drive IT professionals to a Web site on security guidance, then sign them up for free in-person security training classes. Illustrates two important best practices for marketing in the Internet age: first, the campaign was designed to be measured, and second, agility was specifically designed into the campaign. In addition to tracking weekly click-through data from the print and online advertising, the campaign also used online pop-up customer perception surveys. Analyzing the click-though data, Microsoft realized it had a problem at the end of the first week of the campaign--there were far fewer signups for the training sessions than anticipated. By the end of the second week the campaign was changed, resulting in a huge improvement in efficacy. Creates a scorecard illustrating the pros and cons of the Microsoft approach compared to a more traditional campaign. Illustrates how, rather than creating big-bang campaigns, high-performing marketing organizations today are continually experimenting. They build flexibility into campaigns and design them to be measured.

Julie Brighton had done some secondary research to determine the market size for her new charcoal starter, a product she hoped would be the basis for starting a small company with her friend Jim Henly. First, however, she needed to forecast how many charcoal starters she could sell in California in her first year.

Ryanair was the pioneer of low cost flying in Europe. As the result of a series of marketing innovations and stringent control of costs it enjoyed a decade of rapid and profitable growth. By 2004 it had become the most profitable airline in the world (in terms of percentage operating profit). However, it faced intense competition from a variety of traditional, charter and other low-cost carriers. In September 2004 its larger archrival, easyJet, announced that it was going to begin flying into Ryanair's home market. Michael O'Leary and his management team had to decide how to respond to this provocative move.

This note is intended to elaborate on the many dimensions of retail location analysis and decisions. Location is a retail marketing decision that is typically difficult to change frequently, yet it determines access to customers, investments in building and equipment, and many operating costs such as rent, utilities and taxes. In short, it deserves careful attention. This note may be used with product 9B05A031, Note on Retail Convenience.

Every retailer faces competition, either directly or indirectly. This note examines how a retailer can systematically conceptualize and analyze his or her competition in order to make better retail marketing decisions. The two key topic areas are retail formats (a way to classify retail competitors) and competitive analysis. Every retailer needs to find some reason why customers should buy from him or her rather than from a competitor - in short, a competitive advantage. Gaining competitive advantage requires not only customer understanding, but also competitive understanding.

Convenience is a key competitive benefit retailers can offer: ways to save customers time and effort. Retailers employ various strategies, including location, layout, merchandise arrangement, transaction processing, hours and delivery, to differentiate themselves from competitors. This note explains each of these strategies, and explore the growing importance of shopping convenience.

This note is intended to elaborate on the many dimensions of retail location analysis and decisions. Location is a retail marketing decision that is typically difficult to change frequently, yet it determines access to customers, investments in building and equipment, and many operating costs such as rent, utilities and taxes. In short, it deserves careful attention. This note may be used with product 9B05A031, Note on Retail Convenience.

Every retailer faces competition, either directly or indirectly. This note examines how a retailer can systematically conceptualize and analyze his or her competition in order to make better retail marketing decisions. The two key topic areas are retail formats (a way to classify retail competitors) and competitive analysis. Every retailer needs to find some reason why customers should buy from him or her rather than from a competitor - in short, a competitive advantage. Gaining competitive advantage requires not only customer understanding, but also competitive understanding.

Assortment is generally the major element of the retail marketing offer and is central to any effective retail marketing strategy. A well-defined and executed assortment strategy can be powerful in differentiating the total retail offering from other retailers. This note is about the assortment choices that retailers face. Assortment is what the retailer manages; selection is what the customer perceives to be offered by the assortment provided. This note explores assortment strategies, ways of making assortment decisions, category management and more.

Value means much more than simply price, more than the money the customer pays and the money the retailer gets. Value is the perception that customers have (or may be convinced to have) of the total package of benefits received at a price from the retailer. Price from the customer's perspective then becomes an indicator, a measure of the promised value. If the benefits appear to be substantially higher than the cost (the price being asked), the customer perceives the retailer to be offering good value and a sale is likely. On the other hand, if the cost is perceived as higher than the benefits, the value is note there for the customer. When customers say the price is too high they also mean the value is too low. This note explores value and price from the retailer's perspective, including ways retailers set and change price.

A retail marketing strategy is intended to accomplish performance objectives. This note examines what performance dimensions retailers typically use, how one might assess retail performance, and most importantly, how a focus on performance can assist in making decisions about retail marketing strategy.

New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer discusses the introduction of a completely new beverage to the U.S. market. New Century Brewing, which is owned by one of the founders of Boston Beer Company, is a small brewer that outsources production to third party brewers. It has two products, a light craft beer sold in upscale shops and restaurants, and a caffeinated beer, which is oriented towards younger drinkers mainly between 21 and 25 years of age. Moonshot, created by the legendary masterbrewer, known as the father of light beer, became the first caffeinated beer in the world. The company follows a differentiation strategy that attempts to appeal to a small niche of customers traditionally ignored by large brewers. Shortly after the introduction of each of its products, large competitors introduced similar products. Nevertheless, Moonshot has a first-to-market advantage that could potentially be leveraged.

Don't extend your premium brands into other product categories--unless they are adjacent to your core categories.

Ted Levitt used to tell his Harvard Business School students, "People don't want a quarter-inch drill--they want a quarter-inch hole." But 35 years later, marketers are still thinking in terms of products and ever-finer demographic segments. The structure of a market, as seen from customers' point of view, is very simple. When people need to get a job done, they hire a product or service to do it for them. The marketer's task is to understand what jobs periodically arise in customers' lives for which they might hire products the company could make. One job, the "I-need-to-send-this-from-here-to-there-with-perfect-certainty-as-fast-as-possible" job, has existed practically forever. Federal Express designed a service to do precisely that--and do it wonderfully again and again. The FedEx brand began popping into people's minds whenever they needed to get that job done. Most of today's great brands--Crest, Starbucks, Kleenex, eBay, and Kodak, to name a few--started out as just this kind of purpose brand. When a purpose brand is extended to products that target different jobs, it becomes an endorser brand. But, over time, the power of an endorser brand will surely erode unless the company creates a new purpose brand for each new job, even as it leverages the endorser brand as an overall marker of quality. Different jobs demand different purpose brands. New growth markets are created when an innovative company designs a product and then positions its brand on a job for which no optimal product yet exists. In fact, companies that historically have segmented and measured markets by product categories generally find that when they instead segment by job, their market is much larger (and their current share much smaller) than they had thought. This is great news for smart companies hungry for growth.