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Manufacturers of packaged goods no longer can entice consumers through traditional "pull" marketing techniques - huge TV and other advertising campaigns and alluring packaging. So the trade has moved in to grab customers through "push" marketing techniques - especially coupons and trade deals. Unless manufacturers reverse this trend, they will risk crippling their own marketing productivity. Manufacturers have to understand the recent changes in society and consumer tastes that have caused the shift from pull to push marketing. They then can return to pull marketing by directing their attention to the small, varied segments that now make up the U.S. market.

A major reason why Japanese corporations succeed in global markets is the informed, hands-on market research they practice. When Japanese managers want information on customer needs or market response to a new product, they don't depend on market research professionals and the so-called scientific methods favored in the United States and Europe. Instead, they meet and talk directly with retailers, wholesalers, distributors, and brokers so that they can gain deep knowledge of their channels.

One key to a successful retail business is friendly, knowledgeable, motivated salespeople. But, even in some of America's best-known stores, one encounters indifferent clerks or must search for a clerk willing to take one's money. An effective technique - used for years by J.B. Robinson Jewelers - for teaching salespeople a natural and friendly sales manner is role playing. Employees like role playing. It's dramatic, and they retain more through these sessions than they would from manuals or lectures.

Describes how close relationships with customers require close interfunctional and interdivisional coordination. Explains where the closest vendor/customer relationships arise and how they stress internal coordination. Also enumerates and briefly describes the way in which interfunctional coordination can be achieved.

Explains the need for functional integration and the four ways to obtain it. A bibliography is provided. The note is managerial rather than scholarly in tone.

Bill Ryan, president of the Gillette Co.'s Personal Care Division, is considering changing the division's planning and control system for marketing. White Rain, the division's most recent success, had been launched by taking shortcuts through the system, while other marketing programs the system produced sometimes still faltered. The case examines the components of a planning and control system for marketing, criteria for good systems and good programs, and ways that marketing managers work with a system.

A generalized definition of marketing strategy, useful in the classroom to establish a common vocabulary and to generate discussion. Discusses relationship to corporate strategic planning and describes a number of approaches including the BCG matrix.

The new business development officer for Quaker Oats Canada Limited, has been asked to develop a proposal for the possible introduction of Gatorade into Canada. He must develop a complete marketing and financial proposal. The case focuses on decisions about channels, flavors, pack-types, pack-sizes, retail pricing, trade and company margins, forecast market outcomes and forecast cash flows. A follow-up case, Gatorade B is available.

Raises the powerful issues of measuring marketing performance in a not-for-profit services setting. Also raises several interesting ethical issues. LifeSpan Inc., a Minneapolis based not-for-profit organization is the parent holding company of three hospitals and several health services corporations. Abbott Northwestern, LifeSpan's premier hospital, adopted a very market oriented approach to increase its share of a business that was both shrinking in size and becoming increasingly competitive. The company initiated a telemarketing advertising campaign which resulted in a flood of inquiries. The marketing group would like to nearly double the advertising budget; the board of directors would like some evidence that advertising, phone calls, inquiries, and other programs lead to filled beds and increased business.

Asks where in the Hewlett-Packard (HP) network of groups and sectors the Manufacturing Productivity Division should be placed. Provides a great deal of background regarding marketing, sales, and engineering at HP. It is thus possible to expand and broaden the discussion of the integration of the sales, marketing, and engineering functions at the division, group, sector, and corporate levels.

Focuses on the development of a "market driven" culture at Hewlett-Packard (HP); the conflict between autonomous, well integrated divisions making products responsive to their own markets and a greater degree of systems integration at the corporate level; and the integration of the sales, marketing, and research and development functions.

Focuses on the compensation plan for Fieldcrest sales representatives. Management is reviewing the structure of the plan and must decide how to establish compensation goals and guidelines for the following year so that sales efforts are allocated among products and/or accounts in the best manner. Provides information about the industry, the competitive environment, recent market developments, and the details of the compensation plan as well as comments by managers and salespeople.

Most U.S. companies have developed fairly rigid marketing structures to achieve certain and predictable results, when the business climate is equally certain and predictable. But such engines of efficiency have a price. As top executives come to rely on routinized marketing structures instead of management imagination, they neglect managers' marketing skills. Companies can nourish such constructive subversion by seeking out "hungry" managers, rewarding good performance, and making creative rule breaking possible.

Manac Systems International is confronting a decision about how best to market one of its computer software product lines to small law firms. In the past, Manac has focused on traditional personal selling approaches to market software products that ran on IBM minicomputers. With the advent of increasingly powerful microcomputers, they now have the opportunity to market a new software product line and must decide how to market it. Should they rely on personal selling in the channels or invest heavily in a different marketing program, with advertising, a toll-free telephone line, and a money-back guarantee to get small law firms to order the software direct from Manac?

Concerns negotiations between managers of Becton Dickinson's (BD) VACUTAINER division (which manufactures and sells blood collection products) and managers of a large hospital buying group. Recent changes in the health care industry are the background for the negotiations, which involve the buying group's attempt to negotiate both lower prices and different distribution terms with BD. The case provides background information about important industry changes and the previous history of purchasing and negotiations among BD, the buying group, and important distributors. As well as a pricing-negotiations case, it is a good vehicle for raising issues concerning what factors affect the balance of power in channel relations.

The president of Ohmeda, a wholly owned company of the BOC Group, plans to grow the company's medical equipment sales from $95 million in 1985 to $158 million in five years by focusing on the sale of "high-tech" equipment. At the same time, the president expects to sell Ohmeda's medical supplies business ($22 million in sales) and to transfer its medical gases business ($27.2 million in sales) to another business unit of the BOC Group. The changes in Ohmeda's products combined with the planned growth in medical equipment cause the president to reassess Ohmeda's marketing system. The new strategic thrust requires him to review the role of Ohmeda's direct sales and dealer sales coverage. In doing so he evaluates the economics of three options: 1) continuing with Ohmeda's present system, 2) eliminating dealer sales coverage, and 3) specializing salespeople by product group.

Discusses the actions taken by the president of Ohmeda and the company's sales results for the following three years.

Lotus Development Corp., the number one microsoftware firm has traditionally sold to its customers through a distributor-retail dealer network. In early 1986, the company is considering the option of selling direct to large corporate customers. Students are expected to analyze the pros and cons of such a change in making their decisions.

Joan Macey, Rohm and Haas' market manager for Metalworking Fluid Biocides, found that sales of a new biocide, Kathon MWX, was utterly disappointing. This was all the more puzzling since sales of her other product--Kathon 886 MW, a liquid biocide used only in large-capacity tanks--was well on target and held a steady 30% market share. In May 1984, about five months after the new product was launched, Joan Macey was reviewing her entire marketing strategy with a view to bringing Kathon MWX sales closer to target. Of particular concern to her were the distribution and communication strategies used for the new product.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 587-055.