Archive for the ‘Articles’ Category
Monday, March 17th, 2008
When the US sneezes, everybody else catches a cold – or at least, that’s what we’re all led to believe. If this is indeed the case, what does 2008 have in store for b2b marketers around the world?
According to a recent online study conducted by B2B Magazine, a majority of the 684 b2b marketers questioned (58.3%) have not revised their original marketing budgets for 2008 in the face of concerns over a possible US economic recession. 29.4% have revised their marketing budgets down, yet a further 12.3% have actually revised their budgets up.
Marketing budgets often become the first casualties during economic downturns, yet ironically, this is really the time when it’s more important than ever to communicate closely with your existing customers and make potential customers aware of what you can offer to them. The key is to use your budgets wisely in order to ensure maximum efficiency and return on investment.
In the US-based survey, of those who have reduced their marketing budgets in anticipation of a possible downturn, 45.3% are making cuts in print; 17.3% in events; 10.0% in broadcast, 8.7% in direct marketing, 6.0% in online and 2.0% in outdoor. The biggest winners, amongst those who are increasing their spend, include: online (48.5%); direct marketing (16.5%); events (13.5%); print (9.0%) and broadcast (3.0%).
Whether we are all in for a rough ride over the coming months is still open to debate somewhat, but don’t fall into the trap of putting the brakes on your marketing spend, or you’re certain to pay the price in the not-too-distant future.
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Monday, February 18th, 2008
Anybody that has studied any aspect of marketing in even the slightest depth will know that there are numerous definitions of what the discipline precisely is, all of them subtly different.
Did you know that the American Marketing Association, one of the best-known marketing bodies in the world, revisits the definition of marketing every five years in a disciplined effort to reflect on the state of the marketing field?
The American Marketing Association’s definition is used in books, by marketing professionals, and taught in university lecture halls across the US and indeed around the world.
As of January 2008, the new definition reads:
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
The previous definition stated:
Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.
Do you agree with this updated definition? If it was up to you, what would your definition of marketing be? Are you interested in finding out more about marketing theory and practice by attending one of our marketing training courses? To find out more click here.
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Thursday, December 20th, 2007
Firstly, our sincerest apologies for the appalling "pun" (if that’s what it is) above - We’ll try to make "no more bad wordplay" one of our New Year resolutions!
Returning to the point we actually wanted to make - Just to prove that even churches sometimes need to know how they can better accommodate their faithful, the following story from yesterday reveals how some parishes have turned to market research to improve their appeal:
Undercover team inspects churches
Churches across the Midlands are being checked by "mystery worshippers".
The 13, normally paid to inspect stores while posing as ordinary shoppers, report on issues such as sermons, music and the warmth of welcome.
They have been hired by the Heart of England Christian Resources Exhibition (CRE).
Five churches in Telford, Shropshire, have so far been rated by the mystery shoppers, none of whom are regular church-goers.
The idea of the visits on 13 January is to find out how people’s needs can be better met by churches in the region.
‘Genuinely surprised’
Benita Hewitt, from the Christian Research Association which is organising the study, said: "Although the churches in Telford were given no advance warning, several scored more than 90%, with two achieving 100%.
"Most of our mystery worshippers were genuinely surprised by the warmth of their experience in church and some were even keen to go back for more."
Churches in Telford visited by the team were; St Mary and St Leonard, Wellington Methodist, Telford Christ the King, St Matthew Telford and Union Free Telford.
The CRE, which is described as the church equivalent of the Ideal Homes Exhibition, is sponsoring the pilot programme.
The exhibition will take place at Telford International Centre from 21 to 23 February 2008.
Steve Briars, CRE event director, said: "The project in Telford, and especially Mystery Worshipper in the Midlands on Sunday 13 January, will help us monitor where there are needs in churches."
Anglican Bishop of Shrewsbury, the Right Rev Alan Smith, has welcomed the research.
And on that note, we reckon now’s a good time to wish all our readers a very Happy Christmas holiday and a prosperous New Year. Rest assured, we’ll be back in 2008 with even more of our thoughts about the world of business, market research and everything else that’s fit to post.
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Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
Although the focus of contemporary discussion about China has been centred upon its astonishing recent growth, it’s all-to-easy to lose sight of the fact that large swathes of China haven’t yet felt the benefits of industrialisation.
Indeed, even we are guilty of looking rather too closely at the good stuff – Only yesterday we made a post about multi-millionaire 10 year-olds and billion-dollar Internet start-ups in the People’s Republic. So, in an effort provide some balance when discussing emerging markets, the following article provides for a sobering reflection upon where China truly stands in terms of its population’s wealth and what the prospects are for closing the poverty gap in the country:
THE LIMITS OF A SMALLER, POORER CHINA
Albert Keidel
In a little-noticed mid-summer announcement, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) presented official survey results indicating China’s economy is smaller and poorer than established estimates say. The announcement cited the first authoritative measure of China’s size using purchasing power parity methods. The results tell us that when the World Bank announces its expected PPP data revisions later this year, China’s economy will turn out to be 40 per cent smaller than previously stated.
This more accurate picture of China clarifies why Beijing concentrates so heavily on domestic priorities such as growth, public investment, pollution control and poverty reduction. The number of people in China living below the World Bank’s dollar-a-day poverty line is 300m – three times larger than currently estimated.
Why such a large revision in the estimates of China’s economic condition? Until recently, China had never participated in the careful price surveys needed to convert accurately its gross domestic product into PPP dollars.
The World Bank’s estimates based on summary data from the late 1980s probably overstated China’s PPP gross domestic product even then. Up to now, the bank has revised its estimate very little. In the meantime, China has repeatedly raised the prices of food, housing, healthcare and a range of other non-traded goods and services. These reforms should have lowered the PPP adjustment, but the bank left it basically unchanged.
For China, the ADB correction needs to be made back to the 1980s and 1990s, when instead of World Bank estimates of roughly 300m people below the dollar-a-day poverty line, the number was more likely more than 500m. China has made enormous strides in lifting its population out of poverty – but the task was perhaps more gargantuan than most people thought and progress has been overstated by bank estimates.
The immediate international interest is for China to succeed in its still daunting internal development challenges. Such opportunities might be manageable if engagement focused on a needy sub-region such as Sichuan Province, where the US has a flourishing Peace Corps programme, the goal being to promote economic development.
Close contact with China’s development process on the ground might also help us understand better the lessons China’s experience might have for so many poor countries where development is stalled.
The above article recently appeared in the Chinese Financial Times
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Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
Articles concerning the frivolity of bountiful wealth have always been a staple for journalists seeking to fill column-inches with cautionary tales of our increasingly material society – Whether they be reports six-figure corporate bar bills or rumours of lottery winners blowing millions on demolition derbies in their back garden.
It’s unsurprising to learn that recent experience in a booming China appears to be much the same – Otherwise ordinary people being thrust into a world of untold riches, throwing around their hard-earned as if it were going out of fashion. In the following article, which originally appeared in the Chinese Financial Times, Mure Dickie tells of mixed attitudes towards this explosion in Chinese prosperity, and leaves open the question of how China’s aspirations can be responsibly reconciled with its copious consumption:
When Bank of Beijing issued shares last month, among the beneficiaries was a 10-year-old called Zheng Yuxuan, who first invested when no more than a toddler and who is now a multi-millionaire. Lots of Chinese are making big money. Forbes magazine found 66 dollar billionaires in China this year, up from 15 last year.
Alibaba.com, an internet company, has just raised $1.5bn (£714m), for example, creating a host of new customers for the Bentley and Maserati dealerships in its corporate home town of Hangzhou. And as long as little Yuxuan and the 83 other under-18 shareholders in Bank of Beijing can access their wealth, they will not want for ways to spend it.
But not all onlookers are enjoying the current show of conspicuous Chinese consumption. A series of semi-rhyming text messages circulating on mobile phones and the internet recently suggest conflicted feelings among a population that has seen inequality grow even as general living standards rise. "When we get money, we’ll drink bean milk and eat greasy bread sticks, dipping them in white sugar or red sugar, whichever we damn want. We’ll buy two bowls of bean milk, drink one and throw the other away," runs one of the half-envious, half-mocking text messages.
But China’s rich are far past the bean milk stage, with some paying $17 for an imported apple or Rmb1.7m (£109,000) for a car number plate. "When I get money, I’ll buy a luxury car, a Mercedes Benz or a BMW, whatever I want. I’ll buy two at a time, one to drive and the other to tow along behind," runs a text message riposte.
Still, most Chinese seem more focused on making their own fortunes, rather than resenting the success of others.
"When we get money, we’ll drink beer and eat barbecue. We’ll eat meat and drink pricey beer, whatever we damn want," writes one anonymous text messenger. "We’ll buy two bottles of beer, drink one - and then drink the other one."
The wealth of people such as little Yuxuan and the Alibaba team may get the attention, but China’s economic success should really be measured by how it meets such modest meat-and-beer aspirations.
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