An Expensive Lesson in Businesses Participating in Politics

In April of last year, Target released a blog post stating their position on the hot button topic of who should be allowed to use which bathrooms. They stated that they encourage and welcome trans employees and shoppers alike to use the restrooms corresponding to their gender identities. In their blog post, they included a picture of the target symbol with half of it turned into a rainbow. Other retailers have similar policies to this but posting its stance publicly is where Target made a mistake; a mistake that quickly became expensive. The post was a response to North Carolina’s legislation on bathroom use (which required transgender people to use bathrooms in government buildings according to the sex on their birth certificates and disallowed laws that prohibited businesses from asking for proof of sex before people used the bathrooms); a post which was not approved by the Chief Executive of Target, Brian Cornell, who would’ve preferred not to flaunt the company’s decision. The day after the post was published a conservative Christian nonprofit called for a boycott on Target. Shortly after, sales started to decline and have continued to decline in every quarter since the blog post.

Although quite a few similar retailers hold the same or similar policies as Target they don’t publicize their policies. National chains such as Target host customers that fill the entirety of the political spectrum and by publishing an article that specifically goes against the beliefs and morals of a good portion of those customers puts them in a tight spot. After polling 2,500 people, nearly ⅔ of people said that businesses should stay out of politics and that “[businesses] should have just left it as, ‘don’t ask, don’t show, don’t tell.’"

Executives within the company expected the backlash to die down, but it didn’t; in fact, traffic in several markets declined considerably. Due to stores going under, especially in the South, Target has set out on a multi-billion-dollar revamp. They plan to invest $7 billion to improve stores, launch exclusive brands, and develop its supply-chain and digital capabilities over the next three years. They also plan to remodel 110 stores in 2017, ⅓ of those stores being in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Their ultimate goal is to come up with ways to win back shoppers without agreeing to demands that Target retract its bathroom policy. These ideas included things like promotions and direct mailings to focus on customers in specific markets and commissioning Tony Romo, Dallas Cowboys quarterback, to promote the store.

Target has since learned its lesson and stayed mum on follow ups regarding the North Carolina legislation.

How Target Botched Its Response to the North Carolina Bathroom Law by Khadeeja Safdar

McDonald's Refocuses on Fast Food

McDonald's Refocuses on Fast Food

Since 2012 McDonald's been steadily making changes to how it's customers perceive their brand. They put the calories of each item on their menu, introduced full sized chicken wraps, added more grilled burgers to the meal options, and even added oatmeal and fruit cups to their breakfast line up. The question is...why would a well known fast food chain like McDonald's try to "slim" down their image?

The answer is in the marketing. McDonald's, like many other prominent fast food chains, wanted to expand their target market from the everyday fast food lover to someone perhaps a little more health conscious. I also believe it was a social effort as well due to documentaries such as Food Inc. gaining major popularity and casting a dim light on the industrialized farm, which foods chains like McDonald's are highly connected to. Nevertheless, McDonald's began shifting their operation in order to reach their new audience and a major part of that was changing their product and how they promoted it. Commercials with kids eating apples instead of fries with their happy meals began to roll out and advertisements encouraging children to stay active were seen in nearly every McDonald's. However, McDonald's began losing customers and when they conducted a survey they found that they weren't losing customers to healthier options but instead to their other fast food competitors. 

The solution was simple. McDonald's needed to focus on their target market and become the best at facilitating their needs. That means McDonald's is accepting their fast food identity and along with that their product and the way they promote it. So say goodbye to chicken wraps and new grilled sandwiches and hello to more modern restaurants and triple big macs.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/mcdonalds-to-expand-mobile-delivery-as-it-plots-future-1488390702

Wine... for the advancement of advertising

How a Wine Brand Advanced Digital Ad Measurement

In the age of digital content, companies must now rely on data collection companies to gather lots of data on consumers and potential customers. This data collection process is lengthy and most often calculated at the end of the month. For companies and products alike, this can mean receiving data that is outdated or misrepresented for the next advertising cycle.

As consumers, ourselves we see how our tastes can vary from week to week. While one week we may consume a special type of beverage or food, the next week we can be completely different. This shift in tastes is what leads to a poor representation using data analytics from consumers.

By analyzing consumer patterns and behaviors, Black Label Wines was able to take better results and market special types of alcohol to specific consumers. Another realization made was that more women actually bought this label and were easier to convert into repeat customers. By analyzing their advertising data more frequently this company can pioneer a new method of data collection to better serve the customer and maximize their profits. In continuing with this process companies could better predict what products consumers want which can improve efficiency, reduce costs, and help eliminate waste. Although data collection is not a new concept the process of collecting data can vary and has developed through time. Through this we are able to increase profits and research what consumers really want. In addition, with this new method advertising agencies could potentially increase their own profits as the data will now be more accurate than ever when aggregated. This process of data aggregation can also potentially be patented in some form to create a monopoly of sorts, increasing the revenue for other advertising giants as well. 
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WSJ Article
Carlos Gutierrez
MKTG 3343

Flying In Luxury vs. Normal Traveler

LAX to Offer New Service- Private Suite Lounges

An outside view of the ultimate flying experience

Starting this summer, LAX will begin to offer luxury lounges that will serve the wealthier travelers as their target market. This service will provide travelers with a space dedicated to relaxation and privacy, commodities that are hard to come by in even the most advanced airports.

Being one of most traveled airports and located near a celebrity-filled hub, this idea is actually not innovative as other airports already offer VIP suites that offer these kinds of services and privacy for their travelers. “The Private Suite, a remote terminal for VIPs, celebrities, CEOs and anyone willing to pay $1,500 to $4,000 for privacy and pampering at one of the world’s busiest airports, will officially open May 15.”

Los Angeles knows that their audience is composed of celebrities and A-list guests that can cause major headaches when flying due to their own celebrity status. By offering a lounge, they are able to sell their clients privacy an element that is often hard to sell, as well as minimize their traffic which can lead to a higher satisfaction rating of their other audience the average flyer flying out of  LAX. This can lead to an increase in profits because often normal travelers would be discouraged from flying out of LAX due to the fact that this particular airport is often crowded with photographers and paparazzi that can ruin the flying experience. LAX probably determined that their main competitors were other airports within California that travelers were willing to drive to just for the sake of smaller crowds. The exact product being sold in this case is the idea of luxury and tries to differentiate how being secluded is special and only a normal consumer goes through the standard process of flying. Most people using this service would be purely doing so out of the luxury factor and not the utility. 

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WSJ Article

Carlos Gutierrez

MKTG 3343

Using Marketing Data to Optimize Campaigns

                                       

Quickly knowing if advertising leads to sales for companies is difficult, since measuring ad effectiveness is a long and outdated process. However, Constellation Brands Inc., is looking to come up with a way to measure ad effectiveness through a trial for Black Box Wines brand’s digital advertising. Because there is a lag time between the end of the ad campaign and when companies receive data vendor reports, it is difficult to measure effectiveness of advertising until after the campaign.

Following a collaboration with Constellation Brands Inc. and Black Box Wines, the wine brand discovered that they could maximize the efficiency of digital ads in the middle of their campaign with a minor tweak to technology used by the ad tech firm and data vendor. With the weekly purchase data provided, they can see if their ads are directly leading to sales and not have to wait for the campaign to be finalized.  Approximately every two weeks, the wine brand received a report with anonymous information about the customers seeing the ads that purchased the products which allowed them to know which ad formats were efficient. The company initially believed that men comprised the majority of their clientele, but they discovered that women ages 25-54 were actually the majority. As a result, they rolled out video ads featuring women with attributes like those that bought the wine.

In turn, it also allowed them to apply this information to their marketing mix and target the right market. Black Box Wines matched the media with the market, or in other words, specified the characteristics of the target market in order to select media that they hear, read, and see. To sell more products, they most likely used the real time data obtained by marketing data systems and built an AIDA model. 

WSJ Article

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Rosa Sotelo
MKTG 3343

Samsung's Comeback?

Samsung’s Big Marketing Challenge

Tall and curvy. Sleek with a fragile body and a gorgeous frame.

This year Samsung has opted for a bezel less display with a glass back and tall screen. The looks coupled with features that some say surpass those of the more popular IPhone, make the new Samsung Galaxy S8 an obvious competitor in the smartphone game.

            For Samsung, this phone is meant to serve as a type of reset button after having to recall more than 2 million units of the Note 7 phones that were literally catching on fire. This year however, Samsung hopes that consumers lose sight of that picture and instead catch on to the new features that make this phone a true game changer.

            For the marketing, Chief of Samsung Marc Mathieu, this phone means a reaffirmation that the company can remain a viable competitor and can move on from the public relations scandal that it faced last year. This scandal caused the company to restructure the way it served its consumers as well as the way it handled consumer devices.

            In addition, Samsung has always had a knack for inserting humor into their commercials. Now, Mr. Mathieu agrees that consumers have to be reassured that this new device is actually safe and as such must keep the commercials safety orientated. These commercials feature the devices being tested in labs to ensure that the quality and safety of these devices are the highest and consistent. The more precise Samsung can be with their testing the more they can persuade the public that their brand is legitimate and once again a major competitor again a more mainstream company like Apple.

            It seems all of Samsung’s efforts have likely payed of as its preorders have outpaced the order for the previous model from last year the Galaxy S7. And at its current right rate it is on track to be close to Apple’s shipping order, who wasn’t met with any major catastrophic scandals in the past year. For the electronics’ giant and the phone itself only time can be the accurate measure of the overall quality and outcome of the product.

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WSJ Article

Carlos Gutierrez

MKTG 3343

Retail Model Aims to Deliver an Experience

            

     

            Many customers don’t like to go shopping because of stores’ clutter or terrible customer service. What if you were treated like royalty in stores? FortyFiveTen, a luxury fashion company, has adopted an unorthodox retail model.  Rather than being simply a retail store where you go in, browse and try on clothes, make a purchase and leave, this store has turned into a place where you can have an experience.

This model aims to get customers to spend the whole day there. There are lounges, a restaurant, a book store, and even a bar. FortyFiveTen decided to do this bold change and turn into a destination rather than a simple retail shop after facing tough competition by online retailers. Aside from being a destination, it will also change their products and inventory completely from time to time. Straying away from a fixed inventory will allow for customers to be engaged and want to come in frequently to see what they can snag before it leaves forever.

             
            To start, FortyFiveTen most likely conducted a SWOT Analysis and discovered that their prime competition are online retailers. Online shopping is the direction many shoppers go to in today’s age because of the convenience. However, by turning into a destination, FortyFiveTen attracts those customers who crave something different in their shopping experience, such as human interaction. Online shopping will not give you an experience, much less the one FortyFiveTen aims to deliver. Also by analyzing the company market, they aren’t focusing on just the product, as a product oriented approach tends to ignore customers. The company uses differentiation in its marketing mix to stand out from competition and position itself as a luxury shopping destination. 

WSJ Article

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Rosa Sotelo

MKTG 3343