KnowThis Blog Postings

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Published on March 13, 2012

Posted by Paul Christ

How 'Kony' Clip Caught Fire Online (Wall Street Journal)

Many people consider promotion a marketing activity that is mostly of interest to for-profit marketers.  Of course, it is easy to get this impression since for-profits far outspend other marketers when it comes to promotional campaigns.

Yet, marketing activity is used by nearly all types of organizations, including not-for-profits and even governmental agencies.  It is even used by one type of business that is often overlooked when discussing marketing - advocacy marketers.

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Published on February 22, 2012

Posted by Paul Christ

How Companies Learn Your Secrets (New York Times)

This is a fascinating story of how marketers learn about the needs of their customers and then use marketing approaches to target these needs.  What is so compelling is how marketers are using statistical analysis to analyze customer shopping trends, and then from these trends try to predict what customers will be buying.

There are many marketing concepts at play in this story, most built around buyer behavior.  For instance, the story explains how most customers’ buying decisions are ingrained and are, in effect, habits that are difficult to change.  However, certain life events do open the door to changing buying habits.  To address this, many leading companies, including Target, are using statistical techniques (called predictive analytics) to predict these life changing events.  A key part of this is tracking customer purchase patterns.  Yet, as the story discusses, marketers are gathering much more information than simply following what a customer purchases.  And the depths they go to in order to learn about customers is quite remarkable.

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Published on February 11, 2012

Posted by Paul Christ

Tough Times for Franchising (Wall Street Journal)

So You Want In? How to Assess a Franchise Opportunity (Wall Street Journal)

In the retailing industry, franchise operations have long been perceived as a less risky road to retail success for both the franchise operator (a.k.a. franchiser) and the entrepreneur who purchases the right to operate a franchise (a.k.a. franchisee).  As we note in our Retailing tutorial, a franchise arrangement offers significant advantages to both franchiser and franchisee.  The biggest advantage for both groups is that the business can potentially be built more quickly with less out of pocket costs.

Additionally, many entrepreneurs believe that acquiring a franchise is a much more reliable way of entering retailing compared to starting a retail operation on their own.  At least, that is what the franchise industry wants perspective entrepreneurs to believe.  While franchises overall may offer slightly better odds than staring a retail store from scratch, the reality is that franchise failures do exist and can occur in large numbers.