Colleges Upset With Anheuser Busch's Marketing, Radiohead Tackles It's Own Marketing, and Sentiment Analysis Research

Posted by Paul Christ August 24, 2009

Labels: Customer Behavior, Distribution and Product Movement, Marketing Research, Marketing Strategy, Pricing, Product Management

Highlighted Marketing Stories:

Bud Light Fan Can Draws Criticism (NPR) - With many colleges in the U.S. starting their fall terms this week, this story seems quite timely. Anheuser Busch's decision to introduce special Fan Cans, where product is packaged in college colors, has raised concerns from some parents and school administrator. And in some situations the beer company has backed off with their packaging promotion.

CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard says when the school learned about Budweiser's campaign, it sent a letter to the company asking them to stop. He says, at first, the brewer argued the colors didn't mean anything in particular.

Is the University of Colorado's mainly concerned with fighting promotions that encourage underage drinking or is the main objective to protect its relationship with Coors?

Radiohead Blazes a Marketing Trail (New York Times) - While we are on the subject of colleges, for some time the band Radiohead has had a good size following among college students. As discussed in this story, the band handles a lot of its own decisions when it comes to marketing, which is quite unusual for such a successful group.

Radiohead’s shift to singles reflects a change in music fans’ preferences. Instead of buying whole albums, they now stream or download just the songs they want. That, along with unauthorized copying, has decimated industry revenues.

Besides pricing and how products are packaged, what other marketing decisions could the band control?

Mining the Web for Feelings, Not Facts (New York Times) - It seems like a new buzz word for marketing research has been formed: sentiment analysis. The technique taps into the power of Internet search to track what is being said about something (e.g., product, company, person) and then assesses how things are trending such as positive or negative sentiment.

Such tools could help companies pinpoint the effect of specific issues on customer perceptions, helping them respond with appropriate marketing and public relations strategies.

In what unethical ways could a competitor potentially sabotage the results of such research?