Health & Wellness Consumer Segmentation

The Health & Wellness Trends Database of the Natural Marketing Institute identified in 2008 five different consumer segments when it comes to health and wellness. Click here to read the description of the each of the five segments shown in the above image. After carefully reading the descriptions, find examples of products or services specifically targeted at 3 of the five segments (one product per segment). You must explain and justify your choice! As usual, you cannot use examples that someone else has already included in their comment, so the earlier you finish this assignment, the easier it will be for you to get it done.
Points: 10
DEADLINE: Friday, February 26th, 11:59pm.

Source: 2008 Health and Wellness Trends Database

The Power of the Alpha Pups:The Hasbro Case

During our consumer buyer behavior lecture, we discussed the influence of various social groups on decision making as well as the power of word of mouth (WOM), opinion leaders, and connectors. Now, let's look a bit closer at one particularly successful marketing strategy that illustrates several of the concepts covered in class. For this assignment, you have to carefully and thoroughly read and discuss the following article that was published in the New York Times (August 5, 2001): http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/05/magazine/here-come-the-alpha-pups.html?pagewanted=all

As you go through the article, try to recognize the concepts discussed in class and their application in this case (e.g. market research, buzz marketing or WOM marketing, opinion leaders/ influencers, etc.). Was Hasbro's campaign a success? Why? What contributed to their success? Your reaction to the article should be a minimum of 10 lines. In addition, you also have to consider whether a similar strategy would work for other product categories, or other segments of consumers? Come up with at least one example.
Points: 20
DEADLINE: Friday, February 19th, 11:59pm.

Final Exam Scheduling

As we discussed in class, common finals (such as the one for MGMT221), are usually scheduled on Saturday. In order to see if Friday might be an option, we need to know if anyone taking this class has final exams on Friday, and if you do, at what time. So please leave a short comment to this post with your exam schedule for Friday during Final's week (just the time for your exams will suffice). If you do not have any exams scheduled on that day, it is important that you leave a comment as well to indicate that. Please see below the current Spring 2010 Final Exam Schedule (Click on the image to enlarge).

It is imperative that you reply to this post before the end of the day Wednesday, February 17th.

Cause-Related Marketing: To profit or not to profit?

While cause-related marketing was a topic we only briefly discussed during our last lecture (as it is unfortunately often the case with most topics in an intro class), its growing presence in the corporate arena and its social and ethical implications make it almost mandatory to pause here and take a closer look. Cause marketing corporate spending has been steadily growing over the past couple of decades from only about $120 million in 1990, to $816 million in 2002, and $1.5 billion in 2009 [1]. There are several ways in which a company can tie itself and/or its products to a cause: advertising, public relations, sponsorship, licensing, direct marketing, facilitated giving, and, the most popular, purchase-triggered giving [2]. For this blog assignment you will learn about each one of these six main types as well as the many marketing, social, and ethical issues surrounding cause-related marketing by reading the following article that was published on prwatch.org:
"Cause-Related Marketing: Why Social Change and Corporate Profits Don't Mix" by Inger Stole

 Important note about the article: Please be aware that in this article, Inger Stole uses the acronym CRM to refer to cause-related marketing, although, as you learned in this class, the acronym CRM is widely used to refer to customer relationship management. 

 After thoroughly reading the article, your assignment is to post here (as a comment) a minimum 10 line reaction to the information presented to you. Then you have to find and discuss a cause-related marketing example: identify which one of the six types it belongs to, was it a successful marketing endeavor for the company, how do you feel about it, was it cause-related or cause-exploitative. Your examples need to be different from those found by everyone else who posts their comments before you, so the earlier you complete the assignment the better. You also have to find examples different from those already presented in the article. If you find your example online, include the link for your source in the comment.

Sources:
[1] http://www.causemarketingforum.com/page.asp?ID=188
[2] http://www.prwatch.org/node/4965
www.yoplait.com

Porter's Five Forces

When we discussed in class the company environment, specifically the microenvironment, we briefly talked about Porter's 5 Forces Model. It is a powerful tool that has been widely used (sometimes even misused) to analyze the industry environment, judge industry attractiveness, and even uncover potential sources of competitive advantage. The author, Michael Porter, has reviewed, clarified and updated his model in a recent HBR article. Even if you are not planning to use his model for your group projects, I still very strongly urge you to read the article and watch the associated video. You will find it very useful. Here's the link: http://hbr.org/2008/01/the-five-competitive-forces-that-shape-strategy/ar/1

If you want to learn more about Porter's 5 Forces and how to use the model for your project, QuickMBA has a very detailed description. Here's the link for that: http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/porter.shtml
As usual, any comments, questions, reactions are to be posted here.