Airline Soda Dispute

When looking at the yahoo news today, there was a story about a man suing an airline over a soda dispute. Basically the man asked for a soda, the steward told him to use the console, the customer declined using the console and the steward left without serving him his drink. He did not receive his drink until the third flight attendant. When the man attempted to leave the plane, he was escorted by police to be questioned about the encounter on the grounds that he started directing profanities at the crew. He is now suing the  airline for experiences of "depression, worry, and anxiety surrounding his detention by law enforcement." for 50,000. I believe both sides are overreacting but the Virgin Airlines overreacted first. I don't think that the person's demands were so unreasonable that they couldn't accommodate him and provide good customer service. I think it really says something about a company's customer service when they both do not provide good customer service and make a bigger deal about it than necessary. Do you know any other examples of bad customer service and escalation of the event more than necessary?

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/man-sues-airline-over-soda-spat-135121857.html

In response to Allison Ray

Allison posed the question "Do you think Blockbuster gave up when Netflix was invented? Do you think they could have come out with some type of new product or marketing tool to stay in competition?"

I wouldn't say that Blockbuster necessarily gave up. If I remember correctly, they did try to adopt a similar tactic to Netflix but just for whatever reason Blockbuster could not gain grounds against Netflix. It would have taken nothing sort of a complete marketing campaign to change people's long held perceptions about how Blockbuster was run. Netflix came into the market as something to order from the comfort of your home. Also the way Netflix could probably run more efficiently was not having an actual building to maintain in which people have to interact directly with the customers. Do you think it was long standing perceptions of Blockbuster that lead to its collapse? If so, what strategies could have Blockbuster used to change this perception?

In Response to Kendra

Kendra posed the question "Do you think it is better to take the risk and open up a business right away? What would be other problems with only creating a line or opening a store?"

There is an issue that one option isn't always feasible over another. If you can't get a preexisting store to adopt your product line, you might have no choice but to open your own store to get your product out into the world. I do agree that it is less risky to start with the product line method if feasible, though I don't know if there would be any legal implications for opening your own store after another store has specifically adopted your product line. What other options could be utilized to achieve market penetration?

Fast Food Price War

As a result of the recent economy, fast food chains have been trying to compete on price as a way to get people to come into their stores. Though this isn't apparently what most customers want. Most customers would prefer new selection rather than cheaper prices. The article points out a lot of the new items introduced have pretty much any profitability cut out from them with all the discounts and coupons given to promote them. McDonald's has its Dollar Menu, Taco Bell has its $1 Crave Menu, Wendy's has its "Right Price Right Size" menu with items from $.99-$1.29 and many Subway consumers started getting $3 6 inch subs apposed to $5 foot longs. A lot of the extreme discounting is a result of sales comparison to past performance. Do you think it is indicative of how well a store is doing if you are comparing it to a time when sales were abnormally good? What other benchmark could be used for determining how a company is doing?

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/value-menu-too-cheap-174100489.html

Dove Ad

Dove recently launched a video advertisement where a sketch artist would draw how a person described themselves and then the sketch artist drew the same person on the description of a person that they had interacted previously. In all the drawing, the women appeared more beautiful by conventional standards when described by a stranger. Though, there is a lot of factors to consider that the people describing the person only had limit contact with the person and not everyone is going to remember all the features of somebody and might leave out some of the little features such as crow's feet. Still, it seems to say something even while considering these factors. It has certainly generated a lot of buzz, as the video has gotten 2,000 likes and 1,000 shares on Facebook. Brenda Fiala, a senior vice president of strategy in a digital advertising said Dove was trying to create trust between the company and their female consumers by sending the message that Dove understands women self image issues. What other ads have you seen that are using this emotional connection to a specific company to advertise rather than the actual product itself? Was it more or less effective?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/business/media/dove-ad-on-womens-self-image-creates-an-online-sensation.html?adxnnl=1&ref=advertisingandmarketing&adxnnlx=1366435855-kBeWuPbo2rAzige5lWF0iQ

In response to Matthew Tolen

Matt Tolen posed the question "What do you think will be the biggest challenges companies face in entering these new markets (India and China)? Why?"

I think marketers might face the most resistance when a country has a very strong desire to preserve their culture. Countries such as these will often create policies to prevent less products. An example of this is that 45% of Canadian music must be Canadian in origin. When quotas like that are set, this makes marketing and getting into markets very difficult when establishing a new product in a country is already difficult without policies in place to preserve their culture. How would you approach marketing to one such country? Would you choose to market to the country at all if a quota was too high?

Of Designer Jeans and Prestige

This article in the New York Times discussed why people will pay extremely high prices for designer jeans that aren't of any better construction than unbranded jeans. The article mentions that before the recession in 2009, there didn't seem to be a limit on how much people would pay for designer jeans. The new cap as of 2009 seemed to $200 for most designer jeans. The article makes the point that the $200 jeans looks no different of the $300 jeans of years passed. This seems to suggest the price being relative to what people are willing to pay for a product to get the perceived prestige that goes with an item. An interesting parallel the article put forward is that that purchasing a pair of jeans cost as much as an iPad. It really puts in prospective the opportunity cost of purchasing such a expensive item. Have you ever purchased an item based mostly on the prestige that goes with it? If so, did purchasing the item get the desired response from others?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/fashion/29JEANS.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0