First, a summary about Nestlé and thoughts (mainly to help me help you!) about how to frame up our "solution" to a business case. Second, (and this is pending) what your expectations are for your first country report. Third, some additional information about international marketing of breast-feeding related products (not Nestlé, but Pigeon, which we mentioned in class). Last, some Lexicon from today, including a correction for a misstatement I made about Gladwells distinction between puzzles and something else: that something else is a mystery (see below). And remember: there will be a short quiz next week so review your lexicon.
Thanks for Nestlé Thinking
I really appreciate your helping work through that Nestlé case. I had some wonderful feedback about how to make these cases more effective in the future—and I value your thoughts. As an anthropologist (and I share this with any business executive worth her salt), I tend to look for the big picture. So it was great to see and hear your comments that we need to attend to everything from how we communicate, through the nature of the product that is sold (should it come with a bottle of water or what?), to the supply chain (who should be the point of contact for the consumer)? We explored, briefly, what a "third world" country might mean (and we learned we needed to be careful with such glib characterizations, for sure).
One big, and I think helpful, bit of feedback: as we "solve" the case, I need to remember that we can not be quite as comprehensive as we might be if we were in a full-on business case competition. My job here is to focus on the marketing implications: what should the marketer do? Having said that, considering the other aspects—finance, distribution, product design and so on—are still important and we won't miss them. But they should be footnoted. Noted, but at the foot. The basic task as we work through a case is to determine "what should the marketer do?"
So: for the Krups case, consider especially what the marketer should do in moving Krups products into East Germany. Each of your groups can come up with a response: what should the marketer do? Lets go with that as our lead-off for next week.
(See below for some more information from our work on women's breast feeding products in Mexico, that informal "Pigeon" company I mentioned. There is a video from the company explaining how they do their R&D. Take a look. What does it say to you as a US-based consumer? What are they trying to convey in this video? Take a look through the site and you'll see there is some high-concept design, here, and that CSR (corporate social responsibility) is foregrounded on their Japanese website (you'll see those initials pop out at you even if you don't read Japanese!) Watch This Space: Here Are Your Report Instructions
I'm going to blast an email to you to highlight this. Read with care. Text me with questions! 310 403 521 (note: I will try my best to get back to you within the hour if you text me before 5pm: texts after 5pm or on weekends and I get 12 hours to respond— I'll try to be quicker but no promises). These instructions are downloadable so you can look print them out and refer to them (see the electronic course pack at right).
First Team Report Instructions:
TASK: someone has to build the PowerPoint. You can share this task. You have to get with your teammates to gather as much of this as you can. It is likely that one or more team members will be sick, or unable to help for one reason or another. Move ahead without them. At least, find out what their city and country names are. Try to fill in as much as you can.
You will have ten minutes to present a five-page PowerPoint. That means two minutes talking per slide. Your classmates will provide feedback using a simple feedback form that I'll provide in class. Two groups will present on Thursday AFTER we talk for 30 minutes about KRUPS.
I want one person to present each slide. One person for side one, one for slide two, one for slide three, one for slide four. Choose your strongest speakers who can present quickly and effectively.
OUTLINE FOR YOUR SLIDES (Use these for your slide titles, please)
1. Map Of Our Region.
2. Demography & Economics
3. Language(s)
4. History & Some Marketing Implications
5. How We Learned What We Learned
FIRST SLIDE: MAP YOUR REGION
Provide a map showing where your countries are (you may just wish to use a single map and point out your countries: if you can do so, highlight them!).
SECOND SLIDE: DEMOGRAPHY & ECONOMICS
Here you list the Cities and Countries in your region, like this (guess what: Wikipedia is not bad for some of this!)
City Country Population GDP per-capita GDP Global GDP Rank
1. City Name Country Name country population GDP per-cap Global GDP Rank
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
[you'll have up to 11 or so lines on this slide! A lot of info! If something is missing, we'll know who needs to fill in some data: your job is to get your team to provide the info you need.
Third Slide:
THIRD SLIDE: LANGUAGE(S)
Show the languages in your area. Be able to talk quickly about how easy it is for people to communicate across national borders. And, how about WITHIN national borders? If any country has special language issues within the country, be ready to talk about it (voice over: it does not need to be in the slide).
FOURTH SLIDE: HISTORY AND SOME MARKETING IMPLICATIONS
You have to select ONE country (or, if it makes more sense, one City if your country is very complex) and give us three or four key bullet points about the history of that city or country. These historical facts should have relevance for marketers. For example, the history of Vietnam includes colonization by the French. This results in a unique food culture. The history of China includes the use of a single writing system across many languages: this has implications for packaging. So, this slide should be in two columns. AT LEAST one of these bullets should touch on the history/nature of tender relations or norms. AT LEAST one of these bullets should touch on the history/nature of generational norms (younger people's historical position or older peoples position, or married versus single. . .). Does that make sense?
FOR EXAMPLE: FOR VIETNAM
[By the way: these may be tricky to uncover: so how you pick the city/country for this slide will be critical!)
PAGE FIVE: HOW WE LEARNED WHAT WE LEARNED
Show us your sources (bullet points are fine).
Show us what you did not or could not find out, or what you may want to know more about.
More About Pigeon
Here is a link to a R&D message about Pigeon's approach to breast feeding products. Browse through it, and if you can, watch the video.
[the link is http://www.pigeon.com/interview/interview03.html in case the click through is not working, above: sometimes those link-points are hard to see/use.]
The issues of women's awareness about formula vs. breast feeding were important to Pigeon because they market products to help women store and use breast milk. They have to teach them how long you can store breast milk in the fridge; they have to know where to start with eductation programs in Mexico: What do women already know about using breast milk? In short, Pigoen's marketers need to understand "what is going on, now" with women in Mexico (that was YOUR question today for Nestlé: what are women doing NOW for feeding infants? A good question!).
Here are three slides that summarized a few things for Pigeon.
Discourse: what people SAY about something. Like national culture, for example. There is a common "discourse" about what it means to be polite in New York vs. what it means to be polite in South Carolina. Discourse is important: it is what people say. However, it may not match what people actually do.
Practice (or practices): what people actually do. We could say "behavior" but in this case I mean what people do as opposed to what they might say. We can observe practices. We can listen for discourse. Does the discourse match the practice? For example, if people say "People in New York are always in a hurry," does that match with their practices? For marketers the distinction is important because people may tell you one thing (give you the "discourse" about how a product is used or understood or purchased) but their actual practices may be different. So you need information both about what people SAY (discourse) and what they DO (practice).
Mystery and Puzzle: by Malcolm Gladwell the author of "Tipping Point" and several other business and marketing relevant books. He has popularized the idea that some problems are not just puzzles, but are mysteries. You can solve a puzzle, maybe, but am mystery requires more time, more context, more information to unpack and "solve."
Why is our soft drink company loosing market share? What can we do to win the market back? The first question is a puzzle: it can be solved. The second problem can not be solved by information alone. It requires a spark of creativity, a leap of faith, some intuition, some marketing imagination. That's what Gladwell calls a mystery: mysteries are not solved by empirical data: they may be approached only with a spark of human creativity.
(In class I did not quite get that distinction right: now I've corrected the record!).
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