Tuesday Nov 5 Summary: Chicken--

Thanks
To the Italy team for a fine presentation, and thanks to the China team for presenting their initial interivews.  We'll continue with these on Thursday.  And do some other things, as well. Read on.


What's In Here

• Lerxicon: one word: transparency
• Foster Farms and marketing mini-case: update
• Readings and a case for you

Lexicon
One word: transparency. This came up as we discussed a min-case, Foster Farms.

What do we mean by this idea?  Is it always a good idea?  Who should know what?  What counts as the stuff you need to—or want to—share?  Can transparency be a good thing, always?  What about the information you may not want to share?  Do you want to share the chicken slaughter process, really?  If not, why not?  And how about information in your company that might give your competition some advantage.  Should you share that, too?

There are two issues here: first, what do we mean by transparency in marketing.  Second, it seems to me that this is related to trust: the notion that two parties in a transaction have enough information for the transaction to go forward (there are, of course, formal economic models, and plenty of them, that talk about this transactional business).  For our purposes, you may find it relevant to look

Click here for an article about transparency in business relationships.
(You can click the link above, or download the TRUST article from the list at right.)
And here for an article by our own faculty member, Nancy Buchan, about trust.
(Again, click the link or find the TRUST article at right; thanks to Dr. Buchan!)

Please do take a look at the transparency article.  I'll include it in an upcoming class discussion.  The Buchan article is for your reference: its a wonderful summary of how trust is developed and shaped across different cultural contexts.

Foster Farms

Lets briefly continue this Foster Farms mini-case.  What should they do?  What have they done?  

Here's an op-ed from the San Francisco Examiner. http://www.sfgate.com/food/foodmatters/article/Feds-must-take-stronger-action-against-salmonella-4947659.php

And here is an article from a trade magazine.
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/poultrynews/30504/weekly-overview-us-makes-progress-on-foodborne-disease

The challenge for Foster Farms (aside from cleaning up their act) is the fact that commentary spills out all over the Internet.  And people like Video Blogger David Parkman have a lot to say.

So you can see how their marketing communications have looked, peek at this:

There is a strong international dimension to this issue, as a recent USDA ruling will allow US growers to ship chicken to China for processing and then return to the US for sales; here's coverage from Bloomberg Business Week.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-27/chicken-processed-in-china-triggers-u-s-food-safety-protests.html


Readings and a Case
In a short while, I'll post our next case reading: another food-related issue: food distribution in Russia.  Take a look! We'll discuss next week.

Also next week, be ready to review and discuss Chapter 13, Keegan's Global Marketing and Communications Decisions.