Oct 10 course review and upcoming goodies to read and watch

What's In This Blog
¶ Lexicon from class.
¶ Readings for Tuesday, and a video to watch, a web-page to visit
¶ One New Case
¶ Some ideas about your projects (forthcoming)

Please remember: Tuesday we meet in Colloquium.  If its not too chilly we'll meet outside to start with.  Then work in groups as before.

Lexicon from Class
Positioning (could be the fifth "P")
Discourse vs. Practice
(What people say vs. what they actually do)
Free-listing: an inductive method to get at cultural categories and meanings.
Hegemony

Bibliography: for further reading.
Miller, Daniel
A Theory of Shopping (1998)
Capitalism: An Ethnographic Approach (1997)
Blue Jeans: The Art of the Ordinary

Video and Readings for Tuesday

Please read diMooif Chapters 4 and 5 for class tomorrow.  This, plus the "day in the life" reading, the video, and the website here will all be discussed on Tuesday (the diMooj material is not terribly dense, but give it a good skim).

Here is the website about denim use in India.  Read it.  Its fun.  And its by Dan Miller, who cares about material goods and their local expression.  Its an anthropological site: can you find the marketing relevance, here?

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/global-denim-project/ww

Here is an introduction to village economy in India. Its 18 minutes long.  Take a look.  This is village, not urban India.  I am trying to connect the Puducherry team to the ethnographers who did the work on this film.  I sent a Facebook note to Ramanathan today, and hope to hear from him soon).Here's the link in case this won't play in the blog.  There is a business case story behind this video about Microsoft's somewhat misguided efforts in India that I will tell you about in class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz8u3mNp6Rc

I hope we can do for Italy, China, and Cameroon what I we are doing here for India.  We'll spend some class time trying to identify and understand some business cases from each location, and you can help me find and share video and web resources on your locations.

One New Case

FYI: There is an additional case posted here, about L'Oréal.. If you missed a classd or a quiz, you'll want to follow the instructions in the syllabus and do a brief case-write up and email it to me, following the instructions in the syllabus. You may download it from the link at the right.

Ideas About Your Projects

I've discovered that it is possible to find street-scenes and market scenes from places like Pondicherry.  I've found that most of the Facebook entries for Cameroon are of Cameroon people (Cameroonians?) who live in Los Angeles.  Those are two pathways.

The main point is that you will need to actually talk to someone who lives in these places.  I'm trying to find my Cameroonian former student, but so far no luck.  Try Facebook.  Try Orkut.  Look around for blogs, universities, and so on.  Go to International Student Office and find a local student from Cameroon, Pondy, or Italy or China.  Heck, talk to you Chinese colleagues in class!

If you missed the group meeting (and I know I did miss on!), here's the marketing plan outline for you: it is called "Marketing Plan" and its available for download, here.

Thursday Oct 8: SEGMENTS Fall in the Air and Coffee in the Cup

What's In Here

¶ Review of today
¶ An article for you to read for this week
¶ Some thoughts about your groups

Review of the Day

We met in Colloquium; we teamed up on the segmentation, targeting, and positioning chapter in Keegan.  Ambassadors from each team took the learnings (key points, why they are important, and what was missing/what do you criticize) to the other groups.

A few key points and Questions

1.  Segments: know what they are.
Q: Are segments static? Is a segmentation a point in time? Could it be more?
Q: Do segments correspond to an "average person"?  What are the problems with that?

2.  Targeting: know what this is.
Q: How narrow should a target be?  How broad?  How do you know?
Q: When does it make sense to target across cultures (e.g. globally?)  Why?

3. Positioning: know what this is
Q: If positioning happens in the "mind" of the customer or end-user, how do you control it?
Q: What is the meaning of positioning if customers have their own meanings in mind?  If they do, then what does the marketer do?

Task for your teams: be thinking about a product (and, perforce, a channel in which to market it) for which you will develop a marketing plan for your OWN country.  Be aware that your CEO will be asking you where ELSE you might market this product (e.g. into one or more of the other groups/cities in class).

Individual tasks: you will still be asked to get some depth knowledge about your city. This will involve sending me a short bibliography and some simple reporting (format TBD) about your city.  In your teams, you already have a city focus: as a team you are experts in that city. As an individual, you have to be an expert in your city.  Yes, that includes that city the name of which you can't remember (in South Africa, for example).

An Article to Read 

Individuals often make new kinds of sense out of products.  This article is a little theoretical at the start, but look for the main point(s). How has "positioning" of Coke in Trinidad been the result of corporate efforts; how has it been the result of local "mental models."  And, what is a mental model, anyway?

The article is HERE and on the right, in the downloads; look for the "Coka-Cola: A Drink from Trinidad" article.

Thoughts for your Groups

Be thinking about a product and a channel IN YOUR COUNTRY that you want to work on. BE sure it makes sense for roughly 18 to 25 year old people.  That's whose daily lives/needs you need to understand in your country.

Quick Update

Hi Guys,
Thanks for your presentations.

What's In This Blogpost
• A note about teams and team responsibilities.
• A note on your teams next task: a meeting with me.
• A note on our scheduled coffee meetings at Colloquium (see image, below): Next Tuesday 8th and Tuesday the 15th. I believe we will meet outside, behind the main entrance, between the Colloquium building and the Bagel-place multi-story building behind it.

I will post an additional short blog post with: some additional reading assignments that WILL be posted by tomorrow noon.  They will not be posted today, however.  Lucky for you.  Less reading tonight. Some will be for individual students who can read Spanish or French.  Some are for specific teams.  You'll be responsible for reporting to the rest of your team about these semi-individualized readings.

Comment on Teamwork: Important
Meanwhile, I appreciate all the work that went into your presentations. Please note that it is the entire group's responsibility to insure that everyone is there.  If someone is sick, suffering from too many examinations, unable to pull their load, having major relationship issues, minor flu, or just a temporary hot mess, the team's job is to (1) be compassionate (2) identify this issue and (3) work on this problem early,  That way,  it does not sneak up on you in the presentation.  

I do not lay blame on absent people or anyone else.  It is the well being of the team that is at risk when the whole team does not take care of the whole team.   Sometimes, unexpected things happen.  Teams should always have a plan-B.  I say this because I have been both the person who was unable to help my team (yes, believe me, and it feels horrid) and I've been on the team where you have to help out someone else by filling in blanks for them.  These are team projects.  Team does not mean individual.  You fill in the blanks by never putting your team's problems up front when you present.  Be a good presentation: don't start out saying what is wrong with your presentation (the audience will make that judgement for you).

One way to fill in for a missing team member  is to (almost) never  say "oh, someone is not here."  Just pick up and move forward.  You can always say, "as a team, we are still working on one key element of our presentation, but  here's what we have so far.  We know this is somewhat preliminary but there is good material here. . . etc. "  Effective team analysis means that you are constantly in some kind of communication: even a small bit of information from an otherwise over-taxed team member can be useful.  

Teams are difficult.  I know.  I wrote a book about it.  Its called "Doing Team Ethnography: Warnings and Advice" with Don Stull.    Its not a long book, and I hate making students buy books the profi has written, so I don't do that.  But just know that teams are tricky, and much of the work of doing team work is not the substantive work but the work of making the team bond.  Has your team eaten together?  Have you had an adult beverage together or coffee or something?  If not, you are not quite yet a team.  Teams require scheduled team time, and they can take many forms: they don't need a chairman or a leader, but that can be one form of team. They do need some sense of who is responsible for what, and it is great if the team or one of its members takes on the "producer" role, and is the glue that holds people and tasks together.  To do this well you don't have to be barking orders or pretending to be a CEO. You just need a producer. 

When your teams meet as a group in my office, at a time convenient to you, I'll spend half my time consulting with you about this very issue.  It is critical not only in International Marketing but in all aspects of business.  (Believe me, I preach what I need to hear in this department). 

Your Meeting With Me
My role in the meeting is to be a coach and consultant.  I will help you find resources for your next project.  You will help me build a marketing plan outline for all to use.  And I will take the first 15 minutes to talk about how to run an effective team.  You can expect to leave the meeting with a more clear sense of what your next presentation may be like, and what resources to use, and how to work as a team to build your expert knowledge in your country.

Your job is to find a time when your WHOLE team can meet with me.  If someone is sick, well, reality bites, but it is the team's job to find a time for everyone. I can meet as early as 8:00 am, and after 5 is okay Mon through Thursday.  Weekends, however, are not for this.

Where Class Will Meet Next, and The Midterm
Tuesday 8 Oct, Colloquium, 8:30am sharp.
Thursday 10 Oct, Classroom, 5th Floor, as usual
Tuesday 15 Oct, Colloquium, 8:30am sharp.
Thursday 17 Oct is your BREAK
Tuesday 22 Oct, Midterm preparation (you and I work together on the questions)
Thursday 24 is the Midterm. It will take you 30 minutes to complete. We will review (and introduce information that will appear on up to 5 questions, so don't be late).  This will be a 50 question multi-choice test.  You'll need a scantron form.

Anyone needing special testing accommodation should have registered with the student disability office  There is no make up for a missed Mid-Term. No exceptions.

I will update the syllabus next week, to get us caught up on readings (and that means, some careful editing of just what you are responsible for reading). 

Thanks!

Ken

Thu. Sept 19 Blogpost

For Weekend Viewing (and extra credit)

I hope our African, Latin American, and South Asian colleagues can identify a film for us to enjoy.  Meanwhile, here is one of my favorites.  There is a trailer on YouTube; the film is called "Getting Home." I can not upload it here, for some reason, but you can check for it if you like. 

I found a link: click here.  (The image at left is not a link). Try to spend an hour with it.  (After it loads, wait a moment or two for the game-advertisment to go away:it should work okay on a high-speed connection—yes, this has clear subtitles).  Look for cultural values  Look at what people consume—food, drink, and funerals in particular.  What about this movie surprises you?

There will be an extra credit question on the quiz about this film!

Forthcoming

Tuesday we'll continue with our quiz, going over the text material as in the post below (from Tuesday).

We'll also walk through expectations for your upcoming presentation.  Note that you should be prepared to have a one-page handout for the class, and it should contain more than what is in your PowerPoint!

To give you a hand in getting the research done for this, 30 to 40 minutes of class-time is allocated to library research time, with an international business research librarian providing you with some useful tools.  Class will meet in Spring Library  NEXT Thursday, 26th Sept. The second half of class will be dedicated to your working in teams, discovering which cities you want to highlight (per the instructions given below, and on the syllabus) and generally working on your presentations.

Quiz Review

To speed things along, here is a preview of what the rest of the quiz contains.

Question one is about competitive advantage. Be able to identify a company and/or product with a product, price, advertising, or POS competitive advantage.

Question two was covered in class: we identified three global trends and set out their implications.  The trends were 1. aging population 2. global resource limitations/climate change and 3. state-controlled markets in the ascendancy.   You identified some implications.  Note that if you were not in class, you should be ready to complete this section on Tuesday.  An implication is NOT a restatement of the trend, and saying "be aware of the trend" is not an implication.  I'm looking for what a marketer should do.  For example, item two might suggest something about sourcing, price fluctuations due to instability, and a need to message about sustainability as consumers may be  more concerned and aware of the carbon-footprint of your business.  

Question three asks you to specify several low, lower-middle, upper-middle, and upper income countries.

Question four asks if income is a good "independent variable" against which to test or measure marketing outcomes.

Question five asks what the etic point of view is, and what the emic point of view is.

With all that in mind, we can finish the quiz quickly and move on to a further discussion of cultural models and tools for comparing cultural patterns, as discussed in chapter 3 of di Mooij.

Reading

Please be ready to discuss Chapter 3 in di Mooij.  

Tuesday Sept. 17 Blog

What's In This Blog
First, a little fun about Boeing, which we previewed in class. Take a look. Next, usual, you'll find some lexicon (below), then a set of reading expectations for Thursday.  Set aside several hours: you need to read through the material in Keegan, Chapters 1 - 4.  The handy guide below tells you what you are expected to know the most about, but you should review all of Chapters 1 - 4.  Please read only the short elements of Chapter 1 in di Mooij shown below, and the short bit in Chapter 2, but read all of Chapter 3.   

Preview of Boeing "case"

Thanks for attending to my comments about Boeing.  Note that Boeing is facing increased competition in addition to serious supply-chain-related problems with its new Dreamliner. 

As I mentioned, before JAL recovered (and recovered fast and strong) from bankruptcy, they asked The Boeing Company for help with a re-design.  Here is a preview.  Watch and enjoy. 

Lexicon
Brand image
Clients vs. Consumers
Brand-map
Ethnographers
Positioning
Brand Equity

Expectations for Thursday
I'm revising our syllabus a bit to fit the needs of the class, as you know. 

Report two will happen next week, two groups on Tuesday the 24th, two groups on Thursday the 26th.  In return for pushing this back a bit, you agreed to get us caught up on readings

Readings (and here we play catch up and move ahead) will be: `

Keegan Chapters one through Four.  
There is a lot of information there.  I will provide a summary, 30 minute lecture to highlight the main points, introduce one ADDITIONAL analytical approach to culture, and then we'll  will enjoy a quiz.  

Please be especially aware of these sections in Keegan.  I expect you'll know what else is in Keegan, but we will especially touch on the issues below (numbers below are page numbers:
•  The three principles of marketing, especially the value equation (6)
•  The standardization debate (8)
•  Nokia's "misreading the market" (Box 1-1 p. 24)
•  Economic shift from "West" to "East" (40)
•  Aging population and  implications (41)
•  Stages of Market Development (49-56)
•  Kinds of economic cooperation (69-70)
•  Introducing political, legal, and regulatory frameworks (75)
•  Expropriation (80).
•  Intellectual property and trademark (84-85)
•  Analytical approaches to cultural factors (111)
•  Living, working, and thriving in other cultures (123)

di Mooij Readings for Chapter 1, 2 and  3.
• Read A Model of Cross-Cultural Consumer Behavior & Organization of the Book (22-23)
• In Chapter 2, read Comparing Cultures (33-36)
• Read ALL of Chapter 3.  Be ready to talk about explaining variables in "consumer behavior"

A Question to Consider: Who is a consumer, and what is consumption?
One of your colleagues from raised this

Expectations for Second Presentation:
You will pick only four countries (or regions) to complete the task set out in the syllabus, to wit:

Daily life, income, gender, age, psychographics and other segmentations.

o Here, you’ll give an overview of differences, then select one national or regional setting for
intensive focus. This region will be the focus in your third report. 

I expect to see a first slide identifying the four countries you will choose, repeating the basic demographics and ADDING their current leader's name and political ideology/party.

I expect to see a second slide introducing  gender variation in the four selected countries (this can be up to four slides long).  Your gender variation should include marketing implications

I expect to see a third slide about psychographics, "taste" differences, or other dimensions of difference that may make a difference (e.g. developmental or age groups, religious differences, major economic groupings, or other broadly significant "segmentations.). This can be one slide or up to four.

Your last slide selects one of these four or some other location that your group chooses within your region but among your allocated cities which will be the focus of your upcoming third report.  You must provide some new information, something dramatic, different, interesting, or problematic about your selected city and country that justifies your interest in it. Tell us why you picked this place (and, "plenty of Internet resources about is" is not the very best reason--tell us something about the place that matters!)

Locations for your second report:
Africa, please consider using "Bedouins" as one of your groups instead of Egypt; you'll also do a West, East, and South African location. 

Europe/Latin America will use Italy (step it up, Italy); Malmö, Dominican Republic,and. . .was it a place in Mexico or Bolivia? You decide.

China will do China as one "region" and speak in generalities when that matters (but be ready to talk about local difference!).  You will also do Japan (again, pay attention to locality as well as nationality).  I believe you selected Vietnam as a third region (its growing so rapidly!). You know your other  location: you decide.

Central/South Asia: India is certainly a location—locality is important, here.  Kazakastan is another (I think).  You may have chosen Pakistan, too.  You decide your other location.

Preview of Boeing "case"
Thanks for attending to my comments about Boeing.  Note that Boeing is facing increased competition in addition to serious supply-chain-related problems with its new Dreamliner.  As I mentioned, before JAL recovered (and recovered fast and strong) from bankruptcy, they asked The Boeing Company for help with a re-design.  Here is a preview.  Watch and enjoy.  

Sept 12, 2013 Blog

Lexicon and Review
But not in that order.  First, review.  Then, Lexicon, Then, your assignment: your groups should be ready to discuss the Krups case.  Details follow.

Lexicon: 
lingua franca（Swahili is one of these). A language, often for trade, that crosses language groups
WeChat.  Look on Wikipedia to learn about this amazing application.  Try it out.
QQ.  Owned by Tencent Software, the most popular IM program in the world. Try it out.
Reciprocity.  This, we learned, is critical in Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
Aymara.  This is one of the major languages of the Andean region, which should be spoken by the president of Boliva, Evo Morales (if I don't miss my Andean guess, however, I think he actually is of Aymara descent but does not speak much Aymara).

Review:
You can review the Jeopardy quiz here.  The midterm will be made up of items that will include just about everything you see in this jeopardy game.  You should be able to click through and view the answers and questions.  [If you click on the blue jeopardy image here it won't click through, so use the link up above to review the game: please don't make any edits!]

Fun note for Latin America:  El Chiguierre Bipolar, a group of satirists and animators in Venezuela, have produced a wonderful series about all the national leaders of South (and North) America, in which they are all stranded on a desert island.  The cartoon is in Spanish, but if you take a look, see if you can identify who these leaders are, and what some of the stereotypes are about their individual countries (and the personalities of these leaders!).

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npUI1vOA_fI

Krups

The four groups will have five minutes to discuss THREE aspects of the KRUPS case.  Be ready to talk about:

1. The brand positioning of the KRUPS product line prior to E. German (DDR) market entry.

2. The distribution model used by Krups and its relationship to its "brand equity."

3. The multiple options faced by Krups, and YOUR TEAM'S recommendation.

If you have had a chance to view any of the videos in the prior blog, these will help you understand the DDR context.  Enjoy!

Tue Sept 10 Blog

What's In Here
First, a little lexicon and some review, including a word-cloud of the comments from the class on those first two presentations.  (Word clouds are useful and I tried a new cloud-generator, see below).  And, a few additional resources that I hope you'll look into for the discussion tomorrow on the Krups case!

Lexicon and Review
For the lexicon, these terms (and a bibliographic suggestion) came up.  
•  ORKUT (a social networking tool very popular in Brazil and India. . .but why?)
•  DIGLOSSIA (in which one language is spoken at home, and another at work & school)
•  TASTE & DISTINCTION (These terms are linked in the work of sociologist Bourdieu).
    Knowing local tastes is critical; for Bourdieu, taste shows class & individual identity and it 
    is not just about income.
•  RUSS BELK Is an academic in the marketing world who uses Bourdieu's (and other)
    ideas.

The presentations were a great first effort, and within the tight time and page limits, quite a good job.  

The comments from yoru colleagues were interesting. Here is a wordcloud of the comments (from tagxedo.com  a good resource to represent free-listing data).  

So, don't be afraid to add a slide or two to each slide section if you can move quickly.  Some especially interesting comments were those that were not repeated (outliers are always interesting!):  nice to have more time to do this research (so true), nice to not speak from notes (tough to do but often a good idea) were two of those.

It is really difficult to draw clear marketing implications from historical tidbits but you did a good job with that, too.  I've used the scores provided by your colleagues to work out a score: and both groups did quite well.

Krups Case Information
Here is an article about recent efforts and problems in marketing to former "Eastern Block" countries—in this case it is Hungary but you'll get the idea.  The article is also downloadable in the e-course pack at right (Marx To Trademarks).  It will set the Krups experience in a more current context than the 1990s.

But how much do you know about life in so-called Eastern Europe? (By the way, Austria, Slovenia, and E. Germany really are "Central Europe," don't you think?)  Here are a couple YouTube links. The first is a long one, from the BBC.  Worth a watch.

The second piece is from the economist.  Its shorter, and different.

Its interesting to look at the differences between these two representations of life in E. Germany prior to reunification.  The BBC piece uses local footage and emphasizes daily life from the E. German POV (point of view).  The Economist piece is an outsider, a German journalist, looking in.  Can you spot the differences in perspective?  Look at how value judgements creep in.  Do you think life was uniformly grey in E. Germany?  Certainly it was not a place for a lot of open discussion of E. German problems and politics (the spy agency made the NSA look, well, maybe I shouldn't go there just now since the NSA is much bigger and spy-ier than we may have thought but you get my point).  Anyhow, look at the contrast. 

If you have time to listen to the whole of the BBC documentary, you'll appreciate it. Get some popcorn.  It takes an hour to watch (I aim to get through it).

Be ready to think like a Krups marketer.  Look at the questions in the syllabus.  What should Krups do? What's the main marketing problem, here?

You'll be expected to have seen at least the first 1/3 of the longer documentary: be ready for some quizz time in the coming class meetings!