Weekly Marketing News from the Chartered Institute of marketing
21 July 2010
Welcome to Cutting Edge, your weekly news bulletin rounding up the must-know news from the popular marketing press. Log in to our website to read the extended version of Cutting Edge, which contains the details on how to request full copies of many of the featured articles.
A positive reputation
Brand associations affect image, a key area of brand association being a company's reputation. This study seeks to test the relationship between a positive corporate reputation, or brand image, and operational performance. The results show that companies with a positive reputation exhibit a market-value premium, better financial performance and lower cost of capital. It is therefore important that marketing managers should build and maintain a positive image for the company.
Journal of Strategic Marketing, Vol 18 (3), 2010, pp201-221
Cartons
There are many factors involved when soft drinks operators select packaging for their products. But increasingly it is the formats that can demonstrate environmental credentials to consumers, clients and governments that will be favoured. Carton manufacturers are busy promoting their products with the support of the the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE). Recycling of drinks cartons has increased by 6% a year since 2009 to reach 33% in the EU. Last year 51% of all juice sold was in a carton but bottles still dominate the global ready-to-drink soft drinks market.
Soft Drinks International, June 2010, pp40-41
Blackberry getting squeezed out
In the face of fierce competition from the iPhone and Android, RIM's Blackberry is increasingly relying on lower-revenue customers - average revenue per user has fallen to $92 from $140 over the last two years - and it is seeing an erosion of its dominance in the business market. A global survey of IT managers by Goldman Sachs reveals that only 59% plan to issue new Blackberries over the next 12 months, a decrease on the 84% back in December. Blackberry's big challenge is to attract customers who are driving the demand for smartphones and to do this it also needs to attract software developers.
Bloomberg Businessweek, 12-18 July 2010, pp37-39
Posh choc
Cacao Sampaka is the latest brand to enter the luxury chocolate market, selling chocolate with unusual flavours, such as gin and tonic. The top end of the chocolate sector achieved sales growth of 16.5% last year compared with 2007, and is outperforming the rest of the chocolate market. Key trends include: the increasing interest in the ethical credentials of products, the suggestion that dark chocolate has health benefits and the concept of an 'everyday indulgence' that consumers can afford while they are cutting back on other things.
Marketing, 14 July 2010, p12
Credits with Facebook
Facebook is to launch its Facebook Credits virtual currency in September, a system that might provide competition for PayPal. Credits will be used initially for virtual goods, such as games, but will ultimately allow consumers to buy physical goods. Brands will then have the chance to offer transactional services on Facebook. Advertisers would also be able to incentivise people to interact with branded content, in exchange for receiving Credits.
New Media Age, 15 July 2010, pp1-2
History of research
Here is a romp through the history of market research, from the invention of the 'focused group' by two sociologists at Columbia University in 1941, to neo-Freudian methods of understanding consumer motivation in the 1950s and George Gallup and his opinion polling of the 1960s. In 1975 the government began to use social marketing to change public attitudes and by 2009 the 'co-creation' revolution started to take a hold. There are also some imaginative predictions for the future: for example, by 2017 we may have done away with questionnaires altogether, in favour of the direct brain transfer of information!
Admap, July-August 2010, pp30-31
