Finish
Our course has reached its natural conclusion and I am ecstatic. We worked hard to produce our course. In reading your final extra credit, many of you found value in our course. I certainly did.
When we last met, our discussion of field hockey reflected how much most of you have learned. Your comments and thoughts reflect more than passages from text. Rather, it shows how much knowledge you have accrued. That is fantastic.
Some general comments about the grades and your feedback:
Grades: Final grades are posted. Please keep in mind that your total points reflect 45 extra credit points from five assignments in addition to 8 bonus questions from the four exams that were worth 24 points total. I am pretty comfortable with the grades for this summer.
Participation Points: For this course, I raised the participation point total to 200 to reflect the emphasis I place on sharing knowledge. Gaining knowledge and keeping it to yourself does your group, your institution, and ultimately society no good. Knowledge is a two-step process: acquiring and sharing. Participation points reflect the latter while exams reflect the former.
You earned points if you showed up to class, turned in exercises, and said something or posted content during the course. You cannot participate if you are not in class. It is that simple. Most of you maxed out the 200 points, and a lot of you got 175. I really liked the level of participation, and tried to give all of you as many methods of contributing. Looking at your comments, most of you took advantage of these methods.
Power Point: A lot of you like the slides and found it helpful in acquiring information. There were many minor issues related to this technology. In summing these minor issues, I will make my own slides instead of editing slides provided by the text publisher. And next time, there will be no sound effects. ;-)
Exercises: Most of you liked the amount and level of difficulty. I tried to balance some exercises that required more effort against exercises that required very little effort. When I teach another summer course, I will find a few cases and weight those heavier to reflect many of your comments.
Blog: I liked the blog, and so did many of you because the blog accomplished my primary goal: give you a chance to share your knowledge. As expected, some of you took advantage of this forum and others did not. Then again, some of you like speaking in front of others and some of you do not.
I am not sure if I can get more out of the blog. This could be a limitation of the resource. Perhaps there is another resource that could be combined with this resource to create something that otherwise would not exist?
Finally, thank you for the time and effort. The course required a lot of energy. You guys more than met the challenge; you succeeded. I could not ask for anything more than that.
Have a good summer.
cheers,
Michael
For those of you who are interested, I compiled a list to the third exercise and posted it. I will post my response along with Brian's in the comment section. There were a lot of interesting items, espicially when we looked outside the U.S. for underdogs and rivls.
Click here for story.
Viral Marketing
For the Viral Marketing class on Wednesday, please review the following:
- From Wikipedia, please read the discussion of these topics, which will be on Friday’s fourth exam:
- For examples of viral efforts, please look at these sites:
Topics
For the Topics class on Tuesday, please read the following articles on client and agency relations:
You will need this information for Tuesday's discussion.
Exam questions related to both articles could appear on your fourth exam on Friday.
Give Me More (Cow) Blogs
Earlier this summer, we discussed employer efforts at dealing with employees' blogs. What about firms launching a blog? Duct Tape Marketing, which sends out a daily "How to improve my firm's marketing in 5 seconds" has a good guide for a firm or anyone really that is starting a blog. The story is
linked here.
Forbes' Best of the Web, which I linked to on the right menu bar, includes a blog section, which is
linked here. The blogs deal with a far range of topics. If you put on your student hat, I am sure you can find several blogs for a bonus assignment. Or, put on your marketing hat to get ideas on a blog for your employer. Of course, you will want to read Duct Tape Marketing first.
For those in the job market, this Washington Post article, which is
linked here, includes several links to job hunting blogs. Or, you can leave your student hat on, and look for blogs to complete the bonus assignment.
The best parts of MG Rover were sold off long ago when BMW retained the Mini brand and design, and, later, Ford kept the Land Rover series of SUVs. The interest in MG Rover focused on two issues related to marketing: production (engine technology) and inventory (thousands of unsold MG Rovers sit in storage).
However, another marketing topic may have driven the bidding for MG Rover. MG, or MidGets as they were known in the U.S., sold small convertibles in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Poor reliability, tighter emission and safety standards, and stiffer competition forced English brands, MG and Triumph, and the Italian brand, Fiat, off the American road. All three brands competed in the same segment of the market now dominated by Mazda’s Miata convertible.
More Americans recognize the MG brand compared to the number of Americans who recognize Najing Automobile or Shanghai Automotive Corp. It should be far cheaper for a Chinese automobile company to launch a product destined for the U.S. with the MG brand than starting from scratch.
What would it take to revive a dead brand? Is it possible? What kinds of resources need to be committed? Indian Motorcycle could not be resurrected like so much Jason, Michael Myers, or Freddie. The market that existed for the original MG line of convertibles has been taken over by competitors with far greater resources.
Where does this leave Najing and its tarnished and musty MG brand?
For those wondering the
value of a brand, Interbrand posted its 2005 list, which is
linked here.
Click here for story.
Notice the comment from Stihl's promotions manager who refered to dog owners as passionate. I think a different phrase would fit better.
Have we reached a saturation point with promotional activities? Stihl's logic for sponsoring a dog is interesting, however. I am not sure I see a connection.
When Paine Webber sponsors a golf tournament, the overlap between the two circles in the Venn diagram should be sizable. Do dog owners need weed whackers, blowers, or tillers more than people who watch NASCAR or lumberjack competition?
Click here for story.
In answer to CNN’s question, it is neither. Rather, this is another example of the culture jamming phenomena. Ryan Watkins-Hughes’ web site (
linked here) confirms this answer.
The earliest example of culture jamming I can think of is the “Kilroy was here” message and logo that was placed on World War II ships, but that may not fit the current concept. In this incarnation, consumers attempt to block or distort a message. Auburn football players taped over the Nike swoosh on their shoes.
At a conference, Amanda of consumer cynicism fame noticed the elevator had a television that showed a CNN loop. Later that day, Amanda got on the elevator and saw that someone had placed sticky notes over the television monitor to prevent riders from receiving the message. Still later, Amanda took the same elevator and found that another rider had created a hole in the sticky notes in order to watch CNN. This is culture jamming.
Remember ripped jeans? Hand painted Chuck Connors? These are all examples of trends that started off as culture jamming. Now, Converse will let you design your own shows (
linked here. This effort shares as much in common with the original intent as reality television shares reality.
When marketers use culture jamming tactics, it is called viral marketing. Notice both trends, culture jamming and viral marketing, are inter-related. As one becomes popular, so does the other.
Click here for story.
