My marketing diary

Whilst I was surfing through the www, in order to do some research for university, I finally come to YouTube. Normally I would say YouTube should not be mentioned in the same sentence with university. YouTube is definitely not an academic source for research. But have you seen how many videos exist on YouTube, which can help you to explain and understand some topics very easily.

Then I did some research on this education on YouTube and I found some real life lectures. Some had a length of approximately one an a half hours and was a class, which was recorded in a university room. There is as well a university, the Pitzer College in the United States, which had some problems that the course is officially accepted, but a faculty curriculum committee approved the online course, after they got information about the intellectual challenge and the demands the students have to meet.

To be honest, I wouldn’t take an online course, because I am still sceptical and I think a video shouldn’t and can’t replace a book or a lecture in university, but it is a great tool to catch up things or to repeat the lecture.

Certainly, the question of the reliability of these videos is important. Everybody can tell something, the question is about the accuracy. But in general I think, online lessons can be beneficial and shouldn’t be talked down. The Web 2.0 offers more and more possibilities for development, and as could be seen that there are universities, which operate mainly online. There are some series of lectures available and if once found a reliable source, it can be very attractive to listen and watch. This is especially favourable, for people who want to enforce their personal development and have no time to take an educational course.

I am curious about the further developments and innovations regarding the Web 2.0.

Referring to my last post in the “PR & New Media” category, I talked about the death of print media and the growth of new media. Despite the fact, that the new media is growing, it has certain points of attacks. Concerns about the quality and reliability of this media are apparent.

Have a look on this video, the response of Media Re:public.

I really like Heineken’s commercials

Check it out!

Wow…. isn’t that low? A too low approach of handling customers?

Here some quotes by the chief executive of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, he said in an interview with BBC:

“One thing we have looked at in the past, and are looking at again, is the possibility of maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door, so that people might actually have to spend a pound to spend a penny in future,”

“I don’t think there is anybody in history that has got on board a Ryanair aircraft with less than a pound.”

“People might have to spend a pound to spend a penny”

I think the question is not whether people have the money or not, it is more a question of customer treatment. Rochelle Turner, head of research at Which? Holiday, a consumer group, said that Ryanair “is putting profit before the comfort of its customers” once again.

In my opinion it is in general a positive point that Ryanair offers it’s customer the choice of being transported somewhere as a basic service and upgrading if necessary. That gives customers the possibility of receiving exactly the service they want to have and not paying for extras, which are not used of.

But on the other hand, Ryanair goes too far. The costs are very low when you select your flight, but in the end it sums up to a fivefold. And now they want to close their airport check-in desks, which as well reminds me of the point, that people are part of the marketing mix and of particular importance.

As well the German consumer organisation “Stiftung Warentest” reported a rank of low cost carrier considering criteria like the price level and price availability, provision of information, booking and consumer relations. They stated that Ryanair and Easyjet are the cheapest airlines, whereas AirBerlin, British Airways and Lufthansa provide the most information. In all of the airline’s general terms and conditions, clauses appeared which can have a negative impact on consumers, when re-booking or canceling their flight. Additionally, the test figured out that certain presettings have to be deactivated by the consumer, when booking online with Ryanair and EasyJet. This is prohibited according to the EU-directive.

Now I’m thinking about whether I want to fly with Ryanair again, excepting my next flight, which is already booked. I would say I don’t feel good flying with Ryanair, but I would, probably because of convenience.

And what about you?

Is it the future ?

As I surfed the web I came across the following poll at MarketingWeek:

I think it is very interesting how everything is changing… the media goes more and more in the Web 2.0 direction and brings a lot of consequences. For marketers it is especially relevant I think, because companies have to consider such changes and keep up to date with their business to use the best media possible for their purpose. Ok, back to the newspaper, the Web 2.0 related to marketing could be my next topic.

So, I was curious about the results of this poll, therefore I selected the answer, what I thought might happen.

According to this research most people, exactly 80%, think is that the newspaper will stay alive. Only 20% think that the internet will overhelm newspapers. What do you think?

I voted “yes”.

I still believe that newspapers and other print media will not die, but I am not 100% sure how well they could stay alive. Due to the fact, that until now, we have still many older people who are not taking advantages of the internet, they are fine. But and increasing number of younger people, which are called the Gerneration Y or e-Gerneration (spend around 1/3 of their life online, which is approximatley 23 years (Cameron, G. T., Wilcox, D. L., Reber, B. H., & Shin, J. (2008)) start using the internet for more and more reasons.

It is already and will be hard for newspapers to get a high number of readers, when in some times, all generations on earth are able to surf the www. Newspapers have to rethink how they could be promoted. Maybe it is not anymore the typical, basic reason of gaining information that attracts the reader. Instead I think it is developing more and more in the direction that a paper gets a luxury good and it is bought to enjoy reading.

Philip Meyer says in his book “The Vanishing Newspaper” (2004), that the newspaper era ends around the first quarter of 2043. I hope I will be there when it happens.

I am now starting my blog concerning marketing issues, which I often think about. Today I prefer writing about the relationship between customers and on the other side, the companies, which provide either good or bad customer service.

Actually I had much experience with bad customer service, and not that often received a remarkable good customer treatment. I think this is such an important point, first for the reason, that it concerns everybody when receiving a kind of service and this happens nearly everyday. The other reason, I think it is an essential part in marketing. The person who provides a certain kind of service is the connection between the company and the consumer. To give an insight in my experience and thinking I will explain my example with McDonald’s . It was approximately one year ago and I have been there and ordered my meal, than it tooks very long until my chips where ready, so I sat down to my friends and still wait. After I had seen that other people got some chips I asked her about my chips. She rolled her eyes and got the chips. I thought, if she had forgotten my chips, it wasn’t a problem, but I expected an excuse.

I think although McDonald’s is not a five-star restaurant, a certain level of friendliness has to be offered anywhere, where service is provided. And I think it is something a customer can expect. The more I thought about this situation, the more I thought that just one person can give a consumer a bad experience with a certain company. And do such people really know what consequences that can have for a firm?

I think, the best offer is nothing when it is served in a bad way. And another point to consider is, as I mentioned before, I had much more bad experiences than good ones. Maybe it is just the bad ones which stay in a consumers mind.