Marketing in the Digital Age ：中国经济管理大学 MBA课堂笔记《营销学导论》
Marketing in the Digital Age
中国经济管理大学/中國經濟管理大學
Marketing in the Digital Age
Previewing the Concepts: Chapter Objectives
1. Identify the major forces shaping the new digital age.
2. Explain how companies have responded to the Internet and other powerful new technologies with e-business strategies, and how these strategies have resulted in benefits to both buyers and sellers.
3. Describe the four major e-commerce domains.
4. Discuss how companies go about conducting e-commerce to profitably deliver more value to customers.
5. Give an overview the promise and challenges that e-commerce presents for the future.
Just the Basics
Chapter Overview
Some say the new digital technologies have created a new economy. Few would disagree that the Internet and other powerful new connecting technologies are having a dramatic impact on marketers and buyers. There are four forces that underlie the new digital age. These include digitalization and connectivity; the explosion of the Internet; new types of intermediaries; and customization and customerization.
Much of the world’s business today is carried out over networks that connect people and companies. Intranets, extranets, and the Internet itself have all changed the way companies do business, and customers find the products and services they want. The explosive worldwide growth in Internet usage forms the heart of the so-called new economy. But the Internet has also allowed new companies to compete, and the formation of new types of intermediaries and new forms of channel relationships caused existing firms to re-examine how they served their markets. Finally, the new technologies have allowed companies to customize both their products and their messages to consumers, but more importantly, they have introduced the concept of customerization, in which the company leaves it to individual customers to design the offering they want.
Conducting business in the new digital age will call for a new model for marketing strategy and practice. Some strategists envision a day when all buying and selling will involve direct electronic connections between companies and their customers. But the fact is that today’s marketing requires a mixture of old economy and new economy thinking and action.
E-business involves the use of electronic platforms such as intranets, extranets, and the Internet to conduct a company’s business. E-commerce is more specific than e-business. E-commerce involved buying and selling processes supported by electronic means, primarily the Internet. E-marketing is the marketing side of e-commerce.
There are several e-marketing domains, including business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), and consumer-to-business (C2B). Each of these domains meets specific needs of each of the segments addressed, and they all continue to grow.
E-commerce is conducted in many ways. Companies can be “click-only” in that they are located only on the Internet. They include e-tailers, search engines and portals, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), transaction sites, content sites, and enabler sites. Many companies today, however, are “click-and-mortar” companies, because they maintain their traditional channels of distribution while simultaneously providing an Internet channel.
There are various types of websites. Corporate websites typically offer a rich variety of information and other features in an effort to answer customer questions, build closer customer relationships, and generate excitement about the company. Marketing websites engage consumers in an interaction that will move them closer to a direct purchase or other marketing outcome. Online advertising includes such things as banner ads and tickers; skyscrapers, which are tall, skinny ads at the side of a web page; rectangles; and interstitials—online ads that pop up between changes on a website. Viral marketing involves creating an email message or other marketing event that is so infectious that customers will want to pass it along to their friends.
E-commerce continues to offer both great promise and many challenges for the future. Online marketing will become a successful model for some companies. However, there is a darker side to Internet marketing. One major concern is profitability, especially for B2C dot-coms. Although expanding rapidly, online marketing still reaches only a limited marketplace.
There are also broader ethical and legal questions. Online privacy is perhaps the number one e-commerce concern. Many consumers also worry about online security, as well as the privacy rights of children. Many companies have responded to consumer privacy and security concerns with actions of their own. Still, examples of companies aggressively protecting their customers’ personal information are too few and far between.
Chapter Outline
1. Introduction
a. Office Depot’s store sales have flattened recently, but its online sales have soared, more than doubling in just the last two years. The retailer’s web unit booked $2.1 billion in online revenues last year, accounting for 18.5% of total sales.
b. The combination of online and in-store selling gives Office Depot customers anywhere, anytime access to the retailer’s wares, along with piles of helpful information.
c. Selling on the web lets Office Depot build deeper, more personalized relationships with customers, both large and small.
d. Office Depot has formed more than two dozen online partnerships to bring additional services to small business customers. Such services range from Internet postage, web hosting, and sales intelligence data, to online incorporation for new businesses.
e. Importantly, Office Depot’s web operations don’t detract from store sales. Instead, Office Depot has created synergy between the “clicks” and the “bricks” by carefully connecting the online and store’s side of its business.
f. Integrated click-and-mortar companies such as Office Depot now capture a greater share of online sales than their Internet-only competitors.
g. Recent technological advances, including the widespread use of the Internet, have created what some have called a new economy.
h. Few would disagree that the Internet and other powerful new connecting technologies are having a dramatic impact on marketers and buyers.
2. Major Forces Shaping the Digital Age
a. There are four specific forces that underlie the new digital age. These are shown in Figure 14-1.
Use Figure 14-1 here.
Use Chapter Objectives 1 here.
Digitalization and Connectivity
b. Much of the world’s business today is carried out over networks that connect people and companies.
1. Intranets are networks that connect people within a company to each other and to the company network.
2. Extranets connect a company with its suppliers, distributors, and other outside partners.
3. The Internet is a vast public web of computer networks; it connects users of all types all around the world to each other and to an amazingly large “information repository.”
Use Key Terms Intranet, Extranet, and Internet here.
Use Discussing the Issues 1 here.
Internet Explosion
c. With the creation of the World Wide Web and web browsers in the 1990s, the Internet was transformed from a mere communication tool into a certifiably revolutionary technology.
d. The explosive worldwide growth in Internet usage forms the heart of the so-called new economy. The Internet has been the revolutionary technology of the new millennium, empowering consumers and businesses alike with blessings of connectivity.
e. The average U.S. Internet user visits the web 30 times a month at home and 66 times a month at work, spending more than 30 minutes per visit.
Let’s Discuss This
How much time do you spend on the web each day? How much money do you spend ordering goods and services online? How does this compare to your parents’ usage and money spent?
New Types of Intermediaries
f. The formation of new types of intermediaries and new forms of channel relationships caused existing firms to re-examine how they served their markets.
1. At first, the established brick-and-mortar firms dragged their feet hoping that the aggressive click-only firms would falter or disappear.
2. Then they wised up and started their own online sales channels, becoming click-and-mortar competitors.
Customization and Customerization
g. The old economy revolved around manufacturing companies that mainly focused on standardizing their production, products, and business processes.
h. In contrast, the new economy revolves around information businesses. Information has the advantages of being easy to differentiate, customize, personalize, and send at incredible speeds over networks.
i. Customization differs from customerization.
1. Customization involves taking the initiative to customize the market offering.
2. In customerization, the company leaves it to individual customers to design the offering.
Use Key Term Customerization here.
Use Application Questions 3 here.
3. Marketing Strategy in the Digital Age
a. Conducting business in the new digital age will call for a new model for marketing strategy and practice.
b. Some strategists envision a day when all buying and selling will involve direct electronic connections between companies and their customers.
c. The new model has fundamentally changed customers’ notions of conve-nience, speed, price, product information, and service.
d. The fact is that today’s marketing requires a mixture of old economy and new economy thinking and action.
1. Companies need to retain most of the skills and practices that have worked in the past.
2. But they will also need to add major new competencies and practices if they hope to grow and prosper in the new environment.
E-Business, E-Commerce, and E-Marketing in the Digital Age
e. E-business involves the use of electronic platforms—intranets, extranets, and the Internet—to conduct a company’s business.
1. Countless companies have set up websites to inform about and promote their products and services.
2. Most companies have also created intranets to help employees communicate with each other and to access information found in the company’s computers.
3. Companies also set up extranets with their major suppliers and distributors to enable information exchange, orders, transactions, and payments.
Applying the Concept
How might a company use an intranet to help their sales force be more efficient? Could it offer any help to the manufacturing plants?
f. E-commerce is more specific than e-business.
1. E-business includes all electronics-based information exchanges within or between companies and customers.
2. In contrast, e-commerce involves buying and selling processes supported by electronic means, primarily the Internet.
3. E-markets are “marketspaces” rather than physical marketplaces.
i. Sellers use e-markets to offer their products and services online.
ii. Buyers use them to search for information, identify what they want, and place orders using credit or other means of electronic payment.
4. E-commerce includes e-marketing and e-purchasing.
i. E-marketing is the marketing side of e-commerce. It consists of company efforts to communicate about, promote, and sell products and services over the Internet.
ii. E-purchasing is the flip side of e-marketing. It is the buying side of e-commerce. It consists of companies purchasing goods, services, and information from online suppliers.
Use Key Terms E-Business, E-Commerce, and E-Marketing here.
Benefits to Buyers
g. Internet buying benefits both final buyers and business buyers in many ways.
1. It can be convenient.
2. Buying is easy and private.
3. The Internet often provides buyers with greater product access and selection.
4. E-commerce channels also give buyers access to a wealth of comparative information about companies, products, and compet-itors.
5. Online buying is interactive and immediate.
Benefits to Sellers
h. There are also many benefits to sellers.
1. The Internet is a powerful tool for customer relationship building.
2. The Internet and other electronic channels can also reduce costs and increase speed and efficiency.
3. E-marketing can also offer greater flexibility, allowing the marketer to make ongoing adjustments to its offers and programs.
4. The Internet is a truly global medium that allows buyers and sellers to click from one country to another in seconds.
Use Chapter Objectives 2 here.
Use Discussing the Issues 2 here.
4. E-Marketing Domains
a. The four major e-marketing domains are shown in Figure 14-2.
Use Figure 14-2 here.
Use Chapter Objectives 3 here.
B2C (Business-to-Consumer)
b. The popular press has paid the most attention to B2C (business-to-consumer) e-commerce—the online selling of goods and services to final consumers.
Use Key Term B2C (Business-to-Consumer) E-Commerce here.
c. Online consumer buying continues to grow at a healthy rate.
d. Today, almost two-thirds of U.S. households surf the Internet. Increas-ingly, the Internet provides e-marketers with access to a broad range of demographic segments.
1. Internet consumers differ from traditional offline consumers in their approaches to buying and in their responses to marketing.
2. People who use the Internet place greater value on information and tend to respond negatively to messages aimed only at selling.
3. E-marketing targets people who actively select which websites they will visit and what marketing information they will receive about which products and under what conditions.
e. The Internet is most useful for products and services when the shopper seeks greater ordering convenience or lower costs. The Internet also provides great value to buyers looking for information about differences in product features and value.
B2B (Business-to-Business)
f. Consumer goods sales via the web are dwarfed by B2B (business-to-business) e-commerce.
Use Key Term B2B (Business-to-Business) E-Commerce here.
g. Most major business-to-business marketers now offer product information, customer purchasing, and customer support services online.
h. Some B2B e-commerce takes place in open trading exchanges, which are huge e-marketspaces in which buyers and sellers find each other online, share information, and complete transactions efficiently.
i. Increasingly, online sellers are setting up their own private trade exchanges. These exchanges link a particular seller with its own trading partners.
1. Private exchanges give sellers greater control over product presentation and allow them to build deeper relationships with buyers and sellers by providing value-added services.
Use Key Terms Open Trading Exchanges, Private Trading Exchanges here.
C2C (Consumer-to-Consumer)
j. Much C2C (consumer-to-consumer) e-commerce and communication occurs on the web between interested parties over a wide range of products and subjects.
Use Key Term C2C (Consumer-to-Consumer) E-Commerce here.
k. C2C involves interchanges of information through forums and Internet newsgroups that appeal to specific special-interest groups.
1. Forums are discussion groups located on commercial online services such as AOL and CompuServe.
2. Newsgroups are the Internet version of forums.
l. C2C means that online visitors don’t just view consumer product information. Increasingly, they create it. They join Internet interest groups to share information, with the result that “word of web” is joining “word of mouth” as an important buying influence.
C2B (Consumer-to-Business)
m. C2B (consumer-to-business) e-commerce allows today’s consumers to communicate more easily with companies.
n. Most companies now invite prospects and customers to send in suggestions and questions via company websites.
Use Key Term C2B (Consumer-to-Business) E-Commerce here.
5. Conducting E-Commerce
a. Companies of all types are now engaged in e-commerce. The different types of e-marketers are shown in Figure 14-3.
Use Figure 14-3 here.
Use Chapter Objectives 4 here.
Click-Only versus Click-and-Mortar E-Marketers
b. The Internet gave birth to a new species of e-marketers—the click-only dot-coms—which operate only online without any brick-and-mortar market presence.
c. Brick-and-mortar companies have now added e-marketing operations, transforming themselves into click-and-mortar competitors.
d. Click-only companies come in many shapes and sizes.
1. E-tailers are dot-coms that sell products and services directly to final buyers via the Internet.
i. This group includes search engines and portals.
ii. Internet service providers (ISPs) are click-only companies that provide Internet and email connections for a fee.
iii. Transaction sites take commissions for transactions con-ducted on their sites.
iv. Content sites provide financial, research, and other infor-mation.
v. Enabler sites provide the hardware and software that enable Internet communication and commerce.
2. Table 14-1 shows that a dot-com’s revenues may come from any of several sources.
Use Key Term Click-Only Companies here.
Use Table 14-1 here.
Use Application Questions 2 here.
e. Many established companies moved quickly to open websites providing information about their companies and products.
1. Most resisted adding e-commerce to their sites. They worried that this would produce channel conflict—that selling their products or services online would be competing with their offline retailers and agents.
2. However, they soon realized that the risks of losing business to online competitors were even greater than the risks of angering channel partners.
3. Most established brick-and-mortar companies are now prospering as click-and-mortar companies.
4. Most of these click-and-mortar companies have found ways to resolve channel conflicts.
5. Established companies have known and trusted brand names and greater financial resources. They have large customer bases, deeper industry knowledge and experience, and good relationships with key suppliers. By combining online marketing and established brick-and-mortar operations, they can offer customers more op-tions.
Use Key Term Click-and-Mortar Companies here.
Use Speed Bump: Linking the Concepts here.
Use Discussing the Issues 3 here.
Let’s Discuss This
Would you rather buy online from a company whose name you know? Are you willing to buy online, giving out your credit card number, to someone you never heard of before? How do you decide?
Setting Up an E-Marketing Presence
f. Companies can conduct e-marketing in any of the four ways shown in Figure 14-4.
Use Figure 14-4 here.
g. The first step in conducting e-marketing is to create a website.
1. The most basic type is a corporate website.
i. These sites are designed to build customer goodwill and to supplement other sales channels, rather than to sell the company’s products directly.
ii. Corporate websites typically offer a rich variety of infor-mation and other features in an effort to answer customer questions, build closer customer relationships, and generate excitement about the company.
iii. These sites generally provide information about the com-pany’s history, its mission and philosophy, and the products and services it offers.
Use Key Term Corporate Website here.
2. Other companies create a marketing website.
i. These sites engage consumers in an interaction that will move them closer to a direct purchase or other marketing outcome.
ii. Such sites might include a catalog, shopping tips, and promotional features such as coupons, sales events, or contests.
Use Key Term Marketing Website here.
h. Creating a website is one thing; getting people to visit the site is another.
1. The key is to create enough value and excitement to get consumers to come to the site, stick around, and come back again.
2. This means that companies must constantly update their sites to keep them current, fresh, and exciting.
3. A key challenge is designing a website that is attractive on first view and interesting enough to encourage repeat visits.
4. To attract new visitors and to encourage revisits, one expert suggests playing close attention to the seven Cs of effective website design.
i. Context—the site’s layout and design.
ii. Content—the text, pictures, sound, and video that the website contains.
iii. Community—the ways that the site enables user-to-user communication.
iv. Customization—the site’s ability to tailor itself to different users or to allow users to personalize the site.
v. Communication—the ways the site enables site-to-user, user-to-site, or two-way communication.
vi. Connection—the degree that the site is linked to other sites.
vii. Commerce—the site’s capabilities to enable commercial transactions.
5. Ultimately, it is the value of the site’s content that will attract visitors, get them to stay longer, and bring them back for more.
Use Discussing the Issues 4 here.
Use Application Questions 1 here.
i. E-marketers can use online advertising to build their Internet brands or to attract visitors to their websites.
Use Key Term Online Advertising here.
1. Online ads that pop up while Internet users are surfing online include banner ads and tickers.
2. Skyscrapers are tall, skinny ads at the side of a web page, while rectangles are boxes that are much larger than a banner.
3. Interstitials are online ads that pop up between changes on a website.
4. Content sponsorships are another form of Internet promotion. Many companies gain name exposure on the Internet by sponsoring special content on various websites, such as news or financial information.
5. E-marketers can also go online with microsites, limited areas on the web managed and paid for by an external company.
6. Online marketers use viral marketing, the Internet version of word-of-mouth marketing. Viral marketing involves creating an email message or other marketing event that is so infectious that customers will want to pass it along to their friends.
Use Key Term Viral Marketing here.
Use Marketing at Work 14-1 here.
Use Discussing the Issues 5 here.
Use Under the Hood/Focus on Technology here.
7. Although online advertising serves a useful purpose, many marketers still question the value of Internet advertising as an effective tool.
i. Web surfers can easily ignore the advertising, and often do.
ii. Still, online advertising is playing an increasingly important role in the marketing mixes of many advertisers.
j. The popularity of forums and newsgroups has resulted in a rash of commercially sponsored websites called web communities, which take advantage of the C2C properties of the Internet.
Use Key Term Web Communities here.
1. Such sites allow members to congregate online and exchange views on issues of common interest.
2. Visitors to these Internet neighborhoods develop a strong sense of community.
i. Such communities are attractive to advertisers because they draw consumers with common interests and well-defined demographics.
ii. Cyberhood consumers visit frequently and stay online longer, increasing the chance of meaningful exposure to the advertiser’s message.
iii. Web communities can be either social or work related.
k. Email has exploded onto the scene as an important e-marketing tool.
1. To compete effectively in this ever-more-cluttered email environ-ment, marketers are designing “enriched” email messages that are animated, interactive, and personalized messages full of streaming audio and video.
2. The recent explosion of spam—unsolicited, unwanted commercial email messages that clog up your emailboxes—has produced consumer frustration and anger.
Use Key Term Spam here.
Use Marketing at Work 14-2 here.
6. The Promise and Challenges of E-Commerce
a. E-commerce continues to offer both great promise and many challenges for the future.
Use Chapter Objectives 5 here.
The Continuing Promise of E-Commerce
b. Its most ardent apostles still envision a time when the Internet and e-commerce will replace magazines, newspapers, and even stores as sources of information and buying.
c. Online marketing will become a successful business model for some companies. However, for most companies, online marketing will remain just one important approach to the marketplace that works alongside other approaches in a fully integrated marketing mix.
d. Eventually, as companies become more adept at integrating e-commerce with their everyday strategy and tactics, the “e” will fall away from e-business or e-marketing.
The Web’s Darker Side
e. Along with its considerable promise, there is a “darker side” to Internet marketing.
f. One major concern is profitability, especially for B2C dot-coms.
1. Surprisingly few Internet companies are profitable.
2. One problem is that, although expanding rapidly, online marketing still reaches only a limited marketspace.
3. The web audience is becoming more mainstream, but online users still tend to be somewhat more upscale and better educated than the general population.
g. From a broader societal viewpoint, Internet marketing practices have raised a number of ethical and legal questions.
1. Online privacy is perhaps the number one e-commerce concern.
i. Most online marketers have become skilled at collecting and analyzing detailed consumer information.
ii. This may leave consumers open to information abuse if companies make unauthorized use of the information in marketing their products or exchanging databases with other companies.
2. Many consumers worry about online security.
i. Consumers fear that unscrupulous snoopers will eavesdrop on their online transactions or intercept their credit card numbers and make unauthorized purchases.
ii. Companies doing business online fear that others will use the Internet to invade their computer systems for the purposes of commercial espionage or even sabotage.
iii. Of special concern are the privacy rights of children.
iv. Many companies have responded to consumer privacy and security concerns with actions of their own.
v. Still, examples of companies aggressively protecting their customers’ personal information are too few and far between.
Applying the Concept
What kind of privacy concerns would a company confront when setting up a website that offers information? One that allows consumers to transact business? How should they respond to consumer concerns?
3. Consumers are also concerned about Internet fraud, including identity theft, investment fraud, and financial scams.
4. There are also concerns about segmentation and discrimination on the Internet.
i. Some social critics and policy makers worry about the so-called digital divide—the gap between those who have access to the latest Internet and information technologies and those who don’t.
ii. A final Internet marketing concern is that of access by vulnerable or unauthorized groups.
h. As it continues to grow, online marketing will prove to be a powerful tool for building customer relationships, improving sales, communicating company and product information, and delivering products and services more efficiently and effectively.
Use Focus on Ethics here.
Travel Log
Discussing the Issues
1. Discuss the differences among intranets, extranets, and the Internet. What purpose does each serve for businesses?
Intranets are networks that connect people within a company to each other and to the company network. Extranets connect a company with its suppliers, distributors, and other outside partners. And the Internet, a vast public web of computer networks, connects users of all types all around the world to each other and to an amazingly large “information repository.”
2. How does e-commerce benefit both buyers and sellers? Can you think of any disadvantages for either buyers or sellers that are a result of e-commerce?
Internet buying benefits both final buyers and business buyers in many ways. It can be convenient: Customers don’t have to battle traffic, find parking spaces, and trek through stores and aisles to find and examine products. Buying is easy and private: Customers encounter fewer buying hassles and don’t have to face salespeople or open themselves up to persuasion and emotional pitches. In addition, the Internet often provides buyers with greater product access and selection. Beyond a broader selection of sellers and products, e-commerce channels also give buyers access to a wealth of comparative information about companies, products, and competitors. Finally, online buying is interactive and immediate. Buyers often can interact with the seller’s site to create exactly the configuration of information, products, or services they desire, then order or download them on the spot.
For sellers, the Internet is a powerful tool for customer relationship building. Because of its one-to-one, interactive nature, companies can interact online with customers to learn more about specific needs and wants. The Internet and other electronic channels can also reduce costs and increase speed and efficiency. E-marketing can also offer greater flexibility, allowing the marketer to make ongoing adjustments to its offers and programs. Finally, the Internet is a truly global medium that allows buyers and sellers to click from one country to another in seconds.
3. What channel conflict issues might a click-and-mortar company experience? How could the conflict be minimized? Use a specific company as an example.
Student responses will vary depending upon the company selected. As an example, conflicts might occur with regard to pricing, where prices are different online versus in the physical retail location. How should each channel then be evaluated if they are selling at different prices?
4. How can the seven Cs encourage revisits to a company website? Are some of these factors more important than others? Why or why not?
To attract new visitors and to encourage revisits, suggests one expert, e-marketers should pay close attention to the seven Cs of effective website design:
Context—the site’s layout and design.
Content—the text, pictures, sound, and video that the website contains.
Community—the ways that the site enables user-to-user communication.
Customization—the site’s ability to tailor itself to different users or to allow users to personalize the site.
Communication—the ways the site enables site-to-user, user-to-site, or two-way communication.
Connection—the degree that the site is linked to other sites.
Commerce—the site’s capabilities to enable commercial transactions.
The relative importance of the 7Cs may vary depending upon the type of website or the product being sold. For example, the ability to customize/personalize a site may be more important for a site offering information than it is for a site selling televisions.
5. Distinguish between the different forms of online advertising and promotion. What factors should a company consider in deciding between these different forms?
Online ads include banner ads (advertisements located across a web page—often at the top) and tickers (banners that move across the screen). Other online ad formats include skyscrapers (tall, skinny ads at the side of a web page) and rectangles (boxes that are much larger than a banner). Interstitials are online ads that pop up between changes on a website. Content sponsorships are another form of Internet promotion. Many companies gain name exposure on the Internet by sponsoring special content on various websites, such as news or financial information. E-marketers can also go online with microsites (limited areas on the web managed and paid for by an external company). Firms should consider the exposure rate to their targeted audience when selecting between the different forms. Also which will be noticed by the target market and is the information to be communicated appropriate for that ad form?
Application Questions
1. Getting consumers to come spend time at a company’s website and come back again are critical goals in website design. What design options or features can a company use to get consumers to visit and explore their website? Identify a website that you feel does a good job at this and one that does not. What can the website doing the poor job learn from the one doing a good job?
Student responses to this question will vary depending upon the websites selected. Instructors may wish to assign this question when they want to get students to think more deeply about web design issues. An interesting (but potentially more difficult task for students) is to make the good-poor website comparison between companies in the same industry.
2. Go to target.com. Browse the website and review the features and products offered. What would lead a consumer to purchase through this distribution outlet rather than going to their brick-and-mortar retail location? What fears might consumers purchasing online have that they would not be concerned with in a traditional retail store?
Issues of convenience are likely to drive individuals to the website over the brick-and-mortar store. Concerns for buyers in the online store include the perceived risk of supplying credit card information online and the delay in receiving the product as compared to walking out with the good in the brick-and-mortar location.
3. Customization involves the company taking the initiative to customize the market offering for consumers, while in customerization, the company leaves it up to individual customers to design the offering. What types of products do you think would lend themselves well to customerization and which would not? Could customerization be designed into an Internet-based web ordering system for a consumer good? What obstacles would need to be overcome?
For customerization to be successful customers must have adequate knowledge of how to customize and the technology must be easy to use. Already there are several examples of customerization available on the Internet (for an example see the Nike shoe Under the Hood question in Chapter 8). Customer resistance to change and their fear of “doing it wrong” may be obstacles to implementing customerization of a product.
Under the Hood/Focus on Technology
Adware programs monitor the websites that a consumer visits and can be programmed to launch the websites of rival companies when a particular website is visited. Many consumers do not know they have these programs on their computers because they are typically bundled with other software that the consumer has downloaded. Recently, the moving company U-Haul lost a court decision to stop WhenU.com from displaying the websites of rival moving companies when consumers visited the U-Haul website. It is estimated that 30 million computers have WhenU.com’s software installed.
1. How do you feel about pop-up advertising on the Internet? Do you find it useful or a burden?
Student response to this question will vary depending on their personal attitude. Instructors may wish to discuss “pop-up blocking” technology that is being developed to stop these ads from appearing on the user’s computer screen.
2. Should adware programs be allowed to offer alternative purchase options to consumers? Do you think that this software gives more consumer choice or is it infringing on the rights of companies?
Adware companies will argue that customers agree to have this software on their computer when they agree to download programs and that they are offering a valuable service to customers by giving them more options to select from.
3. What form of online advertising do you find most and least objectionable? Do you feel that there might be a negative backlash against those companies using more objectionable forms of online advertising?
Student response to this question will vary.
Focus on Ethics
As noted in the chapter, concern over the security and privacy of sensitive personal information is a big issue for many consumers. Indeed it may lead some consumers to avoid online transactions. In an attempt to put consumers at ease with regard to how the company will and will not use their information, many have posted their privacy policies at their website. Visit Amazon.com and read their privacy policy (scroll to the bottom of the page and click “privacy notice”). Be sure to read about the specific types of information they collect from you automatically, the information they capture with your consent, and the information they gather about you from third parties. After you have read their policies, respond to the following questions.
1. What is your reaction to this privacy policy? Do you think it would give peace of mind to an individual concerned about others using his or her personal infor-mation?
The students’ response to this question will depend upon how sensitive they are to online security of their personal information. Instructors may wish to probe deeper into this question by asking students if they were aware of the types of information being collected and if its collection would change their buying behavior.
2. As mentioned in the text, TRUSTe provides a seal of approval for those websites meeting its security and privacy standards. Go to the TRUSTe website (www.truste.org/consumers/users_how.html) and read about their four principles for online privacy. How does the Amazon.com privacy policy measure on these four principles?
The four principles on the TRUSTe website are: (1) adoption and implementation of a privacy policy that takes into account consumer anxiety over sharing personal information online, (2) notice and disclosure of information collection and use practices, (3) choice and consent, giving users the opportunity to exercise control over their information, and (4) data security and quality and access measures to help protect the security and accuracy of personally identifiable information.
3. Do you feel that extra privacy measures should be taken to protect the privacy of those individuals under the age of 18? What extra steps would you suggest?
Student opinions will vary on this question. It should be pointed out that children may not fully understand the ramifications of supplying personal information over the Internet and therefore might deserve special consideration and extra steps.
Great Ideas
Barriers to Effective Learning
1. The students will have grown up with the Internet, so there are few concepts in this chapter that will be totally new to them. However, the vocabulary and terminology could be new to them, so you will want to go through all the Key Terms carefully.
2. Students will largely not have thought of e-commerce as having spawned new intermediaries, largely because they will not have even heard of that term prior to this class. Therefore, spend some time talking about the differences between click-only and click-and-mortar companies. Also explain the problems brick-and-mortar companies faced when the dot-com explosion first hit—should they develop their own websites and e-commerce facilities? If they did, should they separate them or keep them integrated into the rest of the business? This was a true period of disruptive technology, and many firms simply did not know how to respond.
3. Most students will have known the terms and concepts B2B and B2C, but C2C and C2B may be new to them, at least in terminology. Applying the C2C concept to the rise (and fall) of Napster will drive the point home, as will the various chat rooms and other cyber-communities. For C2B, ask if anyone has ever contacted a company via email to ask a question, lodge a complaint, or send a compliment. If not, have them send email to Snapple, a company that is known for responding to customers.
4. Many students will have their own websites, either for personal use or through their college activities. They will understand the nuances of web design, but may not understand some of the key concepts of attracting and retaining customers through effective design decisions. Discussing websites that they enjoy using, as well as those they think are poorly designed, will help with these concepts.
Student Projects
1. Find five websites that are transaction-oriented (i.e., you can order products or services) and five websites that just give information. What are the differences? What are the similarities?
2. Send an information request to a chosen company via its website. Did the company respond in a reasonable amount of time? If it did, did a human respond, or did you get an automated response? If not, how does that make you feel about your relationship to the company?
3. Discuss the types of online ads you pay attention to. What gets your attention? How often to you “click through” when an ad has gained your attention?
4. Discuss the types of online ads you ignore or that annoy you. What is it about them that you dislike? How are they different from the ones you do like? What makes an online ad effective or ineffective?
Classroom Exercise/Homework Assignment
Online communities are becoming more and more important. Chat rooms are proliferating, but community-building on the web is going far beyond that. New sites such as Friendster.com and LinkedIn.com are becoming the hot new way to make new friends, find old associates, and establish new business contacts. Visit www.linkedin.com to see a site that is dedicated to helping people increase their business through effective use of online networking.
1. LinkedIn.com, like most other social networking sites, is still in the beta stage of development. That means that their service is currently free. Would you be willing to pay for a service such as this? Or would you use it only if it continued to be free?
Student responses will vary. Some may be willing to pay for a business networking site, but not for a purely social networking site. Some may not be willing to pay for either kind of site, because so much of the Internet is still currently free. Others will see business benefits, and will note that many in-person networking events have to be paid for, and will likely yield fewer results.
2. As a business person, how would you feel about providing your list of contacts to a site such as this?
Again, student responses will vary. Because LinkedIn.com, in particular, makes sure that you get an opportunity to vet a networker before passing him or her along to one of your contacts, many students might be willing to share their contacts. Others might want to jealously guard them, as is frequently done in business today. Privacy concerns are paramount here, and it is up to the individual user to decide how much of his privacy and contacts, he is willing to give up.
3. Plaxo.com is a form of rival to LinkedIn.com, although this site currently only allows you to keep your contacts up to date. Plaxo.com uses a viral marketing campaign to get new members, because when you send emails to all your contacts to allow them to update their information, Plaxo.com invites them to join as well. The company claims on its website to have more than one million members currently. Have you ever received an email from Plaxo.com? Have you updated your contact information? Did you join?
Student responses will vary.
4. How easy would it be for Plaxo.com to become a full-fledged competitor of LinkedIn.com?
Student responses will vary, but the fact that Plaxo.com already has one million members, and the contact information is already being exchanged—when a contact also joins Plaxo.com, as his or her information changes Plaxo.com automatically updates everyone’s address book in which the person’s name appears—means that the logical next step will be to act as a business networking tool.
Classroom Management Strategies
As was noted previously, students today have grown up with the Internet and e-commerce. This chapter should not be difficult for them, although stressing the Key Terms will be important for them to be able to have intelligent business discussions about the uses of the Internet.
1. Spend 10 minutes each on the first two sections regarding the forces shaping the digital age and the strategies for responding. Figure 14-1, showing the forces that underlie the digital age, will be of great assistance in getting this topic across.
2. E-Marketing Domains and Conducting E-Commerce should each receive 15 minutes. Again, although this material may well be familiar to students, they have not considered it from a business-building perspective and may not know all of the Key Terms. The figures, tables, and Speed Bump will help here, as will the Marketing at Work.
3. The final section, on the promise and challenges of e-commerce, can be covered in 15 minutes. Continue the discussion from Chapter 13 on the Do Not Call laws being passed at the Federal level, and the effect they will have on email marketers.
中国经济管理大学|中国经济管理大学|中国经济管理大学|中国经济管理大学培训|MBA实战|中国经济管理大学|MBA培训|硕士研究生|职业资格|管理培训
中国经济管理大学 官网 ：www.eauc.hk 中国经济管理大学MBA公益课堂
中國經濟管理大學版權所有
