Why business' should choose DFW

There are many reasons to choose Dallas/Ft. Worth (DFW) to do business in.

 The main reason is that it ranks second among international cities for business climate, which targets costs and risk of doing business in a particular location. DFW has very low office costs and low relative business costs. Companies that begin business in DFW also have reassurance that their employees will have a high quality of living. It is an affordable metroplex, ranking fourth and fifth on cost of living and gross product per capita. This combination is powerful, and a factor that draws high swarms of people to the area. Due to the low average age in DFW, there is also a high volume of potential workers available that many cities do not have the luxury of. DFW benefits also from its land transportation networks, which ranks seventh against all North American cities. The central geography of being in Texas also makes east and west coast interests more available. Neutrality in location is a vital business advantage that few major cities have.

Overall, what makes DFW so fantastic for business is the availability of new wider scopes of markets. There is a diverse population, with strong Hispanic influence and African American influence. The potential for these new audience groups I believe is a factor not mentioned in the article but something to remember.

Based on the 2009-2010 Dallas Economic Development Guide. Rankings come from the guide. 

Taco Bell needs to up their PR strategy

Taco Bell should really up their PR campaign. End of story. All they are doing is making themselves look like unprofessional. Even if it is true that their beef is 88 percent true beef and 12 percent a “special recipe” rather than distributing snarky “Thank you for suing” campaign, they really should try to understand the customers’ complaint and handle it with more professionalism. Taco Bell needs to come up with a plan that will prove that their beef is actually what they say without insulting the accuser.

They should begin explaining why they do not use 100 percent beef in their tacos, which they are doing. Next, Taco Bell’s marketing and advertising must reflect this new campaign of knowledge, again, which they are doing. Including a legitimate study from the USDA, illustrating that the beef is safe to eat and not unhealthy (or going to kill you) along with statistics to back it up. Is also something to consider. Finally, constructing focus groups and filming them, following the Dominoes’ example, could be a fantastic way to demonstrate that they are seeking the customers’ input and are focused on providing a satisfying meal. Taco Bell is not doing, in my opinion, a successful job connecting with customers about this beef issue.

It will be interesting to watch the “Thank you for suing” campaign play itself out. While this public relation effort is an effort, Taco Bell needs to also focus on the customer they target. Explaining their quality beef is only half the battle. Without researching their customers, figuring out how they really feel about an 88 percent beef taco is crucial to a successful re-imaging of their company. Taco Bell is an international company. This suit against them is incredibly harmful to their overall reputation. I believe all efforts and money must be targeted at apologies for not explaining more clearly what their beef was made of, making the nutrition information more available (while it may be online, it should be advertised more in stores and through social media), as well as research their customers reactions to this lawsuit.

I will give them credit for the YouTube video, which has the president of Taco Bell, Greg Creed speaking out against the claims. But I believe it would be more effective to have customers discuss how they feel about 88 percent beef, not the president who never has any real interaction with the customers. People are less likely to listen to someone they cant relate to, such as the PRESIDENT of Taco Bell verses someone who is similar to themselves.

This campaign should also not just end in a couple of months. Taco Bell must now be incredibly cautious about how they advertise and double check with the customers on their feelings towards any marketing strategies. This issue will tarnish Taco Bell’s image for quite some time and to continue their successful business, they must forever change the way they advertise. Nothing should be the same. 

Taco Bells website
Taco Bell YouTube

Analysis of Eager Sellers, Stony Buyers

Analysis of Easy Sellers, Stony Buyers: Understanding the Psychology of New Product Adoption

According to John Gourville, associate professor of marketing at  Harvard Business School in Boston, companies who introduce new products tend to forget about the psychological effect that comes with changing their behavior for a new product. New products often require these consumers to change their behaviors and consumers hate having to change anything. They irrationally overvalue their current product and undervalue the benefits anything new could entail.

New products, such as electric cars or online books, are both better for the environment and easy to use, require consumers to change, to learn new skills to use the product and overall, requires them to purchase something new even though the old is not broken. Apple is a great example of a company that outdates their own products, causing consumers to have to buy the new product because the old is ‘broken.’ The new iPhone 4 has FaceTime and a greater graphics quality. The iPhone 3GS, while could shoot video and has decent graphic quality, was nothing compared to how nice the iPhone 4 is. To a loyal Apple fan, their old iPhone 3GS is now broken and they must purchase the new one. Why do consumers not see the value in an electric car? Because the car is not consider cool. It is not marketed as a must have item, where as Apple creates their new products as something required to be in the cool crowd.

Gourville says that consumers go through four characterists. First, “people evaluate the attractiveness of an alternative based not on its objective, or actual value, but on its perceived value.” For Apple fans, the iPhone 4’s perceived value is greater than its actual value. The FaceTime quality can only work in a Wifi zone and those high quality graphics do not make the phone work better. Second, “ consumers evaluate new products or investments relative to a reference point, usually the products they already own or consumer.” Apple users compare the perceived value of an iPhone 4 to the phone they currently have, viewing the new product as having a greater value than the phone they use currently. Third, “people view any improvements relative to this reference point as gains and treat all other shortcomings as loss.” 

The iPhone 4 gains to a loyal Apple brand user greatly overshadow any shortcomings, like the faulty antenna or expensive price. Finally, “losses have a far greater impact on people than similarly size gains…called loss aversion.” Apple managed to make the loss aversion miniscule compared to the advantages of their new product. They market the new iPhone 4 has something of power or something of status, causing the shortcomings to be insignificant to a loyal brand user.

The loss aversion, which causes consumers to value what they already have, is something that marketers really need to pay more attention too. Apple did. Apple made their new product become more valuable than consumers old phones. If more companies were like Apple, more new products could be launched successfully.  Gourville also says that the consumers overvalue the existing benefits by a factor of three and developers overvalue the benefit of their products by factor of three. This is called the 9x effect and it is a fundamental problem. Innovators need to have a better grasp on what consumers actually want and how willing they will be to part from what they already have. Consumers are irrational and there really is no way to predict what they want. So companies need to create a strong given value in their new product to attract their new target audience, much like Apple does.

I know that I pretty much say that Apple has the best marketing strategies, but honestly, look at their success… Apple DOES have one of the best marketing strategies. They make all their new products outdate their old products, leaving competition in the dust. They analyzed their consumers, understanding how best to market their new products in a way that created a want that the consumer had no idea they wanted, an added value in something they did not know they needed. That’s absolutely brilliant. 

Wrote this for MKTG 4320, based on Eager Sellers, Stony Buyers: Understanding the Psychology of New-Product Adoption by John T. Gourville. Direct quotes from his brilliant article. 

Do we need special laws for Twitter?

Are we finally going to place special laws for Twitter in our law books? To help protect sources? In this day and age, that is a definite possibility – but does it make sense? Twitter is a SOCIAL media outlet, keyword: social. Journalist should not use it as a truly accurate and reputable source because anyone can hack a Twitter account and post information. Or friends can hack the account for fun. Even direct messaging isn’t a safe and accurate source. I guess it bothers me that it is something that we even have to address. Anything posted on Twitter is fair game, it can’t be said that its private. I agree that sources should not receive anonymity but I also don’t think that they should even be taken as sources.

Think about it this way, by allowing people to provide sensitive information or even just spilling dirt via Twitter, how can you honestly trust that it’s the person you think it is? Just last week my friend left his account open on his computer and his roommates went in and changed everything on his Twitter account. Sure, it’s a far-fetched concept, but they could have contacted a journalist and said they knew someone who had information concerning the recent shooting the Congresswoman. People lie all the time. All I am saying is I don’t think Twitter should be considered a legitimate source with anonymity because it is a SOCIAL media outlet. There is no way to tell who is being honest and who is just messing around. I know, journalist need to research what sources say anyways. But I would not want to search out something only to determine it is false.

Twitter contacted people about the Wikileaks and informed them their information was being requested by the government. Sure social media is accessible now, but in five years, it could be outdated and untouched, overshadowed by another “in trend.” Why did the government even need to contact Twitter? The United States Government should be able to just check the Twitter accounts themselves. I guess it just irks me that Twitter is given this new special treatment when really, it is just like Facebook or Myspace: for social purposes.

Link: In a social media age

Purpose

This blog is for my JOUR 4460 class. I will post weekly for Ms. Bufkins