Barack Obama Chia Pet!

As amazed as I was and as hilarious as it sounds, there is (well sort-of was) a Barack Obama Chia Pet. I am proud and embarrassed to say that my company had it out on the shelves April 1st. But despite the popular demand, as fast as Walgreen’s was selling them, they were pulling the Chias from the shelves. In response to complaints, after just a week, Walgreen’s removed all the Barack Obama plant pets from their stores and sent them back to the warehouse.


The Chia Pet sprouts where Barack’s hair would be and eventually forms a “foliage afro” which I completely love and appreciate. Walgreen’s made one of those rational marketing decisions to sell the Chia but was quickly criticized with public remarks of racism. The creator of the Obama Chia Pet designed 2 different versions: one he calls “determined” and one is smiling. He claims that he was inspired to create it as a show of patriotism. Critics may think otherwise of the white man and were outraged when Walgreen’s decided to market it. I don’t think it was a wrong move for us to sell it. If our executives thought the product to be racist, they would not have sold it. For offending the public (our customers) is the last thing a retail chain wants to do. Especially when the subject is a national icon and the alleged offenders are a U.S. based company that has locations in almost all states. I also don’t think it was a bad thing that we pulled the Chia Pets from shelves. Walgreen’s acted out to un-do what people had thought they did wrong. This builds an ethical, responsive, and caring company that is attempting to remain reputable after one not-so-bad decision.

Sham WOW

If I say the name Vince Shlomi, you probably have no idea who I’m talking about. But, more than likely you’ve seen him on TV in a popular commercial. Better known as “the Sham Wow guy,” Shlomi is the up-in-your face endorser of the product that maintains an-almost-yelling voice for the entire commercial. Despite his current reputation, Shlomi does have affiliations other than the Sham Wow. He made a movie that received horrible reviews by critics, and struggled to sell it until he was inspired by the success of Girls Gone Wild. After he put the film on an informercial, it sold 50,000 copies.

Shlomi is now doing the same with the Sham Wow. The commercial has earned a spot on humor websites and I place this product is on my list of “ridiculous items”—ones that I actually find humorous and can’t believe that people buy—along with the Snuggie, and that thing that claims to pop the dents out a car. Despite the laughing, the commercial has sparked huge sales for the makers of Sham Wow.

Shlomi has recently gained some attention aside from his outrageous infomercial. It was reported in the news that he hired a prostitute (No-No #1) and when he attempted to kiss her, she bit his tongue and would not let go. Sham Wow guy then punched her several times until she let go, causing multiple facial fractures and lacerations (No-No #2). His previous reputation as a popular marketer (or so he calls himself) may be ruined. Will Sham Wow cut all ties to avoid public affiliation with an accused assaulter? Even more so, will the incident destroy Shlomi’s career or cause sales to decline? We have seen it happen before. Just recently, Michael Phelps lost sponsorships and promotional contracts were terminated after he was caught smoking weed. And Chris Brown is expected to lose a huge fan base and see a drop in record sales after being arrested for beating up girlfriend, Rhianna. Many radio stations are even refusing to ever play his music again. But we can only wait to see if Vince Shlomi’s case has gotten enough media exposure to elicit a hurtin on the Sham Wow.

Marketing Changes in the Big Pharmas

A guest speaker in one of my classes who is an executive at Astra Zeneca brought up one of biggest issues facing marketing at pharmaceutical companies. As of 2009, sales reps are no longer allowed to hand out samples, gifts, or tokens to health care professionals and their affiliates (which includes me as a University PharmD student). From the public perspective, this ritual was contributing to the astronomical drugs costs in America. I got to hear the other side of the story from the speaker. Companies now have limited access to physicians and are struggling to find effective ways to form relationships with practitioners. These relationships were beneficial to both the doctors and patients. The reps educated doctors about the drugs, new indications and research findings, and promoted the use of their products. Patients who are uninsured or can’t afford their medications could get samples to experiment a treatment before spending money on something that doesn’t work. They had access to the same quality of health care as any other patient.

The new policy has changed all of that. It is affecting the marketing of novel, brand name drugs and changing how the companies promote their products. On top of limited access to their target consumers—the prescribers—drug companies are simultaneously undergoing scrutiny in other areas. I sort of feel bad for them. The health care system has created this mess and the pharmas have to take the hit. They spend billions of dollars, and intangible time and resources discovering drugs and getting them approved. Yes, they then make money on them, but only for a limited amount of time. Once their patent expires, the generic drug steals 90% of sales and they can only hope that their name brand product will even survive. On top of all this, they no longer have the freedom to market their products in a way that was working.

Twitter what?

I knew that Twitter was huge, but I never felt compelled to venture into and explore this hit new social networking site. But after hearing the morning radio show hosts talk about it on my way to school, it occurred to me that if I don’t want to fall behind the times, I should see what the hype is all about. This is what I could find based on few clicks within the Google search results.

They market themselves as:
Twitter: What are you doing?
Twitter is a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time.
• The impression I get from this short title and tagline is “glorified AIM away messages.” It is also similar to posting a status on Facebook. These messaging utilities have become damn near stalker-ish. Apparently people always want to know what everyone else is doing at every moment of the day. Why? Because this is what has evolved from our immediate access to technology and networks. It started with AIM when we would wait for our friends to sign on and if they didn’t, we had to know why. Then we realized that away messages were useful—you could remain signed on and receive messages, but if your away message explained why you weren’t sitting next to the computer. When facebook came along, it had a status feature built in. After a few years of intensifying popularity of status updates, Twitter has developed a website that satisfies our craving to let people know we have lives and for readers to keep up with friends.

Twitter.com presents this:

What is Twitter?
“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”
• “What are you doing?” is Twitter’s marketing strategy.

Why use Twitter?
Why? Because even basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues—especially when they’re timely.
o Eating soup? Research shows that moms want to know.
o Running late to a meeting? Your co–workers might find that useful.
o Partying? Your friends may want to join you.
• Proves my point about our craving to know what other people are doing.

How does it work?
With Twitter, you can stay hyper–connected to your friends and always know what they’re doing. Or, you can stop following them any time. You can even set quiet times on Twitter so you’re not interrupted.

Twitter puts you in control and becomes a modern antidote to information overload.
• Quiet time?! Why not just sign out of the website or get away from the computer?!

Wikipedia was sure to give me some help with Twitter:
“Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow anybody to access them.”
• If that’s not stalker-ish, I don’t know what is! Subscribe to others, have followers, restricted communication….all describe a relationship between a stalker and victim.

I think I’ll stick to my original plan and not give into this one.

I’m Lovin’ It Virtually Integrated

McDonald’s acts as a virtually integrated company, but it is not an integrated company (from the point of ownership). The company does not own the materials, supplies, equipment, or restaurants that are integral to their success. From an organizational perspective though, McDonald’s is virtually integrated because they have the power to control every component within their supply chain down to the smallest of details like the seeds used to raise the potatoes used for their fries. The company is so closely tied with its suppliers and franchisees, that the whole system must be considered together because it acts together. This is the essence of McDonald’s- its system. They have established a web of close relationships that form a system geared toward providing products/services in a coordinated manner, or a strategic network. They control all the activities that end up in/involved with a product, but avoid the downfalls of operating as purely vertically integrated. More and more companies are imitating McDonald’s virtual integration in order to be more efficient, keep up with current technology, practices, and competition, and reduce costs.

Advertising vs Promotion

Advertising

• longer term effect on the brand
• long term strategy to build and protect the brand
  

Promotion

• greater impact on immediate sales figures
• move lots of volume, stimulate short-term sales
• quick fix to make the numbers
  

Advertising expenditure to sales promotion ratio (Prof. Shravan Rungta)-
US and Europe is 30: 70 (developed countries)
China and India is reverse 70: 30 (developing)

• It seems as the retailer’s power increases and competition becomes tougher, there is a shift toward higher sales promotion as companies are forced to focus on short-term gains rather than long-term profits.
• Promotions supposedly reward “loyal” buyers, but also encourage consumers to be “unfaithful” to other brands