Can virtual reality go mainstream? Facebook would like to believe the answer to that question is a resounding "yes!• The company has big plans for its virtual reality offering, the Oculus Rift, which is designed to transform how people play games, view videos. and share the experiences of their social lives. TheRift is one of three premium virtual reality headsets new to the market. and it's no small market with estimated value at more than $16 billion. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes thatvirtual reality has come a long way in a short time and that we are "entering the golden age of video and animation.•Inspired by the gaming market, Palmer Luckey, founderof Oculus, created a prototype for a virtual reality headsetthat would later become the Oculus Rift. In 2012, he begana Kickstartcrowdfunding campaign to finance the developmentof the product, eventually generating more than $2.4million in funds. Over the next few years, the product wentthrough five working prototypes released to developers andthe public for feedback. In 2014, Zuckerberg raised the questionof what will be the next best thing in tech, and the answerwas that it would be the viewing of movies. Television,and other content in an immersive 3-D environment. Soonafter, Facebook purchased Oculus for $2 billion.In 2016, the Rift went on sale fOl $599, supported by dozensof games. Other uses include viewing conventional moviesand videos, 360° 30 videos, and "virtual reality movies.• But alas,problems plagued the earty stages of the product~ introduction.The first shipments vvere delayed by a component shortage inthe production p<0cess. Jason Rubin, Head of Studio, expressedthe comp~ embarrassment, apologized for the delays, andoffered free shipping to everyone who had placed orders. In addition,some people complained of motion sickness when usingthe Rift. Oculus has since issued developers a software fix thatreduces the likelihood that anyone will suffer any nausea.Other companies are rushing to join the virtual realitymarketplace as well. Two of the major players are HTC andSony. HTC, working with Valve Corp., introduced the Vwe, a$799 headset designed to use while the user is standing upand walking around. Sony introduced the $399 PlayStation VR headset to compete as a lower priced option for the market.In conjunction with its launch, Sony created a new PlayStation4 with better performance 10 effectively run the virtual reality options.Facebook understands that the Rift represents a reallynew technology and thus will initially appeal to a limited market, although the growth potential is very high. Zuckerbergrecognizes that video is presently the most popular mode ofsharing but that virtual reality will soon be in second place. Theoutlook is favourable, and some professional revievvers havesuggested that this may be the biggest tech product since the introduction of the iPhone (although using the Oculus Rift is significantly more complicated than using a smartphone). Yet despite the potential, success for the product and the technologyoverall is not guaranteed. Now that Facebook has taken the steps to develop its new product, it has to find ways to convince customers to adopt it. 1-What is the decision facing Facebook? 2-What factors are important in understanding this decision situation? 3-What are the alternatives? 4-What decision(s) do you recommend? 5-What are some ways to implement your recommendation?
> Explain the stages a consumer goes through in the adoption of a new product.
> List and explain the steps marketers undergo to develop new products.
> Many times firms take advantage of their popular, well-known brands by developing brand extensions because they know that the brand equity of the original or parent brand will be transferred to the new product. If a new product is of poor quality, it can
> What it R&D, and what is its importance to marketers and the product development process?
> What is a new product? Why is understanding new products so important to marketers? What are the types of innovations?
> What types of products are bought and sold in B2B markets?
> What is an unsought product? How do marketers make such products attractive to consumers?
> Develop a team report of your findings. In each section of the report, share what you learned that is new or surprising to you compared to what you expected.
> Identify an innovative product that was just recently introduced into the market and using the five characteristics that affect the rate of adoption (relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability) evaluate the product on
> What is the difference between a durable good and a nondurable good? What are the main differences among convenience, shopping, and specialty products?
> Are there potential risks to involving consumers in the development of new products through processes associated with value co-creation as discussed in the chapter? What factors might make a value co-creation approach more or less suitable for the develo
> What is return on marketing investment (ROMI)? How does considering marketing as an investment instead of an expense affect a firm?
> Explain the steps in the marketing planning process.
> Describe the four business growth strategies: market penetration, product development, market development, and diversification.
> How do firms use the BCG model for portfolio analysis in planning for their SBUs?
> How do marketers customize pricing with pricing segmentation, peak load pricing, and surge pricing? How can marketers price to meet the need of bottom of the pyramid consumers?
> Describe the five steps in the strategic planning process.
> What is a strategic business unit (SBU)? How does strategic planning differ at the corporate and the SBU levels?
> What is a mission statement? What is a SWOT analysis? What role do these play in the planning process?
> Describe the three levels of business planning: strategic, functional, and operational planning.
> What is a marketing plan, and how does it differ from a business plan?
> Most planning involves strategies for growth. But is growth always the right direction to pursue? Can you think of some organizations that should have contraction rather than expansion as their objective? Do you know of any organizations that have actual
> You are interested in the role that Six Sigma plays with regard to product quality. Using the Internet, research the concept of Six Sigma and find at least two case studies on companies that employ Six Sigma in their day-to-day activities. Summarize your
> Explain needs, wants, and demands. What is the role of marketing in each of these?
> When most people think of successful marketing, internal firm culture doesn’t immediately come to mind as a contributing factor. You may have learned about corporate culture in a management course. What is a corporate culture? What are some reasons a fir
> All businesses—big and small—need to plan if theywant to be profitable and sustainable. Contact one of yourfavourite local businesses and make an appointment with someone who has a hand in developing the firm’s business plan. Find out how much time the
> For new products, when is skimming pricing more appropriate, and when is penetration pricing the best strategy? When would trial pricing be an effective pricing strategy?
> Identify a large company, like Disney, that has severalSBUs. Using the BCG model, assign at least one SBU to each category in the model: star, cash cow, question mark, and dog. Include at least two pieces of data for each to justify your categorization.
> Describe the utilitarianism, rights, fairness or justice, common good, and virtue approaches to ethical decision making. What is ethical relativism?
> What are the arguments for standardization of marketing strategies in the global marketplace? What are the arguments for localization? What are some ways a firm can standardize or localize its marketing mix?
> Describe the four globalization strategies representing levels of involvement for a firm: exporting, contractual agreements, strategic alliances, and direct investment.
> What do marketers mean when they refer to technological and sociocultural environments? Why do they need to understand these environments in a global marketplace?
> What aspects of the political and legal environment influence a firm’s decision to enter a foreign market? Why are human rights issues important to firms in their decisions to enter global markets?
> What are a monopoly, an oligopoly, monopolistic competition, and pure competition?
> Develop a presentation that summarizes your efforts for each of the following phases of new product development: a. Phase 1: Idea generation: Create (in your mind) a new product item that might be of interest to college students such as yourself. Develo
> Explain the types of competition marketer’s face: discretionary income competition, product competition, and brand competition.
> Define the terms consumer goods, services, and industrial goods.
> Explain and give an example of cost-plus pricing, target costing, and yield management pricing.
> Explain how GDP, the categories of economic development, and the business cycle influence marketers’ decisions in entering global markets. What are the BRICS countries? What is the Group of Seven (G7)?
> Explain what world trade means. What is the role of the WTO and economic communities in encouraging free trade? What is the role of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in global trade? What is protectionism? Explain import quotas, embargoe
> Why is it increasingly important that firms engage in sustainability? What are some ways strategies for the Four Ps can include sustainability?
> What is ethnocentricism?
> Describe the market conditions that influence a firm’s decision to enter foreign markets.
> Ethical relativism suggests that what is ethical in one culture may not be considered ethical in another. What should the attitude of businesses be when differences occur? Should businesses follow the ethical values and practices of their own country or
> Ford Motor Company has committed to investing $1.6 billionto construct a small car plant in the San Luis Potosi State inMexico. This will result in the creation of more than 2,800 jobsin the country. The Center for Automotive Research states thatU.S. aut
> What happens when you are no longer "the Happiest Placeon Earth"? The Walt Disney Company doesn't want to findout and is "reimagining" its pricing strategy. Responding tothe ever-increasing demand for theme park tickets, especiallyat peak times, Disney h
> What is your viewpoint about measuring creativity? Do you believe it is more constructive or damaging to organizational innovation? Support your opinions.
> Do you know how many different ways there are to enjoy an almond? According toagricultural cooperative Blue DiamondGt0wers, quite a few! After a price spike for almonds earlier inthis decade, a market correction has occurred, prices have fallen,and deman
> Give an example of how the competitive environment influences prices. What about government regulation and consumer trends? What are some ways the global environment can influence a firm’s pricing strategies?
> What's for dinner? Sprig would like to play a part in a health conscious customer's answer to that question. Sprig is an on demand delivery restaurant that offers balanced meals which are fully prepared and delivered in 15 to 20 minutes. The company focu
> There is always room for more. At least that's what Airbus thinks. It has improved on its A320 product family (the world's best-selling aircraft) and introduced the A320neo (new engine option). The A320neo is available with two different engine configura
> How would you like it if every time you used your medication somebody knevv about it? Novartis wants to collect information in the cloud whenever someone uses its Breezhaler inhaler. The company has entered into an agreement with Qualcomm Life. Inc. to c
> We all know that the world has gone mobile! But how does this change impact the way market research is done? According to the Pew Research Center, 30 percent of cell phone owners use their phones as their primary Internet access point. Consumers are chan
> In marketing, yesterday's success quickly becomes old news. How should one of the world's largest retailers plan to build on its' previous achievements? In the retail marketplace, it is becoming harder for companies to differentiate themselves from the c
> Some of the U.S. population supports free trade, whereas others are unhappy, even angry, that the government has reduced regulations on imports of such products as textiles and furniture, causing factories to shut down and employees to lose their jobs. T
> Explain how unethical marketers might use bait-and-switch tactics, price-fixing, and predatory pricing. What is surge pricing?
> What are trade margins? How do they relate to the pricing for a producer of goods?
> What is a good? What are the differences between tangible and intangible products?
> What is break-even analysis?
> Explain these psychological aspects of pricing: price-quality inferences, odd-even pricing, internal reference price, price lining, and prestige pricing.
> Explain variable costs, fixed costs, average variable costs, average fixed costs, and average total costs.
> Explain how the demand curves for normal products and for prestige products differ. What are demand shifts and why are they important to marketers? How do firms go about estimating demand? How can marketers estimate the elasticity of demand?
> Describe and give examples of some of the following types of pricing objectives: profit, market share, competitive effect, customer satisfaction, and image enhancement.
> What is price, and why is it important to a firm? What is digital currency, such as Bitcoin?
> Some retailers have used decoy pricing to increase the number of sales of a higher priced alternative. Describe decoy pricing. What are some products that would be good choices for decoy pricing? Is this practice ethical? Why or why not?
> Many very successful retailers use a loss leader pricing strategy, in which they advertise an item at a price below their cost and sell the item at that price to get customers into their store. They feel that these customers will continue to shop with th
> In many oligopolistic industries, firms follow a price leadership strategy, in which an accepted industry leader sets, raises, or lowers prices and the other firms follow. In what ways is this policy good and bad for the industry? In what ways is this go
> Several online stores now sell products to consumers at different prices based on the user’s information, such as geographical location—which determines your proximity to competitors and your area’s average income. Although this practice, known as Intern
> In 1999, several single European nations banded together to form the European Union and converted their individual monetary systems over to the euro. Do you believe there will ever be other economic communities that would follow this path? Explain your r
> What product factors affect the rate of adoption of innovations?
> Develop a team presentation for your class that summarizes your findings. Conclude your presentation with comments on what your team believes the company was doing that was particularly good and what was not quite so good.
> Some countries have been critical of the export of American culture via movies, television, music and many American consumer goods by U.S. businesses. What about American culture might be objectionable? Can you think of some products that U.S. marketers
> Explain the differences between undifferentiated, differentiated, concentrated, and customized marketing strategies. What is mass customization?
> List the criteria marketers use to determine whether a segment may be a good candidate for targeting.
> What are some of the ways marketers segment B2B markets?
> List and explain the major demographic characteristics frequently used in segmenting consumer markets.
> What is market segmentation, and why is it an important strategy in today’s marketplace?
> What is market fragmentation, and what are its consequences for marketers?
> Working as a team with two or three other students in your class, select an organization in your community that practices marketing. It may be a manufacturer, a service provider, a retailer, a not-for-profit organization—almost any organization will do.
> What do marketers mean by creating a brand personality? What examples can you come up with of uses of brand anthropomorphism?
> How do marketers use perceptual maps to help them develop effective positioning strategies?
> What is product positioning?
> In recent years, for packaged products the FDA has proposed that companies include the percentage daily value for added sugar on the nutrition label. The primary reasoning behind this proposal is that it would provide information on added sugars comparab
> What is behavioral segmentation?
> Explain the process of consumer psychographic segmentation.
> What is a target marketing strategy?
> A few years ago, Anheuser-Busch Inc. created a new division dedicated to marketing to Hispanics and announced it would boost its ad spending in Hispanic media by two-thirds to more than $60 million, while Miller Brewing Co. signed a $100 million, three-y
> In this chapter, you learned about the use of geotargeting and its capability to more precisely provide consumers with benefits such as promotions that are especially relevant and impactful to a particular group. Could geotargetting backfire for a compan
> You probably had more than one school in mind before you ultimately decided on the college or university you are now attending. To better understand how consumers make decisions, prepare an outline that shows how internal influences like perception, moti
> During the last week of class, your professor explains how she wants to employ a gamification strategy next semester to further motivate and engage students, and she is asking for your help. Develop a simple gamification strategy that she can use in the
> We learned in this chapter that when considering a product need, consumers have an evoked set of brands and a consideration set of brands. With some of your classmates, conduct a simple research study and explain your results using the following steps. S
> Rank the conversion actions in order of importance and include an explanation of why you have ordered them as such. Identify whether they are short-term oriented as they relate to the organization’s objectives or long term-oriented (or, in some cases, bo
> If you could choose only two marketing metrics (remember metrics, not conversions) to track for each of these websites, identify which two you would select for each website and explain why.
> Are there specific products that you purchase where branding does not matter and has never mattered to you? What characteristics of the related products and your own individual preferences can help explain why this might be the case?
> How would data be collected for each element, and how might management at JC Penney utilize that data to provide loyal customers with a very strong relationship with the firm?
> In what ways could JC Penney expect to measure the four elements of CRM above within the context of a reward program such as this?
> What is a cost-per-order? What kind of information do marketers gain from this metric?
> What is a conversion? What are some examples of conversions on an e-commerce website?
> What is a click-through rate, and how is it calculated?
> To what does the lifetime value of the customer refer, and how is it calculated?
