Cesim SIMBrand Simulation Game Hands-on workshop

I organised a hands-on workshop for the CESIM SIMBrand online simulation game for members of our department.

It was run by Waqas Mir from CESIM. Only 6 staff members turned up for the workshop but based on the feedback of those who attended, I felt that it was a great success overall. Even though I have successfully run this game for 4 different UG and PG classes, I still learnt a few new things in the workshop.

The new Mercede-Benz interactive ad campaign

Check out the late advertising campaign from Mercedes-Benz promoting their new A-Class model. It is the first to use Twitter, the micro-blogging tool, in this way.

They are asking Twitter users to determine the outcome of a TV ad which will be aired for the first time during this weeks X Factor.

According to the storyline, a young musician and his female friend is trying to get to a gig driving the new Mercedes and chased by the police. There are several possible endings and Twitter users decide the outcome using the tag #YOUDRIVE in their tweets.

Teaching in the New Academic Year

I will be teaching the following courses at Coventry Business School this academic year 2012 - 2013:

Under Graduate
203MKT - Marketing Management (used to be 262MKT)

Post Graduate
M05MKT - Marketing Planning
M21MKT  - E-Marketing

Previously I had taught:

M11MKT - Research Methods (Marketing)

363MKT - International Marketing Strategy and

267MKT - Principles of Marketing.


I start teaching a group of MBA Marketing students tomorrow.

Ordinary Consumers as Brand Ambassadors

We normally associate Brand Ambassadors with actors and actresses, models and sports personalities. However, you might be surprised to learn that Edaran Tan Chong Motor, the official distributors of Nissan cars in Malaysia have recently selected four lucky people out of hundreds of applicants as Nissan LEAF Ambassadors. These lucky guys are using the Nissan Leaf for six weeks and are sharing their experiences.

However, when I looked at who these lucky ambassadors were, I noticed a few familiar names. they are definitely not ordinary - at least two of them are well known bloggers in Malaysia. Jason Goh who blogs at Smashin' Popstar and Daniel Yap who blogs at Eternal hobbyist.

It does make perfect sense and is not something new as companies have been using bloggers to review (and promote) their products (and services) for a while. Bloggers are opinion leaders and several blogs have readerships that run into thousands. Studies have shown that they are perceived as more credible than even traditional media, including newspapers and may be the reason that websites of newspapers are increasingly looking like blogs. And unlike other celebrities, they do not require you to pay them millions to become a brand ambassador. Plus you get fantastic original and creative consumer generated content followed by online word-of-mouth marketing.

However, it can be risky as well. Many bloggers are known to be quite independent and speaking their mind. They might end up rubbishing your product and your brand name, if they had a bad experience using them.

DPR reviewee workshop

DPR AC - Reviewee workshop

DPR is the acronym for Development and Performance Review and it's something that all employees have to face in most organisations.

This workshop was Run by the Learning and Development Team of Coventry University.
On the 27th of July 2012 from 09:30 am - 12:30 pm at the TechoCentre, room: CC2.1

The session was run by Anna Chapman, HR Learning and Development Adviser.

As this is going to be my first DPR at Coventry University, I thought it might be useful to understand the key areas to consider in completing my DPR form. I have been evaluated before but I guess each organisation has it's own unique way to review the performance of their employees.

I was not disappointed and learnt that my objective would need to be SMART:

•S: Specific
•M: Measurable
•A: Achievable (and Agreed)
•R: Relevant (or Resourced, or Realistic!)
•T: Time-linked

There were some examples of not so "SMART" objectives. However, I would have liked some good examples of good objectives.

I also found out that if we get an "Outstanding" in the DPR, we get to jump 2 levels on the payscale - a really good motivation.

Reading list for Branding Module

A couple of minutes ago, a colleague asked me whether I could recommend some seminal journal papers on branding. Somehow, I could not think of a single one. All I could think of was the book Strategic Brand Management by Kevin Lane Keller. This may be due to the fact that branding is not really my area of specialisation. Contrary to what some people seem to think, marketing is such a wide field.

Anyway, had a look on the net and here is a list of some widely cited papers on branding:

 Aaker, Jennifer Lynn (1997). Dimensions of Brand Personality, Journal of Marketing Research, 34(Aug), 347-356.

Fan, Y. (2002) The National Image of Global Brands, Journal of Brand Management, 9(3), 180-192.

de Chernatony, L. (1999) Brand Management Through Narrowing the Gap Between Brand Identity and Brand Reputation, Journal of Marketing Management, 15(1-3), 157-179.

Geuens, Maggie, Bert Weijters and Kristoff De Wulf (2009). A New Measure of Brand Personality, International Journal of Research in Marketing, 26, 97-107.

Gounaris, S. and Stathakopoulos, V. (2004)Antecedents and consequences of brand loyalty: An empirical study, Journal of Brand Management 11, 283–306.

Holt, D. B. (2002), Why Do Brands Cause Trouble? A Dialectical Theory of Consumer Culture and Branding, Journal of Consumer Research 29(1), 70-90.

Low, G. S. and Fullerton. R. A. (1994), Brands, Brand Management, and the Brand Manager System: A Critical-Historical Evaluation, Journal of Marketing Research, 31(2), Special Issue on Brand Management, 173-190.

Shocker, A. D., Srivastava, R. K. and Ruekert, R. W. (May, 1994) Challenges and Opportunities Facing Brand Management: An Introduction to the Special Issue, Journal of Marketing Research, 31(2), Special Issue on Brand Management , 149-158.


Please feel free to send me your recommendations and/ or comments on the list

One internet minute

Just received this interesting diagram of what happens in one internet minute. It's astounding.

Thanks Alejandra.

Redefining Marketing

Ana Isabel Canhoto, Senior Lecturer at Oxford Brookes, has written an interesting post on her blog, discussing ‘This thing called marketing'.

A few years ago, I had posted something related on my old Warwick blog on "Selling is not marketing". Anyway, Ana mentions that the definition she usually refers to is the one given by the Chartered Institute of Marketing which describes marketing as:

‘The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.’ 

This definition is my favourite as well. However, I feel that there is a need to update this definition.

As I commented on Ana's post,  the growing importance of Social marketing has presented some unique issues, where positive social change is the main objective and not fiscal targets. This may mean that the term "profitably" in the CIM definition may not be applicable all the time.

Furthermore, I would add 'and maintaining' just after 'satisfying'. From personal experience and what I have heard from other people, it seems that a lot of companies here in the UK  are totally ignorant or choose to ignore the concept "LOYALTY".

Jubilympic celebrations

I was on air today morning on the Annie Othen Show on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire. I was asked to give my opinion on whether I thought businesses taking advantage of the Jubilee and Olympics (Jubilympics!) celebrations.

You can listen to the recording here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/p00rxydt

 In case you are not aware, the 2012 Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations are coming up soon. Everyone is getting into the mood. However, some feel that stores are taking advantage. One listener had complained that a shop had wrapped up her favourite sponge cakes in new packaging (the Union jack), increased the prices and reduced the number of cakes.

 Of course this is nothing new. Businesses do it all the time - "making hay while the Sun shines" and in this case, profiteering from patriotism. However, they have to remember that consumers are not stupid and they risk alienating their costumers, as it happened in this case with the lady and the cakes.

 I also touched on the union Jack themed products. I believe that the party products including paper plates, cups, napkins buntings and balloons will do really well considering that over 10,000 applications for street parties have been put forward all over the UK. However, you now see the British flags on all kinds of products ranging from M&Ms, cups to napkins and as someone reported on the programme, even on toilet paper and nappies. Well, I feel that's taking it a little bit too far. In other countries, people could go to jail for disrespecting the flag, if they did something like that. It would be interesting to study the national differences towards using the flag on products.

Do you think that putting the national flag on a paper napkin is right? I mean you will wipe your mouth on it and throw it in a bin afterwards on they could end on the floor with people walking on them.

 Regarding the celebrations and decorations, as someone who comes from India and has spent several years in Malaysia, I definitely feel that the celebrations have been rather low key considering that having the Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee are once in a lifetime events. I have to agree with my colleagues - it is definitely a great excuse for people to come together and celebrate. I definitely do not feel exploited - there are a lot of choices around and we need an excuse to have fun, especially during these hard economic times. It's good for the British economy as well - just look at all the publicity and goodwill which the Royal Wedding generated last year. It all ends up strengthening the national brand.

VW engaging customers via social media

Volkswagen, the German car maker is actively targeting customers on Facebook by getting them involved in their advertising campaigns. No, I am not talking about customer generated advertising which is a popular buzz word today but rather about getting customers to say nice things about the brand or product (positive testimonials) and using these in their advertising campaigns.

This is not a new concept in advertising and businesses and organisations often use positive testimonials to promote their products. However, it is the way that VW is actively soliciting and appealing to the "ego" of customers or the novelty effect and making innovative use of the technology, which is quite interesting.

I took part in two of their campaigns - just for the experience.

The first one was the " Beetle Billboard Times Square Experience". All I had to do was "like" the new Beetle (targeted at Men) and my face appeared live on the Volkswagen Beetle Billboard in Times Square, New York for a few seconds. This was in October last year.

The second campaign was the Volkswagen "Big up the up!". All we had to do was say something nice about the new VW up! car ("bigged up the new up!") and they would then feature your FB profile on huge digital posters across the UK.

A great way to get customers engaged with the brand and product. Do you agree? Any possible issues?