Get the smell right and you can bypass rational thought

(7) Indeed, a second reason for a smellier futureis the innovation that will flow from advances both in our understanding of how different smells affect the mind and in new techniques to deliver them. Brain scans, for instance, can show how different smells fire up the brain’s pleasure centres. Some aromas have shown a remarkable ability to get customers to browse longer, spend more and come back to the store more often, says Eric Spangenberg of Washington State University, who has published several papers on the subject.

(8) Simon Harrop, chief executive of BRAND sense agency, reckons the power of scents comes from their close association with emotion and memory. Get the smell right and you can bypass rational thought. Field trials in stores have shown that aroma can achieve the holy grail of marketing. It can prompt customers to try new brands, and to stay loyal to them, he says.

(9) But retailers and their marketers are treading a path full of pitfalls. What are the ethics, for instance, of enticing obese people to buy snacks by wafting the smell of popcorn at them? And how much damage will be done to a company’s brand if its customers realise that it has, quite literally, been leading them about by the nose?

►Question/Answer session:

1. Translate the third sentence in paragraph 5 and explain the use of ‘experience’ in plural. Compare it with the use of ‘experience’ in its uncountable meaning.

2. After translating the first sentence in paragraph 5, please consult a dictionary and explain the differences, if any, in the use and the translation of:

w A frontier

w A border

w A margin

w An edge

w A line

w A brink

3. Give a contextual translation of the words, phrases and sentences in boldface.

4. Hold a discussion on Smells, Sights and Sounds: The Holy Grail of Marketing.

‘PUZZLE-3’ POINT

►Choose the correct answer and explain your choice:

1. Consumers make choices based on ___ the value and satisfaction that various products and services deliver.
1. their perceptions of
2. promotional campaigns highlighting
3. availability of credit and
4. word-of-mouth promoting
2. The overall process of building and maintaining profitable customer relationships by delivering superior customer value and satisfaction is known as customer ___.
1. lifetime value
2. relationship management
3. perceived value
4. satisfaction
3. ___ is the customer’s evaluation of the difference between all the benefits and all the costs of a marketing offer relative to those of competing offers.
1. Customer perceived value
2. An acceptable selling price
3. An effective promotional campaign
4. Supply chain economics
4. The aim of customer relationship management is to produce___.
1. maximum profitability
2. maximum product exposure
3. high customer equity
4. cross selling
5. The process of dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers with different needs, characteristics or behavior who might require separate products or marketing programs is called ___.
1. market targeting
2. market segmentation
3. market positioning
4. market aggregation

‘PUZZLE-4’ POINT

►Guess whether it is true or false and explain why:

1. Building customer relationships based on customer value and satisfaction is at the very heart of modern marketing.

2. The twofold goal of marketing is to attract new customers by promising superior value and to keep and grow current customers by delivering satisfaction.

3. The product concept suggests that an organization should devote considerable effort making continuous product improvements.

4. Mass marketing, which is selling in a standardized way to any and all customers, is an especially appropriate marketing strategy in today's fragmented market place.

5. Marketing activities may be performed not only by sellers, but also by potential customers.

6. Marketing offers are not limited to physical objects, but they may include persons, places, organizations, information, and ideas.

7. A market is made up of only the actual buyers of a product or service and does not include potential buyers.

8. Marketing management involves managing demand, but it does not involve managing customer relationships because that would be viewed as manipulative.

9. Marketing managers need to work closely with managers from other departments and functions to develop a system of functional plans under which the different departments can work together to accomplish the company's overall strategic objective.

‘CASE-1’ POINT

Simply Zara

(1) The first Zara store opened more than 25 years ago in La Coruña, Spain, which is still the company’s corporate headquarters. Over the years, Zara has grown to be the largest unit of Inditex. The parent company also includes five smaller fashion chains selling such lines as lingerie, teen styles, and upscale men’s clothing. Collectively, the Inditex units sell more than 90 million garments a year.

(2) Once Zara decided to make speed in implementation and responsiveness to fashion-conscious shoppers its hallmarks, its overall strategy fell into place. For example, most of its products are made in Spain whereas competitors typically use producers in developing countries in order to obtain lower labor costs. But as Inditex’s CEO explains, ‘The fashion world is in constant flux and is driven not by supply but by customer demand. We need to give consumers what they want, and if I go to South America or Asia to make clothes, I simply can’t move fast enough.’

(3) The same rationale guides operations at the company’s 5-million-square-foot warehouse (the size of about 90 football fields). This enormous space is connected to 14 Zara factories by tunnels that carry merchandise on rails and cables to separate staging areas for every Zara store. ‘The vast majority of the items are in here only a few hours,’ says Inditex’s logistics director. Managers and technical specialists monitor the physical distribution system constantly, considering details such as the sequence and size of deliveries, departure times, and shipping routes.

(4) Deliveries are scheduled by time zone; orders for the Americas and Asia are packed and shipped in the morning and orders for Europe in the afternoon. ‘We are always fine-tuning things, with the same objectives: flexibility and speed,’ says the logistics director. The aim is to deliver merchandise to stores before they open, when trucks can more easily cope with downtown traffic and store managers can readily accept and process the deliveries. A new warehouse, which will double Inditex’s capacity, is being built northeast of Madrid, Spain.

(5) Zara does almost no advertising or other promotion. What little it does, it announces new stores and reminds customers about a new fashion season a couple of times yearly. None of Inditex’s chains, including Zara, sells through the Internet or catalogs. ‘The center of it all is the store,’ explains the group’s managing director.

(6) A combination of good fashion sense, real-time information from consumers, tightly controlled production, and carefully designed logistics, along with rapid implementation, of course, has helped triple Inditex’s revenues in recent years.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 980