Great Ideas for Teaching Marketing
Ideas and resources for teaching marketing
Preferred format: This teaching activity is designed for small groups of students to discuss aggressive competitive strategies, particularly on a head-to-head basis.
Student audience: This exercise is more suitable for students of marketing strategy.
Exercise time: The group discussion time should be around 10 minutes, plus additional time for an overall class discussion.
The table below contains the standard top-level website metrics that every marketer needs to be familiar with. Your task is to assess the relative performance of these websites.
ACTIVITY/TASK
| Site A | Site B | Site C | |
| Visitors | 10,000 | 100,000 | 200,000 |
| Visits | 40,000 | 120,000 | 400,000 |
| Pageviews | 200,000 | 150,000 | 2,000,000 |
| CPC budget | $5,000 | $40,000 | $100,000 |
| Bounce rate | 20% | 80% | 50% |
QUESTIONS
Use Porter’s Five-forces model to help analyze the book publishing industry, simply based on the hypothetical information and data presented below.
ACTIVITY/TASK
The book publishing industry in Australia
Retailers often face the challenge of deciding between ‘everyday low pricing’ and ‘high-low’ pricing. As suggested by the names, the first approach uses a consistent low pricing approach, where the second approach utilizes higher prices combined with frequent specials/discounts. Your task is to help determine what would be the best pricing approach.
ACTIVITY/TASK
Greg:
At this meeting we need to … See the full activity...
One of the key requirements for achieving success as an ongoing price discounter is to create a cost leadership position. That means that the firm has built some cost advantages over their competition.
This activity quickly highlights some of the practices that Aldi Supermarkets (a relatively new discount supermarket in Australia) have adopted to achieve a cost leadership position and … See the full activity...
In this exercise, you are presented with eight product alternatives, as you would find in a supermarket environment. As you will see, price is simply one aspect of the consumer’s perception of value. So review the following list of pasta sauces, which one would you buy?
ACTIVITY/TASK
|
Brand |
Positioning/Marketing |
Price |
|
A |
The leading brand name – heavily advertising on TV |
In this activity, your task is to set the price for a new home-delivered spring water (the large bulk bottles) company. To complicate matters, you have a few different viewpoints on the best pricing approach. What would you decide?
ACTIVITY/TASK
Spring water is a product that has become popular over the past 10-15 years or so. During the growth … See the full activity...
While it is generally acknowledged that it is best to stay out of a price-cutting war, sometimes competitor actions will force you into one. In this activity, your firm is restaurant C and one of your competitors has recently cut their prices. The question is how you will respond.
ACTIVITY/TASK
Three Blue Mountains Restaurants
Let’s assume that there are three … See the full activity...
Firms need to take care when responding to competitor’s action with a pricing change, as this could trigger a potential price war. Therefore, in this activity you need to identify what would be the most appropriate pricing reaction for the following generic situations actions.
ACTIVITY/TASK
The following is an excerpt from a manager’s meeting for firm that produces entertainment/game consoles (like PlayStation, Xbox, Wii). They are trying to decide whether to use a price penetration or price skimming strategy in the upcoming launch of their game console. Can you help them decide?
ACTIVITY/TASK
Ken:
Thanks for coming everyone. This is our price setting meeting … See the full activity...
Read the following case study on a hypothetical product manager for frozen pizza. They are faced with a strategic challenge for which way to growth the business. If you were this product manager, what would you do?
ACTIVITY/TASK
Larry is a product manager for frozen pizza for a large national firm. He is in his late 20’s and is … See the full activity...
The number of private label (brands exclusive to a retailer) products has grown steadily in recent years. In particular, a number of supermarket chains have increased private label products in their supermarkets as part of their strategy, mainly for differentiation and profitability purposes.
But why would a large manufacturer want to produce a private label product that will directly compete … See the full activity...
For this exercise, you need to identify the competitive set for a manufacturer of instant coffee (such as Nestle’s many brands of coffee, sold via retailers). The aim of this activity is to think beyond just like-competitors (that is, other manufacturers of coffee). We need to consider what types of products and offerings would form their indirect competition (often offering … See the full activity...
Below is a case study of a hypothetical toy manufacturer (Fun 4 U) that is faced with two distinct marketing strategy choices. Your task here is to determine, based on the information available, the best approach for the firm. Remember to think about the firm’s existing strengths (as you assess them) and how they may be able to compete successfully … See the full activity...
In this exercise, you are presented with a summary of a discussion from a manager’s meeting, which highlights the for and against of a franchised food retailer (like Subway) expanding their product range. As you see, their proposed move has both significant opportunities as well as substantial risks. Your task is help the firm decide what they should do.
