Jacob
McCown
Prof.
Begert
Literature
Review
11/5/14
Nowadays businesses are focusing more
attention on reaching customers via the internet as opposed to using the more
traditional tactics, such as customers’ phone numbers and home address. Businesses do this with the assumption that
they are saving money and reaching more people in a faster and more positive
way. However some still stand firmly
behind the traditional methods believing that the customers respond better to
the traditional ways and that the newer ways can be too invasive in some
instances. This paper will reflect the
findings on ample research about this topic.
It will look at which forms of marketing is truly more effective, which
is cheaper, whether or not some of the
methods used now are too invasive or creepy, and overall which is preferred by
customers in this day and age. It may be
that people are becoming a little more use to what in previous generations
would be called breaches in privacy, and are actually responding well to the
new and more invasive tactics. In my
research three categories of information have presented themselves most
often. These categories are as follows:
the study of geofencing, the continued use of traditional tactics, the
modernization of marketing, and the ethics involved in the use of more invasive
strategies.
In my paper I will be looking into the
use and effectiveness of geofencing. In
my research I found that the journal Location-Based Social Networking and
Services contains many informative
articles on the subject. For example Data Alliance, a marketing company, wrote
an article titled "Retailers May Benefit from Geofencing” This is one of
the three article I use from this specific trade journal, this one will be the
first I present in my paper. This
article provides background to geofencing and also a positive light on it. It explains that geofencing is a form of
location-based advertising in which a retailer sends a text-based promotion to
consumers who have opted in to receive communications from the said retailer. A
message is texted to consumers who are in the store's vicinity or targeted
location. Unlike traditional advertising, it enables businesses to deliver
pertinent messages to consumers at the most opportune place and time. Sidney Hill
wrote another article in the trade journal "Location-Based Social
Networking Is Not Attracting Many Users." This is number two of the three
articles from this specific trade journal I will be looking at. This one talks
about how few people are actually using “location based services”, and how when
they launched, location-based services promised to take social networking to
the next level, by allowing users to "check in" at businesses like restaurants,
coffee shops, and stores, that they shop at often. Checking in is supposed to allow your friends
to know where you are and give people a way of discovering exciting new places
to shop and mingle by tracking where their friends are checking in. However, only 4% of Americans have ever even
used this services to date. (At the time of this article written in 2011) I
will be using this to help expand my knowledge of new methods and how effective
they are. Matt silk authored
"Geofencing Can Be an Invasion of Privacy" which is the third and
final article from this specific trade journal. This article shows a different
side to geofencing. The author explains
that constantly monitoring the whereabouts of consumers is not only expensive
but is intrusive and the use of real-time location data to reach consumers on
their mobile devices is highly personal. This article add a different viewpoint
to my previous research and will be used in the ethics and geofencing portion
of my paper. Xueming Luo also added to
my research on my location based studies in his article "Mobile Targeting"
found in Management Science. This article delves deep into the correct
place, geographically, and correct time, temporally, to reach out to customers
via text message. (SMS) Lou tests if
alerting the customer on the same day of a sale is more effective than the day
before or not, and if alerting the customer when they get close to the store is
better than when they are a ways away.
They found that they can be most helpful individually. This article really helped me to understand
the usefulness of mobile targeting and geofencing.
Some of the
sources that helped explain how traditional tactics that are still used were
pretty old, but they still helped explain these strategies. For example Victor J. Cook Jr wrote "Marketing
Strategy and Differential Advantage" in Journal of Marketing. This
is an old article that describes how scholars and marketing gurus thought at a
time before the internet. It uses
examples like the US Auto Industry as compared to the Foreign Auto Industry of
1975. I will use this journal to expand
my traditional marketing part of my paper. Another article that expanded my knowledge on
traditional strategies was Lewis K. S. Lims’ article in the journal Journal
of International Business Studies called "Development of
Archetypes of International Marketing Strategy” This article focuses on international
business’ “marketing strategy”, which is not quite as specific of a term in
this article as it is in my paper. This
source is more based on how companies plan to market their already well off and
well-known brand or company. It looks at keeping your logo or design of merchandise
similar and not changing the physical look of things rather than more how to
advertise them. I learned ways that
bigger companies used marketing and will probably put this into my traditional
portion of the paper. Also, Lori Chordas
who wrote "Three-Dimensional Marketing" helped me look at the traditional
strategies and helped me see that they are still used. This article from the
trade journal Best's Review talks about new and net worthy companies and
their marketing strategies.
Three-Dimensional Marketing is a trifecta of traditional, social and
digital media. Not only are video and
online components being incorporated into marketing strategies, but
now marketers are also relying on social networks and traditional print ads and
sponsorships to create successful campaigns. This article can help me to
connect brand new strategies that are being used to some traditional methods
still circulating.
In my
research I found a lot of newer articles that contained a lot of new and modern
strategies for marketing and advertising.
A good bit of these had to do with social media. One the article I found
was written by Gary Knight. Knight authored
"Entrepreneurship and Marketing Strategy: The SME under Globalization"
and his article in the Journal of International Marketing describes
changes in how “Small to Medium Enterprises” (SMEs) are marketing
internationally. He tells us how they are evolving their strategies concerning the
globalization of the modern age. A lot
more small businesses are becoming international and because of this their
marketing strategies are changing. They
are using more internet based advertising and expanding in easier ways to advertise
internationally. I also found Bruce Horovitz’s article about McDonalds called "He's
Lovin' It: Ronald McDonald Rocking a New Look." This is a news article
within USA Today about the attempts to raise McDonalds’ sales by
changing up “Ronald’s” look. I chose this article because it opens up my eyes
to ways large companies change their marketing strategy as the years go
by. Also, is keeps my research up to
date on some previous research on sources that I have already looked at. I am
probably not going to put this into my paper but it helps expand my knowledge
of the topic. Another source was Susan Heavey and Lisa Richwine’s article "Aggressive
Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices Often Outpace Regulatory Efforts” found in The
Pharmaceutical Industry. This article talks about how the FDA is regulating
some of the more aggressive tatcics that the drug companies are trying
out. They are starting to use Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube and other social media networks are the new frontier in
marketing, and drug makers are dipping in like everyone else. The FDA is
applying “separate guidance that are issue-specific and can apply to the various
mediums used on the Internet.” I will be
applying this to the part of my paper about modern tactics and the ethics
portion.
The last
main recurring theme was the ethics behind these new strategies. Dina Mayzlin was the author of one of the
sources titled "Promotional Reviews: An Empirical Investigation of Online
Review Manipulation." In this article taken from The American
Economic Review the author talks about the ethics behind faking reviews on
internet sites. They examine differences
in the reviews for a specific hotel between TripAdvisor and Expedia. TripAdvisor allows anyone to post reviews, whereas
Expedia only allows customers to write them.
I am going to use this in my ethics portion of my paper. Another source
was George R Milne’s article "If It's Legal, Is It Acceptable? Consumer
Reactions to Online Covert Marketing" found in
the Journal of Advertising Regulation and Self-Regulation. This article explains how some companies
covertly market products online and how people reacted when they found out what
this meant. It show that companies pay subsidiary
companies to advertise their product on people computers based on the customer
previous purchases and search history etc.
It also shows that once consumers found out how and what these companies
where doing with their “personal” information they often reduced their
purchases from that company. I will use
this to expand my ethics portion of my paper.
Finally the last source I looked at was "Pop-Ups, Cookies, and
Spam: Toward a Deeper Analysis of the Ethical Significance of Internet Marketing Practices." Written by Daniel
E. Palmer in Journal of Business Ethics Promoting Business Ethics, which
is another article that helped develop my understanding of the ethics behind
new marketing and advertising methods. It
talks mainly about the ethics behind pop ups and spam emails. It shows that people tend to distrust the
companies that send out spam mail and/or pop ups. It also talks about the ethics behind such
strategies and how business ethics in general have changed with the
commonization of the internet.
