Businesses are trying every possible method to observe consumer behavior in order to better target its audience. Thanks to nowadays’s technology, businesses are able to predict on consumer’s behavior. The ability to trace what consumers click on website, what consumers type in the searching engine, and what consumers are watching online gives businesses data to predict consumer’s future behavior. Not only the business are better with predicting consumer’s behavior, but also the businesses could create ads that are targeted to their main customers.

According to a study that performed by the researchers at Ohio state university, they find out that the click-on rate of an ad increases by 670%  if the businesses publish an ad that is targeted on customer.  There are also three interesting findings from this study.

First Finding

The result of fist study is that consumer are more likely to purchase a Groupon that features a “high end” restaurant.  The study also states that consumers think that the Groupon ads are based on their searching history. This reflects that consumers loves the ads that portrait a high class product or a business that has strong positive image. It gives businesses insight to always come up an ad that presents high value, positive image or exceptional services.

Second Finding

Consumers generally think that the ads that they see while they are browsing reflect their characteristics. This tells a lot to the business about how they should design the ads. The businesses should design the ads that closely fits to their target groups’ characteristic. If most of the consumers can find a common place between the ads and their characteristic, the chances of consumers looking into the business or purchasing the product will increase dramatically.

There are other reasons affect consumer behavior 

Although the study shows some correlation between consumer behavior and the targeted clicked on ads, there are other factors to considers. The targeted ads might based on consumers past browsing history rather than what the consumers are browsing right now.

“Sour, Sweet, Gone”

Who does not love the the smily little soft candy Sour Patch Kids candy? Before it become every teenagers’ favorite chewing candy, the company is suffered from lack of market share compare to other soft chewy candy brand. In order to boost the sale and increase the market share, Sour Patch Kids CEO comes up with a market plan along with the marketing team to build up the awareness and the popularity of the brand name.

First step 

Analyzing what kind of media channels that the teenagers typically use or brow. This is the key for the company to find out how it could utilizes media channels to approach a broad range of teenagers.

Second Step: define main goals to achieve 

After carefully analyzing, Sour Patch Kids company identifies three archives. The first is to grow the brand awareness through social media channels. The company hires famous teen YouTube stars to do short videos that feature Sour Patch Kids. The company also collaborates with popular Snapchat users to post funny videos that are inspired by words “sweet” and “sour”. These marketing efforts are aiming to increase the numbers of time that teenagers see Sour Patch Kids logo.These actions use the power  of celebrity endorsement to build the brand name.

The second achieve is to come up with creative way to both feature Sour Patch Kids name and communicate with teenagers. The action including coming up special Valentine’s story telling site, which collaborates with WattPad. Last achieve is to enter music industry in order to attract even more consumers. Through entering different market segment, it could open the door to different type of market. Therefore, attract more customers to buy Sour Patch Kids product. At the same time, it could also approach teenagers through different way and build competitive advantage over other brand.

Result 

Sour Patch Kid doubles its market share between year 2010 and year 2015.  Its sales are also go up by$30 million. Sour Patch Kid achieves an major success through implementing its new market strategy.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/video/2015/nov/26/macys-thanksgiving-day-parade-new-york-show-video

As everyone can see from the above linked video, Macy holds an exciting and fascinating Thanksgiving parade every year since 1924. People from all over the world come into New York city to enjoy the parade and kick start their Thanksgiving holiday. Although thousands and thousands people line up around the parade trail, not all of them will go into Macy and make a purchase. Therefore, does Macy benefits from holding a huge event like this?

Cost of Thanksgiving Parade 

The  turkey may wow you by its gigantic size and colorful feather, the cost behind making this one flow will sure shock you. As told by Tony Michaels, the CEO of an nonprofit parade group, a float can cost from $30,000 up to $100,000.  Let us do the calculation here. The 2015 Macy parade has over a thousand performing people, 27 floats, a giant balloon, and other displaces. We assume that each float on average cost $50,000, hourly wage for the performing people is $9, the balloon coast about $30,000, and other displaces worth around $60,000. The total cost adds up to $1,494,000. In conclusion, Macy cost almost 2 million per year to hold the parade.

Macy’s sale is declining

According to Macy’s quarterly report, its sales has been declining.  If Macy is doing poorly at sales, why does Macy still spend almost 2 million to hold the event? Will they be better off without the parade, and invest the money into somewhere else?

Advantages of holding the Parade

1. Cheaper way to advertise itself to a broad range of consumer.
2. Increasing consumers’ awareness of Macy brand.
3. Increasing the impulse shopping after parade, and therefore, boosting the sales performance.
4. Ways to attract sponsors to help operating the parade.
5. Attract new customers.
6. Retain loyal customers.

Disadvantages of holding the Parade 

1. Spent unnecessary money on cleaning the parade trail afterwards.
2. Consumers may not go into Macy to shop.
3. Huge group of crowd might cause accident.

What is your opinion towards Macy’s Thanksgiving parade? Should Macy keep holding it or drop it to save the money?

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