Get from a static, linear-responding smiley-face EQ setting). But IMO, most of the applications of the BBE are attempting to salvage bad recording technique or old analog tape recordings. If you can record tracks properly on hi-fi modern equipment, the BBE effect is not particularly.


A large city government was putting on a number of seminars formanagers of various departments throughout the city. At one of these sessionsthe topic discussed was motivation—how to motivate public servants to do a goodjob. The plight of a police captain became the central focus of the discussion:
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I’ve got a real problem with my officers.They come on the force as young, inexperienced rookies, and we send them out onthe street, either in cars or on a beat. They seem to like the contact theyhave with the public, the action involved in crime prevention, and theapprehension of criminals. They also like helping people out at fires,accidents, and other emergencies.

The problem occurs when they get back to thestation. They hate to do the paperwork, and because they dislike it, the job isfrequently put off or done inadequately. This lack of attention hurts us lateron when we get to court. We need clear, factual reports. They must be highlydetailed and unambiguous. As soon as one part of a report is shown to beinadequate or incorrect, the rest of the report is suspect. Poor reportingprobably causes us to lose more cases than any other factor.

I just don’t know how to motivate them to doa better job. We’re in a budget crunch, and I have absolutely no financialrewards at my disposal. In fact, we’ll probably have to lay some people off inthe near future. It’s hard for me to make the job interesting and challengingbecause it isn’t-it’s boring, routine paperwork, and there isn’t much you cando about it.

Finally, I can’t say to them that theirpromotions will hinge on the excellence of their paperwork. First at all, theyknow it’s not true. If their performance is adequate, most are more likely toget promoted just by staying on the force a certain number of years than forsome specific outstanding act. Second, they were trained to do the job they doout in the streets, not to fill out forms. All through their careers thearrests and interventions are what get noticed.

Some people have suggested a number ofthings, like using conviction records as a performance criterion. However, weknow that’s not fair—too many other things are involved. Bad paperworkincreases the chance that you lose in court,but good paperwork doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win. We tried setting up theteam competitions based on the excellence of the reports, but the officerscaught on to that pretty quickly. No one was getting any type of reward forwinning the competition, and they figured why should they bust a gut when therewas on payoff.



1.What performance problems is the captain trying to correct?

2.Use the MARS model of individual behavior and performance todiagnose the possible causes of the unacceptable behavior.

3.Has the captain considered all possible solutions to theproblem? If not, what else might be done?


CASE: IIHow Did I Get Here?

Something was not right. John Breckenridge opened his eyes, saw thenurse’s face, and closed them once more. Cobwebs slowly cleared from his brainas he woke up from his brain as he woke up from the operation. He felt a hardtube in his nostril, and tried to lift his hand to pull it out, but it wasstrapped down to the bed. John tried to speak but could make only a croakingsound. Nurse Thompson spoke soothingly, “Just try to relax, Mr. Breckenridge.You had a heart attack and emergency surgery, but you’re going to be OK.”

Heart attack? How did I get here? As the anesthesia wore offand the pain set in, John began to recall the events of the past year; and withthe memories came another sort of pain – that of remembering a life wheresuccess was measured in hours worked and things accomplished, but which of latehad not measured up.

John recalled his years in college, wheregetting good grades had been important, but not so much as his newly developinglove for Karen, the girl with auburn hair who got her nursing degree the sameyear as he graduated with a degree in software engineering. They married thesummer after graduation and moved from their sleepy university town in Indianato Aspen, Colorado. There John got a job with a new software company whileKaren worked evenings as a nurse. Although they didn’t see much of each otherduring the week, weekends were a special time, and the surrounding mountainsand nature provided a superb quality of life.

Life was good to the Breckenridges. Two yearsafter they were married, Karen gave birth to Josh and two years later to Linda.Karen reduced her nursing to the minimum hours required to maintain herlicense, and concentrated on rearing the kids. John, on the other hand, wasbusy providing for the lifestyle they increasingly became used to, whichincluded a house, car, SUV, ski trips, and all of the things a successfulengineering career could bring. The company grew in leaps and bounds, and Johnwas one of the main reasons it grew fast. Work was fun. The company wasgrowing, his responsibilities increased, and he and his team were real buddies.With Karen’s help at home, he juggled work, travel, and evening classes thatled to a master’s degree. The master’s degree brought another promotion—thistime to vice president of technology at the young (for this company) age of 39.

The promotion had one drawback: It wouldrequire working out of the New York office. Karen sadly said goodbye to herfriends, convinced the kids that the move would be good to them, and left theranch house for another one, much more expensive and newer, but smaller andjust across the river in New Jersey from the skyscraper where her husbandworked. Newark was not much like Aspen, and the kids had a hard time makingfriends, especially Josh, who was now 16. He grew sullen and withdrawn andbegan hanging around with a crowd that Karen thought looked very tough. Linda,always the quiet one, stuck mostly to her room.

John’s new job brought with it money andrecognition, as well as added responsibilities. He now had to not only leadsoftware development but also actively participate in steering the company inthe right direction for the future, tailoring its offerings to market trends.Mergers and acquisitions were the big things in the software business, and Johnfound a special thrill in picking small companies with promising software,buying them out, and adding them to the corporate portfolio. Karen hadeverything a woman could want and went regularly to a health club. The familylacked for no material need.

At age 41 John felt he had the world by itstail. Sure, he was a bit overweight, but who wouldn’t be with the amount ofwork and entertaining that he did? He drank some, a habit he had developedearly in his career. Karen worried about that, but he reassured her byreminding her that he had been really drunk only twice and would never drinkand drive. Josh’s friends were a worry, but nothing had yet come of it.

Not all was well, however. John had beensuccessful in Colorado because he thought fast on his feet, expressed hisopinions, and got people to buy into his decisions. In the New York corporateoffice things were different. All of the top brass except the president andJohn had Ivy League, moneyed backgrounds. They spoke of strategy but would takeonly risks that would further their personal careers. He valued passion,integrity, and action, with little regard for personal advancement. Theyresented him, rightly surmising that the only reason he had been promoted wasbecause he was more like he president than they were, and he was being groomedas heir apparent.

On November 2, 2004, John Breckenridge’sworld began to unravel. The company he worked for, the one he had given so muchof his life to build was acquired in a hostile takeover. The president who hadbeen his friend and mentor was let go, and the backstabbing began in earnest.John found himself the odd man out in the office as the others jostled to buildstatus in the new firm. Although his stellar record allowed him to survive thefirst round of job cuts, that survival only made him more of a pariah to thosearound him. Going to work was a chore now, and John had no friends like thosehe had left in Aspen.

Karen was little help. John had spent nearlytwo decades married more to his job than his wife, and he found she was more ofa stranger than a comforter as he struggled in his new role. When he spokeabout changing jobs, she blew up. “Why did I have to give up nursing for yourcareer?” she said. “Why do we have to move again, just because you can’t getalong at work? Can’t you see what the move did to our kids?”

Seeing the hurt and anger in Karen’s eyes,John stopped sharing and turned to his bottle for comfort. In time that causedeven more tension in the home, and it slowed him down at work when he reallyneeded to excel. John would often drink himself into oblivion when on businesstrips rather than thinking about where his life and career were going. On hislast trip he hadn’t slept much and had worked far too hard. Midmorning he hadbeen felled by a massive heart attack.

All of this history passed through JohnBreckenridge’s mind as he woke after the operation. It was time for a change.

Question:

1.Identifythe stressors in John Breckenridge’s life. Which ones could he have prevented?

2.Whatwere the results of the stress? Would you consider these to be typical tostress situations and lifestyle choices John made, or was John Breckenridgeunlucky?

3.Assumeyou are a career coach retained by John Breckenridge to guide him through hisnext decisions. How would you recommend that John modify his lifestyle andbehavior to reduce stress? Should he change jobs? Do you believe he is capableof reducing his stress alone? If not, where should he seek help?





For the past five years I have been working at McKay, Sanderson, andSmith Associates, a mid-sized accounting firm in Boston that specializes incommercial accounting and audits. My particular specialty in accountingpractices for shipping companies, ranging from small fishing fleets to a coupleof the big firms with ships along the East Coast.

About 18 months ago McKay, Sanderson, andSmith Associates became part of a large merger involving two other accountingfirms. These firms have offices in Miami, Seattle, Baton Rouge, and LosAngeles. Although the other two accounting firms were much larger than McKay,all three firms agreed to avoid centralizing the business around one office inLos Angeles. Instead the new firm—called Goldberg, Choo, and McKayAssociates—would rely on teams across the country to “leverage the synergies ofour collective knowledge” (an often-cited statement from the managing partnersoon after the merger).

The merger affected me a year ago when myboss (a senior partner and vice president of the merger) announced that I wouldbe working more closely with three people from the other two firms to becomethe firm’s new shipping industry accounting team. The other team members wereElias in Miami, Susan in Seattle, and Brad in Los Angeles. I had met Eliasbriefly at a meeting in New York City during the merger but had never met Susanor Brad, although I knew that they were shipping accounting professionals atthe other firms.

Initially the shipping team activitiesinvolved e-mailing each other about new contracts and prospective clients. Laterwe were asked to submit joint monthly reports on accounting statements andissues. Normally I submitted my own monthly reports to summarize activitiesinvolving my own clients. Coordinating the monthly report with three otherpeople took much more time, particularly because different accountingdocumentation procedures across the three firms were still being resolved. Ittook numerous e-mail messages an a few telephone calls to work out a reasonablemonthly report style.

During this aggravating process it becameapparent—to me at least—that this team business was costing me more time thanit was worth. Moreover, Brad in Los Angeles didn’t have a clue about how tocommunicate with the rest of us. He rarely replied to e-mail. Instead he oftenused the telephone tag. Brad arrived at work at 9:30 a.m. in Los Angeles (andwas often late), which is early afternoon in Boston. I typically have aflexible work schedule from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. so I can chauffeur my kidsafter school to sports and music lessons. So Brad and I have a window of lessthan three hours to share information.

The biggest nuisance with the shippingspecialist accounting team started two weeks ago when the firm asked the fourof us to develop a new strategy for attracting more shipping firm business.This new strategic plan is a messy business. Somehow we have to share ourthoughts on various approaches, agree on a new plan, and write a unifiedsubmission to the managing partner. Already the project is taking most of mytime just writing and responding to e-mail and talking in conference calls(which none of us did much before the team formed).

Susan and Brad have already had two or threemisunderstandings via e-mail about their different perspectives on delicatematters in the strategic plan. The worst of these disagreements required aconference call with all of us to resolve. Except for the most basic matters,it seems that we can’t understand each other, let alone agree on key issues. Ihave come to the conclusion that I would never want Brad to work in my Bostonoffice (thanks goodness he’s on the other side of the country). Although Eliasand I seem to agree on most points, the overall team can’t form a common visionor strategy. I don’t know how Elias, Susan, or Brad feel, but I would be quitehappy to work somewhere that did not require any of these long-distance teamheadaches.

Question:

1.Whattype of team was formed here? Was it necessary, in your opinion?

2.Use theteam effectiveness model in Chapter 9 and related information in this chapterto identify the strengths and weaknesses of this team’s environment, design,and processes.

3.Assumingthat these four people must continue to work as a team, recommend ways toimprove the team’s effectiveness.













A team of psychologists at Moscow’s Institute for Biomedical Problems(IBMP) wanted to learn more about the dynamics of long-term isolation in space.This knowledge would be applied to the International Space Station, a joint projectof several countries that would send people into space for more than sixmonths. It would eventually include a trip to Mars taking up to three years.

IBMP set up a replica of the Mir spacestation in Moscow. They then arranged for three international researchers fromJapan, Canada, and Austria 110 days isolated in a chamber the size of a traincar. This chamber joined a smaller chamber where four Russian cosmonauts hadalready completed half of their 240 days of isolation. This was the first timean international crew was involved in the studies. None of the participantsspoke English as their first language, yet they communicated throughout theirstay in English at varying levels of proficiency.

Judith Lapierre, a French-Canadian, was theonly female in the experiment. Along with obtaining a PhD in public health andsocial medicine, Lapierre had studied space sociology at the InternationalSpace University in France and conducted isolation research in the Antarctic.This was her fourth trip to Russia, where she had learned the language. Themission was supposed to have a second female participant from the Japanesespace program, but she was not selected by IBMP.

The Japanese and Austrian participants viewedthe participation of a woman as a favorable factor, says Lapierre. For example,to make the surroundings more comfortable, they rearranged the furniture, hungposters on the walls, and put a tablecloth on the kitchen table. “We adaptedour environment, whereas Russians just viewed it as something to be endured,”she explains. “We decorated for Christmas because I’m the kind of person wholikes to host people.”

New Year’s Eve Turmoil

Ironically, it was at one of those socialevents, the New Year’s Eve party, that events took a turn for the worse. Afterdrinking vodka (allowed by the Russian space agency), two of the Russiancosmonauts got into a fistfight that left blood splattered on the chamberwalls. At one point a colleague hid the knives in the station’s kitchen becauseof fears that the two Russians were about to stab each other. The twocosmonauts, who generally did not get along, had to be restrained by other men.Soon after that brawl, the Russian commander grabbed Lapierre, dragged her outof view of the television monitoring cameras, and kissed heraggressively—twice. Lapierre fought him off, but the message didn’t register.He tried to kiss her again the next morning.

Hookup
The next day the international crewcomplained to IBMP about the behavior of the Russian cosmonauts. The Russianinstitute apparently took no against the aggressors. Instead the institute’spsychologists replied that the incidents were part of the experiment. Theywanted crew members to solve their personal problems with mature discussionwithout asking for outside help. “You have to understand that Mir is anautonomous object, far away from anything,” Vadim Gushin, the IBMP psychologistin charge of project, explained after the experiment had ended in March. “Ifthe crew can’t solve problems among themselves, they can’t work together.”

Following IBMP’s response, the internationalcrew wrote a scathing letter to the Russian institute and the space agenciesinvolved in the experiment. “We had never expected such events to take place ina highly controlled scientific experiment where individuals go through amultistep selection process,” they wrote. “If we had known… we would not havejoined it as subjects.” The letter also complained about IBMP’s response totheir concerns.

Informed about the New Year’s Eve incident,the Japanese space program convened an emergency meeting on January 2 toaddress the incidents. Soon after the Japanese team member quit, apparentlyshocked by IBMP’s inaction. He was replaced with a Russian researcher on theinternational team. Ten days after the fight—a little over the month theinternational team began the mission—the doors between the Russian andinternational crews’ chambers were barred at the request of the internationalresearch team. Lapierre later emphasized that this action was taken because of concernsabout violence, not the incident involving her.

A Stolen Kiss or Sexual Harassment

By the end of experiment in March, news ofthe fistfight between the cosmonauts and the commander’s attempts to kissLapierre had reached the public. Russian scientists attempted to play down thekissing incident by saying that it was one fleeting kiss, a clash of cultures,and a female participant who was too emotional.

“In the West, some kinds of kissing areregarded as sexual harassment. In our culture it’s nothing,” said Russianscientist Vadim Gushin in one interview. In another interview he explained,“The problem of sexual harassment is given a lot of attention in North Americabut less in Europe. In Russia it is even less of an issue, not because we aremore or less moral than the rest of the world; we just have differentpriorities.”

Judith Lapierre says the kissing incident wastolerable compared to this reaction from the Russian scientists who conductedthe experiment. “They don’t get it at all,” she complains. “They don’t thinkanything is wrong. I’m more frustrated than ever. The worst thing is that theydon’t realize it was wrong.”

Norbert Kraft, the Austrian scientist on theinternational team, also disagreed with the Russian interpretation of events. “They’retrying to protect themselves,” he says. “They’re trying to put the fault onothers. But this is not a cultural issue. If a woman doesn’t want to be kissed,it is not acceptable.”





1.Identifythe different conflict episodes that exist in this case. Who was in conflictwith whom?

2.What arethe sources of conflict for these conflict incidents?

3.Whatconflict management style(s) did Lapierre, the international team, and Gushinuse to resolve these conflicts? What style(s) would have worked best in thesituation?







Twenty years ago Hillton was a small city (about 70,000 residents) thatserved as an outer to a large Midwest metropolitan area. The city treatedemployees like family and gave them a great deal of autonomy in their work.Everyone in the organization (including the two labor unions representingemployees) implicitly agreed that the leaders and supervisors of theorganization should rise through the ranks based on their experience. Few peoplewere ever hired from the outside into middle or senior positions. The rule ofemployment at Hillton was to learn the job skills, maintain a reasonably goodwork record, and wait your turn for promotion.

Hillton had grown rapidly since themid-1970s. As the population grew, so did the municipality’s workforce to keeppace with the increasing demand for municipal services. This meant thatemployees were promoted fairly quickly and were almost guaranteed employment.In fact, until recently Hillton had never laid off any employee. Theorganization’s culture could be described as one of entitlement and comfort.Neither the elected city council members nor the city manager bothered thedepartment managers about their work. There were few costs controls becauserapid growth forced emphasis on keeping up with the population expansion. Thepublic became somewhat more critical of the city’s poor services, includingroad construction at inconvenient times and the apparent lack of respect someemployees showed towards taxpayers.

During these expansion years Hillton put mostof its money into “outside” (also called “hard”) municipal services such asroad building, utility construction and maintenance, fire and policeprotection, recreational facilities, and land use control. This emphasisoccurred because an expanding population demanded more of these services, andmost of Hillton’s senior people came from the outside services group. Forexample, Hillton’s city manager for many years was a road development engineer.The “inside” workers (taxation, community services, and the like) tended tohave less seniority, and their departments were given less priority.

As commuter and road systems developed,Hillton attracted more upwardly mobile professionals to the community. Someinfrastructure demands continued, but now these suburban dwellers wanted more“soft” services, such as libraries, social activities, and community services.They also began complaining about how the municipality was being run. Thepopulation had more than doubled between the 1970s and 1990s, and it wasincreasingly apparent that the city organization needed more corporateplanning, information systems, organization development, and cost controlsystems. Resident voiced their concerns in various ways that the municipalitywas not providing the quality of management that they would expect from a cityof its size.

In 1996 a new mayor and council replaced mostof the previous incumbents, mainly on the platform of improving themunicipality’s management structure. The new council gave the city manager,along with two other senior managers, an early retirement buyout package.Rather than promoting form the lower ranks, council decided to fill all threepositions with qualified candidates from large municipal corporations in theregion. The following year several long-term managers left Hillton, and atleast half of those positions were filled by people from outside theorganization.

In less than two years Hillton had eightsenior or departmental managers hired from other municipalities who played akey role in changing the organization’s value system. These eight managersbecame known (often with negative connotations) as the “professionals.” Theyworked closely with each other to change the way middle and lower-levelmanagers had operated for many years. They brought in a new computer system andemphasized cost controls where managers previously had complete autonomy.Promotions were increasingly based more on merit than seniority.

These managers frequently announced inmeetings and newsletters that municipal employees must provide superlativecustomer service, and that Hillton would become one of the mostcustomer-friendly places for citizens and those doing business with themunicipality. To this end these managers were quick to support the public’sincreasing demand for more soft services, including expanded library servicesand recreational activities. And when population growth flattened for a fewyears, the city manager and the other professionals gained council support tolay off a few outside workers due to lack of demand for hard services.

One of the most significant changes was thatthe outside departments no longer held dominant positions in city management.Most of the professional managers had worked exclusively in administrative andrelated inside jobs. Two had Master of Business Administration degrees. Thisled to some tension between the professional managers and the older outsidemanagers.

Even before the layoffs, managers of outsidedepartments resisted the changes more than others. These managers complainedthat their employees with the highest seniority were turned down forpromotions. They argued for more budget and warned that infrastructure problemswould cause liability problems. Informally these outside managers weresupported by the labor union representing outside workers. The union leaderstried to bargain for more job guarantees, whereas the union representing insideworkers focused more on improving wages and benefits. Leaders of the outsideunion made several statements in the local media that the city had “lost itsheart” and that the public would suffer from the actions of the newprofessionals.

Question:

1.ContrastHillton’s earlier corporate culture with the emerging set of cultural values.

2.Consideringthe difficulty in changing organizational culture, why did Hillton’s managementseem to be successful at this transformation?

3.Identifytwo other strategies that the city might consider to reinforce the new set ofcorporate values.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Note: Solve any 4 Cases Study’s

CASE: IEnterprise Builds On People

When most people think of car-rental firms, the names of Hertz and Avisusually come to mind. But in the last few years, Enterprise Rent-A-Car hasovertaken both of these industry giants, and today it stands as both thelargest and the most profitable business in the car-rental industry. In 2001,for instance, the firm had sales in excess of $6.3 billion and employed over50,000 people.

Jack Taylor started Enterprise in St. Louisin 1957. Taylor had a unique strategy in mind for Enterprise, and that strategyplayed a key role in the firm’s initial success. Most car-rental firms likeHertz and Avis base most of their locations in or near airports, trainstations, and other transportation hubs. These firms see their customers asbusiness travellers and people who fly for vacation and then needtransportation at the end of their flight. But Enterprise went after adifferent customer. It sought to rent cars to individuals whose own cars arebeing repaired or who are taking a driving vacation.

The firm got its start by working withinsurance companies. A standard feature in many automobile insurance policiesis the provision of a rental car when one’s personal car has been in anaccident or has been stolen. Firms like Hertz and Avis charge relatively highdaily rates because their customers need the convenience of being near anairport and/or they are having their expenses paid by their employer. Theserates are often higher than insurance companies are willing to pay, socustomers who these firms end up paying part of the rental bills themselves. Inaddition, their locations are also often inconvenient for people seeking areplacement car while theirs is in the shop.

But Enterprise located stores in downtown andsuburban areas, where local residents actually live. The firm also provideslocal pickup and delivery service in most areas. It also negotiates exclusivecontract arrangements with local insurance agents. They get the agent’s referralbusiness while guaranteeing lower rates that are more in line with whatinsurance covers.

In recent years, Enterprise has started toexpand its market base by pursuing a two-pronged growth strategy. First, thefirm has started openingairportlocations to compete with Hertz and Avis more directly. But their target isstill the occasional renter than the frequent business traveller. Second, thefirm also began to expand into international markets and today has rentaloffices in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany.

Another key to Enterprise’s success has beenits human resource strategy. The firm targets a certain kind of individual tohire; its preferred new employee is a college graduate from bottom half ofgraduating class, and preferably one who was an athlete or who was otherwiseactively involved in campus social activities. The rationale for this unusualacademic standard is actually quite simple. Enterprise managers do not believethat especially high levels of achievements are necessary to perform well inthe car-rental industry, but having a college degree nevertheless demonstratesintelligence and motivation. In addition, since interpersonal relations areimportant to its business, Enterprise wants people who were social directors orhigh-ranking officers of social organisations such as fraternities orsororities. Athletes are also desirable because of their competitiveness.

Once hired, new employees at Enterprise areoften shocked at the performance expectations placed on them by the firm. Theygenerally work long, grueling hours for relatively low pay.

And all Enterprise managers are expected tojump in and help wash or vacuum cars when a rental agency gets backed up. AllEnterprise managers must wear coordinated dress shirts and ties and can havefacial hair only when “medically necessary”. And women must wear skirts noshorter than two inches above their knees or creased pants.

So what are the incentives for working atEnterprise? For one thing, it’s an unfortunate fact of life that collegegraduates with low grades often struggle to find work. Thus, a job atEnterprise is still better than no job at all. The firm does not hireoutsiders—every position is filled by promoting someone already inside thecompany. Thus, Enterprise employees know that if they work hard and do theirbest, they may very well succeed in moving higher up the corporate ladder at agrowing and successful firm.



1.WouldEnterprise’s approach human resource management work in other industries?

2.DoesEnterprise face any risks from its human resource strategy?

3.Wouldyou want to work for Enterprise? Why or why not?

















CASE: IIDoing The Dirty Work

Business magazines and newspapers regularly publish articles about thechanging nature of work in the United States and about how many jobs are beingchanged. Indeed, because so much has been made of the shift towardservice-sector and professional jobs, many people assumed that the number ofunpleasant an undesirable jobs has declined.

In fact, nothing could be further from thetruth. Millions of Americans work in gleaming air-conditioned facilities, butmany others work in dirty, grimy, and unsafe settings. For example, many jobsin the recycling industry require workers to sort through moving conveyors oftrash, pulling out those items that can be recycled. Other relativelyunattractive jobs include cleaning hospital restrooms, washing dishes in arestaurant, and handling toxic waste.

Consider the jobs in a chicken-processingfacility. Much like a manufacturing assembly line, a chicken-processingfacility is organised around a moving conveyor system. Workers call it thechain. In reality, it’s a steel cable with large clips that carries deadchickens down what might be called a “disassembly line.” Standing along thisline are dozens of workers who do, in fact, take the birds apart as they pass.

Even the titles of the jobs are unsavory.Among the first set of jobs along the chain is the skinner. Skinners use sharpinstruments to cut and pull the skin off the dead chicken. Towards the middleof the line are the gut pullers. These workers reach inside the chickencarcasses and remove the intestines and other organs. At the end of the lineare the gizzard cutters, who tackle the more difficult organs attached to theinside of the chicken’s carcass. These organs have to be individually cut andremoved for disposal.

The work is obviously distasteful, and thepace of the work is unrelenting. On a good day the chain moves an average ofninety chickens a minute for nine hours. And the workers are essentially heldcaptive by the moving chain. For example, no one can vacate a post to use thebathroom or for other reasons without the permission of the supervisor. In someplants, taking an unauthorised bathroom break can result in suspension withoutpay. But the noise in a typical chicken-processing plant is so loud that thesupervisor can’t hear someone calling for relief unless the person happens tobe standing close by.

Jobs such as these on the chicken-processingline are actually becoming increasingly common. Fuelled by Americans’ growingappetites for lean, easy-to-cook meat, the number of poultry workers has almostdoubled since 1980, and today they constitute a work force of around a quarterof a million people. Indeed, the chicken-processing industry has become a majorcomponent of the state economies of Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi,Arkansas, and Alabama.

Besides being unpleasant and dirty, many jobsin a chicken-processing plant are dangerous and unhealthy. Some workers, forexample, have to fight the live birds when they are first hung on the chains.These workers are routinely scratched and pecked by the chickens. And the airinside a typical chicken-processing plant is difficult to breathe. Workers areusually supplied with paper masks, but most don’t use them because they are hotand confining.

And the work space itself is so tight thatthe workers often cut themselves—and sometimes their coworkers—with the knives,scissors, and other instruments they use to perform their jobs. Indeed, poultryprocessing ranks third among industries in the United States for cumulativetrauma injuries such as carpet tunnel syndrome. The inevitable chickenfeathers, faeces, and blood also contribute to the hazardous and unpleasantwork environment.

1.Howrelevant are the concepts of competencies to the jobs in a chicken-processingplant?

2.Howmight you try to improve the jobs in a chicken-processing plant?

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3.Aredirty, dangerous, and unpleasant jobs an inevitable part of any economy?

CASE: IIIOn Pegging Pay to Performance

“As you are aware, the Government of India has removed the capping onsalaries of directors and has left the matter of their compensation to bedecided by shareholders. This is indeed a welcome step,” said Samuel Menezes,president Abhayankar, Ltd., opening the meeting of the managing committeeconvened to discuss the elements of the company’s new plan for middle managers.

Abhayankar was am engineering firm with aturnover of Rs 600 crore last year and an employee strength of 18,00. Two yearsago, as a sequel to liberalisation at the macroeconomic level, the company hadrestructured its operations from functional teams to product teams. The changehad helped speed up transactional times and reduce systemic inefficiencies,leading to a healthy drive towards performance.

“I think it is only logical that performanceshould hereafter be linked to pay,” continued Menezes. “A scheme in which over40 per cent of salary will be related to annual profits has been evolved forexecutives above the vice-president’s level and it will be implemented aftergetting shareholders approval. As far as the shopfloor staff is concerned, asystem of incentive-linked monthly productivity bonus has been in place foryears and it serves the purpose of rewarding good work at the assembly line. Inany case, a bulk of its salary will have to continue to be governed by good oldvalues like hierarchy, rank, seniority and attendance. But it is the middlemanagement which poses a real dilemma. How does one evaluate its performance?More importantly, how can one ensure that managers are not shortchanged but getwhat they truly deserve?”

“Our vice-president (HRD), Ravi Narayanan,has now a plan ready in this regard. He has had personal discussions with allthe 125 middle managers individually over the last few weeks and the plan isbased on their feedback. If there are no major disagreements on the plan, wecan put it into effect from next month. Ravi, may I now ask you to take thefloor and make your presentation?”

The lights in the conference room dimmed andthe screen on the podium lit up. “The plan I am going to unfold,” saidNarayanan, pointing to the data that surfaced on the screen, “is designed toenhance team-work and provide incentives for constant improvement andexcellence among middle-level managers. Briefly, the pay will be split into twocomponents. The first consists of 75 per cent of the original salary and willbe determined, as before, by factors of internal equity comprising what Samreferred to as good old values. It will be a fixed component.”

“The second component of 25 per cent,” hewent on, “will be flexible. It will depend on the ability of each product teamas a whole to show a minimum of 5 per cent improvement in five areas everymonth—product quality, cost control, speed of delivery, financial performanceof the division to which the product belongs and, finally, compliance withsafety and environmental norms. The five areas will have rating of 30, 25, 20,15, and 10 per cent respectively.

“This, gentlemen, is the broad premise. Therest is a matter of detail which will be worked out after some finetuning. Anyquestions?”

As the lights reappeared, Gautam Ghosh,vice-president (R&D), said, “I don’t like it. And I will tell you why.Teamwork as a criterion is okay but it also has its pitfalls. The people I takeon and develop are good at what they do. Their research skills areindividualistic. Why should their pay depend on the performance of other membersof the product team? The new pay plan makes them team players first andscientists next. It does not seem right.”

“That is a good one, Gautam,” said Narayanan.“Any other questions? I think I will take them all together.”

“I have no problems with the scheme and Ithink it is fine. But just for the sake of argument, let me take Gautam’s pointfurther without meaning to pick holes in the plan,” said Avinash Sarin,vice-president (sales). “Look at my dispatch division. My people there havereduced the shipping time from four hours to one over the last six months. Butwhat have they got? Nothing. Why? Because the other members of the team are notmeasuring up.”

“I think that is a situation which is boundto prevail until everyone falls in line,” intervened Vipul Desai, vicepresident (finance). “There would always be temporary problems in implementinganything new. The question is whether our long term objectives is right. To theextend that we are trying to promote teamwork, I think we are on the right track.However, I wish to raise a point. There are many external factors which impingeon both individual and collective performance. For instance, the cost of a rawmaterial may suddenly go up in the market affecting product profitability. Whyshould the concerned product team be penalised for something beyond itscontrol?”

“I have an observation to make too, Ravi,”said Menezes, “You would recall the survey conducted by a business fortnightlyon ‘The ten companies Indian managers fancy most as a working place’.Abhayankar got top billings there. We have been the trendsetters in executivecompensation in Indian industry. We have been paying the best. Will your planensure that it remains that way?”

As he took the floor again, the dominantthought in Narayanan’s mind was that if his plan were to be put into place,Abhayankar would set another new trend in executive compensation.

Question:

But how should he see it through?










November 30, 1997 goes down in the history of a Bangalore-basedelectric company as the day nobody wanting it to recur but everyonerecollecting it with sense of pride.

It was a festive day for all the 700-plusemployees.Festoons were strung allover, banners were put up; banana trunks and leaves adorned the factory gate,instead of the usual red flags; and loud speakers were blaring Kannada songs.It was day the employees chose to celebrate Kannada Rajyothsava, annual featureof all Karnataka-based organisations. The function was to start at 4 p.m. andeverybody was eagerly waiting for the big event to take place.

But the event, budgeted at Rs 1,00,000 didnot take place. At around 2 p.m., there was a ghastly accident in the machineshop. Murthy was caught in the vertical turret lathe and was wounded fatally.His end came in the ambulance on the way to hospital.

The management sought union help, and theunion leaders did respond with a positive attitude. They did not want to fishin troubled waters.

Series of meetings were held between theunion leaders and the management. The discussions centred around two majorissues—(i) restoring normalcy, and (ii) determining the amount of compensationto be paid to the dependants of Murthy.

Luckily for the management, the accident tookplace on a Saturday. The next day was a weekly holiday and this helped thetension to diffuse to a large extent. The funeral of the deceased took place onSunday without any hitch. The management hoped that things would be normal onMonday morning.

But the hope was belied. The workers refusedto resume work. Again the management approached the union for help. Unionleaders advised the workers to resume work in al departments except in themachine shop, and the suggestions was accepted by all.

Two weeks went by, nobody entered the machineshop, though work in other places resumed. Union leaders came with a new ideato the management—to perform a pooja to ward off any evil that had befallen onthe lathe. The management accepted the idea and homa was performed in the machineshop for about five hours commencing early in the morning. This helped to someextent. The workers started operations on all other machines in the machineshop except on the fateful lathe. It took two full months and a lot ofpersuasion from the union leaders for the workers to switch on the lathe.

The crisis was blown over, thanks to theresponsible role played by the union leaders and their fellow workers. Neitherthe management nor the workers wish that such an incident should recur.

As the wages of the deceased grossed Rs 6,500per month, Murthy was not covered under the ESI Act. Management had to paycompensation. Age and experience of the victim were taken into account toarrive at Rs 1,87,000 whichwas theamount to be payable to the wife of the deceased. To this was added Rs 2,50,000at the intervention of the union leaders. In addition, the widow was paid agratuity and a monthly pension of Rs 4,300. And nobody’s wages were cut for thedays not worked.

Murthy’s death witnessed an unusual behavioron the part of the workers and their leaders, and magnanimous gesture from themanagement. It is a pride moment in the life of the factory.

Question:

1.Do youthink that the Bangalore-based company had practised participative management?

2.If youranswer is yes, with what method of participation (you have read in thischapter) do you relate the above case?

3.If youwere the union leader, would your behaviour have been different? If yes, whatwould it be?

CASE: VA Case of Burnout

When Mahesh joined XYZ Bank (private sector) in 1985, he had one cleargoal—to prove his mettle. He did prove himself and has been promoted five timessince his entry into the bank. Compared to others, his progress has beenfastest. Currently, his job demands that Mahesh should work 10 hours a day withpractically no holidays. At least two day in a week, Mahesh is required totravel.

Peers and subordinates at the bank haveappreciation for Mahesh. They don’t grudge the ascension achieved by Mahesh,though there are some who wish they too had been promoted as well.

The post of General Manager fell vacant. Oneshould work as GM for a couple of years if he were to climb up to the top ofthe ladder, Mahesh applied for the post along with others in the bank. TheChairman assured Mahesh that the post would be his.

A sudden development took place which almostwrecked Mahesh’s chances. The bank has the practice of subjecting all itsexecutives to medical check-up once in a year. The medical reports go straightto the Chairman who would initiate remedials where necessary. Though Mahesh wasonly 35, he too, was required to undergo the test.

The Chairman of the bank received a copy ofMahesh’s physical examination results, along with a note from the doctor. Thenote explained that Mahesh was seriously overworked, and recommended that he begiven an immediate four-week vacation. The doctor also recommended thatMahesh’s workload must be reduced and he must take physical exercise every day.The note warned that if Mahesh did not care for advice, he would be in forheart trouble in another six months.

After reading the doctor’s note, the Chairman sat back in his chair,and started brooding over. Three issues were uppermost in his mind—(i) Howwould Mahesh take this news? (ii) How many others do have similar fitnessproblems? (iii) Since the environment in the bank helps create the problem,what could he do to alleviate it? The idea of holding a stress-managementprogramme flashed in his mind and suddenly he instructed his secretary to setup a meeting with the doctor and some key staff members, at the earliest.

Question:

1.If thenews is broken to Mahesh, how would he react?

2.If youwere giving advice to the Chairman on this matter, what would you recommend?








CASE: VI“Whose Side are you on, Anyway?”

It was past 4 pm and Purushottam Mahesh was still at his shopflooroffice. The small but elegant office was a perk he was entitled to after he hadbeen nominated to the board of Horizon Industries (P) Ltd., as workman-directorsix months ago. His shift generally ended at 3 pm and he would be home by lateevening. But that day, he still had long hours ahead of him.

Kshirsagar had been with Horizon for overtwenty years. Starting off as a substitute mill-hand in the paint shop at oneof the company’s manufacturing facilities, he had been made permanent on thejob five years later. He had no formal education. He felt this was a handicap,but he made up for it with a willingness to learn and a certain enthusiasm onthe job. He was soon marked by the works manager as someone to watch out for.Simultaneously, Kshirsagar also came to the attention of the president of theHorizon Employees’ Union who drafted him into union activities.

Even while he got promoted twice during theperiod to become the head colour mixer last year, Kshirsagar had graduallymoved up the union hierarchy and had been thrice elected secretary of theunion. Labour-management relations at Horizon were not always cordial. This waslargely because the company had not been recording a consistently goodperformance. There were frequent cuts in production every year because ofgo-slows and strikes by workmen—most of them related to wage hikes and bonuspayments. With a view to ensuring a better understanding on the part of labour,the problems of company management, the Horizon board, led by chairman andmanaging director Aninash Chaturvedi, began to toy with idea of taking on aworkman on the board. What started off as a hesitant move snowballed, after aseries of brainstorming sessions with executives and meetings with the unionleaders, into a situation in which Kshirsagar found himself catapulted to theHorizon board as work-man-director.

It was an untested ground for the company.But the novelty of it all excited both the management and the labour force. Theboard members—all functional heads went out of their way to make Kshirsagarcomfortable and the latter also responded quite well. He got used to theambience of the boardroom and the sense of power it conveyed. Significantly, hewas soon at home with the perspectives of top management and began to see eachissue from both sides.

It was smooth going until the union presenteda week before the monthly board meeting, its charter of demands, one of whichwas a 30 per cent across-the board hike in wages. The matter was taken up atthe board meeting as part of a special agenda.

“Look at what your people are asking for,”said Chaturvedi, addressing Kshirsagar with a sarcasm that no one in the boardmissed. “You know the precarious finances of the company. How could you be aparty to a demand that can’t be met? You better explain to them how ridiculousthe demands are,” he said.

“I don’t think they can all be dismissed asridiculous,” said Kshirsagar. “And the board can surely consider thealternatives. We owe at least that much to the union.” But Chaturvedi adjournedthe meeting in a huff, mentioning, once to Kshirsagar that he should “advisethe union properly”.

When Kshirsagar told the executive committeemembers of the union that the board was simply not prepared to even considerthe demands, he immediately sensed the hostility in the room. “You are a sellout,” one of them said. “Who do you really represent—us or them?” askedanother.

“Here comes the crunch,” thought Kshirsagar.And however hard he tried to explain, he felt he was talking to a wall.

A victim of divided loyalities, he himselfwas unable to understand whose side he was on. Perhaps the best course would beto resign from the board. Perhaps he should resign both from the board and theunion. Or may be resign from Horizon itself and seek a job elsewhere. But, hefelt, sitting in his office a little later, “none of it could solve theproblem.”

1.Whatshould he do?

GENERAL MANAGEMENT
Responding With A Smiley Face After One Is Sent To You Hookup Site
CASE: 1GEORGE DAVID

George David has been CEO of United Technologies Corporation (UTC) formore than a decade. During that time he has received numerous accolades andawards for his performance as a CEO. Under his leadership UTC, a $343 billionconglomerate whose operating units include manufacturers of elevators (OtisElevator), aerospace products (including Pratt & Whitney jet engines andSikorsky helicopters), air conditioning systems, and fire and security systems,has seen earnings grow at 10–14 percent annually—impressive numbers for anycompany but particularly for a manufacturing enterprise.

According to David, a key to UnitedTechnologies’ success has been sustained improvements in productivity andproduct quality. The story goes back to the 1980s when David was running theinternational operations of Otis Elevator. There he encountered a Japaneseengineer, Yuzuru Ito, who had been brought in to determine why a new elevatorproduct was performing poorly. David was impressed with Ito’s methods foridentifying quality problems and improving performance. When he was promoted toCEO, David realized that he had to lower the costs and improve the quality ofUTC’s products. One of the first things he did was persuade Ito to work for himat UTC. Under David, Ito developed a program for improving product quality andproductivity, known as Achieving Competitive Excellence (ACE), which wassubsequently rolled out across UTC. The ACE program has been one of drivers ofproductivity improvements at UTC ever since.

Early in his tenure as CEO, David alsoradically reorganized UTC. He dramatically cut the size of the head office anddecentralized decision making to business divisions. He also directed hisaccounting staff to develop a new financial reporting system that would givehim good information about how well each division was doing and make it easierto hold divisional general managers accountable for the performance of theunits under them. He then gave them demanding goals for earnings and sales growthand pushed them to improve processes within their units by implementing the ACEprogram.

At the same time David has always stressedthat management is about more than goal setting and holding people accountable.Values are also important. David has insisted that UTC employees adhere to thehighest ethical standards, that the company produce that have minimalenvironmental impact, and that employee safety remain the top consideration inthe work-place.

When asked what his greatest achievement as amanager has been, David refers to UTC’s worldwide employee scholarship program.Implemented in 1996 and considered the hall-mark of UTC’s commitment toemployee development, the program pays the entire cost of an employee’s collegeor graduate school education, allows employees to pursue any subject at anaccredited school, provides paid study time, and awards UTC stock (up to$10,000 worth in the United States) for completing degrees. Explaining theprogram, David states, “One of the obligations that an employer has is to giveemployees opportunities to better themselves. And we feel it’s also very goodbusiness for us because it generates a better workforce that stays longer.”

David states that one of his central taskshas been to build a management team that functions smoothly over the long term.“People come to rely upon each other,” he says. “You have the same trustingrelationships. You know people; they know you. You can predict them; they canpredict you. All of that kind of begins to work, and it accelerates over thetenure of a CEO. If you have people bouncing in and out every two to threeyears, that’s not good.”


According to Sandy Weill, former chairman ofCiticorp and a UTC board member, David has the right mix of toughness andsensitivity. “When somebody can't do the job he’ll try to help; but if thatperson is not going to make it work, that person won't be on the job forever.”At the same time Weill says, “He does a lot of things that employees respecthim for, I think he is a very good manager. Even though David is demanding, hecan also listen—he has a receive mode as well as a send mode.”



1.Whatmakes George David such a highly regarded manager?

3.Whatevidence can you see of David’s planning and strategizing, organizing,controlling, leading, and developing?

4.Whichmanagerial competencies does David seem to posses? Does he seem to lack any?



















In 1997 Michael O'Dell, the chief scientist at World-Com, which ownedthe largest network of “Internet backbone” fiber optic cable in the world,stated that data traffic over the Internet was doubling every hundred days.This implied a growth rate of over 1,000 percent a year. O'Dell went on to daythat there was not enough fiber optic capacity to go around, and that “demandwill far outstrip supply for the foreseeable future.”

Electrified by this potential opportunity, anumber companies rushed into the business. These firms included Level 3Communications, 360 Networks, Global Crossing, Qwest Communications, World-Com,Williams Communications Group, Genuity Inc., and XO Communications. In allcases the strategic plans were remarkably similar: Raise lots of capital, buildmassive fiber optic networks that straddled the nation (or even the globe), cutprices, and get ready for the rush of business. Managers at these companiesbelieved that surging demand would soon catch up with capacity, resulting in aprofit bonanza for those that had the foresight to build out their networks. Itwas a gold rush, and the first into the field would stake the best claims.

However, there were dissenting voices. Asearly as October 1998 an Internet researcher at AT&T Labs named AndrewOdlyzko published a paper that de-bunked the assumption that demand forInternet traffic was growing at 1,000 percent a year. Odlyzko’s carefulanalysis concluded that growth was much slower—only 100 percent a year!Although still large, that growth rate was not nearly large enough to fill themassive flood of fiber optic capacity that was entering the market. Moreover,Odlyzko noted that new technologies were increasing the amount of data thatcould be sent down existing fibers, reducing the need for new fiber. But withinvestment money flooding into the market, few paid any attention to him.WorldCom was still using the 1,000 percent figure as late as September 2000.

As it turned out, Odlyzko was right. Capacityrapidly outstripped demand, and by late 2002 less than 3 percent of the fiberthat had been laid in the ground was actually being used! While prices slumped,the surge in volume that managers had bet on did not materialize. Unable toservice the debt they had taken on to build out their networks, company aftercompany tumbled into bankruptcy—including WorldCom, 360 Networks, XOCommunications, Global Crossing. Level 3 and Qwest survived, but their stockprice had fallen by 90 percent, and both companies were saddled with massivedebts.

Questions

1.Why didthe strategic plans adopted by companies like Level 3, Global Crossing, and 360Networks fail?

2.Themanagers who ran these companies were smart, successful individuals, as weremany of the investors who put money into these businesses. How could so manysmart people have been so wrong?

3.Whatspecific decision-making biases do you think were at work in this industryduring the late 1990s and early 2000s?

4.Whatcould the managers running these companies done differently that might have ledto a different outcome?



CASE: 3DOW CHEMICAL

A handful of major players, compete head-to-head around the world inthe chemical industry. These companies are Dow Chemical and Du Pont of theUnited States, Great Britain’s ICI, and the German trio of BASF, Hoechst AG,and Bayer. The barriers to the free flow of chemical products between nationslargely disappeared in the 1970s. This, along with the commodity nature of bulkchemicals and a severe recession in the early 1980s, ushered in a prolongedperiod of intense price competition. In such an environment, the company thatwins the competitive race is the one with the lowest costs. Dow Chemical waslong among the cost leaders.

For years Dow’s managers insisted that partof the credit belonged to its “matrix” organization. Dow’s organizationalmatrix had three interacting elements: functions (such as R&D,manufacturing, and marketing), businesses (like ethylene, plastics, andpharmaceuticals), and geography (for example, Spain, Germany, and Brazil).Managers’ job titles incorporated all three elements (plastics marketingmanager for Spain), and most managers reported to at least two bosses. Theplastics marketing manager in Spain might report to both the head of theworldwide plastics business and the head of the Spanish operations. The intentof the matrix was to make Dow operations responsive to both local market needsand corporate objectives. Thus the plastics business might be charged withminimizing Dow’s global plastics production costs, while the Spanish operationmight determine how best to sell plastics in the Spanish market.

When Dow introduced this structure, theresults were less than promising: Multiple reporting channels led to confusionand conflict. The many bosses created an unwieldy bureaucracy. The overlappingresponsibilities resulted in turf battles and a lack of accountability. Areamanagers disagreed with managers overseeing business sectors about which plantsshould be built where. In short, the structure, didn’t work. Instead ofabandoning the structure, however, Dow decided to see if it could made moreflexible.

Dow’s decision to keep its matrix structurewas prompted by its move into the pharmaceuticals business is very differentfrom the bulk chemicals business. In bulk chemicals, the big returns come fromachieving economies of scale in production. This dictates establishing largeplants in key locations from which regional or global markets can be served.But in pharmaceuticals, regulatory and marketing requirements for drugs vary somuch from country to country that local needs are far more important thanreducing manufacturing costs through scale economies. A high degree of localresponsiveness is essential. Dow realized its pharmaceutical business wouldnever thrive if it were managed by the same priorities as its mainstreamchemical operations.

Accordingly, instead of abandoning itsmatrix, Dow decided to make it more flexible to better accommodate thedifferent businesses, each with its own priorities, within a single managementsystem. A small team of senior executives at headquarters helped set thepriorities for each type of business. After priorities were identified for eachbusiness sector, one of the three elements of the matrix—function, business, orgeographic area—was given primary authority in decision making. Which elementtook the lead varied according to the type of decision and the market orlocation in which the company was competing. Such flexibility that allemployees understand what was occurring in the rest of the matrix. Although thismay seem confusing, for years Dow claimed this flexible system worked well andcredited much of its success to the quality of the decisions it facilitated.

By the mid-1990s, however, Dow had refocusedits business on the chemicals industry, divesting itself of its pharmaceuticalactivities where the company’s performance had been unsatisfactory. Reflectingthe change in corporate strategy, in 1995 Dow decided to abandon its matrixstructure in favor of a more streamlined structure based on global productdivisions. The matrix structure was just too complex and costly to manage inthe intense competitive environment of the time, particularly given thecompany’s renewed focus on its commodity chemicals where competitive advantageoften went to the low-cost producer. As Dow’s then-CEO put it in a 1999interview, “We were an organization that was matrixed and depended on teamwork,but there was no one in charge. When things went well, we didn’t know whom toreward; and when things went poorly, we didn’t know whom to blame. So wecreated a global divisional structure and cut out layers of management. Thereused to be eleven layers of management between me and the lowest-levelemployees; now there are five.


1.Why didDow Chemical first adopt a matrix structure? What benefits did it hope toderive from this structure?

2.Whatproblems emerged with this structure? How did Dow try to deal with them? Inretrospect, do you think those solutions were effective?

3.Why didDow change its structure again in the mid-1990s? What was Dow trying to achievethis time? Do you think the current structure makes sense given the industry inwhich Dow operates and the strategy of the firm? Why?


















As with most fast-food restaurant chains, McDonald’s needs more peopleto fill jobs in its vast empire. Yet McDonald’s executives are finding thatrecruiting is a tough sell. The industry is taking a beating from anincreasingly health-conscious society and the popular film Supersize Me. Equally troublesome is a further decline in thealready dreary image of employment in a fast-food restaurant. It doesn’t helpthat McJob, a slang term closelyconnected to McDonald’s, was recently added to both Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary as alegitimate concept meaning a low-paying, low-prestige, dead-end, mindlessservice job in which the employee’s work is highly regulated.

McDonald’s has tried to shore up itsemployment image in recent years by improving wages and adding some employeebenefits. A few years ago it created the “I’m loving it” campaign, which tookaim at a positive image of the golden arches for employees as well ascustomers. The campaign had some effect, but McDonald’s executives realizedthat a focused effort was needed to battle the McJob image.

Now McDonald's is fighting back with a “MyFirst” campaign to show the public—and prospective job applicants—that workingat McDonald's is a way to start their careers and develop valuable life skills.The campaign’s centerpiece is a television commercial showing successful peoplefrom around the world whose first job was at the fast-food restaurant. “Workingat McDonald's really helped lay the foundation for my career,” says ten-time Olympictrack and field medalist and former McDonald's crew member Carl Lewis, who isfeatured in the TV ad. “It was the place where I learned the true meaning ofexcelling in a fast-paced environment and what it means to operate as part of ateam.”

Richard Floersch, McDonald's executive vicepresident of human resources, claims that the company’s top management has deeptalent, but the campaign should help to retain current staff and hire newpeople further down to hierarchy. “It’s a very strong message about how whenyou start at McDonald's, the opportunities are limitless,” says Floersch. Eventhe McDonald's application form vividly communicates this message by showing agroup of culturally diverse smiling employees and the caption “At McDonald'sYou Can Go Anywhere!”

McDonald's has also distributed media kits inseveral countries with factoids debunking the McJob myth. The Americandocumentation points out that McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner began his careerworking the restaurant’s front lines, as did 40 percent of the top 50 membersof the worldwide management team, 70 percent of all restaurant managers, and 40percent of all owner/operators. “People do come in with a ‘job’ mentality, butafter three months or so, they become evangelists because of the leadership andcommunity spirit that exists in stores,” says David Fairhurst, the vicepresident for people at McDonald's in the United Kingdom. “For many, it’s not ajob, but a career.”

McDonald's also hopes the new campaign willraise employee pride and loyalty, which would motivate the 1.6 million staffmembers to recruit more friends and acquaintances through word of mouth. “Ifeach employee tells just five people something cool about working atMcDonald's, the net effect is huge,” explains McDonald's global chief marketingofficer. So far the campaign is having the desired effect. The company’smeasure of employee pride has increased by 14 percent, loyalty scores are up by6 percent, and 90-day employee turnover for hourly staff has dropped by 5percent.

But McDonald's isn't betting on its newcampaign to attract enough new employees. For many years it has been aninnovator in recruiting retirees and people with disabilities. The most recentinnovation at McDonald's UK, called the Family Contract, allows wives,husbands, grandparents, and children over the age of 16 to swap shifts withoutnotifying management. The arrangement extends to cohabiting partners andsame-sex partners. The Family Contract is potentially a recruiting tool becausefamily members can now share the same job and take responsibility forscheduling which family member takes each shift.

Even with these campaigns and human resourcechanges, some senior McDonald's executives acknowledge that the entry-levelpositions are not a “lifestyle” job. “Most of the workers we have arestudents—it’s a complementary job,” says Denis Hennequin, the Paris-basedexecutive vice president for McDonald's Europe.



1.DiscussMcDonald's current situation from a human resource planning perspective.

2.IsMcDonald's taking the best approach to improving its employer brand? Why or whynot? If you were in charge of developing the McDonald's employer brand, whatwould you do differently?

3.Would“guerrilla” recruiting tactics help McDonald's attract more applicants? Why orwhy not? If so, what tactics might be effective?

















CASE: 5TRANSFORMING REUTERS

London-based Reuters is a venerable company. Established in 1850 anddevoted to delivering information around the world by the fastest meansavailable—which in 1850 meant a fleet of 45 carrier pigeons—by the late 1990sthe company had developed into one of the largest providers of information inthe world. Although Reuters is known best to the public for its independent,unbiased news reporting, 90 percent of Reuters’ revenues are generated byproviding information to traders in financial markets. In the 1990s the companyused a proprietary computer system and a dedicated telecommunications networkto deliver real-time quotes and financial information to Reutersterminals—devices that any self-respecting financial trader could not functionwithout. When Reuters entered the financial data business in the early 1970s,it had 2,400 employees, most of them journalists. By the late 1990s itsemployee base had swelled to 19,000 most of whom were on the financial andtechnical side. During this period of heady growth Reuters amassed some 1,000products, often through acquisitions, such as foreign-language data services,many of which used diverse and sometimes incompatible computer deliverysystems.

The late 1990s were the high point forReuters. Two shocks to Reuters’ business put the company in a tailspin. Firstcame the Internet, which allowed newer companies, such as Thompson FinancialServices and Bloomberg, to provide real-time financial information to anycomputer with an Internet connection. Suddenly Reuters was losing customers toa cheaper and increasingly ubiquitous alternative. The Internet wascommoditizing the asset on which Reuters had built its business: information.Then in 2001 the stock market bubble of the 1990s finally broke; thousands ofpeople in financial services lost their jobs; and Reuters lost 18 percent ofits contracts for terminals in a single year. Suddenly a company that hadalways been profitable was losing money.

In 2001 Reuters appointed Tom Glocer as CEO.The first nonjournalist CEO in the company’s history, Glocer, an American in aBritish-dominated firm, was described as “not part of the old boys’ network.” Glocerhad long advocated that Reuters move to an Internet-based delivery system. In2000 he was put in charge of rolling out such a system across Reuters but metsignificant resistance. The old proprietory system had worked well, and until2001 it had been extremely profitable. Many managers were therefore reluctantto move toward a Web-based system that commoditized information and had lowerprofit margins. They were worried about product cannibalization. Glocer’smessage was that if the company didn’t roll out a Web-based system, Reuters’customers would defect in droves. In 2001 his prediction seemed to be comingtrue.

Once in charge, Glocer again pushed anInternet-based system, but he quickly recognized that Reuters’ problems randeeper. In 2002, the company registered its first annual loss in history, £480million, and Glocer described the business as “fighting for survival.”Realizing that dramatic action was needed, in February 2003 Glocer launched athree-year strategic and organizational transformation program called FastForward. It was designed to return Reuters to profitability by streamlining itsproduct offering, prioritizing what the company focused on, and changing itsculture. The first part of the program was an announcement that 3,000 employees(nearly 20 percent of the workforce) would be laid off.

To change its culture Reuters added anelement to its Fast Forward program known as “Living Fast,” which defined keyvalues such as passionate and urgent working, accountability, and commitment tocustomer service and team. A two-day conference of 140 managers, selected fortheir positions of influence and business understanding rather than theirseniority, launched the program. At the end of the two days the managerscollectively pledged to buy half a million shares in the company, which at thetime were trading at all-time low.


After the conference the managers were firedup; but going back to their regular jobs, they found it difficult to conveythat sense of urgency, confidence, and passion to their employees. This led tothe development of a follow-up conference: a one-day event that included allcompany employees. Following a video message from Glocer and a brief summary ofthe goals of the program, employees spent the rest of the day in 1,300cross-functional groups addressing challenges outlined by Glocer and proposingconcrete solutions. Each group chose one of “Tom’s challenges” to address. Manyemployee groups came up with ideas that could be rapidly implemented—and were.More generally, the employees asked for greater clarity in product offerings,less bureaucracy, and more accountability. With this mandate managers launcheda program to rationalize the product line and streamline the company’smanagement structure. In 2003 the company had 1,300 products. By 2005 Reuterswas focusing on 50 key strategic products, all delivered over the Web. Theearly results of these changes were encouraging. By the end of 2004 the companyrecorded a £380 million profit, and the stock price had more than doubled.



1.Whattechnological paradigm shift did Reuters face in the 1990s? How did thatparadigm shift change the competitive playing field?

2.Why wasReuters slow to adopt Internet-based technology?

3.Why doyou think Tom Glocer was picked as CEO? What assets did he bring to theleadership job?

4.What doyou think of Glocer’s attempts to change the strategy and organizationalculture at Reuters? Was he on the right track? Would you do things differently?

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR



Of all the slogans kicked around Toyota, the key one is kaizen, which means “continuousimprovement” in Japanese. While many other companies strive for dramaticbreakthrough, Toyota overtook Ford Motor Company to become the second largestautomaker in the world. Ford had been the second largest since 1931.

Toyota simply is topsin quality, production, and efficiency. From its factories pour a wide range ofcars, built with unequaledprecision.Toyota turns out luxury sedans with Mercedes-Benz-like quality using one-sixththe labor Mercedes does. The company originated just-in-time production andremains its leading practitioner. It has close relationships with its suppliersand rigid engineering specifications for the products it purchases

Toyota’s worldwideleadership in the automotive industry was built on its competitive advantageacross the supply chain. Between 1990 and 1996, Toyota reduced part defects by84 percent, compared to 47 percent for the Big 3. It also reduced the ratio ofinventories to sales by 35 percent versus 6 percent. These reduction advantagesoccurred despite the fact the Big 3 relied on identical suppliers. A study byJeff Dyer of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and KentaroNobeoka of Kobe University attributed Toyota’s success partly to itsimplementation of bilateral and multilateral, knowledge-sharing routines withsuppliers that result in superior Interorganizational or network learning.Toyota uses six approaches to facilitate knowledge sharing: (1)a supplierassociation;(2) teams of consultants;(3)voluntary studygroups;(4)problem-solving teams;(5)interfirm employee transfers; and(6)performance feedback and monitoring processes. This effort also involves intenselevels of personal contact between Toyota and its suppliers.

Toyota pioneeredquality circles, which involve workers in discussions of ways to improve theirtasks and avoid what it calls the three Ds: the dangerous, dirty, and demandingaspects of factory work. The company has invested $770 million to improveworker housing, add dining halls, and build new recreational facilities. On theassembly line, quality is defined not as zero defects but, as another sloganputs it, “building the very best and giving the customer what she/he wants.”Because each worker serves as the customer for the process just before hers,she becomes a quality control inspector. If a piece isn’t installed properlywhen it reaches her, she won’t accept it.

Toyota’s engineeringsystem allows it to take a new car design from concept to showroom in less thanfour years versus more than five years for U.S. companies and seven years forMercedes. This cuts costs, allows quicker correction of mistakes and keepsToyota better abreast of market trends. Gains from speed feed on themselves.Toyota can get its advanced engineering and design done sooner because, as onemanager puts it, “We are closer to the customer and thus have shorter concepttime.” New products are assigned to a chief engineer who has completeresponsibility and authority for the product from design and manufacturingthrough marketing and has direct contacts with both dealers and consumers.New-model bosses for U.S. companies seldom have such control and almost neverhave direct contact with dealers or consumers.

The 1999 HarbourReport, a study of automaker competencies in assembly, stamping, and powertrainoperations, stated that the top assembly facility in North America (based onassembly hours per vehicle) is Toyota’s plant in Cambridge, Ontario. In thisplant, a Corolla is produced in 17.66 hours. Toyota was also rated number onein engine assembly, taking just 2.97 hours to produce an engine.

InToyota’s manufacturing system, parts and carsdon’t get build until orders come from dealers requesting them. In placingorders, dealers essentially reserve a portion of factory capacity. The systemis so effective that rather than waiting several months for a new car, thecustomer can get a built-to-order car in a week to 10 days.

Toyota is the bestcarmaker in the world because it stays close to its customers. “We have learnedthat universal mass production is not enough,” said the head of Toyota’s TokyoDesign Center. “In the 21st century, you personalize things more tomake them more reflective of individual needs.”

In 1999, Toyotacommitted to a $13 billion investment through 2000 to become a genuinely globalcorporation without boundaries. In this way, it will be able to createworldwide manufacturing facilities that produce cars according to local demand.Its goal is to achieve a 10 to 15 percent global market share by 2010.

Why the drive towardscustomization of vehicles? Part of this is due to fierce competition thatprovides consumer with a multitude of choices. The Internet enables consumersto be more demanding and less compromising. They now have access to the lowestprices available for specific models of vehicles with all of the bells andwhistles they design. From the comfort of their homes, they are able to bypassdealers and still find the vehicle of their dreams.

Senior management atToyota believes that kaizen is nolonger enough. The senior vice president at the Toyota USA division, DouglasWest, states that his division is committed to both creating and executing anew information system to drive the fastest, most efficient order-to-deliverysystem in the North American market. Toyota management has come to realize Kaizen alone can no longer predictbusiness success. The sweeping changes taking place in the business environmentcan no longer rely on the kaizenphilosophy of small, sustained improvements. In fact, one expert in theindustry believes that “pursuing incremental improvements while rivals reinventthe industry is like fiddling while Rome burns.” Competitive vitality can nolonger be defined by continuous improvement alone.


1.In whatways is Toyota’s new-product development system designed to serve customers?

2.In whatways is Toyota’s manufacturing system designed to serve customers?

3.How does Toyota personalize its cars andtrucks to meet individual consumer needs?







CASE: IIExposure, Attention, and Comprehension on theInternet

The Internet universe literally grows more cluttered by the minute.According to Network Solutions, Inc., which registers the vast majority of Webaddresses around the world, about 10,000 new addresses are registered each day.That means by the time you finish reading this case, about 60 new domain nameswill have been gobbled up. With all the clutter on the Web, how have some firmsbeen able to stand out and attract millions of customers?

First, there are somebasics to which online firms must attend. These cost little more than some timeand a littlecreativity. The first iscreating a good site name. The name should be memorable (yahoo.com), easy tospell (ebay.com), and/or descriptive (wine.com—a wine retailer). And, yes,ideally it will have a .com extension. This is the most popular extension fore-commerce, and browsers, as a default, will automatically add a .com onto anyaddress that is typed without extension.

The second priority isto make sure the site comes up near the top of the list on any Web searches. Ifyou use Lycos.com to perform a search for “used books,” you get a list of morethan 2.6 million websites. Studies have shown that most people will look onlyat the top 30 sites on the list, at most. If you are a used-book retailer andyou show up as website #1,865,404 on the search list, there is a very goodchance you will not attract a lot of business. A 1999 Jupiter Research studyreveals that “searching on the Internet” is the most important activity, andInternet users find the information they are looking for by using searchengines and Web directories. A good Web designer can write code that matches upwell with search engine algorithms and results in a site that ranks high onsearch lists.

Virtually all popularwebsites have those basics down pat. So the third step is to reach outproactively to potential customers and bring them to your site. Many companieshave turned to traditional advertising to gain exposure. Television advertisingcan be an effective option—albeit an expensive one. In late January 1999,hotjobs.com spent $2 million—half of its 1998 revenues—on one 30-second adduring the Super Bowl. According to CEO Richard Johnson, so many people triedto visit the site that the company’s servers jammed. Johnson says the number ofsite hits was six times greater than in the month before. A quirky ad campaignmay or may not help. Pets.com, now de-func, built its image around a wise-guysock puppet. CNET, a hardware and software retailer, ran a series of televisionads featuring cheesy music, low-budget sets, and unattractive actors. One suchad featured two men—one in a T-shirt that said ”you,” another in a T-shirtlabeled “the right computer” – coming together and joining hands thanks to theefforts of another guy in a CNET T-shirt. The production quality wasrudimentary enough that any sophomore film student could have produced it. Thespots were so bad that they stood out from the slick, expensive commercials towhich viewers were accustomed. Critics ripped the campaign to shreds, but CNETcalled it a success.

Other Internet firmshave used sports sponsorships to increase visibility. CarsDirect.com, a highlyrated site that allows consumers to purchase automobiles online, once purchasedthe naming rights to NASCAR auto race (the CarsDirect.com400). Lycos also hastried to make the most of NASCAR’s increasing popularity. It spent hundreds ofthousands of dollars to have its name and logo plastered all over the car ofpopular driver Johnny Benson. Meanwhile, online computer retailer Insight andfurniture seller galleryfurniture.com each targeted football fans by purchasingthe naming rights to college bowl games.

Of course, if you canreach consumers while they are in front of their computers rather than theirtelevision sets, you may stand an even better chance of getting them to yoursite. However, typical banner ads are inefficient, averaging click-throughrates of only about 0.5 per cent (only one of every 200 people exposed to thead actually clicked on the ad). Too often, banner ads are just wallpaper;consumers may see them but they usually are not sufficiently stimulated toclick-through. However, Michele Slack of the online advertising group JupiterCommunications believes banner ads can be useful if used correctly. “Thenovelty factor is wearing off,” she says. But “when an ad is targeted well andthe creative is good, click-through rates are much higher.”

An alternative way toreach people who are already online is through partnerships. One of the mostvisible examples of such an alliance is the one between Yahoo! And Amazon.com.Let’s say you’re working on a project on the Great Depression and you want tosee what kind of information is available online. If you go to Yahoo! And typein “Great Depression,” you will not only be presented with a list of websites,but you will also see a link that will allow you to click to see a list ofbooks on the Great Depression that are available through Amazon. Anotherexample of a successful partnership was forged in 1998 between Rollingstone.comand the website building and hosting service Tripod. Every one of the 3,000artist pages on Rollingstone.com contained a link to Tripod. The goal was toencourage fans to use Tripod’s tools to build webpages dedicated their favoritesingers or bands. According to the research company Media Metrix, during thecourse of the alliance Tripod jumped from the Web’s fourteenth most popularwebsite to number eight. Alliances with nonvirtual companies are anotheroptions. In 2003, the Internet classified firm CareerBuilder kicked off across-promotional campaign with major Internet firms, including AOL and MSN.

A less subtle butnonetheless effective way to build traffic is to more or less pay people visityour site. One study showed more than half of Internet consumers would be morelikely to purchase from a site if they could participate in some sort ofloyalty program. Hundreds of online merchants in more than 20 categories havesigned up with a network program called ClickRewards. Customers makingpurchases at ClickRewards member sites receive frequent-flier miles or othertypes of benefits. Mypoints.com offers a similar incentive program in whichcustomers are rewarded with air travel, gift certificates and discounts forshopping at member merchants. The search engine iwon.com was even more direct.It rewards one lucky visitor each weekday with a $10,000 prize. According toForrester Research, companies in 2002 spent about $6 billion annually on onlineincentives and promotions.

Finally, some firmsrely on e-mail to thoroughly mine their existing customer databases. Theauction site Onsale (later merged with Egghead.com) proved just how successfule-mail can be. It sent out targeted e-mails to its customers based on theirpast bidding activities and previously stated interests. Click-through rates onthese targeted e-mails averaged a remarkable 30 percent. E-mail marketing alsoholds promise for business-to-business firms. The Peppers and Rogers Group is amarketing firm that gives presentations around the United States. At the end ofthe presentations, people are invited to go to the company’s website and signup for their e-mail newsletter, Inside 1 to 1. The newsletter invites readersto visit the Peppers and Rogers website to learn more about various articles,promote their products and services, and participate in forums. Inside 1 to 1now boasts a subscriber base of 45,000, but the company estimates that about200,000 people actually see it because subscribers forward it to their friendsand colleagues. About 14,000 people visit the Peppers and Rogers site eachweek, with traffic often peaking immediately after the newsletter is sent.

As you can see, thereis no one effective method for generating interest in a website. The samemethods that have worked for some firms have failed for others. One certaintyis that as the Internet grows and more people do business online, Internetfirms will have to find ever more creative ways to expose customers to theirsites and keep their attention once there.





Questions:

1.Considerthe e-mail campaigns discussed in the case. Why do you think these campaignswere successful? Discuss the attention processes that were at work. Do you seeany potential drawbacks to this type of marketing?

2.During the 2000 Super Bowl, ABC invited viewers to visit itsEnhanced TV website. Fans could play trivia, see replays, participate in pollsand chat rooms, and view player statistics. The site received an estimated 1million hits. Why? Frame your answer in terms of exposure, attention, andcomprehension.

3.Think about your own Web surfing patterns. Write down thereasons you visit sites. Which of the marketing strategies discussed in thecase do you find most (and least) influential?





The online grocery turnedout to be a lot tougher than analysts thought a few years ago. Many of theearly online grocers, including Webvan, ShopLink, StreamLine, Kosmom, Homeruns,and PDQuick, went bankrupt and out of business. At one time, Webvan had 46percent of the online grocery business, but it still wasn’t profitable enoughto survive. The new business model for online grocers is to be part of anexisting brick-and-mortar chain. Large grocery chains, like Safeway andAlbertson’s, are experiencing sales growth in their online business but haveyet to turn a profit. Jupiter Research estimates that online grocery sales willbe over $5 billion by 2007, about 1 percent of all grocery sales, while itexpects more than 5 percent of all retail sales to be online by then. A fewyears ago, optimistic analysts estimated online grocery sales would be 10 to 20times that by 2005, but it didn’t work out that way.

One of the few online grocers to survive in 2003 isPeapod, the first online grocer, started by brothers Andrew and ThomasParkinson in 1990. However, even Peapod was failing until 2001 when Dutchgrocery giant Royal Ahold purchased controlling interest in the company for $73million. Peapod operates in five markets, mainly by closely affiliating itselfwith Ahold-owned grocery chains. Peapod by Giant is in the Washington, DC,area, while Peapod by Stop and Shop runs in Boston, New York, and Connecticut.The exception is Chicago, where Peapod operates without an affiliation with alocal grocery chain. Peapod executives claim the company is growing by 25percent annually and has 130,000 customers, and all of its markets exceptConnecticut are profitable. Average order size is up to $143 from $106 threeyears earlier.

The online grocery business seemed like a sure winner inthe 1990s. Dual-income families strapped for time could simply go online to dotheir grocery shopping. They has about the same choices of products that theywould have had if they went to a brick-and-mortar grocery, about 20,000 SKUs(stockkeeping units). They could browse the “aisles” on their home computersand place orders via computer, fax or telephone. The orders were filled ataffiliated stores and delivered to their homes in a 90-minute window, savingthem time and effort and simplifying their daily lives. For all thisconvenience, consumers were willing to pay a monthly fee and a fee per orderfor packaging, shipping, and delivery. Since most of the products purchasedwere well-known branded items, consumer faced little risk in buying theirtraditional foodstuffs. Even perishables like produce and meat could be countedon to be high quality, and if consumers were concerned, they could make a quicktrip to a brick-and-mortar grocery for these selections. However, while all ofthis sounded good, most consumers didn’t change their grocery shopping habitsto take advantage of the online alternative.

Currently analysts do not expect the online groceryindustry to take off in the near future, if ever. Miles Cook of Bain &Company estimates that only 8 to 10 percent of U.S. consumers will findordering groceries online appealing, but only about 1 percent will ever do so.He concludes: “This is going to remain a niche offering in a few markets. It’snot going to be a national mainstream offering.” Jupiter Media Metrix analystKen Cassar concludes that “The moral of the story is that the ability to builda better mousetrap must be measured against consumers’ willingness to buy it.”

Question:

1.What behaviors are involved in online grocery shopping? Howdoes online shopping compare with traditional shopping in terms of behavioraleffort?

2.What types of consumers are likely to value online groceryshopping from Peapod?

3.Overall, what do you think about the idea of online groceryshopping? How does it compare with simply eating in restaurants and avoidinggrocery shopping and cooking altogether?









In just over half-century,Sony Corporation has from a 10-person engineering research group operating outof a bombed-out department store to one of the largest, most complex, andbest-known companies in the world. Sony co-founders Masaru Ibuka and AkioMorita met while serving on Japan’s Wartime Research Committee during World WarII. After the war, in 1946, the pair got back together and formed TokyoTelecommunications Engineering Corporation to repair radios and build shortwaveradio adapters. The first breakthrough product came in 1950, when the companyproduced Japan’s first tape recorder, which proved very popular in musicschools and in courtrooms as a replacement for stenographers.

In 1953, Morita came to the United States and signed anagreement to gain access to Western Electric’s patent for the transistor.Although Western Electric (Bell Laboratory’s parent company) suggested Moritaand Ibuka use the transistor to make hearing aids, they decided instead to useit in radios. In 1955, Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporationmarketed the TR-55, Japan’s first transistor radio, and the rest, as they say,is history. Soon thereafter, Morita rechristened the company as Sony, a name hefelt conveyed youthful energy and could be easily recognized outside Japan.

Today Sony is almost everywhere. Its businesses includeelectronics, computer equipment, music, movies, games, and even life insurance.It employs 190,000 people worldwide and does business on six continents. In1999, Sony racked up sales of $63 billion; 31 percent of those came from Japan,30 percent from the United States, and 22 percent from Europe. (To visit someof Sony’s country-specific websites, go to www.sony.com and click on “GlobalSites.”)

Perhaps Sony’s most famous product is the Walkman.Created in 1979, the Walkman capitalized on what some perceived as the start ofa global trend towards individualism. From a technological standpoint, theWalkman, was fairly unspectacular, even by 1979 standards, but Sony’s marketingefforts successfully focused on the freedom and independence the Walkmanprovided. One ad depicted three pairs of shoes sitting next to a Walkman withthe tag line “Why man learned to walk.” By 2000 more than 250 million Walkmanshad been sold worldwide, but Sony was concerned. Studies had shown thatGeneration Y (ages 14 to 24) viewed the Walkman as stodgy and outdated. So Sonylaunched a $30 million advertising and marketing campaign to reposition theproduct in the United States. The star of the new ads was Plato, a cool,Walkman-wearing space creature. The choice of a nonhuman character was noaccident according to Ron Boire, head of Sony’s U.S. personal-mobile group. Hewanted a character that would appeal to the broadest possible range of ethnicgroups—thus, the space creature. Boire explains, “An alien is no one, so analien is everyone.”

Sony’s current vision, however, extends far beyond theWalkman: to become a leader in broadband technologies. Sony looks forward to aday when all of its products—televisions, DVDs, telephones, game machines,computers, and so on—can communicate with one another and connect with the Webon a persona network. A Sony executive provides an example of such technologyin action: “Say you are watching TV in the den, and your kids are playing theirmusic way too loud upstairs,” he says. “You could use your TV remote to call upan onscreen control panel that would let you turn down your kids’ stereo, allwithout having to get up from your recliner.”

Sony sees its new PlayStation2 filling a major role inthe Internet of the future. In March 2000, Sony introduced the PlayStation2 inJapan and sold 1 million units within a week. Newsweek featured the PlayStation2 on its cover that spring, eventhough it wasn’t offered in the United States until later in the year. Mostconsumers probably bought PlayStation2 to play video games, but its potentialgoes far beyond that. It is actually powerful enough to be adapted to guide a ballisticmissile. Sony envisions consumers turning to the PlayStation2 for not onlygames but also movies, music, online shopping, and any other kind of digitalentertainment currently imaginable. Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony ComputerEntertainment, predicts the PlayStation2 will someday become as valuable as thePC is today: “A lot of people always assumed the PC would be the machine tocontrol your home network. But the PC is a narrowband device that… has beenretrofitted to play videogames and interactive 3-D graphics. The PlayStation2is designed from the ground up to be a broadband device.”

The PlayStation2 also reflects a changing attitude withinSony regarding partnerships with other companies. Toshiba helped Sony designthe Emotion Engine, which powers the PlayStation2. In previous years, thesekinds of alliances were the exception rather than the rule with the Sony. Sonywas perceived as arrogant because it rarely cooperated with other companies,preferring to develop and popularize new technologies on its own. Recently,however, that has changed. Sony has worked with U.S. based Palm to develop anew hand-held organizer with multimedia capabilities, cooperated with Intel tocreate a set of standards for home networks, and launched a joint venture withCablevision to build a broadband network in the New York metropolitan area.Nevertheless, some critics believe Sony remains too insular, looking on fromthe sidelines while other companies join forces to create entertainmentpowerhouses. Sony has no alliances with U.S. cable or television networks,raising some doubts about its ability to fully develop its home Internetservices. Sony has talked with other music companies about possible jointventure, but nothing has come to fruition.

Unlike many U.S.-based multinationals, Tokyo-based Sonytraditionally has marketed itself on a regional rather than a global basis. Forexample, Sony has almost 50 different country-specific websites from whichconsumers can order products. However, there are signs that strategy may bechanging, at least to some degree. Sony launched www.Sonystyle.com, a websitethat is the company’s primary online outlet for selling movies, music, andelectronic products. Sony also plans to provide product service and support onthe site, and eventually software upgrades as well. The current main website(www.sony.com) is mainly a source for corporate and investor information. Also,in 1997 Sony embarked on a worldwide ad campaign to make itself and itsproducts more relevant in the eyes of younger consumers. Ironically, much ofSony’s future growth may come from its own backyard. The primary buyers ofelectronic and digital products are ages 15 to 40. It is estimated that by2010, two-thirds of the people in the world in that age bracket will live inAsia. Tokyo is already a powerful influence on Asian culture. Asia’s mostpopular youth magazines are published in Tokyo, and most of the music Asianyoung people listen to comes form Tokyo. So part of Sony’s challenge is tocontinue to grow on a global scale while paying close attention to theburgeoning market at home.

Immediately following World War II and for some yearsthereafter, the label “Made in Japan” connoted cheap, shoddy, imitationproducts. Today, for many people, that same label stands for excellence andinnovation. Certainly Sony can take much of the credit that transformation. Nowthe question is whether Sony’s products and marketing efforts can keep pace (orset the pace) in the upcoming age of digital convergence.

Question:

1.Identify and discuss some of the cultural meanings for Sonypossessed by consumers in your country. Discuss how these cultural meaning weredeveloped and how they influence consumers’ behaviors (and affect andcognition). What is the role of marketing strategies in creating andmaintaining (or modifying) these cultural meanings?

2.It is often stated that the world is becoming smaller becausetoday people communicate relatively easily across time and distance. Discusswhether that has been beneficial for Sony. What are some marketing challengesit presents?

3.What do you think about Sony’s tradition of region-specificor nation-specific marketing? Would Sony be better served by working to createa more uniform global image?

CASE: VPleasantCompany

Samantha Parkington fights for women’s suffrage. Addy Walkerescapes from slavery. Kirsten Larson builds a life in the frontier. Charactersfrom feminist novel? No, these plucky heroines are part of The American GirlsCollection, a line of historical dolls that are the darlings of 7- to 12year-olds. Christmas orders piled up so fast at Pleasant Co.—the privately helddoll-maker—that company vice presidents had to pack boxes in the warehouse.

Former president, Pleasant Rowland, who began the companywith royalties she received from writing primary school reading books knew hervision had to be broad. Simply launching a me-too doll would have meantfailure.

Before Rowland got her idea she went shopping for dollsfor her two nieces. All she found were Barbies that wore spiked heels, drovepink Corvettes, and looked as if they belonged in strip joints. Though industrysources told her she couldn’t sell a mass market doll for over $40—some Barbiescost less than $10—Rowland gambled that boomer parents would pay more for onethat was fun and educational.

Each of Pleasant Co.’s five dolls represents an era ofAmerican history. Addy is from the Civil War, and Samantha is described as a“bright Victorian beauty.” Parents can also buy historically accurate replicasof clothes, furniture, and memorabilia, such as the June 6, 1944, Chicago Daily Tribune headlined “Allies InvadeFrance, made for Molly McIntire, the 1940s doll. The 18-inch dolls cost $84;add in all the accessories, including $80 dresses for the doll’s owner, and theprice exceeds $1000. Every doll also stars in its own series of novels, withtitles like Kirsten Learns a Lesson Samantha Saves the Day. Theheroines go on adventures and cope with moral dilemmas; for example, FelicityMerriman, a colonial girl, has to decide whether to continue her tea partieswhile her father fights King
George Ill’s tea tax. Says Rowland: “We try to give girls chocolate cake withvitamins.”

Pleasant Co. decided early on not to compete doll to dollon toy store shelves. Defying industry wisdom, Rowland began selling onlythrough her own catalog. She counted on her dolls’ being so different that wordof mouth would take care of sales. She also coddled her customers. Pleasant Co.opened a “hospital” for broken dolls, so when brother sticks a pair of scissorsthrough Molly’s head, Mom can return her to Pleasant Co. for repairs. For $35the company does the surgery then mails Molly—now wearing a hospital gown andcarrying a certificate of health form the house doctor—home to recuperate.

Will Pleasant Co.’s dolls have legs? Rowland says movies,CD-ROMs, and theme parks aren’t out of the question. But she’ll expand only aslong as she can keep the business special. She refuses to license her productson T-shirts and lunch boxes, fearing that too much exposure would cheapen thedoll’s image. Says Rowland: “It never hurts to play hard to get.”

In 1998, Mattel, Inc., purchased Pleasant Co., whichcontinues to operate as an independent subsidiary. During the same year,American Girl Place, the company’s first retail and entertainment site, openedin downtown Chicago, and a second store opened in New York in 2003. The storesare a little girl’s delight. Visitors can purchase dolls, books, and clothing;view a musical revue; and have tea, lunch, or dinner at the Café at AmericanGirl Place. The Chicago store sold $35 million worth of products in 2003.

Question:

1.Why do consumers pay $84 for a Pleasant Company doll whenthey can buy other dolls much more cheaply at retail stores?

2.Considering money, time, cognitive activity, and behavioraleffort costs, are Pleasant Company dolls more or less costly than dolls thatcan be purchased at retail stores?

3.What recommendations do you have for Pleasant Company toincrease sales and profits?

ADVERTISE MANAGEMENT
Attempt Only 4 Case Study

Case I- The Day That Wal-MartDropped the Smiley Face

Retailgiant wal-mart annually spends close to a half billion dollars on advertising,so the company’s decision in the first month of 2005 to run full-page ads inmore than 100 newspapers was not really surprising. What was surprising was thecopy in those ads, which said nothing about low-priced toasters or new musicCDs. Instead, the ads featured a photo of workers in their blue Wal-Mart smocksand a letter from Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott. Scott’s letter was blunt and to thepoint: “When special interest groups and critics spread misinformation aboutWal-Mart, the public deserves to hear the truth. Everyone is entitled to theirown opinions about our company, but they are not entitled to make up theirfacts.”

Notthe sort of message many would expect from a company whose television ads oftenfeature a yellow “smiley-face” flying around a Wal-Mart store lowering prices.But it is a clear sign that Wal-Mart believes it can no longer afford to ignoreseveral societal trends that threaten the company’s success and profitability.

Wal-Martis the largest and most successful retailer in the world. It employs morepeople than any other private company in the United States (almost 1.2 million)and has world-wide sales of over a quarter trillion dollars, more than fourtimes that of its nearest competitor. The foundation of this impressive recordis the company’s ability to keep it promise of customer-friendly service andlow prices.

Butwith success comes attention and not all of it good. Several lawsuits claimWal-Mart shorts overtime pay and one lawsuit claimed female employees facediscrimination in pay and promotions. Wal-Mart’s expansion plans have also runinto trouble, as some cities and states, citing concerns ranging from lowwages, inadequate benefits, environmental damage, and harm to local economies,have passed laws to make it difficult or impossible for Wal-Mart to build itsgiant superstores.

Inresponse to past criticisms of its diversity policies, Wal-Mart createdcompany-wide postings of promotional opportunities, created a new position fora director of diversity, and slashed the bonuses of managers who fail toachieve diversity hiring targets. Scott himself stands to lose $600,000 fromhis annual bonus if Wal-Mart does not meet diversity goals. Recent years havealso seen the CEO spend more time meeting with investors, community groups andthe media.

Butin recent years Wal-Mart has begun to use advertising as a way of addressingcriticisms that the company is not a good employer. At first, much of thisadvertising was “soft-sell” emphasizing happy Wal-Mart employees. The newcampaign is clearly more direct: The copy seeks to address misperceptions aboutemployee wages and benefits, noting that full-time company employees are paidan average of $ 9.68 – substantially higher than what is required by federallaw (%5.15). The copy also notes that a majority of Wal-Mart employees saidbenefits were important to them when they chose to take a job at the retailer. Complementingthe ads is a PR campaign in select cities using employees and pressconferences. In Tampa, Florida, for example, employee MichaelMartin told reporters, “I’m making more after working four years at Wal-Martthan I did after nine years at Winn-Dixie.” Martin, a department manager,noted, “I left Winn-Dixie because I couldn’t get a promotion. Here I got oneafter six months.”

Whyis the company using a new approach? “For too long, others have had free reinto say things about our company that just are not true,” said lee Scott,president and chief executive office. “ Our associates [Wal-Mart speak foremployees] are tired of it and we’ve decided to draw our own line in the sand.”It is too soon to know if the campaign will succeed, although some are alreadyskeptical. According to retail marketing consultant Jordan Zimmerman,aggressive mage campaigns like Wal-Mart’s are rare and costly. And ads thatdirectly address the company’s critics will not likely replace the company’sregular advertising (including the smiley face), which is not scheduled tochange any time soon. But the new ads do constitute a small change in thenature of the dialogue Wal-Mart has with consumers and society. Only tie willtell if they help Wal-Mart to stay on top.


1.What is Wal-Mart doing with its latestcampaign? What are the difficulties involved in such an effort?

2.A recent Advertising Age article notedthat Wal-mart customers are less likely to read newspapers and more likely towatch television than the population as a whole. Why, then did Wal-mart choosenewspapers for its new campaign?

3.Analyze this Wal-Mart campaign andexplain its purpose referring to the discussion in this chapter of the rolesand functions of advertising. What is its primary purpose? Do you think it willbe effective at accomplishing that purpose?




Youngpeople with limited incomes often look for a great deal on a new car. One wayto save money is to forgo options and upgrades, like a sunroof or a CD player.But when Toyotaintroduced its funky “Scion” brand, it considered offering a version withoutsomething most people assume comes standard: paint. Although they ultimatelydecided against the idea, at one point Toyota’s plan was to sell the brand withjust gray primer.

Toyotawasn’t really targeting people so cheap they wouldn’t spend money on paint.Just the opposite – the car company was going after a group with money to burn,called tuners. Tuners are young car buyers who live to customize hteir cars.The trend really began among young Asian Americans, who typically bough tinexpensive Asian import cars and then spent thousands of dollars customizingthem. The hobby has spread to other young people, so that today Asian Americansare a minority of tuners. But Japanese brands remain the cars of choice amongthose dedicated to creating a work of art on wheels. Explaining the idea of a“no paint” option, Jim Farley, Scion general manager, says, “As much as possible,we want to give them [tuners] a black canvas.”

Whatdoes a tuner do with his car? He (or she; women make up almost 20 percent ofthe tuner subculture) might take a basic Honda, add a large and loud exhaustsystem, paint the intake manifolds, and add ride-lowering springs. Otherpopular add-ons are technologies that increase vehicle speed, liketurbochargers, superchargers, and nitrous kits. And there are some seriousbucks involved. The Specialty Equipment Market Association estimates that autoafter-market spending (spending on car accessories after the original carpurchase) increased from $295 million in 1997 to 2.3 $billion in 2002. Themotivation? “ You build a car for yourself,” says one day install on Acura RSXType-S engine into his Honda Civic. “ The satisfaction is in making it your ownand knowing that nobody will ever have something that’s the same.”

Theamount of money tuners spend is reason enough to attract the attention ofmarketers. GM hoped to interest tuners in its Saturn Ion, Chevrolet Cavalier,and Pontiac Sunfire when it when it launched a “ Tuner Tour” of 10 National HotRod Association races. GM allowed young car enthusiasts to play games and entercontests for prizes, as it in turn collected names and e-mail addresses. GM’sfocus on relationship marketing makes sense because tuners don’t watch a lot ofTV. Both Mitsubishi and Ford believe the best way to reach them is with productplacements in movies (Mitsubishi bought air time in the popular for (“2 Fast 2Furious”). But even companies selling products unrelated to cars are interestedin the tuner lifestyle. Pepsi has hired tuners to customize some of itspromotional vehicles.

Whichbrings us full circle back to Scion, Toyota’s goal is to make the new car animmediate hit with tuners. So rather than spend a great deal of money onnetwork television, Toyotadecided to sponsor a 22-minute movie On the D.L. The movie is a comicaldocudrama that tells the story of a pair of musicians trying to obtain theirfirst drivers licenses. The stars are musicians trying to obtain their firstdrivers licenses. The stars are musicians from youth-oriented bands: Ahmir“Questlove” Thompson, from the Roots, and DJ King Britt, who played for theDigable Planets. The film premiered at the Tribeca film festival, after whichsegments were shared on peer-to-peer networks such as Kaazaa. Toyota hopes that enthusiasts will downloadthe segments and share them with friends.

Questions:

1.Why are tuners so attractive tomarketers, even after accounting for their spending power?

2.Evaluate Toyota’s strategy of targeting tuners withthe Scion campaign. What are the difficulties for a large company in marketingeffectively to a youth-oriented subculture? What techniques do you thinkcompanies like Toyotaare using to try to understand their market?

3.Explain how “tuner” campaigns, such asthose by GM and Toyota,work. Analyze these campaigns using the Facets Model to identify the effectsthey are designed to achieve. How would you determine if these campaigns areeffective?



Starbuckscoffee is now sold in grocery stores but how many people realize it? To getthat message out, the well known coffee house chain needed to reach itscustomers nationwide with that message.

Televisioncommercials would be the obvious way to reach those people, but Starbucks’management knew that their customers are not big fans of television commercialsand resent the interruption of their favorite program. That’s why starbucks hasbeen such an infrequent advertiser on TV. Its on-air promotional activitieshave been limited primarily to radio and its only previous use of TV had beensupport announcements on public TV.

Thatwas the problem facing Starcom’s MediaVest group. The agency used a creativesolution: It recommended a partnership with the Bravo cable network. Bravowould run four Independent Film Channel (IFC) movies on Friday nights for amonth and Starbucks would buy all the commercial time surrounding the movieairings.

TheMediaVest team knew that Bravo’s “IFC Friday” night films would be a good wayto reach the stakeholder audience because research had described that customerbase as people who are up on the latest trends, like to attend liveperformances of the arts, are apt to see a movie during the weekend it opens,and generally are interested in cutting edge things. Mediavest calls thiscustomer “the attuned explorer.”

Eventhough Starbucks bought all the commercial time, the MediaVest team recommendedletting the movies run uninterrupted. Starbucks’ advertising message wasdelivered in supporting Bravo promotions of the movies during each week leadingup to the Friday night telecast. About 40 seconds of each 60-second previewspot showed scenes from the movie and 20 seconds promoted Starbucks s the moviesponsor.

Otherpromotional activities were also used in support of the campaign. One monthbefore the movies aired, a $1 off coupon for a bag of Starbucks Coffee was sentto 3 million targeted consumers around the country, along with a viewer guideintroducing the Starbucks-sponsored independent movie festival.

Starbucksbillboards also appeared during the movie month coinciding with the independentfilm industry’s annual telecast, which aired on both Bravo and IC.

Theinnovative Bravo partnership wound up not only increasing sales of StarbucksCoffee by 15 percent for the month the campaign ran, but also increasedviewership on Bravo by 33 percent. These results led the campaign to be named aMedia Plan of the year by Adweek magazine.

Questions:

1.What was the problem Starbucks wantedto overcome in order to effectively advertise that its coffee brand wasavailable in supermarkets?

2.How did the partnership work? Is thereanything you could recommend that would extend the reach of this campaign?

CaseIV - Wpp’s Owner-a British Knight with Every (Marketing) Weapon at His Disposal

Tothe uniformed, nothing about Martin Sorrell or his company, the WPP group, maybe quite what it seems. Although he was awarded a knighthood, Sir Martin is anythingbut a reserved aristocrat. And while WPP is one of the four largest agencyholding companies in the world, the initials actually stand for Wire &Plastic products, the British company Sorrell used to gobble up some of theworld’s most famous advertising agencies. The roster of agencies now under theWPP’s wing includes industry leaders Ogivly and Mother, Burson-Marsteller, Hill& knowlton, young & Rubicam, and J. Walter Thompson, to name just afew.

Large conglomerates like WPP madefrequent headlines in the 1990s, a period of great consolidation in theadvertising industry. Faced with harsh economic and business realities,individual advertising agencies chose to give up independent existence in orderto become parts of large communication companies that offered clients all thetools for an integrated campaign, including advertising, direct marketing,public relations, and sales promotion. In the new millennium, dealing with one(or several) of the four large holding companies, WPP Group (England),Interpublic(U.S), Publicis Groups (France), and Omnicom (U.S), is the way theworld’s biggest advertisers do business.

While each of the conglomerates isled by a charismatic and dynamic individual, none appears to have an edge onSorrell, who was described in a recent Fortune article as “…confident, witty,and a tod arrogant, talking rapidly about the future of advertising and thechallenges of keeping fractious clients and ad agencies happy.” Fortune alsonoted that “In an industry populated by shameless schmoozers, the 59-year-oldSorrell is in a league of his own.”

These characteristics have servedSorrell well, In 2004 he squared off against rival Publicis Groups and its CEO,Maurice Levy, in pursuit of one of the last great independent agencies, GreyAdvertising, New York. During the battle Advertising Age opined that Publicishad a big advantage because Levy and Grey chair Edward Meyer were friends andhad spoken about merging in the past. In addition, both Grey and Publiciscreated ads for consumer giant procter & Gamble, while WPP agency Ogilvy& Mather counted P&G’s competitor Unilever among its most importantclients. (It is customary for agencies not to work for competing accounts.) AUnilever spokesperson, asked for his thoughts about the possibility of workingwith an agency that created ads for his most important rival, suggested that“In the past, we’ve not seen it to be such a good idea. “But nobody familiarwith Martin Sorrell was surprised when at the end of the day he convinced Greyto sign with WPP and persuaded Procter & Gamble to stay as well.

Unlike many of his peers, Sorrellhas never written a word of copy, nor has he ever penciled a print design ordirected a broadcast commercial. Sorrell’s talents are organizational andstrategic; although he is an expert in the world of finance, Sir Martincautions, “I may be a bean counter, but I’m not an accountant.” To drive homethe point he posed for WPP’s annual report surrounded by lima and pinto beans.

So how does Martin Sorrell continue towin in the high-stakes agency world? His vision, developed years before most ofhis rivals caught on, that twenty-first-century clients would want a completemenu of marketing communication services, all of which work synergistically, isone important reason for his success. Tenacity, energy, focus, and awillingness to do whatever is needed to win are also traits that come to mind.All these are illustrated in the story of Sorrell’s drive to land Korean giantSamsung when the company put its advertising up for review in the spring of2004. Samsung spends almost $400 million each year supporting its brands, whichis reason enough for agencies to salivate for the account. Sorrell believesthat the company holds even greater appeal because of his forecast thatadvertising growth in the twenty-first century will come disproportionatelyfrom Asia.

So Sorrell did whatever he could toattract Samsung’s attention. Like any savvy agency head, he assigned his bestpeople to generate creative ideas to pitch to Samsung executives. But unlikemost agency heads, he didn’t stop there. After discovering that aSamsung-financed museum was having a grand opening in Seoul, Sorrell jumped on a plane and ended upbeing the only agency person there. Samsung executives found themselvesreceiving emails from Sorrell at all time of the day and night. PeterStringham, marketing director of HSBC, a company that Sorrell landed afterseveral years of trying, commented, “Martin can be quite persistent. He wasthere from the first meeting to the last. He’d pitched to us a couple of timesbefore and not gotten the account, but he’d had his eye on it for years.”

Needless to say, in the fall of2004, Samsung announced it was awarding its account to WPP. In the newmillennium, British knights may not wear armor, carry a crest, or rescuedamsels in distress. But Sir Martin Sorrell knows how to triumph in thecompetitive world of advertising agencies.

Questions

1.Why do large clients like Samsung wishto work with giant holding companies like WPP instead of with smaller agencies?

2.What qualities help Sorrell to besuccessful? Why are these qualities so important for his company’s success?

3.Explain how Martin Sorrell winsclients and builds positive agency-client relationships. How does he see the agency’srole in marketing?




Arecent ad for a Nike hiking shoe used copy that was probably intended to behumorous. The copy suggested that Nike’s shoe could help the use avoid turninginto “…a drooling, misshapen non-extreme-trail-running husk of my former self,forced to roam the earth in a motorized wheelchair with my name embossed on oneof those cute little license plates you get at carnivals….” Marcie Roth, anadvocacy director for the National Council on Independent Living, didn’t findit funny. “Nike is trying to be sensationalist, and they’re doing it on thebacks of the disabled,” thundered Roth, adding, “We won’t tolerate it.” Nikeapologized and immediately pulled the ad. But Roth announced that her group wasinterested in more than just an apology, because the disabled, in Roth’s words,had been “dissed.” Nike was asked to include disabled actors in its ads andhire a greater number of disabled workers. Otherwise, suggested Roth, Nikecould expect a boycott.

Boycotts are certainly one way forconsumers to let advertisers know when they’ve gone too far. While someadvertisers, notably Benetton, delight in creating controversy, that vastmajority try to avoid the unwanted attention and possible loss of sales that aboycott might bring. Armed with this knowledge, consumers and interest groupsregularly threaten boycotts and there are several Web sites that track thedozens of product boycotts that are occurring at any given time. Recently theWeb site “Ethical Consumer” listed boycott of Adidas (for allegedly usingkangaroo skin in the manufacture of some boots), Air France (for allegedlytransporting primates), Bayer (for allegedly supporting policies favoring theuse of genetically modified crops), and even entire nations (Israel, China,Morocco, and Turkey).

Although Ethical Consumer’srationales for supporting boycotts appear motivated by left-leaning or progressiveconcerns, conservative groups use them too. The American Family
Association, based in Tupelo, Mississippi, has sent tens ofthousands of e-mails threatening boycotts to advertisers Geico, Best Buy, FootLooker, and Finish Line. The AFA is not upset with the ads placed by thesecompanies, but rather with the program in which the ads appear: SouthPark.The AFA claims its e-mail campaigns caused Lowe’s, Tyson, ConAgra, andKellogg’s to stop placing ads in ABC’s surprise hit Desperate Housewives.

Some companies resist boycottpressures. Proctor & Gamble ignored AFA pressure to stop its support forgay-friendly legislation in Cincinnati.Subway Vice President Chris Carroll said his company ignored threatenedboycotts caused by the company’s decision to run ads in a documentary that wasunflattering to Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

And then there’s Pepsi. In 2003 thebrand signed hip-hop artist Ludacris to appear in a “fun-oriented” campaign,but outspoken cable show host Bill O’Reilly immediately ripped Pepsi and urged“…all responsible Americans to fight back and punish Pepsi for using a man whodegrades women, who encourages substance abuse, and does all the things thathurt…the poor in our society. I’m calling for all Americans to say, ‘Hey,Pepsi, I’m not drinking your stuff. You want to hang around with Ludacris, youdo that, I’m not hanging around with you.”

A Pepsi representative appearing onO’Reilly’s show denied that the artist’s provocative lyrics (one album featureda song called “Move Bitch”) were relevant to the Pepsi campaign. But thefollowing day Pepsi canceled the campaign. For viewers of a certain age, theentire affair was reminiscent of the controversy that erupted several yearsearlier when Pepsi canceled ads featuring Madonna after she appeared in acontroversial music video. But Pepsi’s decision did not mark the end of thecontroversy. After the announcement, Ludacris and the Hip-Hop Summit ActionNetwork, an organization run by his producer, Russell Simmons, threatened theirown boycott. Following several days of negotiations, the second boycott wascalled off. Ludacris would not be a spokesperson for Pepsi, but the soft-drinkgiant agreed to a deal to make a multi-million-dollar donation over severalyears to the rapper’s foundation.

Questions:

1.What do you think about consumerboycotts? Are they unhealthy attempts to infringe on the speech rights ofothers? Or are they a healthy sign that consumers can take action against theethical lapses of advertisers?

2.How should a company respond to thethreat of a boycott? Consider the different responses of Nike, Subway, Lowe’s,Proctor & Gamble, and Pepsi. How well do you think each of these companiesreacted to boycott pressure? Did any of the companies hurt their brand becauseof the way they reacted to boycotts?

3.How would you review advertising ideasthat you suspect are controversial and might generate a backlash? Is it everjustified to “push the envelope” in the areas of good taste and socialresponsibility? How would you decide if such approaches are effective?

IfIt Walks Like the Aflac Duck

You’veprobably never heard of the American Family life Assurance Co.,nor likely to be familiar with its primary service: supplemental workplacemedical insurance, a type of insurance that is used by people to help cover themany loopholes and deductibles in their primary insurance coverage. Then again,if you are like 90 percent of U.S.consumers, maybe you have heard of the company. In its advertising it callsitself “AFLAC.”

The four-year AFLAC campaign is thework of Linda Kaplan Thaler, owner of the New York agency that bears her name.Thaler’s ads are not known for their subtlety. Among her credits are the Toy’sR Us jingle “I don’t want to grow up,” and the successful campaign for ClairolHerbal Essences, featuring on “orgasmic” hair-washing experience. The HerbalEssences ads strike some as funny, others as quite possibly offensive, butsales of the product have skyrocketed to almost $700 million a year.

In many ways Thaler’s ads hearkenback to the 1960s, when it was common to feature “sex, schmaltz, chirpy jinglesand ‘talking’ babies and animals,” as the New York Time’s advertising columnistStewart Elliott puts it. Industry insiders have been known to snipe at Thaler’swork, and few would describe her campaigns as “edgy.” But as Maurice Levy, CEOof the giant advertising company Publicis, observes, “There are people who doadvertising for what I call the advertising for the consumer. She is doingadvertising mush more for the consumer.” Thaler herself notes, “We’re doing ourjob when we find ways to get people to buy things.”

Thaler’s AFLAC ads, by almost anymeasure, are her best. Almost all feature a white duck desperately screaming“AFLAC” at people who need supplemental insurance. Unfortunately, the duck’saudience never quite seems to hear him. Most of the ads contain a fair amountof slapstick, usually at the expense of the duck, whose exasperated-soundingvoice originates with former Saturday Night Live cast member Gilbert Gottfried.“He’s got the right answer but nobody is listening, and that’s a situation thatresonates with people,” says Kathleen Spencer, director of AFLAC’s corporatecommunications. “There’s also just something inherently comical about a duck.”

The campaign has been enormouslysuccessful. Since the ads first began running, brand name awareness hasincreased from 15 percent to 90 percent. Over the same period year-to-yearsales increases have almost doubled. Dan Amos, CEO for AFLAC, believes that“our name recognition with our advertising campaign to truly help our company.”In 2003 Ad Age named the commercial featuring the duck and the Amazing Kreskin(who hypnotizes a man into thinking he is a chicken) the most-recalled spot in America.

But what makes the AFLAC campaigntruly remarkable is how little it has cost the company. The duck has a higher Qscore (a measure of a character’s familiarity and appeal) than both RonaldMcDonald and the Energizer Bunny, but whereas Energizer has spent almost abillion dollars over 15 years on advertising, and McDonald’s spends almost $700million every year, AFLAC’s ad budget is only $45 million a year. There is nodenying that Thaler’s work for AFLAC is a triumph of both effectiveness andvalue.


1.Some viewers don’t like the AFLAC ads.Can an ad still accomplish its intended purposes if people find it annoying?

2.The AFLAC campaign is more than fouryears old. In your opinion, will the campaign stay effective for theforeseeable future?

3.What makes AFLAC ads so effective? Isit something more than their entertainment value? If so, what else contributesto their success?

SALES MANAGEMENT
Note: All casesare Compulsory

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SamMcDonald, vice-president of sales of the Phillips Company, was concerned withthe potential of his sales force in correcting his company’s image in theelectric utility industry. The Phillips Company, one of the leadingmanufacturers of steam power plants in the United States, was located inPhiladelphia. The company was started by Aaron Phillips, who beganmanufacturing small steam engines in Philadelphia in 1846. Currently thecompany had annual sales in excess of$200 million and sold power plants to industrial users throughout theworld. McDonald was concerned because public utilities, important users ofsteam power equipment, only accounted for 12 to 15 percent of Phillips’ sales.Some utilities were good customers, but many other major utilities never boughtfrom the company at all. Concerned with whether this low acceptance was aresult of a poor image of steam power plants as a power alternative or a poorimage of the Phillips Company as a source of steam power plants, McDonaldsuggested to top management that they explore the buying attitudes andmotivation of electric utility companies as completely as possible. To removethe risk of personal bias, an outside research agency was called in to conductthe survey.

Theresearch agency set out to find out what customers and potential customersreally thought of the Phillips Company. Depth interviews were carried out withinfluential buying personnel in a selected sample of all electric utilities.The results that were presented to the executive committee in September werenot too pleasant to hear. In general, Phillips’ engineering skills were ratedhighly; product quality and workmanship were considered good. However, a numberof respondents thought of Phillips as a completely static company. They werecompletely unaware of Phillips’ excellent research operations and many newproduct developments.

Theresearch organization pointed out other useful information about the PhillipsCompany and its market. Sales were normally personnel related; that is,personal relationships and personalities were important in the buying decision.The buying responsibility was widely dispersed for products sold by Phillips.As many as forty people, ranging from the president down, might be involved ina purchase. Many Phillips salespeople were not too well informed about thedetails of new product developments and would probably need additional trainingto be able to answer technical questions.

Itwas obvious to McDonald that Phillips’ communications methods had failedcompletely to keep potential utility customers aware of changes taking place inthe company and its products. Some method had to be devised to break down thecommunications barrier and sell Phillips products. At this point a disagreementdeveloped between the advertising and sales departments as to how to go aboutchanging the image. Representatives of the advertising department came up withtwo possible approaches that could be used separately or jointly. First, theymight advertise in mass media to get across the Phillips story. Second, theycould launch an intensive publicity campaign, blanketing all new media andparticularly utilities trade media with information and press releases.McDonald’s suggested approach started with a complete upgrading of informationto the sales force about new-product developments and current research. Then,the sales staff could make presentations directly to prospects in the field.Flipcharts and visual aids could be used where appropriate. Alternatively, thecompany could try to schedule educational meetings for key electric utilitypersonnel. This would require a traveling symposium, staffed by top personneland equipped with audiovisual aids, that could spend several hours with groupsof employees in selected utilities across the country.

Question:

1.Whataction should the Phillips Company have taken to change the company image inthe public utility field?


CASE2: Diamond Pump

Homer Castleberry hadheld the job of vice-president at Diamond Pump for five years. Lately he hadhad the feeling he was running on an endless tread-mill, never gettinganywhere. Returning from an extended trip visiting seven sales agents in thewestern states, a postponement of an eighth visit found him with twouncommitted days in Kansas City. For the first time in many months, he had thetime to sit back and evaluate his job, his performance and his future.

DiamondPump Company, a subsidiary of Greyson Industries, Inc., manufactured positivedisplacement pumps for use in the chemical, petroleum, and other industries.Diamond gear pumps, screw pumps, and progressive cavity pumps were sold throughseveral hundred distributors. Distribution covered the entire United States,Canada, and most of the free world. In addition, Diamond sold speciallydesigned pumps direct to original equipment manufacturers. Throughout its118-year history, Diamond has been a strong competitor in the industrial marketand enjoyed a fine reputation as a maker of quality pumps. The company hadachieved a sales increase each year for twenty consecutive years. In spite ofthis success, management felt that the company could find better ways ofhandling certain nagging distribution problems.

The industrial pumpindustry was dominated by several large companies, with Diamond among thelargest. Because pumps were used in such a variety of applications, no one ofthese companies could provide the best pump for each application. Mostcompanies, including Blackmer Company and Viking Corporation, two majorcompetitors, produced only screw-type and gear-type pumps respectively.Diamond, in contrast, offered a diverse standardized line that included bothtypes. These standard pumps were purchased by a wide variety of users,primarily for process applications.

Originalequipment manufacturers (OEMs) comprised the other major customer group, agroup that had become an increasingly important market segment. OEMs includedpetroleum tank truck manufacturers, for example, who required speciallydesigned pumps not offered in Diamond’s standard product line.

Pricestended to be uniform among competing pump manufacturers. The customer’sdecision to buy was based mainly on the quality of service. The pump’sperformance characteristics were also important, and price played a limitedrole in the buying decision. While Castleberry tried to limit price increasesto one a year, this objective recently had fallen victim to the escalatingprices of raw materials, which comprised the major portion of costs, as well asto rising over-head costs.

National advertising intrade journals comprised the bulk of the promotional effort. Castleberry andthe advertising agency aimed at two important targets: the first consisted ofpetroleum tank truck manufacturers, petroleum storage operations, and the like.Diamond appealed to these potential buyers through Fuel Oil News, ChemicalEngineering, andNational Petroleum. Inquiries resulting from these advertisementswere turned over to the sales agents and distributor in the area from which theinquiry originated.

Thesecond equally important target was comprised of engineers and productdesigners who determined what brands of equipment would be included in productspecification sheets for new products. The jobs of sales personnel at thecompany and distributor level were made more difficult if the Diamond pump wasnot specified initially. Therefore, advertisements in trade journals such asDesign News were placed to influence the design specifications.

Diamondalso advertised in the Yellow Pages section of telephone directories in majormetropolitan areas. These ads listed all Diamond sales agents and distributorsin the metropolitan area.

Homer Castleberry achieveddistribution through twenty-one commissioned sales agents who were responsiblefor marketing pumps in their respective geographic areas. While these salesagents personally called on OEMs in their territories, OEM accounts wereserviced by distributors under the supervision of the sales agents. There were425 Diamond distributors employing 2,000 sales personnel.

Thesales agent was responsible for selecting Diamond distributors. Distributorswere approved by Homer Castleberry, approvals being based on credit-worthinessand ability to promote Diamond products. Castleberry insisted that distributorsnot selling competing lines. Additionally, the distributor was required to havea quality image, that is, sell high-quality complementary products and provideexcellent service and technical advice.

Becausecustomers for Diamond pumps required good fast service and competent technicalhelp, the sales agent tried to ensure that distributor salespeople were wellinformed. This was done through periodic training. In addition, the agentsoften accompanied distributor personnel on sales calls. Installation of aDiamond WATS line enabled sales agents to get fast answers to technicalquestions raised by customers.

Salesagents were required to establish and maintain personal contact with currentand potential OEM customers. This was difficult at times because individualsinvolved in deciding specifications for new products were often hard toidentify. Agents, however, agreed that the results could be worth the effort.Recently, diligence led one sales agent to a contract under which Diamondsupplied the pumps used to filter hot oil in Kentucky Fried Chicken’s pressurecookers.

Despite success inincreasing sales revenue and maintaining profitability, Castleberry felt thatthe company could be more efficient in-handling certain nagging distributionproblems. Attracting high-quality distributors was becoming increasinglydifficult. Sales agents testified that distributors were reluctant to “change partners”even though the Diamond Company offered a broader line than did present pumpsuppliers. Agents also pointed out that distributor sales personnel were oftenunwilling or unable to seek individuals who had significant input to buyingdecisions; for example, engineers and production people. “If the purchasingagent says, ‘no’ they just give up,” said a Diamond sales agent. Another agentsaid there weren't enough hours in the day to supervise distributors and alsowork with OEM customers. Castleberry summed it up, “The numbers look good everymonth, but I get the feeling that we could do better. We need greatereffectiveness in distribution.”

In evaluating his performance as a salesexecutive, Castleberry decided that he had been spending all his time onoperating responsibilities. He had been so busy putting out fires and handlingday-to-day problems, he had neglected planning almost entirely. He wasn’t evensure that he had done a very efficient job of handling operations.

Questions:

1.DescribeCastleberry’s major operations responsibilities. How well is he carrying outeach of these responsibilities?

2.Whatkind of planning activities should Castleberry be carrying out regularly? Whatplanning areas need immediate attention?

3.Howdo you suppose Castleberry’s time should be divided operations and planning?




Thomas Wagner, salesmanager of Central CATV, Inc., was concerned about a high turnover of salespersonnel, as well as certain other problems that has surfaced recently. Theaverage Central CATV salesperson stayed with the company for less than sevenmonths. Although actual sales were close to projected levels, Wagner felt theneed for immediate action. He believed that correction of the turnover problemwould enable Central CATV to achieve higher sales.

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Cabletelevision was developed to alleviate signal reception problems in rural areas.Recognizing that people are willing to pay for variety in programming, CATVmoved into cities that were receiving two or three channels and offered thembetween ten and twelve channels. Gaining acceptance in medium-sized cities,cable television went into large metropolitan areas and offered up totwenty-five television channels. CATV systems in the United States servednearly 13 million homes, or over 17 percent of the total homes with televisionsets.

Theoperational concept was simple. A large tower in antennas capable of bringingin signals from outlying centers was erected. The signals were then sent outvia coaxial cables to subscribers’ homes. Amplifiers were used to clarify andboost the signals along the cable network.

Cablesystem start-up costs included construction of the master antennas, the cablenetwork, and initial promotion. The initial outlay was relatively high and mostcablevision companies did not earn a profit until the third year of operation.Once start-up costs were absorbed, generally there was excellent profitpotential because of low operational costs.

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Forthe previous three years, Central CATV had served a southern market comprisedof over 60,000 persons, nearly 40 percent of whom were students at a largeuniversity. The company bought the cablevision system from the “pioneering”operator and immediately expanded the cable network from 100 miles to 200 milesand from six stations to ten stations. Central CATV charged an installation feeof $35 and a monthly service fee of $8.95.

CentralCATV serviced nearly 30 percent of the TV viewing market in its operating area.The goal was to have 50 percent of the market by the end of the fifth year ofoperation. Wagner felt that a realistic objective since, without the cable, itwas possible to receive only two television channels.

Theonly advertising Central CATV had sponsored occurred shortly after its takeoverof the operation. There had been need to overcome the poor service reputationof the predecessor. Central used a three-month radio and newspaper campaignemphasizing the theme that “a new progressive company has taken over CATV.”After this campaign, there was no further advertising. Wagner believedadditional advertising unnecessary as most people were aware of CATV and theproduct “sold itself.”

The sales force had one full-time and twopart-time salespersons. Although the sales personnel reported directly to Wagner,his only “contact” with them, other than for occasional phone calls, were thebilling invoices sent to the sales office after they had made sales. Salespersonnel were paid straight commissions of $12 per sale. Management estimatedthat a full-time salesperson could earn up to $22,000 annually, although noperson had ever been with Central that long. Part-time salespeople earned about$8,000. The personnel were not assigned territories, and there was no quotasystem.

Salespersonnel attempted to close on the first call. They believed that mostprospects already knew about CATV and had a predetermined opinion as to itsvalue. Consequently, when salespeople could not close a sale on the first call,they generally did not make a callback.

Inaddition to the three salespeople, Wagner had an agreement with most local TVdealers. The dealers acted as cable television salespersons despite the factthat they competed with the cable service, since they sold rooftop antennaswhich were not needed with the cable hookup. Central paid dealers $15 for eachsale made. The dealers liked this arrangement since, if they could not sell acustomer a rooftop antenna, they usually succeeded in getting $15 commissionfor a cable system “sale.”

Duringthe past several months, three developments caused deep concern for Wagner: (1)a large number of subscription cancellations, (2) an increase in customercomplaints, and (3) a great increase in the number of mail and phone orders forthe cable service. In addition, there was continued difficulty in retainingsales personnel. The subscription cancellations were over and above thoseassociated with students leaving the university. The rapid turnover of accountsbecause of students leaving town was not a problem, according to Wagner.

Althoughsales were satisfactory, Wagner believed that investigation and correction ofthe problems, especially that of high personnel turnover, would enable CentralCATV to attain and even surpass its projected sales goal. He could notunderstand why these problems had appeared simultaneously. He was not surewhich problem to attack first but felt that the most important was the highpersonnel turnover.

Question:

1.Suggestwhat Wagner should have done to reduce personnel turnover and eliminate theother problems at Central CATV.




Jack Dixon, salesmanager, and Henry Granger, director of marketing research, of the DriskillManufacturing Company, were in complete disagreement about the current methodof preparing sales quotas.

TheDriskill Manufacturing Company marketed a line of maintenance equipment usedall over the country, in a varietyofbusinesses, and had attained considerable prestige in the field. The companywas comfortably successful, and its marketing effort showed no great sign ofweakness. But the management, aware of external trends in motivation andcontrol of sales personnel, and also aware of some internal friction among thesales staff, decided to scrutinize its motivation and compensation methods.Desiring the advantages of up-to-date knowledge and an unbiased point of view,Driskill engaged a management consulting firm specializing in selection,evaluation, compensation of employees, and management development to make astudy of its existing practices.

The consulting firm discovered that Driskill’scurrent compensation and motivation practices were the result of adjustments tomeet change almost on an emergency basis rather than a result of long-termplanning. The original plan, adopted a number of years ago, had beencontinually amended piecemeal, and adequate consideration had not been given tothe effect of amendments upon other provisions or upon the plan’s overallability to promote the achievement of objectives. The result was a patchwork ofpolicies, not an integrated program; it worked to the advantage of some salespersonnel while inadvertently penalizing others.

Driskillknew that there was some dissatisfaction among the field sales force with itscurrent practices and policies, but it did not know how strong this feeling wasor how much it might affect sales. Recognizing that any new program was morelikely to succeed if the sales force was given an opportunity to participate inits preparation, management emphasized that the private study would not befollowed by a general announcement of sweeping changes. Instead, the study wasto based upon general cooperation and interest, involving carefully worked outchanges.

Thesales force welcomed the chance to have a say, and indicated approval ofmanagement’s interest in their opinions.Many of the staff brought not only a spirit of interest but lists ofsubjects to discuss, having given considerable previous thought to the matter.Dissatisfactions were minor, often even unrecognized. The sales force generallyagreed that the company’s prices were competitive and that the product was oneof quality, superior to competitors’ in design and workmanship. Commissionrates were generally satisfactory. Persons on straight commission felt,however, that an increase in commission rates on the new higher-pricedequipment was due because of the greater selling effort required. But the staffon salary plus commission, who sold more of the lower-priced equipment, werenot greatly concerned with the matter. The salary-plus commission personnelwere mostly people with less than five years service with the company.

Approximatelyone-third of the sales force was paid on a straight-commission basis, receiving7 percent on all sales and paying all their own expenses. These were the oldersalespeople, who had been with the company longest. The other salespeople werepaid on a salary-plus-commission basis. New sales recruits were started at asalary of $18,000 and received semiannual increases on a merit basis. The averagesalary was $25,500. Every salaried salesperson was given an annual quota andreceived a commission of 4 percent on all sales above the quota. In addition,Driskill paid all selling expenses incurred by the salaried sales personnel;expenses averaged $700 per month per salesperson.

Earningsof the sales staff on a salary-plus-commission basis averaged $21,000. Forexample, R.C. Andersen, who had been selling for Driskill for five years, had aquota of $355,000 and received a salary of $18,500. Since his actual sales were$415,000, he earned a commission of $2,400, or a total income of $20,900. R.A.Scott, who had been selling for Driskill for fifteen years, was paid on astraight-commission basis. His gross earnings were slightly in excess of theaverage of $29,500 in gross income earned by the commission salespeople.

Sincethe commission sales personnel were generally more experienced, and since theirincomes were directly related to their productivity, management had never feltit necessary to give them specific quotas or volume goals. Quotas for thesalaried staff members were based on a running three-year average of eachperson’s past sales. Arbitrary figures were selected for sales personnel whohad not yet been three years on the job; these quotas represented a compromisebetween the experience of the salespeople formerly in the territory and thelevel of experience of the new person. Jack Dixon, the sales manager, believedthat the basis for determining quotas was a satisfactory one. During the pastten years, 85 percent of the salaried sales staff had managed to exceed theirquotas and earn some commission. In Dixon’s opinion, therefore, the motivationwas satisfactory to achieve maximum selling effort on the part of the salesforce.

HenryGranger, the newly appointed director of marketing research, was less satisfiedwith the existing quotas. He claimed that any good salesperson could haveexceeded quotas under conditions prevailing in recent years in the industry. Healso believed that the existing system, based on past sales, merely tended toperpetuate past weaknesses. He suggested that future quotas be based upon adivision of the annual forecast of sales among the individual territories andthat the basis for division should be other than past sales.

Dixonsupported the existing system, claiming that past sales had been an adequatebasis for the establishment of quotas in the past. He held, furthermore, thatif any new establishment of quota preparation were adopted, it should be basedprimarily of the buildup of sales estimates by the individual salespersons forthe coming year.

1.Ifyou were acting as a consultant for the Driskill Company, what recommendationswould you make with respect to the preparation of quotas of the sales force?

2.Howwould you evaluate the arguments of the sales manager and the marketingresearch director?

Not getting a whole lot of responses to your texts? Well, it could be because your emoji game is weak.

Dating app Clover looked into the texting habits of 3 million of its users to see which emojis were working for them and which, well, um, weren't.

So now, it's time to take notes and UP YOUR EMOJI GAME ONCE AND FOR ALL.

Check out the infographic below to find out what men and women love to respond to, what they love to send and what doesn't really do it for either of them.

You know what? I DON'T CARE IF MEN DON'T WANNA RESPOND TO MY SMILING POOP EMOJI. I'M STILL GONNA SEND IT BECAUSE I LOVE IT. Be yourself because everyone else is taken — amiright?!

Also, it's a real *shocker* that men don't love getting sent the diamond ring emoji.

I'm honestly just curious as to who thinks sending the ring emoji (unless it's a joke, and you're intentionally trying to be creepy) would EVER be a solid way to pull a dude you just started talking to.

But if you actually want to get a man to respond to you, the trick seems to be to stick to the classic flirty emojis, from the winking kissy face to the cute, little pink hearts to the red lips.

Now, in terms of the people trying to attract ladies, WHY IN THE WORLD ARE YOU JUST CASUALLY SENDING GIRLS YOU JUST STARTED TALKING TO DICK-LIKE EMOJIS, YOU CREEPAZOIDS?!

Obviously she's not gonna respond to that eggplant emoji yet, ya creepy nimrod.

And don't even get me started on the flexed arm and the fist bump. Anything that makes you out to be even remotely violent or full of yourself to someone you just met, particularly a woman you're trying to date, is a big, fat NO as far as I'm concerned — and the female Clover users surveyed seem to agree.

I mean, c'mon. Did your mom teach you anything?

If you want to be flirty and poke fun at the girl you're talking to, bypass the creepy flex and fist bump and just go with that sassy girl emoji — ladies seem to LOVE it. Also, any form of a tongue-out emoji really seems to be doing it for them.

Even if you're not a big emoji user, I say it's worth it to give it a shot. The survey found people in general are more likely to respond to an opening message that contains an emoji.

More specifically, men were 8 percent more likely and women were 5 percent more likely to respond to conversations that opened with an emoji.

All right, now, no more excuses for not getting a reply to your message. You know you need to be using emojis, and moreover, you know how to use them properly now.

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