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| Social Media |
| In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up with the University of Maryland’s
Robert H. Smith School of Business, Wendy Moe, associate professor of marketing,
discusses how organizations can use interactions that happen with their
brand on social networks. |
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| Social Media Adoption By U.S. Small Businesses Doubles
Since 2009 |
| American small businesses are pushing the limits on new ways to improve
efficiency in the prolonged downturn, including a steady increase in social
media adoption. Janet Wagner, director of the Center for Excellence in Service,
talks about how small business use social media for better customer service. |
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| Smith Business Close-Up: Forecasting Consumer
Spending |
| In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up with the University
of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business,
Roland
Rust talks about his new research that can forecast consumer spending
better than other econometric models currently used. |
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Consumer spending habits
May 2009 |
| In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up with the University
of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, P.K. Kannan, associate
professor of marketing and director for the Center of Excellence in Service,
talks about the survey findings, which show that consumers are postponing
purchases of big ticket items more than they are cutting back on or discontinuing
services. Of those surveyed, 78 percent personally know someone who has
lost a job in the last year, and 27 percent are convinced the economy is
in a depression. |
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Keep Your Cash as Big Bills
April 2009 |
| In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up with the University
of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business,
Joydeep Srivastava, professor of marketing, talks about his new research
that finds people are more likely to think twice about making a purchase
when they carry one large denomination of cash rather than many smaller
denominations equal to the same amount of money. |
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Going for Branding Gold
August 2008 |
| The Summer Olympic Games in Beijing have marketers of many multinational
companies tying their brands to the events that will capture the world’s
attention for most of August. But with the opportunities come some risks.
In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up,
Roland
T. Rust weighs the opportunities and rewards for companies
making a branding push around the Olympic games. |
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Navigating the Digital Landscape
May 2008 |
| New technology has made it easy to create digital versions of music,
newspapers, magazines, books, television shows and movies – but not without
challenges, such as how to make the content readily available to consumers
while fairly compensating the producers. This issue has been raised by striking
Hollywood writers, whose demands include a cut of the profits studios reap
from digitized content. P.K.
Kannan discusses the opportunities and challenges created by
the increasing digitization of content and how consumers, retailers and
those that produce the original content can best capitalize. |
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Customer Service Trends
September 2007 |
| Who are customer service leaders? What do consumers expect and what
can you do to make sure your customers stay happy?
Janet
Wagner discusses new trends in customer service and what businesses
can learn from success stories like Southwest Airlines, Yahoo! and the U.S.
Postal Service. |
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$2.6 million for a 30-Second Advertising Spot?!
February 2007 |
| Advertisers were eager to pay record amounts for the Super Bowl this
year, and they cashed in with an estimated 93.2 million viewers -- representing
the second most-watched Super Bowl broadcast ever. More than a dozen marketers
(including Anheuser-Busch, FedEx, General Motors and the Frito-Lay and Pepsi-Cola
divisions of PepsiCo) paid an estimated average of $2.6 million for each
30-second commercial during Super Bowl XLI on February 4, 2007 when the
Indianapolis Colts defeated the Chicago Bears in Miami. But are the ads
really worth the prices advertisers are paying for them? And how are marketers
trying to stand out? Roland
Rust gives his expert advice on why advertising during the
Super Bowl is so lucrative. |
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Online “Pop-up” Ads: Are They Really Working?
November 2006 |
| As online advertising becomes more and more prevalent, these trends
provide continued optimism for online marketers. A common practice among
online advertisers is the “pop-up” ad – an online ad that immediately appears
when an online visitor arrives at a particular home page. Online consumers
often find this practice to be annoying. As a result, these ads can be ineffective
when it comes to attracting new customers, and, worse yet, may even cause
visitors to exit the site and possibly never return.
Wendy Moe
discusses “pop-up” ads and consumers’ perceptions of them. |
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Feature Fatigue: Overloaded on Bells and Whistles?
September 2006 |
| Do you use only half the buttons on your cell phone? Did you purchase
your coffee maker because it had so many interesting options but now don’t
know how to use it? If so, you are not alone. Products crowded with features
may be more attractive to consumers in the store, but too many features
ultimately make a product overwhelming and hard to use, which leads to dissatisfaction
with the product and perhaps even with the company that manufactured it.
Smith marketing professors explain why too many product features result
in a phenomenon called “feature fatigue.” |
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Consumer Demand for Digital Products
September 2006 |
| Magazines, newspapers, music, videos, books, TV shows, and even movies
can be viewed online and downloaded nowadays. What does this mean for consumers
and retailers? What kinds of digital products are more convenient and cost-effective
in a digital format and which aren't robust enough in the virtual world?
Gain insight into digital product development with
P.K. Kannan. |
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