Cb English for Marketing Case-study

UNITS 6&7 Corportate Social Responsibility (CSR)

UNITS 6&7 Corportate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Part 3

a Divide students into groups, with each group researching a different company. Students should look at the online profiles of each company from the company’s homepage and search the site for evidence of social responsibility to determine to what extent they do/don’t follow their missions. Examples might include Ford’s social and environmental protection programmes which reflect its commitment to CSR (http://www.ford.co.uk/AboutFord/CorporateSocialResponsibility)

If students don’t have Internet access, this exercise can still be done as a general discussion regarding the activities and behaviour of these organisations in the students’ own countries.

b This is a chance for students to discuss how relevant they feel the whole issue of green marketing really is to consumers. Encourage groups to use real-world examples to exemplify their points.

Part 4

This Part is designed to be used as a whole class debate either at the end of the lesson or as a follow-up lesson to the work on mission statements.

Divide the class into two halves, one half arguing for and one against the proposition. Allow about 30 minutes preparation time. Students should brainstorm ideas in small groups, then share their ideas with the rest of their team, taking notes, ordering their ideas and rehearsing their ideas with each other. Encourage students to justify their answers with real-world examples where possible.

Extension activity

In groups students devise a CSR programme of activities for a company concerned with demonstrating social responsibility by supporting social and environmental programmes, e.g. a car racing company.

Students should note down their ideas and be prepared to present their ideas to the rest of the class. Students should include:

●●a brief description of the company of their choice (real or invented) and its mission

●●the potential negative and positive impacts of its core business operations on society and its stakeholders

●●community activities, charity events, etc. to overcome some of these negative impacts and demonstrate commitment to CSR.

For more ideas on this topic, direct learners to http://www.squidoo.com/ Corporate-Social-Responsibility. Refer them in particular to the list of examples of CSR activity.

Professional English

Cambridge English for

Marketing

case study

UNIT 7 Product launch and promotion

UNIT 7 Product launch and promotion

e Match a word or phrase (1–10) to the correct definition (a–k).

Part 2

Work in small groups. Do you agree with the statement below? Why / why not?

“Product information and PR generated from your own company is not as believable and much less important than messages spread by the general public. ”

Part 3

Work in groups. You have been asked by your Marketing Director to present your ideas for a teaser campaign for the launch of an innovative product. Your campaign should target key influentials (such as celebrities or opinion formers) and early adopters to encourage them to write and talk about your product publicly. In your groups, think about:

●●What your innovative product will be (see www.techcrunch.com for examples of this kind of product)

●●Your promotional objectives

●●Your target audience

●●Ways of reaching this audience (your communication channels and tactics – think about a range of traditional and non-traditional communication channels and tools / promotional tactics for your launch campaign)

●●How you will measure the success of your campaign

Then prepare a presentation of your ideas to share with the rest of the class.

You may find the following language from Cambridge English for Marketing Units 6 and 7 useful:

●●Idea generation (pages 46–48)

●●Describing your target market (pages 54 and 55)

●●The promotional mix (page 57)

●●Giving a presentation (page 58)

Professional English

Cambridge English for

Marketing

TEACHER’S NOTES

UNIT 7 Product launch and promotion

Before you begin …

For the task in Part 3, students are asked to choose an innovative new product and then give a presentation of ideas for a marketing campaign for it. If you think it is unlikely that your students will know of any innovative new products, you may want to ask them to find a product that interests on this website www.techcrunch.com for their homework before the lesson in which they complete this case study activity.

To set the scene for the case study, ask students to look at the logo(s) and tell you what products they associate with them e.g. personal computers, mobile phones, etc. Ask them to decide which of the companies have brought out breakthrough products (completely new product types) e.g. the Apple iPod, iPhone and iPad.

Ask students if they know what is meant by the terms early adopter and late adopter (or late majority) and ask them to decide which term applies to them when thinking about purchasing breakthrough products. Ask students to think about who the early adopters are for the products/services created by their own organisation or for an organisation they know well.

You could also ask students which marketing approaches most often influence their own purchasing decisions for innovative products (such as personal recommendation, TV advertising, online discussion forums, etc.)

Note: early adopter and late adopter

The terms early adopter and late adopter (or late majority) come from the theory of diffusion of innovation – a theory which is interested in how new ideas and technologies spread across (and adopted by) cultures around the world. An early adopter is someone who is keen to adopt new ideas or technologies and who actively seeks out information about new products in specialist journals, etc. An early adopter is often also an opinion former who has an influence on the way others behave. Early adopters are also likely to have greater exposure to the mass media.

A late adopter (a member of the late majority) is the early adopter’s opposite: this person is often sceptical about new and innovative products and consequently slower to take up new ideas and technologies. Late adopters tend to be very cautious purchasers and are likely to need persuading before they buy a product or service.

UNIT 7 Product launch and promotion

Part 1

a Students work in pairs to brainstorm new and traditional communication channels and tools.

Suggested answers

New channels: satellite TV, Internet/websites

New tools: email communication, blog posts, interactions via social media Traditional channels: corporate advertising and brochures, publications, press releases, TV channels, cinema advertising, outdoor advertising

Traditional tools: events, sponsorship, sending out press releases to newspapers and magazines

b Students discuss their ideas in pairs.

Suggested answers

intelligent; targeted communications; cost-effective ways of achieving objectives using a combination of traditional and more contemporary marketing techniques.

c Students scan the text quickly looking for examples of communication channels and tools mentioned in the text. You could tell students that the text probably includes some words and phrases that are new to them. Tell them that they will look at vocabulary in the text in more detail later on.

Answers

social media, Twitter, end user blogs, old-fashioned/traditional PR (public relations), launch, Word of Mouth (WoM)

d Students answer the questions. You could tell students that the answers to the questions can be found text.

Answers

1True

2False. Early adopters and opinion leaders talked about the product and so carried out PR for them

3True. The messages on the Twitter hashtag #ipad have not been written by employees of Apple, but by enthusiastic and satisfied customers.

4False. Metrics (measures of the success of marketing activities e.g. number of enquiries per advert) used included: number of impressions, coverage on social media sites such as Twitter; blogs, amount of publicity generated (launch noise)

e Students match the words and phrases to the correct definitions. You could tell students that the words and phrases in 1–10 appear in the same order as they appear in the text.

Answers

2  h      ​3  i      ​4  g      ​5  j      ​6  a      ​7  b      ​8  e      ​9  f      ​10  d

UNIT 7 Product launch and promotion

Part 2

Students discuss the question in groups, justifying their answers with real world examples where possible. Go around the classroom monitoring each group’s discussion. If students don’t have much to say about the question, you could prompt them by asking them to think about:

●●the problems associated with negative PR which can arise when consumers have a bad experience with a company, its products or its services

●●the increasing significance of WoM (word of mouth) marketing as consumers find new ways of communicating with each other (such as Twitter).

Part 3

Students brainstorm ideas in groups. Allow 30 minutes preparation time for students to think of a product and generate ideas for a campaign. You could extend the activity by asking students to prepare powerpoint slides of their presentation as a homework activity.

Professional English

Cambridge English for

Marketing

UNIT 8 How well do you Tweet? CASE STUDY

Part 1

1

a New words and phrases in English have been created to describe activities on Twitter. Match a word or phrase (1–8) to the correct definition (a–h).

b In pairs, discuss the following questions.

1Do you or the organisation you work for use Twitter? If so, what do you use it for?

2Do you follow anyone on Twitter who is well known in your industry (opinion formers, marketing gurus, bloggers, etc?)

3In what ways are your (potential) customers using social media such as Twitter?

1 Logos for Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter used with permission.

UNIT 8 How well do you Tweet?

Part 2

a Look at the Twitter feeds below taken from two well known airline companies. Then find a tweet (or tweets) which:

1advertise(s) an offer

2celebrate(s) a success

3include(s) searchable keywords

4invite(s) customers to enter a competition

5offer(s) customers latest information about a particular issue

6respond(s) to customers on an individual basis

NB: Each new Tweet (message) begins with the symbol @

UNIT 8 How well do you Tweet?

b In pairs, discuss how the use of Twitter in these examples influences your idea about each company (e.g. Does the company seem reliable or friendly? Does the Twitter feed give you a positive feeling about the company?).

Part 3

a You are going to read a case study about Twitter and the airline industry. What do you think are the main advantages of social media such as Twitter to businesses?

b Read the text below and see how many of your ideas are mentioned, ignoring the words in bold for now. What other advantages of using social media can you find in the text? The text identifies one disadvantage – what is it?

c Match the four bold terms in the text to the following definitions (1–4).

1The extent to which consumers know and recognise a company’s product or service

2The interaction of customers with one another, with a company or a brand

3A strong attachment (emotional and rational) between a person and a brand

4Focused on establishing long-term relationships with customers