Perreault−McCarthy: Basic
Marketing: A
Global−Managerial
Approach, 14/eBack Matter Cases © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2002full-service bank in town. In fact, the two local banks seem to
be following more or less the same approach—friendly, small-
town service. Since they both have fairly convenient
downtown locations, Phil feels that the two banks will con-
tinue to share the business equally unless some change is
made.
Phil has an idea that he thinks will attract a greater share of
the local business. At a recent luncheon meeting with his fa-
ther, he floated his idea and was disappointed when it wasn’t
enthusiastically received. Nevertheless, he has continued to
push the idea—even going to the trouble to prepare an elabo-
rate PowerPoint presentation with a detailed plan.
Phil has tried to explain that he wants to differentiate the
bank by promoting a new look and image. His proposal is to try
to get all the people in town to think of the bank as “The
Friendly Bank.” He believes that this positioning would differ-
entiate State Bank from the other local bank and make it
much harder for one of the really big banks to come into town
with a new branch office. The big banks can offer diverse fi-
nancial services, but Phil figures that their size would make it
hard for any of them to position themselves as friendly or per-
sonal. And Phil wants to paint the inside and outside of the
bank in residential-like designers’ colors (e.g., pastels) and
have all the bank’s advertising and printed materials refer to
“The Friendly Bank” campaign. The bank would give away
pastel shopping bags, offer pastel deposit slips, mail out pastel
interest checks, advertise on pastel billboards, and have pastel
stationery for the bank’s correspondence. The friendly bank
message would be printed on all of these items. And all
the employees will be trained to be even more friendly to
everyone.
Phil knows that his proposal is different for a conservative
bank. But that’s exactly why he thinks it will work. He wants
people to notice his bank instead of just assuming that both
banks are alike. He is sure that after the initial surprise, the lo-
cal people will think even more positively about State Bank.
Its reputation is very good now, but he would like it to be rec-
ognized as different. Phil feels that this will help attract a
larger share of new residents and businesses. Further, he hopes
that his “The Friendly Bank” campaign will cause people to
talk about State Bank—and given that word-of-mouth com-
ments are likely to be positive, the bank might win a bigger
share of the present business.
Mack McNeill is less than excited about his son’s proposal.
He thinks the bank has done very well under his direction—
and he is concerned about changing a good thing. He worries
that some of the older townspeople and farmers who are loyal
customers will question the sincerity of the bank. His initial
request to Phil was to come up with some way of differentiat-
ing the bank without offending present customers. Further,
Mack McNeill thinks that Phil is talking about an important
change that will be expensive and difficult to undo once the
decision is made. On the plus side, Mack agrees that the pro-
posal will make the bank appear quite different from its local
competitor. Further, people are continuing to move into the
Hillsborough area, and he wants an increasing share of this
business.
Evaluate State Bank’s situation and Phil’s proposal. What
should the bank do to increase its market share?
myWedding.comGray Hunter is happy with her life but disappointed that
the idea she had for starting her own business hasn’t taken off
as expected. Within a few weeks she either has to renew the
contract for her Internet website or decide not to put any more
time and money into her idea. She knows that it doesn’t make
sense to renew the contract if she doesn’t come up with a
plan to make her website-based business profitable—and she
doesn’t like to plan. She’s a “doer,” not a planner.
Gray’s business, myWedding.com, started as an idea
18 months ago as she was planning her own wedding. She at-
tended a bridal fair at the convention center in Raleigh, North
Carolina, to get ideas for a wedding dress, check out catering
companies and florists, and in general learn more about the
various services available to newlyweds. While there she and
her fiancé went from one retailer’s booth to another to sign up
for their wedding gift registries. Almost every major retailer in
the city—ranging from the Home Depot warehouse to the
Belk’s department store to the specialty shops that handle im-
ported crystal glassware—offered a gift registry. Some had
computers set up to provide access to their online registries.
Being listed in all of the registries improved the odds that her
wedding gifts would be items she wanted and could use—and
it saved time and hassle for gift-givers. On the way back from
the fair, Gray and her fiancé discussed the idea that it would be
a lot easier to register gift preferences once on a central Inter-
net site than to provide lots of different stores with bits and
pieces of information. A list at a website would also make it
easier for gift-givers—at least those who were computer users.
When Gray got back home, she did an Internet search and
found several sites that focused on weddings. The biggest
seemed to be http://www.weddingchannel.com. It had features for
couples who were getting married, including a national gift
registry. The site featured products from a number of compa-
nies, especially large national retail chains; however, there was
a search feature to locate people who provide wedding-related
services in a local ZIP code area. Gray thought that the sites
she found looked quite good, but that they were not as helpful
as a site could be with a more local focus.
The more Gray and her fiancé discussed the idea of a web-
site offering local wedding-related services, the more it looked
like an interesting opportunity. Except for the annual bridal
fair, there was no other obvious local place for consumers to
get information about planning a wedding and buying wed-
ding-related services. And for local retailers, florists, catering
companies, insurance agents, home builders, and many other
types of firms, there was no other central place to target pro-
motion at newlyweds. Further, the amount of money spent on
weddings and wedding gifts is very substantial, and right before
and after getting married many young couples make many im-
portant purchase decisions for everything from life insurance
to pots and pans. Spending on the wedding itself can easily ex-
ceed the cost of a year of college.
Gray was no stranger to the Internet. She worked as a web-
site designer for a small firm whose one and only client was
IBM. That IBM was the only client was intentional rather
than accidental. A year earlier IBM had decided that it
wanted to outsource certain aspects of its website development19728 Cases