Marketing Strategy

It occured to me recently while withdrawing some books that business theories may not change that much from decade-to-decade. Examples or case studies could be different, but Chris Fill(1995) relies havilly on Maslow's Hierachy of needs for his list of consumer types : Self Explorers Idependent types - largely unaffected by trends Experimentalists New ideas and products appeal to this group. Influenced by packaging and promotion Conspicuous Consumers Concerned with appearences and image Belongers Trust well known brands Survivors Accept well known brands - but do not trust them Social Resistors Conservative in attitude - tend to resist change Aimless Resent authority - and are sustenance driven Fill, C. (1995) Marketing communications, London : Prentice Hall

A rebrand on our doorstep....

For many years Luton business students did a project on attracting new members to the Leisure Centre in Luton formerly known as Vauxhall Recreation Centre (VRC).

Many other students will have memories of sitting examinations here too.

Vauxhall has recently been renamed Venue 360, with a new (vaguely similar)  logo and the following explanation

Venue 360 represents all-round ( 360 degrees ) activities offered

• Business
• Leisure
• Fitness
• Pleasure

Little else seems to have changed in the facilities offered, but it may take a while to get used to the new name. Many Lutonians still call the shopping centre in town the Arndale rather than the Mall, despite a name-change a few years ago.

Depressing reading but.....

.... this new addition to the LRC in Luton looks relevant to most business assignments about the decline of the High Street or the economy of the UK in general.

Plenty of statistics are included, and would probably look impressive in a reference list or bibliography if used correctly to back up your arguments.

Dorling, D & Thomas, B. (2011) Bankrupt Britain : an atlas of social change. Bristol : Policy

Gaming.... a serious business

I was thinking the other day about the AMP topic 'Gaming is a serious business' which often crops up at this time of year.

It seems to me that it is very important to define what you think this question means before attempting to answer it.

Gaming ( Computer gaming ) is  a serious business in terms of the economy or number of participants. You will need to find some statistics to support this.

The world serious however has another meaning involving being the opposite of lighthearted or fun. Many dictionaries on Credo Reference stress this element.

Considering this second aspect you may consider the amount of games which are not played for fun ( maybe military, educational  business simulations ? )


Think too about your search terms, because the word 'gaming' sometimes means gambling or online betting.

More bad news for the High Street...

A recent report from Retail Research warns of more High Street closures in the forthcoming months.

In Luton and Bedford this has meant empty shops where once stood :

• Blockbuster
• Jessops
• HMV

In better news Dixons has recently reported increased profits. Factors for their success appear to include

• Sale of tablets
• Collapse of rivals such as Comet and Jessops

Both these stories widely reported in the press recently. For more information consult databases FAME ( for financial data ) and Newsbank ( for commentary )

Recession on the High Street - Portas Towns

It is now a year since Mary Portas launched the government pilot scheme to revive the UK High Street.

12 towns were given an equal share of £1.2 to create more prosperous and diverse high streets.

Unfortunately in ten towns from this list more shops have closed than opened.

In total research shows that 700 units closed, and fewer than 600 opened in their place

Only two towns of the Portas 12 , Bedminster and Margate, added any shops. Research on this project was carried out by the Local Data Company, and has been widely reported in the UK Press this week. For more information try our Newsbank database.

Freedom Collection

The addition of the Freedom Collection to our resources is proving a big hit, and some of the electronic resources included will be relevant to business students.

If you are doing work on online business or cloud computing Freedom Collection includes  in full-text the journal Computers and Security.

The security and legislative regulation of online business is covered in depth in this journal.

For those studying Tourism and Leisure you will find a key source Tourism and Management

The Freedom Collection can be accessed through  the Library Catalogue or contact be for further information and I will try to help :

alan.bullimore@beds.ac.uk

Head in the Cloud Computing

Marston, S, Li, Z, Banyopadhyay, S, Zhang, J, Ghalsasi, A (2011) Cloud computing - the business perspective Decision Support Systems (51) p.176-189

For AMP students doing the question on cloud computing and it's applications this is an excellent introduction to the topic.

Good definitions, and a SWOT analysis are included.

As with many academic articles a few lines may require closer examination. For example :

"One of the biggest threats...is the possibility of backlash from entrenched incumbents" ( Marston et al 2011, p.182 )

I am taking this to mean that those who feel they are forced to adopt new technologies such as this react especially badly when technology does not benefit their business.

Culture and Business

Whilst checking DISCOVER sources  on Fairtrade and recession recently I chanced across a very good article from the journal Cultural Studies.

I mention this because it's tempting sometimes to assume that only business journals will be relevant to our studies. In some areas the dividing line is more blurred.

The article in question gives a good history of Fairtrade, what it means on a practical level ; did you know that Chelmsford was the first UK Fairtrade town, and the type of consumer attracted to Fairtrade goods.

Wheeler, K. (2012) Change today, Choose Fairtrade Cultural Studies Vol 26 (4) p.492-515

SCOPUS - New resource for business research

Learning Resources have recently acquired a database called SCOPUS which will be of potential use to level three business students and above. SCOPUS is a form of citation index. It is not the best way to get to full text material ( you should persevere with DISCOVER for that ).

However if you are at the stage of a literature search this is how you might choose to use SCOPUS.

Try a search for "business ethics". There are over 3000 results, retrieved chronologically.

Each of the results includes the reference list used. A recent article with lots of references can therefore give you a good clue about which journal titles are going to be useful and maybe key authors in your area too.
This is known as citation analysis.

Don't be despondent if you can't get to all these initally in Full Text. SCOPUS is literally "scoping" the literature available and there are often other routes to getting hold of it.

Journal of Business Ethics - a key resource for the above search is available both in print and online.

Luton fan changes face of Football

Marc Watson is a Luton fan. He is also CEO of BT. The company have just announced plans to show 38 Premier League matches next season (2013-14)

These games will be free to BT Broadband customers.

The group paid £738 million for rights, and will be battling with Sky, who have 10.8 million subscribers already.

It will be a tough battle. For further stories and analysis use Newsbank.

BRIC Nations lost in the MIST

The acronym BRIC nations has been around since  about 2001 to refer to the world's fastest growing economies :

• Brazil
• Russia
• India
• China

If you are looking at the success of these nations there are valuable Marketline ( Datamonitor ) Reports on each available through the library catalogue.

The growth of an  middle class in each of the four seems to be a key to growth, and has impacted for example on the appetite for luxury goods.

More recently the MIST nations have also been talked about in terms of economic growth too. Although I personally find these harder to remember. They are :

• Mexico
• Indonesia
• South Korea
• Turkey

Luxury Goods in India

One of the recent AMP Questions concerns the appetite for luxury goods in India.

Using Advanced Search on DISCOVER it is fairly easy to obtain a potentially useful set of results.

Luxury goods industry is Subject Term, so use the drop down box to select this, and the next box to choose India

You should now have around 300 results to choose from. The top one on my list is a short, but interesting survey of India's most popular luxury brands. Desire for these has been increased by the "youthquake" in India, and building of new shopping malls.

The Rolex pictured looks just like mine. Not really....

Online Shopping not the only way....

According to a number of different news stories published recently, online shopping has not entirely taken over the retail market.

The furniture chain Oak Furniture Land began life as an online presence but recently opened a huge store so that customers can lie down on their beds.

Might we ever see the return of High Street bookshops like this one in Luton ( now the 99p store ) ?

For further stories on this topic try a search on our Newsbank database for "showrooming"