Demetra Andrews
Presentation, Fall 2005
Stick a fork in it, it’s done!
Marketing Strategy Shelf Life
Congratulations, you have a strategy!
•You’ve churned through the marketing planning process and now you
have a newly-minted strategy to show for your efforts
•So what do you do now?
•You marshal all of your forces
•Get your ducks in a row
•You IMPLEMENT!
•And everything goes well from here on out, everybody gets rich and
you’re the company hero!
Change is Constant
• Maybe for a while… but things tend to change that impact the
effectiveness of your strategy
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Changing market trends
Changes in consumer / customer preferences or needs
Changing technology
Changes in management or management emphasis
Changes in resource availability
Changes in supplier offerings
Changes in competitors
Changes in legislation
Changes in economic trends
Change is Constant
• Marketplace change might even render your strategy inappropriate
In other words…
Strategies often have a limited “shelf life”
Whew! What’s that smell?
• It’s imperative to any marketer to be able to identify when a good
strategy is going bad
• While IMPLEMENTATION is the sexier of the marketing strategy steps,
three additional steps are also critical to your company’s success as
well as your own
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Implement
 Monitor  Evaluate  Update / Terminate
• These steps will keep you objective, honest and out of trouble
Today’s Topics
Recognizing an “expired” strategy
What to do about it
CASE: American Airlines Travel Academy
Travel School Overview
• Established in 1987 in response to the growing need for highly trained
travel industry professionals.
• The travel school offers a comprehensive Travel & Tourism curriculum
that provides students the skills needed to succeed in a unique and
vibrant industry.
• Originally consisted of 1 school in Dallas – Fort Worth (DFW)
• Grew to also include a school in Chicago and a curriculum licensing
business serving vocational schools
Travel School: The Problem
• 1998: Appointed Director of travel school; Group had lost
money for more than 18 months
• Task: Figure out what was wrong and fix the problem
• In essence
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A strategy had been implemented in 1987: Start a school
It had been augmented: Open another campus, offer licenses
The strategy wasn’t working: Travel School had sustained losses
No one was sure what to do
• Strategy problem?
• Market problem
• Implementation problem?
• Let’s walk through how this problem was deconstructed
Step 1: Monitor
• Get your hands on the right data
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Know what’s available
Know what the objectives are
Aggregate or disaggregate at the appropriate level
Collect both quantitative and qualitative data
• Travel School
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10 years of data
Profitability is objective
Disaggregation
Qualitative data
• Individual and group meetings
Step 2: Evaluate the Data
• Figure out what the data is saying (the hard part)
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Be objective
Evaluate results based on your objectives
Evaluate from the perspective of stakeholders
Look for trends (1blip, 2 blips, 3 blips)
• Is there a downward / upward trend?
• Are the thresholds being met?
– Seek explanations for both good and bad results
• Can the causes be isolated and identified?
• Travel School
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Demand cycles, high school costs, credit issues
Isolation of problem: stagnant school sales
Unsuccessful effort to revitalize school sales
“Expired” school strategy
Step 3: Update / Terminate
• Act on your new knowledge
– Augment or adapt an existing strategy
– Implement an additional strategy
– Pull the plug on an expired strategy
• Travel School
– Closed schools
 Relocation for Chicago school needed
 Reinstatement of school loan program required
 Restructuring of cost structure necessary
– Identified new market for curriculum licensing (community colleges)
– Increased support for curriculum licensing
Bottomline Take-aways
• Implementation is an intermediate step, the follow-ups will enable you to
adapt or terminate an expired strategy
• Monitor
• Evaluate
• Update / Terminate
• Expired strategies can create quite a stink!