第三輯? TEST 3

PART ONE

Hello. My name's Sue Barnard. I've come to talk to you this afternoon about that old marketing perennial（營銷套路）, the free gift. I work as a marketing consultant, on a freelance basis, and I thought that I would begin with an anecdote.?

One of the companies I work with is a major manufacturer of consumer durables（耐消品）, and so I need to keep in touch with the latest campaigns being launched by rival groups, as well as seeing how our own efforts are looking. So I'm a keen reader of weekly magazines. Although I'm actually based in Manchester, last week I happened to be with some clients at their sales conference, which was being held in Wales. On the way there, waiting at the station, I popped into（突然進入）a newsagents（書報亭）for a browse, to pass the time. The March issue of Prime magazine immediately caught my eye because the cover said 'Free Gift this Issue: Free Diary'. And it puzzled me because I had seen the same issue on sale in Manchester without any gift. Clearly, people in Wales were getting the same magazine, but all packaged up in a special plastic jacket with this gift inside. Why, I wondered, were people in my area losing out（吃虧了）??

Well, of course, the answer lies in the marketing policy of the magazine itself. No use giving everyone a freebie（贈品） because then there'd be no way of gauging how successful it'd been in drumming up（招攬，爭取） extra sales. In other words, it's a controlled experiment（控制變量的實驗）. In this case, flat sales of Prime in Manchester, coupled with strong sales in Wales, would indicate that the gift had done the trick（成功）, and this type of strategy is vital for magazines as more and more titles crowd the racks（架子）.?

Just looking around the newsagents this week, you'll find one magazine giving away（贈送） a book worth six ninety nine, when the magazine itself only costs two ninety nine. And it doesn't stop there. One rival is offering a CD, another a calculator. And so it goes on. You know, it really is a a 'readers' market at the moment. But, I can see you're asking yourselves, if the gifts are actually far more expensive than the magazines??

Well, clearly, the magazines are facing greater competition and it's all about offering your reader the best possible value. If your competitor's got something out, then you don't want to be seen to be lagging behind. And once you've started, in a sense, you've got to keep on. You do get locked into a circulation war where the only way to stay on top seems to be through the free gifts. And remember, it doesn't matter if the gift costs more than the magazine because the real profits come not from the cover price, but from the advertising revenues.?

To keep those flowing in, you need good figures（良好銷量）, and that's where the free gifts come in. And, of course, it can't be any old gift. An inappropriate choice would do more harm than good. The gift must reinforce（強化） the true brand values of the magazine. The specialist titles are particularly good at this. And it's also a good opportunity for people to sample（嘗試） your magazine; it may bring in new readers. With the right gift, you could even be looking at as fifteen percent uplift on your sales, particularly in the teen market, where pop fashions come and go and it's very important to encourage reader loyalty.

perennial 多年生植物?

PART TWO

1. This was a workshop for department heads, and it was supposed to make us more effective and flexible in dealing with staff. We worked in teams of four, and simulated（模擬）various situations, taking it in turn to be the manager and the employee（輪流扮演）, and after each activity the rest of the team gave feedback on our style and performance. That was really demanding, and, after a while, people began to get quite critical towards each other, and actually some people got irritable（急躁的）, but it was very worthwhile.

We agreed we were all pretty bad at doing staff appraisals, so we arranged for the next session to deal with this. Actually it was some people's first experience of looking in depth at their own behaviour and reactions.

2. The Chief Executive was there, and all the senior managers and department heads（高管與部門主管）, and the idea was that we'd plan how to introduce the new structure that's going to be put in place next year. First, the CE（總經(jīng)理）presented the company's objectives and the new organisation（新的目標和管理結構，組織）, then we broke up into small groups to discuss how to implement it all. After that, each group gave their comments to the whole seminar.?

Some very sensible criticisms were made, which the boss clearly wasn't expecting, but he did agree not to split up the marketing department after all. Anyway, we ended up by agreeing on a timetable for a meeting to brief the workforce and for the various moves, so we're probably quite well prepared now.

3. I went to something called a 'team role laboratory', which was for the manager, supervisors and all the staff of my department. The idea was to focus on everyone's behaviour and working relationships.?

It was a very powerful experience, as you can imagine, because it brought up all sorts of feelings.There's a lot of resentment at some people never being around when there's an emergency, and at the way one of the supervisors lets people get away with anything（逃脫，鉆空子）. In fact, this made him realise he's not cut out（具有所需素質(zhì)及才能的;是做…材料的） for the job, and he's since resigned. We also tried to establish what the department's objectives were, and it was an eye-opener to some people to discover what we're actually supposed to be doing, and how we fit in with（融入）the rest of the company.

4. They'd invited the managers of a different-sized store in each division, together with some of the higher-level managers, and we were grouped in vertical lines. So, I was with my area manager and her division manager. We had to brainstorm how to cut costs and improve margins in the light of last year's poor figures. At first, I was afraid of disagreeing with my boss in case it was held against me in the future, but, after a while, we felt more like equals.

?It made me realise how little I'm told about the big issues in the company: some of my suggestions couldn't be implemented for reasons I didn't know anything about. So, one good thing that came out of it was that my boss agreed to meet me and the other store managers once a month to tell us what's going on in the company.

5. Mine was a workshop on horizontal team effectiveness, which means that Production and Sales met to see how we could work better together. First, Sales said how they saw us, and we gave our opinion of them, then we each explained how we organise our work, how we're affected by other parts of the company, and so on.?

That gave us all a much more accurate picture of what was actually going on. And that led on to looking at how we could help each other more, which was very useful. We agreed on more realistic timescales for dealing with orders and on a system for the managers to consult each other on problems. We also decided to get together again in six months' time, to see how things are going.

PART THREE

Woman: OK... now, next we'd better discuss the recruitment plan for staff at the new factory in Dinsdale. I don't think we'll have any problems, do you?
Man: No, not really. I mean, it's in a pretty good location for accessing a large workforce so we should have our pick. Anyway, I would have thought that our new policy of letting staff choose when they work within a certain time frame will appeal to lots of people.
Woman: Yes, I think we may miss out on the high-fliers who are looking to get up the ladder quickly, but it's more important to get a core of stable staff.
Man: When did you want to start advertising? Has the Board agreed on numbers yet?
Woman: Oh yes, that was decided before that last meeting when the top brass （高層， 要員）met - that's why they're pressing us to do something. I don't want to initiate it just yet, but we do need to do it in advance of the holiday period.
Man: Well, OK. But I don't think there's any point in going ahead until the factory is nearly completed, is there? That way, we'd have plenty of time for planning.
Woman: Hmm... that's a good point. Well, let's aim for that then. I'll try and get a date out of the Director. Right, now Mr Dawson asked me what we thought about appointing somebody to oversee all this because we're both going to be tied up here. I suggested to him that they send someone down from Head Office but he didn't seem very keen.
Man: I don't think that's a good idea because they won't know the local situation. We'd be better off putting it in the hands of a recruitment agency - they could do all the initial filtering. The manager at the new factory wants to be involved but he can step in to help later on, which means we'd have some internal control.
Woman: Yes, that's a good idea. I'll suggest that. I also had a discussion with Mr Dawson about what kind of experience we would be looking for in new staff. I was quite surprised actually because he said he didn't think we need people to have done exactly the same thing as long as they had about four or five years' general work experience. But I pointed out to him that if we just take anybody from any field then we're bound to end up with a lot of wastage because a lot of them will turn out not to be suitable. So I proposed that we appoint people who've worked in something similar. As long as they've got a rough idea of what the job involves, that's the main thing.
Man: Yes, I agree. Will the new staff get the same deal as everybody here?
Woman: What d'you mean?
Man: Well, the canteen and everything?
Woman: Let me have a look.., yes, more or less. There's the travel allowance, but we are going to look at that over the next couple of years to see if we are going to retain it or not. It's one of the possible cost savings. Also, although we're building a canteen there, we're getting outside caterers in - it'll be much cheaper than the system we've got here. The staff will have to pay slightly more because the company won't be making a contribution（公司沒有補貼）but it won't be much more.
Woman: And then, there's the discount policy that staff get on our products - I mean, that operates across the company so it wouldn't work any differently.
Man: Will any staff move over to the new factory from Head Office, do you think?
Woman: Possibly - not the old-timers maybe, but some of our new staff might prefer to finish their training there if it's easier travelling for them. We'll be offering the same courses in both places. I guess, really, it's going to depend on whether they see better prospects for themselves at the new place. It will be a different set-up in some ways.
Man: Are we offering any incentives to persuade them to move?
Woman: Well, the salaries won't be going up, if that's what you mean! Actually, we're going to pilot a new system there - a kind of scale of rewards for targets achieved - it's hoped that will attract them. But it wouldn't be fair if we offered any kind of modification to the current share scheme. Oh... is that the time? I've got to go. We need another meeting though.
Man: What... to discuss the timetable for all this?
Woman: We can do that by email, I think. No, we've got to fine-tune（微調(diào)）the pay scales for the various positions - I mean, within the range Mr Dawson has given us.
Man: What about the contracts?
Woman: Oh, that'll be sorted by the Legal department first so we can hang fire on that for the moment.
Man: OK - I'll email you with some possible dates.