Our COBA in Leipzig group has been there for almost three weeks now. They’ve been traveling around to Paris and Berlin since we last checked in with the students. We asked senior marketing major, GW Shaw, to answer a few questions for us:
1) What’s business class like in Germany? How is it different than in Abilene?
First it’s not at one set daily class schedule like it is back home and we’v ended up having class outside several times. We have class in the morning then in the afternoon we take a trip to see what we talked about in action instead of just hearing a lecture. One day we discussed how cars are manufactured, where the parts come from, and how plant locations are selected based on taxation and distribution then we took a tour of BMW to see it all in action.
2) What’s one thing you’ve learned about how marketing is different in Germany vs. America?
In America we love our choices; “have it your way” “mix and match” and other sayings marketers use to grab the attention of consumers. Here the choices are limited – even in American restaurants in Germany the menus are less than half of what they are at home and the employees are usually not willing to make changes to the menu. For example, there is a crepe stand in the train station were I have been trying to get a strawberry and blueberry crepe with vanilla sauce for over a week now and she refuses to make it because it is not on the menu even if I offer to pay for 2. Since then I have started making my own crepes so I could “have it my way”. BMW was one exception to the limited choices rule; our guide told us that they would do anything to the car as long as the customer was willing to pay.
