Back to the Future… of Air Travel

Although 82% of the U.S. airline industry is dominated by 4 airlines, it is not a typical oligopoly because of new small airlines flying routes that the bigger carriers cut.

Why We Should Look More Closely At the Size of Our Soda

The 6-ounce bottle of Coke was the king of soda when an upstart company called Pepsi-Cola sold a 12-ounce bottle for the same price. The year was 1934 and the price was 5 cents. Pepsi’s competitive strategy has been called brilliant because its biggest costs were advertising, bottling…

How Firms Compete With Hidden Messages

Have you noticed the arrow in FedEx’s logo? Especially because, in class, we have been looking at how oligopolies compete, I appreciated what this BusinessInsider slideshow said about their logos: A competitive market structure shapes business behavior. For oligopolies, that…

How to Squeeze More Seats on a Plane

An airline seat is really all about cost and pitch. Defined by SEATGURU, “Seat Pitch is the distance from any point on one seat to the exact same point on the seat in front or behind it.” On short haul…

Are You Buying Less Soup?

Canned food used to be aspirational. The ads in 1918 said that easy-to-use canned foods gave Mom more time to play with the kids. Canned Foods were healthy. They were versatile. You can see where we are going. A perfect…