The Least Understood Pricing Parameter Among Business People!

An uncertain global economy, ever-increasing competition and relentless demands from traditional and new channel partners have placed more pressure on pricing well. Fortunately, changes in the law of pricing—particularly in the United States and Canada—have resulted a great deal of freedom that effectively narrows or eliminates formerly convenient legal rules of thumb.



Eugene F. Zelek, Jr.Partner and Co-Chair,
Antitrust & Trade Regulation Group,
Freeborn & Peters LLP

"Legal issues are probably the least understood pricing parameter among business people," but often significantly affect pricing strategy and its implementation. Indeed, lingering misperceptions may block the use of powerful tools that help achieve improved pricing performance.

During the next PPS Spring Pricing Conference in San Francisco you will have a great opportunity to learn how the considerable flexibility in the law and the cutting-edge legal tools that go with it can be applied to achieve pricing excellence in three key areas of growing current interest: (1) embracing value pricing to maximize return, (2) combating resale price erosion over the Internet or elsewhere and (3) engaging in effective price signaling to avoid lowest-common-denominator pricing,

The following topics, among others, will be addressed:

• Reaping the Rewards of Value Management
• Paying for Value: Account-Specific and Channel-Specific Pricing
• Addressing Internet Price Problems
• Lawfully Setting and Enforcing Resale Prices
• Controlling Distribution: Effective Non-Price Restrictions
• Price Signaling: Using Controlled Transparency

Learn how to take the legal fear out of being assertive; Why the law is not a roadblock to smart pricing;  The relevant standards, what they really mean and their implications for pricers; And, practical approaches that can be readily implemented.

 

Eugene F. Zelek, Jr. focuses on marketing-related law, applying extensive counseling, transactional, and litigation expertise on behalf of leading consumer and industrial businesses and consulting firms throughout the world. His areas of emphasis include antitrust, pricing, and distribution, as well as branding, licensing, entertainment, strategic alliances, supply relationships, complex contracts, advertising, and new product development.

Mr. Zelek joined Freeborn & Peters LLP after practicing marketing law at a large international law firm and The Quaker Oats Company, then becoming a Quaker Product Manager with shared responsibility for Quaker’s Cap’n Crunch cereal and Chewy granola bars. He is a partner in the firm’s Business Law Services and Litigation Practice Groups and co-chairs the Antitrust and Trade Regulation Practice Group.

After receiving an undergraduate degree in journalism with high honors from the University of Illinois, Mr. Zelek graduated cum laude from the Northwestern University School of Law and, as a marketing major, with Distinction from the Kellogg School of Management. While at Northwestern, he was an Executive Editor of its law review and a Distinguished Scholar. Subsequently, Mr. Zelek has served as a member of the Kellogg marketing faculty, teaching “The Legal Aspects of Marketing Strategy” and executive programs on pricing and channel management.