Marketing strategy consists of the analysis, strategy development, and implementation activities in: “Developing a vision about the market(s) of interest to the organization, selecting market target strategies, setting objectives, and developing, implementing, and managing the marketing program positioning strategies designed to meet the value requirements of the customers in each market target”. Strategic marketing is a market-driven process of strategy development, taking into account a constantly changing business environment and the need to deliver superior customer value. The focus of strategic marketing is on organizational performance rather than a primary concern about increasing sales. Marketing strategy seeks to deliver superior customer value by combining the customer-influencing strategies of the business into a coordinated set of market-driven actions. Strategic marketing links the organization with the environment and views marketing as a responsibility of the entire business rather than a specialized function. Because of marketing’s boundary orientation between the organization and its Continue reading
Marketing Management
Marketing management combines the fields of marketing and management. Marketing consists of discovering consumer needs and wants, creating the goods and services that meet those needs and wants; and pricing, promoting, and delivering those goods and services. Doing so requires attention to six major areas – markets, products, prices, places, promotion, and people. Management is getting things done through other people. Managers engage in five key activities – planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. Marketing management implies the integration of these concepts.
Various Aspects of International Advertising
Advertising is one of the most visible forms of communication. Because of its wide use and its limitations as one-way method of communication, advertising in international markets is subject to a number of difficulties. Advertising is often the most important part of the communication mix for the consumer goods, where there is a large number of small volume customers who can be reached through mass media. International advertising entails dissemination of a commercial message to target audiences in more than one country. Target audiences differ from country to country in terms of how they perceive or interpret symbols or stimuli, respond to humor or emotional appeals, as well as in levels of literacy and languages spoken. International advertising can, therefore, be viewed as a communication process that takes place in multiple cultures that differ in terms of values, communication styles and consumption patterns. International advertising is also a business activity Continue reading
Co-Creation of Value in Marketing
Back in 1953, Neil Borden introduced the concept of Marketing Mix. In 1960, it was classified into 4Ps – product; price; place; and promotion – in 1960 by Professor McCarthy. Product can be either physical or service; Price is dependent on its value; Place refers to distribution of; and Promotion refers to communication related to marketing of the product. The concept of ‘4Ps’ was mainly used in the past when physical product was dominant in the market. There are two main limitations of the marketing mix – common in all examined domains: (i) a model’s internal orientation; and (ii) lack of personalization. Consequently, the model of exchange was introduced having logic based on exchange of manufactured “goods”. This logic focused on tangible resources, embedded value, and transactions. Over the past several decades, however, new perspectives have emerged having a logic focused on intangible resources: the co-creation of value and relationships. Continue reading
Brand Personality
Brand personality is as if ‘making the brand come alive’. The attribution of human personality traits (seriousness, warmth, imagination, etc.) to a brand as a way to achieve differentiation. Usually done through long-term above-the-line advertising and appropriate packaging and graphics. These traits inform brand behavior through both prepared communication / packaging, etc. and through the people who represent the brand – its employees. Brand personality is the way in which a brand speaks of its products or services shows what kind of person it would be if it were human. A brand without a personality has trouble gaining awareness and developing a relationship with customers. Brand image refers to the rational measurements like quality, strength, and flavor. Brand personality explains why people like some brands even when there is no physical difference between them. Brand personality is the emotional associations of the brand and brand image is the physical features Continue reading
Marketing’s Impact on Individual Consumers and Society
Marketing is offering significant benefits to organizations and to society, while the fact that marketing is a business function operating in close contact with the public where extensive criticism is subjected to this functional area, some of this criticism is justified: much is not. The function and practice of marketing has been criticized because it is claimed that it creates partial truths about products and services by emphasizing the gap between a person’s reality and their expectations in such a way that people feel lacking in either self esteem so that they feel compelled to close the gap by unnecessary spending. The philosophy of Milton Freidman and the belief that the “ends justifies the means” endorses the marketing way or its aim. In other words businesses are accountable to shareholders and shareholders alone where marketing is the tool. Social critics claim that certain marketing practice hurts individual consumers and society Continue reading
Publicity – Meaning, Areas and Vehicles
Public relations are often confused with publicity, which in simple terms mean making things public or bringing things to the public notice. Many tools including word of mouth to the mass media to advertising to the Internet are used for publicizing information. However, publicity is only one part of public relations. Many marketing experts put public relations under publicity. Thus, publicity is an important part of public relation. Many tools are used for publicizing information and facts. The major and most effective ones are the mass media. Publicity coverage could be in the form of news stories, news analyses, interviews, features, articles, and editorials in printed media and in news bulletins, interviews, discussions or special programmes on radio and television. Another form of publicity is the paid variety. This basically involves advertising for which the organization has to pay to the media for the amount of space and time. Yet Continue reading