Marketing has been identified to be highly reinforced by advertising. Advertising creates awareness in the market as regards a specific brand. This has been there, ever since the inception of mass media and it has allowed businesses to communicate to a huge share of their target market cheaply. Of the more common methods of advertising is sponsorship, which is the creation or the support of one or more socio-cultural events by a business so as to take advantage of it as a communication platform. Over the years, this has been known to be successful and it has attracted other marketers who have devised ways of cashing in on events that they have nothing to do with. This has come to be recognized as ambush marketing, guerrilla marketing or parasite marketing. Marketers have struggled with the question of whether ambush marketing is an unethical trick or a justified professional tool. This 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.
Customer Involvement in New Product/Service Development
Organizations today are constantly facing increasing global competition in the marketplace that demands more frequent innovation of goods and services that are of a high quality. The challenge such organizations face is to be more customer focused, responsive to their needs and provide goods and services that are cost effective. This can be achieved by value delivery and creation where value delivery entails order fulfilment by ensuring the flow of materials, products and services through production and distribution while value creation entails new product or service development activities that identify the customer’s needs in the form of new products or services. The new product development process is a series of interdependent and often overlapping stages during which a new product or service is brought from the idea generation stage, business or technical assessment, product or service conceptualization, product engineering and design, to the readiness stage for production or manufacturing. As the Continue reading
Keller’s Brand Equity Model or Brand Resonance Model
A brand is defined as a name, term, sign symbol (or a combination of these) that identifies the maker or seller of the product. In order for a brand to succeed in the ever increasing market, brand building activities such as promotion and advertisement must be conducted in order to gain awareness to establish and promote the company. Financially, Brand Equity is described as the total value of a brand which is a separable asset – when it is sold or included in a balance sheet. Kotler (2013) defines Brand Equity as the “differential effect that knowing the brand name has on customer response to the product or its marketing.” Aaker (1991) defines Brand Equity as, “a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and symbol, that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or that Continue reading
Major Distribution Strategies in Marketing
Companies have to decide on the number of intermediaries to use in their channel. The various strategies that are available are as follows: Exclusive distribution Selective distribution Intensive distribution Exclusive distribution: It involves severely limiting the number of intermediaries handling the company goods or services. It is used when the producer wants to maintain a great deal of control over the source level and service output offered by the reseller. Often it involves exhaustive dealer agreement in which dealer agrees not to carry competitive brand. By generating exclusive distribution, the product hopes to obtain more aggressive and knowledge selling. Exclusive distribution tends to enhance the product image and attain larger markups. It requires greater partnership between the seller and the reseller and it is found in major industrial products, automobiles sector etc. Selective distribution: It involves more than a few and less than all of the intermediaries who are willing Continue reading
Monitoring of Economic and Social Environments in Marketing
In this day and age, economic and social environments are developing at a rapid pace, also it plays a crucial role in deciding consumption. The economic and social environments belong to the marketing environment. According to Kotler, marketing environment can be defined as consisting of the actors and forces outside marketing that affect markers’ ability to develop and maintain successful relationships with its target customers. The marketing environment offers both opportunities and threats. Some assert that the monitoring of the economic and social environments greatly contributes to anticipating customer requirements. However, others consider that it is not the significant element for anticipating although it sometimes proves successful. This article will attempt to demonstrate that the monitoring of the economic and social environments greatly contributes to anticipating customer requirements, although it also brings some problems, and companies should constantly watch and adapt to the marketing environment in order to seek opportunities Continue reading
How Artificial Intelligence Has Influenced Marketing
Artificial Intelligence (AI) influences marketing mechanisms and procedures by providing insight into consumer behavior and preferences. AI is a system’s capacity to analyze data correctly, learn from the analysis, and use it to achieve specific goals. This technology uses machine-learning algorithms to customize content and products to satisfy target markets and influences consumer choices by offering suggestions based on social perceptions. This technological tool can help organizations maximize their competitive advantage and market dominance. Nevertheless, the involvement of AI comes along with doubt and disbelief due to different biases. Therefore, organizations must isolate and neutralize biases to realize the benefits of AI in inducing consumer preference. History of Artificial Intelligence Experts have exerted themselves constantly to improve technology throughout the years. The inception of AI occurred in the 1940s when Isaac Asimov, an American Science Fiction writer, developed three laws of robotics through his short story ‘Runaround’. The first law Continue reading