The advertising management is mainly concerned with advertising planning and decision making. The advertising manager will be involved in the development, implementation, and overall management of an advertising plan. The development of an advertising plan essentially requires the generation and specification of alternatives. Decision making involves choosing from among the alternatives. The alternatives can be various levels of expenditure, different kinds of objectives or strategy possibilities, and kinds of options with copy creation and media choices. Thus, the essence of advertising planning is to find out the feasible alternatives and reduce them to decisions. An advertising plan reflects the planning and decision — making process and the decisions that have been arrived at in a particular product and market situation. Advertising Planning Framework Advertising planning and decision making depends on internal and external factors. Internal factors are situation analysis, the marketing program, and the advertising plan. The three legs of Continue reading
Marketing Concepts
Major Differences Between B2B and B2C
Marketing includes those business activities in the flow of goods and services from production to consumption. Goods and services are of two types; consumer and industrial. Firstly, it is important to define the primary difference between Business to Business (B2B) Marketing and Business to Consumer (B2C) Marketing. Both markets are types of commercial transactions, however, simply put, business to consumer (B2C) is the process of selling products directly to consumers and industrial/business to business (B2B) is the process of selling products or services to other businesses. However, the differences between both business systems are much more complex than their simple definitions, so are their similarities. Obviously, both B2B and B2C markets have one fundamental difference: the type of customer. However, this article is going to investigate these markets further, discussing the similarities and differences between their market’s structure, marketing practices and buying behaviour within the industry. Market Structure One key Continue reading
Concepts of Luxury and Masstige
The word ‘luxury’ derives from the Latin word ‘luxus’ , which according to the Latin Oxford dictionary signifies ‘soft or extravagant living, indulgence’ and ‘sumptuousness, luxuriousness, opulence’ . There are two aspects to consider when defining luxury, the psychological value and the value of the product/service itself. The psychological value of luxury comes from its function as a status symbol and from a highly involved consumption experience that is strongly congruent to a person’s self-concept. From a product perspective, luxury brands are frequently defined in terms of their excellent quality, high transaction value, distinctiveness, exclusivity and craftsmanship. In his paper on International Retail Marketing, T.B. Jackson proposes the following as the core characteristics of a luxury product: ‘… exclusivity, premium prices, image and status which combine to make them more desirable for reasons other than function’. Dimitri Mortelmans, in his paper ‘The concept of luxury’, says there are three main characteristics Continue reading
Different Approaches to the Study of Marketing
Marketing may be studied by different approaches. To facilitate the study these approaches may be broadly classified as follows: Commodity Approach: The first approach is the commodity approach under which a specific commodity is selected and then its marketing methods and environments are studied in the course of its movement from producer to consumer. In this approach, the subject matter of discussion centers around the specific commodity selected for the study and includes the sources and conditions of supply, nature and extent of demand, the distribution channels used, promotional methods adopted etc. Functional Approach: The second approach is the functional approach under which the study concentrates on the specialized functions or services performed by the marketers and the problems faced by them in performing those functions. Such marketing functions include buying, selling, storage, standardizing, transport, finance, risk-bearing, market information etc. This approach certainly enables one to gain detailed knowledge Continue reading
Factors Influencing the Consumer Decision Making Process
Each buying decision you make involves an elaborate mental thought process, a degree of active reasoning, though on the surface it may not always seem to be so. This may be because over a period of time you have taken certain buying decisions so many times that they now seem to be made almost automatically but that is not true at all. Even your daily decision of buying a loaf of bread involves the element of active reasoning as buying a new sofa set for your drawing room. However, in the former case, the extent and intensity of active reasoning may be much less as compared to the latter case. In the case of bread, the only decision variables may be which brand, quantity and retail outlet. But in the case of buying a sofa set the decision variables are far more in number. These may be: Ready-made or made Continue reading
4 Reasons Why Marketing is Important for Every Business
Managers face an endless challenge to create unique strategies that will enable them provide positional advantage in an effort to achieve superior financial or customer performance. A company’s pecuniary success largely depends upon prudent marketing efforts along with financial, operational, accounting and other business functions. Marketing is identified as focusing on strategies concerning the critical decision of market definition and market segmentation as well as the identification of potential bases for differentiation. Sometimes, people ask why marketing is important in the financial success of a company. The answer to this question is, assume you have a product to offer with excellent features, best quality and amazing packaging but no one knows about your product? There will be no demand in the market for your it, the company will make no sale and eventually no profit. Here comes the importance of marketing. The most important function of marketing, along with others, Continue reading