Ethical Issues in Marketing

Ethics are defined as the set of principles that guide a person’s conduct towards being morally right. When a person is faced with some moral dilemma, the choice that the person makes largely depends upon the values and ethical principles that person holds. It is over and above just being legal. Due to being dependent upon the personal values and principles a person holds, an ethical code of conduct cannot be described in absolute terms. Like in all the disciplines of life, recognizing and quantifying what is ethical in marketing and what is not is difficult. In a broader sense, ethics in marketing mean implementing standards of moral rights and wrongs and of fairness in the marketing practices of an organization. The main objective of any business is said to be shareholders wealth maximization. In order to achieve this objective, the organization has to perform better than its competitors and Continue reading

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Model

Customer relationship model may be defined as a practice, technology, and strategy which is used by the many companies to manage and evaluate the customer data and interactions throughout the customer lifecycle in order to improve the business relationships with customers and it will also help in customer retention. The CRM system came into in existence with an effective software which helps and supports in organizing, collecting and managing the customer information and data. There are numerous elements of customer relationship management model which are essential to run the business activities and operations successfully. It also helps to build and develop good relations with customers in the global market. Each and every component is effective and unique and plays a significant role in the process. The customer relationship model helps to generate revenue and profit of the company. The components of CRM model have been discussed below; Human resource management: Continue reading

Brand Hierarchy

A brand hierarchy is a means of summarizing the branding strategy by displaying the number and nature of common and distinctive brand elements across the firm’s products, revealing the explicit ordering of brand elements. By capturing the potential branding rela ­tionships among the different products sold by the firm, a brand hierarchy is a useful means of graphically portraying a firm’s branding strategy. Specifically, a brand hierarchy is based on the realization that a product can be branded in different ways depending on how many new and existing brand elements are used and how they are combined for any one product. Because certain brand elements are used to make more than one brand, a hierarchy can be constructed to represent how (if at all) products are nested with other prod ­ucts because of their common brand elements. Some brand elements may be shared by many products (e.g., Ford); other brand Continue reading

Product Types in Marketing Management

A product is something that must be capable of satisfying a need or want, it includes physical objects, personalities, places, organizations and ideas.  Product may be classified broadly into two major categories namely consumer goods and industrial goods. 1. Consumer Goods Consumer goods are those goods meant for use by the ultimate household consumer and in such form that they can be used by him without further commercial processing. Consumer goods are generally divided into three sub-categories according to the method in which they are purchased namely convenience goods, shopping goods are specialty goods. Convenience Goods: There are goods which the consumer usually purchases frequently and with the minimum efforts. Usually they have easy substitutes and the unit value will be low. The consumer may not have much of a preference for a particular brand. E Shopping Goods: These are goods which the consumer purchase less frequently and the unit Continue reading

The Political Environment Concept in Marketing

The political environment can be one of the less predictable elements in an organization’s marketing environment. Marketers need to monitor the changing political environment because political change can profoundly affect a firm’s marketing. Consider the following effects of politicians on marketing. At the most general level, the stability of the political system affects the attractiveness of a particular national market. While western Europe is generally politically stable, the instability of many governments in less developed countries has led a number of companies to question the wisdom of marketing in those countries. Governments pass legislation that directly and indirectly affects firms’ marketing opportunities. There are many examples of the direct effects on marketers, for example laws giving consumers rights against the seller of faulty goods. At other times the effects of legislative changes are less direct, as where legislation outlawing anti- competitive practices changes the nature of competition between firms within Continue reading

Marketing Myopia – Definition, Causes, and Examples

Most of the major industries today were once considered as growth industry’s. However some of the industries that are on the rise up the mountain or undergoing a boom in business may very much be in the shadow of downfall. Other industries which are considered as veteran growth industries have in reality ceased to grow. In every case the reason for this stint is not because the market is impregnated, it is because of the failure of management as they have fallen prey to a phenomenon called ‘Marketing Myopia’. Defining Marketing Myopia ‘Marketing myopia’ is a term made up of two words: Marketing and Myopia which is used to describe the short sighted (myopic) approach adopted by organizations which often leads to their premature decay. The term was coined by ‘Theodore Levitt’ in a paper which was published in the Harvard Business Review in the year 1960. This paper has Continue reading