Managing brand equity involves reinforcing brands or, if necessary, revitalizing brands. Brand equity is reinforced by marketing actions that consistently convey the meaning of the brand to consumers in terms of: 1) What products the brand represents; what core benefits it supplies; and what needs it satisfies; and 2) How the brand makes those products superior and which strong, favorable, and unique brand associations exist in the minds of consumers. The most important consideration in reinforcing brands is the consistency of the marketing support that the brand receives both in terms of the amount and nature of that support. Consistency does not mean that marketers should avoid making any changes in the marketing program — many tactical changes may be necessary to maintain the strategic thrust and direction of the brand. Unless there is some change in the marketing environment, however, there is little need to deviate from a successful Continue reading
Marketing Concepts
Types of Advertising Agencies
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising (and sometimes other forms of promotion) for its clients. Advertising Agencies can be classified by the range of services that they offer. Also, advertising agencies range in size from one man shows to large firms that employ thousands of people. Accordingly, different types of advertising agencies are: Full Service Agencies: As the name implies, a full service agency is one that handles all phases of advertising process for its clients: it plan, creates, produces and places advertisements for its clients. In addition, it might provide other marketing services such as sales promotion, trade shows, exhibits, newsletters and annual reports. One major point that differentiates a full service agency from other is that the personal work full time and the services provide are extensive. The services usually provided by a full service agency include Continue reading
Role of Communication Process in 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 involving Continue reading
Importance of Consumer Behaviour
Consumer Behaviour or the Buyer Behaviour is referred to the behaviour that is displayed by the individual while they are buying, consuming or disposing any particular product or services. These behaviours can be affected by multiple factors. Moreover, it also involves search for a product, evaluation of product where the consumer evaluate different features, purchase and consumption of product. Later the post purchase behaviour of product is studied which shows the consumer satisfaction or dissatisfaction where it involves disposal of product. The customers while buying a product goes through many steps. The study of consumer behaviour helps to understand how the buying decision is made and how they look for a product. Moreover, the understanding consumer behaviour also helps marketers to know the what, where, when, how and why of the consumption of product consumption. These help marketers or organizations to know the reason behind the purchase of product by Continue reading
Different Types of Pricing Objectives
The task of the marketing manager is to decide the objectives of pricing before he determines the price itself. Pricing objectives provide guidance to decision makers in formulating price policies, planning pricing strategies and setting actual prices. The most important objective of the companies is to have maximum profits. Pricing objectives are goals that describe what a firm wants to achieve through pricing. Pricing objectives must be stated explicitly, and the statement should include the time frame for accomplishing them. There are six stages of setting prices. They are developing pricing objective, assessing the target market’s evaluation of price, evaluating competitors’ prices, choosing a basis for pricing, selecting a pricing strategy, and determining a specific price. Cost-based pricing is adding a dollar amount or percentage to the cost of the product. Cost-plus pricing is adding a specified dollar amount or percentage to the seller’s cost. Markup pricing is adding to Continue reading
Service Process
Service process refers to how a service is provided or delivered to a customer. Delivery system is a creative process. Service process begins with a service concept and strategy to provide a service. In order to achieve these objectives various alternatives must be analyzed and identified before a decision is made. Designing a service process involves issues such as location facility, design and layout for effective design layout and workflow, procedure and job definitions for service quality, equipment selection and adequate service capacity According to Clovelock there are some operational issues which have to be considered while designing the service process. In order to achieve economics of scale and perform consistently the operation people would prefer to cater to individuals so that the customer feels as being treated specially. The decisions on design and facility layout should satisfy the objectives on both. Operational people are interested to improve Continue reading