The competitive market is an unstable and ever-evolving medium. Products change, companies rise and fall, and new trends and demands fluctuate from one point to another. In this environment, a business cannot allow itself to remain static unless it wants to be swept away by its competitors. Large companies have, arguably, an easier time facing the winds of business fortune. The big players tend to have resources, brand names, and teams of analysts and planners to prevent and predict every possible fluctuation of the market. Yet many large and successful companies have fallen victim to a trap known as market myopia. What Is Market Myopia? The concept of Market Myopia was first introduced in 1960 by Theodore C. Levitt, a professor of marketing at Harvard Business School. In his article, “Marketing Myopia,” published by Harvard Business Review, he described the mechanism of this faulty approach to marketing. Marketing Myopia is Continue reading
Marketing Principles
The Economic Significance of Brands as Marketing Resources
The contribution of trademark and the brand they signify to the economic growth can also be analysed in terms of a brand as a marketing resource. When used as a marketing tool, a brand bears some significance and is viewed in different angles by the marketers, who are also the owners. A brand is a trademark, symbol, design, a term, a name or a combination of all whose main intention is to identify the goods or service of a particular seller or a group of sellers and distinguish them from other goods. It attracts value termed as brand equity. Brand equity refers to indirect and the direct worth accumulated to the profit connected with the brand. The value of the brand is appreciated when the consumer gains the knowledge of the same through marketing efforts. Brand knowledge refers to feelings, descriptions, familiarity, discernment’s, and beliefs that are linked to the Continue reading
Acquisition Marketing – Meaning, Definition, Advantages, and Disadvantages
The business environment today has become increasingly competitive. The aim of every organization is to expand its market and acquire new customers. The organization should ensure that it maintains the current customers as it acquires new customers. The more the customers the organization acquires the more the chances of making more sales, and at the same time making more profits and revenues. As a result, marketing has become increasingly important since it has the ability to give the organization a competitive advantage. There are many organizations that are striving to get a large share of the market. This has led to the emergence of acquisition marketing, a form of marketing whereby the organization aims at converting the non-existing or prospective customers into new customers. Definition of Acquisition Marketing The term acquisition can simply be defined as the action of taking over something and making it yours. In the corporate world, a Continue reading
Understanding the Basic Concepts of Branding
Branding has emerged as one of the most important issues of modern world. In fact, it influences a multitude of spheres, including marketing, society, and even psychology. First, it is worth mentioning that nowadays creating a brand image has become of a paramount importance for the international market in general and for the major companies in specific. Secondly, branding influences the consumers as well: even though the brands are being designed and developed for people, this phenomenon also has a reverse process. For instance, while the brand products need buyers, the consumers need the products with a good brand image. The better the position of a certain brand in the international market, the greatest is the demand for it, and visa versa. Finally, brands are now proved to have a great impact on the psychology and subconsciousness of people. Thus, there is an evident interdependence of the two main components Continue reading
Ethical Aspects of Ambush Marketing Strategy
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
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