In the present age, when skipping of television commercials is merely a matter of pushing a button of television remote and traditional advertisements reach fewer number of people, marketing professionals are increasingly moving away from mass media to word-of-mouth marketing. In addition to the traditional word-of-mouth communications, emerging marketing channels like blogs, buzz, viral and e-mails are gaining popularity as the new electronic word-of-mouth. While a positive word-of-mouth accelerates the acceptance of brands in new markets and reduces brand promotional expenses in existing markets, a negative word-of-mouth may hamper a brand’s acceptance and tarnish its reputation. Since word-of-mouth marketing has been playing a major role in marketing of organizations and some of its aspects are still evolving and have strong potential in future marketing campaigns of organizations, the focus of this article would be to explore issues related to word-of-mouth marketing in developing a strategic marketing plan for an organization. Continue reading
Modern Marketing Strategies
Market Challenger and Market Follower Strategies
Companies that are in the second, third, or even a lower position in the industry is often called companies on the rise, and companies that walk pave the way. Some companies, such as Colgate, Ford, Montgomery Ward, Avis, and Pepsi-Cola, have been great in their own areas. These companies on the rise can operate in two modes. Can attack the leader and other competitors in an aggressive battle for the expansion of its market share (market challengers), or they can cooperate and work without risk (market followers). Market Challenger Strategy There are many cases of market challengers who won positions as the market leader or even abandoned certain leaders of the market. Canon, which was only one-tenth the size of Xerox’s mid-70s, today produces more than copiers Xerox. Toyota now produces more cars than General Motors, and British Airways carried more international passengers than the former leader, Pan Am. These Continue reading
Case Study: L’Oreal Marketing Strategies in India
Before the facial cosmetics, L’Oreal was known as a hair-color formula developed by French chemist Eugene Schueller in 1907. It was then known as”Aureole”. Schueller formulated and manufactured his own productswhich were sold to Parisian hairdressers. It was only in 1909 that Schueller registered his company as “Societe Francaise de Teintures Inoffensives pour Cheveus,”the future L’Oreal. Scheuller began exporting his products, which was then limited to hair-coloring products. There were 3 chemists employed in 1920. In 1950, the research teams increased to 100 and reached 1,000 by 1984. Today, research teams are numbered to 2,000 and are still expected to increase in the near future. Through agents and consignments, Scheuller further distributed his products in the United States of America, South America, Russia and the Far East. The L’Oreal Group is present worldwide through its subsidiaries and agents. L’Oreal started to expand its products from hair-color to other cleansing and Continue reading
Co-Creation of Value in Marketing
Back in 1953, Neil Borden introduced the concept of Marketing Mix. In 1960, it was classified into 4Ps – product; price; place; and promotion – in 1960 by Professor McCarthy. Product can be either physical or service; Price is dependent on its value; Place refers to distribution of; and Promotion refers to communication related to marketing of the product. The concept of ‘4Ps’ was mainly used in the past when physical product was dominant in the market. There are two main limitations of the marketing mix – common in all examined domains: (i) a model’s internal orientation; and (ii) lack of personalization. Consequently, the model of exchange was introduced having logic based on exchange of manufactured “goods”. This logic focused on tangible resources, embedded value, and transactions. Over the past several decades, however, new perspectives have emerged having a logic focused on intangible resources: the co-creation of value and relationships. Continue reading
Brand Building through Events Marketing
To truly build a brand that leaves an indelible imprint on the hearts and minds of audiences, event marketers must adopt a more strategic, holistic approach. When it comes to building brands, events and meetings have become powerful tools in the arsenals of marketers and event professionals. Event marketing can tie a brand to a valuable experience; and the event itself allows brands to engage in a high-touch environment where deeper connections between brands, customers, prospects, vendors, and partners can be forged. A well-executed event can build market share, grow profits, and increase brand equity by creating a stronger and more meaningful connection between a brand and its audience. A poorly executed event can cause brand damage. Events and meetings present a great opportunity for marketers and event professionals to build brand value together. Events marketing help in brand building by: Creating awareness about the launch of new products/brand: Creating Continue reading
Competitive Intelligent System in Marketing
Today, information has become an integral part of every organization. However, there is need to effectively manage this information and gain benefit from information systems. Businesses must leverage the vast quantities of collected information in order to make effective decisions, achieve a strategic competitive advantage and achieve increased employee productivity. Competitive intelligence embodies a systematic and ethical program for gathering, analyzing and managing external information that can affect an organization’s plan and decisions. Competitive intelligent system can be used to monitor competitor’s activities, national and internal market trends, customer needs, existing and emerging technologies and regulatory trends. Competitive intelligence is the ongoing process of monitoring environment in order to identify the opportunities to act on or threats to avoid. Many companies use readily available software tools to implement competitive intelligent system. There are four main steps involved in designing and implementing competitive intelligent system. Very first step is setting up Continue reading