Reflective Marketing Blog.

Throughout this Marketing course I learned that working with diverse team members that we don’t get to choose can be more enjoyable than working with a team that I choose. Throughout my years at Sauder, I could say that the team that I was assigned in this class was one of the most diverse. It was more refreshing to work in a group that I didn’t get to choose, as it allowed me to meet new students. Whereas, in past group projects, I would choose my team members, and they were usually my friends who already shared similar perspectives with me. As for what I learned about marketing, I have always had this idea that marketing was all about advertising, and commercials, and slogans. However I learned that it is possible to develop a strong recognizable brand now, so that the brand can be known to consumers without any advertising in the future. Also, I learned that it is vitally important, how consumers perceive your brand, and what it stands for. A company may think its positioning itself as being the top restaurant, or top car manufacturer, or top whatever company, but it needs to stop and think of how consumers perceive the value of that brand. The top takeaway from the course, is to not underestimate the power of marketing, consumer perception, and brand equity, as this can be the difference between earning a profit or a loss. Even if a company is offering a superior product, if consumers perceive the brand to be inferior, they may choose another brand who’s product is actually of lesser quality. This can be the cost of ineffective positioning and weak brand management. As, it is true for a business, this lesson can also be applied personally, as often times how we perceive ourselves will not be the same as how others perceive us. Thus we may not be getting the success, treatment or results we want in our lives, not because we lack the competency, but because of erroneous perceptions that could be fixed, if we stop and think of how we are positioning ourselves in society. In summary, we can think of ourselves as being responsible for our own personal brand.