Category: Introduction to Marketing

Working on the marketing assignment throughout the semester was an interesting experience as we were applying our knowledge to the real-world scenario.

Managing the group dynamics and our different characters proved to be sometimes challenging but the overall experience was good. By setting group rules and assessing each person skills we were able to distribute the tasks in optimal way, taking advantage of our strengths and mitigating our weaknesses.

Final, video assignment was a challenging wrap-up of what we’ve learnt during the course. We were free to use any kind of tools. We’ve practiced group brainstorming on the ideas and recommendation, critical thinking; finally, we created a script for our video, artistic concept of the video and created a final product. It took us much more time that a “usual” presentation, however, it was interesting to reach out and practice the use new technologies – video and voice editing. I had some previous experience but it was the first time I was required to do for a course.

Through the assignment I’ve developed my group-work skills and reflected a lot about the process. If I was to change something, I would express my expectations to the group in a clearer way at the beginning of our project and try to set clearer goals for each meeting to make them more productive.

The course was very interesting overall. My top takeaway is that marketing is not about pushing things to the customers, but rather finding the right audience and providing them with valuable information on a product that they need, thus building long-term relationships and sustainable market for the company. Gaining literacy in some marketing terms and strategies as well as seeing marketing strategy as a set of interconnected and coherent actions was very valuable and will help me on my way to better understand marketing and its role in business.

Recently, I came across Anmol’s blogpost “Innovation in the Soap Industry – Is it really innovation?” and really appreciated his analysis and reality check approach.

Detergent are in mature product category therefore companies try to differentiate themselves from one another claiming “innovation” in every single product, being 3in1, 10in1, more concentrated or capsules instead of powder of liquid.
As Anmol suggest, the latter strategy had a big impact on the industry. The reason behind is that it provides better consumer experience – capsules avoid overuse of product, are easy to apply etc.

I agree with Anmol than rather than competing on the products features producers should focus on making their products more user-friendly; for exemple offering multi-dosage capsules of machine built-in systems would be one way of creating real value to customers by saving their time and energy. This kind of innovation would also likely create new product category (rather that keep competing in the mature category) and increase margins, unlike concentrating current detergents.

Companies are looking for new ways of advertising, often moving online. I’ve found interesting Paul Cobbon’s blogpost “Brand responses in Facebook – getting the tone right”.

UK-based Bodyform managed to reach out to huge group of customers by responding to a “viral” post on its Facebook wall. The video itself went viral too, providing definitely a high ROI.

In his blogpost, Paul states that

“if this [ad] is consistent with the brand personality then it is gold.”

This is true, however, by reaching through social media the brand has reach a certain group of customers that respond well to this kind of advertising. Moreover, being a small brand compared to the market leaders, any kind of attention that will raise brand awareness is welcome.

Blogpost

Video-response

In the era of internet companies are competing to attract consumers’ attention using social media or platforms as YouTube in innovative ways. However, most of the ads/videos are overlooked.

Virool is a company that offers solutions for making ads “go more viral”. This is achieved by using STP potential of the online media. Consumers can be identified based on their geographic, demographic (age, gender, education), psychographic (interests) and behavioral (previous videos seen) characteristics. This makes the advertising campaign more meaningful and potentially can prompt users to share the add they’ve seen with their friends further increasing its reach.

Virool focuses not only on YouTube but also on social media, mobile advertising, blogs, etc. The technology allows the advertiser to access data on viewers’ locations, platform which can be a meaningful source of intelligence.

See the virool’s viral promotional video that attracted my attention:

Source: https://www.virool.com/

On February 14th the first One Billion Rising event took place all over the word. The rising against the violence was a very successful and inspiring event, which was supported by a very professional marketing effort.

What are some reasons for such a broad engagement and success?

Storytelling: action’s value proposition was expressed by telling a story that can easily appeal to everybody. Storytelling helps educate people on the reasons for the action (1 in 3 women is victim of violence at some point in her life) and its goals.

Engaging value proposition: the action does not focus on value proposition for somebody, but rather a value proposition WITH victims and people that are for the cause. Anybody around the world can get involved.

Social media: the message of the action was viral on social media and organizations and individuals around the world decided to get involved by organizing their own, local events. The events were also streamed on-line.

Immersive experience: similar to immersive marketing, the events with high involvement created a brand/action awareness that is likely to endure for a long time.

All these elements greatly helped marketing success of the campaign that was the biggest and loudest of its kind, rising cause and overall brand awareness of the organization that organized it.

Certain companies may employ marketing considered as unethical as a part of their strategy. Let’s look at the American Apparel’s ‘Hurricane Sandy Sale’.  The campaign is in line with other run previously by the AA.

‘The company has been accused of everything from racism and fat shaming to the sexualization of underage models.’

What for some clients may seem unethical, certainly promotes the image of the company as alternative and rebel, and thus differentiates it from its competitors. What for some is aggressive or tasteless, for the other customers may be desirable.

AA’s CEO, Dov Charney, stated that the event was misunderstood and the reactions were exaggerated by a group of bloggers. The campaign has generated sales.

It’s difficult to determine the long-term impact of this particular ad on the company. Nevertheless, I would not classify the AA’s ad as unethical, but designed to create debate and thus generate interest in the brand.

Looking from the other perspective, it’s interesting that the company that on one hand builds on values like domestic production (as opposed to the rivals’ abuse of child labor) or fair wages for its employees recurs to the behaviors that are designed to attract attention (often negative) at any price.

CBC News blog article