M@rketing!

This is the trailor to the movie that I was speaking of in class today in relation to the “Pink Tshirt Day” phenomenon.

It’s another great example of how some of the pop-culture trend/movements today can successfully tap into the internal stimuli of emotions within consumers – and make it a profitable venture:

The Underdog is humanity’s greatest story. Throughout history, we have seen it in through the rise of african-americans from slavery to freedom, the uneducated asian immigrant from rags to riches, and many other stories of those dealt a bad hand that pursues and achieves the American Dream. Jeremy Lin personifies and embodies this American Dream in today’s sporting world:

From “the end of the bench” to electrifying New York’s Madison Square Garden, the largest stage in all of sports, Jeremy Lin has created a story that comes once or twice in ones lifetime. Undrafted and unwanted, Lin’s story from no one to someone has touched an extremely diverse segment of the global population. He has become a pop-culture phenomenon, and in today’s social-media connected society he has risen to become a household name in a record breaking amount of time. As shown by Enzo Woo’s post on Nike’s marketing strategy, sports and marketing are two very intertwined concepts and Jeremy Lin’s brand potential is an example.

Jeremy Lin has become not only the name of one of the first Asian-American basketball player in the NBA, the first Harvard player in more more than 50 years, or someone who was cut from two NBA teams prior to the Knicks, but his name has now become a Global Brand. For the NBA, this brand has been able to tap into untapped profitable market segments. The population has been drawn to the story of Jeremy Lin out of curiosity. Those who have never watched basketball, are now beginning to turn on the TV just to watch the New York Knicks next game. It has become a global phenomenon that has lit the entire world on fire.

The key driver to the success of Jeremy Lin’s brand value:
his story’s ability to engage the population’s emotions.

Most Marketers attempt to tap into the consumer’s mind and position their product to make them think that they need their product. However, people have been drawn to Lin because his story in the consumer’s mind makes them feel a certain level of emotional engagement. People feel that they could relate to his story – the story of achieving one’s dream despite adversity is both timeless and universal. The story of the underdog, the story of failure, the story of rejection, the story of feeling unwanted, and the story of fighting for a chance to make it in the world are all stories that the majority of society can relate to.  The psychogenic segmentation of those who can relate to Lin’s story is massive. For basketball, this has resulted in a rising attraction to the sport. For the New York Knick’s, this has resulted in rising ticket and merchandise sales. Ultimately, for the NBA organization, this has resulted in profitability.

What Marketer’s can ultimately learn from the story of Jeremy Lin, is the importance of tapping into the feelings of the consumer. Emotion is one of the strongest internal stimuli within an individual. If a focus can be put into the marketing strategy of product to engage with how a consumer will feel opposed to what they think, stronger brand value can be generated. If successful, it can generate brand loyalty, and increase the power of word-of-mouth marketing through the products consumers.

No matter what the future holds for Jeremy Lin’s career, the story of what he has achieved will never leave the pages of sport history and will always remain within the mind of many consumers.

As most of us have recently discovered in COMM 296, the term “MIS” is the acronym for two different familiar concepts. Fortunately for us, it is not the boring class that all BComm students have to endure before graduating. However, in all seriousness, both Marketing Information Systems and Management Information Systems play equally important roles in the dynamics of a successful business.

Sarah Barwin’s blog post on the importance of strong market research touches on a very key point; before entering any new market, or near the end of a product development cycle that is soon available to hit the store shelves, it is integral to have proper market research. Without proper segmentation, targeting, positioning, along with the due diligence of constructing a well-thought out strategic marketing plan, the product will face a higher probability of failure once it enters the market. Although there is no doubt of the importance of good market research, a great marketer can not overlook the importance of a good MIS with effective analytics, clean data, and relevant information that is needed well before the market research portion of a marketing plan.

A lot of the large and successful companies today are staying on top of their respective markets due to an effective MIS. On the contrary, smaller companies are struggling to get to the top due to a lack of an MIS. However, the fixed cost often poses as a challenge for smaller business. In a digital age that is filled with information, it’s the ones that can leverage the data to receive a return in value that gains the competitive marketing advantage. Knowing what kind of product a consumer wants is important, but knowing how a consumer wants to receive their product is also important. Although conducting market research externally is important, leveraging existing customer information thats already existing within the company internal databases is a more efficient first step to collecting marketing information.

Here is a cartoon illustration of what an MIS is: