The Fierce Driver of Sales- Marketing
April 4th, 2012 • Uncategorized • 1 comment
I read Wei-Ting’s first blogpost way back in September and it has stayed in my mind ever since. Each time I think about marketing and especially the millions of dollars that are pumped into various campaigns throughout the world to increase sales and profits, I used to initially cringe. Wei-Ting had wittily thrown the question at us about if the marketers are really encouraging consumerism or is it our fault that we satiate so many of our wants and fall prey to the marketer’s charms. I always kept the belief that if we as consumers need something, then we will ask. Only then I believed, the marketers had any responsibility to lure us to buy their specific product. Coming up with some vague new product with an exorbitant price tag and then trying to sell it to us was in my opinion, not only ineffective but very risky and irresponsible as well. As with advertising for mature products, I always believed that since we are already aware of the product, what is really the point of it? I know for a fact that I always keep a couple of cans of coke at home and I believe that an extra, exorbitant 30 second spot will not influence me in any way. Why then, I felt, do they not cut down 0n promotional costs (which make up a huge portion of product costs) and reduce both the price of the product and maybe even their profit margin by virtue of the increased volume of sales?
But then, a number of things happened at the same time. Firstly, regarding my perception about promotions of new products, I came about this famous quote by Henry Ford in Steve Jobs’ biography. Loosely paraphrased it said that if we ask people what they want, they will say faster horses and not cars. And then, who can forget about all the innovations that came about as a result of “thinking differently” at Apple? I realized then that there indeed was merit for not just doing market research and finding what people want, but instead innovating and preemptively solving people’s issue or making people’s lives easier before they realized it. As far as marketing for mature product goes, Jenny talked about tons of companies that used marketing to turn around their fate and stop their declining sales trend. Arm & Hammer’s example really stuck with me and showed me the true power of marketing and promotions. It is true that find the ROI on marketing is difficult but examples like A&H showed the silent but fierce power of marketing and as I reach the end of the term, I have immense regard for marketing, much more regard than what I had at the beginning of the term.
Ethics and Ambush Marketing: Where should we draw the limits?
March 12th, 2012 • Uncategorized • 1 comment
As the term comes to a close, I am convinced that no product, whether it is a commodity or a specialty good can hope to achieve great sales and profit without effective promotions and advertising. Now that it is known that marketing and eye catching promotions are very important, I started thinking about ethics in marketing and whether there really are some rules about what limits a company can go to in order to garner greater awareness. That’s when I came across this blog, and I saw a huge horde of examples of companies relying on ambush marketing to increase awareness at major events. Ambush marketing is defined by Campbell, the writer of the blog as “a marketing campaign that takes place around an event but does not involve payment of a sponsorship fee to that event”.
My favourite example of ambush marketing is the instance of the Butch beer brand Bavaria NV employing about 30 scantily clad women in Bavaria yellow clothing to attend a FIFA world cup game in South Africa. While Budweiser was the official beer partner for the games, Bavaria got all the free publicity it wanted what with even the daily newspaper in Johannesburg carrying a picture of the women on its front page!
Ambush marketing is always a sore point for the official partnering firms of an event and the event organizers. In the above example, these women were swiftly escorted out of the games and were reportedly detained and questioned for several hours. It is indeed important for the major sporting events to protect the interests of their sponsors and the main reason for this is that the majority of the event’s revenue typically comes from sponsorship deals and TV and marketing rights. In fact in the above case, a report from 2009 indicated that 97% of FIFA’s revenue came from TV and marketing rights out of which sponsoring rights make up a big portion.
While I do agree that some level of protection against competitors should definitely be given to the official sponsors of the event, my main point of contention is about where we draw the limits. I leave you with this incident, my readers: During the Cricket World Cup of 2003, when Pepsi was the official soft beverage, an innocent family was escorted from a match just for drinking rival brand Coca Cola!
Plus, isn’t cheeky marketing always more fun than prim and proper marketing? (wink!)
Why some companies should stick to what they do best!
February 5th, 2012 • Uncategorized • 1 comment
Today, as I was perusing my classmates’ blogs for inspiration to write my blog post, I chanced upon Dan Neufeld’s blog post about how Heinz experimented with purple, green and blue ketchup only to meet with disastrous results. This blog post of his brought to mind a few other companies who tried to move away from their main market offering and achieved no success. One such company is Colgate who thought it would be a good brand extension to introduce Colgate Kitchen Entrees! The reckoning behind this is to probably convince people that after consuming these entrees, they could brush their teeth with Colgate toothpaste. I for one, sure can’t work up an appetite for food of any kind when I think of Colgate toothpaste and this seemed to be what lots of people thought too. The result- a colossal product failure.
Doesn't look appetising to me!
Brand extensions can be successful or not. A great example of a successful brand extension is IAMS pet insurance. But, the direction of the brand extension is important. Another reason why Colgate probably failed is because they had a brand image that was too powerful. Quite ironic, but a strong brand image can be both a bane and a boon. In this case, the strong brand image and the connected strong value proposition that Colgate created and maintained in its consumers’ minds for years prohibited people from even reaching the second step of the adoption process- interest stage where the consumer seeks information about the product. Subsequently, few innovators and early adopters tried the product and the product failed to reach awareness in the consumers’ mind and achieve success.
This Colgate story brings an important point to the forefront. Consumer perception and branding is important, maybe even more important than the product quality in the beginning stages of the adoption process.
Marketing Here, Marketing There, Marketing is EVERYWHERE!
January 16th, 2012 • Uncategorized • 3 comments
While thinking about the topic for this blog post, my thoughts went from Apple to Coca Cola. Then I chanced upon a UBC Bookstore towel and I found my topic.
I am a student ambassador of the UBC Bookstore. Since 2010, I have worked on numerous marketing projects with the Bookstore. I am responsible for sharing Bookstore messages with my peers and preparing a report on my findings. I also volunteer for brand awareness activities like the annual Rez Night. I have had much fun and have gained experience in marketing through this role. But till Jan 4th, I didn’t know how valuable the ambassadors’ services are to the Bookstore!
Every organization wants unbiased customer reactions but this may be costly and cumbersome. Through the ambassadors however, the Bookstore has cleverly placed a pulse on the students’ view of the Bookstore and within a couple of weeks of getting feedback from us, it can take measures to tune its marketing plan. Also, the ambassadors have proven to be a valuable information delivery channel for the Bookstore. Since we often speak about the Bookstore promotions in our conversations with friends, they have successfully become part of the conversation. They have turned us ambassadors into marketing evangelists too. Having closely worked with the bookstore staff. we know that the profits are directed back to UBC and that the higher prices are necessitated because of the fair trade policies that it follows. This positive image that we hold of the Bookstore reflects in our brand exchanges with our friends and ultimately good word-of-mouth publicity for the bookstore.
Employing the target market market to attract the target market is clever indeed and the recent North American College Stores (NACS) innovation award that the Bookstore received for this program ratifies this statement. Kudos to the Bookstore!
