Experiential Marketing - Reading Material

EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING READING MATERIAL

M K CHANDRASEKAR

What is Experiential Marketing?

As a unique approach to the task of marketing goods and services, experiential marketing is a concept that integrates elements of emotions, logic, and general thought processes to connect with the consumer. The goal of experiential marketing is to establish the connection in such a way that the consumer responds to a product offering based on both emotional and rational response levels. Here are a few of the basics of experiential marketing, and how this process can often succeed when other marketing strategies fail.

Appealing to a variety of senses, experiential marketing seeks to tap into that special place within consumers that has to do with inspiring thoughts about comfort and pleasure, as well as inspiring a sense of practicality. This means that the marketer needs to have a firm grasp on the mindset of the target audience he or she wishes to attract. By understanding what the consumer is likely to think and feel, it is possible to get an idea of how to steer the customer in a direction that will relate with the product, and entice individuals to act on that impulse to purchase.

In order to engage in experiential marketing, it is necessary to engage as many of the senses as possible. Striking displays with powerful visual elements, such as websites, and visual media such as print ads should not only be visually appealing, but also conjure up daydreams of locales and reminders of sensations that are enjoyable to the individual.

When used to create customer experiences of this nature, a sense of rapport between the product and the consumer is established that helps to make the good or service more desirable with each encounter.

Because experiential marketing connects with the consumer on multiple levels, the strategy is ideally suited for contemporary sales and marketing campaigns. Shortened attention spans demand that any ad campaign make a quick impression, or the opportunity to engage the consumer will quickly pass. While thirty second ads on radio and television once had a great impact, many people now use modern technology to avoid this sort of marketing approach.

This means that ads on the Internet, in print media, and on modern billboards must immediately catch the attention of prospective clients and hold that attention long enough to make an impact. Experiential marketing holds the key to making this happen. By appealing to all the senses, and making the connection quickly and seamlessly, this approach to the marketing task ensures that businesses can still attract and satisfy the needs and desires of consumers.

Process of experiential marketing Experiential marketing is the process of marketers seeking word-of-mouth advertising by creating a situation that allows consumers to actually get hands-on experience with certain products. This allows consumers to do much of the advertising work through social media and blogs promoting products that they like. Marketers practicing experiential marketing should make sure to properly promote the event that allows consumers to test the products so that others can see the positive reactions of consumers. They should also be ready to act on any feedback and make sure consumers' concerns and questions are answered.

It is somewhat simple to create a splash in the marketing world with an expensive advertising campaign or a noteworthy promotion or event. These techniques may be lacking at times though when it comes to creating an association in the minds of consumers between a particular brand and the products that those brands are promoting.

As a result, there can be some disconnect that reflects negatively on companies.

Experiential marketing is a way to remedy this by creating a direct connection between consumers and products

The most common way that experiential marketing is perpetrated is through some sort of product testing. For example, a company that sells surfboards might do a promotion inviting some of the area's best surfers to try out their boards in a special, highly-publicized event. If events such as this aren't properly executed, though, the resulting effect will fall flat.

Marketers must ensure that the testing of products becomes a touchstone for positive feedback about the company in question.

This can be done by focusing experiential marketing on the right target audience. Cultivating an audience that likely would have no interest in using a specific product will do no good. By contrast, having people who are in the target market for a product and are likely to pass information about the product to others, most likely through personal blogs and social media, is the right approach. The marketers should make sure to streamline the process by which product-testers can give positive reviews to others.

There may be occasions when experiential marketing creates some initial negative feedback about certain products. This can actually be turned into a positive if the company can then alter the products to alleviate the concerns of the consumers. Such a response would create positive goodwill among the audience targeted by the company. All of this information about the company will ideally be passed on to others, thus creating much-desired brand identification in the minds of consumers.

Ways to choose promotional giveaways Many businesses can benefit from unique promotional items, whether it’s brand recognition, client satisfaction, or employee appreciation. These promotional business items have the advantage of uniqueness and originality, which is more likely to get them noticed and to create positive associations with the company. Finding the right unique promotional items will depend on budget, timescale, target demographic, and the nature of the company’s business.

Cost can often be the most important factor to consider when beginning promotional marketing strategies. Not only will a company need to consider the cost of the individual items, it will also need to take into account the total number of items needed. Lower cost items will frequently have less of an impact on branding efforts, and companies tend to purchase these in larger amounts. Items such as creative key chains will generally have a lower cost than items such as portable coffee mugs or high-quality tote bags, but they are smaller and make less of a brand statement. Some companies might benefit from large numbers of smaller items, but others might want to focus on purchasing fewer larger items instead.

The timescale of the promotional giveaways is also important to consider. Many unique promotional items are specifically designed for fundraisers, launches, or other events, and they will need to be manufactured within a set time frame. Certain items will take longer to produce than others, so companies should either plan well in advance or choose items with faster production times.

Businesses will also need to consider their target demographic when designing unique promotional items. Considering client preferences and lifestyles can be helpful in choosing the right items, and enthusiastic clients can be a wonderful asset to a promotional advertising campaign. Companies should also take into account their own employees and focus some branding efforts on the office environment as well. Not only will this boost morale and satisfaction among employees, but it will also improve the company’s image to job applicants, consultants, or independent contractors who make periodic visits to the office.

Unique promotional items should also reflect the nature of a business as best as possible.

Businesses should choose items that are in line with their goals or philosophies. For example, environmentally conscious companies could benefit from eco-friendly promotional items, or accounting firms might benefit from giving away creatively designed calculators.

Not only can this strategy inspire humor, but it will also increase the likelihood that recipients will use the items frequently, further promoting the brand.

Typically for any sales promotion the perceived value of the giveaway along with its novelty will be the key. However the icing on the cake would be if it fits with the product salience or proposition of the product for which it’s offered free.

Brand awareness & recognition Brand awareness is a measure of how many people in a target market know that a brand exists. It is usually expressed as a percentage of the demographic of interest. Companies work hard to promote and maintain brand awareness, especially when they make products that compete with numerous similar products. By having a memorable brand that stands out, a company can increase the chance that consumers will purchase its products when presented with a choice between the known brand and lesser known or unknown brands.

There are two components of brand awareness. The first is brand recall, which refers to whether or not people can name a brand or are vaguely familiar with it. Brand recall can be measured in two different ways. People can be asked to name a list of brands associated with a particular product or idea or they can be prompted with specific brands and asked if they are familiar. A marketing researcher might ask, for example, for a list of sodas, or ask a subject if the brand “Pepsi” is familiar.

Brand recognition is the other facet of brand awareness. Recognition refers to how well people connect a brand with products, ideas, taglines, and other attributes. Consumers may know a brand's name, but nothing else about it, in which case the product has poor brand recognition. On the other hand, people who associate a characteristic like “safety,” “lingerie,” “luxury,” or a company tagline with a product are demonstrating brand recognition. They are familiar both with the brand itself and with traits associated with it.

When companies study brand awareness, they look at both positive and negative perceptions of the brand. In this case, bad publicity is still publicity, and even when people have negative opinions about a brand, they are still aware of it. Understanding negative perceptions can also allow a company to address those perceptions with targeted marketing campaigns and other steps. Such campaigns may change consumer opinions and promote positive brand recognition.

Products that are not very differentiated from each other often struggle to capture market share. In this situation, the product with the most brand awareness wins. Companies can increase brand awareness with a variety of marketing practices including everything from sponsoring sports teams to running print campaigns in publications read by the target demographic. Some companies have been highly successful at this; companies like Coca Cola and McDonald's are almost universally known around the world, for instance

Advertising – from a practical point of view What makes better advertising?

1. Sharp Creative Brief 2. Pointed Consumer Insight Creative Brief: 1.

What is the business objective?

Description: The reason why the brand is in the business – geography, time, objective should be clearly defined.

Eg, - LG Shine should achieve a market share of 35% in India in the first year of launch

2.

What is the communication objective?

Description: The role and the goals for the advertising in meeting marketing and communications objectives.

Eg.- We want to build fame for the LG Shine by celebrating its stunning design credentials.

3.

Who are we talking to? And, what do we know about her?

Description: Relevant insights about the target and their involvement with the brand/category that will help advertise to them.

Eg.- Trend-conscious and design-sensitive young. They are not vacuous fashionistas.

Rather, they appreciate simple, elegant and good-looking design, the kind that doesn’t quickly go out of fashion.

At the same time, they refuse to compromise on substance. If they buy something beautiful, it has to work well. When it comes to mobiles, they may not use half the functions on their phones, but at the same time they won’t be forgiving should the phone’s core feature performance be substandard.

4.

What action do we want her to take?

Description: The desired change in their thinking or behaviour that will occur as a result of the advertising.

Eg.- To aspire to own this “must have”. To desire to be seen in their hands before anyone else’s.

5.

What do we want to say in the advertising?

Description: The single-minded proposition for this campaign that expresses the brand insight in the most persuasive way.

Eg.- Shine is a highly intelligent, highly capable phone that typifies LG’s approach to design innovation – beautiful in form, but also in function.

6.

What is the Support?

Description: Support points, rationale, whether based in consumer insight, competitive advantage or product performance.

Eg.- 2.2 Inch Wide 256k Colour Screen with Mirror Effect 2 Megapixel Camera with Flash & 2 x Digital Zoom Bluetooth® Technology Tri Band Technology (GSM 900, GSM 1800 & GSM 1900) MMS (Multimedia Messaging) Music Player

7.

What is the personality / Tone and manner?

Description: The way we want consumers to look at the brand considering that he looks at various other beings differently Eg.- Entertaining.

Intelligent but sensitive.

Alluring and passionate without losing control.

Instinctive, courageous, modern.

8.

Where will we catch him?

Description: Where do we expect the consumer to see the advertising Eg.- When shopping in designer stores, indulging in fine cafes and bars, travelling.

When they want to catch up on the latest in social and fashion circles.

When they directly come in contact with people who they role-model.

9.

What is the Key insight?

Description: The surprising, new insightful connection which springs from Insight MiningTM Eg.- Beauty and Brains go together.

10.

Fill the following as a consumer: “When I (use the brand), …………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………”.

Description: The way the consumer will tell his friend after buying into / using the brand Eg.- “When I use LG Shine, I will be closely observed for more fashionable brands by people I come into contact with”.

What is advertising?

1. Advertising is magnificent 2. Advertising should make tech not so techy 3. Advertising should relate to the user 4. Advertising should make the enemy smile 5. Advertising need not have category connect 6. Advertising is about simple emotion 7. Advertising is based on simple thinking 8. In advertising, little exaggeration is ok 9. Advertising is ‘A’ for ‘APPLE’ put interestingly 10. Advertising should create the need 11. Execution can make or break 12. Advertising is about little bit of fun 13. Advertising must be thought-provoking 14. Advertising comes from the product 15. Advertising need not show product 16. Advertising is extendable 17. Advertising is boundary less Consumer Insight: That one human truth, which makes the brand relevant to the consumer.

Brand Manager A brand manager typically ensures the quality and successful promotion of a certain line of products. He or she analyzes sales figures, sets prices, and oversees advertising campaigns.

The manager explores different marketing strategies and directly contacts retailers to convince

them

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Brand

managers

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large corporation that manufactures commercial or consumer products, from packaged foods to home electronics to industrial machinery.

Excellent written and verbal communication skills typically are essential to be a successful brand manager. Professionals hold telephone and in-person conferences with retailers to promote their brands, negotiate prices and shipping quantities, and set up orders. They also meet with product developers, sales personnel, copywriters, and advertising directors to make sure that every aspect of production, distribution, and marketing is in sync.

New advertising campaigns usually are organized by the brand manager. He or she analyzes the successes and shortcomings of previous campaigns to determine better ways to promote the products of the company. The manager reviews the work of copywriters and art directors to make sure that a new campaign will be attractive to customers.

Extensive market research must be conducted to determine how and where to advertise a product. In order to target certain consumer demographics, the brand manager may decide to create advertisements in the form of billboards, product catalogs, magazine spots, or television commercials. Many companies dedicate a large portion of their advertising budgets on Internet campaigns. Managers oversee the creation of banner ads, interactive Websites, and short commercial videos.

If a particular product is not selling well, the brand manager will consider many different options to help raise sales figures. He or she might ask for consumer input to determine why people are unsatisfied with the product. The manager communicates with research and development personnel to suggest quality improvements or changes. If competing products are selling better than the manager's brand, he or she can implement new advertising strategies or make the decision to lower prices.

Most brand managers hold college degrees in business administration or marketing. Some professionals are able to obtain jobs with bachelor's degrees, though master's degrees are required for employment by most large corporations. An individual may be able to advance to the rank of brand manager after gaining experience and excelling in sales and advertising

positions within a company. Most professionals begin their brand management careers as assistants to experienced managers so they can become familiar with the duties and responsibilities of the job. A successful brand manager may eventually have the opportunity to advance to a top executive position.

Are You Visible to Your Manager??

Are you just one amongst the lot or you have that special something that makes you visible to your managers?

One of the most important questions perplexing employees in the corporate world is how to improve their visibility. Having a good visibility within your team is very important. Most of the time it is neglected by the employees but in the end it turns out to be a very crucial factor as far as one’s performance ratings are concerned. Especially for a newbie, to create visibility is very vital. As it is said “Effective marketing of a product is equally important as the product itself”.

Similarly, all the knowledge, the capabilities will reduce to null if a person is not able to showcase his/her talent in a proper manner. Although a resource might be working day in and day out and doing the task assigned to him meticulously it’s the way you interact with people, the way you conduct yourself within the team through which you leave an impression in someone’s mind.

Methods to improve visibility: Creating a separate space for yourself - Always try to widen your horizon and do something unique in whatever work you do. Remember that the work done by you daily is done by 100 other folks also. So, in order to create a different space for you in the organisation try to do something different from others. This will separate you from the rest of the folks and set a precedent for others to follow. For example, participating in events held within the organisation, doing certifications, participating in group discussions.

Active Participation- Active participation in team meetings is must. This will show that you are inquisitive about your team and are concerned about your team. Try to ask as many relevant questions in the team meetings as you can. This will also help you in your daily chores. Actively participate in various company functions whether they are strictly jobrelated or social. Use that opportunity to meet as many people within the organization as you can, which demonstrates that you are a team player.

Take credit when credit is due- An easy way to build visibility in the workplace is to simply take credit for your accomplishments. Think about your typical response when someone compliments you on a job well done. If you usually reply, “Oh, it was nothing,” you need to stand in the spotlight more.

Interaction with the supervisor - One should never hesitate to communicate ones’ thought to his leads. Always try to have a healthy discussion with your supervisor that will go a long way in improving your visibility. Ask for a a personnel review with your boss more often.

This will give you another opportunity to increase your visibility with him, but it will also provide you an opportunity to track your boss’s perception of your performance. Finally, a review is a great time to ask for a promotion–if it is warranted. Be sure that you are prepared to make a case for the promotion, and that you can answer any questions.

Out-of-the-box thinking- Besides the routine task given to you always look for some process improvements within the team. This will show that you can come up with some creative and innovative ideas and you will be able to leave an impression on the minds of your teammates. Be prepared to go the extra mile by taking on projects at the company that can benefit from your skills, even if there is some risk of failure. Whether you are successful or not isn’t as important as impressing your boss with your initiative.

Cordial relations- And last but not the least try to maintain a cordial, friendly and jovial environment with your colleagues.

All these things if followed effectively will not only help in increasing visibility but will also help an employee in the long run to improve his personality and grow in the organisation. It might require you to move beyond your comfort zone, but displaying drive and initiative can pay big dividends. You’ll not only hone valuable leadership skills and discover untapped talents, but you’ll also build a reputation as an indispensable employee.

marketing and advertising tips

how to write a strategic marketing plan or business strategy, marketing and advertising tips, internet and website marketing tips Reading material 10/17/2012

A fundamental aspect of modern marketing First, here's something that is fast becoming the most fundamental aspects of marketing to get right, especially if you want to build a truly sustainable high quality organisation (of any size) in the modern age: Ensure the ethics and philosophy of your organisation are good and sound. This might seem a bit tangential to marketing and business, and rather difficult to measure, nevertheless...

Price is no longer the king, if it ever was. Value no longer rules, if ever it did. Quality of service and product is not the deciding factor.

Today what truly matters is ethical and philosophical quality - from the bottom to the top - in every respect - across every dimension of the organisation.

Modern consumers, business buyers, staff and suppliers too, are today more interested than ever before in corporate integrity, which is defined by the organisation's ethics and philosophy.

Good sound ethics and philosophy enable and encourage people to make 'right and good' decisions, and to do right and good things. It's about humanity and morality; care and compassion; being good and fair.

Profit is okay, but not greed; reward is fine, but not avarice; trade is obviously essential, but exploitation is not.

Psychological Contract theory is helpful towards understanding and developing fair balanced philosophy, especially in meeting the complex needs of staff, customers and the organization.

People naturally identify and align with these philosophical values. The best staff, suppliers, and customers naturally gravitate towards organisations with strong philosophical qualities.

Putting a good clear ethical philosophy in place, and communicating it wide and far lets people know that your organisation always strives to do the the right thing. It's powerful because it appeals to people's deepest feelings. Corporate integrity, based on right and good ethical philosophy, transcends all else.

And so, strong ethics and good philosophy are the fundamentals on which all good organisations and businesses are now built.

People might not ask or talk about this much: the terminology is after all not fashionable 'marketing-speak', nor does it correlate obviously to financial performance, but be assured;

everyone is becoming more aware of the deeper responsibilities of corporations and businesses in relation to humanity, and morality, the natural world, the weak and the poor, and the future of the planet.

Witness the antagonism growing towards certain multi-nationals. People don't rail against successful corporations - they rail against corporations which put profit ahead of people; growth ahead of of society and communities; technology and production ahead of the natural world; market domination ahead of compassion for humankind. None of this is right and good, and these organisations are on borrowed time.

People increasingly prefer to buy from, deal with, and work for, ethical, rightminded organisations. And whether an organisation is ethical andright-minded is becoming increasingly transparent for all to see.

So be one.

Aside from which - when you get your philosophy right, everything else naturally anchors to it.

Strategies, processes, attitudes, relationships, trading arrangements, all sorts of difficult decisions even directors salaries and share options dare we suggest.

And it need not be complicated. The ultimate corporate reference point is: "Is it right and good?...

How does this (idea, initiative, decision, etc) stack up against our ethical philosophy?"

Organisations are complex things, and they become more and more complicated every day. A good ethical philosophy provides everyone with a natural, reliable reference point, for the tiniest detail up to the biggest strategic decision.

So as you start to write your marketing plan, be it for a new start-up, a huge corporation, or a little department within one, make sure you put a 'right and good' ethical philosophy in place before you do anything else, and watch everything grow from there. marketing index marketing and advertising - differences and definitions marketing planning process - how marketing and marketing/business planning hierarchy

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marketing is more than selling and advertising - other issues to consider branding, advertising and promotion - simple and important guidelines types of advertising media - different methods and their uses.

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direct marketing, advertising, and the law - notably the UK Data Protection Act and Preference Services for telemarketing, fax, mail, etc. advertising tips and 'tricks of the trade' - secrets of effective printed advertising and maximizing advertising response.

PR - make the most of public relations - use press releases for free advertising and publicity. newsletters - for staff and customers. website and internet marketing tips - simple tips for internet websites and online marketing. surveys and questionnaires - process for designing and organizing employee surveys and customer surveys training/information event new business/enquiry generation method - a proven effective process for gaining new business See also (on other pages): business planning - includes free strategic planning templates, samples and examples sales and selling - methods, processes, theory, techniques - help for developing selling propositions and sales strategies business networking - how to - tips, methods, ideas marketing vs advertising - differences and definitions Marketing and advertising are commonly confused. This confusion is compounded because meanings of both continue to evolve.

Below are definitions of marketing, followed by definitions advertising, and the differences between marketing and advertising.

Firstly it's important to note that: The increasingly broad nature of the marketing definitions reflects the increasing dimensions by which organizations engage with their markets. It is truly fascinating and highly significant to see how the definitions of marketing have changed over time.

Marketing was traditionally simply 'selling products' (as if at a traditional old-style farmer's market).

The term derives from this meaning. This meaning developed so that marketing became an extension of selling - a means by which to identify, design, and communicate or 'target' offerings to customers.

Nowadays however, we know that customers make decisions to buy many products/services by referring to vastly more and wider factors than simply product/service features, quality, availability, and price.

Nowadays the meaning of marketing is extremely sophisticated. A good modern definition of marketing must acknowledge that we buy things in far more complex ways than we did fifty years ago, even ten years ago. The internet and social media are major factors in this. Above all, marketing is a reflection of 'the market', and how the market buys and behaves, which especially entails people and society - much broader considerations than purely product and price. As the market evolves in sophistication, so does the way in which we understand what marketing actually is and what it means to conduct marketing well.

Here are three examples of how the scope and definition of marketing reaches much farther than ever before: Organizational constitution - many customers will not buy from a supplier whose ownership is considered to be unethical, greedy, or overly profit-driven, whereas many customers positively seek out suppliers considered to have more ethical convictions and ethos, such as mutuals and cooperatives, or social enterprises. These issues are therefore now unavoidably part of marketing, and where marketing fails to consider or influence these matters, then marketing activity is potentially less able and effective.

Organizational probity - (probity means honesty, uprightness - it's from the Latin word probus, meaning good) - this includes issues such as environmental and social responsibility, and 'Fairtrade', etc. See the '4P Purpose-Probity model'. Where marketing fails to involve, address and influence these fundamentals of organizational values, then marketing is to an extent (dependent on the service/market sector) disabled.

The psychological contract - the relationship between organization and staff directly affects market image and customer service/relationships. Marketing has for decades extended its reach to staff (traditionally, for example 'internal marketing' via newsletters and staff briefings, etc) but nowadays this 'internal' facet is immensely more significant. Organizational integrity and related failings are now much more transparent. Employer/employee relationships are now seen very obviously to influence quality and ethics of conduct and service (for example, scandals featuring News International privacy criminality, insurance industry miss-selling, and banking/investment risk). As such it is difficult to exclude considerations such as the psychological contract from the marketing responsibility.

definitions of marketing Here are some definitions of marketing, oldest first, starting with the 1922 OED (Oxford English Dictionary). The increasingly broad nature of these marketing definitions reflects the increasing dimensions by which organizations engage with their markets, and consequently how the meaning of marketing has grown.

"The action of selling, i.e., to bring or send to market..." and also, "Produce [verb meaning] to be sold in the market." (1922 OED - Oxford English Dictionary, paraphrased) "The action or business of promoting and selling products and services, including market research and advertising". (1998-2005 revised, modern-day Oxford English Dictionary) "Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably." (The UK Chartered Institute of Marketing, CIM, official definition 2012.)

"Marketing encompasses and includes all organizational activities which involve or affect the relationship between a supplier/provider organization and its audience and stakeholders."

(Businessballs.com, A Chapman, 2012) definition of advertising and advertisement We now see more clearly that advertising is quite different to, and actually within, marketing: "The activity or profession of producing advertisements for commercial products or services." (2005 Oxford English Dictionary) Advertisement is defined as: "A notice or announcement in a public medium promoting a product, service or event, or publicizing a job vacancy." (2005 Oxford English Dictionary) "Communicating by print or electronic or other media to a customer/audience/market about a product/service/organization so as to improve the desire for or view of the product/service/organization." (Businessballs.com, A Chapman, 2012) (Extending usefully as:) "...Advertising seeks, in measurable, cost-effective, controllable ways, to generate enquiries or sales and/or to raise awareness/perceptions of a supplier/provider/organization, by presenting motivating communications to an appropriate audience." (Businessballs.com, A Chapman, 2012) in summary Marketing and advertising are different.

Marketing is an extremely broad area that includes advertising, not vice-versa.

Marketing also includes PR, online presence/activities, customer service, selling/sales admin (methods and structure/strategy), branding, exhibitions, sponsorship, new product development, merchandising, surveys and market research, political lobbying, and even extends to ethos, culture, training, and organizational constitutional issues, since all this affects the image and trading style of an organization or product/service provider.

Advertising is far more specific than marketing; advertising is a function of marketing, and basically encompasses methods of communication with audience designed to produce sales enquiries, and/or improve awareness/perceptions of product/brand/organization. Advertising refers to printed and electronic media that is presented one way or another to market or audience, including packaging, point of sale, brochures and sales literature. Advertising increasingly extends to 'advertorial' in traditional and online media, which combines provision of objective helpful information and more subjective advertising/endorsement. Advertising (when properly executed) is the statistically driven and measurable implementation of marketing strategy, via carefully selected communications methods, targeted at predetermined audiences.

Advertising is one of several instruments/means by which marketing operates.

We might also regard advertising as one means of tactical implementation of the strategic aims of marketing. marketing and business planning - and fundamental organizational philosophy, purpose, values, and ethics a modern planning framework for a business or organization First it's helpful to revisit, check or define the foundations of your business or organization. What are your fundamental aims and values? What is your ultimate purpose?

Is your underpinning philosophy congruent (consistent) with your planned business activities, operations and aims? (See the leadership page for explanation of how underpinning purpose and philosophy are so important for leadership, as well as for strategy and marketing.)

Below is a simple template for checking that you have the foundations and building blocks in place.

If not, then decide (as far as you can, because it's generally the CEO's call) what they should be, because all good marketing plans need to have solid foundations first.

As regards the fundamental philosophical aspects see the sections on ethical organizations and corporate responsibility and the Psychological Contract. These concepts are deeper than tools and processes and mission statements - having a sound philosophy and ethical position determines and protects the spirit and integrity of your organization.

When it comes to defining more detailed aspects of mission and strategy, of course there's degree of 'chicken and egg' here: How can you know your Mission until you validate it with your potential customers? How can you establish objectives and goals without consulting and involving your staff?

These later stages obviously need to be put in place and refined when you are in position to do so without guessing or assuming, as the planning develops; even so, use the framework as a firm reminder to make sure you fill in the boxes when you are able - don't leave these issues floating undecided, or defaulting back to X-Theory autocracy (which they generally do where a vacuum exists). If in doubt, always err on the side of what is good and right and proper, which is another good reason for having a sound ethical position: it always provides a reliable reference point. In the absence of everything else - tools, processes, clarity of responsibility (who does what), etc - having a sound and well understood philosophy and ethical position will always help people to make good decisions.

Build from the bottom upwards. Consult and involve people affected and involved wherever relevant. You will see many different versions and interpretations of this framework. The principles are similar although the words might change. A business or an organisation is built on values and philosophy. Increasingly in the modern age, customers and staff are not prepared to sustain commitment to organisations whose philosophy and values are misaligned with their own personal ideals. Ten years ago organisational planning paid very little regard to values and philosophy.

Customers were satisfied with quality at the right price. Staff were satisfied with a decent wage and working conditions. Today things are different. Organisations of all sorts must now cater for a more enlightened workforce and market-place.

When considering these planning stages start from the bottom upwards. This will help to reinforce the point that planning is about building from the foundations upwards, and that the stronger the foundations, then the stronger the organisation will be. hierarchy of marketing and business planning stages Start at the foundations (point 1 below) and work upwards.

8. Our Performance Indicators

How do our Targets and Objectives translate into the essential measurable aspects of performance and activity? Are these expectations, standards, 'Key Performance Indicators' (KPI's), 'Service Level Agreements' (SLA's), etc., agreed with the recipients and people responsible for delivery?

7. Our Targets and Objectives

How are our strategies comprised? How are these responsibilities and activities allocated cross our functions and departments and teams?

Who does what, where, when, how, for what cost and with what required effect and result? What are the timescales and measures for all the actions within our strategies, and who owns those responsibilities?

6. Our Strategies

How will we achieve our goal(s)? What needs to happen in order to achieve the things we plan? What are the effects on us and from where? Like planning a game of chess, what moves do we plan to make, why, and with what effects? How will we measure and monitor and communicate our performance? What are the criteria for measuring our performance and execution of our strategies?

5. Our Goal (or several goals in large or divisionalised businesses)

What is our principal goal? When do we plan to achieve it? How will we measure that we have achieved it? At what point will we have succeeded in what we set out to do? Goals can change of course, and new ones necessarily are developed as old ones are achieved - but at any time we need to know what our organisation's main goal is, when we aim to achieve it, and how its achievement will be measured. And again all this needs to be agreed with our people - including our customers if we are very good indeed.

4. Our Mission (or Missions if there are separate businesses within the whole)

How do we describe what we aim to do and be and achieve? What is special about what we are and do compared to any other organisation or business unit? Do our people understand and agree with this? Do our customers agree that it's what they want?

3. Our Vision dependent on values and philosophy.

Where are we going? What difference will we make? How do we want to be remembered? In what ways will we change things for the better?

Is this vision relevant and good and desired by the customers and staff and stakeholders? Is it realistic and achievable? Have we involved staff and customers in defining our vision? Is it written down and published and understood? The Vision is the stage of planning when the organisation states its relationship with its market-place, customers, or users. The Vision can also include references to staff, suppliers, 'stakeholders' and all others affected by the organisation.

2. Our Values enabled by and dependent on philosophy and leadership.

Ethics, integrity, care and compassion, quality, standards of behaviour whatever the values are - are they stated and understood and agreed by the staff? Do the values resonate with the customers and owners or stakeholders? Are they right and good, and things that we feel proud to be associated with? See the section on ethical organisations for help with this fundamental area of planning.

1. Our Philosophy fundamentally defined by the leadership.

How does the organisation relate to the world? This is deeper than values. What is the organisation's purpose? If it is exclusively to make money for the shareholders, or to make a few million for the management buyout team when the business is floated, perhaps have a little re-think. Customers and staff are not daft. They will not be comfortable buying into an organisation whose deepest foundation is

When things go wrong in an organisation

people commonly point to causes, problems or mistakes closer to the point of delivery - or typically in operational management.

Generally however, major operational or strategic failings can always be traced back to a questionable philosophy, or a philosophical purpose which is not fitting for the activities of the organisation.

greed and profit. Profit's fine to an extent, but where does it fit in the wider scheme of things? Is it more important than taking care of our people and our customers and the world we live in? Does the organisation have a stated philosophy that might inspire people at a deeper level? Dare we aspire to build organisations of truly great worth and value to the world? The stronger our philosophy, the easier it is to build and run a great organisation. See the section on ethical organisations and the Psychological Contract for help with this fundamental area of planning.

If you are an entrepreneur or leader, or anyone contributing to the planning process, think about what you want to leave behind you; what you'd want to be remembered for. This helps focus on philosophical issues, before attending to processes and profit.

Whatever your philosophy, ensure it is consistent with and appropriate for your organisational activities and aims. Your philosophical foundations must fit with what is built onto them, and vice-versa.

When you've satisfied yourself that the fundamental organisational framework is in place - and that you have gone as far as you can in creating a strong foundation - then you can begin your marketing planning. marketing planning Carry out your market research, including competitor activity.

Market information should include anything you need to know in order to formulate strategy and make business decisions. Information is available in the form of statistical economic and demographic data from libraries, research companies and professional associations (the Institute of Directors is excellent if you are a member). This is called secondary research and will require some interpretation or manipulation for your own purposes. Additionally you can carry out your own research through customer feed-back, surveys, questionnaires and focus groups (obtaining indicators to wider views through discussion among a few representative people in a controlled situation). This is called primary research, and is tailored to your precise needs. It requires less manipulation, but all types of research need careful analysis. Be careful when extrapolating or projecting. If the starting point is inaccurate the resulting analysis will not be reliable. The main elements you typically need to understand and quantify are: 

customer profile and mix

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product mix

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demographic issues and trends

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future regulatory and legal effects

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prices and values, and customer perceptions in these areas

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competitor activities

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competitor strengths and weaknesses

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customer service perceptions, priorities and needs

Primary research is recommended for local and niche services. Keep the subjects simple and the range narrow. Formulate questions that give clear yes or no indicators (ie avoid three and five options in multi-choices) always understand how you will analyse and measure the data produced.

Try to convert data to numerical format and manipulate on a spreadsheet. Use focus groups for more detailed work. Be wary of using market research organisations as this can become extremely expensive. If you do the most important thing to do is get the brief right.

Establish your corporate aims.

Business strategy is partly dictated by what makes good business sense, and partly by the subjective, personal wishes of the owners. There is no point in developing and implementing a magnificent business growth plan if the owners wish the business to maintain its current scale.

State your business objectives - short, medium and long term.

Mindful of the trading environment (external factors) and the corporate aims (internal factors), there should be stated the business's objectives. What is the business aiming to do over the next one, three and five years? These objectives must be quantified and prioritised wherever possible.

Define your 'Mission Statement'.

All the best businesses have a 'mission statement'. It announces clearly and succinctly to your staff, shareholders and customers what you are in business to do. Your mission statement may build upon a general 'service charter' relevant to your industry. The act of producing and announcing the Mission Statement is an excellent process for focusing attention on the business's priorities, and particularly the emphasis on customer service. If your business is modern and good you will be able also to reference your organisational 'Philosophy' and set of organisational 'Values', both of which are really helpful in providing fundamental referencing or 'anchoring' points, by which to clarify aspects of what the organisation or business unit aims to do, what its purpose is, and how the organisation behaves and conducts itself.

Define your 'Product/Service Offer(s)'.

You must define clearly what you are providing to your customers in terms of individual products, or more appropriately, services. You should have one for each main area of business activity, or

sector that you serve. Under normal circumstances competitive advantage is increased the more you can offer things your competitors cannot. Develop your service offer to emphasise your strengths, which should normally relate to your business objectives, in turn being influenced by corporate aims and market research. The tricky bit is translating your view of these services into an offer that means something to your customer. The definition of your service offer must make sense to your customer in terms that are advantageous and beneficial to the customer, not what is technically good, or scientifically sound. Think about what your service, and the manner by which you deliver it, means to your customer. In the selling profession, this perspective is referred to as translating features into benefits. The easiest way to translate a feature into a benefit is to add the prompt 'which means that...'. For example, if a strong feature of a business is that it has 24-hour opening , this feature would translate into something like: "We're open 24 hours (feature) which means that you can get what you need when you need it day or night."

Clearly this offers a significant benefit over competitors who only open 9 - 5.

Your service-offer should be an encapsulation of what you do best, that you want to do more of to meet your business objectives, stated in terms that will make your customers think 'yes, that means something to me, and my life will be better if I have it.'

Write business plan - include costs, resources and 'sales' targets.

Your business plan, which deals with all aspects of the resource and management of the business, will include many decisions and factors fed in from the marketing process. It will state sales and profitability targets by activity. There may also be references to image and reputation, and to public relations. All of these issues require some investment and effort if they are to result in a desired effect, particularly any relating to increasing numbers of customers and revenue growth. You would normally describe and provide financial justification for the means of achieving these things, together with customer satisfaction improvement, in a marketing plan.

Quantify what you need from the market.

Before attending to the detail of how to achieve your marketing aims you need to quantify clearly what they are. How many new customers? Limit of customer losses? Sales values from each sector?

Profit margins per service, product, sector? Percentage increase in total sales revenues? Market share required? Improvement in customer satisfaction? Reduction in customer complaints?

Response times? Communication times?

Write your marketing plan.

Your marketing plan is actually a statement, supported by relevant financial data, of how you are going to develop your business.

"What you are going to sell to whom, when and how you are going to sell it, and how much you will sell it for."

In most types of businesses it is also essential that you include measurable aims concerning customer service and satisfaction.

The marketing plan will have costs that relate to a marketing budget in the business plan. The marketing plan will also have revenue and gross margin/profitability targets that relate to the turnover and profitability in the business plan. The marketing plan will also detail quite specifically those activities, suppliers and staff issues critical to achieving the marketing aims.

Being able to refer to aspects of organisational Philosophy and Values is very helpful in formulating the detail of a marketing plan. marketing is more than selling and advertising Marketing provides the means by which the organisation or business projects itself to its audience, and also how it behaves and interacts in its market. It is essential therefore that the organisation's philosophy and values are referenced and reinforced by every aspect of marketing. In practical terms here are some of the areas and implications: There are staffing and training implications especially in selling and marketing, because people are such a crucial aspect.

Your people are unlikely to have all the skills they need to help you implement a marketing plan.

You may not have all the people that you need so you have to consider justifying and obtaining extra. Customer service is acutely sensitive to staffing and training. Are all your people aware of what your aims are? Do they know what their responsibilities are? How will you measure their performance? Many of these issues feed back into the business plan under human resources and training, where budgets need to be available to support the investment in these areas. People are the most important part of your organisation, and the success of your marketing activity will stand or fall dependent on how committed and capable your people are in performing their responsibilities. Invest in your people's development, and ensure that they understand and agree with where the organisation is aiming to go. If they do not, then you might want to reconsider where you are going.

Create a Customer Service Charter.

You should formulate a detailed Customer Service Charter, extending both your mission statement and your service offer, so as to inform staff and customers what your standards are. These standards can cover quite detailed aspects of your service, such as how many times the telephone will be permitted to ring until the caller is gets an answer. Other issues might include for example: How many days between receipt and response for written correspondence. These expectations must also be developed into agreed standards of performance for certain customers or customer

groups - often called Service Level Agreements (SLA's). Increasingly, customers are interested to know more about the organisations' values and philosophy, which until recent times never featured in customer service charters or customer decision-making criteria. They do now.

Establish a complaints procedure and timescales for each stage.

This charter sets customer expectations, so be sure you can meet them. Customers get disappointed particularly when their expectations are not met, and when so many standards can be set at arbitrary levels, think of each one as a promise that you should keep.

Remember an important rule about customer service: It's not so much the failure to meet standards that causes major dissatisfaction among customers - everyone can make a mistake - the most upset is due to not being told in advance, not receiving any apology, not getting any explanation why, and not hearing what's going to be done to put things right.

Establish systems to measure customer service and staff performance.

These standards need to be absolutely measurable. You must keep measuring your performance against them, and preferably publishing the results, internally and externally.

Customer complaints handling is a key element.

Measuring customer complaints is crucial because they are a service provider's barometer. You need to have a scheme which encourages, not discourages, customers to complain. Some surveys have found that nine out of ten people do not complain to the provider when they feel dissatisfied.

But every one of them will tell at least a couple of their friends or relations. It is imperative that you capture these complaints in order to: 

Put at ease and give explanation or reassurance to the person complaining.

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Reduce the chances of them complaining to someone else.

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Monitor exactly how many dissatisfied customers you have and what the causes are, and that's even more important if you're failing to deliver your mission statement or service offer!

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Take appropriate corrective action to prevent a recurrence.

Most organisations now have complaints 'escalation' procedures, whereby very dissatisfied customers can be handled by more senior staff. This principle needs extending as far as possible, especially to ensure that strategic intelligent complaints and constructive feedback (all immensely useful) are handled by someone in the organisation who has suitable strategic appreciation and authority to recognise and act appropriately.

Many organisations waste their most useful complaints and feedback by killing it dead at the initial customer service outer wall. Complaints and feedback are gold-dust. Encourage it and use it wisely.

There are implications for ICT, premises, and reporting systems.

Also relating to your business plan are the issues of Information and Communications Technology are your computers and communications systems capable of giving you the information and analysis you need? What type of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is most appropriate for your needs?

Premises - Have you got too little or too much space? Is it all being used to its best effect? Is the reception area designed well? What do your customers and personal callers think of the decor and the layout? If car-parking is difficult do you make any effort to warn people coming for the first time? Who needs to be based in an office and who is best based at home? These are complex issues which need addressing - don't just assume that things are okay as they are.

Reporting systems - It is said that if you can't measure it you can't manage it, and where finance and business performance is concerned that's certainly true. If there's an aspect of your service or performance that is important can you measure it?

How do you report on it and interpret the results? Who needs to know? Who needs to capture the data? When you get a new customer (for an ongoing transaction) do you ask how they heard of you and why they chose to give you a try?

Communications and ongoing customer feedback are essential.

Having an open dialogue with your customers is vital. There's a double benefit to your business in ensuring this happens: 

You nip problems in the bud and stay aware of how you're performing.



Your customers feel better about the service you provide as a result of the communications, or from the fact that the channel is open even if they don't use it - it's human nature.

Try to devise a standard feedback form. It can double as a promotional tool as well if it's made available on a wider scale. The form can carry details of your mission statement, service offer and your customer service charter. branding, advertising and promotion Here are some guidelines on branding, and for planning and managing advertising and promotion activities for small businesses. The principles transfer to very large businesses. In fact many very large organisations forget or ignore these basic rules, as you will see from the featured case-study example.

branding Branding refers to naming a business or product or service. A brand will typically also have a logo or design, or several, associated with it.

Businessballs is a brand. So is Cadbury (a company brand, although now a division of a bigger one), and so is Milky Way (a Cadbury product brand). So is Google (so big a brand and a part of life it's become a verb, 'to google'). So is Manchester United (upon which a vast merchandise business has been built). And so increasingly is your local school, hospital, and council. Brands are everywhere.

If your name is John Smith and you start a landscape gardening business called John Smith Landscape Gardening, then John Smith Landscape Gardening is a brand too.

Branding is potentially a complex subject because it extends to intellectual property and copyright, trademarks, etc., for which, if you are embarking on any significant business activity, you should seek qualified legal advice. When doing so contain your ambitions and considerations (and your legal fee exposure) so that they are appropriate for your situation.

There is much though that you can decide for yourself, and certainly a lot you can do to protect and grow your brand so that it becomes a real asset to you, rather than just a name.

General guidance about business and product names, your rights to use them, and ways of protecting them, are provided (for the UK) via the UKIntellectual Property Office website. Many of these principles apply internationally, although you should check your local laws for regions beyond the UK and especially beyond Europe.

Aside from the legal technicalities certain basic points should be considered concerning branding: 

Brand names must be meaningful and memorable in a positive relevant sense. Ideally your customers should associate your brand(s) with your business, your quality, and perhaps some other aspects of your trading philosophy and style.

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Choose your brand names carefully. Product and business brand names carry meanings.

Meanings can be different among different types of people. If possible test possible brand names with target customers to see what the market thinks, rather than relying only on your gut instinct on your friends' opinions.

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If your business is serious, and certainly if it is international - you must seek advice about the international meaning of branding words and the rights and protections implications of those words.

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As a general rule, but not a consistent point of law, you are usually much safer in terms of avoiding risk of breaching someone else's rights to a brand name if you use a generic (properly descriptive) word or phrase to brand your business or product, than if you use a made-up name, or any word which does not properly describe your business or product.

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For example - if you open a pet shop in Newtown and you call it (give it the brand name of) 'Newtown Pet Shop' then probably this will not breach any existing protected rights belonging to someone else in the pet business. If instead you want to call (brand) your pet shop 'Petz' or 'Furry Friends' then there is a strong likelihood that someone else might already have protected such a brand name, which could give problems for you in the future, especially if your business becomes big and successful, or you wish to sell it one day, or if the rights-owner happens to be particularly aggressive in protecting their rights.

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It takes many years to build trust and reputation in branded names (of businesses, services, and products) so making frequent changes to business names and brand names is not a good idea, and in some cases even making a single change can produce surprisingly powerful problems. See the case-study example of ineffective branding and organization name changing below.

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If you must change a brand name, and there are times when this is necessary, you should plan (unless there are strong reasons for ceasing the previous brand) a transition which customers and the wider market-place understand. An obvious solution is to phase the change by merging the old and new brand names. The UK Nationwide Building Society is a good example of this when it joined with the Anglia Building Society. For several years the new company was then branded the Nationwide Anglia, only dropping the Anglia when the market fully recognised the change. Commonly executives and agency folk managing a new brand name project tend to overlook the sensitivities of customers who know and trust the old brand, and this is especially risky to customer loyalty and business continuity wherever a brand with a strong reputation is replaced.

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Beware of creative agencies giving you advice that's more in their interests than yours and your customers. Brands and advertising are primarily communications with customers, they are not works of art or the personal statement of a designer. The creative aspect of a brand (particularly design or logo) must be of good quality, but the creative element is not an end in itself. Often the best solution is the simplest one, because customers understand it.

Always ask youself - "Will people understand this (brand or brand image/communication)?

Will it be meaningful to my target audience, and does it truly fit with what I'm trying to do in my business?"

branding and name-change - case-study example - how not to do it For very many years the UK government department responsible for business was called the DTI Department for Trade and Industry.

The DTI was formed in 1970. It was a merger of the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Technology.

The name DTI was effectively a brand. It was a government department, but in all other respects it was a massive branded organization, offering various services to businesses, and to regions and countries also.

The DTI had a logo, a website. It had staff, a massive target audience (of billions globally), customers (effectively, tens of millions), a huge marketing and advertising spend, including national TV campaigns, posters, informations brochures, and every other aspect of branding which normally operates in the corporate world.

The organization name 'the DTI', was an obvious and recognised abbreviation of 'Trade' and 'Industry', and this described very clearly what the department was responsible for.

Not surprisingly, the DTI name developed extremely strong brand recognition and reputation, accumulated over 27 years, surviving at least two short-lived attempted name changes during that period (each reverting to DTI due to user critical reaction) - until the name (brand) was finally killed off in 2007.

For more than a generation, millions and millions of people recognised the DTI name and knew it was the British government's department for business. Many people also knew the website - if not exact the exact website address, they knew it was 'www.dti....(something or other)'.

Simply, tens of millions of people in the UK, and also around the world recognised the DTI as Britain's government department for business.

For people in business, this is a very substantial advantage for any organization to have. In a corporations, this sort of brand 'equity' is added into balance sheets, and can be valued at many ÂŁmillions.

Then in 2007 the government finally forced through a name change, and the DTI was replaced, with, wait for it...

The Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform - BERR. Twenty-seven years of brand equity and reputation gone, just like that.

BERR became instantly the most forgettable, least logical, and most stupid departmental brand in the entire history of government department naming and branding cock-ups.

No-one knew what it stood for, no-one could remember what it was called, and no-one could understand what it was supposed to be doing even when it was explained.

Even the term 'business enterprise' was a nonsense in itself. What is business if it's not enterprise?

What is enterprise if it's not business?

And what is 'regulatory reform' in the context of business and enterprise? Hardly central to international trade. It was a bit like renaming Manchester United Football Club the Trafford Borough Playing Fields, Caterers and Toilets.

Not surprisingly BERR didn't last long, and duly in 2009 the government changed the name again to BIS - (the department for) Business, Innovation and Skills. Let's see how long this name lasts. I'll give it a year or two at most.

It's only taxpayers' money, so the enormous costs and wastage caused by this recklessness and poorly executed strategy are not scrutinised like they would be in a big company.

You can perhaps begin to imagine the costs, losses and other fallout caused by changing such a well-established organizational name and presence, twice in two years.

The case-study does however provide a wonderful example of re-naming/re-branding gone wrong on a very grand scale. available mix of advertising methods Advertising is a complex business and an ever-changing science. New ideas and media uses are being devised all the time, and as the advertising industry switches emphasis from media to media, and as new technologies and lifestyle trends develop, so new advertising and promotional methods need assessing and comparing with traditional available methods as to which is more or less costeffective for your given purposes. For example through the 1980s and 1990s there was a huge trend towards direct mail (junk mail), which seems to show no signs of abating - many very large consumer brands switched significant advertising spending into direct mail, often switching away from TV. TV on the other hand is increasingly attractive to small local businesses. Loyalty schemes demonstrated significant success rates through the 1990s through to present times. Internet advertising is arguably now more popular than radio advertising - the importance of websites and internet listings are very significant now for small local businesses just as much as larger corporations. 'Viral marketing' (exploiting electronic communications and the 'word of mouth' instinct) is an example of a new method of advertising that simply never existed until about the mid-1990s. Advertising methods change with lifestyle and technology developments - learn what's available to you - learn what your competitors are doing. Read about advertising methods and developments and trends. Historically (1980s-90s) advertising agencies were commonly 'multiservices' agencies, and split their operations to handle the creative, production and media-buying processes. Nowadays however, multi-services agencies are far less common - the range of advertising methods is so vast that advertising agencies are now most commonly specialised in one or a small number of advertising services (types of advertising), because there's so much to consider and to use. Whether you work with an advertising agency or not, learn about the methods that are available to you - keep up with developments so you can make informed decisions about where to put your advertising emphasis, and what 'mix' of methods to use. choose methods according to cost, targeting and response Any campaign can be broken down in terms of cost per thousand, and if you are seeking a direct response, it should be monitored according to cost per response and also cost per conversion.

Advertising cost per thousand includes cost of origination (design), production (printing if relevant) and media (such as local radio, display advert, list procurement and postal fulfillment). Generally

you will pay a higher cost per thousand for better targeted methods, but in return you should expect a higher response rate, so the cost per response can be lower than cheaper methods.

Choose advertising and publicity methods that suit your targeting. Organisations selling advertising are able to provide a lot of information about their readership/audience, and you can look at other advertisers that repeatedly using various media to gauge how effectively it's working for them, which will provide some clues as to how well it might work for you. Are they targeting the same audience as you? If so you it's an idea to call them and ask if the particular advertising method is one they's recommend or not.

Getting and building evidence of advertising effectiveness is a vital part of decision-making, and managing your advertising and marketing mix. Why guess if you can base decisions on experience and previous statistics and data? Sophisticated advertisers only commit to major programmes after accumulating response data from pilots and previous campaigns. They avoid guesswork, and so should you. Any large scale activity must first be tested and the response measured for quantity and profile. design, production and the role of external agencies Your advertising material helps to form your image, so make sure you are happy with the design, however modest the style and usage. Use typefaces and logos in a consistent way, and if you can get the help of a good designer early this will set the tone and rules for usage later, which will save time and money in the long term. You may already have a perfectly satisfactory 'corporate identity'.

If so, don't feel pressurised to change for the sake of it. Brand loyalty and the names and identities associated with it takes years - generations in fact - to build. Don't throw away perfectly good branding just because some idiot from an agency persuades you that a change is necessary. When making any change consider your real purpose and implications.

Consider and be warned by examples in recent times of large-scale corporate identity cock-ups, such as BT (trumpeting figure), the Post Office (calling itself Consignia), and British Airways (multinational aircraft tail-fin designs) - all of these cost tens of millions of pounds, yet they all (according to most commentators) failed disastrously and resulted in expensive rebranding or reversion to the original identities.

The role of design and advertising agencies is however most commonly concerned with planning and implementing advertising or promotional 'campaigns' on a client's behalf.

This advertising process starts with a 'brief' comprising: the purpose of the advertising, how much you will pay, and what you expect to get, including how you will measure whether it is successful or not. A written brief is critically important if you are using an outside agency. Advertising is notoriously subjective; creative agencies are often difficult to manage; so misunderstandings can easily creep in if your control is not tight enough. See also the tips for working with product designers because many of the principles are transferable to working with advertising agencies.

Here are some general rules for working with advertising and design agencies:

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Try to appoint people who come recommended and who have experience in your sector.

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Agree written briefs for all work, and certainly in the early phase of a relationship.

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Maintain a balance between what you want to say and how they want to say it.

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Don't allow the message to get over-complicated.

Agencies charge like wounded bulls for correcting copy (text) once they've started the final artwork, so try to get all the details correct and as you want them before going to the reprographic stage (that's when the designer or typesetter produces the artwork).

If you are a small business try to use an agency with the services you need under one roof (apart from printing which is traditionally separate), as they can tend to mark-up bought-in services quite heavily, eg., graphic design, photography. You'll also find it easier to establish accountability if your agency is responsible for the whole job, rather than just a part of it.

Until you are satisfied with the agency's print prices it's a good idea to ask for an alternative print quotation, and check what mark-up the agency adds on.

In the case of list procurement (for mailings and telemarketing campaigns, etc), display advertising, or leaflet distribution through inserts or 'Door-to-door' delivery, check whether the agency is adding a mark-up (it's likely), and if so that you are happy with this mark-up.

Ask the same question in the case of any other procured services or products, eg., promotional merchandise, exhibition space, etc. advertise to build awareness and to generate response Within the advertising purpose you should define whether you seek to create awareness or to generate a direct response. Effective marketing generally demands that each is employed, but on a limited budget you may be restricted to concentrating on one or the other, so think carefully about what will help most. Different media and methods are better suited to one or the other. Direct Mail is very good at generating a direct response, as are magazine and newspaper adverts, and inserts.

Posters, TV, radio and press editorial are all much better at creating awareness and building credibility. use language that your customers understand In all of your advertising material take care to see things and hear things form your customers' viewpoint. As a knowledgeable supplier there is always a tendency to write copy and present information from a technical and 'product/service' standpoint. Remember that your customers are people without good technical or detailed understanding of your products and services. You need to help them understand things in terms that really mean something to the reader - as it relates to their needs and priorities and challenges. Focus on what your propositions do for them, not what

your propositions are in technical detail. You should spell things out, using clear simple language.

Do not fall into the trap of thinking that complicated language will help build an image of professionalism and intelligence - people will just turn off. The mark of truly effective advertising and marketing is the ability to convey complex issues to the audience in a manner that is interesting, relevant, meaningful, and easy to digest very quickly.

Thomas Jefferson suggested that "The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do" and this is a good maxim for writing good advertising material.

If you or the 'copy-writer' at your advertising agency cannot achieve this in your advertising and marketing communications then find someone who can, or you will be wasting a lot of your advertising effort and investment. translate your product/service offer into meaningful customer benefits Having decided through the processes described above to focus your message on a few key strengths of your business (your 'service offer' or 'proposition') you must now express these in terms of benefits to your customers. What does it all mean to them? Give them something to relate to, so that you explain more than simply what you do or provide - explain what your proposition means to your customers. How will it make their business more profitable, more streamlined, more ethical and sustainable, more socially responsible; how your proposition will improve the quality of their service to their own customers; how it will make their employees lives' easier, better, less stressful - whatever you believe to be the strongest most relevant and meaningful customer outcomes. advertising must be costed and linked to measurable response Because advertising is such a complex science the only real way to be sure that something will work before you try it is to refer to previous indicators, and if you've no previous statistics or reliable data then run 'pilot' or trial first. Start measuring the effectiveness of your advertising from the very beginning. Keep detailed records of what you did, when, to whom, for how much, and what resulted. Admittedly the results of certain advertising can be quite difficult to measure, particularly where no direct response is sought, (where follow-up sample surveys might be the only way to gauge effects), but measure everything in whatever way you can. Starting a business and a completely new advertising campaign inevitably involves a bit of calculated guesswork, however, if you start measuring and recording results from the beginning then you'll make your task much easier next time around.

Key indicators to be gauged are cost per thousand, cost per response, and percentage response.

A very basic method of measuring and recording advertising effectiveness and results is to ensure that every enquiry is greeted at some stage with the question, "How did you hear about us?" or "How did you find us?" Even very large 'professional' organisations commonly fail to instill this basic principle within their customer service processes, and yet it is so utterly important.

These days there is every opportunity to properly record and measure enquiries and advertising responses: Computer-based CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems nowadays offer relatively easy and cost-effective ways of managing customer and enquiries information. Make sure you use one. Then you won't need to guess as to what forms of advertising work best for you.

Remember also that advertising forms a part of your business plan, which is aimed at being profitable. If your advertising does not produce a gross profit in excess of its cost you need to know why. As a minimum, you certainly need to know whether it does or it doesn't. types of advertising media and marketing methods Prior to considering methods of advertising and marketing it is important to ensure that you understand and adhere to local country laws relating to data protection and customer rights concerning privacy and opt-out of various marketing methods. This especially relates to maintaining and using lists and people's personal details, to the use of telemarketing, direct mail, texting, faxmarketing (very rarely used nowadays), and email. Generally private consumers enjoy more protection than business-to-business customers. See the notes about laws relating to direct marketing and advertising.

Small local businesses who target their local community often overlook some very simple easy and cost effective ways of advertising. These low-cost methods are not generally so suitable for big corporations with big budgets, but these ideas can be very effective (and very inexpensive) for small businesses and self-employed people targeting the local area with small advertising budgets.

Here is a quick list of these local advertising ideas, which with a little imagination and selective effort can be developed into a very effective local advertising campaign, providing a continuous pipeline of new business: 

Posters in windows and on notice boards, and in staff rooms of local businesses.

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A promotional stall at a local car-boot market or county show.

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A stall or leafleting presence at a local relevant gathering or event.

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Using leaflets or business cards in dispensers where local people sit and wait or queue or gather, for example: doctors, dentists, vets, church rooms, tourist information office, outpatients departments, library, nurseries, mini-cab offices, forces and services sites (e.g., police, ambulance, etc), launderettes, post offices, newsagents, hairdressers, takeaways, cafes and bars, hotels, pubs and restaurants, golf clubs clinics, leisure centres, etc.



Reciprocal referral arrangements with other good local suppliers, especially those who serve your target audience with different products and services (which enables you to be more helpful to your own customers when they ask you to recommend other services).



Regularly giving news and interesting pictures about your work to your local newspaper (see PR below), or perhaps even writing a regular column relating to your specialism in the local free newspaper or parish magazine.



Offering existing customers an incentive (gift of some sort, or money off your next supply) for introducing a friend as a new customer for you.



Door-to-door leaflet distribution through the postal service or other suitable service.



Speaking at local networking/business events.



Speaking or facilitating at the local school or college - for example with business education and preparing youngsters for the world of work (which gives you publicity and builds your reputation).



Local trade directories - typically monthly publications distributed to the local community.



Targeting special offers at local big employers, through their PR and/or HR/social activities.

While most of these methods are for small companies and local campaigns, a few can certainly be adapted and used effectively by big organizations with surprisingly good and cost-effective results.

Here are more advertising methods, generally for larger corporations, campaigns and target markets, in more detail: websites, the internet, email, cd-rom's, dvd's, etc Online and electronic media are fast becoming the most flexible and dynamic advertising methods of all. As people's use of the internet increases, so does the internet's potency as a vehicle for advertising and marketing too.

Electronic and online advertising media can be expensive and challenging to originate and implement initially, but unit costs tend to be low thereafter, and can be extremely cost-effective if sensibly researched and implemented.

As the internet extends progressively to mobile phones and hand-held devices (PDA's - Personal Digital Assistants), the opportunity and necessity to make use of online and web-related marketing methods becomes increasingly irresistible.

The internet and email provide unprecedented opportunity for radically new methods of promotion and advertising, such as viral marketing, and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) of educational or informative articles, newsgroups, forums, affiliation and partnering arrangements, email newsletters and campaigns, and many other new ideas which appear more quickly than most of us can absorb.

Modern and emerging digital and web-related advertising marketing methods offer audience 'reach', precision of targeting, level of fine-tuning and control, measurement and analysis, and costeffectiveness that conventional advertising media simply cannot match.

Aside from the more complex functionality of modern digital marketing methods, at a basic level, websites, CD ROM's and DVD's share much of the same origination and set-up, so it's now very feasible and sensible to produce all sales literature and brochures, plus lots more besides, in userfriendly, inter-active digital format.

Conventional printed sales and marketing materials of all types (from newspapers and magazines, to brochures and business cards) are becoming obsolete as customers look to the internet (via phones, pc's, laptops, PDA's and in the future TV too) for quick, up-to-the-minute information about products, services and suppliers of all sorts.

And as more agencies, technology companies and digital media organisations develop their offerings and technology, so the costs and time of set-up, origination, production and implementation will reduce to levels that will move customers - in time almost completely - away from traditional (printed and other non-digital) media to modern electronic media, digital information, and online 'engagement' with suppliers of all sorts.

Internet listings, internet directories advertising, and 'pay-per-click' advertising offered by the major search engines, are now viable and relevant for very small 'local' businesses, and are all examples of this fundamental shift in marketing.

Take time to learn about and understand which of the new digital methods will work for you and how.

Most, if not all of the information you need is freely available on the internet - take time to look for it and learn - and ensure that your business explores and implements the many very cost-effective advertising methods available to you via internet media and the modern digital revolution. press and public relations (PR) The press release is the most under-rated form of advertising. Why? Because it's free, and moreover press editorial is perceived by the audience to be true, whereas advertising of all almost all other types is seen as 'oh no another advert' and therefore implies uncertainty or scepticism.

Getting your editorial printed for free is easier than you may think, and guidelines for using PR follow in more detail below. TV and radio news publicity works in much the same way, although more difficult to secure and control. Surveys and questionnaires provide perhaps the best opportunity for achieving valuable and effective publicity. See the guidelines about surveys and questionnaires below.

seminars Creating an informative seminar and inviting your target audience is an excellent way to educate the market and promote your company and proposition. This method works especially well in the business-to-business market, and where educating customers is appropriate, for instance if marketing a new technology or service to architects and specifiers. It is possible to have certain types of seminars accredited for CPD (Continuous Professional Development) by professional institutes, which provides an extra incentive for prospective customers to attend. telemarketing Using telemarketing staff or a telemarketing agency is a proven method of marketing. If wellmanaged, telemarketing can be an extremely good and cost-effective method for generating sales enquiries, selling products and services and making appointments for sales staff. It is important to identify a good telemarketing agency, and to that ensure your aims, outline script, and communications process for enquiry generation follow-up, are all clearly established and understood, by the agency and your own staff. A good CRM computer system to manage lists, data, follow-up and outcomes, is normally essential for telemarketing is to be successful on any reasonable scale, and good telemarketing agencies will already be using such systems which hopefully will interface with your own systems.

Considerable care needs to be taken when defining and agreeing the telemarketing 'brief' with the telemarketing staff, department or agency. Good experienced telemarketing staff and managers understand what works and what doesn't for given markets, types of propositions and products and services. Listen to their advice.

Generally telemarketing 'scripts' are not a good idea for high quality propositions, nor for professional business-to-business campaigns. A good telemarketing agency will work best by developing their own approach to meet the broad requirements of a project 'brief' and an outline of what you want to achieve, and how you want to achieve it.

Rigid scripts have the effect of limiting the natural style and capabilities of telemarketing staff, moreover customers generally find scripts, which quickly become robotic and characterless, very impersonal and insulting.

Refer to the legal implications (Data Protection Act and Preference Services) in the direct mail section.

Consumers and businesses are protected by certain rights relating to direct marketing techniques such as telemarketing, and you must ensure that your activities adhere to these rules.

direct mail Some of the principles and rules referenced here also apply to other types of direct marketing, including 'door-to-door' distribution and telemarketing methods.

Direct mail is the process of sending your material (by itself or in a shared mailing with other items) direct to the address of the potential customer by post. The elements which make up the direct mail process are basically: 1. a mailing list of names and addresses (from your own data-base or names sourced elsewhere) 2. the item(s) to be mailed, and envelopes or packaging, if applicable 3. resource or facility to 'stuff' and address or label the envelopes/packaging (assuming you are putting the item in an envelope or packaging, which of course is not always the case) 4. and postal charges, which depend (in the UK) now on the size and shape as well as the weight of the item being mailed.

The last two stages are often called 'fulfilment'.

Direct Mail is generally used to generate a direct response from the recipient and will commonly incorporate a reply or response section within the mailed item.

Aside from the strength of your proposition, response rates vary according primarily to the quality of the list, notably: 

the reliability of the list data (new clean lists obviously perform better than old out-of-date lists)



and how well 'targeted' the list is in terms of your offer (how relevant it is to the recipient).

Direct mail is not a precise science. See the direct mail story for example. There are many things that can go wrong, and even more things that are unknown and unimagined by the campaign manager. Like the rest of advertising, whether a direct mail campaign works well or poorly it's often very difficult to discover what elements need to be changed and how: the proposition, the mailing list, the reliability of the fulfilment, the day and time of delivery, the response mechanism, something else? For large ongoing campaigns it is appropriate and cost-effective to conduct followup surveys of respondents and non-responders, but for smaller initiatives it's rarely cost-effective to attempt detailed analysis other than to look for obvious indications of success or failure.

A direct mail campaign which produces more than a 2% response is normally considered very successful. Lower than 1% response is more usual. You then need to take into account the conversion rate (the conversion of responses into sales), assuming the campaign is designed to produce responses or enquiries and not sales directly. Aside from the quality of the responses, which is determined by the campaign, conversion rates also vary according to factors outside of and after the direct mail activities themselves, such as response handling, IT systems, sales follow-up,

etc. It is therefore important to judge a direct mail campaign first on percentage and quality of response, and then separately to assess the overall results of the campaign including conversion statistics and sales values.

Inexperienced marketeers (and many experienced ones too) tend to over-estimate forecasted response rates for direct mail, so a planning tip is to be pessimistic (prudent, as accountants say), especially when calculating advertising viability and return on investment. When you first state your estimated response rate as part of the financial justification for the direct mail campaign, next reduce it by a factor of 10 (i.e., re-assess the campaign viability using on one-tenth of your initial response forecast). If the figures still show a positive return on investment then your campaign might well be successful. If not, then it's sensible to re-think the whole thing.

Your own database of existing and past customers will typically produce a significantly higher response than that of a list sourced elsewhere. List prices vary enormously, from a few pounds up to several hundreds of pounds per 1,000 names and addresses, depending on volume, how specific the list is, and how selective your profiling criteria are. You can also choose whether to have the list on labels, or on a disk in a common spreadsheet or database format, the latter being most common now, and easy to import, if appropriate, into a CRM (customer relationship management) system.

Mailing list prices also vary according to the terms of use, notably the number of times the list can be used (list rental), or whether unlimited use is permitted, or whether the list is being actually bought outright.

These days for small businesses it's very easy and cost-effective to do your own or outsource a mailmerge direct mail, campaign, using a word-processing program in conjunction with the list of names and addresses on a spreadsheet program. Large scale direct mail campaigns are normally best managed via a CRM (customer relationship management) system. Contact the Direct Marketing Association or country equivalent for more information about providers of lists and mailing services, etc. display advertising The taking of advertising space in the editorial sections of magazines or newspapers, as opposed to the classified sections, which are a less expensive, and generally lower performing method. All significant publications will be pleased to provide you with their 'Media Pack', which gives full details of all the types of display advertising available, for how much, together with lots of information about their readership profile and circulation. If you are trying to generate a direct response from display advertising you may need to feature a coupon of some kind. Otherwise display advertising is concerned with image-building and creating awareness. As with other advertising methods, the use of Free-phone telephone numbers and Free-post addresses all increase response rates.

directories - local directories, Yellow Pages, Thomsons, etc These sorts of directories remain very useful for local domestic, consumer and household products and services suppliers. A business telephone line normally gives free Yellow Pages and Thomson's entries under a single classification in your local books. Display adverts or more entries are charged at rates that vary according to each book (there are around 100 Yellow Pages directories books covering the UK). Books are published annually, at different dates throughout the country. These directories can often be very effective for generating enquiries for consumer businesses, but are not appropriate for all types of business-to-business sectors. Ask yourself - where would my potential customers look for suppliers of my products and services?

Consider and seek out local smaller directories and trades booklets also. The increasing ease of publishing means that production of good quality small-scale local directories is now very easy for publishers and most towns now have at least one local directory or booklet listing local suppliers which is distributed to all households in the area. directories - internet Internet directories and specialist search engines are an increasingly effective way to advertise and market your services, because so many customers now use these listings to find suppliers. Many listings are free. Some work well, others don't. Many listings are not free. Again some work well and others don't. Ask other similar suppliers what works for them. Test the listings yourself to see how well they work and how commonly they feature in the main search engine listings such as Google.

To discover what website listings and directories you should appear on, search for your own products and services using Google. Include the town or area or other geographical descriptions in your search phrases - in as mny different ways as you think your customers would.

You need to be featured on the internet directories and listings websites which appear at the top of the Google results for the search terms that your customers will be using. brochures, leaflets and printed material Brochures and leaflets can be used for a variety of purposes, and can be distributed in different ways. A good printer can provide examples and costings, and the easiest way to learn what works and what doesn't is to look at other people's material. The aim of a brochure is foremost to generate new business through providing information in a way that appeals to the reader. The acronym AIDA (attention interest desire action) should be the basis of its design. Some brochures and leaflets are pleasing pieces of art, but they don't achieve anything for the business, so avoid falling into this trap. If you work with a designer be sure to control any fanciful tendencies and keep the message and style to the point. Too much spent on a brochure can give the impression that your business is extravagant.

When producing leaflets and brochures think about the way that they are to be distributed. If it needs an envelope try to avoid using a non-standard envelope size, which will add cost unnecessarily. If the material is required as an insert is it acceptable to the publication? Is it to be available from a rack? Do you want people to retain the material? If so perhaps a business card or plastic credit-card-type attachment would help?

There are thousands of different types of paper. Letterheads are usually printed on to 90-100gsm (grams per square metre) cartridge, laid or bond. A 100gsm paper is adequate for single sided mono or colour printing. 130gsm is better for double- sided. 200gsm is minimum weight for a post card format. 250-300gsm is used for business cards. Heavier boards are usually measured in microns rather than gsm because density affects weight more at these gauges. Coated matt and gloss 'art' papers are used for higher quality effects, but add to cost. Various lamination processes add more quality and more cost.

The print process is actually a number of separate stages: 1. design 2. reprographics (now a computerised process which produces camera-ready-artwork and the film from which the printing plates are made) 3. plate-making or electronic equivalent (for low quantities, digital print processes now enable high quality printing direct from a computer) 4. printing 5. finishing (stapling, folding, etc if relevant) Generally it is not possible to undo a stage and return to the previous one without re-originating at least the previous stage, so take care when signing off each stage. If your instructions to an agency or printer are not correct you will end up paying for the time they spend re-originating and amending, so think things through before you start the process.

Re-prints are generally cheaper than the first run because the reprographic work and plates do not need to be produced again. When you ask for a print quote ask at the same time for a price per thousand 'run-on' - you'll be surprised how low this cost is in proportion to the main quote. This is due to the origination and set-up charges being already absorbed by the main run.

'Full colour' printing uses the colours black, red, yellow and blue, and requires a plate to be made for each colour. Mono printing is black on white and requires just one black plate. Each colour can be tinted (ie applied less than 100% solid) to varying degrees across the print area, so with good design even black and white printing can give a high quality effect. Conversely, a poor design can make full colour printing look cheap and nasty. If you want something classier than black and white, two colour printing can produce amazing results, without the cost of going to full colour.

As a rule, printing costs reduce dramatically with volume. Digital printing methods are appropriate for low volumes, and fast becoming viable for higher volumes. There are various printing processes, which are appropriate for different purposes and particularly volumes. Ensure that the process is

appropriate for your application. As a rule colour is more expensive than mono (black and white), although digital printing is not so sensitive to colour/price differences. loose and bound inserts Inserts, in the form of leaflets, brochures, or other material, are provided by the advertiser to the publication, to be sent out with the magazine or newspaper. You have to produce the materials to be used as inserts which incurs printing costs, and then pay the publication a charge for insertion.

There is a big effect from economies of scale. Charges vary according to weight of insert, how many inserts per publication, volume, the narrowness of the circulation profile, and how the publication is itself distributed. Response rates from inserts are almost always lower than direct mail, but inserts are a very flexible and cheap method of distributing an advert to a target audience. Boundin inserts cost extra, require longer lead-times, and are favoured by some advertisers because they don't fall out and consequently are seen by more of the total readership, which can be two or three times greater than the circulation. 'door to door' leaflets and advertising distribution Large quantity leaflet drops to consumer households and business addresses, without the need for envelopes or normal postal charges, can usually be arranged through the postal services (the Post Office in the UK), so that your leaflet is delivered at the same time as the normal post, or at other times of the day if required. Demographic targeting, based on postcodes and population census data, is possible to a degree, and the cost is often inclusive in the distribution charges.

Other specialised household distributors provide similar services, sometimes incorporated within local newspaper deliveries.

Details can be obtained from various door-to-door distribution services providers, and the UK Direct Marketing Association. posters sites (hoardings, taxi-cabs, buses, roadside fields) For advertising considered as public information a variety of poster sites are free to the advertiser, so it makes sense to use these freely, supported by some record system so you keep them up-todate and utilised. Other sites vary according to nature and cost, from large roadside hoardings to buses, taxis and sports grounds. Anywhere that people pass or gather in large numbers is a potential poster site, and as with printed media, audience profile information is usually available.

New sites are being discovered and exploited all the time, such as supermarket trolleys and floors, table napkins, public conveniences, and the media extends now into continuous video at post offices and filling stations forecourts, etc.

local radio, TV, cinema and the internet Other forms of targeted media advertising, and now TV and radio are increasingly used by smaller local businesses, although tight geographical targeting is obviously difficult. Cost of production can be a significant factor.

Producing your own information and managing e-commerce on the internet is now viable for even very small businesses. For consumer businesses, the on-line shopping boom began several years ago: If you are supplying consumer products that can be shipped easily through the post or a carrier and you are not yet selling via the internet I would urge you to catch up with your competitors and start doing so, because many of your competitors will already be doing it. all business-to-business organisations should now have a web presence If you are large organisation then you will likely already have had this in place for several years. If you are a small business you might imagine that having a presence on the internet is not important.

It will be, if not already.

Particular styles and origination are required for a good website, and the medium is no longer passive, so you need to think about integrating promotion and advertising to attract people to your site. If you want technical information on the really esoteric stuff like search engine optimization (SEO), then an excellent free resource is at deadlock.com. guide books, hand-books and newsletters Publishing your own information material is potentially very effective, and costs can be reduced by incorporating relevant supporting advertising from other organisations wishing to be associated with your services and to target your audience. Guidelines for Newsletters follow later. (Remember now that electronic media is able to extend the use and potential of newsletters far beyond traditional printed media.)

Alternatively you can advertise in a relevant guide book produced by another organisation.

However, be careful to ascertain accurate details of circulation and profile if considering small or unproven publications. open days and exhibitions The advantage of personal contact is that you actually get to talk to your potential customers, which dramatically increases the chances of getting your message across. But there is a limit to how many people you can target and access using these methods. Costs of preparation and organisation can be big, and are rarely transparent at the outset so beware.

Events of this nature do nevertheless offer good possibilities for follow-up PR activity, which can contribute greatly to building a customer-friendly image.

word of mouth Personal referral is unsurpassed as an advertising tool. It costs nothing and is the most believable type of 'advertising of them all. Encouraging word of mouth referral is therefore a good reason for sustaining excellent customer service and relations. If your customers are thrilled by the service you give they'll tell their friends.

You can encourage word of mouth referrals through the use of discount vouchers and coupons, loyalty and 'friends and family' schemes, introduce a friend incentives, and any other mechanism that encourages people to spread the word on your behalf. networking and clubs Using business networking methods to develop contacts and introductions is an especially costeffective marketing method for consumer services and products, and more particularly for business-to-business services. A variety of networking opportunities exist in all sectors and regions, including trades associations, chambers of commerce and trade, networking websites, societies, clubs, breakfasts, lunches, events, and anywhere that potential customers and influencers gather, and the systems within which they communicate and socialise. Use your imagination. Always be prepared to speak to others enthusiastically about your business - the world is full of potential customers.

An increasing number of networking communities and services are now to be found on the internet too. Explore these opportunities, keeping in mind the particular target audiences most relevant to your aims. direct marketing, advertising, and the law In the UK there are strict laws protecting consumers, and to a different extent businesses, from aspects of direct marketing and other forms of advertising. Other countries generally have their own equivalent laws.

Consumers and to some degree businesses can 'opt out' of being subjected to various sorts of direct marketing activities. In the UK this system of opting out is managed via the processes and organisation of the 'Preference Services'. When you use direct marketing - whatever the method ensure you are acting within the law, and have consulted the relevant Preference Service rules (or local country equivalent).

Details of the UK 'Preference' services are available from the respective Preference Services agencies in the UK (for phone, fax, post and email), from other UK government information resources such as the BERR (Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform - was DTI, Department of Trade and Industry), and the Direct Marketing Association (and equivalents of all these in other countries as applicable).

Separately, the Data Protection Act in the UK contains implications for storing list data and using certain lists, notably for private consumers, and for the marketing of particular services (for example financial services), and there are similar laws dealing with this aspect in different countries, so check the law as applicable for your own situation before buying and using lists. More details (for the UK) about Data Protection rules are at the Information Commissioner's Office. You should adhere to your local laws or guidelines concerning unsolicited direct marketing. In the UK these are explained by the Information Commissioner's Office in terms of direct marketing by phone, electronic or postal methods. If you are not in the UK seek equivalent advice.

And aside from this, advertising is subject to scrutiny and action by the Advertising Standards Authority (UK), and of course all advertising and marketing is ultimately accountable to the various laws which seek to protect people and organisations from illicit or fraudulent trading.

For more information about good and acceptable practices in advertising (and by implication marketing too) refer to the UK Advertising Standards Authority, and the the European European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA), which represents European national self-regulatory and representative organisations for the advertising industry in Europe. 'tricks of the trade' - guidelines advertising Remember 'AIDA' - Attention Interest Desire Action (see the sales section).

The Attention part is the banner or headline that makes an impressive benefit promise. Interest builds information in an interesting way, usually meaning that this must relate closely to the way that the reader thinks about the issues concerned. If you seek a response you must move then to create Desire, which relates benefits to the reader so that they will want them.

Finally you must prompt an Action, which may be to call a telephone number or to complete and send of a reply coupon. Advertising that does not prompt action is a wasted opportunity.

Your main message must be the most prominent.

Do not be tempted to devote 50% of the space to a striking picture or a quote from Shakespeare.

The biggest part of the advert must be your main benefit statement. This is the part that entices the reader to read on.

Offer a single impressive benefit, quickly and simply.

Research proves that where responses are required, the best adverts are those which offer an impressive, relevant benefit to the reader. This 'promise' should ideally contain the business brand name, take no longer to read than is normal for the media (direct mail is about 4 - 8 seconds, or about fifteen words) and be clearly the most striking part of the advert. This point cannot be stressed enough; you must keep it quick, simple and to the point. And the trend is for ever quicker points: David Lewis, an eminent consumer psychologist, says, "Copy is getting shorter, and a major factor behind this is that people these days suffer from acute shortages of both time and attention.

Younger generations are extremely visually literate. They have been brought up on computer games, so they couldn't deal with a lot of polished copy, even if they wanted to." Think about the vocabulary and language you use; know your target audience: a simple test is to avoid any words or grammar that would not be found in the newspaper that the target group would read.

Your message must be quick and easy to absorb.

Use a clear layout, clear fonts and clear language. Do not distract the reader from the text by overlaying images or using fancy fonts. Use simple language, avoid complicated words, and keep enough space around the text to attract attention to it. Use simple traditional typestyles: serif fonts are quicker to read than sans serif. Use ten, eleven or twelve point-size for the main text; smaller or larger are actually more difficult to read and therefore less likely to be read. Look at newspapers and library books, which are almost always serif fonts of ten to twelve point size.

Avoid cluttering the advert with fancy images, colours and backgrounds. Make it easy to read.

For the same reason avoid italics, shadows, light colours reversed out of dark, weird and wonderful colours. None of these improve readability, they all reduce it. Use simple black (or dark coloured) text on a white (or light coloured) background. for maximum readability.

Involve the reader in your writing style - use the 2nd person: you, your, and yours.

Refer to the reader as 'you' and use the second person ('you', 'your' and 'yours' etc) in the description of what your business does for the customer to get them visualising their own personal involvement. Describe the service as it affects them in a way that they will easily relate to it.

Incorporate something new.

People respond better and are more easily attracted initially to a concept that is new or original. If they've heard or seen it all before it will be no surprise that they take no notice at all. People must believe there's something in it for them right from the start.

Develop a proposition that is special or unique and emphasise this.

Why should people be interested if your proposition is no different to your competition? You must try to emphasise what makes your service special. Unless your code of practice prevents you from claiming superiority over your competitors, you should put as much emphasis as you can behind your USP (unique selling point), and either imply or state directly that you are the only company to offer these things. Again refer to the selling articleabout developing unique selling propositions.

Your proposition or offer must be credible and believable.

The Advertising Standards Authority or equivalent would prevent you from making overly extravagant claims anyway, but you should still attempt to make your offer seem perfectly credible.

This is usually best accomplished by explaining 'why' and 'how' you are able to do the things you are offering, in support of your claims; you can also increase credibility by showing references or testimonial quotes from satisfied customers.

For example, if you claim particularly good customer service, this can be reinforced with an outline of your policy on seeking customer feed-back and carrying out satisfaction surveys.

People open envelopes from the back.

Stuff envelopes so the material inside faces the back. Remember this if you send anything in an envelope, or instruct a mailing house, as reading the back first throws out the AIDA order, and wastes time before the reader sees the main benefit statement.

Use lower case type - word-shapes are lost when capitals are used.

People read by recognising word-shapes not individual letters, do don't use upper case (capital letters) for text, and ideally not for headlines either, as it takes longer to read and reduces impact.

Headline should be three-quarters up the page or advert space.

Position your headline statement where it can be seen quickest. Do not put headlines at the very top of the space. The eye is naturally drawn to between two-thirds and three-quarters up the page or space, which is where the main benefit statement needs to be.

Advertising is often referred to as a 'Black Art' because it is mysterious, and is rarely a precise science. Things sometimes work which you imagine wouldn't, and plenty of things you think should work, don't. The Direct Mail Campaign Story is a amusing example of the unpredictable nature of advertising ideas and methods.

PR - public relations and using press-releases for free advertising and publicity Brief your staff - have a policy, especially for crisis situations.

If you are in a situation which is likely to attract press attention, then you must ensure that your staff are aware of your positions and policies. Ideally appoint someone with strong marketing and communications experience and skills to be in charge of press contact, and channel press enquiries through this person, so that other less able staff are not placed in awkward positions or forced to comment.

If press/media attention is potentially threatening to your organization's reputation and image, particularly if you operate in areas which have a major public interest or are controversial for any

reason, it is sensible for senior staff to undergo training in how to deal with the media, especially in crisis situations. Many PR companies provide such training.

Products, services, activities of organizations which serious/threatening/difficult media attention certainly include:

can

attract

potentially



Health and safety



The environment



Local community



Equality, disability, racial/gender discrimination, etc



Injustice



Stress and illness among employees



Poor quality and poor customer service



'Fat Cat' syndrome (directors/executives enjoying great rewards and advantage)



Animals



Children



Quirky news stories - products that don't work properly, poor service, corporate stupidity

There are others. Media is driven by what interests very big audiences.

Read your local newspapers to see the sort of issues that create big headlines locally, and read national papers and news websites to see the sort of issues which can reflect very negatively on organizations. There are many.

With the development of social networking technologies, media attention nowadays tends to 'swarm' in very big numbers and massive sudden waves of media interest that are difficult to predict, and certainly even more difficult to counter if a story 'goes viral' (which describes the mass swarming and spreading effect of social networking media.

All newspapers and news/magazine-type websites need press releases from external companies with story to tell, to help fill their pages. Local papers particularly need news submitted by the local community or they have to pay more for journalists to go out and find news. Look through your local papers and magazines to spot the PR material submitted by commercial organisations. This will encourage you as to how easy it is to provide 'news' stories for the local press.

Local TV and radio are also amenable to PR, but they're a bit more choosy. Nevertheless bear TV, and certainly radio, in mind for anything going on in your business of local interest or 'novelty value'.

Research and keep an up-to-date list of relevant (industry and local) editorial contact names and numbers, journalists, departments, email addresses, etc.

PR 'news' must be submitted to the news department (editorial department if it's a magazine) of the publication concerned. Increasingly online publications enable online submissions, and the range of media outlets vast now compared to a few years ago.

This wide choice means you should target your activities carefully - look for publications, printed and online, radio, etc., which offer the best access to your taget audience, with maximum audience numbers and territorial/industry-sector coverage.

Email is nowadays the preferred format for submissions of news/editorial stories, but given the unreliability of emails, and the generally difficult nature of dealing with media even under ideal circumstances, it is good to follow-up or give prior warning of emailed editorial releases by phone or text. Persistence is important. Expect a success rate of much less than 100%. In time relationships will develop for you, and journalists and other media contacts will respond more positively, especially if you are consistent and helpful in your communications.

Dealing with very high profile media (such as radio, TV, big websites, newspapers and bigcirculation magazines and journals) to achieve publicity and exposure for your press releases and other editorial stories is a matter of cultivating relationships with journalists and editors. This is why most big organizations tend to use PR agencies to handle their media relationships, where PR specialists have many years experience and lots of contacts.

If you are a small company with a small budget, and keen to target local and/or specialised media, then you should be able to handle this internally using your own resources.

Be aware that the journalists will alter your copy (the content/writing/article that you send), so don't agonize over the precise wording, but do enough to make it interesting and newsworthy.

Generally journalists prefer to deal direct with organisations rather than their PR agencies, so don't be shy.

Remember that press-release publicity is free.

Don't miss the opportunity to take maximum advantage. It's worth managing your PR through some kind of control system to keep up a regular and consistent activity. For a little thought you can easily achieve the equivalent of thousands of pounds worth of display advertising per year, for no advertising cost.

Press-release publicity carries more credibility than paid-for advertising.

People are largely unaware that much of what they read in the local and national newspapers is in fact carefully planned PR. They are therefore more receptive towards it and moreover believe it almost without question.

Photographs improve editorial take-up by 100's%.

A good photograph in support of a press release will dramatically improve your chances of publication. Either provide your own, or if the story is an event ask the press to send their own photographer.

Do it now - old news is no news.

If you've got something newsworthy don't wait or the opportunity will be lost. Even simple things like staff promotions, qualifications attained, hobby achievements, staff joining, babies, all make acceptable PR stories, and always be on the lookout for the quirky and unusual.

Ask for editorial coverage before paying for display advertising.

If you plan to pay for display advertising or inserts in any type of publication always ask before giving the order if you can have some editorial coverage as condition of placing the advertising business. Many publications will agree at this stage, and you'll have some free editorial to support the advert. Some publications combine the two and sell 'advertorial' feature space, which purports to be news but is really a large paid-for advert.

Surveys provide excellent material for editorial, and are used by many companies for publicity purposes. Any business can organize an interesting survey. See the guidelines about surveys and questionnaires below. You'll learn something about your market and create a significant opportunity for free publicity. Read newspapers and magazines and you will soon see examples even in the national broadsheets. newsletters - guidelines for producing effective newsletters for staff or customers Make them interesting - encourage feedback and contributions Producing your own newsletter for the local community is an excellent way of giving information, building an image of friendliness and trust, canvassing opinions (and being seen to do so), and advertising your own services. Follow the basic rules of AIDA, concentrating on the first two issues of Attention and Interest, unless you seek a direct response. Modern computer desk-top publishing programmes make it very easy to put together a respectable news-sheet to begin with. If possible, when you are committed to the concept and wish to increase scale, get some professional design input for the general layout, graphics and banner artwork.

Invite contributions from your readers; a letters section is a good way to fill space and make the readers feel more involved. Especially invite comment about the format and content of the

newsletter itself, which will help to convince you how and whether to continue publishing future issues.

Commit to a frequency and size that you can sustain If you can only manage one every three months so be it. Don't promise a monthly and then fail to get the next editions out on time, which would rather defeat the object of building your image.

Start off with a single page, and allow it to increase in size if you see positive reasons for doing so.

Start by piloting just a few copies, perhaps just a few hundred, and increase the distribution as you refine it.

Adopt a format and styling that is fit-for-purpose Basic rules of advertising production apply. Keep it simple, easy to read, and avoid anything off-thewall or extravagant. Use a format that is cost-effective and amenable to your method of distribution (think about rack dispensing, inserts, door-to-door, etc).

Include photographs and details of your staff If your newsletter allows inclusion of photographs, pictures of customers and other people will help bring it to life. Publishing pictures of staff is also motivational.

Include positive and happy stories Keep the content up-beat, optimistic and positive. You can't distort facts of course but you do have some licence to present issues in a way that will reflect as favourably as possible on your business and your people.

Make one person responsible or appoint an agency Often the most difficult challenge in producing a newsletter is sustaining it. It is extremely difficult to collect good ideas and news for content, and if there is not a clear point of responsibility with schedules and deadlines the whole exercise will end up being rushed, perhaps late or incomplete, with the result that it has a poor effect on staff and readers alike.

A marketing or PR agency will take on the job for you at a price, but even with expensive production support, getting the raw material is still the most difficult part of the process, and needs firm planning and monitoring.

Maintain a consistent design Consistency of appearance is essential to build recognition, awareness and positive association with your business. Don't compromise on corporate colours, quality of artwork and logos, and typestyles, even the type of paper you use should not be changed without proper reasons.

Relate the news to your customers and their community Keep in mind all the time who your audience is, and assess the content to make sure it is relevant, and presented in a way that your readers will want to read it. It may be possible for you to recover some of the cost of the newsletter by selling some advertising space, but be careful about the type of suppliers you include so as to avoid detracting from the image you are presenting. website design and internet marketing tips Websites and the internet can seem extremely complex, and on certain levels they are, but the fundamentals are simple. Don't let 'experts' baffle you with science. Have faith in common-sense principles and your own experience when using websites. Here are some basic rules for good internet and website marketing, and particularly for creating effective business-to-business websites: 

KISS - as the saying goes - "keep it simple, stupid". people want information quickly, clearly, no-nonsense. Remember your own frustrations when using unnecessarily complex websites.

Make your own website easy to use and to convey your improtant messages. Aim for simplicity and ease of use in all functionality.

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The internet and the website medium are ideally suited to specialised providers, suppliers, companies, etc., so try to specialise and be the best in what you offer within that specialisation on the web.

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Give as much as you can free online from your website - material that can be printed or downloaded, or information that can be read from the web page are all good worthy free things to offer.

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A website should be like a shop - think about it in the same way - ease of access to what you want - make browsing easy - layout clear and clean - the experience should be warm and welcoming.

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Remove obstacles like registrations and password requirements as far as possible - these are barriers to visitors - shops don't have barriers and registration requirements do they?...

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Fancy graphics visual effects please designers but not customers - fancy complicated design puts people off.

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Lots of text is good - if it's relevant search engines like lots of text too, but it must be relevant.

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Keep information up-to-date - many search engines take account of update frequency, so update your website frequently (ie, weekly at least) even if it's just small changes.

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Offer what people are interested in - not what you want to push.

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Good websites will be found by most search engines - don't pay for regular submissions services unless you have a very complicated and extensive internet and website strategy.

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The big three search engines are Google, Yahoo and MSN. Google remains by some considerable margin the most popular search engine, accounting for a sizeable majority of all searches. Google's listings are based on Google's very clever ranking algorithms, basic details of which freely available at Google's own website. After four years of collaboration with Google, Yahoo - which is the next most popular search engine, accounting for around 15% of all searches - converted to their own search engine system (as of February 2004). As Google no longer underpins the Yahoo search engine, getting a good listing with Google no longer guarantees automatic ranking on Yahoo too. MSN is the next most popular search engine, accounting for about 10% of all searches. These three search engines - Google, Yahoo and MSN - therefore account for virtually 95% of all search engine visitors to all websites, so if you concentrate on your listings with anyone, concentrate on these. If you only focus on one, under all normal circumstances this should be Google.

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Other sites linking to yours will certainly improve your search engine rankings, so reciprocal links are okay, but building a site that other sites will want to link to is far more beneficial than directing all that effort instead into a reciprocal ink campaign. Reciprocal linking is much over-reated as a website optimisation tactic. relevant high quality links matter. Having hundreds of irrelevant links on tiny unpopular websites counts for very little.

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Search engines downgrade or de-list sites that cheat, so don't cheat. If you want to know what constitutes cheating look on the web for the very many highly complicated website marketing and promotion websites. www.deadlock.com is a good one, and they also have lots of really detailed advice far beyond these basic principles when and if you're ready for it.

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Measure your traffic - there are lots of trackers and systems to use - www.extreme-dm.com is a good example of a system that is either free (their 'public' version) or paid-for (multiple pages 'private' version). Aside from these separate trackers most website hosting solutions and providers now include traffic statistics packages. Google Analytics now offers an extremely sophisticated free website tracking and analysis tool.

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Read website optimisation blogs and newsletters, and learn about the tools you can use to design and measure your website's performance in relation to the web as a whole especially what people are searching for, how they find websites, and what yoiu can do to optimise your own website. For example, Google Trends is very useful tool for assessing the relative popularity of website search terms. Overture's keyword search inventory tool is also very useful, when you can actually get on the site - it is inconsistently available, perhaps due to high demand.

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If you engage a website designer or agency follow the principles for engaging with any creative agency - develop your specification first (ie., especially all text, spelling and grammar checked, structure and process implications) and then let them get on with it don't waste a designer's time finalising and correcting these fundamental content and material issues once they've begun the design stage.

surveys and questionnaires - for staff or customers It is important to know what your staff and customers think and need in relation to your organization.

Don't guess or assume - or worse tell them. Ask them.

A survey is the common method to discover staff and customer attitudes, needs, desires, problems, etc.

Usually a survey is based on a questionnaire. Market research companies can design and organize staff and customer surveys. So too can good telemarketing agencies. You might prefer to organize a survey internally due to control or costs reasons, in which case it's helpful to follow a sensible process. Even if you use an agency, it's helpful to understand the process.

Here is a quick guide for the process of creating and organizing a staff or customer survey - or some market research - based on a questionnaire. All situations are different, so seek other ideas and adapt your own plans accordingly. Seek help from colleagues and external people where possible in areas that you are not capable or confident.

To develop your questionnaire you first need to identify exactly the data you wish to discover.

Brainstoming this can be a useful start. You should also consult with all interested parties in listing your survey criteria. It's a lot of effort to design and manage a survey, so it's silly to miss something important because the early planning stage was rushed.

Here are the main steps to designing a survey of staff, customers or your market, using a questionnaire: 1. Decide and agree the purpose of the survey. Keep it as simple as you can. There is a temptation to expand surveys into additional sectors and subjects, but this normally dilutes the usefulness of the response and the resulting analysis. It helps to concentrate on the key issues for your essential target group. In this respect, surveying is rather like marketing and selling. If you spread your efforts too wide and thin your results will be wide and thin too.

2. Decide your target respondents or audience or market sector or staff audience. Ensure that your target respondent group is relevant to your survey subject, and satisfy yourself that you can identify and reach the target group via whatever communications and survey method you choose.

3. Decide the level of privacy and anonymity which is appropriate for your survey. Many surveys work better if conducted anonymously. On the other hand, a survey of business customers generally works far better if respondents are known and given the opportunity to express specific views from their own particular standpoint.

4. Decide the minimum response (number of completed questionnaires) that you need for a useful sample. For business customer surveys a minimum of 100 responses is an acceptable number provided respondents represent a suitable cross-section of the relevant target audience or customer base. Consumer surveys tend to require several hundred respondents for very useful results.

5. Organize your survey to allow for the anticipated response rate. For example anticipate a low response rate (between 2% and 10%) if the survey method is passive, such as postal or email or web-based. More proactive methods like telemarketing give a higher response rate (assuming the contact list is reliable you can work on about 20-50% response from the contact list - and be guided by the telemarketing agency if you use one). For general consumer market research surveys via street or door-to-door interviews again consider that most people decilne to take part, and therefore you should build a low response expectation into your planning of numbers and time. The highest response rates are from focus groups (basically a focus group is an arranged meeting for interviews and discussions, usually combined with a questionnaire) which by their nature enable 100% response.

Interestingly the other hugely ignored opportunity for very high responding surveys is complaints and grievances from your target group. Think about it... complaints and grievances are an extremely useful source of valuable feedback and views, which ideally should be incorporated into any survey project. It's a terrible waste not to.

6. Decide the survey method(s) - email, internet, telephone, written document, focus group discussions, street surveys, door-to-door, or combination of these - whatever will fit your situation and tagret group best. Consider the reply mechanism if one is required. For example include postage-paid addressed envelopes. Or for internal staff attitude surveys consider tasking someone to encourage and collect replies. Whatever - make it easy for people to respond.

7. Consider incentivising or offering prizes to survey respondents, or even a payment especially to focus group members. It's very frustrating to put the time and effort into designing and running a survey only to find that you get a response that's too low to be useful. People are very busy and mostly are not prepared to give time in responding to questionnaires, even if it's in their interests to do so. For passive survey methods (for example postal or internal mail) expect response rates to be less than 10%. Sometimes they can be less than 1%. Business customer surveys work well if postal questionnaires are supported by telephone introduction to explain the survey purpose, then followed-up ('chased') by telephone too if necessary.

8. Design the actual questionnaire: List the individual questions/issues. At the earliest possible stage it helps to build the survey onto a spreadsheet - this enables data and structure and scoring, etc., to be organized much easier than in a text editor. Try to create a natural flow or sequence in the questions. Use closed questions (yes/no) where useful, and offer multiple-choice answers, and avoid giving a bias to the questions influenced by your own assumptions, or the CEO's personal views.

9. Then create questions - seek expert help with writing the questions - it's important to get this right. Questions that seem clear to you might be confusing to people far removed from the project. It's crucial to frame the questions objectively and clearly so that they can be

quickly and clearly understood by the reader. Clear questions also maximise response rates.

Confusion and lack of relevance in questionnaires are big reasons for people not responding. Effective questionnaires must be easily and quickly understood, so test your questions on someone who knows nothing about the situation, even some young teenagers (arguably the most difficult audience of all), to check that your intended meaning is properly and quickly understood.

10. Devise a scoring method and design this into the questionnaire format. Analysis of results is very difficult and time-consuming if you fail to consider this properly. Ideally you must be able to convert answers into numerical data to make analysis quick and reliable, especially if your survey is large. If in doubt seek help from a spreadsheet expert. Finance departments in organizations usually contain such people, who are often delighted to help with survey projects because they are interesting and connected with the customers and/or staff side of the organization. Spreadsheets enable all sorts of clever analysis if you know how to do it, and it helps greatly for good analytical functionality and structure to be built into the design of the spreadsheet from the beginning.

11. Write a suitably appealing supporting explanation of the survey's purpose. Also take care with the questionnaire instructions, and also give some details about the follow-up process.

People are more likely to respond if they can see and understand a meaningful purpose and follow-up for the survey. Getting a good response to a survey is always challenging, so the better your supporting explanation then the better your response rate will be. A survey also helps towards positive staff/customer relations exercise - it shows you are interested in their views, so make the most of the opportunity to communicate and explain.

12. Consider and decide about publishing the survey analysis (or a summary), and how best to convey results and follow-up actions to the respondents and other interested parties. This is especially important with surveys of employees. For certain types of market research or attitudinal surveys consider also the PR (Public Relations - publicity) value and opportunities arising from your survey. Subject to rules of privacy and agreement with your respondents, a survey commonly makes excellent press editorial and publicity.

13. Test the survey and method(s) with a small sample of people, preferably representative of the actual target group. Check that the scoring and analysis can be done. This is especially important if the survey is large, expensive, and/or crucial to the organization's strategy and decision-making. The need for testing is one very good reason for planning surveys sufficiently in advance of the deadline for getting the results.

14. If you test the survey, obviously refine the questions and structure and survey methods appropriately.

15. Run the survey. Monitor its operation. Don't wait until the end to discover a problem that you could have fixed at the start. If you use an agency check their progress soon after they start, and again at suitable intervals, depending on the size of the exercise. Again don't wait until the end to discover there was a bloody great big spanner in the works.

16. Chase up the replies using telephone follow-up where necessary. This is another reason for monitoring progress: commonly response levels fail to be as high as planned, in which case the earlier you are able to add some extra impetus the better.

17. Analyse the results and implement follow-up actions as appropriate, which if appropriate must involve giving agreed feedback of results and outcomes to respondents. If you are struggling with the analysis because the format was badly designed, it's still not too late to call in some help from a spreadsheet expert, rather than making a mess. If the data is there

in one form or another, a good spreadsheet person can often achieve a minor miracle and save the project, or simply save you several days work.

18. Write up the report fairly and objectively, and circulate it as agreed, especially if it throws up a few nasty surprises, which are actually the most valuable survey results of all.

19. Ensure all specific complaints and matters arising from individual customers are followed up reliably and satisfactorily.

20. Review the survey project overall and incorporate lessons and improvements next time.

Tip - a good way to understand how to structure questionnaires and write survey questions is to see how other organizations do it. Look at the various survey materials which you receive yourself through your letter-box, in new products that you buy, at airports and stations, in magazines - they are everywhere once you look for them.

See also the notes on designing and managing an employee motivation survey. Essentially this focuses on understanding staff motivational attitudes, but the guidelines also include useful techniques and rules for surveys and questionnaires in general.

The training needs analysis methods are also useful for understanding and designing surveys, and the TNA spreadsheet tools can easily be adapted into more general questionnaires for other purposes.

Another example of a questionnaire is the Multiple Intelligences Test materials - which provide further examples of how to design survey questionnaires.

The personal strengths indicator is another (very basic) example of a simple survey format, which is fine if the survey is small and does not require a lot of statistical analysis.

While analysis and structure are vital in big surveys, ultimately what's most importnat is simply taking the trouble to ask for people's views about important issues, rather than guessing or assuming, or telling people what you think they should be.

Well designed and implemented surveys always produce a positive effect for the organization.

People - whether employees or customers - think better of the organization for being asked and consulted, especially if they see you've listened and done your best to react positively to the feedback you've been given. running training/information events - a proven new business/enquiry generation method Designing and running a free (or very low 'token' cost) training or information event is a proven and very effective way to generate new business and customers.

The method can be used by anyone who needs new business and customers - by large corporations and even self-employed providers.

Designing and running free training/information/experience events is an excellent way to generate new business at any time, and the process works especially well in tough economic conditions, when customers want to save money, and are looking for new ideas themselves.

This method, with a little adaptation, is effective for all industries and all target markets: training/information event method 1

Design a training course or workshop or other educational/informative event.

Fill the event with useful facts, information, tips, techniques, statistics, methodology, advice, demonstrations, examples, and maybe a guest speaker/expert or two. See more content ideasbelow. The event you design must relate to your product or service, and appeal to your target decision-makers/customers. The event can be anything between two hours and a couple of days long. Generally the event will need to be bigger and more content-rich according to the size of customers and seniority of decisionmakers you are targeting, although there can be exceptions.

The most important issue is that the event will appeal to your target audience. Adapt this concept to be more of an 'experience' or showcase, or sampler, if you are targeting consumers with a consumer/lifestyle offering.

2

Decide a suitable method of advertising your event.

You could buy a list of target customers to use for direct marketing, or use an indirect method, for example display adverts or inserts, or web advertising. In the UK you do not need to register your own company or yourself under the Data Protection Act for using a customer list, unless, broadly, you rent or sell the list, or are offering financial services. More details (for the UK) about Data Protection rules are at the Information Commissioner's Office. You should also adhere to your local laws or guidelines concerning unsolicited direct marketing. In the UK these are explained by the Information Commissioner's Office in terms of marketing by phone, electronic or postal methods.

If you are not in the UK seek equivalent advice. Generally a good approach is to buy a list from a reputable list supplier, or to use an indirect advertising method which will reach your target audience, and which is not subject to preference rules. By way of clarification, a phone call or email is direct marketing, whereas an advert or insert in a newspaper or magazine, or a card in the local newsagents window, are all indirect marketing.

3

Create an advertising mailer or other communications method for reaching your target audience.

Look at the advertising 'tricks of the trade' to help you do this. Sell the event, not your product or service. Your advertising must be very clear and concise. Make it easy for people to see immediately what you are offering, what the main benefits of the course/event are (ideally a single strong benefit), and easy for people to respond and register to attend. The event should be free, or offered at a low price so as to reduce 'no-shows' (people who say they'll come and then don't). My own preference is to offer the event free and minimize the 'no-shows' by some other method. The event must be very easy to get to, ideally by public transport, and offer easy car-parking for your target audience. The event date and timings must be as easy as possible for your target audience to take time off work to attend. For example do not stage an event for finance directors at month-end or fiscal year-end. Take account of other seasonal factors which would make the timing of an event and its core benefit more attractive to customers.

4

Set up your method and system for handling responses and recording registrations of people wishing to attend.

These respondents are effectively enquirers or prospects for your product or service - think about it - you will have their attention at your event for the duration of your event.

Ensure therefore that your registration system enables you to gather the necessary contact details enabling you to follow-up after the event. And ensure you look after them very well before, during and after the event, because this will reflect directly on your quality as a supplier or provider.

5

Run the event.

Do focus on giving: information, help, knowledge - whatever people need.

Do not focus on selling. People will be attending to learn and take away knowledge, ideas, etc. If you sell hard or too much to them you will be breaking the psychological contract, and undermining your own integrity. At the end of the event seek feedback (use a suitable feedback form and evaluation method) about the quality of the event and what could have been included additionally or improved. During the event - typically in the coffee breaks and lunch breaks (if applicable) - you will be able to discuss and get to know what subsequent business development opportunities might exist among your attendees. They will approach you with questions and potential work/contracts if you seem to know your area well and you extend a professional and reliable image. It is appropriate at the event to seek people's permission to follow-up. If you fail to seek

permission and then follow-up anyway this will upset some people.

6

Follow up.

Follow up the event with phone calls or appointments as appropriate.

7

Evaluate and refine.

Analyse the outcomes. Refine your methods and plan your next event.

content ideas for a training/information event Ideas for content to include in a training/information event used for business generation: 

tips

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tricks of the trade

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methods

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demonstrations

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health and safety aspects

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technology updates

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legal/law/legislation briefings

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guest expert speakers

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'how to' sessions

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'sampler' experiences

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showcase of suppliers/products/services

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activities and games (must be relevant and enjoyable - not all areas are amenable to this)

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workshop sessions

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hands-on making and doing and trying, etc

The extent to which you sell your own products/services at a training/informative event depends on the situation.

As a general rule, the bigger and more complex/expensive the product/service then the less you should try to sell it at the event. Your aim in this situation is to build your own credibility and to generate interest for follow-up discussions.

If you are targeting consumer/retail customers then you can include a stronger selling element in the event. in which case position it suitably in your event advertising material. In this situation the event is arguably closer to a 'party' concept, as used and proven to work effectively by large businesses like Tupperware and Ann Summers, etc.

Choice of venue is important. You need somewhere flexible for numbers, especially if you are not going to be managing 'no-shows' tightly in advance somehow. Some venues are prepared to offer special deals for first events, on the basis that if it works they'll have the chance of further bookings. Be creative and adventurous in finding potential venues. Often an unusual venue can be a significant part of the attraction to the event. Negotiate with your potential venues until you get the deal you need.

Partnering with like-minded customers or suppliers can be useful in running events, and also in finding suitable venues.

If you are in the middle of the supply chain perhaps there is opportunity to partner with a large upstream supplier to stage the event at their showroom or factory.

Use your imagination.

Imagine and maybe ask your potential customers what sort of event they would find helpful.

Running an event is a wonderful way to involve staff. Involvement motivates everyone who takes part, and lightens your own load.

If you are self-employed and want to design and run an event, and don't want to do it alone, then partner with an associate or a supplier.

In summary: The clever part in using a training/information event to generate new business is designing and promoting the event so that it: 

appeals strongly to your target customers

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and links naturally to the products and services you seek to sell afterwards.

If you are really successful in designing and promoting and running effective events you can find that the event itself can become a chargeable 'product' for your business, or in some cases actually becomes the main part of your business.

In the modern age, successful selling increasingly requires the supplier to give (knowledge, information, experiences, etc) before selling anything. The training/information event method fits this way of working extremely well.

Leading Edge “Why are some companies able to create and sustain a high innovation premium while others don’t?” There are three key things that the innovative companies do to create and sustain an innovation premium. How well companies leverage people, process, and philosophies (christen it as 3Ps) differentiates the best in class from the next in class when it comes to keeping innovation alive and delivering an innovation premium year after year.

On the people front, the behavior of leaders matters—big time. There are five “discovery skills” that distinguished innovators from non-innovators. Innovators ask provocative questions that challenge the status quo. They observe the world like anthropologists to detect new ways of doing things. They network with people who don’t look or think like them to gain radically different perspectives. They experiment relentlessly to test new ideas and try out new experiences. Finally, these behaviors trigger new associations which let them to connect the unconnected, thereby producing disruptive ideas.

We also developed a self- and 360-degree assessment to determine how much individuals engage these skills. Our preliminary look at high (versus low) innovation premium companies found that senior leadership’s innovation skills make a serious difference. In fact, CEOs of high-innovation-premium companies scored at the 88th percentile of the five skills of disruptive innovators. By comparison, CEOs of average companies scored at only the 62nd percentile. From a different angle, innovative leaders spent approximately 31 percent of their time actively engaged in innovation-centered activities compared to only 15 percent by leaders of less innovative companies. Doubling the time a senior leader personally invests in getting new ideas typically delivers significant returns.

To illustrate, let’s look at a few leaders from this year’s crop—folks you may not know. For example, Fabrizio Freda, CEO of Estee Lauder (# 23 this year; #44 last year) excels at challenging the status quo by “playing the outsider.” He learned this lesson early in his career, as he moved from Procter & Gamble to Gucci SpA and back to P&G. “The experience outside *P&G+ gave me a lot more authority in challenging the status quo,” says Freda, “I stayed the challenger forever.”

The trilingual (Italian, French, English) executive has lived throughout Italy — Naples, Rome and Florence — and in Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. During his time at Gucci, Freda oversaw international marketing and strategic planning. While at P&G, he worked in many divisions including cough and cold, laundry, health and beauty, and most recently, as president of global snacks. Freda is the quintessential observer—and as he observers he both watches and listens. After arriving at Estee Lauder, he spent six months on a “listening tour,” zigzagging across Lauder’s worldwide operations in 140 countries. “I strongly believe in the power of listening,” says Freda. Listening, he says, helps him connect the dots. “The way my thinking and creativity goes is listening, connecting and creating.”

S.D. Shibulal, cofounder and CEO of Infosys (#19 this year; #15 last) is both observer and experimenter. In his 30 years at Infosys Shibulal says “there is nothing that I have not done.” He was the first sales person, has done account management, launched its internet consulting practice, is a network expert, helped design and launch its first ecommerce

application, and has been the head of both delivery and sales. To get a new perspective, Shibulal took a five year sabbatical to work for another firm, Sun Microsystems. He’s also known as an experimenter and “gadget freak.” Shibulal has always been fascinated with taking things apart and putting them back together. When he buys the latest device, he never uses it as it is. He examines it, takes it apart and refits it to his needs, turning fad into art. Before PDAs were popular, he had assembled his own version with different parts from a RadioShack Store. That’s why at Infosys, where geeks are a dime a dozen, he is revered as a “gizmo guru.”

Put simply, leaders at the top of this year’s most innovative company list behave innovatively. But putting innovators at high levels is not enough to create and sustain an innovation premium. It’s necessary, but not sufficient, for organizational success. We’ve found that successful leaders personally understand how innovation happens and they try to imprint their behaviors as processes and philosophies within their organization.

To illustrate, Marc Benioff (CEO of Salesforce.com: #1 on this and last year’s list) gets many new ideas by networking with young entrepreneurs, like Drew Houston, founder of DropBox, and Max Levchin, founder of Slide and an early PayPal executive. Benioff was personally involved in coming up with the idea for Chatter—social networking software for businesses that is a mix of Facebook and Twitter. Chatter helps folks in his company network better by helping them efficiently connect with others and see what work is being done and what ideas others are generating across the company. Chatter represents Benioff’s idea for how to help others be better networkers. Plus every Salesforce employee (management and non-management alike) gets at least two days of innovation training each year to help them maximize their contributions to company-wide innovation processes like Chatter. Benioff’s skill as an innovator has helped Salesforce generate a high innovation premium but if he doesn’t unleash the creative capacity of his employees through innovation processes Salesforce will be unable to sustain its high premium.

Similarly, Jeff Bezos (Amazon, #3) surrounds himself with people at Amazon who are inventive. He asks all job candidates: “’Tell me about something that you have invented.’

Their invention could be on a small scale – say, a new product feature or a process that improves the customer experience, or even a new way to load the dishwasher. But I want to know that they will try new things.” When the CEO asks all job candidates whether they’ve ever invented anything, it sends a powerful signal that invention is expected, and valued. It’s a taken-for-granted element of Amazon’s corporate culture. Bezos himself is also a great experimenter (with multiple patents to his name) and claims that, “I encourage our employees to go down blind alleys and experiment. In fact, we have a group called Web Lab that is charged with constantly experimenting with the user interface on the website to figure out improvements for the customer experience.” The point is that leaders like Benioff and Bezos don’t just do innovation themselves, they systematically replicate their own innovation skills throughout their companies.

In contrast, innovative companies with that don’t sustain their high innovation premium are often led by innovators who don’t seem to care about building others’ innovation skills.

They excel at creative problem solving and often question, “Why delegate innovation to others who aren’t as good at it?” In fact, a challenge for any leader who masters a particular

skill is that they often lack incentive to build the same skill in others. This can create a huge barrier to building a company with long-lasting innovation capability. So having innovative senior leaders is necessary but not sufficient for sustaining a strong innovation premium.

The bottom line is that leaders of innovative companies consciously set the example by modeling innovation behaviors—and imprinting those same behaviors as processes within their organizations. A CEO’s personal actions send a serious signal that innovation must matter to others. Apple’s performance under Steve Jobs, versus other leaders, powerfully illustrates the importance of innovative leadership. From 1980-1985 during Job’s initial tenure at Apple, the company’s innovation premium averaged 37 percent. Without Jobs, Apple’s premium dropped far below zero (an “Innovation Discount”) from 1985-1998. But with Job’s back at the helm Apple’s innovation premium eventually jumped to 50 percent.

Job’s impact is undeniable when it comes to delivering an innovation premium over time.

But what will happen now? Did Jobs sufficiently build innovation capability throughout Apple? Does Apple have the “right stuff” when it comes to innovation skills in the top management team and the right processes for encouraging and supporting others as they try to “think different” like Steve Jobs did? The jury is out and will stay that way for at least five years—both for Apple and for any leader attempting to create and sustain a significant Innovation Premium over time. What we do know as we wait is that if company leaders don’t “get” innovation by doing it themselves, the rest of the organization doesn’t stand a chance.

Marketing Objectives In this lesson, you will learn :    

That products do not sell on their own if they are just introduced in the market Marketing as a dynamic process Components of marketing Where does sales fit in marketing?

How to leverage marketing function Marketing is about identifying and meeting human and social needs. One of the shortest good definitions of marketing is “meeting needs profitably.”

When a famous online auction agency recognized that people were unable to locate some of the items they desired most, it created an online auction clearing house.

When a big furniture brand noticed that people wanted good furniture at a substantially lower price, it created knockdown furniture. These two firms demonstrated marketing savvy and turned a private or social need into a profitable business opportunity.

As a managerial definition, marketing has often been described as “the art of selling products.” But Peter Drucker, a leading management theorist, says that “the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself.

Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy.

The American Marketing Association offers this managerial definition Marketing (management) is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals.

So, Marketing in reality encompasses much more than just sales and it not just an art but a science as well.

Importance of Marketing Products cannot just sell on their own. They need to be marketed well. Marketing is tricky and has proved to be the Achilles’ heel of many formerly prosperous companies like Levi’s, General Motors, Kodak and Xerox. Even market leaders like HLL and Microsoft recognize that they cannot afford to relax as their leadership is challenged. Jack Welch, GE’s former CEO, repeatedly warned his company: “Change or die”.

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Making the right decisions about change isn’t always easy. Marketing managers must decide what features to design into a new product  what prices to offer customers  where to sell products  how much to spend on advertising, sales, or the internet They must also decide on details such as the exact wording or colour for new packaging. The companies at greatest risk are those who fail to carefully monitor their customers and competitors and to continuously improve their value offerings. They take short-term sales driven view of their business and ultimately they fail to satisfy their shareholders, employees, suppliers, and channel partners. Skilful marketing is a never ending process.

Marketing-A Dynamic Concept In an economy that is in constant flux and undergoing a change, more companies are realizing that their most precious asset is their customer base. An even more important realization is the need to satisfy the whims and fancies of these customers in order to survive in these increasingly competitive markets.

Thus, there is urgency for an organization (be it products or service providers) as a whole to develop appropriate holistic customer-focused strategies to ensure that the customer remains at the core of their organizational thinking.

Hence there is a need to concentrate marketing efforts towards the customer rather than the inward-looking traditional product-focused arrangement. And more importantly, we are shedding light on how an organization could go about in making this important transition in this current competitive market.

Components of Marketing The marketing mix or what is commonly known as the 4 Ps is a framework for marketers to implement a marketing concept. It consists of a set of major decision areas that a company needs to manage in order to at least satisfy consumer needs. According to Kotler, the mix is a set of "controllable tactical marketing tools that the firm blends to produce the response it wants in the target market”. Hence, in an effective marketing program, all of those elements are "mixed" to successfully achieve the company's marketing objectives.

The traditional marketing mix contains four major elements, the "4 Ps of marketing". As defined by Kotler (1999): Product: Anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption that might satisfy a want or need. In includes physical objects, services, persons, places, organizations and ideas.

Price: The amount of money charged for a product or service, or the sum of the values that consumers exchange for the benefits of having or using the product or service.

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Promotion: Activities that communicate the product or service and its merits to target customers with a view to persuading them to buy.

Place: All the company’s activities that make the product or service available to target customers.

The four Ps can be explained further in the following table.MARKETING MIX: ELEMENTS PRODUCT Product mix Product quality New product Design and development Packaging Labelling Branding

PLACE Channel strategy Channel selection Channel conflict Channel cooperation Physical distribution

PRICE Price level Margins Pricing policy Pricing strategies Price change

PROMOTION Promotion mix Advertising Personal selling Sales promotion Publicity Public relations

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Product: Product means goods or services or ‘anything of value’ which is offered to the market for exchange. For example, Hindustan Lever company offers number of consumer products like toiletries (Close-Up Toothpaste, Lifebuoy Soap etc.), detergent powder (Surf, Wheel), food products (Refined Vegetable Oil). The concept of product relates to not only the physical product as mentioned but also the benefits offered by it from customer’s view point (for example toothpaste is bought for whitening teeth, strengthening gums, etc,) These aspects are very important particularly in the marketing of consumer durable products ( like Automobiles, Refrigerator, etc.).The important product decisions include deciding about the features, quality, packaging, labelling and branding of the products.

Price: Price is the amount of money customers have to pay to obtain the product. In case of most of the products, level of price affects the level of their demand. The marketers have not only to decide about the objectives of price setting but to analyze the factors determining the price and fix a price for the firm’s products. Decisions also have to be taken in respect of discounts to customers, traders and credit terms, etc. so that customers perceive the price to be in line with the value of the product.

Place: Place or Physical Distribution includes activities that make firm’s products available to the target consumers. Important decision areas in this respect include selection of dealers or intermediaries to reach the customers, providing support to the intermediaries (by way of discounts, promotional campaigns, etc.). The intermediaries in turn keep inventory of the firm’s products, demonstrate them to potential buyers, close sales and also service the products after the sale. The other decision areas relate to managing inventory, storage and warehousing and transportation of goods from the place it is produced to the place it is required by the buyers.

Promotion: Promotion of products and services include activities that communicate availability, features, merits etc of the products to the target customers and persuade them to buy it. Most marketing companies use promotional activities like advertising, personal selling and sales promotional techniques (like price discounts, free samples etc.) A large number of decisions are to be taken , for example in the case of advertising it is important to decide about the message, the media to be used (example print – media- newspaper, magazines, etc The firm has to also decide what quantum of sales it should have to ensure a desirable profit. Certain non- tangible and psychological factors, e.g. brand name, reputation, guarantees packaging etc) also are a part of promotion. For example a person would rather buy a Mercedes than an Alto because of its brand name.

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Where does sales fit in marketing?

Sales are an essential part of marketing and come after the product is within reach of the customer through various outlets. Marketing involves whole range of activities relating to planning, pricing, promoting and distributing the products that satisfy the customer’s needs.

The function of selling, on the other hand, is restricted to promotion of goods and services through salesmanship, advertising, publicity and short- term incentives so that title of the product is transferred from seller to buyer or in other words product is converted into cash.

Further all selling activities are directed at maximisation of profits through maximizing sales.

Marketing, on the other hand is concerned with customer satisfaction and thereby increasing profit in the longer run.

In selling the effort is on bending the customer according to the product while in marketing, the attempt is to develop the product and other strategies as per the customer needs.

Lastly selling involves efforts like promotion and persuasion whereas marketing uses integrated marketing efforts involving strategies in respect of product, promotion, pricing and physical distribution.

The Selling Concept The selling concept, another common business orientation, holds that consumers and businesses, if left alone, will ordinarily not buy enough of the organization’s products.

The organization must, therefore, undertake an aggressive selling and promotion effort. This concept assumes that consumers must be coaxed into buying, so the company has a battery of selling and promotion tools to stimulate buying.

The selling concept is practiced most aggressively with unsought goods—goods that buyers normally do not think of buying, such as insurance and funeral plots. The selling concept is also practiced in the nonprofit area by fund-raisers, college admissions offices, and political parties.

Most firms practice the selling concept when they have overcapacity. Their aim is to sell what they make rather than make what the market wants. In modern industrial economies, productive capacity has been built up to a point where most markets are buyer markets (the buyers are dominant) and sellers have to scramble for customers.

Prospects are bombarded with sales messages.

As a result, the public often identifies marketing with hard selling and advertising. But marketing based on hard selling carries high risks. It assumes that customers who are coaxed into buying a product will like it; and if they don’t, that they won’t bad-mouth it or complain to consumer organizations and will forget their disappointment and buy it again.

These are indefensible assumptions.

In fact, one study showed that dissatisfied customers may bad-mouth the product

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to 10 or more acquaintances; bad news travels fast, something marketers that use hard selling should bear in mind.

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HOW TO LEVERAGE MARKETING FUNCTIONS Marketing is concerned with exchange of goods and services from producers to consumers or users in such a way that maximises the satisfaction of customers’ needs. From the viewpoint of the management function, numbers of activities are involved, which have been described as below: with instances how these functions are leveraged. By leverage we mean a’ push’ or influencing something to happen to improve the scope of marketing.            

Gathering and Analysing Market Information Marketing Planning Product Designing and Development Standardisation and Grading Packaging and Labelling Branding Customer Support Services Pricing of Products Promotion Physical Distribution Transportation Storage and Warehousing

Gathering and Analysing Market Information: One of the important functions of a marketer is to gather and analyse market information. This is necessary to identify the needs of the customers and take various decisions for the successful marketing of the products and services. This is important for making an analysis of the available opportunities and threats as well as strengths and weaknesses of the organization and help in deciding what opportunities can best be pursued by it. For example with the growth of computers, a new trend has emerged in the collection of market information. More and more companies are using interactive sites on the internet, to gather customer views and opinions, before taking important business decisions.

Marketing Planning: Another very important activity for the marketer is to develop appropriate marketing plans so that marketing objectives of the organization can be achieved. For example a marketer of colour TV’s , having 10% of the current market share in the country aims at enhancing his market share to 20% in the next three years. He will have to develop a complete marketing plan covering various important aspects including the plan for increasing the level of production, promotion of the products, etc. and specify the action programmes to achieve these objectives.

Product Designing and Development: Another important marketing activity or decision area relates to product designing and development. The design of the product contributes to making the product attractive to the target customers. A good design can improve performance of a product and also give it a competitive advantage in the market. For

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example, when we plan to buy any product say a motorbike, we not only see its features like cost, mileage, etc., but also the design aspects like its shape, style, etc.

Standardisation and Grading: Standardisation refers to producing goods of predetermined specifications, which helps in achieving uniformity and consistency in the output Standardisation ensures the buyers that goods conform to the predetermined standards of quality, price and packaging and reduces the need for inspection, testing and evaluation of the products.

Grading is the process of classification of products into different groups, on the basis of some of its important characteristics such as quality, size etc. Grading is particularly necessary for which are not produced according to predetermined specifications, such as the case of agricultural products, say wheat, oranges, mangoes etc. Grading ensures that goods belong to a particular quality and helps in realizing higher prices for high quality output.

Packaging and Labelling: Packaging refers to designing the package for the products.

Labelling refers to designing the label to be put on the package. Labelling may vary from a simple tag to complex graphics.

Packaging and labelling have become so important in modern day marketing that these are considered as pillars of marketing. Packaging is important not only for protection of products but also serves as a promotional tool. Sometimes, the quality of a product is assessed by the buyers from packaging. We have seen that in the success of many of the consumer brands in recent times such as Lays or Uncle Chips potato wafers Clinic Plus shampoos, and Colgate Toothpaste, etc.,packaging has played an important role.

Branding: A very important decision for marketing a product is whether to sell the product in its generic name (name of the category of the product, say fan, pen,etc.) or to sell them in a brand name (such as Polar Fan or Rotomac Pen).Brand name helps in creating product differentiations , i.e. providing basis for distinguishing the product of a firm with that of the competitor, which in turn, helps in building customer loyalty and in promoting its sale. In branding it is important to decide whether each product will be given a separate brand name or the same brand name will be extended to all products of the company, say Phillips Bulbs, Tubes and Television or Videocon Washing Machine, Television and Refrigerator.

Selection of the brand name plays an important role in the success of the product.

Customer Support Services: A very important function of the marketing management relates to developing customer support services such as after sales services, maintenance services, technical services and consumer information. Customer support services prove very effective in bringing repeat sales from the customers and developing brand loyalty for a product.

Pricing of Products: Price is the amount of money customers have to pay for a product.

Price is an important factor affecting the success or failure of a product in the market. The demand for a product or service is related to its price The marketers have to properly analyse the factors determining the price of a product and take several crucial decisions in

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this respect, including setting the price objectives, determining the pricing strategies, determining the price and changing the prices.

Promotion: Promotion of products and services involves informing the customers about the firm’s product, its features, etc, and persuading them to purchase these products. The four important methods of promotion include advertising, Personal Selling, Publicity and Sales Promotion. A marketer has to take several crucial decisions in respect of promotion of the products and services such as deciding the promotion budget, the promotion mix, i.e., the combination of the promotional tools that will be used, the promotion budget, etc.

Physical Distribution :The two major areas of this function include (a) decision regarding channels of distribution or the marketing intermediaries (like wholesalers, retailers) to be used and (b) physical movement of the product to a place where it is required by the customers for their consumption or use. The important decision areas under physical distribution include managing inventory (levels of stock of goods), storage and warehousing and transportation of goods from one place to another.

Transportation: Transportation involves physical movement of goods from one place to the other. As generally the users of products, particularly consumer products are wide spread and geographically separated from the place where they are produced, it is necessary to move them to the place where the products are needed for consumption or use. For example tea produced in Assam has to be transported not only within the state but to far off places like Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana.

A marketing firm has to analyse its transportation needs after taking into consideration various factors such as nature of the product, cost and location of target market and take decisions in respect of mode of transportation to be chosen and other related aspects.

Storage or warehousing: Usually there is a time gap between the production or procurement of goods and their sale or use. It may be because of irregular demand for the products such as in the case of woollen garments or Raincoats or there may be irregular supply because of seasonal production such as in the case of agricultural products (sugarcane, rice , wheat, cotton etc)In order to maintain a smooth flow of products in the market, there is a need of proper storage of the products.

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PRACTICE QUESTIONS 1. One of the shortest good definitions of marketing is “_________________________.”

2. List the four P’s of traditional Marketing ______________________________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ _______________________________________

3. What are the best ways to leverage Marketing? List five ways.

______________________________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ _______________________________________ ________________________________________

4.What is the importance of branding?

SUMMARY In this session you learnt that: Products cannot just sell on their own. They need to be marketed well. Marketing is tricky and has proved to be the Achilles’ heel of many formerly prosperous companies Making the right decisions about change isn’t always easy.

Marketing managers must decide what features to design into a new product, what prices to offer customers, where to sell products, and how much to spend on advertising, sales, or the internet.

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In a world economy that is in constant flux and undergoing turbulence, more companies are realizing that their most precious asset is their customer base. An even more important realization is the need to satisfy the whims and fancies of these customers in order to survive in these increasingly competitive markets.

The traditional marketing mix contains four major elements, the "4 Ps of marketing". As defined by Kotler (1999):Product,Price,Promotion,Place.

Sales, as we see, is an integral part of marketing. Marketing is much more than just selling and involves not just the four Ps but also a strategy for the entire organization.

Marketing thus gives a holistic approach to selling. It is not just selling what the customer wants or what the company has to offer but to create a combination of the company’s ability and the customer needs and wants profitably.

Marketing is thus an art and a science.

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Connecting people ---- ---Cooling Solutions to help your business do better ---Count on us ---- ---- ---Creating Life ---- ---Definitely Male ---- ---Designed to excel ---- ---Diamonds are Forever ---Digitall Inspiration ---- ---Discover a passion ---- ---Do more live more ---- ---Drive your way ---- ---Eat Healthy, Think Btter Elegance is an Attitude ---Emotionally yours ---- ---Empowering People ---- ---Enduring value ---- ---Energising Capital.....

Energising Lives ---- ---Enjoy the change ---- ---Experience. Truth first ---- ---Expertise with resposiblity ---Explore your World ---- ---Express Yourself ---- ---Feel the news ---- ---- ---Fly Emirates ---- ---- ---For a special journey called life ---For Managing Tomorrow ---Connecting India ---- ---Jiyo Zee Bhar ke ---- ---Journalism of courage ---- ---Joy, Hope, Freedom, Life ---Kal par control ---- ---Leap Ahead ---- ---- ---Let there be light ---- ---Let truth prevail ---- ---Let’s Go ---- ---- ---Lifeline of Delhi & Mumbai ---Life’s a journey ---- ---Life’s Good ---- ---- ---Live life kingsize ---- ---Looking forward to tomorrow ---Made for each other ---- ---Make everyday exciting ---Making sense of it all ---- ----

Making tomorrow brighter ---More car per car ---- ---More is less ---- ---- ---Moving forward ---- ---New Horizons. Enduring Values ---Not just healthcare ... lifecare ---Nothing else will do ---- ---Number one any which way ---Obsessed with quality since 1895 One Bank many solutions ---Original European Jeanswear ---Outperform ---- ---- ---The Josh machine ---- ---The joy of flying ---- ---The most friendly airlines ---The Next Big Thing ---- ---The Pen the World prefers ---The people’s paper ---- ---The power of access ---- ---The Power of Dreams ---- ---The Power of Fashion ---- ---The power of knowledge ---The sign of excellence ---- ---The symbol of partnership ---The taste of good health ---The taste of India ---- ---The ultimate driving machine ---The Unbeatable Accord ---------The Upper Crest ---- ---The World’s Favourite Airline ---The World’s Local Bank ---The World’s News Leader ---There is no better way to fly ---Think Different ---- ---Thinking of you ---- ---Time is What You Make of It ---Touching Lives ---- ---Touching your heart ---- ---Trusted Family Bank ---- ---Uber Casuals ---- ---Undoubtedly Distinguished ----

The real purpose of branding…is not what you think Why do we prefer brands? If you were to ask a brand guru, he or she will say it is because a brand stands for something in your mind. It conveys a benefit that some other similar commodity with similar functionality does not. Hence, it is a good thing to invest in creating brands. They deliver higher returns.

Sure, that’s the proclaimed benefit.

Now let’s go to any mall and head for the toiletries section. Or the food section. Or garments. If you love Kissan jam, you will surely pick it up. If you like Fem hand wash, you will put it into your cart. But do you always do that? What is that bottle of mixed fruit jam with label “X” that looks just the same as Kissan, but which offers you more jam for less? Rs 10 off per bottle? Buy one get one free? Won’t you try it just for a lark to see if it makes any difference? And if, after tasting it, you find no difference, would you still always pick up a Kissan after that? Why are you dumping a brand you earlier loved?

Now, consider another scenario. There is a drinking water shortage in your locality, and your kirana store, on finding that bottles of Bisleri are moving very fast, starts charging you a premium for his remaining stock. Would you pay more for it? The answer, I suppose, would depend on how desperate you are for that bottle, and what you know (or don’t know) about Bisleri’s availability in the other shops in the vicinity. If you know the next shop has enough stock, you won’t pay more. If you think the stocks are vanishing fast, you will buy more bottles, even at a premium.

Ask yourself: why are you paying less for your jam in the first instance and more for your Bisleri in the second? Why is the value of the Kissan bottle falling for you and that of Bisleri rising? Remember, both of them are brands, but the value you are attaching to them is different.

This brings me to a key element of value: value is derived from two things, relative shortage of a product, and the relative information content of a brand. Very little of it flows from real qualitative difference.

Shortage is, of course, easy to understand since price depends on demand and supply. But in a situation of non-shortage, almost all value derives from information asymmetry. You pay more if you know less about what goes into a brand, and less if you know more.

Let’s try another example. You can buy a Titan Sonata watch for as little as Rs 500; but prices for higher Titan ranges can go up to many thousands of rupees. A Rolex would begin somewhere above a couple of lakhs.

Now, all these watches tell the time – however ornate they are. Give or take a few seconds, none of them will keep time badly enough for you miss flights and you would want to chuck them into the dustbin. So why would you buy a Rolex rather than a Sonata or a Titan Raga?

Clearly, the value is all in the esoterics, in the implied status or perceived benefits of the product.

But would you pay the same if I were to tell you that the difference in the innards of the watch that costs your Rs 500 and the one that costs Rs 5,000 is not more than Rs 50 in terms of manufacturing inputs? It’s just the perceived benefit that gets you to pay more. Would you still buy the Rs 5,000 watch? Probably not.

So what am I getting at? Almost all value comes from information asymmetry. The manufacturer knows that one watch does not cost more to produce than the other, you don’t. That’s why you pay Rs 5,000, carried away by the ads that paint a sexier picture of that watch.

If we accept that information asymmetry drives value, we can understand why brands cost more. The true purpose of branding is to ensure an information asymmetry in favour of your product rather than that of your competitors.

The reason why you don’t always buy a Kissan at a mall is that you can get to see comparable products cheek-by-jowl. The information asymmetry vanishes. And you know that a cheaper product is not necessarily worse than the costlier brand.

The growth of mall culture, the internet and other mechanisms that enable us to compare prices and product performance is taking this information asymmetry away from most brands. Customers are getting wiser.

This is why we never ever go to a ticketing agent to buy an airline ticket. We buy it from Yatra.com or Makemytrip.com or Cleartrip.com – or similar sites – since we get to see all that we need to know before we buy.

This is why we are quite happy buying cheaper private label T-shirts from Shoppers’ Stop or Lifestyle or Pantaloons rather than somewhere else. The earlier information asymmetry – lack of knowledge about other kinds of T-shirts – is more or less gone, and we are happy to buy what we can see and discern.

The collapse of Kingfisher Airlines is also partly attributable to Vijay Mallya’s inability to maintain an information asymmetry in favour of his full-service carrier Kingfisher. He bought Air Deccan and called it Kingfisher Red. Every flyer saw that both looked the same – and opted for the cheaper carrier. Kingfisher was soon in the Red – deep Red. Now it’s almost gone.

Jet Airways managed to do the same silly thing. It had not two, but three, brands – Jet, Jet Konnect and Jet Lite. Apart from the minor difference in names, everybody thought he was boarding a Jet flight. Little wonder, they all bought the cheapest Jet tickets when they had the option.

Naresh Goyal also messed up by erasing the difference between one brand and the other.

He made information more easily available to his customer – and the customer chose cheap over costly. He destroyed the information asymmetry and drove his customers towards lower-margin seats.

The fight for higher profitability and deriving higher value from a product is thus about maintaining information skew in your favour. You have to build stories around the brand, and create benefits that go far beyond functionality. Often, generating insecurities in the consumer’s mind – will people think I am a cheapo if I wear Lux undergarments rather than Jockey – helps. But it’s not going to be easy, for this is an information-heavy world, and it is not always possible to maintain this information skew.

More important, as every brand evangelist knows, the brand is not something you own, but something your consumer thinks is his. It is an emotion in his mind, a feeling it engenders in him. This is why it is best to treat brands as a partnership with the customer. You may legally own it, but in reality it is the customer who does.

This is why when Coke launched New Coke that was sweeter and better tasting, there was a consumer revolt. How dare you change our Coke? Was the angry response. Coca-Cola had to restore the old Coke, even though in blind tests consumers preferred the new concoction.

Harley-Davidson never makes a change in its iconic bikes without talking to a huge chunk of its customers. There are better bikes in the market that can go faster and are more fuelefficient. They may be better value-for-money in every way. But the company knows it is on a strong wicket since its consumers own the brand – in their minds, the bike is theirs, and this gives it a higher value than it deserves based on pure functionality. You always value yourself more than others.

The key to brand value is to share its ownership with your customer.

Why Good Advertising Works (Even When You Think It Doesn't) I was having dinner with friends the other evening, and one of the guests made a familiar statement. "I am not influenced by advertising," she said.

For those of us in marketing, this is a familiar thing to hear. I often respond by pointing out that U.S. companies would not invest $70 billion (yes, that's the size of TV's ad market) in something they thought didn't work. Companies expect advertising to produce returns, just like any other investment. The reason that my friend -- and, I'm guessing, many of your friends -- think advertising doesn't "work" is that they think advertisements are trying to make them do something immediately.

They're wrong.

Successful advertising rarely succeeds through argument or calls to action. Instead, it creates positive memories and feelings that influence our behavior over time to encourage us to buy something at a later date. No one likes to think that they are easily influenced. In fact, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that we respond negatively to naked attempts at persuasion.

Instead, the best advertisements are ingenious at leaving impressions. Consider my dinner party friend, who, after claiming to be immune to marketing, proceeded to describe an erectile dysfunction ad with impressive detail. She then intoned cigarette ad slogans ("Cal-l-l for-r-r Phil-lip Mor-ray-ssss") from the early 1950s when Philip Morris sponsored the "I Love Lucy" show.

In sum, the best advertisements use images, jingles, and stories to focus attention on the brand. They are not just creative for creative's sake.

FROM CATCHPHRASES TO CASH Of course, as tickled as advertisers are to know they're writing catchy jingles, they don't make TV commercials for the honor of giving us free new music. They want us to buy something. The crucial challenge for marketers is: What's the best way to translate these memories into actions?

Some imagine a debate between two groups. The first group believes in raw persuasion. Its focus is on crafting a compelling argument that will encourage you, with the delivery of "new news," to buy something right away. The second group believes in the power of engagement. Its focus is on creating a positive experience that will influence you over the longer-term. Here, the objective is to seed positive ideas and memories that will attract you to the brand.

But this distinction is largely a myth. Advertisers have little control over how audiences receive their message. New news might appear relevant and credible to some ("Geico can save me 15 percent or more? Let's call!"), while others consider it unpersuasive ("Allstate's cheap enough"). Similarly, a TV commercial designed to engage the viewer might cause you

to buy the brand immediately, simply because it reminds you of how much you enjoy the product ("Cute Coke spot. You know, I am kinda thirsty...").

Once in a blue moon an advert might leave you thinking, "Just what I need!" and send you running out the door to buy something. More often, however, you barely attend to the commercials you see. You do not reflect on the scenes and messages unless triggered by something else at a later date: seeing the advertised brand on the street, when you need to buy the product or, in the case of my friend, talking about it at the dinner table. Even then, it is not the ad that matters. The ideas, impressions and positive feelings about the brand that matter. Any memory that will predispose you to view the brand in a more positive light than its alternatives is a plus.

ALL ABOUT GOOD VIBRATIONS As demonstrated by my friend, advertising memories can last decades. But my friend's discourse on advertising also touched one of the biggest pitfalls to creating successful TV advertising. Crafting a compelling message or creating an engaging impression is not easy (particularly when trying to reach an increasingly digitally distracted and time poor audience). It is equally difficult to make sure that the intended memories stick to the right brand.

My friend correctly identified the brand in the erectile dysfunction ad as Cialis. Why? Because the ad ended with a couple sitting in separate bath tubs. Bizarre? Yes. But also memorable. And, by dint of repetition, easily linked to the right brand.

So contrary to many people's beliefs, advertising does influence them. But advertising's influence is subtle. Strident calls to action are easily discounted and rejected because they are obvious. But engaging and memorable ads slip ideas past our defenses and seed memories that influence our behavior. You may not think advertising influences you. But marketers do. And in addition to millions of dollars, they have something else most people don't have: Access to data that proves their point.

The JUNGLE called MARKET PLACE VALUES of MEASURED COMMUNICATION & the art of finding the END – USER A party is on with a good amount of potential audience smart men & gorgeous looking women. Music, cocktail, flashbulbs, inviting food and all kinds of fun in full throttle. Imagine that you are a business man in the midst of this fun & frolic.

Consider that you have a potential to sell your product to this potent audience who are flushed with money & all time in the world to decide.

How would you plan your communication?

One could never get a better platform & ambience to sell your product ………….thinking hats on please.

Shenaz grabs the opportunity and says will get on to the empty stage and make a great presentation. I will use my great presentation skill and rock the stage. Will inter spread with great jingles, audio visuals & get the audience involved thus impressing the audience and get to their fat wallets.

The second volunteer Bobby feels screening a product video which has a great story deftly edited will impress the audience. The video will have all relevant product information. The money spent on the film will impress the audience.

Shankar feels he’s better prepared because he has leather key rings, leather wallets and other attractive gifts which he would distribute to the audience. Thus the audience will be left with a great reminder value. Also his act will not disturb the party.

Harmeet kaur would not irritate the audience by talking about the product but would make an announcement that the Dessert would be on the house sponsored by the brand.

Lakshmi would identify some users in the audience and invite them to the stage and share their experience of the brand. Besides there would also be some fun involved.

The market place is filled with marketers, customers, consumers , Influencers & products.

Everyone is going hell for leather to capture the mind and market share. Huge budgets are allocated by corporate houses for advertising and brand building. The target audience is overburdened with a sensory overload. Many a times the consumers are irritated with senseless advertisements, brochures, gifts and overbearing discount offers.

The peeping browser, colourful hoardings and wall paintings have been a strategy for a long time now. Remote controls have been mastered by the consumer to flip channels and the news paper readers have developed a knack of avoiding advertisements and scrutinize politics & page 3 with intensity. Mass media has moved to a broad gauge speeds in comparison to a narrow gauge approach in the past.

Mass marketing is now very clearly replaced by target marketing. The marketer has a challenge to narrow down the target group. In the above story all in the audience might not have been a target customer. Was there any merit in shooting in the dark to occupy the stage and communicate? The act could have been repulsive to the potential buyer. Getting close to a focus target would be the most ideal approach.

An effective business approach would be to devise a method to get to a very few people who are the potential target and talk to them purely about the product in lieu of targeting a large uninterested audience. This approach will lead to an effective conversion. True this could be a stretched approach to the market place but worth the effort to reach a conversion stage.

It’s imperative to reach the target audience with a thought provoking advertisement. An insurance advertisement in a health magazine or inside a hospital would catch the eye better than a busy bus station hoarding or a moving bus. One needs to allow the consumer to relate with the campaign. Is there any purpose in advertising a branded sports shoe in a magazine for elderly people?

Every product has an end user but the art of finding him is a great challenge. Corporate houses & agencies cannot spend a major part of the media budget by shooting in the dark and barking against the wall. Enough preparation needs to be done in finding the sweet spot.

Do not grab the stage thinking that every opportunity is a gifted one. Choose them carefully.

Shenaz, Bobby, Shankar, Harmeet & Lakshmi might have earned negative publicity which would be worse than no publicity at all.

Are you being seen is not the question, are you being seen by the right people is the question.

An effective business leader is one who devises methods to get across to few people who would be interested in the products and talk to them purely about the product and its utility for a short while, instead of talking to the whole lot......

Through the line promotion "Above-the-line" refers to the Advertising budget and covers production and media Through the line promotion "Above-the-line" refers to the Advertising budget and covers production and media costs associated with traditional media like TV, radio, outdoor and magazines. This communication is thematic in nature and concentrates on brand building. Above the line spend goes through advertising agencies.

"Below-the-line" refers to items financed out of the Promotions budget. This covers all promotional activities like shows, competitions, give-aways, bonus packs, special displays etc. This spend is schematic in nature and aims primarily to increase sales volumes. This budget is usually spent on a variety of promotional suppliers, design houses etc.

“Through-the-line” (or "Across-the-line")marketing is the combination of above-the-line and a specific type of below-the-line activity that is direct marketing. As you know above-theline marketing includes all the communicational activities relating to advertising (TV, press, radio etc) and below-the-line marketing includes all the other communicational activities like direct marketing. The essence of “through-the-line” marketing is to use mass advertising for forming a prospects / customers database which can be used for direct marketing activities e.g. an ad in a magazine in which a toll-free number is displayed that is used for direct contact with prospects.

Consumer Needs – Functional or Emotional?

Consumers (and customers) have needs that marketers and businesses seek to satisfy. For consumer goods, the needs are often good quality (product performance) at a decent price.

In business services, customers need on-time delivery, low price, and quality of service. Each of your brand’s attributes are weighed by how well they fit a set of needs. Sounds simple, right?

Well, maybe not quite so simple. Consumers and customers have both functional needs and emotional needs. Functional needs can be clearly articulated and while strong drivers of consumer choice, they are generic, and hard to own by a brand. While a customer might demand a low price because that fills a rational and functional need, the stronger emotional need may be “keeping my job by not allowing my division to go over its budget” and can be satisfied in many different ways. “Organic” label on food products is a functional benefit for some moms when shopping, while “keeping my family safe from harm” is an emotional need.

Delivering only functional category benefits makes it harder to build a lasting connection and survive in any competitive category. A cereal that “tastes great” will be unique only until the next great tasting cereal arrives. Walmart has the lowest prices……until the dollar store opens up down the street. Your company has the best on-time delivery..…until your truck broke down last month.

Satisfying emotional needs – safety, security, acceptance, and love – builds a stronger brand and stronger customer relationship. You find these needs buried beneath the logical, rational and top of mind lists people carry in their heads. Consumers don’t talk about their emotional needs, especially to strangers, or vendors, or often focus group moderators. They want to appear logical and rational. You have to get close enough to your customer to get to know them on a deeper level.

Once the functional needs of your customer are satisfied (and they must be satisfied first), then satisfying emotional needs is the path to building a lasting relationship.

Attitudes How Attitudes Form, Change and Shape Our Behavior What's your opinion on the death penalty? Which political party does a better job of running the country? Should prayer be allowed in schools? Should violence on television be regulated?

Chances are that you probably have fairly strong opinions on these and similar questions.

You've developed attitudes about such issues, and these attitudes influence your beliefs as well as your behavior. Attitudes are an important topic of study within the field of social psychology. What exactly is an attitude? How does it develop? Continue reading to learn more about how psychologists define this concept, how attitudes influence our behavior and things we can do to change attitudes.

What Is an Attitude?

Psychologists define attitudes as a learned tendency to evaluate things in a certain way. This can include evaluations of people, issues, objects or events. Such evaluations are often positive or negative, but they can also be uncertain at times. For example, you might have mixed feelings about a particular person or issue.

Researchers also suggest that there are several different components that make up attitudes.

1. An Emotional Component: How the object, person, issue or event makes you feel.

2. A Cognitive Component: Your thoughts and beliefs about the subject.

3. A Behavioral Component: How the attitude influences your behavior.

Attitudes can also be explicit and implicit. Explicit attitudes are those that we are consciously aware of and that clearly influence our behaviors and beliefs. Implicit attitudes are unconscious, but still have an effect on our beliefs and behaviors.

How Do Attitudes Form?

Attitudes form directly as a result of experience. They may emerge due to direct personal experience, or they may result from observation. Social roles and social norms can have a strong influence on attitudes. Social roles relate to how people are expected to behave in a particular role or context. Social norms involve society's rules for what behaviors are considered appropriate.

Attitudes can be learned in a variety of ways. Consider how advertisers use classical conditioning to influence your attitude toward a particular product. In a television

commercial, you see young, beautiful people having fun in on a tropical beach while enjoying a sport drink. This attractive and appealing imagery causes you to develop a positive association with this particular beverage.

Operant conditioning can also be used to influence how attitudes develop. Imagine a young man who has just started smoking. Whenever he lights up a cigarette, people complain, chastise him and ask him to leave their vicinity. This negative feedback from those around him eventually causes him to develop an unfavorable opinion of smoking and he decides to give up the habit.

Finally, people also learn attitudes by observing the people around them. When someone you admire greatly espouses a particular attitude, you are more likely to develop the same beliefs. For example, children spend a great deal of time observing the attitudes of their parents and usually begin to demonstrate similar outlooks.

How Do Attitudes Influence Behavior?

We tend to assume that people behave in accordance with their attitudes. However, social psychologists have found that attitudes and actual behavior are not always perfectly aligned. After all, plenty of people support a particular candidate or political party and yet fail to go out and vote.

Researchers have discovered that people are more likely to behave according to their attitudes under certain conditions:     

When your attitudes are the result of personal experience.

When you are an expert in the subject.

When you expect a favorable outcome.

When the attitudes are repeatedly expressed.

When you stand to win or lose something due to the issue.

In some cases, people may actually alter their attitudes in order to better align them with their behavior. Cognitive dissonance is a phenomenon in which a person experiences psychological distress due to conflicting thoughts or beliefs. In order to reduce this tension, people may change their attitudes to reflect their other beliefs or actual behaviors.

Imagine the following situation: You've always placed a high value on financial security, but you start dating someone who is very financially unstable. In order to reduce the tension caused by the conflicting beliefs and behavior, you have two options. You can end the relationship and seek out a partner who is more financially secure, or you can de-emphasize the importance of fiscal stability. In order to minimize the dissonance between your conflicting attitude and behavior, you either have to change the attitude or change your actions.

Attitude Change While attitudes can have a powerful effect on behavior, they are not set in stone. The same influences that lead to attitude formation can also create attitude change.

Learning Theory of Attitude Change: Classical conditioning, operant conditioning and observational learning can be used to bring about attitude change. Classical conditioning can be used to create positive emotional reactions to an object, person or event by associating positive feelings with the target object. Operant conditioning can be used to strengthen desirable attitudes and weaken undesirable ones. People can also change their attitudes after observing the behavior of others.

Elaboration Likelihood Theory of Attitude Change: This theory of persuasion suggests that people can alter their attitudes in two ways. First, they can be motivated to listen and think about the message, thus leading to an attitude shift. Or, they might be influenced by characteristics of the speaker, leading to a temporary or surface shift in attitude. Messages that are thought-provoking and that appeal to logic are more likely to lead to permanent changes in attitudes.

Dissonance Theory of Attitude Change: As mentioned earlier, people can also change their attitudes when they have conflicting beliefs about a topic. In order to reduce the tension created by these incompatible beliefs, people often shift their attitudes.

Your Friends As you move from the sole influence of your parents, you begin to be influenced by the friends you have. If you think back, your self-esteem has been prejudiced by your friendly relationships from childhood to the present moment. They play a vital and crucial role in your life, your beliefs, and most importantly, in your actions.

A Source of Development During your developing years, one of the most important attributes of friendship is proximity. This has two definitions: that you are close enough geographically to keep the relationship alive, and that you have beliefs, interests, and desires that are closely related.

If you scrutinize the friends you have had in the past and the friends that currently surround you, you may begin to see a pattern — they are like you. You seldom have friends who are diabolically juxtaposed to your own beliefs and values. Sure, you have friends who do different things, have different religions, and espouse different ideas, but at the core, your friends, more often than not, are much like you.

Here's to the Life Friends help shape your self-esteem and friends aid in good health and long life. In California, over 7,000 people were studied over a nine-year period. The people who had the best health, lived longer, avoided disease more often, and dealt with life's difficulties better were the people with strong social support.

Conversely, people who were isolated did not enjoy these benefits. When you are in caring relationships, you are not lonely, and the less lonely you are, the longer you live and the better you feel about yourself. On the other hand, when you see others in caring, loving friendships and you do not have them, your self-esteem and health suffer. This can affect you over the course of your life.

If you do not have the relationships that you see others enjoying, you may negate your own beliefs and values so that you can “fit in” to a group and be socially accepted. This, too, is detrimental to your self-esteem. Countless people are in “friendships” to combat loneliness only to find that the relationships are abusive, controlling, and unhealthy.

These people are called toxic or contaminated. They infect the way you act, think, and feel.

They bring poison into your life and it takes a great deal of work to cleanse yourself of the debris. It also takes time for your self-esteem to heal because of these relationships.

Characteristics of Unhealthy Self-Esteem Debilitating. That is a powerful and scary word, but it is a fact of life for scores of people who suffer from low, unhealthy self-esteem. It is amazing how many people still joke about self-esteem as if it were a word made up to explain away a hangnail. Unhealthy self-esteem has ramifications that reach into your career, your relationships, your behaviours, and your psychological well-being.

Your personal attitude is as visible as the clothes you wear. People see the attitude that you wear and they treat you accordingly. People with positive attitudes and an upbeat way of thinking are greeted with positive feedback. People who have negative viewpoints and constantly act downtrodden are treated as such. Your attitude is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Self-esteem is not a panacea for world peace and total bliss, but it definitely has its benefits.

This list includes some of the negative behaviors and attitudes associated with unhealthy, poor self-esteem. You decide if these attitudes or behaviour have ever crippled you in some way or if you recognize these characteristics in yourself or other people.

Generally speaking, people with self-esteem issues may have a tendency to: 

Act immature and have poor interpersonal skills.



Participate in self-destructive behaviors.

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Become angry and lose their tempers quickly.



Sacrifice their identity for the sake of “fitting in.”

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Dodge reality and unpleasant situations.

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Enjoy the demise or humiliation of others.

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Criticize themselves and others frequently.

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Act superior and brag incessantly.

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Overreact when criticized in any manner.



Engage in self-sabotage.

This list may be just the entrance to the mine. Deeper and darker characteristics appear in countless people who leave their esteem unattended.

Your Family There are countless influences on your life as you grow and mature. Your parents, certainly, make impressions, but influences also come from other people in the home, such as siblings, grandparents, cousins, and so on. Some parents are keenly aware that they are shaping your future, while others don't have a clue that what they say and do leave indelible marks on your soul forever. Even small things like gestures, vocal tone, smiles, frowns, and silence influence your development.

You often don't even realize all the little things that have influence on you. As children learn, they pick up cues from their parents about how to act and feel. A study was conducted where children played with toys while their mothers watched. If the mother smiled at the child as he or she played, the child played with the toy longer than if the mother frowned.

Also, when given the opportunity to play with the toy again at a later time, the children who had seen their mother frown earlier tended to shy away from the toy even when the mothers remained neutral during the later play period.

In later years, these same influences can wreak havoc on your self-esteem. You begin to rely on the approval of others, either verbally or non-verbally, to tell or show you how to act or react. You may do this unconsciously and not even know that you are being “controlled” by something that stems back to your infancy. This can negatively affect your self-esteem as you internalize feelings you pick up from external cues.

During infancy, you also begin to experience attachment. This is important to you and the development of your self-esteem because the degree to which you feel attachments to special people in your early life affects the way you relate to people for the rest of your life.

As a child, your identity and self-esteem are tied not only to what you hear from your parents and family members, but also to what you see and feel. Perhaps your family has the greatest influence in the development of your self-esteem and in the way you develop over a lifetime. People who come from a family structure that is not supportive, unresponsive to needs, lacking in communication, and detached from everyday emotion tend to develop unhealthy characteristics such as: 

Grave insecurities



Victim mentality



Lack of respect for self and others

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Irresponsibility



Uncaring and unable to give or receive love



Feelings of loneliness, fear, and immense anxiety



Unsure of their own true identity



Untrusting of other people



The need to control and sometimes manipulate

It is unfair to blame every problem or give credit for every success to your family members.

However, it is important to understand their influence on your development so that you can better determine the validity of your own feelings.

Changing Beliefs Vs. Changing Behaviours Advertising agencies across the world have this one problem in common; they are tasked by their clients to change the beliefs of consumers. And that is an almost impossible hill to climb.

But changing behavior, that's relatively easy in comparison.

Unfortunately, the lines between the two are blurred and many creatives, planners and strategists try to launch a campaign hell-bent on changing beliefs. This is almost certainly doomed to failure.

Understanding Human Nature To understand this conundrum, you have to understand human nature. As a race, we don't like change. We fear change, actually. So when we've spent years, or even decades, forming an opinion or "attitude" about something, it's not going to be something that is changed overnight. It takes time, or something momentous.

As Al Franken said in his documentary movie "God Spoke:" "My dad was a Republican until 1964. And he was a Jacob Javits Republican. You know, he grew up in New York, he voted for Herbert Hoover. And he voted for every Republican‌and then in 1964‌during the civil rights struggle, my dad would say ' that is so wrong. No Jew can be against civil rights.' And my dad was a card-carrying member of the NAACP, and a Republican. And so in 1964 they nominate Goldwater, who was against the civil rights bill, and that was it. My dad was a Democrat for the rest of his life."

When Convictions Collide That change in attitude came from something that had two deep-seated convictions wrestling with each other. One was a moral conviction, the other was political (although some often mix the two together). The moral conviction was stronger, and Al Franken's father changed his political affiliation. And thus, that change in belief created a change in behavior. He was voting Republican, his paradigm was shifted, and after that he voted Democrat. It's simple cause and effect.

But that's rare. Most of the time, it's much more difficult to overturn such strong convictions and beliefs. Advertisers, when faced with this challenge, would have better luck nailing Jello to a wall.

We Fear Change It's sad but true. Most of us don't like radical change. We also don't like to make the effort to change our attitudes or beliefs. In fact, we'd rather go out of our way to prove that our belief is right than to change it. Think about some of the beliefs you have about popular brands. You've probably had them for a long time. Maybe you prefer American-made cars to imports. Perhaps you're a Coke person, not Pepsi. Maybe you always buy Apple and refuse to buy anything Microsoft. Can those beliefs be changed? Doubtful. But can your buying behavior be changed?

Yes, it can.

Make Them An Offer They Can't Refuse Companies spend millions rebranding but don't fix the problem at hand. A fancy TV campaign promoting happy-happy-joy-joy feelings is probably not going to get people to drop Coke and buy Pepsi. But go into the supermarket and see Pepsi on sale for half the price of Coke, and you may very well take home a Pepsi six-pack instead of your usual Coke purchase. Your belief hasn't changed. You still think Coke's the best. But hey, for half-price, Pepsi tastes almost the same. And Pepsi hopes you'll get a taste for it, and become a Pepsi loyalist.

Similarly, the recent Old Spice campaign may have got a few people to try it, or notice it, but I say the phenomenal results are more attributed to a coupon campaign that was running in parallel. You may have switched to Old Spice from Axe or Dove, but not because it smells better. You did it because it smells ok, but the price was great. These are easy examples of changing behavior without changing beliefs.

If You're Really Want To Change a Belief, Do Something Radical Here's a great example of a client asking for a change in belief and an advertiser delivering on it.

Dominoes pizza chain was not doing well. It was floundering. Pizza Hut and Papa John's were crushing it, and the Papa Murphy's Take-N-Bake model was firing on all cylinders, winning awards every year.

What could Dominoes do? Well, they went to Crispin, Porter & Bogusky and asked for help.

CP&B knew that this was not about creating a slick ad campaign, or offering coupons.

People didn't like what Dominoes had to offer, and offering a free pizza wasn't going to help if they didn't like the pizza. Even if they took up the offer, they likely wouldn't return.

So, CP&B told Dominoes that they had to go back to the drawing board. Start from scratch, find out what people don't like, what they do like and make a better pizza.

Then, admit that the old pizzas weren't good. Be honest.

To say it worked would be a massive understatement. After the ads aired, the wait times for Dominoes pizzas were up to 2 hours in some areas. Sales went through the roof. And they changed the consumers' beliefs about Dominoes pizzas. Yes, they were bad, but now they're brand new and taste way better. It's a story, and a successful one at that.

As an advertising agency, changing beliefs will be something you're charged with on a regular basis. But changing behavior, that's a much easier nut to crack.

Kotler on Marketing : how to create, win and dominate markets

A strategy document on the new marketing paradigm

Reading material

The three mantras being given in the beginning. 

Holistic marketing



Lateral marketing



Hi-tech marketing

Questions from indian industry point of view Do we have a global brand ?

If the answer is yes …then name it If the answer is no - then let’s try to find the answer ?

Even before finding the answer to it the important issue is to negate certain myths like….

Is advertising the best tool to hard sell or outsell yourself ?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Shall we trust marketing research for making major decision ?

Can we adopt someone else’s segment saying that to be ours ?

Can we be a winner by getting cheaper and cheaper …??

Can we afford to overlook differentiation and if yes then For how long ?

Can we think of selling a product with poor service ?

Can we create a good brand out of poor quality

The answer to all the above questions is no .

Indeed today it is the marketing engineering which is required More than the product engineering in indian context.Globally the product outsourced from india has the following Cost statement :

% of price received

Retailer in the developed world

: 50-60%

Brand maker in the developed world

: 30-40%

Manufacturer’s price

: 10 %

Suggestive Measures : To start from Low cost average quality Product for domestic market and end up making Indian Dominant brands at the global level.

He also mentioned on 5 cs favoring india including capital Raising capability, cost low for production , capability in terms Of knowledge , consumers base and finally calm and stability in The overall environment . Talking on the neighboring nation’s competence, he briefed on the Strategy of haier china on becoming the leader in us market using Three point formula of fixing the quality, diversification and Globalization. He also pressed hard on theissues of innovative Differentiation amongst all elements of marketing mix.

He also mentioned that the marketing without accountability is Like putting all your resources on one p i.e promotion. Marketing Should understand and thus involve itself in all kinds of activities Including product development, pricing instead of doing promotion And selling alone. He said that most of the multinationals in their spreeto enjoy Economies of scale at times sacrifice on customization and thus their inability to adapt to the customized environment leads to great deal Of problem in long runs.

In order to get the best of customization and precision marketing Projective techniques work Better in Marketing Research than anything else. Walmart doesn’t believe in inventory..it loves flow These tendencies have made the top five retailers of US a powerful Group to affect the sales of top five consumer goods suppliers also. Great products are invented in marketing departments .Manufacturing makes the product but meaning is given by the marketing department. Financial mindset is required in marketing department.So the first approach should be holistic marketing. A more broader view is required to be taken up for A. The target’s activities, lifestyle and social space.

B. Company’s channels ,supply chain and communications And lastly C. The stake holder’s interests.

It requires a strong software support and integration and networking is the key to success.

The holistic relationship marketing may start from customer focus and using the corporate’s core competence gets fully developed into Collaborative networks. This network wisely directs the business investments into potential opportunities available in the market space.indeed every dream is an opportunity.

The same model may further be utilized for exploring values in Available space and then creating value through marketing Activities and business architecture and finally delivering Value through Marketing activities and operational systems.

True value creations just not possible without improving marketing Efficiency and marketing effectiveness.The best way to do improve the efficiency is by controlling inputs.

And outputs and effectiveness by using resources for better results.Don’t make the manufacturing companies.Make the branding or marketing organisation. By not investing in manufacturing and by outsourcing it one could Achieve infinite return on investment as anything divided by zero is Infinity.Once your model of making become successful then apply it to your Partners.Make less expenditure of your own and make more partners.Nike doesn’t have any factory of its own.Advertising should give higher sales quickly.eplace higher cost channels with lower cost.

He gave too much of emphasis on cross selling and up selling.He mentioned Cross selling as the process of developing newer matching product lines for your existing satisfied customers.Like Adidas selling shoes..Apparels..Personal care..Health maintenance Products to their existing range of customers .

He defined Up selling as the process to giving opportunity to your Existing customer to graduate from the current range of product to An upper range of product. E.g Maruti nowadays are asking their satisfied 800 owners to exchange it for a wagon R or Esteem customers to exchange for a Baleno.

He also pin pointed the need of predictive analysis of the current Customers on their willingness to buy new product lines or the upgraded products. In a dynamic situations where differentiation is getting saturated, Horizontal integration leading to failures, lower opportunities in crossing borders, lower success rates for new products, price cutting Becoming too imitable and price raising becoming too unjustifiable and lastly cost cutting heading for bleeding in the system rather thanMaking it leaner …

Leaders keeps a watch on the changes taking place at market place and they are the fastest in copying them with modifications and improvements. .He suggested five winning strategies as •

Cost Reduction Using ideas of operational staff ( Southwest airlines)

•

Improved customer Experience(Starbucks)

•

Innovative Business Model ( Fed Ex)

•

Improved Product quality ( Toyota) and

•

Niching( Tetra in fish foods)

The need is not to look and plan for customers , competitors, products,Value creation means, channels , promotional tools and business Definition of today but the survival will depend on your capabilities to plan and do it for tomorrow. All this require to think beyond the horizon and out of the box.In simplest term he mentioned it to be the era of

Lateral Marketing Thinking laterally not only from the product point of view but forPromotions, pricing and distribution channels also. Huggies pull ups,Walkman, seven eleven are the true examples of Lateral Marketing.A book is also available on the same by Philip Kotler and Fernandoand published by John Wiley and sons USA.The largest garment manufacturer in the world unit wise is the company which makes garment accessories for Barbie dolls.

The turning point of the session was when he shifted the focus to more Micro issue of branding. He did a microscopic examination of Customer Equity and Brand Equity.

He redefined Marketing as the art of brand building, he also reiterated his belief in the very convention given by Peter Drucker that Marketing is a process to make selling superfluous and Marketing is a process of developing a customer who is ready to buy.

Being an expert lexicon on marketing related issues he emphasized that if you are not a brand then you are commodity.Price in most of the cases is everything and low cost producer is the only winner provided he brands it well. He also warned people to not to brand a high cost or poor quality product The best example for branding was given for general motors Nummi plant which manufactures two identical models as Toyota corolla and Chevrolet Prizm Ironically Toyota sold 230000 cars as against 52000 of prizm And that too at a price USD 650 higher ! Over and above the importance of the name in a brand enough of Attention is required to be given on promise of values, culture, Relationship, personality and above all the capability of your team To live up to the brand meaning.Volvo was the last one to develop a car with GPS or a convertible .Because Volvo as a brand connotes safety and while gps leads to Distraction, converti averse the chances of survival in case the car Topples down. Finally Volvo created the safest converti and GPSEnabled cars.

He Empirically coined a relationship between Strong Brands and Product benefits, distinct identity and Emotional values. Referring to Peter Doyle book on Marketing Management & Strategy He mentioned that Strong Brand is a product of the latter three.He also considered the brands with high vitality but low stature to Have excellent potential.On the contrary he highlighted the downfall trajectory for a brand also By saying that “when a brand’s differentiation and relevance start slipping, esteem will slip next and then familiarity will decline.�Strong Brand not only supply use value but purchase also ( Nestle, Volvo) . Good brands depicts a process and raises the emotions.

Any opportunity for Brand stretching should not be missed.Double underline the words that best describes your competitor’s brand. Over and above the brand equity..customer equity is also an equally Important exercise. It has to be done by measuring the customer Centered ness of your organization and how can you improve it.

How much use of technology and training is carried out by you andWhat does the cost benefit analysis for the same tell you. ROI is the key parameter in assigning any resource to any functional area of the organization.No one in the organization could make it to the top without being zestful to numbers. It is because of these reasons only that Japanese Maintain a sequence of sending the marketing aspirants in their organization to go through the rigorous trainings at Production, Purchase, service, Finance, sales and then marketing in the same order.

Customer Equity is driven by Value , Brand and Relationship equity CRM thus becomes an important activity in formulating Customer Equity.However Kotler had his own point of view.. He advocated CMR ( Customer Managed Relationship) over CRM ( Customer Relationship Management) and thus UMP ( Unique Marketing Proposition)over USP ( Unique Selling Proposition).

He did not say anything against Customer Retrenchment but he suggested to give the low value provider customer a chance to continue the relationship by increasing the price of your offering or decreasing The services offered.

This make the transactional marketing obsolete in long run in certain cases.

Right from the beginning Kotler was not too positive on DatabaseMarketing or the marketing with 1 % response rate. He rather pressedHard on the needs of Data mining and then to proceed to the targetHaving willingness to go for the purchase.This led to the third key issue of the convention I.e Need for Technology – Enabled Marketing which combines information technology, analytical capacities, marketing data and marketing knowledge.

It is required to differentiate amongst most profitable v/s unprofitable and most growable v/s most vulnerable customers.So the key question is does everyone requires CRM .The answer is Yes But for all the business except where Customer Lifetime value is low,High churn in the customers, non existent buyer seller interface.

The right use of high tech marketing may lead to knowing your customer more precisely and thus Precision marketing becomes the order of the day.Precision marketing is also useful in shifting from mass marketing to One to one marketing. It also supports the consumer concept of marketing.Internet is adjudged to be the best forum for testing the product or idea and even in developing all kinds of

customer support systems For your products. One can also test out the non existent segments Also in chatting room where the target lives with their virtual self .But a word of caution for old organization for high tech marketing Says that New Technology in old organization makes it an Expensive Old Organization.

A lot of discussion was being done on Buzz marketing wherein theImportance of opinion leader or word of mouth marketing could not be discounted.A buzz is what all required to convert a new idea the talk of the town. It could be done by using mobile modes of communications also likeIBM used German Shepherds to roam around with their owners in the Business streets in morning hours wearing jackets with IBM ThinkPad Written on that. The mobile phone with Camera also got launchedBy creating a lot of buzz in the marketplace amongst the potential Prospects.

While being asked on the questions related to his marketing mantra for poor consumers belonging to India having low purchasing power :He answered very aptly that 85 % of the people in world have low purchasing power so the issue is not with their paying capacities,The problem is with your costs.

He also mentioned that even 100 % market share is not to be preferred As the cost of acquiring new customer increases very sharply. He also said that the quality of market share is much more important than the market share itself.On this When Mr Kuldeep Sharma , Marketing Faculty from Amity Business School asked his comment on The empirical statement that the Optimum market share is the one where the marginal cost of acquiring new customer is minimum‌Kotler appreciated and said that yes but it may require some further research.

The ten Commandments for the new paradigm as given by the Guru As conclusion are 1.Recognize Growing customer R Empowerment 2.Develop a focused offering to the target market.

3. Design the marketing from Customer Back.

4. Focus on delivering outcomes,not products.

5.Draw in the customer to Co-Create value.

6. Use newer ways to reach the customer with a message.

7.Develop metrics and ROI measurements.

8.Develop High-tech marketing.

9.Focus on building long term assets.

10.View marketing holistically to regain influence in the company.

Great people never forget to follow the footsteps of other great people And Kotler finished his full day deliberation with the following lines of Emerson This time like all times is a good one , if we but know what to do with it .�

Beyond market segmentation Norman L. Barnett “New technology shifts focus from consumer himself to his perceptions of products” Foreword This article reviews the various segmentation techniques used by consumer marketing companies for new product development. In noting that each approach offers advantages for some problems but fails with regard to others, the author discusses a promising new concept product segmentation—which appears to offer significant advantages over the traditional market segmentation techniques. Mr. Barnett is President of Market Structure Studies Incorporated, an independent new product research and development organization in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

A widely circulated statistic in the consumer marketing world is that approximately 2 in 10 new packaged goods succeed. Put another way, 8 out of 10 entries fail to achieve the goals their manufacturers set for them. Even if the success rate for new consumer package goods were twice what the marketing facts of life indicate, the failure rate would still be quite grim.

Many of the research tools used by sophisticated consumer marketing companies for new product development fall into the broad category referred to as "market segmentation."

Recently some of these segmentation techniques have come under considerable fire. In this article I shall review and evaluate some of the more popular of these techniques. In addition, I shall discuss "product segmentation,” a new approach with which I have been working. As will become apparent, most segmentation techniques have applicability for some uses, but not for others. We shall be primarily concerned with the use of segmentation for new product development.

Marketing Segmentation ……..

Ever since Wendell Smith introduced the concept of market segmentation1 as a possible means of solving marketing problems, it has received much analytical attention. Segmentation refers to the notion at the consumer group comprising a market for a product is composed of subgroups, each of which has specific and different needs or wants Typically, members of such subgroups are identified by one or more "people" characteristics- e.g., demographic, sociographic, or personality variables. Once subgroups have been identified, marketers supposedly can improve their marketing efforts by more closely approximating the needs of each subgroup. The basic requirement of an operational market segment is that it exhibit homogeneous characteristics which permit identification, and eventually fulfillment, of a specific consumer want or need, thus resulting in greater profit for the marketer than would otherwise be possible.

1

Reproduced with permission from Harvard Business Review, Vol.47, January-February 1969, pp.152-166.

1.

“Product Differentiation and Market Segmentation as Alternative Marketing Strategies,” Journal of Marketing, July 1916, p.1.

Operational obstacle: This apparently reasonable approach has run into one major operational obstacle: the fact that consumers do not cooperate. Efforts to use people characteristics to identify groups of consumers with homogeneous purchase behavior have been notably unsuccessful.

For example, in a survey of data on market segmentation of this sort, 2 Ronald E. Frank reported that the average co-relation between people characteristics and purchase behavior is lower than 0.2. Using 17 demographic, sociographic, and personality variables, Frank was able to account for only approximately 4% of the variance in purchase behavior.

Clearly, in some cases objective factors—such as income, religious affiliation, and so on—are of primary importance in explaining purchase behavior. (Consider for a moment the market for rosary beads.) But other markets, including most probably the majority of consumer goods markets, are composed of products which have appeal to many demographic "groups." …….. Vs. product segmentation A recently developed concept — that of product segmentation — promises to have greater operational value to marketing managers than does traditional market segmentation.

According to it, people differentiate among the various brands in a market according to their perception of the brands' real or imagined characteristics; they choose brands whose characteristics they prefer. Brands tend to vary widely in their perceived characteristics but tend to be relatively stable (unlike an individual consumer's preference. Consequently, each brand occupies a unique "niche" in the market, and together the brands present a usable "market structure."

Marketing managers have two important uses for segmentation analysis: (a) to improve the marketing program for an existing product; and (b) to develop a new product. In the former the implications of the product segmentation philosophy are interesting, in the latter they are perhaps revolutionary. If the product segmentation concept has merit, marketers need to shift their measurement focus from consumer characteristics to consumers' perceptions of products; to concentrate not on consumers as statistics, but on consumers' perceptions of unique characteristics that differentiate one brand from another. And new product introduction becomes the search for a position in the market structure for a product which is preferred over the products currently on the market by a significant minority of consumers.

2

Current techniques Let us examine briefly some of the more popular methods and theories in the area of market segmentation. This overview will then be followed by a more detailed account of product segmentation.

Demographic method: Today, the most popular market approach is demographic segmentation. Unfortunately, it appears to be a relatively poor predictor of purchase behavior.

2.

“Market Segmentation Research: Findings and Implications,� presented at the Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Purdue University marketing symposium on Application of the Sciences in Marketing Management, July 12-15, 1966.

In a 1957 article based on an analysis of a large-scale survey of consumer expenditures, incomes, and savings, Irwin Friend and Irving R. Kravis concluded that many of the statistical tables they analyzed were "more remarkable for the similarity of consumption patterns they reveal than for the differences." 3 The authors also showed some interesting patterns of consumption among people in different demographic categories and geographic locations.

It is important to note, however, that they used general and independent purchase categories such as food and housing. Because these categories are fundamental to the sustenance of life, data based on them are far too general to show any of the personal whims and preferences consumers exercise among the items within them. In other words, the authors' findings clearly indicate that patterns do occur as a result of resource constraints. However, Friend and Kravis fail to provide us with information on the utility of demographic analysis when choice among alternatives is present, as in the typical purchase situation where equal resources are needed but several brands are available.

Demography can play an important analytical role, both when brand preference apparently is not important or is absent (as in commodity markets), and when the demographic characteristic itself is directly related to — and perhaps causes -consumption.

Take, for example, geriatric products. Simply by knowing the age distribution of the population, marketing managers should be able to predict quite accurately whether the overall consumption of geriatric products is going to increase or decline in the near future. What they probably will not be able to predict solely from this information is the proportion of older people who will prefer one particular brand of geriatric product over another brand of the same product type.

Jack Z. Sissors highlighted a problem facing marketers who might use demographic or quasidemographic analysis when he listed more than 40 variables which, he stated, must be considered in order for such an analysis to be thorough.4 Of course, anyone familiar with the day-today marketing management of a product will have some data and a good intuitive feeling about 3

the particular demographic characteristics of its market, if any. As with any intuitive, nonsystematic process, however, important areas may be overlooked. While computers can help to reduce this problem, they too rely ultimately on the intuition of the marketer in specifying the input for computer analysis.

In summary, demographic analysis, as a market segmentation tool, may be helpful for identifying market potential, but it appears too insensitive for predicting specific brand choice. It will therefore be of little help in aiding marketers to understand what action they must take to realize untapped potential within a market.

Social structure: Observations of the effects of social class, group membership, and aspirations on purchase behavior have led to several hypotheses on the usefulness of sociological and sociopsychological segmentation in marketing.

Social class, reference group theory, and family life cycle are three widely used concepts. Socialclass structure is in essence a modification or adaptation of demographic data. Interest in the use of this concept was apparently spurred by evidence that income per se was becoming less effective as a differentiating variable.

3.

New Light on the Consumer Market,� Harvard Business Review, January-February 1957, p.

115.

4.

“What is a Market?� Journal of Marketing, July 1966, p.17.

For example, before blue-collar workers attained the high income standards they currently enjoy, marketers assumed (and probably rightly so) that income correlated fairly well with style of living. In recent years, however, truck drivers (who presumably are representative of the upper-lower or working class) and college professors (who presumably are representative of the upper-middle class) have come to earn about the same median income. Consequently, social class appeared to be a better indicator of purchase-related behavior than income.

The assumptions underlying class structure are that style of living, tastes, and therefore patterns of purchasing behavior depend on the "norms" of one's class. Using 3,880 households in the greater Chicago area, Pierre Martineau found that (a) there was, in fact, a social class structure, and (b) social-class membership affected shopping habits (as reflected in store patronage), communications abilities, spend/save philosophies, aspirations, and life styles (as reflected in the kinds of products and services purchased).''5 These relationships suggest that social class might be a strategic segmentation tool for certain kinds of operations. The most directly applicable results appear to be those that deal with store choice, life style, and communication skills. Mass marketers of consumer goods, however, will probably find social class of little value in identifying market segments for their individual brands. As in demographic analysis, social-class structure generally offers little insight into the 4

factors that are associated with preference among brands in a product category.

It could be argued that, provided other means of delineating a segment are available, findings such as those reported by Martineau might help in designing the advertising and promotional material for a brand. Thus, if the brand franchise is drawn primarily from a single social class, the mass marketer might use to advantage data on the relationship between life style and communications skills. Martineau's findings indicate that even if the market is heterogeneous, information on its social-class composition might facilitate the marketer's message segmentation, thereby improving communication effectiveness.

For example, by matching the copy illustrations and layout of advertisements with the consumer profile of the media in which they are to be run, one might communicate more efficiently with the' various elements of the consumer group. Whether this is worthwhile, of course, is another matter. Preparing multiple versions of an advertising campaign is essentially like running several campaigns. There appears to be a feeling among consumer goods marketers that running and evaluating one major product with one campaign is pretty much a full-time job; running and evaluating several campaigns at once may at best be unrealistic. The costs of using social-class data may, for the most part, be prohibitive.

Another underlying assumption is that purchase behavior is related predictably to certain personality characteristics. This hypothesis is derived from several findings that relate personality characteristics to media exposure.

In one study Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld found that highest exposure to popular fiction—e.g., soap operas, "true romance" magazines, and so forth—occurs among women who tend to be less gregarious and higher in anxiety than "average" women.6 Information of this type may be helpful in message segmentation, but it has limited value for the marketer.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5.

6.

“Social Classes and Spending Behavior,” Journal of Marketing, October 1958, p. 121 See Personal Influence (Glencoe, Illinois, Free Press, 1955.)

In another study, conducted by the Advertising Research Foundation, almost no relationship was found between personality and preference for various types of toilet paper. 7 Thus, on the basis of the empirical evidence, one would have to conclude that personality has not been shown to be an effective basis for market segmentation.

Still another interesting sociopsychological concept, which interacts with social class, is reference group. Initially articulated by Herbert Hyman, this idea suggests that, for some people, behavior is influenced by their perception of appropriate behavior for members of groups to which they belong or aspire to belong.8 The reference group notion suggests, then, that one's current social class is an index of purchasing behavior only insofar as one identifies himself with it, rather then with another social class. From a marketing point of view, a

5

consumer's reference group may be even more difficult to identify than his social class.

The reference group concept suggests strongly that, for specific markets, the analysis of socialclass structure may be misleading. If a product such as a color television set is seen by the bulk of its consumer group (working-class families} as a symbol of upward mobility, portraying it in working-class surroundings might prove disastrous. According to the reference group hypothesis, it would probably be more effective to display the product in an obviously middleclass setting.

Family life cycle, another sociographic classification scheme, relates purchasing behavior to the family's stage in the normal life cycle. The major stages of the life cycle are hypothesized to be: (a) single; (b) married — no children; (c) married — children in the home; (d) married - no children in the home; (e) single — widow(er). Obviously, consumption of some products and services, such as diapers and baby food, is going to be directly related to life cycle. Knowledge of the proportion of families in the various cycle groups can therefore aid in estimating sales potential. However, life cycle is too insensitive a measure for establishing preference patterns' within product categories.

Usage Patterns: Another method of segmentation is based on patterns of product usage — i.e., an analysis of the various uses to which a particular product or brand is currently put. Usage can, of course, vary for several reasons. On the one hand, a product such as all-purpose flour may be used by most consumers for several different applications. On the other hand, it may be used for a single but different application by several groups of consumers. In the latter case, profitable "people" segmentation might be possible, and thus it merits investigation.

Segmentation by use is described in an article by Daniel Yankelovich, who recommends analysis of various product markets on the basis of several modes: patterns of usage, values derived from usage, aesthetic preferences, and buying attitudes and motivations.9 Unfortunately, the article includes no information on how one would perform these analyses or on how one would decide on the appropriate method of segmentation. Yankelovich's version of segmentation analysis appears to he largely intuitive.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7.

8.

9.

Are there consumer types? An attempt to Predict Buying Behavior from Demographic and Personality Traits (New York, Advertising Research Foundation, 1954).

“The Psychology of Status,” Archives of Psychology, No. 269, 1942, p.94.

“New Criteria for Market Segmentation,” Harvard Business Review, March - April 1964, p. 83.

William H. Reynolds' argues that variety is a basic consumer want.10 Accordingly, he says, it makes more sense for a company to develop several products in each of its product lines than to apply Yankelovich's "segmentation analysis." People who want variety would then be encouraged to switch within a company's product line, and not to seek other companies'

6

products. Reynolds terms ludicrous the belief that there are large, finite, demographically identifiable groups of people who always prefer white bread, for instance, to the bread. Rather, people who like broad may use both kinds at different times or for different purposes.

Yankelovich argues that there are different satisfactions derived from various types of products, while Reynolds argues that within one product line there may be different satisfactions derived from several products that vary but slightly (he cites an example of Campbell’s Soup offering four different kinds of baked beans).

Though Yankelovich and Reynolds are both discussing preference, they clearly have different basic assumptions concerning the correlates of preference. Yankelovich assumes that the preference for a product depends on the characteristics of the person involved, and/or on the use to which the product will be put. He thereby implies that there are two elements which determine product choice — (a) people characteristics and (b) product characteristics.

Reynolds relies less heavily on people characteristics, assuming that the product's characteristics account primarily for differences in preference/ purchase behavior. A possible restatement of his argument might be put in the form of the question, "Why assume that any single individual always buys beans in tomato sauce and never buys beans in molasses? Is it not more reasonable to assume that a person or family will buy one type of product for some purposes but a different version of the same product for other purposes? This is a compelling argument, but, unfortunately, Reynolds does not offer a systematic way of looking at products in a market that will enable marketers to use product characteristics in developing new products. Reynolds' approach is basically similar to that underlying product segmentation. As we shall see next, other writers have gone further in this direction.

In Summary: Thus far, I have discussed several methods commonly used for segmenting people into consumer groups. These techniques have two factors in common: 1.

They appear to be primarily affective for estimating gross sales potential.

2.

They appear to he relatively ineffective for illuminating in some systematic and reliable way the phenomenon of brand preference.

As markets have become larger and more competitive, the market planner's primary function has shifted from forecasting the gross size of a market to estimating the probable performance of his current or projected brand in the market. As we have seen, traditional methods of segmenting markets tend to break down when it comes to making these fine distinctions, Recently, a new approach—product segmentation —has been reported in the literature. This method, which segments by perceived product or brand characteristics, shows promise for marketers in predicting brand share.

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7

10.

“More sense about Market Segmentation,” Harvard Business Review, September – October 1965, p. 107.

Brand Preference The major difference between the traditional techniques and the new approach is suggested by their titles: market segmentation, concentrates on differences among people who comprise markets; product segmentation concentrates on differences among products which comprise markets — i.e., compete with each other, For the marketer, however, the important difference is that product segmentation promises to be effective in explaining differences in preference for one brand versus another. In its early applications, it has shown unusual promise for predicting behavior toward new produces. At present, product segmentation appears to require three steps: 1.

Learning how consumers differentiate among brands and products they see as constituting a market-that is discovering the product characteristics, real or imagined, which make each brand different from others in the category.

2.

Building descriptions of possible new products from new combinations of product characteristics, or from combinations of old characteristics plus feasible new characteristics, and then evaluating consumers' preferences for these descriptions over the current brands in a large-scale national survey.

3.

Selecting the new product description that attains the desired preference level and building the new product so that consumers see it as matching the chosen description.

Although the use of this approach for new product development has been too limited to draw firm conclusions about its validity, the mere possibility that new product performance is predictable warrants further consideration. I shall briefly discuss two points of view on product segmentation, Homogeneous Products: In one of the first articles on segmentation by product characteristics Alfred A. Kuchn and Ralph Day suggested that marketers view consumers' preferences for a product, such as chocolate cake mix, as being normally distributed along some key dimension (e.g., "chocolatyness") 11. If consumer preferences are in fact heterogeneous, then some consumers will prefer more of the key ingredient — i.e., a more "chocolaty" cake mix — than will others.

The authors demonstrated that two of the most popular new-product evaluation research practices — preference among variants and the paired comparison test —tend to lead re-

8

searchers to create products which are more or less homogeneous. When the first test is used, the most popular variant is generally chosen for production. Competitors' subsequent paired comparison tests wilt result in later entrants being similar. It is important, Kuehn and Day asserted, that key product qualities be distributed among brands in a manner parallel to consumers' preferences for the qualities.

11. See “Strategy of Product Quality,� Harvard Business Review, November – December 1962, p. 100.

For example, if "chocolaty-ness" is the key ingredient in chocolate cake mix, consumers may prefer different levels of "chocolaty-ness" (e.g., light, medium, dark). The authors Stress the importance of measuring preference for various levels of "chocolaty-ness" for while most consumers might prefer average "chocolaty-ness," a large minority might prefer light or dark. If all manufacturers produced only the most preferred level, the large minority would be ignored.

The market share that each of several competitive manufacturers with similar products would enjoy might be significantly less than the share one of them would hold by producing either a light or a dark chocolate cake mix, or both.

This approach offers a significant advance in that it draws attention to the ways in which preferences for product characteristics may differ among consumers. It should be noted, however, that Kuehn and Day left it up to the marketers to decide which product characteristics are most important to consumers.

Market structure analysis A second approach to segmentation by product characteristics is market structure analysis, which is a research and development technology originally evolved by Professor Volney J. Stefflr of the University of California at Irvine, from work in psycholinguistics and anthropology.

It rests on two specific hypotheses: 1.

Consumers agree as to what characteristics any one of a group of competitive brands has, but they differ as to which brand they most prefer. By asking consumers about the bases of similarity between brands they see as similar, the market planner can elicit the shared perceptions of a brand's characteristics. Positioning of brands is possible by using consumers' judgments of similarity to calculate how "close" each brand is to every other brand.

Thus brand positions constitute a framework or market structure. And since the market structure is shared broadly within a culture, the structure for any given market may be discovered by simply collecting a small, heterogeneous sample of consumer judgments about similarity among products, and tile characteristics which lead to the judgment that

9

some products are similar.

2.

When a description of a proposed new product indicates definite consumer preference for the new product over current brands, it is possible to capitalize on that market potential by developing the product so that it is perceived by consumers as matching its description.

The contrast between this approach and market segmentation should become obvious on reflection. Consumers' preference is measured in terms of product characteristics rather than the characteristics of a hypothetical consumer population. (The term "product characteristics" is used here in the broad sense and includes "perceived" as well as "real" properties.)

Thus the process of segmentation becomes a search for new, and as yet nonexistent, combinations of product characteristics for which there is significant unmet consumer demand; who prefers the new brand or product is relatively less important. When viewed in this manner, product segmentation is a systematic and superior way of searching for new products.

Research techniques Volney J. Stefflre and I have argued that there are four distinct research steps involved in discovering and evaluating product segments in the typical consumer packaged goods market.12 Further thought, however, has made it clear to me that the philosophy of product segmentation is more important than any specific set of techniques. While the techniques I shall discuss in this section have been successful in predicting new product performance, it is certainly possible that alternative techniques could lead to equal accomplishments. Our four research steps include: 1.

2.

3.

4.

A "brands and usage" or "item-by-use" study to determine which brands are seen as competing for the same uses, A judged-similarity study to determine which brands arc seen as similar, and what characteristics of brands consumers use in deciding whether brands arc similar.

A small-scale preference study to discover the proportion of consumers who like particular current brands, and who also prefer the proposed new products described.

A large-scale national probability preference study ID discover, in the case of each of several new product descriptions, the proportion of consumers who prefer it to their current brands.

Specific steps Here is how each of the four research objectives just outlined is accomplished.

10

First, determine what brands and products consumers see as competitive with one another.

Consumers may or may not agree with the manufacturer's view of the market, or with the brands and products assumed by professional service organizations to constitute the market.

Researching the interaction between brands in a market and the uses to which such products are put allows one to arrive quickly at a list of the items consumers see as comprising the market.

Second, collect consumer judgments of similarity among the products comprising the market and their reasons for making such Judgments.

The similarity data are used as input for statistical computer programs, such as factor analysis or multidimensional scaling. When analyzed, these data can show, by means of physical models, how the many brands and products in the market are perceived in relation to each other. Generally three-dimensional configurations, these models are physical representations of what I have earlier called the market structure.

Since the reasons consumers give for perceiving competitive brands as similar are recorded during the judged similarity interview, it is possible to apply these criteria to the model of the market structure. In so doing, the marketer can begin to understand what perceived characteristics determine the positioning of each brand.

12. “An empirical Approach to the Development of New Products� (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Market Structure Studies Incorporated, 1968).

For example, if Brand A is seen as most similar to Brands D, F, H, and P, one can analyze the reasons consumers give for the A-D, A-F, A-H, and A-P similarity judgments. By considering together the various characteristics they list, one gains insight into the conglomerate characteristics Brand A is seen as having and begins to gain an understanding of the way in which consumers segment competitive products.

With this accomplished, it is then possible to hypothesize new combinations of current characteristics, and/or combinations of current characteristics and other feasible characteristics not currently found in the product category, thereby identifying possible new product opportunities.

Third, determine where these new product segments or descriptions, "fit" in the current market structure by doing small-scale preference research.

For example, consumers are asked to rank current brands in the order of their preference for

11

them, and then to rank the descriptions of the proposed new products in the same manner.

Subsequent comparison of these rankings provides a rough indication as to the brands with which each product description is competitive. Once all the descriptions are ranked in the current market structure, the marketer can choose for further evaluation those descriptions which appear to fit in areas of high potential.

Fourth, conduct a probability preference study among a projectable national sample of consumers in order to make a final evaluation of the new product descriptions.

In such a study, the end result is a representative measure of the proportion of consumers who prefer each new description to their current brand. Thus the profit-oriented manager can determine two important things about each new product description tested: 1.

2.

What total preference exists for each possible new brand.

What incremental preference his company would enjoy with each new product description. (He can anticipate the favorable shifts that would likely occur from both competitive brands and his company's own current brands, if any, to his proposed new products.)

Product bundle Once a new product description that promises to meet the desired marketing objectives is identified, the company has to develop the actual new product so that consumers will see it as the best existing example of the successful description. Briefly, this process includes discovering what psychological stimuli (colors, smells, shapes, textures, scenes, and so on) are associated with the descriptive words, and developing, through an evolution of consumer-perception testing, each of the integral components (i.e., package, product, name, and advertising). The resultant "product bundle" is then tested to determine whether consumers see it as the best currently available example of the target description, and if they behave toward it as they did toward its description.

If, for example, a consumer package goods company determined that it should develop a "country coffee with hickory flavor," it would first use a range of colors, smells, shapes, scenes, and so on to discover which are seen as "country," which are seen as "hickory flavor," and which are seen as '''country coffee." These basic stimuli would provide direction for developing prototypes that would be tested to determine what characteristics they convey. Ultimate marketing success would require that consumers perceive each aspect of the finished product:, and the product as a whole, as being a better instance of a "country coffee with hickory flavor" than any other competitive brand on the market.

When a new product that matches the description is placed on the market, the assumption is that the proportion of people who ranked the description first (above the current brands or produces they use) will equal the proportion of those who actually prefer the new product. Be-

12

cause the focus is on the characteristics consumers perceive within the various products (or brands) on the market, successful marketing requires that ail advertising and promotion be accurate in its description of the new product, rather than merely persistent or loud.

Consequently, advertising and promotion assume critical importance, in their role of informing consumers of the existence of the new brand and its significant characteristics.

To test the practicability of these assumptions, SteffIre studied the market for one consumer package brand in order to predict how a product seen as matching a specific description would be received. Using its verbal description, he first evaluated the consumer preference for the new brand in a small geographic area. Then he observed the market testing of the new brand and its performance relative to his predictions. The results are shown in Exhibit I. As this exhibit reveals, both the prediction of preference and the prediction of draw from competitive brands were generally quite close to the obtained figures.

Although we cannot draw any firm conclusions on the basis of only one test, it does seem that the product segmentation approach has two important advantages that other segmentation techniques lack — namely, the ability to predict with reasonable accuracy from research data (a) the approximate aggregate preference for a new brand (or a new product segment), and (b) the effect a new brand will have on current brands and all this is done before the new product itself is built.

Concluding Note A review of major segmentation techniques reveals an interesting pattern; each of the traditional market segmentation approaches appears to offer significant advantages for some problems but fails with regard to other problems. Now a newly developed concept — that of product segmentation—shows promise of having greater operational value to marketing managers than the traditional techniques. Of major significance is the fact that the product segmentation approach shifts the primary marketing emphasis from "whom you reach" to "what characteristics you build into the product."

If there is an overall conclusion to be drawn from this review, it is that marketing managers and researchers may very well have therefore been concentrating too literally on the consumer himself. The promising beginning of product segmentation appears to indicate not only that an understanding of the consumers' perception of his environment may be more helpful in predicting his behavior than is any measure of the consumer himself, but also that efforts in this area may mark a revolution in new product development.

13

Exhibit 1:

Actual market performance of New Consumer Brand compared with Pretest Forecast

Share of total market Share from competitive products Brand A Brand B Brand C Brand D Brand E Brand F Brand G

14

Predicted 4.0%

Obtained 5.1%

38.0% 11.0 8.0 5.5 5.5 4.0 4.0

36.4% 2.3 10.5 5.0 9.6 4.1 3.0

Mad about Vodafone’s latest creation the Zoozoo’s? MyBangalore met up with their creators from Nirvana Productions to find out what makes these characters with four fingers such a rage?

“You either love them or hate them, there is no in between. It’s not emotional and snappy, it has a quirky sense of humour and its young but this kind of reaction let me tell you no one expected to receive from the campaign.” says producer Sneha Iype of Nirvana Productions speaking about their hit ad campaign for client Vodafone – The Zoozoo’s.

On air extensively during the recent IPL season, these strange yet loveable creatures struck a chord with young and old. Testimonial to this is the 300 odd Zoozoo communities on social networks like Faceboook and Orkut and the 3 lakh odd members who are actively a part of this community. One Zoozoo fan, Kaushik C a journalist believes the ‘cute quotient’ of the characters made them an instant hit. ‘They are sweet, though a few of the advertisements are a bit obscure he adds.’

Husband wife duo Prakash Varma and Sneha Iype are a household name in the Indian advertising industry with many notable ad’s under their belt -the Vodafone pug ad and the Happydent commercial to name a few. The film maker and producer duo attribute their current success of the Zoozoo ad to the collective team work put together by – their client (Vodafone), the agency (Ogilvy) and also the Nirvana team. ‘The beginning brief was fantastic from the client which we don’t normally get. It was going to feature in IPL and hence ‘many films’ was the brief given to us. They wanted 30 films so that it can be aired everyday and as it’s a telecom brand, there were so many products connected to it. They wanted to feature all the features of the brand in an interesting way.’ says Varma, talking about how it all began.

Creative director of Ogilvy Rajiv Rao, with whom Varma had worked with earlier decided to ditch the regular ad objectives like using people and emotions and decided to make something out of the box. ‘That’s when we decided to come up with something that was never seen before and we thought we could make characters not seen before and create a world around them, that’s when Rajiv came up with the idea of ‘egg characters’ and we built it from there layer by layer’ With an idea that was slowly taking shape the team had one more daunting task less time and a total of 30 ad’s to complete.

With 10 days and 30 ad’s to shoot the team headed off to Cape Town, South Africa to film with the help of local production house ‘Plapytus’. “I would have shot in India, but I knew somewhere down the line, this would be different and I didn’t want people to talk about the entire campaign while it’s being shot. I might not be able to control what gets leaked etc. I wanted to finish it faster and mostly I wanted to keep it quiet.” The biggest challenge Varma says was to trick the viewers to believe the characters are animated and he feels it’s noteworthy that non film people are using ‘frames per second’ while discussing the making of the Zoozoo’s on social networks.

Speaking to MyBangalore Varma stressed that there are layers to the entire concept of the Zoozoo’s. The sets were designed to make sure the characters looked like midgets. Initially the team decided to take kids on board to wear the Zoozoo costume, but with limited time and the patience required to direct kids, Varma instead chose women. “You need patience and with a project like this. In a costume, with big heads and props, one will not be able to move in one direction, so we got on board women characters, who were thin so that their

arms and legs look thin and smaller.” Three films were filmed everyday and Varma edited and worked on the audio at night. This was a stressful ten day schedule for the Nirvana team.

The hectic schedule paid off and the husband wife duo believes that the campaign was like having a baby where you don’t realise the nine months of stress. Mostly they are grateful that with the presence of social networks etc, people are able to communicate with the makers and tell them what they think about the campaign and ask questions as well. “In advertising you have no credits. We have been in Bangalore and have done Hutch 5 years ago and no one knew us. It’s not feature film where we get credits. People in the industry know who we are, but outside no one knew who we are. But with this ad, people are talking about the making of the film and that’s a first” says Sneha Iype talking about the hype.

But with a successful ad campaign such as this, what is the most common reaction they received? “It would be how people miss the pug and how some people want them back and some don’t. So our blog clearly says that there is room for the both to live together.” says Sneha. Love or hate these four fingered characters that speak a strange language and live in a grey and white world, you cannot miss the hype they have created in such short a time.

HUL's advertising on 'rotis' at the Kumbh Mela - ' Lifebuoy se haath dhoye kya?'

Read more on ÂťOgilvy|Maha Kumbh|Lifebuoy|Kumbh Mela|HUL

Read Your Roti Before Eating it: An Idea whose time has come at the Kumbh Mela At Kumbh Mela, the largest congregation on earth where all big marketers are vying to sell their wares and boost their brands, one promotion that stands out is Hindustan Unilever's 'Roti Reminder' for its Lifebuoy soap brand, ET reports.

The country's largest consumer products firm, along with creative agency Ogilvy, has partnered more than 100 dhabas and hotels at the mela site to serve rotis that are stamped with "Lifebuoy se haath dhoye kya?" (Have you washed your hand with Lifebuoy?) "The 'Roti Reminder' gets a consumer's attention at the exact time when hand washing is critical," Sudhir Sitapati, general manager, skin cleansing, at says. That is, right when she sits down to eat roti with her hand.

The company has made special heat stamps to make an impression of its message on rotis and hired 100 promoters to stand in 100 kitchens across the mela. The campaign started on February 1 and will run for 30 days. The company hopes to put the hand wash reminder on 2.5 million rotis.

"The Maha Kumbh provides a unique opportunity to communicate this message to a large, predominantly small-town and rural population," Sitapati says. "In effect, this simple, clutter-breaking idea will help us reach out to a massive audience, at a fraction of the cost."

gham, UK, August 14, 2013 Gartner Says Smartphone Sales Grew 46.5 Percent in Second Quarter of 2013 and Exceeded Feature Phone Sales for First Time Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Grew 3.6 Percent in Second Quarter of 2013 Microsoft Has Become the No. 3 Smartphone OS Overtaking BlackBerry Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 435 million units in the second quarter of 2013, an increase of 3.6 percent from the same period last year, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide smartphone sales to end users reached 225 million units, up 46.5 percent from the second quarter of 2012. Sales of feature phones to end users totaled 210 million units and declined 21 percent year-over-year.

“Smartphones accounted for 51.8 percent of mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013, resulting in smartphone sales surpassing feature phone sales for the first time,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. Asia/Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe exhibited the highest smartphone growth rates of 74.1 percent, 55.7 percent and 31.6 percent respectively, as smartphone sales grew in all regions.

Samsung maintained the No. 1 position in the global smartphone market, as its share of smartphone sales reached 31.7 percent, up from 29.7 percent in the second quarter of 2012 (see Table 1). Apple’s smartphone sales reached 32 million units in the second quarter of 2013, up 10.2 percent from a year ago.

Table 1 Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q13 (Thousands of Units) Company

Samsung Apple LG Electronics Lenovo ZTE Others Total

2Q13 Units 71,380.9 31,899.7 11,473.0 10,671.4 9,687.6 90,213.6 225,326.2

2Q13 Market Share (%) 31.7 14.2 5.1 4.7 4.3 40.0 100.0

2Q12 Units 45,603.8 28,935.0 5,827.8 4,370.9 6,331.4 62,704.0 153,772.9

2Q12 Market Share (%) 29.7 18.8 3.8 2.8 4.1 40.8 100.0

Source: Gartner (August 2013) In the smartphone operating system (OS) market (see Table 2), Microsoft took over BlackBerry for the first time, taking the No. 3 spot with 3.3 percent market share in the second quarter of 2013. “While Microsoft has managed to increase share and volume in the quarter, Microsoft should continue to focus on growing interest from app developers to

help grow its appeal among users,” said Mr. Gupta. Android continued to increase its lead, garnering 79 percent of the market in the second quarter.

Table 2 Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q13 (Thousands of Units) 2Q13

Operating System

Android iOS Microsoft BlackBerry Bada Symbian Others Total

Units 177,898.2 31,899.7 7,407.6 6,180.0 838.2 630.8 471.7 225,326.2

2Q13 Market Share (%) 79.0 14.2 3.3 2.7 0.4 0.3 0.2 100.0

2Q12 Units 98,664.0 28,935.0 4,039.1 7,991.2 4,208.8 9,071.5 863.3 153,772.9

2Q12 Market Share (%) 64.2 18.8 2.6 5.2 2.7 5.9 0.6 100.0

Source: Gartner (August 2013) Mobile Phone Vendor Perspective Samsung: Samsung remained in the No. 1 position in the overall mobile phone market, with sales to end users growing 19 percent in the second quarter of 2013 (see Table 3). “We see demand in the premium smartphone market come mainly from the lower end of this segment in the $400-and-below ASP mark. It will be critical for Samsung to step up its game in the mid-tier and also be more aggressive in emerging markets. Innovation cannot be limited to the high end,” said Mr. Gupta.

Nokia: Slowing demand of feature phone sales across many markets worldwide, and fierce competition in the smartphone segment, affected Nokia’s mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013. Nokia’s mobile phone sales totaled 61 million units, down from 83 million units a year ago. Nokia’s Lumia sales grew 112.7 percent in the second quarter of 2013 thanks to its expanded Lumia portfolio, which now include Lumia 520 and Lumia 720. “With the recent announcement of the Lumia 1020, Nokia has built a wide portfolio of devices at multiple price points, which should boost Lumia sales in the second half of 2013,” said Mr. Gupta. “However, Nokia is facing tough competition from Android devices, especially from regional and Chinese manufacturers which are more aggressive in terms of price points.”

Apple: While sales continued to grow, the company faced a significant drop in the ASP of its smartphones. Despite the iPhone 5 being the most popular model, its ASP declined to the lowest figure registered by Apple since the iPhone's launch in 2007. The ASP reduction is due to strong sales of the iPhone 4, which is sold at a strongly discounted price. “While Apple’s ASP demonstrates the need for a new flagship model, it is risky for Apple to introduce a new lower-priced model too,” said Mr. Gupta. “Although the possible new lower-priced device may be priced similarly to the iPhone 4 at $300 to $400, the potential

for cannibalization will be much greater than what is seen today with the iPhone 4. Despite being seen as the less expensive sibling of the flagship product, it would represent a new device with the hype of the marketing associated with it.”

Lenovo: Lenovo’s mobile phone sales grew 60.6 percent to reach 11 million units in the second quarter of 2013. Lenovo’s quarter performance was bolstered by smartphone sales.

Its smartphone sales grew 144 percent year-over-year and helped it rise to the No. 4 spot in the worldwide smartphone market for the first time. Lenovo continues to rely heavily on its home market in China, which represents more than 95 percent of its sales. It remains challenging for Lenovo to expand outside China as it has to strengthen its direct channel as well as its relationships with communications service providers.

Table 3 Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q13 (Thousands of Units) Company

Samsung Nokia Apple LG Electronics ZTE Huawei Lenovo TCL Communication Sony Mobile Communications Yulong Others Total

2Q13 Units 107,526.0 60,953.7 31,899.7 17,016.4 15,280.7 11,275.1 10,954.8 10,134.3 9,504.7 7,911.5 152,701.5 435,158.4

2Q13 Market Share (%) 24.7 14.0 7.3 3.9 3.5 2.6 2.5 2.3 2.2 1.8 35.1 100.0

2Q12 Units 90,432.1 83,420.1 28,935.0 14,345.4 17,198.2 10,894.2 6,821.7 9,355.7 7,346.8 4,016.2 147,354.60 420,120.0

2Q12 Market Share (%) 21.5 19.9 6.9 3.4 4.1 2.6 1.6 2.2 1.7 1.0 35.1 100.0

Source: Gartner (August 2013) “With second quarter of 2013 sales broadly on track, we see little need to adjust our expectations for worldwide mobile phone sales forecast to total 1.82 billion units this year.

Flagship devices brought to market in time for the holidays, and the continued price reduction of smartphones will drive consumer adoption in the second half of the year,” said Mr. Gupta.

Additional information is in the Gartner report "Market Share Analysis: Mobile Phones, Worldwide, 2Q13." The report is available on Gartner's website at http://www.gartner.com/document/2573119.

GREAT COMMUNICATION – POOR EXECUTION The minute I saw the new Vodafone ads I knew that the pug represents the customer. The customer who haplessly and tirelessly runs around everyone at Vodafone's legendary call centres. I'm guessing the brilliant ad agency who made this will sweep all ad awards.

Any Vodafone customer knows that the transition from Hutch to Vodafone has moved an already abysmal customer service to a UN thought of new depth (been to their "customer service centre lately? What’s the longest you've been kept on hold? Try and beat my record of 38minutes).

And it is exactly this that is being advertised and celebrated by Vodafone, i.e. we're happy to provide you with "customer executives" that you can breathlessly chase after because ha, ha, ha we sure as hell isn’t goanna give you any service.

Your call dropped? You can't get reception in your house while other networks can? Oh, we overbilled you did we? Choose from hundreds of such options. Whatever the problem, we sure as hell aren't goanna solving it. But guess what, we're happy to help you with a chance to run around us, ha, ha, ha, geddit?

The day number portability is launched I will gladly pay to get rid of this execrable, abominable and truly pathetic mobile phone service that is one of the best illustrations of the term fubar.

The key to any business in execution…..passionate team…….make them believe that they own the business……..take issues head on

Managing Career & Expectations (Talk at one of the IIMs)

by Mr. R. Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director -Tata Sons

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There is a Thai saying that experience is a comb which Nature gives to man after he is bald.

As I grow bald, I would like to share my comb with you.

Seek out grassroots level experience

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I studied Physics and Engineering at University. A few months before graduation, I appeared for an HLL interview for Computer Traineeship.

When asked whether I would consider Marketing instead of Computers, I responded negatively : an engineer to visit grocery shops to sell Dalda or Lifebuoy?

Gosh, no way. After I joined the Company and a couple of comfortable weeks in the swanky Head Office, I was given a train ticket to go to Nasik.

Would I please meet Mr. Kelkar to whom I would be attached for the next two months? He would teach me to work as a salesman in his territory, which included staying in Kopargaon and Pimpalgaon among other small towns. I was most upset. In a town called Ozhar, I was moving around from shop to shop with a bullock cart full of products and a salesman's folder in my hand.

Imagine my embarrassment when an IIT friend appeared in front of me in Ozhar, believe it or not! And exclaimed, "Gopal, I thought you joined as a Management Trainee in Computers".

I could have died a thousand deaths..After this leveling experience, I was less embarrassed to work as a Dispatch Clerk in the Company Depot and an Invoice Clerk in the Accounts Department. Several years later, I realised the value of such grassroots level experience. It is fantastic. I would advise young people to seek out nail-dirtying, collar-soiling, shoe-wearing tasks.

That is how you learn about organizations, about the true nature of work, and the dignity of the many, many tasks that go into building great enterprises.

Deserve before you desire

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At one stage, I was appointed as the Brand Manager for Lifebuoy and Pears soap, the company's most popular-priced and most premium soaps. And what was a Brand Manager?

"A mini-businessman, responsible for the production, sales and profits of the brand, accountable for its long-term growth, etc., etc. I had read those statements, I believed them and here I was, at 27,"in charge of everything".

But very soon, I found I could not move a pin without checking with my seniors. One evening, after turning the Facit machine handle through various calculations, I sat in front of the Marketing Director.

I expressed my frustration and gently asked whether I could not be given total charge. He smiled benignly and said, "The perception and reality are both right.

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You will get total charge when you know more about the brand than anyone else in this company about its formulation, the raw materials, the production costs, the consumer's perception, the distribution and so on.

How long do you think that it will take?" "Maybe, ten years", I replied, "and I don't expect to be the Lifebuoy and Pears Brand Manager for so long"!

And then suddenly, the lesson was clear. I was desiring total control, long before I deserved it.

This happens to us all the time - in terms of responsibilities, in terms of postings and promotions, it happens all the time that there is a gap between our perception of what we deserve and the reality of what we get. It helps to deserve before we desire.

Play to win but win with fairness

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Life is competitive and of course, you play to win. But think about thebalance. Will you do anything, to win? Perhaps not.

Think deeply about how and where you draw the line. Each person draws it differently, and in doing so, it helps to think about values. Winning without values provides dubious fulfillment.

The leaders who have contributed the most are the ones with a set of universal values! V Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King for example.

Napoleon inspired a ragged, mutinous and half-starved army to fight and seize power. This brought him name and fame for twenty years. But all the while, he was driven forward by a selfish and evil ambition, and not in pursuit of a great ideal. He finally fell because of his selfish ambition.

I am fond of referring to the Pierre de Coubertin Fair Play Trophy. It was instituted in 1964 by the founder of the modern Olympic Games and here are two examples of winners.

A Hungarian tennis player who pleaded with the umpire to give his opponent some more time to recover from a cramp.

A British kayak team who were trailing the Danish kayak team. They then stopped to help the Danish team whose boat was stuck.

The Danes went on to beat the British by one second in a three hour event! What wonderful examples of sportsmanship! Play to Win, but with Fairness.

Enjoy whatever you do

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Sir Thomas Lipton is credited with the statement, "There is no greater fun than hard work".

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You usually excel in fields, which you truly enjoy. Ask any person what it is that interferes with his enjoyment of existence. He will say, "The struggle for life". What he probably means is the struggle for success.

Unless a person has learnt what to do with success after getting it, the very achievement of it must lead him to unhappiness. Aristotle wrote, "Humans seek happiness as an end in itself, not as a means to something else".

But if you think about it, we should not work for happiness. We should work as happy people. In organizational life, people get busy doing something to be happy.

The more you try to be happy, the more unhappy you can get.

Your work and career is all about you’re reaching your full potential. Working at one's full potential, whether it is the office boy or the Chairman, leads to enjoyment and fulfillment. A last point about enjoyment.

Keep a sense of humor about yourself. Too many people are in danger of taking themselves far too seriously.

As General Joe Stilwell is reported to have said, "Keep smiling. The higher the monkey climbs, the more you can see of his backside".

Be Passionate about your health

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Of course, as you get older, you would have a slight paunch, graying of hair or loss of it and so on.

But it is in the first 5 - 7 years after the working career begins that the greatest neglect of youthful health occurs.

Sportsmen stop playing sports, non drinkers drink alcohol, light smokers smoke more, active people sit on chairs, and starving inmates of hostels eat rich food in good hotels and so on.

These are the years to watch. Do not, I repeat do not, convince yourself that you are too busy, or that you do not have access to facilities, or worst of all, that you do this to relieve the stresses of a professional career.

A professional career is indeed very stressful.

There is only one person who can help you to cope with the tension, avoid the doctor's scalpel, and to feel good each morning - and that is yourself.

God has given us as good a health as He has, a bit like a credit balance in the bank.

Grow it, maintain it, but do not allow its value destruction. The penalty is very high in later years.

Direction is more important than distance

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Every golfer tries to drive the ball to a very long distance. In the process, all sorts of mistakes occur because the game involves the masterly co-ordination of several movements simultaneously.

The golf coach always advises that direction is more important than distance. So it is with life. Despite one's best attempts, there will be ups and downs.

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It is relationships and friendships that enable a person to navigate the choppy waters that the ship of life will encounter. When I was young, there was a memorable film

by Frank Capra, starring James Stewart and Dona Reed, and named IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. It is about a man who is about to commit suicide because he thinks he is a failure. An angel is sent to rescue him.

The bottom line of the film is that "No Man is a Failure Who Has Friends".

Conclusion: My generation will never be twenty again, but when you are older, you can and should be different from my generation.

Ours is a great and wonderful country, and realizing her true potential in the global arena depends ever so much on the quality and persistence of our young people.

Good luck in your journey, my young friends, and God be with you.

How to Market to Online Shoppers Based on Personality Types Eight Types of Shoppers and What They Want in an Online Store

By Doug Heise. Published on December 15, 2014.

Shoppers have always had different personalities. They are motivated to buy for all kinds of reasons, and their shopping strategies can be radically different.

In order to stay competitive in an increasingly challenging online ecosystem, marketers need to understand exactly what drives the behavior of the shoppers who frequent their online stores. Here are eight types of shoppers based on personality types and how marketers can provide the best online experiences to reach them: 1. The determined shopper. This shopper knows exactly what she wants and will stop at nothing to get the best price and the fastest shipping. Help her find what she wants efficiently with easy-to-use search and clear navigation. Reduce the number of steps required to get from discovery to purchase. But don't forget to show her other related products that might encourage her to purchase additional items.

2. The indecisive shopper. This shopper has a general idea of what he needs but may be overwhelmed by too many options. Make it easier for him by curating the products as well as the online experiences that surround them. Help him with smart filters and provide him with expert buying guides so he can find the right products to fit his needs.

3. The informed shopper. Unlike the indecisive shopper, some people can't get enough information. The informed shopper won't buy until she has explored all of her options. She wants to do her research and needs access to as much information as possible. Provide her with detailed product specs, sizing information, ratings and reviews, video guides -- anything that can help her buy from you and not from someone else.

4. The reluctant shopper. This kind of shopper would rather be doing anything than buying a gift online. Help him out by making the online shopping experience entertaining and immersive. This kind of shopper is more likely to respond to something that is closer to the in-store experience. Use rich media like video, photos and diagrams. Turn the whole experience into a game with challenges, quizzes and contests. Provide lots of opportunities to interact with the brand and products -- as well as with other shoppers.

5. The practical shopper. Some people see shopping in strictly pragmatic terms and are not easily swayed by an emotional sales pitch. The practical shopper is only interested in buying useful products. She likes to buy products that meet very particular needs and solve specific problems. Help her do this with "how-to" videos, reviews and searchable product details.

Context is everything for this shopper. Show her how it works. Authenticity and relevance are critical.

6. The emotional shopper. This shopper is the opposite of the practical shopper -- the sort of person who doesn't know what he wants until he sees it. The emotional shopper thinks that gifts should be fun, not practical. He is looking to be inspired -- so give him what he

wants in the form of rich visuals, engaging magazine-like content and thematic microsites that blend product details with editorial content. But always make it easy to buy when the inspiration strikes. Use targeting and personalization to make the experience relevant and intimate.

7. The social shopper. The social shopper is acutely interested in what her friends and peers are buying. She is the sort of person who does most of her browsing on Pinterest and Instagram. This kind of shopper distrusts brands and spends as little time as possible on the brand site or web store. Help her out by bringing authentic social experiences into your online store. Embed real-time social data and provide plenty of opportunities for shoppers to engage in conversations around your products. Hire key social media influencers to curate content for your brand and stimulate interest across multiple social networks.

8. The brand-driven shopper. This kind of shopper is one of the most valuable kinds you can have -- the die-hard fan of your brand or products. Reward him for his loyalty with special offers or exclusive content. Enlist his help across social networks. The key to building a strong relationship with the brand-driven shopper is to focus as much on the pre- and postpurchase stages as on the purchase itself. Loyal shoppers like this are priceless -- make sure they feel the love.

Keep in mind that very few shoppers are exclusively one personality type. Spend time learning about the personality types that dominate your online store -- use surveys, track shopper behavior and test out various store offers. The key is to test, evaluate and optimize based on what works. And remember that mastering the shopper's personality test is the key to success in an increasingly competitive world.