4. Marketing

Subject title Marketing

Purpose of the activity The aim of the session is to acquaint the participants with the foundations of marketing and the latest marketing trends in the 21st century.

Duration 2–3 hours.

Location and tools Chairs, projector, flip chart, writing tools, large paper sheets, magazines, scissors, glue, pencils, crayons, felt-tip pens.

Number of participants 10–30 participants.

Acquaintance/ team building methods To get started, the leader can bring products from several well-known brands, such as:

Coca-Cola bottle, McDonald’s cheeseburger, a bag of chips, some specific social networking sound (sent message, heart, reaction, “like” button click). All participants are invited to blindfold. By using each sensation (touch, taste, smell, sound), participants are presented with several things separately on the principle of sensory theatre: the leader gives participants to listen to the sound of Coca-Cola bubbles or allows to touch the relief of the bottle, allows them to smell McDonald’s food, to feel the taste or texture of chips or to hear the sound of social networking features. At the end of the experience, participants are invited to open their eyes and write down what they have heard, tasted, felt, touched, necessarily indicating the specific brand to which this sound, taste, smell, tactile sensation belongs.

Participants are informed that this experience is an introduction to the topic of marketing.

Practical tasks

Task no. 1: Marketing network development according to 4P model

Based on the presented theoretical part about the 4P model, participants are invited to form an appropriate marketing network for the selected product or service.

1. It is necessary to decide which product or service will be placed on the market.

2. It is necessary to decide what will the price of the product or service be.

3. It is necessary to decide which sales channels will be used to sell a product or service.

4. It is necessary to decide what feeds to use when selling a product or service.

Task no. 2: Brand Feelings

Taking into account the previously performed task no. 1, participants are invited to take into account the nuances of sensory marketing and to devise how the product or service that is being created could satisfy and appeal to all five human senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch) as much as possible.

Practical tasks

Task no. 3: The Marketing Revolution

Given the theoretical part about the five marketing revolutions, participants are invited to answer the following questions.

1. How unique is a product or service and how is this uniqueness conveyed through marketing?

2. What characterizes the quality of a product or service?

3. How do you mark a brand and make it memorable? Why should customers and buyers want to associate themselves with this brand?

4. How does the personality or group of people who develops and distributes a product or service present themselves?

5. How do you create and nurture a community of consumers of a particular product or service? What unites people belonging to this community?

End of session reflection methods After completing the tasks, participants or groups of participants are invited to present the results of their work and discuss.

At the end of the session, each participant is asked to choose a product of a certain brand which he/she has with him/her and share why is this product important to him/her. Participants are also encouraged to share their experiences and perceptions gained during the session.

THEORETICAL INFORMATION

PART I. MARKETING

Marketing is often equated with advertising, discount promotions in stores, but this is not true in principle, as marketing is a much broader and more important concept than just promotion. What is marketing? What goals and objectives does this area define? What does marketing involve? Let’s look at everything in turn.

„Marketing is the process of identifying target markets and the needs that exist in them, as well as a further strategy to meet those needs, which is to be implemented more effectively than competitors can do that.“ Roman Hiebing, Skott Cooper

One of the main marketing concepts is the marketing complex 4P. Currently, improved and expanded complexes 5P, 7P and 9P already exist and they are also worth to get acquainted with. However, the 4P complex is still considered the main one.

Mainly, the marketing complex is understood as a constantly changing model controlled by the marketing department. It is the integrated and at the same time systematic work with this model that provides an opportunity to achieve a consistent result in the field of marketing. Next, let’s look at the marketing complex:

PROMOTION PRODUCT

4P

PLACE PRICE

It is these elements and variable factors that are the focus of marketing professionals, recognized as fundamental and requiring constant attention. All these elements of the marketing complex are closely interrelated and it is in the context of the interconnection of these elements in the field of marketing that people plan, develop and implement marketing actions. • Product – a product, good, service and everything that is related to it: name, packaging, marking, colours, etc.

• Price is the price of a product that is established in line with competitors’ prices.

• Place – a place and ways in which goods and services are distributed, the ways in which a product reaches the buyer and the consumer, the way in which it is served, publicized and offered to potential customers and buyers.

• Promotion – ways of disseminating and promoting a product or service in order to form the need for its acquisition.

Aptarėme, į kokius elementus svarbu atkreipti dėmesį, siekiant sukurti nuoseklią marketingo strategiją. Dabar apžvelkime, kokie marketingo tikslai ir uždaviniai.

We discussed what elements are important to consider in order to develop a coherent marketing strategy. At the same time, let’s look at what goals and objectives does marketing deals with?

Marketing goals: • Increasing profits

• Attracting as many customers as possible

• Preservation of customer attention and loyalty

Marketing tasks: • Research and analytics;

• Development of new products and their presentation in the market;

• Price analysis of competitors, product pricing and its modification, discounts;

• Dissemination: advertising, public relations, sales promotion, etc.;

• Sales channels: search for new channels, improvement of existing channels, work with partners;

• Online marketing and online sales;

• Opportunities for contact with potential buyers – their improvement and development;

• Internal marketing on purpose to preserve employees’ loyalty;

• Customer support and stimulation;

• Innovation;

• Marketing budget planning. In this way, we can understand that marketing is a very large field which helps business in virtually everything. If you’re interested in exploring marketing, here are some specific areas that deserve extra attention:

1. Marketing research: analysis of competitors’ products and target groups. It will be useful for those who like numbers and analytics.

2. Branding: how to win the hearts of customers and encourage the desire to associate themselves with a particular brand. Some of the best examples of a successful brand are the following: Apple, Coca-

Cola and the like.

3. Public relations: how to communicate with the public starting with the brand name (not to be confused with advertising). One of the most successful public relations campaigns is considered to be the CocaCola’s Christmas campaign. In the past, Santa’s clothes were blue, and as a result of the Coca-Cola Christmas campaign, his clothes became red.

4. Advertising: when, where and how to talk about your products. 5. SMM – social media marketing 6. SEO (search engine optimization) – search engine marketing.

PART II. THE HISTORY OF MARKETING AND THE FIVE MAJOR MARKETING REVOLUTIONS

The history of marketing has been evolving along with the global technological explosions and changes in the business world. In the beginning, there were goods and services that were in constant demand, but their supply was low. Over time, supply began to grow more and more. As a result, there was a need to develop the marketing field itself, which began to become more complex when discovering ever new ways to attract consumers and increasing the demand of the products on offer in innovative ways. Below are five key historical phases during which marketing changed and took on new shades each time.

1. PRODUCT. At the beginning of marketing, when the agrarian society was still prevalent, the main focus of marketing was on the product itself, its production and presentation. In small towns or villages, there were well-known artisans and farmers from

different fields, whose goods and products were always in high demand. The main marketing tasks were to manage to produce a sufficient quantity of the required product and deliver it to the public in a timely manner, usually in one well-known marketplace or fair. 2. QUALITY. As the number of population of the same area increased, so did the number of traders offering the same goods and services. Supply gradually began to surpass demand, therefore, traders and service providers had to look for other ways to attract buyers and customers. The main goal on this path has become the concept of quality. Craftsmen and the first entrepreneurs realized that in order to outperform competitors, they had to offer better quality and to better present the distinctiveness of that quality. Thus began the loud shouts in the marketplaces, the persuasion of buyers and negotiations over prices.

3. BRAND. With the industrial revolution, production began to develop incredibly fast. The abundance of goods and services began to significantly exceed all expectations and needs. Traders, craftsmen, farmers had to re-think how to compete between many quality goods and services. This is how the concept of brand was born. Traders began to offer not only goods or services but also associative signs, which encouraged customers to become loyal and to build communities in their own way, in which customers who were using one or another brand used to recognize and identify each other.

4. PERSONALITY. But in the long run, even personality was not enough. Over time, many brands were created that even began to form around themselves certain castes of people: people who use only APPLE electronics, people who wear only Nike clothing, people who choose only BMW, and etc. However, with the development of social networks, another need has arisen – it is a direct connection with a personality that associates himself/herself with one or another brand. In this way, not so long ago the concept of personality branding has emerged. Customers and buyers began to care not only about the quality of the product or the brand whose products they buy, but also about the personality or group of personalities involved in the development of a particular product. 5. COMMUNITY. One of the latest marketing revolutions is focused on the importance of community building. This aspect has already been foreseen during the third phase of the marketing revolution, i.e., during the branding phase, when consumers subconsciously began to divide into the “castes” of brand followers. It is already foreseeable that the group of most loyal customers will be formed by those brands and personalities who will be able to bring together like-minded communities around their services which will be no less active than historical religious communities or movements with their own traditions, celebrations, and internal support system.

PART III. SENSORY MARKETING

You have probably noticed that every brand has its own unique, memorable colour? Maybe when you go to one or another supermarket you smell a strange but pleasant smell? Or maybe you notice differences in music tracks in one or another cafe?

So all this is not a coincidence – every company or institution, and especially well-known brands in the world, thoroughly selects every sensory detail that is being presented to the customer. This is called a sensory marketing strategy. The goal of this relatively new and innovative marketing direction is to appeal to all human senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) in order to create the most pleasurable experience possible for all five human senses.

At the beginning of its existence, marketing focused exclusively on the senses of sight and hearing, other senses were touched only by purchasing specific goods or services (a taste of a cake or a massage service as a result of the purchase). However, over the years, marketing specialists have realized that no human sensation can be ignored when developing a marketing strategy, and the brand will be more in demand when more senses create a strong associative interface in the customer’s subconscious. Of course, it is vital that this associative interface is as enjoyable as possible and would be addictive because of its uniqueness.

The best example in the world of sensory marketing is once again the Coca-Cola brand, which has associatively appropriated the colour red, created a sensually recognizable bottle of its drink that can be recognized even when broken, and even created a unique bubble sound characteristic to this drink. So we can see that many things that seem natural and self-evident at first sight can, in fact, be thoroughly strategized, developed, and improved year after year.

Subject title

Purpose of the activity

Duration

Location and tools

Number of participants

Acquaintance/ team building methods

End of session reflection methods

Practical tasks

THEORETICAL INFORMATION