Showing posts with label Ps of marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ps of marketing. Show all posts

Adaptive Brand Marketing – More Than Just Four New Ps

Forrester Research published a research paper titled ‘Adaptive Brand Marketing – Rethinking Your Approach To Brands In The Digital Age’ in October 2009. Much of the subsequent comments and discussions about this paper concentrate on the proposed four new Ps of Adaptive Brand Marketing that will shift the brand marketer’s focus from the original four Ps to deal with new realities:

  1. Permission – better understanding of whether and how someone wants to engage so that marketers engage and communicate according to buyer and customer preferences.
  2. Proximity – moving away from the “one-size-fits-all” approach to more closely connect with local markets and specific consumer / buyer / customer groups.
  3. Perception – in using the social Web for marketing the marketer should respect the distinction between a person’s social and commercial personas and not try to make or use social connections for commercial purposes.
  4. Participation – there is no central command and control for communities on the social Web. Marketers should facilitate and participate with communities of consumers / customers for developing trust, loyalty and advocacy.

However, there are much more interesting and important concepts and proposals in this paper than the four new Ps that have received most of the attention.

Much of the traditional marketing approaches are based on a command-and-control and/or hub-and-spoke approach where marketing exercises complete control over all things related to marketing. However, in today’s interconnected world of social media, globalization and 24/7 always-on communications, control has shifted to consumers and customers who are more informed and more engaged to find the best deals on their terms.

Some of the principles of Adaptive Brand Marketing in this report that should be of particular interest to most marketers are:
  • Channels – rather than deciding on channel strategy from the inside-out in traditional approaches, channel design (part of the Place P in the original 4 Ps) is determined from the outside-in by first understanding the needs and behaviors of prospective customers.
  • Intelligence – in traditional approaches most marketing intelligence comes from formal research sources. Today, the intelligence from other sources such as social media, online communities, websites, eCommerce activities, customer interactions, etc. are more current, dynamic and possibly more important.
  • Spending and Planning – traditionally these decisions are annual events with possible quarterly adjustments. No more – marketing spending and planning decisions should be a daily event based on the availability of dynamic, real-time data in unprecedented volume and detail.
  • Brand and Segment – traditional approaches relied primarily on taking a brand to the masses. New media and marketing capabilities now enable taking a brand in specific contexts to multiple different segments with common shared attributes for each segment.

There is much more to this report that marketers should consider about how they operate in the current and evolving environment and adapting their marketing approach to their customer and market environments.

Have you reviewed the Forrester ‘Adaptive Brand Marketing’ report and implemented any of the recommendations? Your comments are always welcome.
Copyright © 2010 The Marketing Mélange and Ingistics LLC. http://marketing.infocat.com

Does Positioning Get the Attention it Deserves at Your Company?

My answer would be "no" based on most of the companies I’ve worked for and with over the years.  What is your gut response before reading this article?

All marketers learn about the original "Four Ps" of marketing and use them in all aspects of marketing strategy, planning, development and execution:

  1. Product – deals with the dimensions of the product being marketed.  This applies to all types of 'product' – whether it’s tangible, intangible, service, practice, etc.  The product dimension addresses characteristics such as the branding, functionality, design, quality, safety, packaging, warranty, etc.
  2. Price – deals with the dimensions of pricing decisions such as pricing strategy, suggested selling price, discounting, wholesale pricing, seasonal pricing, bundling, flexibility, price discrimination, etc.
  3. Place – deals with the dimensions about how the product reaches the customer.  Marketing decisions on place include distribution channels, coverage, channel members, inventory strategy, order processing, logistics, etc.
  4. Promotion – deals with the dimensions of promoting the product including decisions on promotional strategy, advertising, campaigns, promotions, selling, public relations, publicity, marketing communications, etc.
Al Ries and Jack Trout introduced the concept of Positioning as a key marketing strategy during the 1970’s and popularized Positioning as a core marketing discipline with their seminal book; Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind.  Since then many marketing practitioners and academics have included Positioning as the 5th P of marketing.  However, doing some quick checking around while writing this article, I was surprised to see many recently published materials, some from reputable sources, still referring to the original "Four Ps" without mentioning Positioning.  In spite of these surprising omissions, it does appear that most university curricula do include Positioning as one of the updated "Five Ps" of marketing.

So why is positioning most important?

Positioning deals with what you want to do in the mind of the prospect – i.e. how do you want prospects and customers to uniquely perceive your product in their minds regardless of exposure or familiarity with other similar or competing products – e.g. "safe vehicle" = "Volvo".  Positioning is the promise of the value you create for your customers.  Positioning cuts across the other 4 Ps and determines how you develop the specific dimensions of the other 4 Ps within the overriding positioning.

Positioning dictates what you do with a product and/or how you develop a product.  Pricing decisions must support the positioning.  Place is determined from positioning to define how to take a product to market.  Promotion is how you consistently communicate the positioning to the mind of the prospect.  If any of the 5 Ps are out of sync, your marketing strategy and execution will not produce good results.

According Philip Kotler of the Kellogg School of Management, all good marketing planning starts with Research, which reveals potential customer Segments, which determines the Targeting of specific segment(s) a company can serve better than anyone else.  The next step from this process is Positioning which must be done before considering Product, Price, Place & Promotion of marketing planning and execution.

A previous article discusses why positioning should take precedence over branding.

Where does Positioning fit in your business planning and marketing process?  Do senior management and other functional areas in your company understand and appreciate the importance of positioning before everyone runs off to build, market and sell product?  Your comments are always welcome.
Copyright © 2010 The Marketing Mélange and Ingistics LLC. http://marketing.infocat.com