Marketing Basics

What is Marketing?

• Goal is to build brand and customer relationships
• Generates sales and profit for businesses
• Generates memberships and donations for nonprofits
• Sells goods, services, and ideas

4 P's of Marketing

• Product: Design, quality, and performance that communicates brand value and differentiation
• Price: Based on market tolerance and perceived value, sending a message about status and quality
• Place (Distribution): Accessibility and availability, with push versus pull strategies where channels affect brand image
• Promotion: Includes all marcom tools such as advertising, PR, digital, sales promotions and packaging
• All 4 P's are a communication tool

Marketing Communication (MARCOM)

• The voice of a brand
• Includes all messages like ads, PR, events, packaging, and WOM
• Creates a consistent and coherent brand image

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)

• All brand messages and marketing decisions work together
• Creates synergy leading to a greater impact than individual efforts

Understanding Brands

• Brand: A perception loaded with emotion shaped by experience and information
• Brand communication starts with a strategy and is executed via marketing communication
• Brand differentiation makes similar products stand out

Brand Transformation

• A successful brand should be distinctive
• A sucessful Brand should be emotionally resonant
• Consistent brands are viewed as a sucess
• Visually strong (logo, trademark, etc)
• Associated with heritage, benefits, or personality

Brand Concepts to Remember

• Brand essence: Core idea and emotional connection
• Brand position: Spot in consumer’s mind versus competitors
• Brand promise: Key benefits expected
• Brand image: Overall mental picture
• Brand personality: Human traits applied to a brand

Brand Value and Equity

• Brand value equals worth to consumers plus company
• Brand equity is intangible value derived from stakeholder relationships and intellectual property like logos and names
• Ways to leverage brand equity includes brand extension with new products using the same name
• Co-branding when two brands collaborate
• Brand licensing involving renting a brand
• Ingredient Brand such as intel inside

Building Brand Relationships

• Goal: repeat purchases plus loyalty
• Includes employees, investors, partners, and customers
• Key method: word-of-mouth, and viral marketing

Global Marketing and Diversity

• Types of Brands: Local, regional, international, and global
• Diversity is essential, according to a Google 2015 study where inclusion equals impact
• Consumers expect brands to stand for something

Definition of Advertising

• Advertising can be defined as paid, pursuasive communication using mass and interactive media to connect a sponsor with a target audience
• Advertising provides information goods, services, or ideas
• Advertising interprets features based on consumer needs or wants

Advertising's Core Functions

• Identification for product and store recognition
• Information that educates about product value
• Persuasion to build desire and brand loyalty
• Modern advertising blends art and science

Key Components of Advertising

• Strategy that defines the logic and goals such as sales, emotion, and brand image
• Message that provides creative expression of the strategy
• Media: Matching the audience profiles to media channels
• Evaluation measures effectiveness based on objectives
• Effective advertising meets its objectives which need to be pre-defined

Common Types of Advertising

• Brand advertising with the focus being on long-term identity and image
• Retail/local advertising which are local promotions like flyers and direct mail
• Direct response advertising intended to generate immediate consumer action like infomercials and QR codes
• B2B advertising targeted towards business clients
• Corporate identity/public good advertising commonly seen in pharmaceuticals

Broader Roles

• Nonprofit advertising which solicits donations and volunteers like charity drives
• Public service announcements to raise awareness, often free, and are common with recycling
• Specialized advertising within niches like healthcare, green initiatives, and international markets
• Marketing role: builds brand awareness
• Economic role: stimulates demand to lower prices
• Advertising is a social role that influences identity, style, and values
• Greater demand leads to sales growth as well as cost efficiency

Timeline of Advertising Eras

• Early Print Era (15th-18th c.): Mass printing starts
• Agency Age (1840s-1890s): Professional ad agencies emerge
• Scientific Era (1900s-1950s): Research plus effectiveness
• Creative Era (1960s-1970s): Art and inspiration dominate (Mad Men era)
• Accountability Era (1970s-now): Results and social responsibility
• Social Media Era: Two-way consumer engagement; user-generated content

Who's Who in Advertising

• Organization/advertiser who sponsors the message
• Advertising agency for planning and execution
• Media which distributes the message via TV, online, etc
• Suppliers such as photographers, designers, and production crew
• Consumers who create content
• Full-service agencies handles all aspects from strategy to media
• In-house agencies that operate inside the advertiser’s organization to save costs
• Specialized agencies which focuses on niche markets or functions
• Creative boutiques that focuses purely on the creative concept
• Media-buying services only focuses on buying space
• Agency networks/holding companies that are big conglomerates

How Agencies Get Paid

• Commission based on a percentage of media buys
• Fees calculated hourly or project-based
• Retainers as monthly service fee
• Performance incentives based on client results is a new trend
• Value billing where payment is made for ideas rather than executions

Jobs Inside Agencies

• Account management which act as a liaison between the client and the agency
• Account planning focused on the voice of the consumer and research
• Creative development handled by copywriters, art directors, and producers
• Media planning and buying to selects platforms and schedule buys
• Internal operations encompassing finance, HR, traffic, and production

Changes in Modern Advertising

• More consumer power now that they can create and share brand messages
• Weakened traditional media thanks to digital fragmentation
• Blurred lines between content and advertising with influencers
• Interactive commmunication where brands must listen as much as they speak
• For success ads must be engaging, measurable, and responsive

Public Relations (PR)

• A strategic communication process, building mutually beneficial relationships
• Manages reputation, public opinion, and stakeholder relationships

Stakeholders

• Includes employees, communitites, customers, shareholders, media, and government
• Publics are any group that interacts with an organization
• Stakeholders have a stake in the company

Why PR Matters

• Builds goodwill, trust, and integrity
• Helps shape brand perception over time
• Works best when integrated with advertising
• Plays a role in social responsibility

PR vs Advertising - Key Differences

• Control: Public relations relies on media gatekeepers, advertising has full control through paid placement
• Purpose: Public relations builds reputation and credibility, advertising drives sales and promotes a product
• Cost: Public relations uses low-cost, earned media, advertising involves spend on media and production costs
• Credibility: Public relations is seen as high credibility from third-party sources, advertising is viewed as lower credibility due to being brand-driven
• Measurement: Public relations is measured through engagement, sentiment, and coverage, advertising through ROI, impressions, and conversations

How PR Works - Relationship Areas

• Media relations need honest, professional relationships with media contacts
• Employee relations focusing on internal marketing via newsletters, memos, and updates
• Financial relations focusing on investor meetings, annual reports, and business press releases
• Public Affairs engages in government lobbying, regulatory communication, and issue management
• Community relations uses cause marketing, local engagement, and diversity inclusion
• Consumer relations focuses on consumer education, retention, support, and feedback systems

Functions of PR

• Reputation management which builds trust with stakeholders
• Crisis management plans and responds to crises
• Communication campaigns which change behavior
• Fundraising solicitations for nonprofits

PR Tools and Channels

• Paid media for a controlled message
• Owned media which features Website, blog, and socials
• Earned media which secures free publicity
• Communication Tools:
  • News Releases which includes 5Ws plus H
  • Video news releases
  • Pitch Letters offer personal story proposals
  • Press Conferences/media tours are available as live or virtual
• Publications such as annual reports, newsletters, pamphlets, and position papers.
• Other tools include podcasts, videos, books, speaker bureaus, special events, displays, email, and online newswires

PR Trends

• Mobile communication continues to grow
• Visual storytelling is essential
• Educational videos are used to "go viral"
• Digital security is critical
• Integration with advertising and marketing
• Cause marketing with social responsibility is a high priority

Brand Communication

• Messaging to create a response like inquiry or sale
• Includes mass or interactive approaches

Models of Communication

• The SMCR model (source-message-channel-receiver) features feedback and noise
• The interactive model shows 2 way communication.
• Buzz marketing, social media, and WOM impact interactivity

Types of Communication

• Verbal and Nonverbal forms
• Subliminal which is controversial messaging

Measuring Effectiveness

• Objectives achievement provides measure
• Traditional models includes AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action)
• Also think, feel, and do
• The models are too linear

Facets Model of Effects

• Framework explaining interconnected consumer responses
• Perception looks at senses and attracting attention
• Emotion considers feelings and desires
• Cognition examines understanding
• Association covers connection to brands
• Persuasion affects attitudes and beliefs
• Behavior motivates action

Strategic Research

• Forming brand communication decisions requires gathering and analyzing data
• Strategic Research requires understandind consumers, competitors, and brands

Types of Research

• Primary Research creates first hand, custom data
• Secondary uses data from other sources
• Primary research is qualitiative or quantitiative in nature

Marketing

• Strategic research allows tracking of market trends, consumer insights, and brand information

Research Basics

• Secondary Research includes Gov't stats, trade associations, and reports.
• Primary Research includes surveys or interviews

Quantitiative Surveys

• Online, via phone, or in person
• Sampling should be random

Qualitiative Methods

• Useful for emotional insights.
• Ethnography watches real users.

Message Testing

• Testing of ads, with follow up for measurement.

Choosing Research Methods

• Metric selection should be valid.
• Reliability = repeating success.

Challenges

• Sampling may be difficult.
• Global studies requires recognition of cultural differences.

Segmentation

• Requires selecting characteristics like shared values.
• Targeting includes tailored messages.

Consumers Decisions: Classic Step Model

• Brand decisions require defining:
• Needs, search for info, and evaluation.

Types of Segmentation

• Segmentation can be based on shared traits like demographics.
• Also life-stage, or Geographics.

Behavioral Profiling

• Consumer profiling includes:
• Light, medium or heavy.

Segmentation Tools

• Should position brands competitively and effectively
• Includes profiling consumers from 85% of purchases.

Demographic Insight

Profiling Tools- Can include mindbase of psychographic insight

Strategic Planning

• Requires problem sloving for brand communication.
• Goals -> Strategy -> Tacticts.
• Good strategies are as creative ads

Planning Levels

• Strategy includes setting business goals, and executing with IMC efforts