Marketing Principles and Cultural Approaches

Marketing Principles

• Marketing creates value for customers and builds stronger relationships with current ones.
• Marketing mix includes product (benefits, design, quality), price (discounts, list price), place (distribution, channels, logistics), and promotion (advertising, PR).
• Communication mix includes direct marketing, advertising, brand activation, PR, sponsorship, and trade fairs.
• Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) focuses on a holistic view of communication, understanding PR, sales, and employee communication.

Cultural Approaches

• Two cultural approaches exist: standardization (one campaign for all countries) and adaptation (campaign tailored to local cultures).
• Corporate communication strategies define a corporate identity aligned with the strategy, minimize any identity-image gap, and oversee the implementation processes.
• Situation analysis includes macro (social, technological), meso (market demands, suppliers, economic, environmental), and micro (vision, mission, products, competitors) factors.
• Market segmentation is a crucial aspect of marketing.

Targeting Strategies

• Targeting strategies include single segment concentration (one market segment), selective specialization (multiple segments), product specialization (one product to multiple segments), market specialization (one segment to multiple products), and full market coverage (all customers and products).
• Marketing communication objectives cover category need, brand awareness, brand knowledge, brand attitude, and purchase intention.
• Customer journey entails awareness, consideration, purchase, and advocacy stages.
• Marketing goals include attracting new customers and growing existing ones.

Branding and Brand Strategies

• A brand encompasses elements distinguishing a company's goods or services (logo, shape, colours, etc.).
• Brand associations consist of brand skills (intrinsic, tangible aspects) and brand charisma (extrinsic, emotional connection).
• Brand strategies involve line extensions (new versions of existing products), brand extensions (new products under an existing brand), multi-branding (multiple brands in a category), and co-branding (collaborations between brands).
• Brand equity involves awareness, performance, feelings, and loyalty.
• Online branding comprises website presence, social media engagement, direct communication, and online advertising.
• Content marketing cycles involve research, deciding on objectives, creating content, promoting, measuring & evaluating content, and adjusting based on feedback.

Ethical Considerations

• Ethical issues in marketing include targeting vulnerable groups, controversial messages, stereotyping, and covert marketing.
• Ethical concerns in marketing communications cover different dimensions like masculinity vs femininity, uncertainty avoidance index, power distance, individualism vs collectivism, indulgence vs restraint, and long-term vs short-term orientation.

Value-Based Strategies

• Value mapping identifies pain relievers, gain creators, products, and services.
• Customer profiles highlight gains and pains.
• Elements of value pyramids include functional (quality, time saving, making money), emotional (reducing anxiety, design & fun), life-changing (motivation & hope), and social impact (self-transcendence & societal benefit) aspects.