Archive for the ‘Marketing Strategy’ Category

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Marketing Laid Bare

 
The FIFA World Cup is in full swing and it’s no surprise that companies are taking advantage of the marketing opportunities this global event offers. One such ‘quirky’ marketing tactic comes to us courtesy of Pepsi Cola.

Apparently Diego Maradona, coach of the Argentina football team, has claimed that if Argentina wins the World Cup he’ll celebrate by running around naked in Buenos Aires.

Pepsi has pounced on this statement and jumped on the World Cup band wagon by announcing that, if Argentina is victorious, their soft drinks bottles will be sold in Argentina for a week without labels.

The following print advert, demonstrating Pepsi’s promise, is currently running in the country:
 

 
The bottle is bare except for a label around its neck saying “SI EL DT SE DESNUDA, NOSOTROS TAMBIEN” – which is to say “IF THE COACH GOES NAKED, WE WILL TOO”.

Would a week without branding be compensated for by the hype surrounding such a bold, high-profile move? One would certainly imagine so. Still, the staff of our English office are not expecting Argentina to win the World Cup anyway…!

Posted in Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Sport |
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The Challenges Of B2B Marketing

The B2B sector is changing. However perceptions of this important area of marketing are often stuck.

Talented young people still want to work on consumer accounts because they perceive them as sexier… But, how can B2B show that, in reality, this is not ALWAYS the case. Could it be by encouraging creativity in the sector? Could it be through the migration to digital and even social media? And will the reduction in budgets across key B2B sectors (construction, automotive, etc) continue to push fresh thinking to react to the constant challenges, in turn, pushing creativity and driving a new age of talent coming through…

B2B International Director, Nick Hague, was recently interviewed by The Drum to get his views and below are the answers to some of the questions

• THE DRUM: How relevant is Social Media to B2B Marketing?

NH: At the moment, social media is definitely still in its infancy when compared to B2C marketing but I believe that social media usage within a B2B market can actually deliver greater rewards; especially because B2B marketers address a much smaller number of customers who spend larger amounts of money and personal relationships are of much more importance than in B2C markets. The first thing to understand is that social media for B2B markets is more about education, facilitating word of mouth referrals and driving traffic to your website as well as thought leadership and therefore requires deeper layers of interaction eg private brand blogs/communities rather than Facebook; Linkedin rather than Twitter and podcasts rather than YouTube. Here at B2B International we have embraced social media to play a role in brand building and positioning through the development of our blog since January 2006. Throughout the last 4 years we have concentrated our efforts on delivering new and fresh content with the end result now being a repository that holds a massive amount of information including podcasts, e-books, videos and white papers – http://www.b2binternational.com/b2b-blog/

• THE DRUM: How can the industry tackle the percieved lack of creativity in B2B Marketing?

NH: I think it is purely down to laziness of the industry not carrying out the necessary market research to get into the targets mind to understand what makes them tick. People in business are still human and do make business decisions based on emotion so this shouldn’t be lost in trying to develop a B2B marketing campaign. I think another misconception in B2B marketing is also the fact that too much attention is paid to the product rather than the bigger picture to hone in on people’s needs – has a picture of a new printer ever evoked a stirring need in you to go and order one for your office?

• THE DRUM: How do you convince talented new recruits that B2B can be just as sexy as consumer accounts?

NH: I think the plain answer is, because of the lack of creativity that has gone before in the industry, it is much easier to make your mark in B2B marketing than maybe it would be in B2C marketing. Also, I believe there is a greater incentive for being a bit riskier in B2B markets as there is so much staid marketing and advertising that goes on with stock images of laptops and handshakes. The bolder the message, the greater reward in the end.

• THE DRUM: Is B2B marketing now more important than ever?

NH: As Drucker once said “A time of turbulence is a dangerous time, but its greatest danger is a temptation to deny reality. However a time of turbulence is also one great opportunity for those who can understand, accept andexploit the new realities. It is above all a time of opportunity for leadership”. Whatever the marketing strategy being considered, one of the most difficult challenges faced by B2B marketers is convincing senior management of the value of marketing and the need to invest in it, especially in bad times (when budgets have no doubt been cut). Marketing teams need to prove the ROI of their actions at all times so as to obtain buy-in to marketing efforts and acknowledgement of the importance of marketing as a strategic approach to business which will in the end impact on the bottom line.

• THE DRUM: What are the biggest problems faced by business-to-business marketers?

NH: I think the problems that B2B marketers face today are the same as they have faced historically in the past. Small customer numbers, complex decision making units and complex products and applications throw the emphasis on close targeting and personal relationships, especially in the current economic climate. One of the problems in B2B marketing however is getting across the message that your product or service is different to those of the competition (especially as so many B2B markets are commodities with little differentiation). Therefore being able to truly understand customer needs is the starting point in any successful B2B marketing campaign.

For more information and the full article visit – http://www.thedrum.co.uk/

Posted in B2B Marketing, Budgets, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Nick Hague |
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Marketing is in the Eye of the Beholder

An article in The Times last week amused us. In ‘Why do women wear ugly trainers?’ Luke Leitch takes a lighthearted look at, amongst other things, the trainers that some women are now wearing to tone their leg muscles, improve their posture, and the like.

But Luke does make a serious point of which marketers should take note. He feels that these trainers have to look cumbersome and ugly or we won’t believe they will be any different to regular trainers (you know, those things you wear to run around for a ‘proper’ work out). Likewise, healthy foods seemingly have to taste horrible; otherwise we won’t feel they are doing us any good.

What he’s basically saying is it’s all about perception…sometimes we need to be (unnecessarily) reassured of certain things in order to be convinced into making a purchase. See for yourself in the article below:

Before we get to these horrible, horrible shoes, let’s talk wheatgrass juice: remember that? You would if you’d ever tried it. Seven or eight years ago wheatgrass juice was the must-have health drink. Its benefits were unclear but it cost a fortune and tasted uniquely repulsive — almost as if the health-bar barista had eaten the grass prior to squeezing it.

It was in 2003, I clearly recall, that I drank a shot, gagged and thought “Wow: anything this disgusting has got to be doing something good”, only to spew it back into the cup seconds later.

That exact pre-spew thought, I contend, is what ricochets daily through the skulls of countless women who look down and realise that yes, they are yet again wearing MBTs, FitFlops, Chung Shis or any of the other brands of curvily soled, laughably expensive and aggessively ugly trainers out there.

It’s those chunky/curvy/wedged (depending on the brand) soles that give these shoes their prime selling point. Instead of lying flat and true betwixt foot and pavement, these soles bulge hither and thither. This makes the wearer’s gait unstable and insecure — as if she is padding barefoot across a knobbly veldt — and gives a bit of a work-out to the calf muscles, hamstrings and glutes. This does kind of make sense (although I’ve yet to meet a woman whose posterior has been transformed from pineapple to peach by a pair of trainers). These shoes may well work.

Why are they so aesthetically offensive? After all, they don’t have to be — it’s perfectly possible to design a curvily soled shoe that looks good. The answer is that these shoes need to be ugly just as wheatgrass juice needs to taste foul — for if these products combined their putative results with fantastic taste, well, nobody would believe in them. They’d be too good to be true, like an ice cream that cures baldness.

But shoes that disgusting? Surely they have to be doing something good. That ugliness, along with the price, is the sacrifice penitent wearers make in return for their tilt at buns of steel.

Of course, they may wear their FitFlops only as they shuffle from sofa to fridge. They may slip on their MBTs merely to waddle ten minutes there and back again from Tube to office.

Even if these shoes do work, such stints wearing them are never going to hone walnut-cracking buttocks. So for onlookers, these horrible, horrible shoes are lose-lose.

Posted in Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Sport |
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Responsible Marketing

 
We’re all being encouraged to eat more healthily, look after the environment more, and generally be more responsible. And, increasingly, companies are either leading the charge or thinking of ways to give us a helping hand. Sometimes, though, people do object to this ‘political correctness’ and feel they are being lectured to. Why don’t you decide if this new move by Pepsi is a positive thing, or not quite as good as it appears?

From April 12th, Pepsi is offering its sugar-free customers in the UK more for their money by increasing the size of its sugar-free drinks bottles from 500ml to 600ml – a “nudge in the right direction” for consumers, according to its Chief Executive.

The bottles, which are also available in countries such as Australia, India and Canada, cost the same price as a 500ml bottle of regular Pepsi, Tango and 7Up, and are thus meant to encourage UK consumers to move away from its less-healthy sugar variants.

Since 2004, Pepsi in the UK has spent no money on advertising full-sugar Pepsi, at the same time as investing over £20 million in marketing its low- and no-sugar brands, Pepsi Max and Diet Pepsi. A new £5 million campaign is expected to accompany this latest move.

The launch comes on the back of market research in which consumers stated that they were 84% more likely to purchase the new range of 600ml bottles ahead of existing products.

Follow these links to find out more about product development market research or market assessment studies

Posted in Marketing, Marketing Strategy |
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Understanding the Impact and Effect

In her latest Thursday Night Insight, Carol-Ann Morgan points out that our best intentions are not always quite as well received as we might hope.

In 1687, Sir Isaac Newton compiled his three laws of motion. The third law is commonly reported as…

 
“To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”

 
Whilst these are physical laws governing relationships between the forces acting on a body and the motion of the body, and concern acceleration and mass, I wonder if Sir Isaac realised the full potential of his laws in the social and political arena.

The environmental story has been hovering around the top of the political agenda for some time now and, consequently, there is considerable attention given to the issues being debated in the press. However, we are having trouble grasping the arguments, as they are so equivocally defined and incalculable to the man on the street. Whilst experts argue amongst themselves as to the level of influence from our behaviours, and even the value of action, most of us are left confused as to what we should do next.

Excited by the idea of developing alternative fuels which reduce harmful emissions into the atmosphere and potentially threaten the long-term future of the planet, the growth of some crop-based biofuels has now been shown to carry some responsibility for recent global food shortages. Similarly, engines developed to reduce emissions appear to have created social tensions and increasing hardship amongst communities living and working around the platinum mines.

Examples such as these can be found all around us, and they demonstrate that there can be counter-reactions to most of our actions, particularly so in the commercial environment. These counter-reactions can be both positive and negative; delivering business opportunities or threatening our existing business operations or offerings. This is where research plays a strong role. Testing concepts and new business offerings in the marketplace can throw up any unexpected or unwanted reactions, which then prepare us for the future. Being in possession of this knowledge enables us to take advantage of new opportunities and also mitigate threats to the business.

Change and development are critical to the future of most businesses; spotting the needs of the future before they are in full view, and responding to them, is critical. However, Newton’s law serves to remind us to ensure we are aware of, and give due consideration to, potential unwanted consequences which may be harmful to the future security of our business.

Posted in Business Development, Carol Ann Morgan, Environment, Forecasting, Growth, Market Assesment, Marketing Strategy, Needs, Product Development, Strategic Marketing, Thursday Night Insight |
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