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Archive for the ‘Strategic Marketing’ CategoryNext Entries »More Than Just Fun and GamesThursday, November 5th, 2009 
In his first Thursday Night Insight, Alex Clements illustrates perfectly how keeping a close eye on the competition and being quick to spot opportunities can really strengthen your own market position. Atari, Spectrum, Commodore, Sega, Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox. Regardless of your age, you are highly likely to have heard of at least one of these, possibly even all of them. Games consoles have been around for many years and as time goes by the systems become more sophisticated and the games become more complex and realistic. I remember text-based adventure games on the Atari and Commodore 64 which required the player to type a keyword into the console, which would in turn prompt an action on the screen. I remember Bubble Bobble; a game featuring two small, brightly coloured, 2D characters (in fact, little more than a blob of colour) that were supposed to be dragons, where the aim of the game was to blow bubbles which could trap and eliminate enemies such as ghosts and flying purple sharks (yes; flying purple sharks!). Games developers certainly were creative all those years ago and although games are more realistic these days, it doesn’t mean that people in the games industry no longer need to be creative. The video games industry is one which has grown and grown over the years. More users, more games, more consoles, more money and, for the manufacturers, more competition. Now that there is so much on offer to the public, we have a huge amount of choice in the types of video games we play: We can choose a favourite genre, a favourite series of games and we can even choose which console we would prefer to use to play them. Companies who are in competition over the same market need to think very carefully before every move. The games industry is an interest of mine and I commend some of the marketing strategies I have noticed recently. In 2005, the world was due the start of the next generation of video game consoles. There was, predictably, much hype and speculation over what each one would have to offer. The battle had started long before they were released. To this day, the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PS3 still battle for sales, offering similar types of realistic games and modern online services. Meanwhile, Nintendo released the Wii. The Nintendo Wii was released for a unique target market, offering an experience to consumers which was not available from either of its two potential rivals. Instead of competing to be the console with the best graphics, most functions and most realistic games, Nintendo made a console which was for light-hearted family fun: The games aren’t trying to be realistic but, instead, boast colourful cartoon worlds and let users embrace an unusual controller unlike any other, which can be waved at the TV like a magic wand to operate. There is much to think about when marketing a product, but before you even start to plan, you need to understand your product and your target market, and it will be highly advantageous to know the competition. Some very careful (and intelligent) decisions were made over the period of time mentioned above and Nintendo’s adaption to the available market means that more Wii consoles have been sold to date than either the Xbox 360 or PS3, despite being released last. I will conclude my first ever Thursday Night Insight with one more example of an opportunity that was promptly taken. It was, once again, Nintendo and their online marketing strategy for a new handheld console called the “DSi”. Nintendo were aware of their competition at the time, which happened to be Sony’s “PSP go” which was due to be released in the forthcoming months. The two products are similar and have a very similar target market. Upon realisation that Sony had not bought the UK domain name for their new product’s website in preparation for its release, Nintendo decided to step in. The result was that any consumer visiting www.pspgo.co.uk, looking for information on Sony’s product, would be taken directly to the main page of its rival, the Nintendo DSi. Try it yourself and see by clicking on the link above! Underhanded? Or a stroke of genius? It’s probably a bit of both, but the fact still remains that all PSPgo customers aiming for the UK website will land directly on Nintendo’s website, faced with a fresh new product they were not expecting which will undoubtedly only mean positive things for Nintendo’s sales. Free eBook: Effective Marketing Strategies for a RecessionMonday, August 10th, 2009
B2B International is delighted to present its latest free eBook – Effective Marketing Strategies for a Recession. At the present time, many marketing specialists are asking themselves how the recession has been affecting fellow marketers. They are wondering how competitor organisations have responded to the current economic environment, and what their own strategic responses ought to be. Based on her own primary research conducted among 400 marketing professionals, and drawing upon the work of many well-respected experts in the field, Julia Cupman has authored this new eBook. Focusing on the role of marketing strategy, common reactions to an economic downturn and those marketing strategies that are considered to be the most successful in a recession, this eBook will help marketers worldwide adapt to the pressures brought about by today’s global economic downturn.
Standing Out From The PackFriday, March 27th, 2009
What do a cassette tape, a boomerang, and a 1980′s electro-pop song have in common? In Matt Powell’s latest Thursday Night Insight entry this week, he looks at the impact of ‘thinking outside the box’ and standing apart from the competition, and the lasting impression that it can make. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve come into contact with a few advertising campaigns that have, in one way or another, caused me to devote at least some part of my day to thinking about them. By that, I mean more time than just taking a glance at a glossy piece of direct mail that goes straight into the recycle bin after couple of seconds. These pieces of marketing have really engaged me – either through getting me to think, causing me a great deal of intrigue, or just appealing to my inner child. The first was a cassette tape that arrived in the post in a brown padded envelope, in a Mission Impossible-esque manner. On the cassette was a label with a personalised web address for me to visit. I was not the only one of my in the office to receive one of these tapes, so there was some discussion as to what they were for. A quick visit to the website, showed that it was a campaign from E-Rewards that centred around constant evolution – the cassette tape being one of the evolutionary step in the personal music player. The campaign certainly stood out from everything else that landed on my desk that day, it created discussion around the office, caused me to visit the website, and now the cassette is adorning my desk-top. Certainly more interaction and longevity than standard direct mail would have been afforded. My second encounter with out-of-the ordinary marketing was on a lunch break whilst in the local supermarket/convenience store. Whilst I was perusing the assortment of soups on offer, I – and my fellow shoppers – were treated to short minute-long blasts of a very familiar 80′s electro pop song. I first dismissed it as the slipping standards of the store, probably allowing staff to play their own music through the store music system. Still, the familiar music was annoying me – I couldn’t remember where I knew it from. After a few more minute-long blasts it dawned on me why the dated music was so familiar – it was the music that backs Dairy Milk’s latest advertising campaign (with the boy and girl and the dancing eyebrows). Once I realised that, it evoked the amusing images from the TV advert – by coincidence I was stood at the counter waiting to pay – with an assortment of Dairy Milk products on display in front of me. Very clever. Plus, I was feeling slightly jubilant that I had remembered where I knew the music from – something that would have irritated me throughout the day if I hadn’t have figured it out. Again, slightly different approach to getting the message across, but a memorable impact. The third piece of marketing that I found particularly engaging is in fact B2B’s latest mailer – not that I’m blowing our own trumpet – it could be a mailer from any company and I would still be writing about it. It is, as the first sentence of this article has probably given away, a boomerang. The boomerang is a play on the theme of ‘getting a return on your investment’. The boomerang has instructions of how to use it on its reverse. This piece of marketing is now sat on my desk awaiting the day when I can finally find somewhere large enough, and unpopulated enough to throw it without posing a threat to the public. Indeed, over the past week, whenever I have come off the phone, I usually find that the boomerang has moved from my desk into my hand. Of course, there are many, many more examples that could be added to the three I have outlined above, but the message is the same. In order to stand out from the crowd and make a lasting impression, we need to somehow differentiate our offering. This applies not just to direct mail and advertising, but to business as well – and is even more important in times such as these. There is no harm in sitting with the pack – but thinking outside the box or offering something different to the competition, can really make the difference in setting a product or company aside from the rest, and create lasting success. For more information on how to differentiate your offering, why not cast your eyes over the following white paper: Differentiation: Are Product, Brand and Service Still Enough? Strategic Marketing makes more profitWednesday, November 26th, 2008
Many B2B industries, and the chemicals industry is a classic case-in-point, do not return enough on their investments, especially in the more mature economies where markets tend to become more “commoditised” and less well differentiated. These companies create a lot of value for their customers, but fail to capture that value back to their own company’s bottom line. Their customers apply lots of pressure to try to commoditise the offers and companies often succumb to these pressures. This weakness is often down to poor marketing on the part of the companies. We estimate that it loses them at least 10% off their bottom line. Imagine how healthy your business would be with an additional ten percentage points of bottom-line profit. An intelligent approach to Strategic Marketing can help companies to address this issue. Strategic Marketing is a discipline that brings real customer focus to an organisation and helps them to address the current and future needs of their customers with innovative approaches in products, services, business models and other aspects of creating a differentiated customer experience. The proof of this can now be studied and read in a new report published this month: “Strategic Marketing in the Chemicals, Plastics and Other B2B Markets.” For instance we discover that there is a strong correlation between higher profit performance and Strategic Marketers having a Marketing or MBA background. We also discover that those companies making more profit are the most regular users of two key tools: Market Value Chain Analysis and PESTLE analysis. Another key finding is that Strategic Marketing is not only about content it is also about the mindset with which you tackle that content. The most successful Strategic Marketers tend to be inquisitive, challenging, open-minded, creative, decisive and disruptive (in a positive way). A full report of over 120 pages and containing more than 80 charts analysing the findings of the study can be purchased from GEMS Europe GmbH or ECMSA. Next Entries » |
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