Essay on Marketing and Strategy

Strategic management involves the evaluation of statistic trends, transactional analysis data, and qualitative information such as geographics and psychographics to formulate an excellent business strategy. Strategy is a highly organized and structured plan of action to help achieve competitive advantage. It allows for improvements in the areas of brand value, net sales, and net profits. The value of the investment and or campaign must exceed its costs and discounts. Strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of the strategy must be evaluated carefully before it is executed. Several ideas for a single strategy may be accumulated over time. And a single strategy will eventually be chosen over a period of time. For every threat and weakness a counter-active tactic must be formulated to safe guard the future of the business. Every weakness and threat has to be turned into a positive. After everything has be thoroughly evaluated and unintended consequences have been estimated. It is then time to use intuition in the decision making process. Intuition is sometimes very useful. An intuitive decision helped air the TV show Seinfeld after it rated poorly in focus group sessions.

Strategy often involves benchmarking off of older ideas. And it sometimes involves innovation. Thinking ahead which is sometimes termed as futurology and futurism are both extremely important methods to marketers and managers. Marketers and managers must postulate probable economic, technological, business, and artistic trends and the power structures that drive those trends. It is important to innovate because customers, technology, and the economy evolve so quickly. Various sideline plans that offer flexible options to managers can be contemplated in conjunction with the main business strategy in order to ensure the continuity and solvency of the business; those plans can be referred to as safety net strategies.
“Companies often fail to recognize that their marketplace changes every few years. Customer requirements and competitive forces have changed significantly every few years in such industries as telecommunications, and entertainment. The great strategies consist of a unique configuration of many reinforcing activities that defy easy imitation. The imitator not only has to incur great costs in trying to duplicate all the activities of the leader, but at best he ends up as only a pale imitation with average returns.” (Kotler 1999, 3,10)

Creative strategies are a small part of strategic management. It involves using diversity (i.e., diverse knowledge, diverse people, etc.) and interdisciplinary knowledge to create competitive advantage. The competitive power of diversity ranges from diverse products, diverse financial investments, diverse technological advancements, diverse people to diverse ideas to diverse sources of art direction and advertising design; all of which are in alliance with the mission statement, culture, and goals of the corporation which most likely includes goals of expanding consumer and profit margins. Effectively trained and supervised heterogeneous and homogeneous work groups should develop synergy and ensure the solvency and continuity of the corporation, its products, its programs, its reputation, and its financial investments.

“The personality of a product is an amalgam of many things – its name, its packaging, its price, the style of its advertising, and above all, the nature of the product itself. You don’t stand a tinker’s chance of producing successful advertising unless you start by doing your homework. First, study the product you are going to advertise. The more you know about it, the more likely you are to come up with a big idea for selling it. Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the brand image. It follows that your advertising should consistently project the same image, year after year. It will help you recognize a big idea if you ask yourself five questions:

1. Did it make me gasp when I first saw it?
2. Do I wish I had thought of it myself?
3. Is it unique?
4. Does it fit the strategy to perfection?
5. Could it be used for 30 years?” (David Ogilvy 1983, 11, 14, 16)

Individualism plays a crucial role in the development of success. Aptitude and talents will vary per individual. Individual differences have to be acknowledged first before they can be used for competitive advantage; because it is crucial to use each puzzle piece of skill, talent, and knowledge for the right purpose in order to complete the desired results. The struggle between individualism and the collective is also a huge source of conflict in corporate culture with regard to innovation, and synergy. The psychological contract between the organization and the individual (i.e., employees, community leaders, civilians, etc.) is also crucial for success. It can be beneficial for the corporation to meet the needs of the community and individuals with regard to employment, and social interests.

Robin Landa an expert in the advertising design business formulated analytical questions to guide strategic planning in her book Advertising By Design: “Why are we advertising? Whom are we talking to? What do they currently think? What would we like them to think? What is the single most persuasive idea we can convey? Why should they believe it? Are there any creative guidelines? What is the challenge facing the brand? Whose behavior do we need to affect? What is our insight? Did we do anything in particular to arrive at this insight? How do we execute this strategy? What evidence do we have for success?” (Robin Landa 2004, 44-46)


Robin Landa depicted the framework for an excellent print advertisement: “The usual elements of a print ad are: headline: main verbal message, visual: main visual message, body copy: the text of the ad, product shot: a photograph or illustration of the product or packaging, tagline: claim (also called slogan, end line, and strap line), which embodies the ad strategy, and sign-off: this includes the product shot and claim.” (Robin Landa 2004, 56)

Furthermore, Robin Landa provided a critique framework to help improve ideas and make them work more effectively for the business: “Before you let anyone else see your work, critique it yourself. Here’s a helpful guide:

• Goal fulfillment. Did you achieve your goals or did you go off strategy?
• Appropriate solution. Is your idea appropriate for your client’s brand, context, and audience?
• Appropriate solution. Is your execution, both design and tone of copy, appropriate for your client’s brand, for the context, and for the audience?
• Communication. Is your message clear? Concise? Can necessary information be easily gleaned? Did you communicate a functional or emotional benefit?
• Interest. Is there an interesting message? Is there a gripping and distinctive visual style?

When you use these categories, be brutally honest. If your final ad falls into one of these categories, rethink and redo:

• Sounds like advertising
• Too damn cute
• Sounds like bullshit
• I’ve heard it before
• Dull
• Good idea but needs a stronger execution.” (Robin Landa 2004, 66)

The corporate culture and economy are often labyrinthine, callous, unforgiving, and dismissive; it can be coercive and the culture may even obstruct the burgeoning of consumer bases, net profits, and brand equity like in the cases of Borders and Blockbuster. Many individuals are unprepared for the adaptation into corporate culture which is often of a collectivist nature in which the individual loses freedom and flexibility but must also express talent and skill on a reliable basis to succeed. Management are often unprepared and unwilling to accommodate individuals with their needs but could be more considerate to their needs in the future to ensure proficient quality control and high standards; effective corporations are also skilled at assimilating individuals into the collective with training, development, and performance management programs. At times these programs are executed to the corporation’s detriment if they are implemented haphazardly and insincerely.

“I do not believe that fear is a tool used by good leaders. People do their best work in a happy atmosphere. The most effective leader is the one who satisfies the psychological needs of his followers.” (David Ogilvy 1983, 52)

Diversity plays an imperative role in developing competitive advantage. Every movie that stands out in my mind and elicits a positive and addictive feeling has incredible value that must be evaluated closely. Every movie in history that has exorbitant net profits should also be evaluated carefully; questions should be asked, too (e.g., what elements made this movie so addictive? how can I use those elements in my business to entrance consumers into purchasing more?) Every element or attribute that inspires me and others to purchase contains diverse and arcane elements that are cryptic at first but later become seen as salient, unique, diverse, and extremely special. They always contain captivating qualities that make others want to purchase or watch repeatedly thereby increasing or intensifying brand loyalty, brand awareness, and brand recognition. Those elements are worth identifying and studying because they can then be wielded into a tool that will increase net sales, net profits, and brand value.


Reference:

Kotler, Philip. 1999. Kotler on Marketing: How to Create, Win, and Dominate Markets. New York: The Free Press.

Ogilvy, David. 1983. Ogilvy On Advertising. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc.

Landa, Robin. 2004. Advertising By Design: Creating Visual Communications With Graphic Impact. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

© 2011 Paul Prince, Paul Prince Art