Promotional Strategy and IMC

I think an excellent example of guerrilla marketing, "a marketing activity in which a firm "ambushes" consumers with promotional content in places they are not expecting to encounter this activity," is done by the group Truth who is working to expose the tobacco industry and the real risks involved in smoking ciggarettes. In one of their campaigns they placed crawling, crying babies all over the streets. Those passing by eventually picked the babies up and saw that written on the stomach of the baby was the question, "How do infants avoid secondhand smoke?" The response from the tobacco executives was, "At some point they learn to crawl." This is definitely guerrilla marketing of the truth regarding the tobacco industry.

Distribution: Just in time

Just in time is a concept that has become key in the apparel industry and more specifically in fast fashion stores such as Wet Seal, Forever 21, and Zara. We never ended up talking about Zara in class but in my AMT 450 course: Strategic planning and decision making, we completed a case study on Zara and the corporation that owns Zara, Inditex. Zara defines fast fashion and just in time delivery which is "inventory management and purchasing processes that manufacturers and resellers use to reduce inventory to very low levels and ensure that deliveries from suppliers arrive only when needed." Zara is able to take an item from design to in stores in 6-9 weeks, this is unbeatable by any competitors. Items only remain in the distribution center for 3hours to 3 days and Zara's advantage works because all their stores are near to the flagship store and distribution center. In new areas such as New York and Los Angles they don't have such a good advantage. In general other stores could be modeled after Zara's fast fashion and just in time distribution and inventory management.

Pricing: Online Auction

At one of my most recent family get-togethers my cousin, who is now a hot shot patent lawyer in Washington D.C., told us all about her latest case that had to do eBay. eBay is one of the most popular online auctions, defined by our textbook as, "E-commerce that allows shoppers to purchase products through online bidding." Sites such as eBay are a great way for bargain hunters to find deals on new or barely used items that they couldn't find anywhere else. The problem with this is that many people have been claiming to sell real designer purses; brands such as Chanel, Louie Vitton, Gucci etc., when in fact they really had a fake and simply posted a picture on the site of an authentic purse. This is the problem with online auction sites, there is currently no way for them to monitor the authenticity of the items people are claiming to have!

Marketing Services: Variability

As we discussed in class, the quality of a services is more variable than the quality of a product simply because they cannot be mass produced. Our text defines variability as "the characteristic of a service that means that even the same service performed by the same individual for the same customer can vary." I learned about this first hand working in a franchise coffee stand. One of their core values was that the various drinks made at the stands would all be the same. In order to combat any variability employees were required to memorize the ingredients and their measurements for all beverages served. After training we were tested on this knowledge before receiving our scheduled hours. Even with these extra precautions preventing variability proved to be very difficult while working as a barista.

Managing Product Lines

Many companies have multiple products and brands and now even more department stores and groceries stores are beginning to create their own brands as well as supplying other well known brands. These are known as private-label brands which are text defines as "brands that are owned and sold by a certain retailer or distributor." In my own shopping I have come across many examples of this and the same things seem to be true. Private-label brands are often times less expensive than the products they compete with while they look/taste the same. Still people are hesitant to purchase them for some reason.

New Products and Innovations

In this chapter we discussed products and the need to always be constantly innovating. One of the terms listed in the chapter was "staples" which are "basic or necessary items that are available almost everywhere. In the apparel industry an example of a staple item would be a white cotton t-shirt. These can be found anywhere from Wal-mart to Nordstrom and in a wide range of prices. Items such as these are straight re-buys for buying centers and are often made automatically by computer when the inventory is getting low. For each season that same t-shirt may be modified for that seasons trending colors and placed in retail stores. This requires little effort from the buying center yet is an easy way to innovate.

Target Marketing

It appears to me that using the target market strategy of:

"dividing the total market into different segments on the basis of consumer characteristics, selecting one or more segments, and developing products to meet the needs of those specific segments"

proves to be more profitable than simply focusing on one target market. An example of a company that does this extremely well is Ralph Lauren. Ralph Lauren Collection is the premiere product line but within that line they have multiple brands such as Ralph Lauren Blue Label, Ralph Lauren Black Label, Pink Pony, Ralph, Polo Jeans Company, Ralph Lauren Gold, and RLX. All of these labels represent high end merchandise but each one targets a different segment within the larger market of people who are looking for high fashion, high quality garments. Having 7 different labels within the larger company allows for a much higher profit potential and a much wider customer base than simply having 1.

B2B Chapter

I found this chapter to be very interesting because business to business relationships are very important in what I aspire to do upon graduation: apparel buying. Buyers for large department stores must maintain an ongoing relationship with the manufacturers and companies they purchase their apparel from. A concept that was covered in this chapter was the idea of straight re-buys which are situations in which the buyer makes a routine purchase that requires little decision making. Often times large department stores have a list of pre-approved vendors from whom they can purchase. Basic items such as socks or plain white t-shirts are often times reordered automatically via computer without the buyer having to make any decisions regarding the purchase. Straight re-buys are a very large part of apparel buying and I found this to be an interesting connection to my major.

Consumer Behavior

It just so happened I was shopping with my boyfriend, looking for a topical cream for a recent outbreak of acne. I thought this would be simple but when asking his opinion he always chose the more expensive option because he automatically assumed that the more expensive option would in turn be more effective. I combated his argument by showing him that both products had the exact same ingredients, how could one be more effective than the other? But he remained firm in his belief that the more expensive product would be a better choice. This just illustrated to me how differently people are in their attitudes and perceptions of products when shopping. The process by which my boyfriend selected, organized and interpreted new products was by their price tag, whereas my perceptions took far more consideration of the ingredients, price, etc.

My final decision:

Mall Intercept

Before taking this class I never realized just how effective mall intercept marketing is. Our text defines mall intercept marketing as "a data gathering technique where researchers talk to shoppers in shopping or public areas and ask them to fill out a survey, take a taste test...etc."

To the consumers it appears as if they are simply getting a free sample and perhaps a coupon, but really by doing this sort of technique researchers can gather information regarding what consumers think of the taste: their facial expression after sampling, whether they sneak back for seconds, or they can actually do a formal questionnaire. Also, when consumers see or sample the product they may end up purchasing it when it wasn't even on their list to begin with. In my opinion mall intercept marketing is far more effective than other techniques.

Mission Statement

A mission statement describes the strategic plan of a company or organization and specifically what they hope to achieve in terms of customer treatment, employees, and now more than in the past it includes their plans for thriving sustainably. Here is Starbucks mission statement:

"To inspire and nurture the human spirit— one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time."

They then go on to describe how they will do this in 6 sections headed: coffee, partners, customers, stores, neighborhood, and shareholders.

Starbucks also included an environmental mission statement:

"Starbucks is committed to a role of environmental leadership in all facets of our business."

Though in the next section they don't use very specific language in regards to how they will fulfil this commitment.

References: http://www.starbucks.com/mission/default.asp

Market Position

I have noticed that many beer advertisements try to position themselves so that they appear to be the most "manly," or attract the sexiest women. They must do this because, to the untrained taste, most beers taste all the same and advertisers want to position their beer more desirably than the competition. Market position is "the way in which the target market perceives the product in comparison to competitors brands." In this case beer producers target market mainly consists of men who would want to appear as if they were drinking a "manly" beer.

This commercial depicts every guys fantasy, two girls wrestling in their underwear. This commercial as well as other barely shows the actual beer, but simply a man's fantasy.