An overview of marketing

An over examine of merchandising selling according to Kotler and Keller (2006) is everywhere. We as piece beings tilt to outline a sense of belief that we gift decisions out of our avow will. However, in reality we uplift hundreds of inputs consciously and unconsciously from instigants and patronagees trade themselves, that t shutd protests to exercise the very arse of everyday decisions. It is through with(p) salmagundially or conversationally in a number of charges by multitude and arrangements, and businesses require to implement good selling strategies in order to bring in full success. Hence as Arm powerful and Kotler (2009) assure that marketing has a twofold finis of trying to attract new guests by promising superior time entertain and to dungeon and grow present guests by delivering satisfaction.We argon surrounded by companies marketing on every possible platform that they croup maybe market on. scarcely this is no accident that marketing take s place this expression. Kotler and Keller (2006) order that it is done after c arful planning and efficient execution. Excellence in marketing and its strategies argon relentlessly refined and reformed to meet the way consumers react to crosss. But marketing to a abundant range of population either locally or globally is tricky and has to be the Achilles wienerwurst of m whatsoever a(prenominal) prosperous companies (Kotler and Keller, 2006). It require to include what convergences hire to meet node demands, the fruit category, what price ranges they need to fall in, tag image of the business and home run verity of the guest. The shops and businesses that fail to c befully understand and monitor their customers and controversy merely try to keep a step ahead are at the greatest risk of failing to augment their entertain to the kibosh customers.1.1 Marketing What is it?What really is marketing? How does it benefit to implement a marketing outline? Does mark eting really guide? This is explained solely by Kotler and Keller (2006) as the identification and meeting of human sine qua nons and social require, profitably. And to this the American Marketing touch baseor introduced a formal definition armed profit understand marketing which democracys that Marketing is an plaqueal function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to the customers and for managing customer kindreds in ways that are beneficial to the organisation as well as the stakeholders (Kotler and Keller, 2006).Armstrong and Kotler (2009), state that marketing is managing profitcap open customer relationships. Marketing has en suit fittingd exchanges of goods, function, til nowts, experiences, information and ideas good finished various modes of communication from businesses to customers. Exchange according to Kotler and Keller (2006) is a mettle design of marketing and to make whatever fortunate exchanges, marketers envisio nk to beset a behavioural response from the opposite percenty of consumer done and done analysis. But companies, businesses and strike offs charter to understand that marketing necessitate to be radical and that the advantages of go marketing are far greater. Using surgical strike advertising which as explained by Kotler and Keller (2006) are short, poseed ad campaigns helps create a sudden sense of belonging and part of a community, eyepatch making the marque or the scratch image as the unifier of that community. This enables bringing energetic change magnitude competition by introducing fresh, different marketing ideas and establishing loyalty and commitment among customers.1.2 Do Brands really exist?Guzman cites Kapferer (1997) who states that before the 1980s the flak towards snitchs was different. Companies wished to profane a producer of chocolate or pasta after 1980, they fateed to buy KitKat or Buitoni. This distinction is very essential in the commenc ement slipfirms wish to buy production capacity and in the second they want to buy a place in themind of the consumer (p. 23). Guzman states that the shift in focus towards stakes began when it was understood that there was something more than than just mere identifiers. befaces Kapferer (1997) say that crisscrosss help perform an economic function in the minds of consumers, the value of the crisscross knows from its ability to light up an exclusive, unequivocal and prominent significance in the minds of a large number of consumers (p. 25). and so Guzman pleadens that business need to form a crisscross and focus on developing defect value (Guzman, A Brand Building Literature).A tag as explained by Simoes and Dibb (2001), is the combination of features (what the product or service is), the benefits for the customer (what wants and needs the product meets) and the value (which the customer associates with the product or service). If marketing provides value to a prod uct epoch differentiating it from the other products in the market which may have similar features and benefits, then we are able to create a cross that customers can match to.Brands are thus intangible assets that are residing in the minds of customers. Though they are impetus to shuffle creation by marketing, Kotler and Keller (2006) state that brands end up as a perceptual entity that are fatheaded rooted in reality but reflects the perceptions and perhaps even the idiosyncrasies of customers. As explained by Armstrong and Kotler (2009), m both business give birthers and brands incline to make the mistake of remunerative more precaution to the product rather than to the benefits and experiences produced by the products and coined this as marketing myopia. Therefore companies and organisations have long tried to differentiate themselves from their competitors in many ways to be able to be top of mind for customers. These differences maybe functional, rational or tangible, i.e. link up to the performance of the brand in time they could besides be symbolic, wound up or intangible, which helps potential customers and repeat customers relate to what the brand intends to represent (Kotler and Keller, 2006).Perceptions from customers according to Chevalier and Mazzalovo (2004) are embodied in a name. However, the American Marketing Association defines a brand as a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them, intended to delineate the goods or operate of one seller or a gathering of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors (Kotler and Keller, 2006). It is thus an important visible part of a more complex reality and go aways the mediation of the perfume determine of the organisation and how consumers recognize its brand image. But what needs to be understood more importantly is that consumers are looking at a particular brand beca lend oneself-importance they mean it has a guarantee of a specific quality, usu ally superior and this tends to help form a long-term strategy assurance for any relationship among the brand and customer (Chevalier and Mazzalovo, 2004).Brands thereby focus on guardianship to their core- determine and delivering the benefits consumers truly want. As seen from the HBR (2003), the Brand Report Card shows us that strong brands attributes much(prenominal) as staying relevant or pricing strategies are found on value that the consumer discriminates, posture the brand to make it desirable and deliverable, while evermore ensuring brand consistency and monitoring brand equity1. all value that a brand carries along with it adds or minuses its boilers suit brand ken which Kotler and Keller (2006) state as the power of that brand which lies in the minds of subsisting or potential customers on what they have seen, read, heard and experience presently or in direct about the brand. As verbalize by Coulson-Thomas (1983), the call down of a brand may remain relative ly constant even as product physical attributes may change, hence companies and organisations need to constantly resonate their core values and agency themselves correctly in their charge references minds, in order to increase brand ken and high brand recall.1.3 Gaining an Identity for the Business by dint of BrandingUrde M. (1999), Brand taste course A Mindset for Building Brands into Strategic Resources, Joumal of Marketing Management, 15. 117-133There has been interrogation from preceding case studies carried out on companies such as Nestle, DuPont, Tetra Pak, Volvo, and Phamiacia Upiohn Nicorette, to see how an organisations entree is affected when its operations and marketing and strategies revolve around the companies brand or particular products of the company (Urde, 1999). The organisation acquires an indistinguishability and increased awareness when it expresses its overall goals, values and positions through its brand and brand statement. But Urde fountainheads whether we need to afterthought the market and marketing ideal while challenging the ever cognise assumption of whether the customer is incessantly respectable? He also goes on to ask whether teaching of the organisation or brand should be found on satisfying the customers need and wants, even if the price is not right? (Urde, 1999). But through the case studies researched by him on the companies verbalise above, it shows that equity and brand competence are required to create, develop and protect the brands while sending out the right pass through the right carry to be able to establish a trust brand individualism while customers can relate to and not just an image. Also Ewing and Napoli (2005) state that while doing this organisations need to monitor consumers brand perceptions, identify whether their attitudes confer with their own brand vision and thereby instigate strategies to reinforce positive brand beliefs or change any negative perceptions because as Haynes e t. al (1999) state, from a brand management perspective, brands are desirely to be more successful when an audiences perception of a brand mirrors the firms view of the brand concept and some(prenominal) are identical to the consumers original specifications since the products or services produced by a business need to meet the customers desires and not just their demands.1.4 Brand OrientationBrand-orientation has been a term that has been coined by Frans Mellin and Urde and through Urdes dissertation carried out in 1997 he states that it is an process where brands and companies revolve around the development, protection and creation of the brand through an current interaction with sterned customers with an aim of achieving long lasting relationships which in turn ensures militant advantage for the brand. Brands have always been seen as merely resources and expressions of the company individualism to establish themselves in the minds of customers. And they have thus been tempe red in a very superficial or general fashion. Urde cites Macrae who states that original companies go the extra distance to not and satisfy customers wants and needs but to lend a strategic significance to brands, which enables them to acquire an ablaze and symbolic value for the brand and organisation, thereby dower them ensure that they are living the brand through their marketing strategies (Urde, 1999).Urde states that though being attention and customer centric for the last half century, there are always questions arising with regard to product related questions. Is the product good enough? Is it what the customer really wants? These questions tend to dominate when we deal with brands and this is mainly because the functional advantages of any product can be easily imitated by competitors at a lower cost hence removing the competitive advantage entirely (Urde, 1999). Thus as stated by Kotler and Levy (1969) that The marketing concept holds that the assign of all business in an age of abundance is to develop customer loyalties and satisfaction, and the key to this problem is to focus on the customers needs (Urde, 1999). Thus when Drucker (1954) first articulated this idea being called the marketing concept, he made pure tone that marketing was never a separate function of the management but on the contrary, the hale business needs to be seen from the customers order of view (Deshpande and Webster, 1989).The marketing concept often called the market concept which is considered a time out stone by Kohli and Jaworski (1990) and Drucker (1954) who were among the first people to argue that the marketing concept needs to be adopted as a perfect basis for any brand or company to ensure a competitive advantage. Armstrong and Kotler (2009) also state that customer focus and value are the paths to higher sales and profits for any business. Thus it goes to state that by placing the customer in focus by the firm and revolving the companys strategies to sa tisfy customer wants and needs is key in any marketing concept. Many authors such as McKittrick 1957 Felton 1959 Kotler 1977 sidereal day. Shocker, and Srivastava 1979 Webster 1992 Day 1994 Hunt and Morgan 1995, have previously in their literature contrasted this concept of marketing with market orientation and hence customer orientation. And Urde get a lines market orientation as the organization wide generation of market intelligence pertaining to actual and future customer needs, dissemination of the intelligence across departments, and organization wide responsiveness to it (Urde, 1999). Businesses need to be able to maintain a kempt competitive advantage by differentiating their product or service through constant sensing of their market through regular interactions with customers and potential customers helping them cater to the end customers needs and wants, and thus as Melin (1997) points out enables them to form a barrier to entry.Thus brands are forced to become the m onotone response of the firm because following the strategy to tend to the wants and needs of customers can be ensured only through the right brand communication bring and thereby right segmentation and positioning. And this is possible as seen by Urde citing Day (1994) who argues that market sensing (the ability to continually sense, interpret foresee, and react to changes in the market) and customer linking (the ability to develop relationships with customers) are two particularly important aspects of the development of a market- orientated organization (Urde, 1999).Satisfaction of customers needs and wants The brand as an unconditional response to customer needs and wantsBut Urde (1999) also goes on to state that if brand awareness and brand loyalty of customers is intended to increase the competitive advantage, then market orientation tends to come into conflict with any long-term brand development. If marketing the business as a brand is the true question then we need to see whether the customers and their changeable preferences provide sufficiently stable grounds for the brand as a resource. If brands tend to change just because of opinions and comments of consumers based on whatever position they phone is popular at the time, then the business and its brand image loses credibility. This on the contrary shows that the business has not got a strong sense of identity and forms and opportunism for signs of weak integrity to the business and the organisations core values and goals (Urde, 1999).Establishing a brand as explained by Urde (1999) should be a starting point for businesses as an expression of a mindset. If all businesses relate to their products or services as brands and work on strategies to create, develop and protect these brands as strategic resources, it will help them achieve a competitive advantage which in turn increases brand identity for customers to relate to. Research done earliest has shown that identity of a brand for a customer i s erectd through value creation and import creation which enables customers to experience products or services as attributes that are valuable and unique, and this makes it difficult for competitors to imitate. Urde (1999) states that companies need to consciously and actively strive to kick downstairs their brand a competitive advantage through an expression of intent by constantly managing the process through which they give the brand value and meaning. This helps the brand become a symbol of an ongoing interaction among the company and its customers. Hence Urde points out that by doing this, it has positive consequences on the company which helps it position, prioritizes, organizes, develops, and protects its brand resource base while increase the companys knowledge of market intelligence for its product or service (Urde, 1999).1.5 Businesses establishing themselves as Brands A conceptual frameworkFormer head at Nestle, Camillo Pagano, was questioned by Urde on whether it wa s possible to create brand passion within an organisation. To this Camillo coiffures, As you get new consumers all the time, by changing consumer groups, habits, and trends, you have to keep the brands continuously refreshed. Thats a job that takes a tremendous amount of attention and passion (Urde, 1999). A passion for a brand whether it is a business, organisation or even a product or service, it needs to come from within, and this can be seen not only from the way the employees of the brand work in the organisation but also by the way customers perceive the brand through their loyalty.Businesses thus need to be brand oriented in order to generate any sort of customer loyalty towards their brand, increase brand awareness and thus be able to perish the right message to their potential end users. This ability to be able to transform a product or service by an organisation into a brand needs to constitute as a fundamental process for organisations. As stated by Urde (1999), a produ ct fulfils a function, while a brand symbolizes values and a meaning in a social context. A brand with emotional and symbolic values is experienced and interpreted while carrying a reputation and identity of its own provides a basis for a unique relationship. It symbolizes values and a meaning in a social context and brings about experience through its reality.The understanding of a company being brand-oriented can be summarised through a number of concepts and relationships. However, Urde (1999) integrated a companys reasoning about its strategy and direction with brand equity, brand awareness and brand identity, to obtain a conceptual framework called the Brand Hexagon.Any company that needs to portray its business or its brand out into the market need to answer basic fundamental questions such as Why does the business or brand exist? What does the brand stand for? Who is the brand? How is the goal of the brand to be achieved? As stated by Urde (1999), if these questions are answ ered then it helps relate to the reasons for the existence of the business or brand as well as enabling identification of the core values, identity, personality, and strategy of the brand. Also if the vision of the brand is to be projected out to the end customer on a long term basis then the business needs to be able to communicate the right information of what they want to achieve for the brand and how they will go about realising this vision.1.6 Communicating the Brand Functional and ruttish ValuesAs stated by Urde (1999), brand awareness for any business is concerned both with its position in the market as well as the specific products or services that is made obtainable for the consumer. From the Brand Hexagon role model, the right side reflects the reference function (product or service category and product), while the emotional function that reflects the brand name or the business name is on the left side. Urde goes on to explain that distinguishing between intellectually explaining as well as emotionally communicating are the principle ways brands need to communicate to their target audience. We as individuals use our brain (i.e. reference function) and our nucleus (i.e. emotional function) to interpret a brand thus enabling us to experience the brand in its entirety. The task of communication is necessary to explain the product or service that a brand or business represent, however it is not to explain brands in terms of objective relationships. We need to emotionally and symbolically experience a brand and hence the identity of the brand cannot be explained. And Urde firmly states that taste into the limitations of the intellect in understanding, and into the limitations of the emotions in explaining, is fundamental when a company communicates about its brands (Urde, 1999).The mission and vision are at lower part of the model and relates to the brand or businesses intentions, while the upper part shows the interpretation of the brand by the targ et audience. Through symbolic interaction a continual reinterpretation is created by the dynamics of brand development. Thus this has whizz to the process of meaning creation which puts the core values and positioning at the centre of the model, thereby forming the complete brand hexagon showing how all the elements are linked and interlinked for the development of a brand.1.7 ken. Associations and faithfulness Reflections of Brand StrengthAs we look at Urdes Brand Hexagon, we can see that the relationships between a brand, product or service and the target audience can only be established when there is awareness, right associations and brand loyalty.1.7.1 AwarenessAs cited by Macdonald and Sharp, baker et.al (1986) state that if a brand is not recalled callable to lack of awareness then it would obviously not be chose during the decision making stage. Awareness of a product or service, produced by a business, thus needs to be conveyed to the target audience and this helps to increase the brand frameing process. Farquhar (1989) states awareness is a important dimension of brand equity and Aaker (Emerald Backfiles 2007) strengthens this point to say that brand awareness is pivotal since it underlies the strength of successful brands. As Aaker (1991) states, the brand should be conceptualised as a node in memory which thereby allows other information about the brand to be anchored to it and this can only be done by creating awareness of the brand (Macdonald and Sharp, 1996).1.7.2 AssociationsThe brand is able to differentiate their product or service, create favourability, attitudes and bring about uniformity in the brand through unique associations (Keller, 1993). Aaker and Joachimsthaler (2000, p.17) describe associations as anything that makes the consumer connect with the brand, including user imagery, product attributes, organizational associations, brand personality, and symbols. But as stated by Cochran (2002), associations will only result if al l of the components of the brand make sense and are perceived by the target as an entity with which they would want to interact. Hence these associations will only be possible if there is a good communication channel between the brands and the end customer, since good associations would lead to better relationships and this would result in higher brand recall.1.7.3 LoyaltyLoyalty as stated by Shocker (1994), marketers for brands need to understand and be able to leverage consumer-bonds which has become especially necessary in every grocery store since it is characterised by increase unpredictability, diminishing product differentiation, and heightened competitive pressures and as cited by Fournier and Lao (1997), brand building activities have been placed back into the heart of business plans to develop consumer brand loyalties, partnerships and friendships. In addition, Aaker (Emerald Backfiles 2007) also states that by counseling on brand loyalty, this often is an effective way to manage brand equity since repeat buying patters of consumers as well as customer satisfaction are the indicators of a healthy brand and thus programs to enhance this will build brand strength.1.8 The Core Values Centre of sobrietyAt the centre of the Brand Hexagon are placed the core values which enable to position a mark product and a branded company because Urde (1999) states that it is via positioning that the company expresses and interprets the core values. Positioning of the brand however but take place in relation to its competitors and always assert on attributes and benefits that complement the brand. This is usually achieved as Urde (1999) explains through using of metaphors that explicitly communicate the core values. As cited by Urde (1999), Phannacia Upjohn used the linguistic picture of Nicorette a helping hand to communicate its products for quitting smoking. Hence in principle, positioning ensures three dimensions of quality, personality and communication of t he brand.1.8.1 QualityQuality as stated by Urde (1999) relates mainly to the product or service offered and as cited by Phillips et. al (1983), Porter (1980) cites that using quality as a discriminator helps insulate a business from competitive rivalry by minify customer sensitivity to price, increasing customer loyalty and thus protect the business and brand.PersonalityThe personality of a brand are simply the human traits that consumers associate with the brand. As stated by Aaker (1997), research has been done to focus on how consumers express his or her own self, an ideal self or specific dimensions of ones self through the use of a brand. These personality traits thus are able to provide the brand with an emotional side and enables to position it in relation to other brands for the customer (Urde, 1999). Thereby Biel (1993) goes on to say that personality can be used as a central driver for consumer preference and usage.CommunicationCommunication is the basic human activity th at helps link people and businesses together to create relationships. As stated by Duncan and Moriarty (1998), communication is at the centre of meaning-making activities which corresponds not only to marketing but also in political, social and economic areas to serve as a way to develop, organise and disseminate knowledge. Mohr and Nevin (1990) state it should be like the glue that holds the brands communication together in order to transmit information, receive feedback from the customer, and thereby help participative decision making. Thus through communication, businesses are able to chose the media channels through which they want to target their audience, use particular tones and styles in their marketing, and be able to reflect customers aspirations (cf. Kapferers (1997) reflections) (Cochran, 2002).Through this combination of quality of product or service, its brand personality and the right channels of communication, it makes it possible to position the brand clearly (Urde, 1999).There are certain values such as brand essence and brand soul that helps sum up a brand. As Aaker and Joachimsthaler (2000, p.45) states that brand essence helps become a part of brand identity as it is viewed as the glue holding the core identity of the brand together and as explained by Urde (2003), is to define and describe the innermost core of a brand. Randazzo (1993) also states that the brands soul is in its weird centre, the core values that defines the business and brand and permeates through all other aspects of the brand (Randazzo 1993, p.17).But as stated by Urde (2003), if core values are to fulfil their function and role they need to be strengthened into the product, expressed in behaviour and reflects the feel of communication thereby bragging(a) the end customer an added value which the consumer associates as an advantage to be able to differentiate a brand from a commodity. Hence McCracken (1993) states that Brands have value, it turns out, because they ad d value and Urde (2003) justifies by saying that the added value maybe either functional, emotional or symbolic but they need to be closely related to the core and organisational values. Through this act of interpreting and reinterpreting the core values of the brand to the customer, helps affect the image and identity of the brand (Christiansen and Askegaard, 2001). Thereby brands and business need to be very careful while communicating the right message to their customers because the most important task of core values according to Urde (2003) is to be the guiding light of the brand building process.Thus from the Brand Hexagon we see that consumer awareness of the product needs to be established through brand associations which will help bring out conditions that help relationships exist between the target customers and the brand. But as Urde (1999) states, the main significance of the brand is reflected by the positioning of brand and reflecting the core values of the business and brand. However, he goes on to say that the loyalty of a customer towards a brand or the relationship shared is established only through brand identity and recall. Any business or brand needs to see itself as a brand-oriented company by being an associative network that communicates to the target audience (Urde, 1999). As stated by Fiske (1990, p.42) Decoding is as active as coding, therefore the brand and end consumers need to be the co-creators of this whole process. Hence communication should not take place as a one-way network but rather as an interaction with the target audience (Urde, 1999).1.9 CommunicationCommunication is thus a very life-sustaining aspect of the whole concept of marketing and brands. Whether to communication is not the question anymore but asking what needs to be said, how it needs to be said, through what channels, where is your target audience located, how easy is it to access your target audience and how often can this be done financially and logically are the more pertinent questions. Over the years, there has been an increase in products on tap(predicate) locally and globally, the competitors have increased and the overall prices of products have reduced considerably. These factors have affected the ways brands communicate to the customer in order to gain higher market share as well as undivided attention (Kotler and Keller, 2006). This has however been overcome to a large period due to the efforts of holistic marketers2who are creatively employing multiple different types of communication.1.9.1 Traditional vs rising mediaAccording to Lutze, companies spend millions every year on marketing their companies as brands in order to gain more market share and form more prospects. But how often are these same companies realising the brand that is already created by their loyal, current customers? (Lutze, Reinvent Relationships With your Customers Online). As stated by Duncan and Moriarty (1998), this increasing importance of commu nication in marketing is easily demonstrated by the ability to use new marketing approaches as compared to traditional media (television, radio, and print media). Also marketing through traditional media could not be directly tracked unless large organisations paid huge amounts of money to market research companies to learn what their end customer feels about their product but with the admittance of the internet and social networking media platforms, all this has been changed drastically (Lutze H., Reinvent Relationships With Your Customers Online). The new approach emphasises two-way communication between brands and businesses and their target audience which has enabled listening to customers and interactivity with the end users. This kind of engaged marketing involving both sides of the chain can build or destroy important brand relationships and brand loyalty.1.9.2 The InternetWith the ontogeny of the internet, this has sparked a whole new digital revolution in the way communic ation exists and the way we use communication among each other. It has impacted lives of people as well as business to a large extent and according to Harris and Rae (2010), everything around us seems