modern trade marketing Companies | engagement marketing ideas Asalfa

Our talented team know how to excite, inspire and engage. With backgrounds in events, entertainment and travel, we’re full of ideas for amazing prizes and unforgettable incentives!

At Fulcrum, we all come to work every day because we have a shared love of travel and delivering once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

Our team meetings are buzzing with fresh ideas, brand new experiences and glowing feedback from our travellers. We know what makes a great incentive, we have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the best experiences around the world, and we have an ever-expanding ‘little black book’ of the most exclusive suppliers in the business.

In addition to our creative ideas and experience, we know that our clients value our expertise and dedication to solving problems rather than creating them. Prizes and incentives are our world, but we understand that our clients have other priorities, so we make sure we’re delivering our ideas on-time, on-budget and on-brand. We thrive on tight deadlines, logistical challenges and creating perfectly tailored solutions, without the headaches!

About us

Perfect solutions every time
As a leading marketing Agency, we’re immensely proud to work with brands and agencies across a huge range of sectors and industries, giving us an unrivalled breadth of experience.

we have created and fulfilled prizes for promotions and activations across the world.

Our aim: help our clients achieve their goals through our experience and expertise, taking the stress and hassle out of prize fulfilment.

We work for both direct brands and agencies, often in collaboration or with other specialist agencies and partners. Many of our clients have existing assets – from festival tickets to sports hospitality – which we help them to build into the best possible prize packages. Others want to create unique, eye-catching marketing and btl content around their prize winners. We can deal with winners from any country and in any language; we can provide a full btl management service; we can even source camera crews for content capture.

Whatever your brief, we’ve got it covered.

SALES INCENTIVES

Driving sales and performance through tailored, flexible incentive programmes

With pressure always on to drive sales and performance, sales incentives are an essential part of rewarding achievement within many companies. From internal staff reward programmes to dealer and channel incentives, there’s no better way to create a happy, engaged and motivated workforce.

Our main goal is to understand your people and what makes them tick. From hundreds in a call centre team to a small on ground sales team, a clear overview of your audience is the most important part of the process. By taking a best approach, offering maximum choice and flexibility, we create incentives which are targeted, effective and tailored to your team.

Whether it’s sales rewards, dealer incentives or channel incentives, drop us a line; we’d love to help you drive sales with our fresh and creative approach to prizes and incentives. From once-in-a-lifetime holidays to mini-breaks, high-street vouchers and designer goods, you can rest assured that with Fulcrum you’re in safe hands.

24 hour turnaround for urgent briefs
Topline ideas within 2 hours if needed
Competitive fixed quotes with no hidden costs
Expert Winner Management and Fulfilment

modern trade marketing Companies | engagement marketing ideas Asalfa

Gathering and Using Information: Marketing Research and Market Intelligence

Chapter 10: Gathering and Using Information: Marketing Research and Market Intelligence

10.1 Marketing Information Systems
10.2 Steps in the Marketing Research Process
10.3 Discussion Questions and Activities

 

10.1 Marketing Information Systems

Learning Objectives

  1. Describe the components of a marketing information system and each component’s purpose.
  2. Explain the situations in which marketing research should be used versus market intelligence.
  3. Describe the limitations of market intelligence and its ethical boundaries.
  4. Explain when marketing research should and should not be used.

A certain amount of marketing information is being gathered all the time by companies as they engage in their daily operations. When a sale is made and recorded, this is marketing information that’s being gathered. When a sales representative records the shipping preferences of a customer in a firm’s customer relationship management (CRM) system, this is also marketing information that’s being collected. When a firm gets a customer complaint and records it, this too is information that should be put to use. All this data can be used to generate consumer insight. However, truly understanding customers involves not just collecting quantitative data (numbers) related to them but qualitative data, such as comments about what they think.

Audio Clip

Interview with Joy Mead

http://app.wistia.com/embed/medias/c89771530a

Recall from Chapter 3 “Consumer Behavior: How People Make Buying Decisions” that Joy Mead is an associate director of marketing with Procter & Gamble. Listen to this clip to hear Mead talk about the research techniques and methods Procter & Gamble uses to develop consumer insight. You will learn that the company isn’t just interested in what consumers want now but also years in the future.

The trick is integrating all the information you collect so it can be used by as many people as possible in your organization to make good decisions. Unfortunately, in many organizations, information isn’t shared very well among departments. Even within departments, it can be a problem. For example, one group in a marketing department might research a problem related to a brand, uncover certain findings that would be useful to other brand managers, but never communicate them.

A marketing information system (MIS) is a way to manage the vast amount of information firms have on hand—information marketing professionals and managers need to make good decisions. Marketing information systems range from paper-based systems to very sophisticated computer systems. Ideally, however, a marketing information system should include the following components:

  • A system for recording internally generated data and reports
  • A system for collecting market intelligence on an ongoing basis
  • Marketing analytics software to help managers with their decision making
  • A system for recording marketing research information

Internally Generated Data and Reports

As we explained, an organization generates and records a lot of information as part of its daily business operations, including sales and accounting data, and data on inventory levels, back orders, customer returns, and complaints. Firms are also constantly gathering information related to their Web sites, such as clickstream data. Clickstream data is data generated about the number of people who visit a Web site and its various pages, how long they dwell there, and what they buy or don’t buy. Companies use clickstream data in all kinds of ways. They use it to monitor the overall traffic of visitors that a site gets, to see which areas of the site people aren’t visiting and explore why, and to automatically offer visitors products and promotions by virtue of their browsing patterns. Software can be used to automatically tally the vast amounts of clickstream data gathered from Web sites and generate reports for managers based on that information. Netflix recently awarded a $1 million prize to a group of scientists to plow through Web data generated by millions of Netflix users so as to improve Netflix’s predictions of what users would like to rent (Baker, 2009). (That’s an interesting way to conduct marketing research, don’t you think?)

Being able to access clickstream data and other internally generated information quickly can give a company’s decision makers a competitive edge. Remember our discussion in Chapter 9 “Using Supply Chains to Create Value for Customers” about how Walmart got a leg up on Target after 9/11? Walmart’s inventory information was updated by the minute (the retailer’s huge computing center rivals the Pentagon’s, incidentally); Target’s was only updated daily. When Walmart’s managers noticed American flags began selling rapidly immediately following the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the company quickly ordered as many flags as possible from various vendors—leaving none for Target.

Click on the following link to watch a fascinating documentary about how Walmart, the world’s most powerful retailer, operates: http://www.hulu.com/watch/103756/cnbc-originals-the-new-age -of-walmart.

Many companies make a certain amount of internal data available to their employees, managers, vendors, and trusted partners via intranets. An intranet looks like the Web and operates like it, but only an organization’s employees have access to the information. So, for example, instead of a brand manager asking someone in accounting to run a report on the sales of a particular product, the brand manager could look on her firm’s intranet for the information.

However, big companies with multiple products, business units, and databases purchased and installed in different places and at different times often have such vast amounts of information that they can’t post it all on an intranet. Consequently, getting hold of the right information can be hard. The information could be right under your nose and you might not know it. Meet people like Gary Pool: Pool works for BNSF Railway and is one of BNSF’s “go-to” employees when it comes to gathering marketing data. Pool knows how to access different databases and write computer programs to extract the right information from the right places at BNSF, a process known as data mining. Combining data into one location is called data warehousing, and makes Pool’s analysis easier. He then captures the information and displays it in dashboards, screens on the computer that make the data easily understood so that managers can detect marketing trends. While a dashboard may display a piece of information, such as the number of carloads sold in West Virginia, the manager can click on the number and get more detail.

Figure 10.2

Metra BNSF Railway 149

Gary Pool is an expert at data mining—hunting up information for decision makers at BNSF Railway. And no, he doesn’t wear a headlamp. Nor does he wear a pocket protector! Pool’s title: Manager, Marketing Systems Support & Marketing Decision Support & Planning.

Michael Kappel – Metra BNSF Railway 149 – CC BY-NC 2.0.

Analytics Software

Increasingly, companies are purchasing analytics software to help them pull and make sense of internally generated information. Analytics software allows managers who are not computer experts to gather all kinds of different information from a company’s databases—information not produced in reports regularly generated by the company. The software incorporates regression models, linear programming, and other statistical methods to help managers answer “what if” types of questions. For example, “If we spend 10 percent more of our advertising on TV ads instead of magazine ads, what effect will it have on sales?” Oracle Corporation’s Crystal Ball is one brand of analytical software.

The camping, hunting, fishing, and hiking retailer Cabela’s has managed to refine its marketing efforts considerably using analytics software developed by the software maker SAS. “Our statisticians in the past spent 75 percent of their time just trying to manage data. Now they have more time for analyzing the data with SAS, and we have become more flexible in the marketplace,” says Corey Bergstrom, director of marketing research and analysis for Cabela’s. “That is just priceless” (Zarello, 2009).

Figure 10.3

An outdoorsman reading a Cabela's' catalog

Cabela’s’ analytics software has helped the outdoor sporting retailer reach the right customers with the right catalogs.

The company uses the software to help analyze sales transactions, market research, and demographic data associated with its large database of customers. It combines the information with Web browsing data to gain a better understanding of the individual customers marketing channel preferences as well as other marketing decisions. For example, does the customer prefer Cabela’s’ one-hundred-page catalogs or the seventeen-hundred-page catalogs? The software has helped Cabela’s employees understand these relationships and make high-impact data-driven marketing decisions (Zarello, 2009).

Market Intelligence

A good internal reporting system can tell a manager what happened inside his firm. But what about what’s going on outside the firm? What is the business environment like? Are credit-lending terms loose or tight, and how will they affect what you and your customers are able to buy or not buy? How will rising fuel prices and alternate energy sources affect your firm and your products? Do changes such as these present business obstacles or opportunities? Moreover, what are your competitors up to?

Not gathering market intelligence leaves a company vulnerable. Remember Encyclopedia Britannica, the market leader in print encyclopedia business for literally centuries? Encyclopedia Britannica didn’t see the digital age coming and nearly went out of business as a result. (Suffice it to say, you can now access Encyclopedia Britannica online.) By contrast, when fuel prices hit an all-time high in 2008, unlike other passenger airline companies, Southwest Airlines was prepared. Southwest had anticipated the problem, and early on locked in contracts to buy fuel for its planes at much lower prices. Other airlines weren’t as prepared and lost money because their fuel expenses skyrocketed. Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines managed to eke out a profit. Collecting market intelligence can also help a company generate ideas or product concepts that can then be tested by conducting market research.

Gathering market intelligence involves a number of activities, including scanning newspapers, trade magazines, and economic data produced by the government to find out about trends and what the competition is doing. In big companies, personnel in a firm’s marketing department are primarily responsible for their firm’s market intelligence and making sure it gets conveyed to decision makers. Some companies subscribe to news service companies that regularly provide them with this information. LexisNexis is one such company. It provides companies with news about business and legal developments that could affect their operations. Other companies subscribe to mystery shopping services, companies that shop a client and/or competitors and report on service practices and service performance. Let’s now examine some of the sources of information you can look at to gather market intelligence.

Search Engines and Corporate Web Sites

An obvious way to gain market intelligence is by examining your competitors’ Web sites as well as doing basic searches with search engines like Google. If you want to find out what the press is writing about your company, your competitors, or any other topic you’re interested in, you can sign up to receive free alerts via e-mail by going to Google Alerts at http://www.google.com/alerts. Suppose you want to monitor what people are saying about you or your company on blogs, the comment areas of Web sites, and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. You can do so by going to a site like WhosTalkin.com, typing a topic or company name into the search bar, and voilà! All the good (and bad) things people have remarked about the company or topic turn up. What a great way to seek out the shortcomings of your competitors. It’s also a good way to spot talent. For example, designers are using search engines like WhosTalkin.com to search the blogs of children and teens who are “fashion forward” and then involve them in designing new products.

WhosTalkin.com and Radian6 (a similar company) also provide companies with sentiment analysis. Sentiment analysis is a method of examining content in blogs, tweets, and other online media (other than news media) such as Facebook posts to determine what people are thinking at any given time. Some companies use sentiment analysis to determine how the market is reacting to a new product. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) uses sentiment analysis to track the progress of flu; as people post or tweet how sick they are, the CDC can determine where the flu is increasing or decreasing.

Figure 10.4

Whos Talking website screen shot

Type a company’s name (or anything else you want) into the search bar and see what comes up. (Note: It takes a little while for all of the results to show up.)

Publications

The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, BusinessWeek, the McKinsey Report, Sales and Marketing Management, and the Financial Times are good publications to read to learn about general business trends. All of them discuss current trends, regulations, and consumer issues that are relevant for organizations doing business in the domestic and global marketplace. All of the publications are online as well, although you might have to pay a subscription fee to look at some of the content. If your firm is operating in a global market, you might be interested to know that some of these publications have Asian, European, and Middle Eastern editions.

Other publications provide information about marketplace trends and activities in specific industries. Consumer Goods and Technology provides information consumer packaged-goods firms want to know. Likewise, Progressive Grocer provides information on issues important to grocery stores. Information Week provides information relevant to people and businesses working in the area of technology. World Trade provides information about issues relevant to organizations shipping and receiving goods from other countries. Innovation: America’s Journal of Technology Commercialization provides information about innovative products that are about to hit the marketplace.

Trade Shows and Associations

Trade shows are another way companies learn about what their competitors are doing. (If you are a marketing professional working a trade show for your company, you will want to visit all of your competitors’ booths and see what they have to offer relative to what you have to offer.) And, of course, every field has a trade association that collects and disseminates information about trends, breakthroughs, new technology, new processes, and challenges in that particular industry. The American Marketing Association, Food Marketing Institute, Outdoor Industry Association, Semiconductor Industry Association, Trade Promotion Management Association, and Travel Industry Association provide their member companies with a wealth of information and often deliver them daily updates on industry happenings via e-mail.

Salespeople

A company’s salespeople provide a vital source of market intelligence. Suppose one of your products is selling poorly. Will you initially look to newspapers and magazines to figure out why? Will you consult a trade association? Probably not. You will first want to talk to your firm’s salespeople to get their “take” on the problem.

Salespeople are the eyes and ears of their organizations. Perhaps more than anyone else, they know how products are faring in the marketplace, what the competition is doing, and what customers are looking for.

A system for recording this information is crucial, which explains why so many companies have invested in customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Some companies circulate lists so their employees have a better idea of the market intelligence they might be looking for. Textbook publishers are an example. They let their sales representatives know the types of books they want to publish and encourage their representatives to look for good potential textbook authors among the professors they sell to.

Suppliers and Industry Experts

Your suppliers can provide you with a wealth of information. Good suppliers know which companies are moving a lot of inventory. And oftentimes they have an idea why. In many instances, they will tell you, if the information you’re looking for is general enough so they don’t have to divulge any information that’s confidential or that would be unethical to reveal—an issue we’ll talk more about later in the book. Befriending an expert in your industry, along with business journalists and writers, can be helpful, too. Often these people are “in the know” because they get invited to review products (Gardner, 2009).

Customers

Lastly, when it comes to market intelligence don’t neglect observing how customers are behaving. They can provide many clues, some of which you will be challenged to respond to. For example, during the latest economic downturn, many wholesalers and retailers noticed consumers began buying smaller amounts of goods—just what they needed to get by during the week. Seeing this trend, and realizing that they couldn’t pass along higher costs to customers (because of, say, higher fuel prices), a number of consumer-goods manufacturers “shrank” their products slightly rather than raise prices. You have perhaps noticed that some of the products you buy got smaller—but not cheaper.

Can Market Intelligence Be Taken Too Far?

Can market intelligence be taken too far? The answer is yes. In 2001, Procter & Gamble admitted it had engaged in “dumpster diving” by sifting through a competitors’ garbage to find out about its hair care products. Although the practice isn’t necessarily illegal, it cast P&G in a negative light. Likewise, British Airways received a lot of negative press in the 1990s after it came to light that the company had hacked into Virgin Atlantic Airways’ computer system1.

Gathering corporate information illegally or unethically is referred to as industrial espionage. Industrial espionage is not uncommon. Sometimes companies hire professional spies to gather information about their competitors and their trade secrets or even bug their phones. Former and current employees can also reveal a company’s trade secret either deliberately or unwittingly. Microsoft recently sued a former employee it believed had divulged trade secrets to its competitors2. It’s been reported that for years professional spies bugged Air France’s first-class seats to listen in on executives’ conversations (Anderson, 1995).

Video Clip

Spying at Work—Espionage: Who, How, Why, and How to Stop It

(click to see video)

To learn more about the hazards of industrial espionage and how it’s done, check out this YouTube video.

Figure 10.5

10.1.2

Don’t get caught doing this—unless you work for the natural-cosmetics maker Burt’s Bees. To get across to employees the amount of material being wasted, Burt’s Bees had its employees put on hazmat suits and sort through garbage for a couple of weeks. (No, employees weren’t engaging in industrial espionage.) The recycling opportunities they spotted as part of the exercise ended up saving the natural-cosmetics maker $25,000 annually (Nemes, 2009).

To develop standards of conduct and create respect for marketing professionals who gather market intelligence, the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals has developed a code of ethics. It is as follows:

  • To continually strive to increase the recognition and respect of the profession.
  • To comply with all applicable laws, domestic and international.
  • To accurately disclose all relevant information, including one’s identity and organization, prior to all interviews.
  • To avoid conflicts of interest in fulfilling one’s duties.
  • To provide honest and realistic recommendations and conclusions in the execution of one’s duties.
  • To promote this code of ethics within one’s company, with third-party contractors and within the entire profession.
  • To faithfully adhere to and abide by one’s company policies, objectives and guidelines3.

Marketing Research

Marketing research is what a company has to resort to if it can’t answer a question by using any of the types of information we have discussed so far—market intelligence, internal company data, or analytics software applied to data. As we have explained, marketing research is generally used to answer specific questions. The name you should give your new product is an example. Unless your company has previously done some specific research on product names—what consumers think of them, good or bad—you’re probably not going to find the answer to that question in your internal company data. Also, unlike internal data, which is generated on a regular basis, marketing research is not ongoing. Marketing research is done on an as-needed or project basis. If an organization decides that it needs to conduct marketing research, it can either conduct marketing research itself or hire a marketing research firm to do it.

So when exactly is marketing research needed? Keep in mind marketing research can be expensive. You therefore have to weigh the costs of the research against the benefits. What questions will the research answer, and will knowing the answer result in the firm earning or saving more money than the research costs?

Marketing research can also take time. If a quick decision is needed for a pressing problem, it might not be possible to do the research. Lastly, sometimes the answer is obvious, so there is no point in conducting the research. If one of your competitors comes up with a new offering and consumers are clamoring to get it, you certainly don’t need to undertake a research study to see if such a product would survive in the marketplace.

Alex J. Caffarini, the president and founder of the marketing research firm Analysights, believes there are a number of other reasons companies mistakenly do marketing research. Caffarini’s explanations (shown in parentheses) about why a company’s executives sometimes make bad decisions are somewhat humorous. Read through them:

  • “We’ve always done this research.” (The research has taken on a life of its own; this particular project has continued for years and nobody questioned whether it was still relevant.)
  • “Everyoneâ

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Retail Marketing Campaigns | engagement marketing Professional Baramati

Our talented team know how to excite, inspire and engage. With backgrounds in events, entertainment and travel, we’re full of ideas for amazing prizes and unforgettable incentives!

At Fulcrum, we all come to work every day because we have a shared love of travel and delivering once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

Our team meetings are buzzing with fresh ideas, brand new experiences and glowing feedback from our travellers. We know what makes a great incentive, we have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the best experiences around the world, and we have an ever-expanding ‘little black book’ of the most exclusive suppliers in the business.

In addition to our creative ideas and experience, we know that our clients value our expertise and dedication to solving problems rather than creating them. Prizes and incentives are our world, but we understand that our clients have other priorities, so we make sure we’re delivering our ideas on-time, on-budget and on-brand. We thrive on tight deadlines, logistical challenges and creating perfectly tailored solutions, without the headaches!

About us

Perfect solutions every time
As a leading marketing Agency, we’re immensely proud to work with brands and agencies across a huge range of sectors and industries, giving us an unrivalled breadth of experience.

we have created and fulfilled prizes for promotions and activations across the world.

Our aim: help our clients achieve their goals through our experience and expertise, taking the stress and hassle out of prize fulfilment.

We work for both direct brands and agencies, often in collaboration or with other specialist agencies and partners. Many of our clients have existing assets – from festival tickets to sports hospitality – which we help them to build into the best possible prize packages. Others want to create unique, eye-catching marketing and btl content around their prize winners. We can deal with winners from any country and in any language; we can provide a full btl management service; we can even source camera crews for content capture.

Whatever your brief, we’ve got it covered.

SALES INCENTIVES

Driving sales and performance through tailored, flexible incentive programmes

With pressure always on to drive sales and performance, sales incentives are an essential part of rewarding achievement within many companies. From internal staff reward programmes to dealer and channel incentives, there’s no better way to create a happy, engaged and motivated workforce.

Our main goal is to understand your people and what makes them tick. From hundreds in a call centre team to a small on ground sales team, a clear overview of your audience is the most important part of the process. By taking a best approach, offering maximum choice and flexibility, we create incentives which are targeted, effective and tailored to your team.

Whether it’s sales rewards, dealer incentives or channel incentives, drop us a line; we’d love to help you drive sales with our fresh and creative approach to prizes and incentives. From once-in-a-lifetime holidays to mini-breaks, high-street vouchers and designer goods, you can rest assured that with Fulcrum you’re in safe hands.

24 hour turnaround for urgent briefs
Topline ideas within 2 hours if needed
Competitive fixed quotes with no hidden costs
Expert Winner Management and Fulfilment

Retail Marketing Campaigns | engagement marketing Professional Baramati

Branding, Labeling, and Packaging

6.4 Branding, Labeling, and Packaging

Learning Objectives

  1. Understand the branding decisions firms make when they’re developing new products.
  2. Identify the various levels of packaging for new products.

What comes to mind when someone says Coke or Nike or Microsoft? According to BusinessWeek magazine, the Coca-Cola brand is the strongest brand in the world. However, a global study of consumers sponsored by Reuters found that Apple has the best brand. What is a “brand” and what do these studies mean when they report that one brand is the strongest or the best?

Branding

We have mentioned brands periodically throughout this chapter. But what is a brand? A brandis a name, picture, design, or symbol, or combination of those items, used by a seller to identify its offerings and to differentiate them from competitors’ offerings. Branding is the set of activities designed to create a brand and position it in the minds of consumers. Did you know that The Beatles started a recording studio called Apple? When Apple Computer (the iPod company) was formed, Apple Corp., Ltd. (the Beatles’ recording studio), sued Apple Computer because two companies with the same name can create confusion among consumers. This wasn’t much of a problem when Apple was only selling computers, but following the release of the iPod and launch of Apple’s iTunes program, a case could be made that the companies’ offerings are similar enough for consumers to confuse the two companies and their products. In fact, it wasn’t until very recently that the lawsuit over the name was settled, some thirty years after the initial lawsuit was filed. Nonetheless, the situation signifies how important brand names are to the companies that own them.

A successful branding strategy is one that accomplishes what Coke and Apple have done—it creates consumer recognition of what the brand (signified by its name, picture, design, symbol, and so forth) means. Consequently, when marketing professionals are considering whether a potential new offering fits a company’s image, they are very concerned about whether the offering supports the organization’s brand and position in the mind of the consumer. For this reason, many consider branding to be much more than how the product is packaged or labeled, and they are right. Characteristics of the offering, such as pricing and quality, have to support the brand’s position. If Apple (the brand) stands for innovation, then products and services have to be innovative. But branding itself refers to strategies that are designed to create an image and position in the consumers’ minds.

brand name, like Apple, is the spoken part of a brand’s identity. A brand mark is the symbol, such as Coke’s wave or Apple Computer’s multicolor apple (not to be confused with Apple Records’ green apple), associated with a brand. Brand names and brand marks are important to companies because consumers use them to make choices. That’s why it was important to sort out the Apple brand. Each company wanted to make sure that consumers were getting what they wanted and would know what each brand meant.

An important decision companies must make is under which brand a new offering will be marketed. For example, Black & Decker makes power tools for consumers under its Black & Decker brand, while tools for more serious do-it-yourselfers and professionals are under its Dewalt brand. If Black & Decker decided to add to its Dewalt line new products such as coolers, portable radios, CD players, and other accessories construction professionals might find useful at a job site, the company would be creating a brand extension. A brand extensioninvolves utilizing an existing brand name or brand mark for a new product category.

Why would Black & Decker add these accessories to the Dewalt line? If the company did, it would be because Dewalt already has a good reputation for high quality, long-lasting durability, and performance among construction professionals. These same professionals would trust the Dewalt brand to deliver. How a company like Black & Decker goes about building this trust is the subject of later chapters. For now, let’s consider whether it is better for a company to market a new product via a brand extension or create an entirely new brand for the product.

One thing firms have to consider when they’re branding a new offering is the degree of cannibalization that can occur across products. Cannibalization occurs when a firm’s new offering eats into the sales of one of its older offerings. (Ideally, when you sell a new product, you hope that all of its sales come from your competitors’ buyers or buyers that are new to the market.) A completely new offering will not result in cannibalization, whereas a line extension likely will. A brand extension will also result in some cannibalization if you sell similar products under another brand. For example, if Black & Decker already had an existing line of coolers, portable radios, and CD players when the Dewalt line of them was launched, the new Dewalt offerings might cannibalize some of the Black & Decker offerings.

Some marketers argue that cannibalization can be a good thing because it is a sign that a company is developing new and better offerings. These people believe that if you don’t cannibalize your own line, then your competitors will.

Packaging Decisions

Another set of questions to consider involves the packaging on which a brand’s marks and name will be prominently displayed. Sometimes the package itself is part of the brand. For example, the curvaceous shape of Coca-Cola’s Coke bottle is a registered trademark. If you decide to market your beverage in a similar-shaped bottle, Coca-Cola’s attorneys will have grounds to sue you.

Figure 6.15

The new Coca-Cola plus bottle

Sometimes the package itself is part of a licensed brand. Coke’s curvaceous bottle is an example.

Packaging has to fulfill a number of important functions, including

  • communicating the brand and its benefits;
  • protecting the product from damage and contamination during shipment, as well as damage and tampering once it’s in retail outlets;
  • preventing leakage of the contents;
  • presenting government-required warning and information labels.

Sometimes packaging can fulfill other functions, such as serving as part of an in-store display designed to promote the offering.

Figure 6.16

Three Empty Boxes

A single wholesale unit of a product, such as these empty cartons shown here, is an example of secondary packaging. Each of these boxes might hold, for example, twenty-four cans of car polish or thirty-six cans of bug spray.

Primary packaging holds a single retail unit of a product. For example, a bottle of Coke, a bag of M&Ms, or a ream of printer paper (five hundred sheets) are all examples of primary packages. Primary packaging can be used to protect and promote products and get the attention of consumers. Primary packaging can also be used to demonstrate the proper use of an offering, provide instructions on how to assemble the product, or any other needed information. If warning or nutrition labels are required, they must be on the primary packaging. Primary packaging can be bundled together as well. Consumers can buy bottles of Coke sold in six-packs or cans of Coke in twelve-packs, for example.

Secondary packaging holds a single wholesale unit of a product. A case of M&M bags is an example, as are cartons of reams of paper. Secondary packaging is designed more for retailers than consumers. It does not have to carry warning or nutrition labels but is still likely to have brand marks and labels. Secondary packaging further protects the individual products during shipping.

Tertiary packaging is packaging designed specifically for shipping and efficiently handling large quantities. When a Coca-Cola bottler ships cases of Cokes to a grocery store, they are stacked on pallets (wooden platforms) and then wrapped in plastic. Pallets can be easily moved by a forklift truck and can even be moved within the grocery store by a small forklift.

Figure 6.17

Pallets stacked on pallets

This product is bound in tertiary packaging so that mass quantities of it can be stacked on pallets and moved with a forklift.

A product’s packaging can benefit the customer beyond just protecting the offering while it’s being shipped. No-spill caps, for example, can make it easier for you to use your laundry detergent or prevent spills when you’re adding oil to your car’s engine. And, as we have noted, secondary packaging (and also tertiary packaging) can serve as part of an in-store display, thereby adding value for your retailers.

Key Takeaway

A brand is a name, picture, design, or symbol, or combination of those items, used by a seller to identify its offerings and differentiate them from competitors’ offerings. Branding is the set of activities designed to create a brand and position it relative to competing brands in the minds of consumers. An important decision companies must make is under which brand a new offering will be marketed. A brand extension involves utilizing an existing brand name or brand mark for a new product or category (line) of products. Cannibalization occurs when a company’s new offering eats into the sales of one of its older offerings. It is something to be avoided in most cases, but it can also be a sign of progress because it means a company is developing new and better products. Packaging protects products from damage, contamination, leakage, and tampering, but it is also used to communicate the brand and its benefits, product warnings, and proper use.

Review Questions

  1. How do brands help companies market their products?
  2. What is the purpose of a brand extension?
  3. Name the basic types of packaging used in marketing.

Customer Acquisition
 Retail Marketing Campaigns, engagement marketing Professional, B To B marketing company ,
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Residential Society Marketing agency | retail Store marketing Companies Asalfa

We inspire the people who power your business.

No matter who you are and what you sell, the success of your business relies on your ability to engage with two critically important groups – the people who buy from you and the people who work for you. At Fulcrum, we create truly personalised incentive programmes that have the power to energize your business. Each Fulcrum initiative is designed around the specific interests and aspirations of your customers and your people. We engage and inspire the people that matter – the people who power your business.

Our Values
Client- centricity and the provision of quality service are key values. Providing a developmental and supportive marketing environment for our staff and recognising the importance of our suppliers are integral to our business ethic. Openness, honesty, transparency and a commitment to our community underpin everything we do.

Our Team
The heart and soul of what has made us so successful is our staff. It is their passion, commitment to quality and positive, can-do attitude that delivers outstanding performance to our clients and reinforces our reputation for service excellence.
From selection & recruitment through to training & development, we continually invest in our staff to ensure we have the right people, with the right skills to make sure that the job gets done right, first time.

Quality
Fulcrum has always aimed to be quality leaders in our industry. An impressive array of accreditations, for Quality, Environment, Security and Staff development are simply the kite-marks that demonstrate our core values in this respect.

Fulcrum Agencies
Over the years we have worked with agencies of all sizes and styles. We understand the hectic world of marketing and advertising and we have developed services specifically designed to adapt to short lead-times, changing needs, last minute requests and the occasional ‘sprint finish’.

Retail
With a long-history of providing services to retailers, whether major chains or small specialist outlets, it was a very easy step for us to adapt that to the on-line world. These days we can handle high-volume fulfilment for direct-to consumer on-line web-orders as we can easily provide retail replenishment and store refurbishment.

13 Expert Insights About Brand Experience

What happens when you bring together three dynamic marketers for an exclusive deep dive into the impact of today on tomorrow’s vision and the future of brand experience?

You get an event with the potential to transform how brand marketers navigate the future of their industry.

CEMA partnered with FreemanXP to bring this to life with a powerhouse panel that included Hope Stone, Manager of Event Operations and Sponsorships, Atlassian; Jeanne Robb, Director of Global Corporate Events, Cisco; and Lenny Heymann Former EVP, UBM TechWeb.

Collectively, the three panelists have over 50 years of experience in events and technology, making the panel a must-see for marketers looking to grow sponsorship revenue, enhance digital activations, and amplify brand experience.

During the recent event in San Francisco, these industry leaders shared their perspective on what they experience, what challenges they face, and what excites them.

1. Events are no longer just a moment in time. “We’re looking at giving a north star approach to some of our bigger events,” says Robb. “We’re making them more of a year-round program to continue that conversation.”

2. Culture plays a big part. “Our events are also about the company as a whole,” says Stone. “So when you come to our events, you’re not just getting content about our products and tools and practices, but you’re getting to know who we are. We’re really trying to emulate our culture into our events.”

3. Be where your audience is. It’s more effective to communicate with the tools your audience already uses, rather than trying to force them into new mediums. “We work with a broad range of industries,” states Heymann. “In the medical space, print still matters. In Asia, particularly with our shows in China, WhatsApp is how we communicate and build relationships.”

4. Community counts. Stone notes that Atlassian already has a highly engaged community. Because the user program started organically with customers, they worked with that instead of building something new and trying to draw the crowd over.

5. Bring people together online before the event. When Cisco was getting ready for a product launch, Robb and her team had people log on to Spark (a Slack-like chat platform) after signing up. This created buzz and conversation before, during, and after the event.

6. Listen to newcomers. Prior to this same event, Cisco created a special Spark room for newcomers, monitored by the team. This gave newcomers a welcoming space in which to ask questions, and it also gave Cisco a wealth of information about this audience’s needs, which ended up shaping the event program.

7. Keep it local. It’s important to let different regions have the power to modify campaigns and events for their own audiences, says Robb. “Our brand team is a global function, but if we hand China or Finland a campaign and tell them to do a direct translation, it might not work out as well as we thought. So, now it’s up to the region to say whether or not the campaign makes sense for them and to modify it as needed while still staying visually consistent with the brand.”

8. Let your vendors show off. In the tech space, exhibitors have amazing new tools that they’re itching to show off, and giving them the space and ability to do so helps make the entire event more memorable. “One vendor was showcasing this whole virtual world. You weren’t just standing still with a headset, but were made to walk a plank and between the movement and the scenery. You got to really experience it,” remembers Robb.

9. Prioritize smart choices. With larger companies, the team leading the event may not have as much say on budget as they’d like. Heymann claims, “Most of the budget, when you look at it as an event leader, is out of your control. So you have to make some really tough choices, get smarter, and select the choices that will make a real difference.”

10. Data is king. “If we’re doing something, whether it’s technology-based or even a customer story, it has to mean something,” asserts Stone. “Things can’t just be there randomly.” Robb agrees, saying that everything is data driven, and if there’s no data behind an idea, it’ll be a tough sell to decision-makers.

11. But, you need a data analyst. A company can gather up reams of data before, during, and after an event. But what then? Creating a clear track from event marketing to sales to customer service can be difficult, especially once the data hits multiple touchpoints. Stone recommends having a data analyst in the group; a person or team who can liaise between IT, Marketing, Sales, and the C-Suite, and who can turn spreadsheets of data into clear, identifiable, actionable information.

12. Use measurement to understand customers. Heymann and the team at UBM understand the importance of understanding their audience. Whether it’s post-show surveys and NPS scores or working with other event professionals, they’re approaching event measurement from all angles to get a better read on their audience and create personas.

13. The answer? Strategy: With tight budgets, an ever-present need to raise the bar, and reams of data to handle, event teams are being asked to do more than ever before, but often without the resources to match. All three panelists emphasized the importance of creating a strategy and making sure that activations and investments are scalable, repeatable, reusable, and justified by solid research into the potential ROI. That way, they can do the most with what they have, creating memorable brand experiences every time.

 

 

 

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Residential Society Marketing agency , retail Store marketing Companies , house2house marketing agent , direct marketing agent , Street marketing agent , Business Parks Marketing agent , corporate park Marketing agent , B 2 C marketing agent , f2f marketing agent

 

RWA Marketing Agent | Store marketing Campaigns Baramati

We inspire the people who power your business.

No matter who you are and what you sell, the success of your business relies on your ability to engage with two critically important groups – the people who buy from you and the people who work for you. At Fulcrum, we create truly personalised incentive programmes that have the power to energize your business. Each Fulcrum initiative is designed around the specific interests and aspirations of your customers and your people. We engage and inspire the people that matter – the people who power your business.

Our Values
Client- centricity and the provision of quality service are key values. Providing a developmental and supportive marketing environment for our staff and recognising the importance of our suppliers are integral to our business ethic. Openness, honesty, transparency and a commitment to our community underpin everything we do.

Our Team
The heart and soul of what has made us so successful is our staff. It is their passion, commitment to quality and positive, can-do attitude that delivers outstanding performance to our clients and reinforces our reputation for service excellence.
From selection & recruitment through to training & development, we continually invest in our staff to ensure we have the right people, with the right skills to make sure that the job gets done right, first time.

Quality
Fulcrum has always aimed to be quality leaders in our industry. An impressive array of accreditations, for Quality, Environment, Security and Staff development are simply the kite-marks that demonstrate our core values in this respect.

Fulcrum Agencies
Over the years we have worked with agencies of all sizes and styles. We understand the hectic world of marketing and advertising and we have developed services specifically designed to adapt to short lead-times, changing needs, last minute requests and the occasional ‘sprint finish’.

Retail
With a long-history of providing services to retailers, whether major chains or small specialist outlets, it was a very easy step for us to adapt that to the on-line world. These days we can handle high-volume fulfilment for direct-to consumer on-line web-orders as we can easily provide retail replenishment and store refurbishment.

How to build a brand strategy

How you’re building a brand strategy defines what you stand for, how you’re different from your competitors, and what personality you want to convey. Your brand will be the first thing people think of when they hear your company’s name. That’s why it’s crucial to carefully plan your branding strategies.
Building a Marketing & Brand Strategy to Set Yourself Apart
Your brand speaks volumes about your company, and sometimes, it’s without even using words. The different ways your brand is delivered to prospective clients include:
• The images you convey
• The messages you deliver on your website, proposals, and campaigns
• How your employees interact with customers
• A customer’s opinion of you versus your competition
To come up with a branding strategy, it’s important to first define: who are you? What does your business stand for? To do this, you can make an inventory of your skills. List out what you are especially good at and what you want your customers to think of when your brand comes to mind.

Second, what are your customers’ needs? You should define your brand based on how you can meet your customer’s needs in order to build value for future clients. To improve customer experience, start on the inside. Focus on getting your employees on board for a unified CX-DNA transformation. If you focus on infusing customer experience with your employees before you even get to your customers, you will have a culturally consistent and relevant CX solution.

Third, how are you different? Is your product less expensive? Does it work better? Do you meet the needs for a niche group of people your competitors haven’t marketed to before? Focus on what differentiates. No matter if you have a similar service to a competitor, ultimately what will set you apart is your brand experience.

Fourth, build a positive brand experience. What may be the deciding factor for a potential customer to choose your company over a competitor isn’t actually your service or product, but how they feel about working with you. Making an impact through customer experience is a key driver of customer loyalty.

 

 

 

Customer Acquisition , Retail Marketing Campaigns , engagement marketing Professional , B To B marketing company,

RWA Marketing Agent , Store marketing Campaigns , home to home marketing ideas , engagement marketing ideas , onground marketing ideas , IT Parks Marketing ideas , college Marketing ideas , B to C marketing ideas , f to f marketing ideas

 

house2house marketing agent | modern trade marketing Companies in pune

Fulcrum Marketing Services in Pune are the catalyst to bringing your advertising vision to life. While many ideas start in a boardroom, you need experienced marketers on the ground who are able to conceptualize, plan and execute a well thought-out marketing campaign in the field.

we supply the experience, connections, relationships, and knowledge needed to maximize the potential return on investment for each of our clients as well as help identify and pursue select market opportunities as they come available, house2house marketing agent | modern trade marketing Companies in pune. Our local insight allows us to create exceptional investment potential for our partners and clients and enhanced living experience for our residents.

CREATING COMMUNITIES WHERE PEOPLE ARE EAGER TO LIVE AND RELUCTANT TO LEAVE

We define and position apartment homes for success. We are passionate about the residential experience and the qualitative and quantitative points that drive us to make strategic decisions that inform what a home should be — specific to its marketplace.

Results are realized through both the speed of lease-ups and financial performance of the on-going stabilized investment.

MARKET RESEARCH
We crunch the numbers, ask the questions, assess current trends and forecast future trends with detailed, up-to-date research to understand our markets; Ensuring our clients have the right data points to make the best decisions going forward.

MARKET POSITIONING
What’s the experience living here? What’s the story and name of this place? Our experience and insight allows us to identify and position each project’s distinctive offerings as its market niche. We provide an understanding that goes deeper than looking at trends. We create sought-after, thoughtfully executed apartment communities that are compatible with their surrounding neighborhoods.

MARKETING STRATEGY
Overall success relies on a thoughtful marketing strategy. In a constantly changing environment, we develop and implement each marketing initiative specific to your audience and budget. Reaching consumers in a way that educates and informs; ultimately creating product desirability and excellent rates of return.

 

 

Second Screen: Your Direct Line to Audience Engagement and Analytics

Turn the mobile device into an unlimited event engagement and measurement tool

We live in an always-on society, where our event attendees are expected—and even want—to stay connected to their work when they are at home or out of office.

Mobile devices are a part of attendees’ everyday routines, whether at home, on the job, or on the show floor—so why not tap into this behavior by transforming the mobile device into a part of the overall event experience? That’s where second screen technology comes into play—transforming your attendee’s mobile devices into an unlimited event engagement tool and providing you with immense data on audience preferences, speaker and content performance, and more.

Download this Insights Paper to learn:

  • The Science Behind Second Screen
  • What Second Screen Can Do for Your Event
  • How to Rock the Second Screen Rollout
  • Ways to Pump Up the Volume with Second Screen

 

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home to home marketing ideas | Retail Marketing Campaigns in pune

Fulcrum Marketing Services in Pune are the catalyst to bringing your advertising vision to life. While many ideas start in a boardroom, you need experienced marketers on the ground who are able to conceptualize, plan and execute a well thought-out marketing campaign in the field.

we supply the experience, connections, relationships, and knowledge needed to maximize the potential return on investment for each of our clients as well as help identify and pursue select market opportunities as they come available, home to home marketing ideas | Retail Marketing Campaigns in pune. Our local insight allows us to create exceptional investment potential for our partners and clients and enhanced living experience for our residents.

CREATING COMMUNITIES WHERE PEOPLE ARE EAGER TO LIVE AND RELUCTANT TO LEAVE

We define and position apartment homes for success. We are passionate about the residential experience and the qualitative and quantitative points that drive us to make strategic decisions that inform what a home should be — specific to its marketplace.

Results are realized through both the speed of lease-ups and financial performance of the on-going stabilized investment.

MARKET RESEARCH
We crunch the numbers, ask the questions, assess current trends and forecast future trends with detailed, up-to-date research to understand our markets; Ensuring our clients have the right data points to make the best decisions going forward.

MARKET POSITIONING
What’s the experience living here? What’s the story and name of this place? Our experience and insight allows us to identify and position each project’s distinctive offerings as its market niche. We provide an understanding that goes deeper than looking at trends. We create sought-after, thoughtfully executed apartment communities that are compatible with their surrounding neighborhoods.

MARKETING STRATEGY
Overall success relies on a thoughtful marketing strategy. In a constantly changing environment, we develop and implement each marketing initiative specific to your audience and budget. Reaching consumers in a way that educates and informs; ultimately creating product desirability and excellent rates of return.

 

 

The Five Pillars of Experiential Marketing1

The Experiential Marketing Summit is an annual conference that brings together leaders in the marketing world. At last year’s event, the Vice President of Experience Marketing at Adobe, Alex Amado, spoke about what he considers to be the five pillars of experiential marketing. Adobe is one brand that has embraced experiential marketing from the very beginning, so all eyes in the room were on him during this keynote address. Here’s a look at the five pillars of experiential marketing that make every event a success:

Design

The design of an experiential marketing event should be of the utmost importance to every brand. This doesn’t mean that the design of the event should just be visually appealing, but also that it should convey a strong message about your brand. Guests should immediately know who the brand is and what they stand for when they walk into an event.

The event should also be designed in a way that makes the experience easy to understand. For example, when GE wanted to host an event to show industry professionals how they were providing global healthcare solutions to impoverished countries around the world, they relied heavily on the event’s design. The company set up several “movie sets” designed to look like various parts of the world that they had helped, including rural African villages and emergency rooms. Then, doctors stood in front of each set to explain to guests how GE’s initiative was impacting these areas. During this event, the design was used to make an impact on guests and clearly illustrate the difference that GE was making around the world.

Community

An experiential marketing event should also embrace the community of the brand’s potential and existing customers. One brand that seamlessly incorporated their community into their experiential marketing event was Google.

Google announced plans to give away $5.5 million to nonprofit organizations in the San Francisco Bay area. Instead of letting executives decide where this money would go, the company enlisted the community’s help. Google set up interactive posters throughout the city in places such as bus shelters, restaurants, and shopping centers. The posters asked the community one simple question: where should the $5.5 million go? People in the community could then tap on the poster to vote for a specific cause such as helping parents and teachers connect, growing small businesses, or helping at-risk kids graduate.

This is a perfect example of how companies should embrace their communities. Google recognized that their donation could lead to significant change in the community, so they allowed the community to decide what needed to be changed. In this example, Google’s community was the actual community of San Francisco, but for many brands, the community is their target audience.

Engagement

Experiential marketing is all about engagement, so it’s no surprise that this is one of the five pillars of this strategy. In the past, brands engaged in one-way communication with their consumers. The brands sent messages via TV commercials, billboards, or print ads, and consumers did not have the ability to respond. But now, consumers demand that brands engage in two-way conversations with them. Consumers want to be able to provide feedback, share their concerns, and ask questions in order to gain a deeper understanding of the brand. Fortunately, this is all possible at experiential marketing events.

Guests should be able to test new products, speak with brand ambassadors, and participate in fun brand-related activities at an experiential marketing event. Even if guests are not actually purchasing the brand’s products, they are still engaging with the brand. Giving guests this type of positive experience is the first step to converting them into customers and building a lifelong relationship with them.

During the event planning process, marketers should constantly ask themselves how guests will engage with the brand. If there are not enough opportunities for guests to engage directly with the brand, changes need to be made in order for the event to be a success.

Data

Marketers should rely heavily on data both before and after an experiential marketing event. Before the event, marketers should use data to figure out where the event should be held, the best way to communicate to their target audience, and what results they should expect. After the event, marketers should analyze the data collected from the event to determine if the event was a success. This data should also be used to improve future events. For example, let’s say the data reveals that the vast majority of guests heard about the event on Instagram and none of the guests heard about the event on Twitter. When planning the next event, marketers should reference this data when determining the best way to invite members of their target audience.

Culture

Brands must have a customer-centric culture in order to plan successful experiential marketing events. If everyone in the company knows that the customer always comes first, this will help them make better decisions when it comes to planning and hosting an experiential marketing event. The event will truly be designed with the customer in mind, which makes it much more enjoyable for guests.

It’s important for brands to hire brand ambassadors that understand the idea of a customer-centric culture. The brand ambassadors will be the face of your brand during an experiential marketing event, so they must be trained to make sure every guest has a pleasant and memorable experience. If they don’t put the customers first, guests will assume that your company doesn’t either.

 

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