I’ve been working with a company called Minerva Laboratories for a few weeks now as a Market Analyst, working on a strategy to expand the business into markets other than ear moulds (for use with hearing aids). It was a bit scary, still is a bit, its challenging. If anyone has advice, that would be great. A few things I’m finding helpful are;
- Get away from your desk, talk to people
- Have a plan, or at least a structure to your day
- Asking extra questions is important but don’t get distracted
It is teaching me to be a Marketer. I am quickly learning that while learning in University was really interesting, theory is different from application.
On the other hand I really like it. I believe in the business, the market feels right and my research is beginning to indicate that we could do well. I’m looking forward to presenting the strategy. And they have a 3D Printer, and that makes me drool.
Categories: Work
Tagged: career advice, marketing, Work
Well I worked hard all year and it looks like hard work pays off. I graduated with a 1st Class Honours in BA
Me receiving my PHS Marketing Student of the Year Award from Andrew Johnston PHS Washrooms Marketing Manager
Marketing from the University of Glamorgan. I was also really grateful to receive the PHS Marketing Student of the Year Award for Best Overall Performance at Final Level
My final results were;
Direct and Electronic Marketing - 80%
Contemporary Issues in Marketing - 78%
Developments in Managerial and Organisational Theory - 75%
Marketing Management in a Globalising World - 71%
Leisure Operations and Events Management - 63%
Corporate Strategy - 61%
I thoroughly enjoyed this year at University, by applying myself and contributing in class I feel I really got to know the subject and my interest and curiosity has been further stimulated. While my course was comprehensive I do not feel I am finished with academia yet and so I intend to enrol on Msc Marketing in October 2008. However a lecturer has mentioned that I may be able to go straight to PhD stage.
My only fear is of becoming an ivory tower academic, so I’ll have to remember to keep testing ideas against the real world and not get caught up in rhetoric.
If anyone has any advice for me at this crucial stage of my career I would be very grateful
Categories: Shameless Boasting
Tagged: exams, graduation, results
Hirschman’s (1970) Exit, Voice and Loyalty framework gives us a model to consider economic interactions between companies and customers. When a customer is dissatisfied with service from an organisation they can choose to voice their grievance or exit the relationship , however loyalty affects the decision.
Voice
I did not agree with Virgin media’s stance on Net Neutrality, and I wanted to make my position known to them to give them an opportunity to address my grievance. I called their complaints telephone number (0845 454 1111).
I explained the situation to the operator and he stated that their system for dealing with complaints was broken. I asked if he could make a note of my call; he could not.
Exit
I asked the operator to make a note of my new decision not to renew my contract with Virgin media the following year. Service frequently malfunctioned on my broadband and cable TV package in my first year with Virgin Media (then NTL), but due to my perception of the Virgin brand, my belief that service would improve, satisfaction with the variety of channels, and the on demand services, when they worked, I had renewed my contract.
Their stance on net neutrality and their inability to take my complaint (my inability to voice) led me to the decision to leave the company.
Loyalty
Alternatively, the operator could have taken my complaint. I could have been contacted by e-mail later that day clarifying Virgin Media’s policy on net neutrality. Perhaps asked to voice my opinions on the issues, comment on their corporate blog, send an e-mail to the CIO, invite me to discuss my grievance with customers, employees and management.
Virgin Media’s CEO Neil Berkett could have been better informed of the issues surrounding net neutrality and not considered filtering Internet usage in order to exploit the power of ISP’s over users requiring them to access the traditionally democratic Internet.
Categories: Contemporary Issues in Marketing · karma
Tagged: EVL framework, exit, hisrchman, loyalty, net neturality, virgin media, voice
I have had the displeasure of being asked what marketing was by my 9 year old brother. I was at a loss for words, “Marketing is customer centric management” doesn’t mean much to him and after that point I was fumbling around different lecture notes in my head trying to come up with something short, to the point and which more importantly justified marketing as a business function. I finally got as far as
Marketing is making sure the business is doing things that customers want
I don’t think he bought it, and I’ve been searching for an explanation of marketing ever since, surely I should be able to explain the general idea behind something I have been studying for three years, but I think I fell into the trap of thinking about marketing as a scholarly pursuit, rather than as a business function, I knew I had to fix that. There are the jokes explaining different marketing tactics
You see a fabulous girl/guy at a party. You approach them and say, “I’m fantastic in bed.”That’s Direct Marketing.
You’re at a party with a bunch of friends and see a fabulous girl/guy. You have one of your friends approach them, point at you and say, “She’s/He’s fantastic in bed.”
That’s Advertising.
I don’t think he would have got the joke, and it wouldn’t have answered his question; these are marketing communication tools or marketing tactics. They don’t explain what marketing is. Luckily for me, Seth Godin exists and has provided this great, concise explanation which I could probably use as a starting point should I my vocation ever again come under any intense scrutiny by pre-teeners
Make big promises; overdeliver.
Big promises are the overall value proposition to the customer, in line with their needs, values and long term interests. Overdeliver means making sure this value proposition is realised and exceeded
Anyone got any better quick explanations? Comments please
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Seth Godin, marketing, Marketing Concept, explaining marketing
I’ve written before about the academic arguments against the 4Ps, but what about some alternatives?
The 4Ps main fault is that they are focused on the Marketer and their offering, not the customer and their wants, assuming that we start with the offering and adapt the mix for the customer. The Customer Marketing Mix attempts to overcome this by emphasising
- Cost
- Communications with the Company
- Customer Needs and Wants
- Customer Convenience
Surely this is a big improvement, but the customer and the offering don’t exist in vacuums. Today’s competitive landscape requires us to consider more than the customer and company. Crittenden (2005) proposes;
- Customer Centrality - the basis
- Competitive Capabilities - what we can do and offer
- Company Collaborations - who can help us? who can we help? In today’s environment its both easier and necessary to join with other companies to add value. Concentrating on our value offering and then adding the value of other companies= multiple and high quality value elements for the customer
- Cyclical Connections - strategy and implementation are part of the same process. Ignoring implementation is a great way to make sure it doesn’t happen. Also consider what was learned from implementation, what were the results, what can we change next time
A part of me is very tempted to come of with my own mix…but I’ll spare you 
Victoria L. Crittenden (2005) The rebuilt marketing machine Business Horizons 48:5 Sept-Oct (409-420)
Categories: Contemporary Issues in Marketing
Tagged: 4cs, 4ps, customer centrality, Marketing Mix, marketing strategy
on the world wide web, the brand is the experience and the experience is the brand
Dayal et al (2000)
I have left sites due to tiny elements I didn’t like in interfaces, lost pages and server time outs, never to return again a lot more often than because I didn’t like the content. Unlike advertising brand building where the consumer ‘leans backs’ and you can deliver your message to them, the experience means more online because users are actively engaging with your offering, they are ‘leaning forward’, and they are busy people, if your offering does not provide a good experience, someone else will be offering something better
Dayal, S., Landesberg, H. and Zeisser, M. (2000), “Building digital brands”, The McKinsey Quarterly, Vol. 2, pp. 42-51.
Categories: Direct & Electronic Marketing
Tagged: branding, experience, moments of truth
Marketer’s need to get socially responsible fast
Are we responsible for the sum results of our actions? Gaski (1985) argued that social welfare is the business of elected officals, that once marketers start trying to decide what is socially responsible; what is in the interests of the public; something for which they are not trained, it is dangerous for society. He argued that this is the business of democratically elected officials.
And so it is, but we are human beings and have moral responsibility. Even if you have no belief in helping society, strangers who you will never meet, even if you can get past reponsibility to your family and friends, if the results of actions performed by a marketer take away from society as a whole, they are limiting their own chance at survival. If you believe that people are basically selfish, only looking out for themselves, in a global world can we would be hurting our own selfish selves by taking away from society as a whole.
I believe in moral responsibility, and I believe a lot of other people do. I am talking about marketers because its what I know, and because I feel marketers are uniquely posistioned to change people’s actions. These changes can be morally guided or not, as Philip Kotler (1997) said
The marketing concept sidesteps the potential conflicts between consumer wants, consumer interests and long-run social welfare
We as human beings cannot
Gaski, J.F., 1985. Dangerous territory: The societal marketing concept revisited. Business Horizons, 28(4), p.42-47.
Kotler, P. & Levy, S.J., 2001. BROADENING THE CONCEPT OF MARKETING. Marketing: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management.
Categories: Contemporary Issues in Marketing · karma
Tagged: Kotler, marketing ethics, morality, societal marketing
Portfolio Planning is economics put into action, an attempt to “use limited resources to fulfill unlimited demands” and although tools such as BCG and GE Matrices are designed for large organisations with extended product lines, I also feel they are useful for smaller companies, who also have unlimited demands but much more limited resources.
Portfolio planning has three real functions; balance future & present earnings, quantify existing cash flow and to analysise the company’s Strategic Gap (their expected performance - desired performance). The real use to small companies (whose cash flows and strategic gaps will be more obvious) is in the balancing function. Have these companies assured they aren’t relying on past innovations to maintain current market share? Or is there to much of a gap between certain product releases?
But a smaller scale application of the BCG matrix would highlight some of this models problems;
-
market share and growth rate would be harder to obtain for these smaller companies,
-
market growth, cash use and cash generation may be less (or even not) linked in smaller organisations/markets
-
blindly applying the matrix would put blinkers to innovation on managers eyes, and as such they could be caught out by not paying attention to new market developments
-
attempting to ‘balance’ a small companies by cutting out certain project could lead to a much higher loss of ’synergies’ than in large companies
Categories: Marketing Management in a Globalising World · Revision
Tagged: BCG Matrix, portfolio planning, strategy
This is shameless boasting but where else can I do that if not here?
I got 85% on my Direct & Electronic Marketing coursework
I’m chuffed because I thought that it was a very hit or miss essay, depending on which way my lecturer took it I would get a very good, or very bad mark…for some reason I was inclined towards very bad.
In any case I’m not sure it deserved such a high mark, but on re-reading it I realise it was a good piece of work and answered the question which was to compare and contrast two Direct Marketing organisations (I choose Amazon & Play.com - obvious examples but I enjoy Amazon’s direct marketing) based on my subjective experience. I enjoyed re-reading it but as my housemate Jamie said it doesn’t have my “usual spark”.
In any case here it is and my feedback;
Direct & Electronic Marketing Assignment
Direct & Electronic Marketing Feedback
P.S - anyone I trackbacked I referenced in my assignment (academia and blogging collides!)
Categories: Coursework · Direct & Electronic Marketing · Shameless Boasting
Tagged: Amazon, Direct Marketing, Amazon.com, play.com, Coursework, boasting
What is creative thinking? I’m beginning to think its easier than it looks;
In my Corporate Strategy class today, which is normally very quantitative and based on ‘traditional’ strategy tools, the lecturer briefly brought up creativity, which hasn’t had a big part in a module concerned with analytical thinking and strategic modelling. She gave as an example of a problem which requires a creative thinking:
A man is pushing his car and stops opposite a hotel. Suddenly he realized he is bankrupt. Why?
(Was able to find the source for this as Van Maurik (1999) The Effective Strategist: Key Skills for All Managers Gower Publishing, Ltd. pp 22.)
The answer is because he was playing Monopoly and someone else bought the hotel he was out of money after paying the rent. The lecture said this was creative and lateral thinking.
I immediately wondered whether anyone ever gets this right but then realised the problem was lack of information rather than difficulty of the problem, if we had all the information from the start we could apply linear logical thinking and get this answer.
In class other students have told me I’m very creative, but any time they’ve said this its been because I asked the right questions (as well as few wrong ones) until I had enough information to use my intuition (backed up by strategic thinking - where are we? where do we want to be? how do we get there?) to come up with a solution.
This has led me to believe that what is perceived to be creative thinking is simply asking the questions until you have all the information. Does this imply that some people are just better at asking questions? Maybe its just lack of embarrassment over searching for information, no idea. But I do know if I’m right it suits me fantastically because I love asking questions.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: strategy, creative thinking, creativity, analytical thinking
