COURSE 01, WEEK 01 - Branding: Marketing Strategy & Brand Positioning

Course Overview






Marketing 101: Building Strong Brands (Part 1)

WHAT IS MARKETING?

The American Marketing Association defines marketing as: “…the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Google Generative AI explains how: “Marketing is the process of promoting a company's products or services to a target audience, ultimately aiming to drive sales and increase brand awareness. It involves understanding customer needs, designing products and services, setting prices, choosing distribution channels, and implementing promotional strategies. Essentially, marketing is about creating value for customers and building relationships with them.”

Investopedia notes how: “Marketing refers to the activities a company undertakes to promote the buying or selling of its products or services. Marketing includes advertising and allows businesses to sell products and services to consumers, other businesses, and organizations.”

In her lecture, Wharton Professor Barbara Kahn notes how…

  • The ESSENCE OF MARKETING is to HAVE A STRONG BRAND.

  • The FOCUS of marketing is on BUILDING STRONG BRANDS.

  • The STUDY of a MARKET.

  • MARKET - an EXCHANGE between two partners, usually a BUYER and a SELLER.

  • Ultimately, what MARKETING means differs as a function of the different aspects related to the idea of an EXCHANGE.

  • Remember that MARKETING also applies to non-profits and other things where there isn’t necessarily money being transacted.

  • In marketing, there are SELLERS MARKETS and BUYERS MARKETS.

Invstopedia defines a SELLERS MARKET as representing “…a market condition characterized by a shortage of goods available for sale, resulting in pricing power for the seller. A seller's market is a term commonly applied to the property market when low supply meets high demand.”

Investopedia defines a BUYERS MARKET as representing “…an environment that favors buyers over sellers. It typically develops when changes to the underlying economic conditions that shape supply and demand mean that purchasers have an advantage over sellers in price negotiations.”

MARKETING should not be the same in the seller’s market as in the buyer’s market.

BUYERS MARKET (Customer Focussed Marketing)

Lots of COMPETITION with a lot of PRODUCTS available for BUYERS to choose from

BUYERS HAVE THE POWER

Represents a CUSTOMER FOCUSSED MARKET

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SELLERS MARKET (Product Focussed Marketing)

Seller has THE PRODUCT

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BUYERS who want that product have to come to THE SELLER

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SELLERS HAVE THE POWER

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Represents a PRODUCT FOCUSED MARKET

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Products are…

  • Developed to the best of a seller’s ability;

  • Innovative; and

  • Cost effective.

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Sellers look to SELL AS MUCH AS THEY CAN

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Profability comes from VOLUME of sales

PROFABILITY is tied to MARKET SHARE

Higher revenues + Lower costs = MORE PROFITS

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BIGGER MARKET SHARE = MORE REVENUES

BIGGER MARKET SHARE & VOLUME = LOWER PRODUCT COST

Market Share becomes your business objective in a product focused market