Marketing is neither commercial, nor advertising communication, nor sales, nor commercial promotion. As Raymond Aron pointed out in his introductory speech at the Forum on Combat Marketing organized in 1975 in Paris by the Alumni of the Institute of Management Control, in a given market “marketing is a duel to several.”
A creative competitive strategic methodology
Marketing management is a methodology that derives its effectiveness – from evaluating the market share, in part – of the given prioritization of the prior expectations of customers and strategic and commercial partners, and, creatively, from the potential strategies of competitors, to the management of the brand architecture under which the offer is presented and to the development of brand equity, the mastery of advertising communication and the relational techniques for monitoring the promise made by the latter.
The application of this methodology is the responsibility of the general management and more particularly of the marketing department and the product managers.
Strategic marketing and operational marketing
This methodology can be divided into two main parts: the choice of market targets: automobiles, fresh eggs, etc., and imagination and development of operational plans ( mix marketing) of selected markets.
The first part merges with the strategic analysis of the company and will be called strategic marketing, the responsibility of the strategy director. Its tools are Pestel analysis, SWOT analysis, portfolio analysis, etc.
The second will be called operational marketing, the responsibility of product or brand managers, or store or department managers in the distribution sector. Its tools are: mix marketing or mix traffic.
The marketing spirit
The marketing spirit is the widespread application and internalization – until becoming a reflex culture – of this methodology within the whole company at the operational or field level, whether it is distribution, service delivery, service or production or a non-market organization. This is the responsibility of the generaln director and human resources.
The “Marketing Matrix” of Levitt (1969)
Coined by Theodore Levitt to evaluate the marketing spirit. Very similar to the management grid of Blake and Mouton, from 1.1 to 9.9. Having the marketing spirit, it’s not just being customer-oriented. It is to be client-oriented and business-oriented too.
Marketing management
Inspired by this methodology and imbued with this spirit, marketing is deployed or implemented in two dimensions: the management style and the field of application:
In terms of management style, depending on the degree of aggressiveness of competition, conquest marketing – these are Ries and Trout’s Marketing Warfare, combat marketing, guerrilla marketing, ambush Marketing, etc. – to a humanistic marketing – these are relational marketing and marketing 3.0 – going through unifying conceptions: co-operation, holistic marketing.
In the field of application, from fresh eggs to large aircraft, and from cleaning products (soaps and laundry) to beautiful humanitarian projects, through culture and patronage.
Marketing is plural. Indeed, the methodology can be applied partially and step by step, to anything other than originally conceived, the marketing of food products and maintenance products in the supermarket. We have: a B-to-B marketing, a services marketing, a luxury marketing, a digital marketing, a real estate marketing, an international marketing, a social marketing, etc.
Brand management
The effectiveness of marketing is subordinate to the existence of the brand, as defined by the American Marketing Association, as: “a name, term, sign, symbol, design or any combination thereof serving to differentiate them from competitors.“ The brand brings a financial value and is an intangible asset. It brings a strong value to the consumer (facilitation of the act of purchase, insurance in its purchase, valorisation …) and allows the company in particular increased margins, a higher advertising effectiveness or a better valorization on the financial markets. The recent realization of this evidence has led to the addition of naming and branding to the marketer’s panoply.
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