Response to Four Videos

"What is Marketing" This short clip provides an interesting view of what marketing is. To give a good definition of marketing, he starts out in stating what a market actually is. A market is a place where goods and services trade hands according to the laws of supply and demand. Thus, marketing is a tool that increases the demand for products and services. For every need, there is a product or service that can be consumed to satisfy that need. Since the economy depends on consumption of goods and services, marketing becomes a vital tool to keep the economy from stagnating. As more goods and services become marketed, the demand will increase and provide the necessary ingredients to stimulate demand in the market place. I thought it was very interesting how he brought up the Great Depression and the reason for its occurrence. The Great Depression resulted from having too much supply and not enough demand. Therefore, marketing becomes a necessary component of a prosperous economy and a primary component of a growth economy. "If the economy stops growing, it will crash." This quote alone shows how important marketing is to the economy. Without marketing, demand for products and services declines and when there is too much supply and not enough demand, the market will crash just like a plane running out of fuel.

                                

“A Short Introduction to Marketing” I really enjoyed this clip as it provides some key concepts that are essential to marketing. Marketing assists in meeting the objectives of an organization by ensuring that the products or services are sold to the right market at a price to ensure a profit. The customer value proposition (CVP) is the fundamental premise that underpins all marketing activities. The integration of product, price, place, and promotion (the marketing mix) supports the CVP. In a market there are collections of buyers and sellers where the sellers send products or services as well as communication (e.g. advertisements) to the buyers in the market; in return, the sellers receive money and information (e.g. customer feedback, sales data, etc.) I thought the Chartered Institute of Marketing provided an accurate definition of marketing which is “Getting the right goods, to the right people, in the right place, at the right time, at the right price, with the right level of communication profitably.” However, Peter Drucker states “the aim of marketing is to make selling unnecessary.”  I feel that this definition fits perfectly into the actual concept or idea of marketing. Instead of persuading customers to come and purchase a product or service, the customer finds out about the product and they come to you. This is the best and most effective strategy that any organization can have and should be the goal of any marketing department. Most importantly, marketing is the process of understanding what your customers want, providing them with what they want, and communicating with them the fact that those products and services are readily available to them.

In this video, Philip Kotler @ London Business School provides his perspective of marketing strategy. CCDVTP which means Create, Communicate, Deliver Value, to the Target market, for a Profit. I really enjoyed his view of brand management, product management, and customer management where product management is the process of creating value, brand management is the communication of value to your customers, and customer management is the process of delivering value to the customers. The idea of customer management is to get the customer involved. Phil Kotler ends this clip in a very powerful way in stating as marketers, we want to hear what the customer has to say. We want to meet the customers and known them personally. We want to get the customers help to co-create our products and co-create the advertisements. This ensures that we can effectively communicate with the intended target markets which are the consumers.

Seth Godin video- In this video Seth Godin presents his interesting perspective on marketing and how important it is to be able to spread the word about an idea. Just having an exceptional product alone is nothing without an idea to get the consumer excited about it. I enjoyed his reference to the long tail of marketing when he states that you should not be marketing toward the majority because they are really good at ignoring advertisements but to market towards the smaller percentage of the population (innovators and early adaptors) because they care about your products and they will listen and they will spread the word to their friends, family, etc. I also liked his rationale on how good products are boring. You need to make something fresh, new, and exciting; and you need to find the right people to get excited about it. I enjoyed his example of Silk soymilk and how it was such a success. Put it in the milk section at the grocery store and it was an instant success.