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Kotler - Chaotics: The business of managing and marketing in the age of turbulence

CITAT
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AN,EDITURA, PAGINA
2009,Amacom , pag. 139

change, increasing levels of complexity, and escalating risks and uncertainty have become the new marketing reality in times of turbulence. themselves.Marketers need to master resiliency if they are to engage the marketplace forcefully, break through the chaos, and connect with consumers. Increasing turbulence and chaos are transforming the world faster and in more dramatic ways than any time in the past fifty years. These developments put a company at a strategic inflection point: Either the company continues with the same strategy or recognizes the need for a new one. Clearly, the company needs to revisit and revise its marketing policies and tools. If it doesnt, the new environment will punish the companymaybe to the point of failure. Whatever your companys marketing posture may be in normal times, it will change in turbulent times, especially at the onset of a downward spiral or a recession. First, consider consumers. Faced with the prospect of harder

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times and possibly even job loss, they will cut their spending. Here are three likely consumer behaviors: - Consumers move toward lower-priced products and brands. - Consumers reduce or postpone discretionary purchases such as autos, furniture, major appliances, and expensive vacations. - Consumers cut back on driving and start buying more from suppliers nearer to their work or home. Within the marketing arena, those in charge at the onset of a recession are advised to consider the following possible moves straight out of the traditional two-playbook strategy planning guideone for up-markets, the other for down-markets: Drop losing customer segments. Drop losing customers within a segment. Drop losing geographical locations. Drop losing products. Lower prices or promote lower-cost brands. Reduce or discontinue ads and promotions that arent working. Can your company: Lower the costs of paper, photography, and other production inputs by negotiating for lower prices or switching to lower-cost suppliers? Switch to lower-cost transportation

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carriers? Close down sales offices if they are not getting enough use? (Field sales personnel can work out of their homes instead of traveling to an office.) Put your advertising agency on a pay-forperformance compensation plan instead of offering a standard commission regardless of the results? Replace higher-cost communication channels with lowercost channels? (E-mail is cheaper than direct mail.) Achieve more impact by shifting money for thirty-second commercials into public relations or new digital media? Drop some product features or services for which customers dont seem to care? Hold your marketing staff meetings and customer conferences in lower-cost locations? These troubled economic times are forcing all marketing executives to reevaluate their spending plans. The main thing to remember during periods of turbulence is that your customers are likely to change; therefore you have to change. A company must also choose its strategy mix in relation to what its competitors are doing (or may do).

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Companiesmust also try to think positively about opportunities that may be created by the turbulence. Some companies see crises as opportunity. Marketing plans in The Age of Turbulence need to ramp up quickly and show resilience. One of the biggest challenges for marketers will be keeping the cost-cutting wolves at bay to minimally maintain their pre-recession budgets and, even better, to have them increased. the necessary actions to take are: Cut/Delay, Outsource, Increase/Accelerate. Every company knows that the choice is between innovation and stagnation. If you dont innovate, you will stagnate. That explains the new product lineup that you have prepared to launch in normal times. But the times arent normal. Some of the new products have to be put on the back burner. The world may not need a different size or flavor of product at this time. But there may be a few new and promising product ideas. turbulent times call for many changes both strategic and tacticalin a companys marketing efforts From a strategic point of view, companies must remain focused

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Jack Trout , Steve RivkinRepositioning- Marketing in an era of competition, change and crisis

on satisfying their target customers, paying particular attention to their best customers. In many businesses, a small percentage of customers account for a disproportionate percentage of sales. Companies cannot start to make cost cuts until they grasp what is happening to their customers, competitors, dealers, and suppliers. What problems face their customers? What moves are those customers making? How can the company provide help to their customers? What are the competitors doing? What opportunities are opening up in the meantime? How much risk does the company want to take? Each company must act in a way that best promises to preserve its customers, its brand strength, and its longterm objectives. Recent times have certainly educated us to the fact that we live in a time of uncertainty or crisis. And these crises come in two forms: macro and micro. The macro variety would be the financial crisis that has swept the world, affecting just about everyone. As previously mentioned, a micro crisis would be one that threatens an entire company

2009, McGraw Hill , pag. 112

You have to stay flexible and seize the opportunity. The most powerful brands stand for a word or a concept. Toyota is about reliability. BMW is about drivability. Mercedes is about engineering. Volvo built a brand around safety. When people ask what has changed, our response is one word: competition. everybody is after everybody elses business, and a crisis only makes things more competitive. Because of this ugly fact of life, the key to survival is to start every marketing plan with your competition in mind. Its not what you want to do; its what your competition will let you do. 1. Avoid a Competitors Strength and Exploit Its Weakness When a competitor is known for one thing, you have to be known for something else. Quite often, a competitors built-in weakness is the something else that you can exploit. You must constantly be gathering information on what your competitors are planning. This can come from an

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astute sales force, from a friendly customer, or from some research. Never underestimate your competitors. 2. Competitors Will Usually Get Better, If Pushed Companies that figure that they can exploit a sloppy competitor are making a big mistake. They ridicule the competitors product or service and say that they can do things better. Then, lo and behold, their big competitor suddenly improves and that so-called advantage melts away. Never build your program around your competitors mistakes. They will correct those mistakes in short order. Market leaders will always be attacked on price as their competitors try to reposition them as expensive. It appears to be almost a law of nature. So what do you do? 1. Do something special. The leader can go to its biggest customers and offer something special. 2. Shift the argument. Another good value strategy in a pricing battle is to introduce the

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concept of total cost as opposed to initial cost. In some categories, the costs you incur after you buy a product can be substantial. If your product performs better after the purchase, you might be able to build a cost-of-ownership rather than a cost-ofpurchase argument. 3. Add more. There are times when value is a sum total game. If you can add items to your offer, people will begin to feel that they are getting more for their money. 4. Be nice and helpful. When you are in a retail, consumercentric business, service can be a powerful value story.