Philip Kotler:
„Authentic marketing is not the art of selling what
you make but knowing what to make. It is the art
of identifying and understanding customer needs
and creating solutions that deliver satisfaction to
the customers, profits to the producers and benefits
for all stakeholders.“
Henry Ford, 1907
„„I will build a motor car for the great multitude. It will be large
enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run
and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the
best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern
engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no
man making a good salary will be unable to own one – and
enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God‟s
great open spaces.‟‟
9
Experiential Economy (Gilmore, Pine)
“Starbucks earns several dollars for every cup of coffee, over and above the few cents the
beans are worth, precisely because it has learned to stage a distinctive coffee-drinking
experience centered on the ambience of each place and the theater of making each cup.
Perhaps no other company in the world more earnestly and steadfastly seeks to render
authenticity – resolutely shaping how real consumers perceive it to be.”
10
Stop competing and start creating BLUE OCEANS
W. Chan Kim, Rennee Mauborgne, www.blueoceanstrategy.com 11
Marc Pritchard, Global Marketing
and Brand Building Officer
At the very heart of P&G‟s impressive success lie some fundamental
beliefs:
1. Consumers don‟t buy just products: they buy brands they know and
respect. The brand is, therefore, all important.
2. When marketing, it‟s important to empathize the solutions, not the
problems. People buy solutions, not problems.
3. The code of business conduct: Do the right thing. Anything else is
superfluous.
14
Richard Branson, 2005
„„Whatever your brand stands for, you have to deliver on the
promise. Don‟t promise what you can‟t deliver, and deliver
everything you promise. That‟s the only way you‟ll ever control
your brand. And beware: brands always mean something. If
you don‟t define what the brand means, a competitor will. Even
in the absence of competition, a betrayed brand can wreck a
terrible revenge on a careless company. How many brands do
you know that mean „shoddy‟, „late‟ and „a rip-off‟?”
15
Scott Bedbury, author of „Just Do It“ campaign
„Even the best advertising cannot create something that is not
there. If a company lacks soul or heart, if it doesn’t understand
the concept of the ‘brand’, or if it is disconnected from the
world around it, there is little chance that its marketing will
resonate deeply with anyone. It’s a lot like putting lipstick on a
pig.“
16
3 KEYS TO SUCCESS IN MARKETING AND PR
1. IDENTIFY THE RIGHT NEEDS
Learn from past experiences
Innovate the value proposition
2. FEEL THE EMOTIONS OF YOUR TARGET
See how your consumer perceives your brand
Adapt your branding strategy
3. FACILITATE THE DIALOG
We are all in customer service business
It s two-way communication
KONTAKT
ŠTEFAN VADOCZ
NEOPUBLIC PORTER NOVELLI
PRAHA | BRATISLAVA
+421 903 705 144
STEFANV@NEO.SK
WWW.NEOPUBLIC.SK
Hinweis der Redaktion
What do you want to hear today?(CAPTURE)One of my personal passions is reading books about business leaders.Since I work in PR consultancy, I usually pick-up lots of books about marketing and communication.Therefore, you will find lot of stories from the leaders, we all admire and from whose we can learn.Those stories from leaders from great companies have something common.When it comes to marketing and PR, they talk aboutFulfilling the market needs with productFinding the right emotions for your brandEntering into dialogue with your customersI truly believe in this.
Let me start with a short story.This is John. He lives in a small town near Bratislava. Freshly married, he just got a new job in the city.John usually travels to the city by bus, but now he could afford a car. He is planning a family.His need is clear – affordable reliable family car. Let say Volkswagen.He is just sitting home at the computer, so he searches for information online.
Search engine would be his first choice – he gets half-milion results. Too much to digest.He checks few of the links and gets the picture on the offerings, models and prices.He wants to know more. Still he does not go to car dealer, instead he checks the Facebook.
On Facebook he finds a popular fan page with the new model of Volkswagen.John quickly browses the post and with the future family in mind asks few questions about service and reliability.He gets few answers and because he is still a man at heart, he wants to know some more.His internet browser is pointed to the respected media site.
Now he reads independent reviews and gets the additional information.Somewhat satisfied, he calls the closest dealer and asks for appointment.When he presents the whole experience to his wife, she gets excited and tells the John:Please don’t forget, our new car should be white.Sounds this story familiar to you?It is an example of how marketing and PR works today and how it is perceived by customer.Let’s examine what happened on the side of the company, during John’s search for a car.
Before we dive into the company side of the story, let’s remember the classic of marketing.(QUOTE)Company, in this case Volkwagen, run a numerous market research among young menlooking for a family car. They invested huge amounts of funds to build a reliable servicearound the product and created product which stands for affordability.Affordability is even embedded in the brand name Volkswagen, which means People’s car.They truly live the Kotler’s vision of authentic marketing.
UnPimp My Ride
The real need behind John’s decision was no the car itself. Most successful marketers know that.The real needs were:Transport to the workTransport for familyAesthetic need for good designShow-off factorDoes Volkswagen know that? Yes.
The idea of fulfilling transportation need by car is more than 100 years old.(QUOTE)What else company did in its marketing efforts to be found by John in a right way?It follows the rules of the experiential economy
Jim Gilmore and Joseph Pine state that today companies are no longer responsible for fulfilling just the basic need. Good and services are no longer enoug.In their book Experiential Economy they guide us from the era of Henry Ford when cars were commoditized.Then they started to differentiate by cost. By building service and dealership networks they pushed for quality.But what Volkwagen and other car makers do in their marketing efforts today is staging the experience.BMW provides you with Joy Of DrivingVolvo provides the safety and qualityVolkswagen affordability and reliability.You name the others.(STARBUCKS)What is most fascinating on these experiences? You must be authentic when you create them. Be what you say.
How to survive in a such a overcrowded market as a car industry today?How to win John’s heart? Before we move to emotions as one of the keys to the customer’s heart, let me remind you about Blue Ocean Strategy.It is one of my favourite business strategies which can be widely used on a overcrowded market.Idea is simple – stop competing on existing market, instead create one own.The best way to beat your competition is, in fact, to stop competing against them.In other words, when you go head-to-head against rivals for a share of the existing market, this is like competing in a “red ocean” –where the way you compete is by benchmarking your competition and trying to outdo them. A much better strategy is to look for “blueoceans” instead – untapped markets which nobody has ever targeted and which hold the potential for huge growth. In red oceans,your competitors set the agenda. In blue oceans, your competition becomes irrelevant.In a 10-year study of 108 companies, it was found that 86-percent of new product launches were line extensions and only 14-percentwere attempting to create blue ocean markets. Yet that 14-percent generated 38-percent of total revenues and 61-percent of totalprofits. It’s clear, therefore, that companies which attempt to follow a blue ocean strategy have a much greater chance of successthan those which follow a me-too strategy. Creating blue oceans should be the focus and goal of every manager.
Example of Blue Ocean strategy – Cirque De Soleil(DISCUSSION)Summary of the NEEDS parts:Companies should focus to the real needs of customersMarketing and product development should work closely togetherToday’s economy is experiential, marketing and PR must orchestrate experiencesBe what you say.
Back to the story of John. He is now looking forward to his appoitment with the car dealer.Everything at the company side is right, 5P:Product which Volkswagen produces is of high-qualityPlace where it is sold is equiped with the state of art technologyPrice is affordablePromotion online was satisfactoryAnd People who run the dealership are great salesmenWhat could go wrong? John might feel a tension. He wants a good family car in which he will still look attractive.We call this tension insight and it is the crucial emotion on which companies build their branding and communication.Managing brand is one of the most crucial part of today’s marketing and PR efforts. (BBO)Let´s see who does it exceptionally well and why.
Procter & Gamble (P&G) markets more than 300 brands of products to over 5 billion people. P&G brands are amongst the world’s best and most recognizable.P&G’s success doesn’t just happen by accident. Every year, the company will spend more than $9 billion advertising and promoting its brands -- more than any other company on earth. The company will also hire more than 1,000 graduates from the world’s best universities and graduate schools - including 100 recruits who go into the company’s brand management field from which 90% of the company’s future managers will be selected.Look at the 3 fundamental beliefs of P&G (QUOTE)Four philosophies influence and color everything P&G does:1. Understanding what the consumer wants is critical to the business of P&G.2. P&G’s corporate mission is to develop new products that deliver real value to the consumer.3. P&G creates unique brands for its products that consumers can form an emotional and trust-based relationship with.4. P&G maintains a long-term perspective on everything it does and is consistent and focused.
(QUOTE)Virgin is working hard to try and become the world’s most respected brand rather than the world’s biggest brand. Inpractical terms, this requires Virgin to set things right whenever any of its companies lose money or fold. Virgin is also working asa “branded venture capital company” – it is actively investing in ideas for new businesses which get suggested either by its ownpeople or by outside interests. When people approach Virgin for funding, they understand they have to act in ways which areconsistent with the brand and the values Virgin stands for. This point of differentiation has proven to be useful as Virgin movesfrom one industry to another.
The best brands never start out with the intent of building a greatbrand. They focus on building a great – and profitable – productor service and an organization that can sustain it. Once that hasbeen accomplished, you can slam your foot on the marketingaccelerator and let the whole world know about it. But get readyto meet the demand created by that marketing or you will destroyyour brand before it even gets off the ground. And also know thatyour advertising must create a proposition that your product orservice delivers on, time and time again.
Example of the risky approach to the brand building.Summary of EMOTIONS part:Having a good product, services and experiences is not enoughBrand reflects what your company is doingBrand is summary of rational, emotional, spiritual and even political perceptionsRemember the story of John.We are not distinguishing here among online or traditional worlds.Today´s marketing and PR is integrated, it is not channel dependent.Feel what you say.
When our John choosed his new car. He had some assumptions about brand and currently he is gladly waiting for the delivery.He will fullfil his need for transportation, got very good feelings about his choice and when he will drive the car, for sure, he will share the experience.During this story, I was not very specific about marketing comms and PR functions. They are bound together through the process of change.This is done trough the constant dialogue with the customers or through the evalution of market trends.Where is the differentiating border between marketing communications and PR?
Marketing communication, as the name suggests, works with market stakeholders – consumers, B2B customers, suppliers.PR usually works with them too, especially during brand building process, and ads – financial communities, associations, employees, public officials to their comms targets.Marketing communications – usually campaign based, product oriented, one way advertisingPR – continuos dialogue, company oriented, two way conversation
How we do it in Porter Novelli?We believe that we are in the business of change.Identifying change – John wants to buy a car because he got a new job and plans a familyDiscovering insight, the trigger for change – We know that John wants a good family car in which he will still look attractive.Activating the change – Preparing a strategy with creative ideaAssesing the change – Did John really bought the car?
When speaking about today´s PR, I can´t stress enough easing the conversation with your brand.Keys of success have really only two components.Seth Godin, blogger and author of books on new marketing.
Example of the risky approach to the brand building.Summary of EMOTIONS part:Having a good product, services and experiences is not enoughBrand reflects what your company is doingBrand is summary of rational, emotional, spiritual and even political perceptionsRemember the story of John.We are not distinguishing here among online or traditional worlds.Today´s marketing and PR is integrated, it is not channel dependent.Feel what you say.