WEEK6: ADVANTAGE ATTRACTIVENESS

Hello everyone. 

This week was very busy as we began our real group simulations and progressed through 2 periods.  We also started working on our Situation Analysis papers.  The upcoming papers will flow from using a Situational Analysis, to develop a Market Strategy, and then implement our plan. 

In the pharmasim program, my team performed well (in my opinion).  Our share price has dropped a little, but marketing managers should not measure success by the share price (that ‘s the CEOs job).  Marketing managers rate their product performance by measuring brand awareness, consumer satisfaction with the product and repeat customers. 

My group spent the first two periods really trying to assess market situation surrounding our product.  We bought every report that was available to us (which came out to about half of a million dollars).  We studied each report to assess where were had competitive advantages and where our competition was doing well. 

There were a couple of incidents that my team had to address in Pharmasim this week.  Since we had already vowed to pay more attention to the customer than the competition, when we were faced with the option of incorporating social media into our brand, we jumped at the opportunity.  Since our budget was very close to zero, especially after purchasing every report, we decided to go with the inexpensive options of using Facebook and Twitter.  Now, for almost no cost, we can connect with our consumers and truly assess how they feel about our product.  We received a favorable review because of using the Facebook and Twitter accounts and maintain the sites well. 

Another incident that my team had to over-come was the negative attention that quickly expiring products were receiving from our distributors and vendors.  We had some product that was expiring within 6 months and it was making the product hard to sell.  Also, the quick expiration date was causing confusion with our return policy.  My group decided to take the responsible action in order to represent the brand well.  We chose to pull the product from our normal distributors and use special quick turnaround vendors to sell the product.  To do this, we had to pay a $50K premium, but in the end it all worked out.  The brand’s good name was maintained and we even turned a product because the special vendors were able to sell the discounted product.

Marketing is not advertising.  Marketing is more concerned with how a company represents a product in terms of quality and benefits.   Brand awareness is extremely important, and that does have something to do with advertising.  In class we discussed the price that the Washington Post sold for.  It was almost double what the company was valued at.  What caused that difference between price and value was the worth of the brand name (goodwill). 

The reading for this week was Cohen chapters 10 – 14.  The big takeaway for me from the reading was Drucker’s four questions that every company must answer when creating their future.  One of the questions was “What opportunities does the company want to pursue, and what risks is it willing and able to accept.”  I believe that this question is more for the CEO / CFO than the Marketing Manager.  I envisioned the Marketing manager would develop alternative courses of actions and the CEO / Manager would make the risk decisions.

As a real world application, my firm answered this question a long time ago when it was building its foundation of clients and we re-emphasize the decision each day.  The service my firm chose to deliver was that of Real Estate acquisition, bankruptcy, business law, commercial litigation, employment law and loan closings.  The managing partner (and everyone else) protects our brand like any other marketing manager.  We routinely turn away or refer out cases that are outside the scope of our Market plan.  The Managing partner knows exactly what kind of future he wants to create for the firm.

Chalk Talks were fascinating.  In the Advantages – Attractiveness video, the matrix at the end showed three markets, A, B, and C.  The Market Shares were 10%, 33%, and 5% respectively.  One of the questions I had was why is it prudent to take from Market ‘A’ to boost market ‘C’, instead of using Market ‘B’’s budget?  I understand that market ‘A’ is unattractive, but if Market ‘B’ is so strong, then taking from Market ‘B’ to give to market ‘C’ shouldn’t be that harmful.  Why should we harvest from Market ‘A’, which could extinguish it, if it is profitable?  I don’t understand the desire to leave a market if the product is profitable, even if it is unattractive?