Marketing Management, Pre Master, 2021-2022
Marketing Management Exam Articles Summary
● Article 1: The future of marketing - Rust R. (2020)
● Article 2: What makes it green? The role of the centrality of green attributes in the
evaluation of greenness of products - Gershoff & Frels (2015)
● Article 3: Are multichannel customers really more valuable? - Kushuraha & Shankar
(2013)
● Article 4: The impact of different touchpoints on brand consideration - Baxendale,
McDonald, Wilson (2015)
● Article 5: Drivers of consumer-brand identification (CBI) - Stockburg-Saner et al. (2012)
● Article 6: Do promotions make consumers more generous? - Zhang, Cai & Shi (2021)
● Article 7: Going green: how different advertising appeals impact green consumption
behaviour - Yang, Lu, Zhu & Su (2015)
● Article 8: To be or not to be price-conscious - Müller, Vogt & Kroll (2012)
● Article 9: Willingness to pay for organic products - Doorn & Verhoef (2011)
● Article 10: The handmade effect: what’s love got to do with it? - Fuchs et al. (2015)
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,Marketing Management, Pre Master, 2021-2022
Article 1: The future of marketing
- Rust R. (2020)
What is the research about, i.e. topics covered, why is it important
This research is about what makes certain companies higher performers. It looks into the strategies and
structures of superior marketing organisations (such as Heineken and Coca Cola).
● Most companies have had the same organisational structure since the practice of brand
management emerged.
● It’s difficult to determine how the perfect new structure of the company looks like.
● Marketing leaders should think about which values and goals guide their brand strategy, what
capabilities drive marketing excellence, and what structures and ways of working will support
them.
● The structure must follow strategy, not the other way around.
Briefly about the method used (especially if it was something out of the ordinary, but not specifics)
● In-depth qualitative interviews with more than 350 CEOs, CMOs and agency heads
● Survey with 10,000 marketing executives about their organisation’s data analytics capabilities,
brand strategy, cross-functional and global interactions, employee engagement
● Compared the responses of high-performing and low-performing organisation
● Survey respondents were divided into two groups, over-performers and under-performers on the
basis of their companies’ three-year revenue growths relative to their competitors.
Main findings/results of the research
They found that three areas distinguish over-performers and under-performers: use of data, connecting to
corporate strategy and purpose-based positioning.
● High-performers excel in their ability to leverage customer insights, communicate a societal
purpose, and deliver a rich customer experience
● High-performers demonstrate superior cross-functional collaboration, strategic focus,
organisational agility and training
● Fluid organisational structures facilitate these capabilities
● Winning characteristics:
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,Marketing Management, Pre Master, 2021-2022
○ Big data, deep insights: integrate data on what consumers are doing with knowledge of
why they are doing it -> new insights into consumers’ needs and how to meet them best.
■ I.e. Nike and their fitness products and services (track movement, receive
personalised coaching programs etc.).
○ Purposeful positioning: deliver all three manifestations of brand purpose: functional
benefits (the job the customer buys the brand to do), emotional benefits (how it satisfies a
customer’s emotional needs), societal benefits (i.e. sustainability)
■ This will help engage customers and inspire employees, improve alignment
throughout the organisation and ensure consistent messaging across touchpoints.
○ Total-experience: enhance the value of the product by creating customer experiences.
■ Deepen the customer relationship by leveraging what they know about a given
customer to personalise offerings.
■ Focus on the breadth of the relationship by adding touchpoints.
■ i.e. create a consistent experience for consumers across numerous physical and
digital touchpoints and personalised their offerings based on the data gathered
about their consumers
Drivers of effective marketing organisations are:
● Organising for growth:
○ All employees in a company must share a common vision to deliver a seamless experience,
one informed by data and imbued with brand purpose.
○ Connect marketing to the business strategy and the rest of the organisation
○ Inspire the organisation by engaging all levels with the brand purpose
○ Focus people on a few key priorities
○ Organise agile, cross-functional teams
○ Build the internal capabilities needed for success
● Connecting to corporate strategy:
○ Make sure marketing goals support company goals and bridge organisational silos by
integrating marketing and other disciplines
○ Ensure that global, regional and local marketing teams work interdependently
● Inspiring workers to get results:
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○ Engage customers and employees with the brand purpose -> create irresistible messages
and programs that get everyone on board
● Focusing on the right metrics:
○ Local marketing should understand global strategy, and global marketing should
understand the local reality
○ Measure brand success against KPIs such as revenue growth and profit
○ Understand the need for internal cohesiveness when communicating the brand’s strategy
● Organising for agility:
○ Be able to plan and execute in a matter of weeks or a few months, at the moment if
needed
○ New organisational structures: flexible roles, fluid responsibilities and more relaxed
sign-off processes designed for speed
○ Tap talent as needed from across the organisation and assemble teams for specific, short
term marketing initiatives
○ New marketing roles, centres of excellence: think marketeers (data mining, media mix
modelling, ROI optimisation), do marketers (develop content and design and lead
production), feel marketers (focus on consumer interactions and engagement)
● Building capabilities: provide training and expertise courses
How the paper fits in the marketing process and the 4Ps
● Overall marketing strategy and business mission
Important to know how can this be applied
First, it is essential to integrate data about what consumers do, with knowing why they are doing it.
Second, it is important to effectively deliver functional, emotional and societal benefits at the same time.
You should also fine-tune for the targeted customer, and make sure to create a customer value better than
our competitors. Finally, the customer’s total experience with the firm and its products and services is more
important than just the product.
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