Marketing Strategy – Lecture notes
Table of contents
Marketing Strategy – Lecture notes.................................................................1
Week 1............................................................................................................................ 1
Guestlecture “The Vegetarian Butcher”......................................................................1
What the hell is marketing strategy?...........................................................................2
Week 2............................................................................................................................ 6
The playing field.......................................................................................................... 6
Platform adoption in system markets: the roles of preferences heterogeneity and
consumer expectations (Steiner et al., 2016)............................................................15
Week 3.......................................................................................................................... 17
Price leadership......................................................................................................... 17
Quality leadership..................................................................................................... 22
Hybrid Strategies....................................................................................................... 24
Time leadership......................................................................................................... 25
The value proposition................................................................................................ 28
The behavior of the players.......................................................................................29
Copy KitKat on your quest for ‘double D marketing’ (Ritson, 2024)...........................31
Low prices are just the beginning: price image in retail management (Hamilton and
Chernev, 2013).......................................................................................................... 32
Customer experience journeys: loyalty loops versus involvement spirals (Siebert et
al., 2022)................................................................................................................... 35
Why consumers don’t see the benefits of genetically modified foods, and what
marketers can do about it (Hingston and Noseworthy, 2018)....................................37
Carl & Carola Case.................................................................................................... 39
Week 4.......................................................................................................................... 39
Deontology and Utilitatianism...................................................................................39
Ethics and Contract Ethics......................................................................................... 40
Shareholder and Stakeholder Theory........................................................................41
Ethics........................................................................................................................ 42
Guiding questions...................................................................................................... 45
Market reasoning as morel reasoning: Why economists should re-engage with
political philosophy (Sandel, 2013)............................................................................48
Bypassing the animal Plant-based meat and the communicative constitution of a
moral market (Chaput & Paulsson, 2023)..................................................................49
Week 5.......................................................................................................................... 50
The rules of the game............................................................................................... 50
Dynamic strategy adaptation....................................................................................51
Transient Competitive advantage (McGrath, 2013)...................................................54
Week 1
Guestlecture “The Vegetarian Butcher”
The vegetarian butcher is built via pr and socials by tapping into current affairs,
creating rumor around our product names, invite people to join the food
,revolution on social and in their campaigns. They are present in many markets,
with many different kind of customers. Focus on people who likes meat, because
focus on the big mess. Market at out-home to make the first try in for people who
don’t have taste plant-based product. For example, plant-based burger king is
cheaper than animal meat, or asks if people want the normal one or the animal
meat ones.
Case assignment
At the vegetarian butcher we want to grow the meat replacement category. Why
do we want to grow the category and not just our brand sales? Growing the
category will help us to meet our purpose and in retailer conversations. Their
purpose is unleashing a food revolution which in turn unleashes all the animals
from the chain. How can we grow the category? First let’s have a look at how you
can calculate category size? How many people? X How often? X How many spend
on their shopping trip?
1. More users.
2. More frequent.
3. More benefits/spend.
The case study – Make it very realistic
Help the vegetarian butcher to grow the meat replacement category in retail
channel. Choose one of the three ways to grow the category:
1. More users.
2. More usage.
3. More benefits/ spend.
Create a marketing strategy plan to reach your objective which helps us to
release more animals from the food chain. What are the levers to reach you
objectives? Who is your target consumer? What type of products will you focus
on? What usage occasions will help you focus on?
What type of marketing support activities?
What the hell is marketing strategy?
What is strategy? Strategy as the connection
between goals and actions. All companies have to
need one, but not every company have one.
1) Goals
Operationalization. Desired future. Goals need to be clear in content and time
horizon. Sometimes goals are formulated in absolute terms,
sometimes relative to a fix point (e.g. competitor). Goals can
be set on different organizational levels. Goal is not part of the
strategy.
Overall management objectives at corporate level (e.g.
shareholder value, overall growth rate,…)
SBU objectives (e.g. increase market share by 5%, start-
up 5 new countries).
Marketing action objectives (e.g. product price, sell x units of coffee pads,
increase newsletter penetration by 10%).
2) Strategies
Flexible game(s) plan. Strategy = everything and
nothing? Strategy in sports as a game plan, but beyond
the single game. Strategy is a game plan for getting
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,there (achieving (long term) goals). The strategies can be implemented on three
levels:
Corporate strategies: focus on fundamental decisions that influence the
firm as whole, i.e. strategic decisions that cannot be decentralized, e.g.
synergy between SBU’s, selection of markets (and brand identities), and
enabling & cultivating a market-oriented culture.
Overall management strategy at corporate level (e.g. create a luxury
company, take the best care of all employees, create more balanced
portfolio of brands,..). Example: Volkswagen as a corporation with different
SBU’s.
On the SBU’s level (e.g. Netflix: offer unique value through exclusive
content): business strategies seek to gain competitive advantage in an
SBU. It must be in line with the corporate strategies.
- Example BVB: Goal “(Re-) establish Borussia Dortmund among
europe’s top 10 clubs.”. Strategy (SBU “Bundesliga Soccer”) Build
a new team around young, high potentials from the own youth,
brand BVB ad the club to go to for development of early careers and
buy and sell smart.
- Example Netflix: Goal “Become the best global entertainment
distribution service”. Strategy (Corporate = SBU) Build on easy
access and superior customer experience (streaming), differentiate
through high-quality, exclusive series and movies, offer the widest
catalogue of content and license entertainment content all over the
world.
Functional strategies (e.g. stay below biggest competitor’s channel price,
seek advertising alliance with retailer, make production sleeker):
fundamental decisions in area such as pricing, promotion, distribution,
product, procurement, finance, sales, production, etc.
Strategy needs to be flexible. “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in
the face”. “No plan (strategy) survives contact with the enemy”.
Strategy definition: recap
A strategy provides a medium to long-term (flexible) plan for future actions.
Strategy represents the connection between goals and (operative) actions. Goals
are therefore not part of the strategy, but it’s normative reference point. Actions
are taken to translate the strategic guidelines into concrete results. Strategies are
not fixed but need to be adaptable to changing environmental conditions.
3) Actions/tactics
Tangible, short-term tasks that can be precisely identified, monitored, and
evaluated.
- Example BVB: actions build up units to scout U18 games in
unknown leagues, hold training camps in Asia and the US and make
an offer for e.g. Jude Bellingham.
- Example Netflix: actions spend $15 billion in 2018 for own movie
and series production. enable easy account switching, sharing the
bill, providing App for mobile devices, etc and build a superior
recommendation system based on advanced AI capabilities.
What is marketing?
Strategy + Marketing = Marketing Strategy
What is special about strategic marketing decisions as compared to other
strategic decisions?
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,What is the difference between strategic marketing decisions and operational
marketing decision? Narrow definition: marketing strategy = functional strategy,
i.e. how to lead the marketing function of a company. Broad definition: marketing
strategy = corporate strategy, i.e. customer-oriented corporate management.
Harder to grasp than you would think. Marketing is to creatively attract attention?
Awareness is the most important thing. Marketing is
to sell people stuff they don’t need. Some people
marketing is not necessarily.
How much would you pay for a paper bag? Social
status expects. People are not forced to buy
anything. So, the people who paid 285 pounds, seem
to see what they get for this 285 pounds.
Marketing = sales? Large misconception. Marketing is often understood as “push”
to the consumer: the engineers developed a new product, now get rid of it with a
profit. But marketing is both, push and pull with a clear focus on pull, i.e. catering
the consumers (latent) needs so that they demand the product of service.
Marketing is a function within the firm
Marketing is a leadership philosophy (customer-centricity)? Value creation.
Marketing as market-oriented leadership.
Peter F. Drucker (1973): “Marketing is so basic that it cannot be considered a
separate function. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its
result, that is, from the customer’s point of view... Business success is not
determined by the producer but by the customer.”
Philip Kotler (1977) already discussed the ideas
of being market oriented. He suggested that
market orientation includes: a consumer centric
philosophy, an integrated marketing focused
organization, adequate market information,
strategic orientation, and operational efficiency
It is not only a department, but it goes across all
functions in a company. Marketing is cross-
functional view. Identify or create competitive
advantage.
Marketing as a cross-functional approach to market-oriented management.
Marketing is the management of competitive
advantage (most fitting and easy definition of
marketing). Marketing triangle, you fit to customer
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, need. You find something you better at than you competitors and that lead
customer needs. Try to communicate it (4P’s). competitive advantage can be
everywhere in the firm. Can originate everywhere in the firm.
From perceived value to competitive advantage. Cost can be monetary cost, but
also how long does search for information costs (time). Than the competition is
important. What is the perceived
value of others, that is the
competition. Difference between
what I must give up and what I get.
Consumers choose the one that
maximize relative perceived value.
How can you maximize the related
perceived value? It must be customer
needs provision and having fun doing
that. It must be sufficient for you
company. Managing these three lines. Is it profitable for the company?
Elements of competitive advantage:
Effective “to do the right things” (customer perspective, net value
thing)
1. Important: people need to see the value. If they don’t
gimmick are in het product and the price increase, but the
people don’t see the value. So, it is not important for them. The entire
offering. Check out what benefits you are offering and how important these
are for customers. What customers find the most important, are you the
best in it? Where do your competitors are on these benefits? You don’t
have to be good on everything. Be good on 1 or 2 things. It is important to
what customers find important.
2. Perceived: customer needs to know that you are
the best one. Customer perceived this to be you.
Perception is everything in marketing. Some
“product” differently presented, thus differently
perceived. Joshua bell in the metro station, no
one stops. But the same person plays a concert
at night and the tickets are sold out for 40 $ for
example. If brand is shown, it perceived taste as better. If people get value
out of this, because it is coca cola. You perceived benefits, are you are
willing to pay for Coca-Cola.
Efficient “to do things right” (company perspective)
3. Protectable: at least for a while, nothing is protectable forever. Patent is
the biggest thing, but also that is not forever. Medium to long term is
crucial. A ca should prevent competitors from imitating. At least mid-long
term.
4. Profitable: is it profitable? With that revenue, you must do something.
Buying the product for the product itself, it is the biggest costs.
Where are you better in than everyone else? What is the need and how can you
solve it better than someone else.
So why is it still a big problem from companies?
1) Lack of honest realization that CAs are scarce.
2) Insufficient knowledge about competitors.
3) Lack of concentration on a few, but clear CAs.
4) CAs as trends that come and go.
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