What marketing is about
I thought this was a great article related to what we have discussed and read for this class. It includes information about the use of consumer information for marketing and the benefits. It also differentiates between marketing departments and sales departments.
One of my questions this week was related to the difference between sales and marketing in informercials. I think this article helps answer that question. It's the marketing department that works on what a consumer would be interested in, and also may determine that an infomercial may be the best method to use to get the product out to consumers. It's later the sales person in the infomercial that is portraying the message the marketers have researched. Therefore I now believe that what I had thought was simply a sales pitch for products people don't actually need or want, may be more in depth with marketing behind the scenes.
Another questions I had come up with this week was related to changes in marketing methods. When Sears, Roebuck had begun to give customers the opportunity to purchase multiple types of products in one place - one of the beginnings of the department store - this changed marketing methods for customers completely. Now, it seems that so many department stores have taken over, that the strategy has almost begun to revert back to specialty stores becoming more popular. We discussed in class that these specialty stores now seem more high end and employees of them provide more expertise and customer service. There is more to the customer experience than in department stores. So one highly regarding marketing strategy in the past has been used so much that there has become benefits to going back to the original method of separate stores of specific items.
My last question of the week related to product limitations. It seems that Druckers view on marketing is related to ethically supplying society with what people want and need. Now when some companies will purposely supply less than people want to increase demand and make items "specialty" or "exclusive", this seems to go almost go against that definition of marketing. I'd be curious to get some feedback on whether others would consider this a marketing technique. Some examples I would say would be the original Furby or the infamous Tickle-me-Elmo doll. By not supplying the customers with the product (whether intentionally or not) the products and companies get extra publicity and attention due to the demand that could not be met.
I figured since Alexis was nice enough to comment on my blog, I would return the favor. I really liked how you went back and answered all of the questions you had earlier in the week and added further understanding to them. I also commend that you went ahead and did outside research to answer your first question.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed reading your thoughts on your Pharmasim Simulation for the first week. I altered the pricing for the product and the advertising and saw a significant increase in stock price, but when I tried adding to it for the next periods, I saw drops in stock price from there on out. It is good to be able to see what others are doing for the simulation and gain perspective as to what should be done to earn the best results.
The only thing I would say you are missing is just touching upon more of what was asked by Professor Spotts. You do a good job incorporating your opinions as to why you made such decisions and how it connects to your personal experiences, so I think touching on some more of the subject would help strengthen your posts. Overall I think you did a really good job with them and I enjoyed reading it and gaining your perspective.