Ten Quips of Marketing

by

Albert PK Lau, Vice-chairman, Hong Kong Small and Medium Enterprises General Association

Learning marketing can be fun without burying yourself under tomes of textbooks and journals.  When I do soul-searching on marketing, I try to look at it in a humorous way and get a kick out of it.  I summarize those humorous lines in the form of quips some of which I want to share with you.  Some quips are not intended to be sarcastic but only reflect my personal viewpoints on hot marketing issues. The annotation below is to further explain the ideas behind.  

1.          A mega-brand is the brand of the product that a consumer does not know why he has to buy.

A mega-brand is the brand profoundly accepted by consumers. It simply implies that the consumer loves the product at the subconscious level. As claimed by Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, a successful brand is like a love mark with emotion. The mega-brand reaches the zenith of love mark, which beggars description.  In the case of soft drink, most people buy a Coke without any hesitation and reasoning?Xthat is why Coke is a mega-brand.

2.          In the last generation, a real-estate agent could even sell you a boat if the plot sold to you was subsequently waterlogged. To-day, the same agent will only pump the water out.

In the past, salespersons did not admit their mistakes and even took the advantage to further their profits.  Nowadays, the mindset of salesmanship is changed in favour of customer retention over profiteering.

3.          How to tap the market in China? China is the acronym for:-

C: Cultural nuance; H: Human touch; I: Iceberg syndrome; N: Next square tactic; A: Anything can happen.

While cultural differences must be appreciated in any new business environment, human touch or guanxi (rapport in Chinese) plays a crucial role in China.  In China, a prospective business may readily fall victim to iceberg syndrome: a population of 1.3 billion but 80% are peasants, poor and uneducated. Next square tactic, that is, selling products close to a company??s core competencies, should be adopted in China because the Chinese only recognize famous brands for their core products. Overstretched extensions may be mistaken for counterfeit ones in less sophisticated countries, such as China. Finally, when I say anything can happen, I mean anything can happen.  For another version of the acronym, please e-mail to me at apklau@biznetvigator.com

4.          A marketing guru is a marketer whom you handsomely pay for to listen to his updates on his evolving theory or neologism.

A marketing guru, academic or non-academic, has to refine his viewpoints and attitude for his brainchild in order to accommodate ever-changing environment.  Ironically, he might retract what he has said in the light of new observations.  Audience, susceptible to the ??good-things-do-not-come-cheap?? myth, are willing to pay dearly for his speeches.

5.          Globalization is the process of globalizing the market by the Americans who buy and sell for Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart, known as Retailer of the Century, has pervaded major markets and all walks of life in the world.  Global vital statistics: annual sales of US$285.2 billion (up to 31 January, 2005); 5,200 outlets and facilities; 138 million visitors per week.  If globalization is epitomized by Americanization, in the same vein, the latter is represented by Wal-Martization.  

6.          Purple cow can be pink cow, poly cow, plump cow?K?K..as long as the qualifier starts with ??p??.

Marketers are conditioned by 4P??s or 7P??s, which are widely used as an aide-memoire in marketing literature.  To break out of ??P?? groupthink mentality, let us begin with 4Q??s, that is, Quality, Quality, Quality, and Quality.

7.          What is the difference between differentiation and commoditization?  Time will tell.

Differentiation through imitation by competitors eventually levels off to commoditization.  Differentiation is a dynamic and continuous process.

8.          In marketing, the four-letter word is SELL!

??Sell?? is always confused with marketing.  Marketers deal with long-term strategy and stay behind the scenes while salespersons at the forefront close transactions as a short-term tactic.

9.          Customer service is more than an act: Ham it up!

Disneyland dubs their staff cast members regardless of their ranks and seniority.  When they report for duty, they are working as if they were performing to entertain visitors.  A street cleaner in the theme park wears a smiling face and chats with visitors while he or she is cleaning up the garbage.  When you attend to a customer, act it out from a script but with heart and mind (HAM).

10.     If an organization does without a marketing department, there are two possibilities: all employees are either marketing-illiterate or marketing-savvy.

If an organization has a marketing department, the department bears the sole responsibility to carry out marketing functions without any support by other staff.  On the contrary, all staff members will embrace and share marketing functions when there is no marketing department.  After all, marketing is a bottom-up teamwork involving the whole organization.