Marketing 101

All it takes is a little theory practiced and applied, and soon you will find that marketing comes naturally.

Marketing is more than sales. Marketing is the set of activities used to
1. get your potential customer's attention
2. motivate them to buy
3. get them to actually buy
4. get them to buy again (and again…)

Marketing is how you define your product, promote your product, distribute your product, and to maintain a relationship with your customers.

Marketing theory is made up of the 5 P's . Product, Positioning, Place, Price, Promotion. Each "P" contributes to your marketing mix.

Marketing mix is the very populer concept. In fact, before understand all of Marketing mix, you should have understand what is the STP (Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning).

Source :http://www.determan.net/Michele/markethome.htma

This is one of the intersting site to learn what is marketing...

Guerrilla Marketing

author : Al Lautenslager

Here's a quick review of 10 guerrilla marketing tactics that can be employed with little or no money, and are sure to give you results. Consistency and focus are keys in guerrilla marketing, as is repetition, so repeat these ideas often.

1. Stage a protest for "good customer service." Imagine what would happen if you had picketers outside your place of business with picket signs that read something like, "We're protesting good customer service at this location!" or "This place is full of nice people interested in customers!" First, you'll get noticed. Second, you may get coverage by the local media. Stage a repeat visit of the protesters and next time publicize their intent of returning. You never know what might happen, who might take notice and what it'll do for your business.

2. Conduct a random act of kindness. Pay the toll for the car behind yours and ask the toll collector to give your business card to them, telling them you paid their toll. Sure this is a crapshoot, but it's imaginative and you never know who might be on the road. It's a low-cost guerrilla marketing tactic that has imagination written all over it.

3. Nominate yourself for an award. Look around the internet. Ask your local chamber of commerce. There are many awards given by many organizations that accept self-nominations. Once you're nominated, publicize it with a press release. Once you're awarded the award, issue another press release. Use the award designation as part of your bio when speaking or when writing an article. Prospects love "award winning" people and businesses.

4. Award a "Customer of the Month" award and have many, many winners. Customers like attention, especially if they're in a special group. Award a plaque or certificate; these won't get thrown away and will remain at your customer's place of business as a reminder of their relationship with you.

5. Tie yourself to a news event or current event covered by the newspaper. I do this by reviewing Super Bowl commercials as a marketing expert and get free press out of it. Another example I've seen are chiropractors commenting on stretching exercises before local 5K runs or charity walks that are popular in many communities. Find a news story and issue a press release to publications, radio stations and television stations, offering yourself as an expert to comment on a related subject. It's one of the best ways to get free PR. Remember to use your imagination here. Just watch the news and do a reverse analysis. Make a list of companies that would be appropriate to comment on each story you watch. Sooner or later you'll find one where your company fits.

6. Provide special attention to trade-show attendees the night before a trade show you're attending. Stand out from the crowd at trade shows by hanging door hangers on hotel room doors at designated trade-show hotels, offering a hook and an announcement or a special offer. Leave bags of candies, aspirin, insole pads for shoes or maybe a cloth carry bag to collect trade show information in. Your competition isn't doing this. You'll stand out, you'll be noticed, and you'll definitely be thanked if you put yourself in front of your prospect again.

7. Hold a wacky contest. The beauty of contests is threefold. You can announce the contest to your prospects, customers and the media. You can then announce the winners to the media and hopefully get press each time. Have multiple winners to delight multiple customers. Contests can be fun, wacky and imaginative: a messy desk contest, ugly tie contest, pet/owner look-alike contest, etc.

8. Pass out notepads with coupon offers intermingled in the pages. Even use the back cover stock to print an offer. Use your fusion marketing skills here. I know of a printing company that partnered with a pizza company and placed a coupon for a free pizza as the last page of the notepad. Both companies realized an increase in business with these giveaways.

9. Create a funky holiday. Today is "Orange Hair Day," or "Wear Army Fatigue Day," or "Give Ice Cream to a Friend Day." These are made up and from a brainstorm session. Your holiday that cross promotes your business, service or products is only limited by your imagination. Don't forget to publicize it, announce it, market it over and over, and have fun with it. You'll get noticed and people will grow to expect it if you do it on a frequent basis.

10. Create a unique association. This is a little bit more of an undertaking, but imagine appealing to a target group, getting members, receiving paid subscriptions, offering a set of benefits, and being at the center of attention. Many associations have been created with this in mind and to market a business. Get creative here. I have often thought about creating the National Listeners Association, or the Tagline Association, or the Take Fridays Off Work Association. Remember: You're trying to gain attention and awareness that eventually turns into sales. Also remember you're a guerrilla marketer and are without a blank check book to spend on marketing.

These ideas are literally the tip of the marketing iceberg. Your imagination determines the size of the iceberg. Your imagination also keeps your bank account from going lower. Guerrilla marketers don't have blank checkbooks, so they must work smarter, not harder. Using time, energy, knowledge, information and imagination is working smarter. Happy Marketing!

Source : http://www.entrepreneur.com

Negative Marketing

Can a negative marketing campaign have positive results? Here's what to know before you strike the first blow.

Entrepreneur magazine - November 2004
By Kim T. Gordon

Mudslinging, name-calling, accusations and counterattacks. Sounds like a bad way to run a marketing campaign?particularly during a presidential race?but all those negative ads may have a more positive result than you think. What many of us call "negative" or "attack" ads are termed "comparative" ads by those in the industry, and the bottom line is that they appear to work.

"They're very effective," says Rick Farmer, Ph.D., an assistant professor of political science at the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, who has studied the impact of comparative ads. Farmer, other researchers and campaign consultants agree that negative ads are more memorable than positive ones, provided they reinforce a belief and remain relevant to the central issues of the marketing campaign. In political campaigns, comparative ads work because "people have a cynical view of politics and tend to believe the negative very quickly," says Farmer.

Though many Americans say they don't like negative political ads, research by faculty members at the University of Georgia found that not only are attack ads initially effective, but their impact increases over time, perhaps because they produce an emotional response. And positive ads used to counter them are not as effective because they're ultimately less powerful than the opponent's attack ad.

Weigh the Risks
When it comes to marketing products and services, comparative advertising is happily tolerated, even enjoyed, by audiences?just so long as it's dished up with a healthy dose of humor. Plus, the claims must be true and documented. For example, attack ads launched for underdog Miller Lite, which had half the sales volume of Bud Light, turned around its decade-long sales decline by focusing heavily on Miller Lite's lower carbohydrate content. They also forced industry leader Budweiser into a defensive posture.

Negative ads featuring direct comparisons can successfully educate and motivate target audiences, such as the way TV spots for Total brand cereal humorously demonstrate its benefits by showing how many bowls of another brand you'd have to eat to equal the nutrition in one bowl of Total. But before you undertake this type of campaign, it pays to know its risks.

While attack ads cause audiences to experience negative feelings about the company being attacked, negative impressions also go up for the attacker. So while a two-company fight launched by the underdog may prove successful, if there are multiple companies vying for dominance, launching a negative campaign could give lesser competitors an advantage and the opportunity to leap ahead of you.

If you're the market leader, launching attack ads may actually give your lesser-known opponent name recognition. When No.2 soup brand Progresso went on the attack against No.1 Campbell's, the leader responded by placing a blue can resembling Progresso's next to its own to describe the differences?which some believe only served to help consumers remember the challenger.

When making a direct comparison, the tone and execution of your campaign must expertly sidestep any possibility of being considered meanspirited or unlikable, to avoid having your campaign backfire.

The High Road
A safer route is to skip the attack ads altogether and use implied comparisons. Avis doesn't directly attack Hertz, they simply "try harder." Wendy's legendary "Where's the Beef?" campaign never directly named McDonald's or Burger King but humorously implied that other burgers were smaller. In response to Kmart's campaign exhorting female customers to clip coupons, Wal-Mart adroitly ran spots showing busy women who had no time to clip coupons enjoying the convenience of low prices every day without them. No mudslinging necessary?just build a campaign around the comparative benefits of working with you, and your customers will make all the right connections.

Source : http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,317571,00.html

Marketing myopia

Marketing myopia is a term used in marketing . Indeed, one of the most important marketing papers ever written [[1]] was that on `Marketing Myopia' by Theodore Levitt. This paper was published in the Harvard Business Review; a journal of which he is now editor. Some commentators have even gone as far as to suggest that its publication marked the beginning of the modern marketing movement in general. Its theme was that the vision of most organizations was constricted in terms of what they, too narrowly, saw as the business they were in. It exhorted CEOs to re-examine their corporate vision; and redefine their markets in terms of wider perspectives. It was successful in its impact because it was, as with all of Levitt's work, essentially practical and pragmatic. Organizations found that they had been missing opportunities which were plain to see once they adopted the wider view. The impact of the paper was indeed dramatic. The oil companies (which represented one of his main examples in the paper) redefined their business as energy rather than just petroleum; although Shell, which embarked upon an investment programme in nuclear power, subsequently regretted this course of action

One reason that short sightedness is so common is that people feel that they can not accurately predict the future. While this is a legitimate concern, it is also possible to use a whole range of business prediction techniques currently available to estimate future circumstances as best as possible.

greater scope of opportunities as the industry changes. It trains managers to look beyond their current business activities and think "outside the box". George Steiner (1979) claims that if a buggy whip manufacturer in 1910 defined its business as the "transportation starter business", they might have been able to make the creative leap necessary to move into the automobile business when technological change demanded it.

People who focus on marketing strategy, various predictive techniques, and the customer's lifetime value can rise above myopia to a certain extent. This can entail the use of long-term profit objectives (sometimes at the risk of sacrificing short term objectives).

Others have developed similar terms. Kotler and Singh (1981) coined the term "marketing hyperopia", by which they mean a better vision of distant issues than of near ones. Baughman (1974) uses the term "marketing macropia" meaning an overly broad view of your industry.


Source : Wikipedia

Tips for Optimizing Viral Marketing Campaigns

BY Brady Brewer | February 22, 2001



Viral marketing, or "refer-a-friend," email campaigns have received a lot of attention in the media recently. These campaigns, which encourage recipients of promotional emails to forward the messages to their friends, have garnered both positive and negative reviews from consumers, privacy advocates, and industry pundits.

At the heart of the issue are concerns over sending unsolicited email, but by using viral marketing tactics carefully, marketers may avoid negative reactions and gain an excellent return on investment (ROI) as they increase the reach of a marketing message to a targeted group far beyond their original audience.

Listed below are five insights on how to execute a viral marketing campaign most effectively.


Offer an incentive. Viral marketing works best when a valuable and tangible incentive is offered, encouraging individuals to forward an email message to their friends. However, marketers should cap the incentive to a specific quantity to avoid spam-like distribution of the message -- for example, offering an incentive of 20 percent off referrers' next purchase if they forward the message to five friends. Open-ended incentives, such as offering a $5 credit for every five friends referred, can end up causing a marketer customer service, financial, and privacy-related problems.

A women's athletic clothing multichannel retailer recently offered a creative and socially aware incentive when it launched a viral marketing campaign that rewarded message recipients with a free T-shirt and a $1 donation to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation when an individual sent the special email message to five friends and three of those friends opted in to the retailer's catalog or email list. The campaign was tremendously successful, driving a click-through rate three times higher than normal, an email newsletter sign-up rate of over 30 percent, and a catalog subscription rate of nearly 70 percent. Meanwhile, cost per sale decreased by 89 percent.


Don't consider the referral an opt-in. When a customer refers a friend, the referral should not be considered an opt-in. A name and email address volunteered by a person's friend does not constitute an opt-in by the individual, so the data should be deleted immediately after the referral email is sent. Verbiage should be included in the referral email asking if the individual would like to receive future mailings, allowing her to opt in if she wishes.


Personalize the referral email. Response rates increase dramatically when users can see that a message is coming from a friend, so it is best to personalize the email message to show that it's coming from a recognizable source. The subject line is the key component in a viral marketing email, because it can immediately identify the email as friendly. A good subject line may read: "ADV: John Doe Thought You'd Like 20% Off at XYZ.com," thereby identifying that it is an advertisement, there's a special offer, and the message was sent from a friend.


Track and analyze the results. As with any marketing campaign, tracking the results and optimizing performance over time is absolutely necessary. Thankfully, sophisticated email marketers can track insightful and actionable data that can be used to evaluate performance. Important metrics to analyze are pass-along, click-through, and conversion rates. Marketers should separate the click-through and conversion rates by original customers from referrals and evaluate their respective performances. These metrics will alert a marketer to which offers and customers drive the highest ROI.


Continually promote friendly referrals. Marketers who want to have their messages frequently forwarded should place a viral marketing offer in every relevant outgoing email message. Viral marketing makes for a great one-time campaign, but it can also be a very effective tool for continuing to broaden the reach of your marketing messages over time.
Though no sure-fire way exists to prevent negative customer reactions, by following these five concepts marketers should find their viral marketing campaigns to be most effective.

Source :http://www.clickz.com

Promotion Mix

Here are some things to keep in mind:

Advertising.

Reaches large, geographically dispersed audiences, often with high frequency; Low cost per exposure, though overall costs are high; Consumers perceive advertised goods as more legitimate; Dramatizes company/brand; Builds brand image; may stimulate short-term sales; Impersonal, one-way communication; Expensive

Personal Selling

Most effective tool for building buyers’ preferences, convictions, and actions; Personal interaction allows for feedback and adjustments; Relationship-oriented; Buyers are more attentive; Sales force represents a long-term commitment; Most expensive of the promotional tools

Sales Promotion.

May be targeted at the trade or ultimate consumer; Makes use of a variety of formats: premiums, coupons, contests, etc.; Attracts attention, offers strong purchase incentives, dramatizes offers, boosts sagging sales; Stimulates quick response; Short-lived; Not effective at building long-term brand preferences

Public Relation.

Highly credible; Very believable; Many forms: news stories, news features, events and sponsorships, etc.; Reaches many prospects missed via other forms of promotion; Dramatizes company or product; Often the most under used element in the promotional mix; Relatively inexpensive (certainly not 'free' as many people think--there are costs involved)

Direct Marketing.

Many forms: Telephone marketing, direct mail, online marketing, etc.; Four distinctive characteristics: Nonpublic, Immediate, Customized, Interactive; Well-suited to highly-targeted marketing efforts

Source : http://www.davedolak.com/promix.htm

Men were from Mars, Women from Venus...

The gender game is a subtle but powerful one. The fundamental difference between the sexes has been the subject of much debate, research and humour.

The opportunities to capitalise on a real understanding of the psyche of the consumer in all its richness are great - including gender differences. But it is dangerous territory. No one can afford to play the gender game and lose.

Today, I'd like to talk about segmentation.
We all engage in 'segmentation' - when we meet someone for the first time, we segment - male or female? Old or young? It helps us orientate ourselves and build expectations until we know more...

If you are told your new boss's name is Joe. What's your first question? Is there an 'e'? Is it a male or female? Of course, once you get to know and work with your new boss, other issues will become much more important - is he/she focused on cost cutting or growth? Is he/she a 'big picture' kind of person - or is it all about the detail? Does he/she value your unique contribution or see you as a threat, or part of the old guard? These deeper issues very quickly become much more important than gender.

Of course, how you deal with the issues, and your new boss, will continue to be 'nuanced' by gender - yours and his or hers.

However, the real gender debate is more dynamic and more fundamental. It is rooted in society's needs, wants and expectations. At Roy Morgan Research we've been studying these things for years. In the 1940s, Roy Morgan asked questions about equal pay for men and women, whether women should be allowed to wear shorts in the street, and the age at which girls should be allowed to wear lipstick. The questions tell us as much about society at that time as the answers do. Some things change .... So let's look briefly at some trends.

The last 20 years or so have seen dramatic changes in gender roles - more women in the workforce, in senior decision-making positions, more two-income families, shared household, family and child-rearing responsibilities, more sole parent families both male and female.

The weekly shop is on the decline and more people are shopping every day, and men are enjoying grocery shopping (at least the increasing number of grocery-buying men). So are women. It is not that men are becoming 'home' conscious or nesting (their magazine habits tell us that), it is that they are more interested in food.

source :http://www.roymorgan.com/resources/papers/marsvenus/

Marketing Matrix?

A Marketing Matrix is essentially a plot on a two-dimensional plane according to how well they meet customers' key requirements.

You can do this by drawing two lines in the form of a cross. These two lines represent a continuum of bad to good performance for two benefits or attributes that are the most important in an industry.
For example, take computers. If the two most important things to customers are "performance" and "price" then, put the word "performance" at the top of, say, the vertical line and put the word "price" to the right of the horizontal line.

High performing computers would be plotted at the top of the vertical line, and low performing computers at the bottom of the vertical line.

Now, for each computer in the market you would plot where that computer fits on the performance line (compared to other computers) and on the price line.

One comment: A marketing matrix is essentially a perceptual map. You can read more about snake plots as a better way of doing this since a marketing matrix forces you to do this in 2 dimensions, and often more than two dimensions properly characterize a market.

Source : http://www.marketingprofs.com/

Fokus On Profitable Customers

Advantage of watching what specific customers pay, not just what they say, is that this enables the tracking of lifetime purchases, a critical ingredient in determining the lifetime value of specific customers and customer segments. To be
profitable, investments made to increase satisfaction and value must focus on the customers with the highest potential value. Satisfaction research applied broadly across the entire customer base,while statistically correct, ensures that scores will
be influenced by the responses from unprofitable customers. For example, a bank branch manager might hear many complaints about long teller lines but the most profitable customers may not care.

Source : loyaltyrules.com

Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning (STP)

Before start think about marketing (4P), you must understand what is STP. Terms of STP include : market strategy; target markets; positioning; market segmentation and target markets; market segmentation and demographics
Segmentation
Segmentation : Identifying al segments for the product/service. Many of the resources listed in module 3 will be helpful to you when you develop segments. To be useful, segments should be:

Measurable
Accessible (can you reach them)
Profitable
Distinct from one another

The objective of segmentation is to find attractive markets. Strategies include

Break market into components
Regroup into market segments
Select which segment to target

Positioning.
Positioning is an essential component -- and skill - in good marketing. Perceptual maps are used to determine the position of a product, firm, person, service or idea. Positioning maps, or perceptual maps can be simple, yet very effective marketing tools. One definition of Positioning Theory is: the science of perceptual strategy. It is based on a theory that strategy can only be planned in the mind of the consumer, not the marketplace*.

It is important to understand the levels of competition because positioning applies at all levels of competition. For example:

Product Level (e.g., Pepsi vs. Coke)
Category Level (e.g., Cola vs. Root beer)
Corporate Level (e.g., Pepsi Inc. vs. Coca Cola Company)
Industry Level (e.g., Beverage Industry vs. Snack food Industry)

Targeting.
What is target?. This is the real goal/objective in market that marketer want to reach.

As a simple questions are :
What percent of the population uses the product at all?
What percent uses your brand?
How does that compare to competing brands?
What is the demographic profile of the product category?
Which media reach the users of this category?

What is Marketing?

A little bit of marketing theory...
All it takes is a little theory practiced and applied, and soon you will find that marketing comes naturally.

Marketing is more than sales. Marketing is the set of activities used to
1. get your potential customer's attention
2. motivate them to buy
3. get them to actually buy
4. get them to buy again (and again…)

Marketing is how you define your product, promote your product, distribute your product, and to maintain a relationship with your customers.

Marketing theory is made up of the 5 P's . Product, Positioning, Place, Price, Promotion. Each "P" contributes to your marketing mix.

Citizen Brand

by Marc Gobe
reviewed by Andrea Dunowski

Following the success of his book Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People, Marc Gobe further explores the concept of emotional branding with his new book, Citizen Brand. In light of the recent terrorist attacks in the US, anti-globalization efforts and war in the middle east, Gobe sympathetically acknowledges how such events have forever altered the globe in all aspects, from the way we do business to the way we feel and think. Gobe initially discusses the concept “a consumer society”, the rise of anti brand literature, protests, and resentment towards the Western world as well as the ongoing divide between the rich and poor nations.

The book title that the author has coined, refers to a renewed status of brand, a brand that strives to acquire and maintain a long term emotional relationship with people, the surrounding community and society.

Gobe highlights in his introduction, “The focus here is not necessarily to provide any cut and dry answers or draw a dramatic conclusion, but to challenge the present in order to better understand the future. I will rely on what a designer is best at: cross societal observations, assessing technological changes and the role culture, art and communications have and will play as prophets and ambassadors of a changed universe.”

Gobe adheres to three specific traits that emotional brands share:


A great corporate culture focused above all on people, both in office and the public community;


A communication style and philosophy that stands out from the crowd;


An emotional hook that draws us in - their promise.

The author presents his research and foresight through means of Ten Evolutionary Commandments on which organizations should structure and redirect their future efforts towards becoming a "Citizen Brand."

Here is a sample of some of the Evolutionary Commandments included in Gobe’s book:

Chapter 1: Evolve From Consumer to People:

This section looks into achieving awareness of a changing society from an increase and change in minority group representation, to the Six Fundamental Trends of Our Times such as Sweet Home: There‘s No Place Like Home and Awakening: Soul Seeking through Sensation. It also explores love-based vs. fear-based marketing, paradigm shifts between baby boomers, Generation X and Y and how women’s buying power and needs have and will continue to grow.

Chapter 3: Evolve From Product to Experience:

In this chapter, Gobe initiates the “question of how to expand beyond a mere product-offering status to create an exciting, emotionally relevant brand experience that will bring the brand alive for people in a way that truly contributes to their lives”. The concept of brand associated amusements and theme parks, museums and the growing concept of stores as “cultural destinations” and “public spaces” is discussed.

Chapter 6: Evolve From Identity to Personality:

The transition from Corporate Identity to Emotional Identity is examined, stressing the importance of establishing emotional ties with the consumer and the surrounding community. Gobe also looks at nurturing brand personalities, the humanization of corporate leader, and the need to invoke emotions and reveal an organization’s values and ethics to develop deeper connections with the public. This section brings into account how a company’s logo, colors, and unique vision should all be part of the emotional identity process.

Chapter 7: Evolve From Function to Feel:

From sensorial design to the subject of aestheticism, Gobe confronts the dynamics of how practicality is no longer enough to determine the integrity of a brand. He discusses how art, beauty, and design are craved and desired by people within all economic groups. From the creative redefinition of the corporate environment to such concepts as the spatial harmony of feng shui, ergonomics, and brand customization, Gobe interprets art as deepening the relationship between organizations and people, bringing human attributes and emotional aspects into the equation.

Chapter 10: Evolve From Service to Relationship:

This last section mentions the area most organizations tend to focus solely on - customer service. Gobe stresses that the key to great customer service is to “establish this humanistic, emotionally sensitive relationship with people“. He talks about how, amongst a technologically advanced society, the value of personal service has dramatically increased as well as the invaluable benefit of redeveloping “Passionate Employees as Brand Ambassadors”. Gobe advises organizations in “creating a strong internal culture of pride” within the organization through social cause projects and volunteer work for employees.

Citizen Brand is a fresh, innovative, right-brained perspective on the development of the emotional brand. It is not so much about forward thinking, but forward feeling, going beyond logical and analytical solutions, interpreting the dynamics of the community, and understanding the emotional aspect of people. It is about scoping the sphere around the business, exploring untouched territory, and allowing intuition and perception to replace linear thinking. It is essential for an organization to not only be aware of present trends but also to develop future trends for customers, to predict needs before the awareness of those needs even exists, and then to nurture those needs in their customers sincerely.

Emotional branding is a continuous, infinite process; a business infrastructure that must be constantly built upon. As such, organizations must realize that long term dedication is crucial to experience both immediate and long-term benefits.

Gobe creatively succeeds in providing both an interesting read and excellent resource for employees at all levels of an organization and for any individual interested in redeveloping and enhancing their perception of brands and brand development.

Citizen Brand: 10 Commandments for Transforming Brands in a Consumer Democracy
by Marc Gobe,
Allworth Press,
October 2002

Emotional Branding

Emotional Branding is a virtual movement. It began in 2001, when a profoundly different brand design strategy was developed from the creation of Marc Gobé’s bestselling book. The Emotional Branding strategy marked a simple but revolutionary shift in thinking: placing the consumer, not the product, at the forefront of a brand’s strategy. Marketing in the 20th century had deviated from this basic principle, adopting a guerrilla-warfare, “us (the marketers) against them (the consumers)” mentality.

Emotional Branding has opened the pathway to an entirely new kind of thinking, which explores how brands can connect with people in a more sensitive and humanistic way and touch people profoundly at the level of the senses and emotions.

One of the most amazing discoveries of Emotional Branding has been that by empowering consumers, brands are ultimately empowered themselves. Emotional Branding allows a brand to own a unique and compelling strategic, visual, tactical and verbal vocabulary—creating a rich personality that enables the brand to stand out completely from the competition and win people’s hearts.

The Emotional Branding strategy has been successfully implemented by Desgrippes Gobé with some of the world’s most-loved brands, both on a domestic and global level. Companies like Coca-Cola, AOL, Godiva, Victoria's Secret and Estée Lauder have recognized the concept’s power and used it to revitalize their brands, with enormous success.

Bukan lagi untuk mendidik konsumen

Kemajuan teknologi remote control sangat membantu para pemirsa untuk berganti channel jika layar monitor lagi menayangkan iklan. Karena itu, para pemiliki industri dan pengelola teve mendisain waktu-waktu tayang iklan yang bersamaan waktunya. Mau tidak mau, pemirsa, pindah ke channel manapun akan berhadapan dengan iklan. Masih untung sih, iklannya masih berbeda-beda, kalau iklannya juga diborong sama di seluruh saluran teve, maka "kesialan" pemirsa mencapai puncaknya juga. Namun, itulah harga yang harus dibayar untuk suatu kesenangan.

Iklan pada awalnya selalu di disain untuk mengedukasi pemakai dan calon pemakai, memperkenalkan produk, menjelaskan fakta dan manfaat (kini dan masa depan). Namun, bagaimana dengan iklan dari produk yang sesungguhnya tidak bermanfaat bagi kesehatan bahkan merusak kesehatan. Seperti rokok misalnya, yang mewajibkan menayangkan pesan kepada penggunanya bahwa merokok bisa "membahayakan kesehatan, gangguan kehamilan, impontensi...". Apa yang akan dipersepsikan oleh konsumen. Fakta kemudian menunjukkan bahwa peringatan, himbauan, tidak memiliki pengaruh dalam pengambilan keputusan -- berhenti merokok atau terus berlanjut --.
Iklan rokok adalah juga proses kreatif yang menarik untuk disimak. Nyaris tidak ada produk yang dalam proses promosinya memiliki tantangan/hambatan sedekstruktif rokok. Bandingkan dengan iklan obat-obatan : "jika sakit berlanjut, hubungi dokter". Namun, proses kreatif iklan rokok memborbardir isi kepala manusia untuk berlanjut. Seni iklan rokok, seperti iklan Mild dalam berbagai variasinya, menyentakkan terus untuk membuat kita melihat iklan tersebut dan melupakan bahayanya (kalau memang benar berbahaya).
Iklan rokok tidak membawa pesan apa-apa yang menjadi standar membangun edukasi konsumen, tidak juga membawa apa-apa dalam pesannya. Sekedar membawa pesan lain dari produk, mungkin kejutan tentang persoalan masyarakat, kekumuhan, kekonyolan, korupsi, buang-buang waktu, dan lain-lain yang kemudian menjadi selingan dari "membaca kehidupan".
Kemudian... saking menariknya, orang lupa bahayanya, mendapatkan ectassy sesaat dan tetap merokok.... Mengapa, kalau tidak merokok, nanti tidak ada iklan rokok lagi... makin gersang isi iklan. Karena, iklan rokok sudah lebih mendidik, atau setidaknya berperan serta "menjerumuskan" dan mengingatkan agar tidak terjerumus....
he...he... sekedar pembelaan diri ...