Gap analysis- Basic

We use Gap Analysis in Competitive Intelligence to study any differences between our clients and their rivals and to determine what they are doing to create the Gaps.

Competitive Intelligence has many meanings, but in my opinion the best definition is – “Competitive Intelligence is knowledge and foreknowledge about the entire business environment that results in action” - Seena Sharp.  

The goal of Competitive Intelligence is to produce actionable intelligence for decision makers. Gap Analysis is one of the many Competitive Intelligence tools you can use to interpret the information you have on your competitive environment.

A Gap is simply the difference to where you and your competitors are. A Positive Gap indicates you are in a better position than your rivals while a Negative Gap clearly means the reverse - in a worse position.

Every project is different but we tend to follow this basic process:

1.     Isolation 

Make a list of all the known Gaps especially the obvious differences between your rivals and yourself.

Conduct a search for evidence to back up (and dismiss) the assumptions.

Place the Gaps into an order of priority based on what you think your customers need from you and your rivals.

For this you need to understand how they make a decision to use your product/service. Competitive Intelligence can help you with this too, but that is another subject!

Assemble lists of known Gaps by introducing groups sessions involving your management, R&D, business development and marketing teams.

Ensure each identified Gap is specific, fully understood, well described and the impact of each Gap is estimated. Determine which of your competitors is in a better position than you.

2.    Potential Gaps 

Potential Gaps do not meet the full criteria to be considered as known Gaps.  This will be usually down to missing information about the exact nature of the Gap and its potential impact.

For instance, you discover your rivals may be introducing a “faster” product in the near future and it could have a significant impact on your operation. The size of the impact and your actions will be different if it is 8% faster in 4 years or 60% faster in 7 months.

Understanding which competitors are involved will help but you must keep track of the potential Gaps by assigning a member of your team to collect further information until you are able to dismiss the threat or promote the situation to an isolated Gap.

3.    Triggers

Triggers are the events, activities, announcements etc which may signal Gaps in future.

You do not operate your business in a vacuum and these triggers are important. If you are aware of them and you know where to look your competitors tend to signal much of what they plan to do.

For instance the faster manufacturing example (above) could be isolated by monitoring new patents or watching investments in other businesses your rivals make to complement their current products.

Most triggers in your business and environment will become predictable and when a number are tripped you will be ready to investigate if a Gap is being created.

4.    Trend Monitoring

Tracking your external environment is an important aspect of Competitive Intelligence and Gap Analysis. Monitor demographic, technology, product, legal and other areas which have an effect on your business.

Within technology, the trend of things getting smaller, faster, cheaper and more communicative is not a revelation but the key to trend monitoring is to find ones which affect your current and future customers.

Once a trend is identified then you should identify your rival’s response and how others not current considered competitors may gain some competitive advantage. Did they respond quickly or where they caught on the back foot. Sony’s response to Apple’s Ipod springs to mind here.

A classic example is the legal industry in the UK. 10 years ago who would have thought Tesco’s Supermarket or Wal-Mart could represent you in a law court? This is likely to happen with the environmental changes caused by the UK Government opening up the industry to competition.

5.    Action Plans

Known Gaps

Assign each known Gap one to a person able to work across your organisation to define and execute an action plan to close the Gap.

Potential Gaps

The goal is to actively determine the significance, impact and size of the Gap.

If you have one assign these to the competitive intelligence function and ensure a periodic report is published. If you don’t have a function perhaps offer the project to an up and coming manager or outsource it.

Triggers

What triggers a Gap? Isolate the triggers and you may be able to predict Gaps.

Assign research of these triggers to outward facing functions of your organisation, such as your business development or product marketing teams.

They should search for the specific trigger information and feed it back to the project coordinator who evaluates the triggers and determines if and when new potential Gaps have been identified.

Trends

Finally, monitor and understand when a trend accelerates to the point when specific, compelling market responses occur.

Once market responses are isolated, identify the triggers for each competitor to understand how they intend to act.

Summary

You do not need specialist software or special skills. To start Gap Analysis simply create four Work Sheets and track known Gaps, potential Gaps, Triggers and Trends.

Gap analysis can be a straightforward, good team building and productive exercise.

The key is to understand the different types of information, assign responsibilities correctly for each and establish a process of regular review with management.

I hope you have found this article of great interest and thank you to Tom Hawes of JTHawes Consulting for inspiration and creating the concept. Thank you for your time.

refference

GLOBAL MARKETING MIX: PROMOTION

Imagine you are an organization trying to go global or expand. You have carefully planned how your business will enter the new market, have developed the right product, and believe you can offer it for a price that will be profitable. The next component of the global marketing mix involves communicating your offerings to the customer.

How an organization chooses to promote their products and services can have a direct and substantial impact on sales. There is much thought and consideration that needs to go into how dollars spent on advertising and promotions will convert into revenue for the company. This post will summarize the most important lessons to learn before creating, implementing and measuring your promotional strategy.
Advertising and Culture: Advertising to a great extent is a cultural phenomenon – - it can shape a country’s popular culture whilst at the same time a host country’s cuture may also influence the creation and effectiveness of a campaign. Major barriers to overcome when considering culture’s impact in advertising include language barriers and how ads related to culturally-sensitive issues like religion and politics. For example, Procter & Gamble ran into trouble advertising their Pert Plus shampoo in Saudi Arabia, where only veiled women can be shown in TV commercials. The company ended up having to show the face of a veiled woman, and the hair of another woman from the back. Not being aware of how your promotions fare different cultures can not only cause a negative response from your audience, but can even break laws.
Setting a budget: The money issues revolving around advertising and promotions are always present, and can be even more so in international markets, since decisions need to be made for each country your multinational business operates in. The most important questions to ask concerning spending include  ”How much should we spend” and “How should we allocate our resources across our different markets.” To answer the first question, a global marketer can rely on budgeting rules such as percentage of sales (setting budget as a percentage of sales revenues), competitive parity (use your competitor’s ad spending as a benchmark”, or objective-and-task (treat promotional efforts as a means to achieve the your stated objectives). The third budgeting technique is the most common, and is more effective at justifying each ad dollar spent.  To answer the second question, global markets use three approaches to reach allocation decisions. Bottom-up budgeting is when each business location independently determines how much money should be spent within its market and request resources from headquarters. Top-down budgeting is the opposite, where headquarters set a total budget and split up the resources like a pie according to what they feel each country requires. A third, more common approach, occurs when decisions are made on a regional level, where each area develops a proposal and submits it to headquarters for approval.
Creative Strategy: When global marketers develop advertising and promotional campaigns, they need to choose between a standardized or adapted approach. A standardized approach can be considered a global campaign that is the same throughout countries. Some major advantages of a standardized campaign are achieving economies of scale in ad campaigns to reduce cost, maintaining a consistent brand image. Some major barriers to implementing a standardized ad strategy include: cultural differences garnering a negative or ineffective consumer response, advertising laws and regulations, differences in the degree of marketing development in the industry you are competing in, and the “Not Invented Here” syndrome. The NIH syndrome is when agencies or business subsidiaries reject using a standardized campaign simply because they did not invent or come up with the campaign.
Assessing global media decisions: Global Media decisions must also be a concern for the international marketer. The choices surrounding media buying may differ across countries. For example, in some countries media outlet decisions (choosing between print or tv ads) may be more important than the creative aspect of the campaign itself. For example, with Japan’s limited amount of advertising space, most businesses don’t care where they spend their ad dollars, as long as their products are creative enough to be noticed. As a global marketer, familiarize yourself with the best media channels in your market and the availability of these channels in general.
Ad Regulations: As previously mentioned, there are MANY foreign regulations that limit how, when and why you advertise in a specific country. Thoroughly research the laws in the country you operate in before developing a campaign. This will help to avoid legal implications as well wasting valuable time and money!
Choosing an agency: Companies develop their advertising and promotional campaigns differently. Some organizations have creative teams do this in-house, while others choose to use an agency for added expertise. Choosing an an agency may prove more efficient due to their understanding of the country and market they are doing business in. Over the years, there have also been large mergers and acquisitions that led to global media agencies. This gives marketers the option to hire one company can serve all of their markets faster and more effectively.
Other communication options: Remember that advertising campaigns are not the only component in the promotional mix. At a global level, it may be beneficial to use sales promotions, direct marketing, global sponsorships and events, mobile marketing, product placement, viral marketing and global public relations and publicity as well. In fact, advertising alone may not accomplish all of your promotional goals. It is hard to implement all of these other components, so  understand which ones are most effective for your industry and within each country you operate in.
GIMC (Globally Integrated Marketing Communications): As mentioned previously, advertising is only one element marketers use to communicate with their customers. A GIMC is a sytem of active promotional management that strategically coordinates global communications in all of its component parts- both horizontally (from country to country) and vertically (promotion tools). What does this mean? Basically, GIMC is a way to harmonize your promotional and communication disciplines in all ways possible. Integrated campaigns coordinate all  communication vehicles so that they convey the same idea to all prospective customers in a unified voice. GIMC is very difficult to achieve, but the ability to actually deliver has proven wildly successful for many global organizations. Because GIMC requires constant communication between country offices,  headquarters and ad agencies worldwide, it is very difficult to find an agency that can collaborate on this level and deliver successfully.

Source:
Kotabe, Masaaki, and Kristiaan Helsen. Global marketing management. Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley, 1998. Print

Global products and promotion strategies

Companies develop marketing strategies to build a loyal customer base, to build relationships with those customers and to create value for the customer. Effective product and promotion strategies are essential in making sure your product is readily accessible in the global marketplace. Special considerations are necessary when marketing to global customers such as international issues of technology, transportation and regulation.

Extension

A straight product extension is presenting your product to a global marketplace without any changes. Some products are globally known and need no additional product or promotion changes. People want the product on a global basis, and once it is made available to them, it is purchased without having to create any additional marketing or promotion strategies.

Adaptation

Production and promotion adaptation strategies are used in a global market for a product that may be popular but needs to be adapted to meet local customs and demand. For example, customers of less affluent countries may need a product of similar quality that has been downscaled to be more affordable to purchase. Technology products must be altered to meet the specific language of the country being marketed to.

Invention

Another product and promotion strategy is inventing a new product to meet the needs of a particular country. For example, consumers in crowded commuting conditions might need a laptop product that better fits their travel situation, a more compact version of the typical laptop. This strategy also could take on the form of reinventing a popular product to meet the needs of a particular country or world region.

Pricing Considerations

Global product and promotion strategies must take into consideration the economic conditions of the country where products are introduced. For example, a price that might be discounted in the United States would be considered too high for poorer countries or perhaps not high enough in rich countries. To combat prices being too high in less affluent countries, a company could make a smaller or less complex version at a lower price.

Brand and Branding

To understand branding, it is important to know what brands are. A brand is the idea or image of a specific product or service that consumers connect with, by identifying the name, logo, slogan, or design of the company who owns the idea or image. Branding is when that idea or image is marketed so that it is recognizable by more and more people, and identified with a certain service or product when there are many other companies offering the same service or product. Advertising professionals work on branding not only to build brand recognition, but also to build good reputations and a set of standards to which the company should strive to maintain or surpass. Branding is an important part of Internet commerce, as branding allows companies to build their reputations as well as expand beyond the original product and service, and add to the revenue generated by the original brand.

When working on branding, or building a brand, companies that are using web pages and search engine optimization have a few details to work out before being able to build a successful brand. Coordinating domain names and brand names are an important part of finding and keeping visitors and clients, as well as branding a new company. Coordination of a domain name and brand names lends identification to the idea or image of a specific product or service, which in turn lets visitors easily discovery the new brand.

Branding is also a way to build an important company asset, which is a good reputation. Whether a company has no reputation, or a less than stellar reputation, branding can help change that. Branding can build an expectation about the company services or products, and can encourage the company to maintain that expectation, or exceed them, bringing better products and services to the market place.
http://www.brickmarketing.com/define-branding.htm

What Is Guerrilla Marketing?

Guerrilla Marketing is an advertising strategy that focuses on low-cost unconventional marketing tactics that yield maximum results.

The original term was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book ‘Guerrilla Advertising’. The term guerrilla marketing was inspired by guerrilla warfare which is a form of irregular warfare and relates to the small tactic strategies used by armed civilians. Many of these tactics includes ambushes, sabotage, raids and elements of surprise. Much like guerrilla warfare, guerrilla marketing uses the same sort of tactics in the marketing industry.

This alternative advertising style relies heavily on unconventional marketing strategy, high energy and imagination. Guerrilla Marketing is about taking the consumer by surprise, make an indelible impression and create copious amounts of social buzz. Guerrilla marketing is said to make a far more valuable impression with consumers in comparison to more traditional forms of advertising and marketing. This is due to the fact that most guerrilla marketing campaigns aim to strike the consumer at a more personal and memorable level.

Guerrilla marketing is often ideal for small businesses that need to reach a large audience without breaking the bank. It also is used by big companies in grassroots campaigns to compliment on-going mass media campaigns. Individuals have also adopted this marketing style as a way to find a job or more work.

The History of Guerrilla Marketing

Advertising can be dated back to 4000 BC where the early Egyptians used papyrus to make sales messages and wall posters. What we consider traditional advertising and marketing slowly developed over the centuries but never really boomed until the early 1900s.

It was at this time that the main goal of advertisements were to educate the consumer on the product or service rather than to entertain and engage them.

In 1960, campaigns focuses on heavy advertising spending in different mass media channels such as radio and print.

It wasn’t till the late 1980s and early 1990s that cable television started seeing advertising messages. The most memorable pioneer during this time was MTV where they focused on getting the consumer to tune in for the advertising message rather than it being the by-product of a featured show.

Agencies struggled to make an impression on consumers and consumers were tired of being marketed to. It was time for a change.

In 1984, marketer Jay Conrad Levinson introduced the formal term in his book called, “Guerrilla Marketing.”

Levinson comes from a background as the Senior Vice-President at J. Walter Thompson and Creative Director and Board Member at Leo Burnett Advertising. In Levinson’s book, he proposes unique ways of approaching and combating traditional forms of advertising. The goal of guerrilla marketing was to use unconventional tactics to advertise on a small budget. During this time, radio, television and print were on the rise, but consumers were growing tired. Levinson suggests that campaigns need to be shocking, unique, outrageous and clever. It needs to create buzz.

Small businesses started changing their ways of thinking and approached marketing in a brand new way. The concept of guerrilla marketing continues to develop and grow organically.

You can find more information about Jay Conrad Levinson at the Official Site of Guerrilla Marketing.

How Big Businesses Are Using Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla marketing originally was a concept aimed towards small businesses with a small budget, but this didn’t stop big businesses from adopting the same ideology.

Larger companies have been using unconventional marketing to compliment their advertising campaigns. Some marketers argue that when big businesses utilize guerrilla marketing tactics, it isn’t true guerrilla. Bigger companies have much larger budgets and their brands are usually already well established.

It can also be far more risky for a big business to do guerrilla marketing tactics. In some instances, their guerrilla stunts can flop and ultimately become a PR nightmare. Smaller businesses don’t run as much risk as most people will just write it off as another failed stunt.

One such example would be the famous 2007 Boston Bomb Scare caused by Turner Broadcasting on January 31, 2007. What started off as a guerrilla marketing campaign to promote a new film featuring a Cartoon Network show called Aqua Teen Hunger Force, turned into a citywide bomb scare.  Turner Broadcasting with the help of guerrilla marketing agency, Interference, Inc., placed battery-powered LED placards resembling the ‘Mooninite’ character on the cartoon show. The LED placards were placed throughout Boston, Massachusetts and the surrounding cities.

The placards were placed in random locations and remained unlit during the day. At night the placards lit up to show the ‘Mooninite’ character putting up his middle finger. The devices resembled some characteristics of explosive devices and soon caused the scare.

The campaign ended up costing Turner Broadcasting and Interference, Inc. $2 million for the incident. The campaign itself received a lot of criticism both good and bad.

“Nobody could have conceived that Lite-Brite cartoon character was going to evoke a bomb scare. Once you take the emotion out of it, it was a really innovative campaign. That’s what people will remember. Many of the brands we work with are asking us for guerrilla marketing campaigns, with an element of mystery, but they don’t really understand what it means. Ewen could elevate this experience into something for the industry to learn from, counseling on what it means. He should be out there speaking about this to industry groups.” - Donna Sokolsky, Co-Founder of Spark PR in San Francisco

Well it seems that many companies have learned from past successes and failures. One major brand that has been doing a wonderful job is Coca-Cola.

In January 2010, The Coca-Cola Company created the “Happiness Machine” video with the help of interactive marketing agency, Definition 6. The video featured a Coca-Cola vending machine that dispensed a lot more than just a cold beverage. The film was shop at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, using 5 strategically placed hidden cameras. The reactions from the students were completely unscripted.

The video went viral and now has over 4.5 million views on YouTube. In May 2010, it won a prestigious CLIO Gold Interactive Award. The film had the highest penetration in Brazil, Mexico, Japan and Russia.

After seeing the amazing ROI on this video, Coca-Cola decided to continue the ‘Happiness’ theme by releasing several other videos using the same concept.

On October 14th, 2012, Red Bull and Austrian extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner set a world record for the highest skydiving jump. The Red Bull Stratos was a campaign to send Baumgartner on a death defying jump at over 128,100 feet into the stratosphere. Baumgartner broke the speed of sound reaching an estimated speed of 833.9 mph (1,342.8 km/h) after jum[ing out of a helium-filled balloon. The entire trip back to earth lasted 9:09 minutes with 4:22 of that time in freefall.

More importantly, Red Bull attracted much deserved attention for this grand stunt. On this day, they also broke social media records when they reached over 8 million confirmed concurrent views on YouTube. The team achieved this with several grand efforts on their social media team. By visiting the Red Bull Stratos website, users could tune in to the jump LIVE, stay engaged via the twitter stream and a connect with others on Facebook.

Related Posts on Creative Guerrilla Marketing:

• Follow Coca-Cola's Amazing Unconventional Marketing Efforts!
• Coca-Cola's New Happiness Truck Campaign
• Coca-Cola Comes Back With The Happiness Machine for Couples
• 3 Viral Marketing Lessons Learned From The Red Bull Stratos Jump

Sources: Coca-Cola, Red Bull Stratos

How Small Businesses Are Using Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla marketing may be the right solution for your small business. Why? When executed well, it will often be low cost yet reach a highly targeted audience. It can also be a great way to get noticed, distinguish from the competition and earn a reputation for being fun and different.

In an interview with Entrepreneur magazine, several guerrilla marketing agency experts divulged that good guerrilla marketing is…

“…unauthorized and disruptive” and “sticky.” - Brett Zaccardi of Street Attack

“…brand activation that isn’t 100 percent permitted by the city, event or establishment.” - Adam Salacuse, Founder and President of ALT TERRAIN

“…is a state of mind. It simply isn’t guerrilla if it isn’t newsworthy.” - Drew Neisser, CEO of Renegade Marketing

One of the most famous examples is The Blair Witch Project, a film that was promoted using guerrilla marketing efforts. The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American psychological horror film that was produced by five graduates of the University of Central Florida Film Program with a minimal budget and a camera. The two set up an internet campaign to spread rumors about a fictitious legend of “the Blair Witch.”

The duo created a website devoted to the Blair Witch to help support the case for this fictitious woods-based spectre. They ran with the tagline, “In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later, their footage was found.”

In April 1998, the preview aired on Bravo and it drew a lot of attention. The producer of the Bravo show Split/Screen asked the duo to build a stand-alone website, because Blair Witch comments were dominating its own site and discussion board. There were people interested in this and the film wasn’t even done.

“That’s how the whole thing started. The website launched in the summer of 1998 and in November, we found out we were accepted into Sundance Film Festival. We had all this buzz going into Sundance. It was not because we spent money. It was because we had fans already, who hadn’t even seen the film. It was eye-opening,” says Mike Monello, a co-creator of The Blair Witch Project.

http://www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com/what-is-guerrilla-marketing/

Marketing management- Deffination

Marketing Management packages and clearly communicates the best strategic thinking to meet the decision-making needs of knowledgeable executives managing real-world businesses.

Designed to serve busy executives, Marketing Management focuses on strategic marketing issues that marketing managers face every day. Our pages are packed with expert insights from today’s thought leaders as well as case studies and interviews with marketing executives. Published four times a year, Marketing Management sheds light on hot topics—like brand management, CRM, marketing technology, global marketing, B-to-B, services marketing and digital marketing—to help managers keep pace with this rapidly changing field.

Lipton yellow label in Pakistan

Product development:

                                       to increase market share of the product Lipton is using product development strategy by launching ,Lipton mega Dane pack, Lipton green tea in different flavors.

¡variables  in consumer 

markets strategies

¡ Multi –variables:

                                         Lipton targets following segments

v  Adults and middle aged people.

v  Middle to high income families.

§ Evaluation of segment:

                                              Lipton evaluate its segment attractiveness by these factors

v Segment differentiation.

v Segment accessibility.

v Segment profitability.

§Target market strategies:

v selective specialization.

¡Competitors in Pakistan :

o Brook bond Supreme

o Tepal danedar

o Vital

o Alkozay

¡Market share:

o Current 18% and 52% in Dane dar category

§Competitive strategies:

                              Lipton is market leader in mega Dane category for expanding the market they are focusing on new customers and using position defense to defend the total market share.

¡Point of parity:

Ø Packaging

Ø Grinded Tea leaves

Ø Mega danay

Ø Green tea

Ø ice tea

oPoint of difference:

                            Lipton yellow label have point of difference of  mega Dane, green tea and different flavor in green tea and ice tea.

¡Tag line:

                                ‘’ Lipton my sip of inspiration’’

•Events and experiences:

                                          Lipton sponsored in different activities and programmed held recently like PF DC fashion week in Lahore

       and Karachi .

•Advertising :

       Lipton Clear Your Mind  The campaign is all about keeping your thinking fresh and clear via Lipton tea and its key ingredient, theannine.

•Sales promotion :

        Lipton announces the return of its Dip and Win campaign.

¡Price discount and allowances:

     Quantity Discount

¡Promotional pricing:

      Psychological pricing

§ Differentiated pricing:

          Image pricing

          Product form pricing

¡Customers perception

•Presentable look.

•The Color Scheme is very attractive.

•Is available in various forms(Normal or Mega danay).

•It’s the first choice for upper middle class.

• Very fine taste.

• Is available in several packing's(Tea bags, sachet, family packs).

•It also is available in different flavors(Green tea).

¡comparison

¡Promotional techniques of Lipton are quite successful

¡They are creating awareness about their product which is their prime task

¡Resulting in boosting up their market share and profits

¡Their recent marketing campaign (sip of inspiration).

¡Marketing channels

¡Newspaper

¡ Broaches

¡Magazines

¡TV

¡Bill boards

¡Special promotions or packages

¡Internet marketing

¡Bus branding

¡Merchandising

¡Sponsorship