Topic:

Integrated Marketed communication and Understanding the fundamental marketing communications

Marketing communications are the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade, and remind
consumers—directly or indirectly—about the products and brands they sell. In a sense, marketing
communications represent the voice of the company and its brands; they are a means by which the firm
can establish a dialogue and build relationships with consumers.
Marketing communications also work for consumers when they show how and why a product is used, by
whom, where, and when.

Promotion mix: A promotion mix, or marketing communication mix, is a specific blend of promotion
tools:
 Advertising -Any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or
services by an identified sponsor.
 Sales promotion -Short-term incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a product or service.
 Personal selling -Personal customer interactions by the firm’s sales force for the purpose of
engaging customers, making sales, and building customer relationships.
 Public relations (PR) -Building good relations with the company’s various publics by obtaining
favorable publicity, building up a good corporate image, and handling or heading off unfavorable
rumors, stories, and events.
 Direct and digital marketing -Engaging directly with carefully targeted individual consumers and
customer communities to both obtain an immediate response and build lasting customer
relationships.
Large companies now routinely invest millions or even billions of dollars in television, magazine, or other
mass-media advertising, reaching tens of millions of customers with a single ad. Perhaps no other area of
marketing is changing so profoundly as marketing communications, creating both exciting and anxious
times for marketing communicators.
Figure: Integrated Marketing Communications
The Primary Tools of Marketing Communications
The primary forms of marketing communications include many specific examples of promotional mix
and other communication elements, including traditional mass media advertising (TV, magazines, etc.);
online advertising (websites, opt-in e-mail messages, text messaging, etc.); sales promotions (samples,
coupons, rebates, premium items, etc.); store signage, package labeling, and point-of-purchase
communications; direct-mail literature; public relations and publicity releases; sponsorships of events and
causes; presentations by salespeople; social media and online marketing; and various collateral forms of
communication devices. Table 1.1 provides a listing of possible marketing communication elements.

Integrated marketing communications: refers to carefully integrating and coordinating the company’s
many communications channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling message about the
organization and its brands.

Mountain Dew is a well-known brand that is consumed by predominately young, active, outdoor-oriented
consumers and is the fourth-highest selling soft-drink brand in the United States. On the market for more
than 50 years, Mountain Dew is positioned as a brand that stands for fun, exhilaration, and energy—FEE
for short. Brand managers have been consistent over time and across communication media in
maintaining the FEE theme that represents the brand’s core meaning—its positioning. Various advertising
media, event sponsorships, and consumer promotions have been employed over the years to trumpet the
brand’s core meaning. The brand managers of Mountain Dew use network TV commercials, as well as
local TV and radio spots, online marketing, and social media to appeal to the brand’s target audience.
Event sponsorships provide another major communication medium for Mountain Dew, which has
sponsored leading alternative sports competitions such as the Dew Action Sports Tour (extreme sports
tournament), the Summer and Winter X Games, and the Mountain Dew Vertical Challenge (a series of ski
and snowboard races). Appealing giveaway items (T-shirts, videos, branded snowboards and mountain
bikes, etc.) are distributed at these events to generate excitement and foster positive connections between
the Mountain Dew brand and its loyal consumers.
Much of Mountain Dew’s continued success is attributable to its brand managers’ dedication to
presenting consistent messages about the brand, both over time and across communication media. By
contrast, many companies treat the various promotional mix elements—advertising, sales promotions,
online marketing, social media, public relations, and so on—as virtually separate activities rather than as
integrated tools that work together to achieve a common goal. Personnel responsible for advertising
sometimes fail to coordinate adequately their efforts with individuals in charge of sales promotions or
publicity. A better idea is to try to address the customer problems first, and then apply the most
appropriate integrated solution, rather than forcing the promotional element (e.g., social media) up front.
Why Integrate:
Organizations traditionally have handled advertising, sales promotions, mobile advertising, social media,
and other communication tools as virtually separate practices because different units within organizations
have specialized in separate aspects of marketing communications—advertising or social media, etc.—
rather than having generalized knowledge and experience with all communication tools. Furthermore,
outside suppliers (such as advertising agencies, public relations agencies, social media firms, and sales
promotion agencies) also have tended to specialize in single facets of marketing communications rather
than to possess expertise across the board.

IMC and Synergy: Using multiple communication tools in conjunction with one another can produce
greater results (synergistic effects) than tools used individually and in an uncoordinated fashion. TV and
online advertising used together produced more attention, more positive thoughts, and higher message
credibility than did the sum of the two media when used individually.

Five Key Features of IMC

1. Start with the customer or prospect.
2. Use any form of relevant contact or touch point.
3. Speak with a single voice.
 4. Build relationships.
5. Affect behavior.
Start with the customer or prospect:
This feature emphasizes that the marcom process must start with the customer or prospect and then work
backward to the brand communicator in determining the most appropriate messages and media to employ
for the brand. The IMC approach starts with the customer (“outside-in”) to determine which
communication methods that will best serve their needs and motivate them to purchase the brand. It
avoids an “inside-out” approach (from company to customer) in identifying communication vehicles.
Use Any Form of Relevant Contact or Touch point: As carpenters, plumbers, and auto mechanics
know, some tools are more appropriate for a given task at hand. Similarly, a truly professional marketing
communicator selects the best tools (advertising, social media, publicity, etc.) for the job. IMC
practitioners need to be receptive to using all forms of touch points, or contacts, as potential message
delivery channels. Touch point and contact are used here as interchangeable terms to mean any message
medium capable of reaching target customers and presenting the brand in a favorable light.
Speak with a Single Voice: Since the early origins of IMC, it was clear that marketing communications
must speak with a single voice. Coordination of messages and media is absolutely critical to achieving a
strong and unified brand image and moving consumers to action. Failure to closely coordinate all
communication elements can result in duplicated efforts or, worse, contradictory brand messages.
In general, the single-voice principle involves selecting a specific positioning statement for a brand. A
positioning statement is the key idea that encapsulates what a brand is intended to stand for in its target
market’s mind and then consistently delivers the same idea across all media channels.
Build relationships: Successful marketing communication requires building relationships between
brands and their consumers/customers. A relationship is an enduring link between a brand and its
customers. Successful relationships between customers and brands lead to repeat purchasing and, ideally,
loyalty toward a brand. Loyalty programs promote long-term relationships between customers and brands
that lead to customer retention.
Don’t Lose Focus of the Ultimate Objective: Affect Behavior: This means that marketing
communications ultimately must do more than just influence brand awareness or enhance consumer
attitudes toward the brand. Instead, successful IMC requires that communication efforts be directed at
encouraging some form of behavioral response. The objective, in other words, is to move people to
action.
Topic: Enhancing Brand Equity
Brand: A name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods
and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of the competition.
Brand Equity
The goodwill (equity) that an established brand has built up over its existence.
Companies can create brand equity for their products by making them memorable, easily recognizable,
and superior in quality and reliability.
When a company has positive brand equity, customers willingly pay a high price for its products, even
though they could get the same thing from a competitor for less. Customers, in effect, pay a price
premium to do business with a firm they know and admire. Because the company with brand equity does
not incur a higher expense than its competitors to produce the product and bring it to market, the
difference in price goes to margin. The firm's brand equity enables it to make a bigger profit on each sale.
Brand equity is an extension of brand recognition, but more-so than recognition, brand equity is the added
value in a particular name.

Strategies to Enhance Brand Equity

What strategies can be taken to enhance a brand’s equity? The following discussion identifies three ways
by which brand equity may be enhanced and labels these the (1) speak-for-itself approach, (2) message-
driven approach, and (3) leveraging approach.
Enhancing Equity by Having a Brand Speak for Itself
As consumers, we often try brands without having much, if any, advance knowledge about them.
Consumers form favorable (or perhaps unfavorable) brand-related associations merely by consuming a
brand absent any significant brand knowledge prior to the usage experience. In effect, the brand “speaks
for itself” in informing consumers of its quality, desirability, and suitability for satisfying their
consumption related goals.
Enhancing Equity by Creating Appealing Messages
Marcom practitioners can build positive brand-related associations via the power of repeated claims about
the features a brand possesses and the benefits it delivers.
Enhancing Equity via Leveraging
A third equity-building strategy that increasingly is being used is “leveraging.” Brand associations can be
shaped and equity enhanced by having a brand tie into, or leverage, positive associations that already exist
through socialization in culture and society.
Figure 2.5 portrays how brands leverage associations by forming connections with (1) other brands, (2)
places, (3) things, and (4) people.
 Figure 2.5: Leveraging Brand Meaning from Various Sources

What Benefits Result from Enhancing Brand Equity?

As previously noted, one major by-product of efforts to increase a brand’s equity is that consumer brand
loyalty might also increase. Indeed, long-term growth and profitability are largely dependent on creating
and reinforcing brand loyalty.
Research has shown that when firms communicate unique and positive messages via advertising, personal
selling, promotions, events, and other means, they are able to differentiate their brands effectively from
competitive offerings and insulate themselves from future price competition.

Topic: Environmental Marketing Communications

Environmental Marketing Communications
People around the world are concerned with the depletion of natural resources and the degradation of the
physical environment. Many companies are responding to environmental concerns by introducing
environmentally-oriented products and undertaking marcom programs to promote them. These actions are
referred to as green marketing. Legitimate green marketing efforts must minimally accomplish two
objectives: improve environmental quality and satisfy customers.
Green Marketing Initiatives
Motivated for reasons such as achieving regulatory compliance, gaining competitive advantage, being
socially responsible, and following the commitment of top management, some companies have made
legitimate responses to environmental problems. These responses mostly have been in the form of new or
revised products. Perhaps the major environmentally responsive product initiative has been the
introduction of electric-gas hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius and Chevy Volt, and true electric
vehicles, such as the Nissan Leaf.
Compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFL) are increasingly prevalent because they are longer lasting and more
energy efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs. In fact, the traditional incandescent bulb is targeted
for an eventual phase out in countries throughout the world. In the United States, California’s target date
for the phaseout is 2018. Even Nike has gone green with its introduction of Air Jordan XX3 sneakers that
have an outsole made of recycled material and almost no chemical-based glues.
Green Advertising
Environmental appeals in advertising were commonplace in American advertising for a short period in the
early to mid-1990s, but the initial fervor toward the deteriorating physical environment waned. In fact, for
10 years following this period it was difficult to find examples of environmentally oriented advertising.
Now, however, with a rising tide of interest in green marketing and green consumption, environmental
appeals have reemerged. Green advertising represents a wise marcom strategy, but only if brand
marketers have something meaningful to say about the ecological efficacy of their brands vis-a-vis
competitive brands. More advertisers would undoubtedly jump on the green bandwagon if their brands
had environmentally based relative advantages.
There are three types of green advertising appeals: (1) ads that address a relationship between a product/
service and the biophysical environment.
Reduced Packaging Responses
Various efforts have been initiated to improve the environmental effectiveness of packaging materials.
Early efforts included packaging soft drinks and many other products in recyclable plastic bottles,
switching from polystyrene clamshell containers to paperboard packages for burgers and other
sandwiches, and introducing concentrated laundry detergents to shrink packages and thus produce less
waste disposal to be placed in already crowded landfills. More recently, we have seen efforts on the part
of companies such as PepsiCo to reduce the amount of plastic used in bottles for some of its noncola
beverages (e.g., Lipton iced tea and Tropicana juice drinks). PepsiCo’s Pepsi and Diet Pepsi cans are now
made with 40 percent recycled aluminum, and Coca-Cola has financially supported the world’s largest
bottle-to-bottle recycling plant and has promised to recycle 100 percent of its aluminum cans sold in the
United States.
Sponsorship Programs: Cause-Related and Event Marketing
In general, sponsorship marketing is when companies sponsor or support worthy environmental or social
programs in order to generate goodwill about the company or its brands. Companies also are employing
event sponsorships (with no strings attached) related to the environment.
Regulation of Marketing Communications
Advertisers, sales promotion managers, and other marcom practitioners are faced with a variety of
regulations and restrictions that influence their decision making latitude. The past century has shown that
regulation is necessary to protect consumers and competitors from unethical, fraudulent, deceptive, and
unfair practices that some businesses choose to perpetrate.
In market economies, there is an inevitable tension between the interests of business organizations and the
rights of consumers. Regulators attempt to balance the interests of both parties while ensuring that an
adequate level of competition is maintained.
When Is Regulation Justified?
Strict adherents to the ideals of free enterprise would argue that government should rarely if ever
intervene in the activities of business. However, most observers believe that regulation is justified in
certain circumstances, especially when consumer decisions are based on false or limited information.
Under such circumstances, consumers are likely to make decisions they would not otherwise make and, as
a result, incur economic, physical, or psychological injury.
Competitors also are harmed because they lose business they might have otherwise enjoyed when
companies against whom they compete present false or misleading information. In theory, regulation is
justified if the benefits realized exceed the costs. What are the benefits and costs of regulation?
Benefits
Regulation offers three major benefits. First, consumer choice among alternatives is improved when
consumers are better informed in the marketplace. For example, consider the Alcoholic Beverage
Labeling Act, which requires manufacturers to place the warning on all containers of alcoholic beverages.
A second benefit of regulation is that when consumers become better informed, product quality tends to
improve in response to consumers’ changing needs and preferences.
A third regulatory benefit is reduced prices resulting from a reduction in a seller’s “informational market
power.” For example, prices of used cars undoubtedly would fall if dealers were required to inform
prospective purchasers about a car’s defects, because consumers would not be willing to pay as much for
automobiles with known problems.
Regulation by Federal Agencies
Governmental regulation takes place at both the federal and state levels. All facets of marketing
communications are subject to regulation, but advertising is the one area in which regulators have been
most active. This is because advertising is the most conspicuous aspect of marketing communications.
The Federal Trade Commission enforces marketing regulations for businesses. Understanding the
regulations that affect your business’s marketing strategy can help you build greater trust with your
customers and avoid violating the law. Truthful advertising is key to conforming to FTC regulations
regardless of your business. For example, a marketer claiming that a product is made in the U.S.,
environmentally safe or provides particular health benefits is required to have proof that such claims are
completely true.
The FTC is the U.S. government agency with primary responsibility for regulating advertising and
promotion at the federal level. The FTC’s regulatory authority cuts across three broad areas that directly
affect marketing communicators: deceptive advertising, unfair practices, and information regulation.
Deceptive Advertising
Although the FTC makes most deception rulings on a case-by-case basis, there are guidelines in deciding
whether deceptive advertising has occurred. Under current deception policy, the FTC will find a business
practice deceptive if “… there is a representation, omission, or practice that is likely to mislead the
consumer acting reasonably in the circumstances, to the consumer’s detriment” (i.e., it is material
representation, omission, or practice).
Product Labeling
The FDA is the federal body responsible for regulating information on the packages of food, tobacco, and
drug products. The FDA has been active in regulating the type of nutritional information that must appear
on food labels (e.g., Nutrition Facts Panels), nutrition content claims, and health claims (i.e., claims
linking a disease with a nutrient). For example, the requirement that labels must include the amount of
trans fats contained in a single serving was an important addition to the Nutrition Facts Panel. Future food
labeling issues for the FDA include front-of-package symbols,58 which are common (on a voluntary
basis) in U.K. grocery stores.
Ethical Issues in Marketing Communications:
Ethics in Marcom Involves matters of right and wrong, or moral, conduct pertaining to any aspect of
marketing communications Honesty, honor, virtue, integrity Ethical Conduct Lack of consensus about
what it is Ethical lapses and moral indiscretions occur under pressures of trying to meet business goals
and attempting to satisfy the demands of the financial community.
Topics:

 Market Segmentation
 Market Targeting
 Market Positioning

Market Segmentation:

A market segment consists of a group of customers who share a similar set of needs and wants.
Segmenting Consumer Markets:
Geographic segmentation divides the market into different geographical units such as nations, regions,
states, counties, cities, or even neighborhoods. A company may decide to operate in one or a few
geographical areas or operate in all areas but pay attention to geographical differences in needs and
wants. Many companies today are localizing their products, advertising, promotion, and sales efforts to
fit the needs of individual regions, cities, and neighborhoods. For example, Domino’s Pizza is the nation’s
largest pizza delivery chain. But a customer ordering a pizza in New York, doesn’t care much about
what’s happening pizza-wise in California. So Domino’s keeps its marketing and customer focus
decidedly local.

Demographic segmentation divides the market into segments based on variables such as age, life-cycle
stage, gender, income, occupation, education, religion, ethnicity, and generation. Demographic factors
are the most popular bases for segmenting customer groups. One reason is that consumer needs,
wants, and usage rates often vary closely with demographic variables. Another is that demographic
variables are easier to measure than most other types of variables. Even when marketers first define
segments using other bases, such as benefits sought or behavior, they must know a segment’s
demographic characteristics to assess the size of the target market and reach it efficiently.

 Age and life-cycle stage segmentation divides a market into different age and life-cycle groups.
Consumer needs and wants change with age. Some companies use age and life-cycle
segmentation, offering different products or using different marketing approaches for different
age and life-cycle groups. Toothpaste brand Colgate offer three main lines of products to target
kids, adults, and older consumers. Age segmentation can be even more refined. Pampers divides
its market into prenatal, new baby (0–5 months), baby (6–12 months), toddler (13–23 months),
and preschooler (24 months+).
 Gender segmentation divides a market into different segments based on gender. For example,
P&G was among the first to use gender segmentation with Secret, a brand specially formulated
for a woman’s chemistry, packaged and advertised to reinforce the female image. More
recently, the men’s cosmetics industry has exploded, and many cosmetics makers that
previously catered primarily to women now successfully market men’s lines. Gender
differentiation has long been applied in clothing, hairstyling, cosmetics, and magazines.
 Income segmentation divides a market into different income segments. The marketers of
products and services such as automobiles, clothing, cosmetics, financial services, and travel
have long used income segmentation. Many companies target affluent consumers with luxury
 goods and convenience services. However, not all companies that use income segmentation
target the affluent. For example, many retailers—such as the Dollar General, Family Dollar, and
Dollar Tree store chains—successfully target low- and middle-income groups.

Psychographic segmentation divides a market into different segments based on social class, lifestyle, or
personality characteristics. People in the same demographic group can have very different
psychographic characteristics. As a result, marketers often segment their markets by consumer lifestyles
and base their marketing strategies on lifestyle appeals. Marketers also use personality variables to
segment markets. For example, different soft drinks target different personalities. On the one hand,
Mountain Dew projects a youthful, rebellious, adventurous, go-your-own-way personality. Its ads
remind customers that “It’s different on the Mountain.” By contrast, Coca-Cola Zero appears to target
more mature, practical, and cerebral but good-humored personality types. Its subtly humorous ads
promise “Real Coca-Cola taste and zero calories.”

Behavioral segmentation divides a market into segments based on consumer knowledge, attitudes,
uses of a product, or responses to a product. Many marketers believe that behavior variables are the
best starting point for building market segments.

 Occasions: Buyers can be grouped according to occasions when they get the idea to buy,
actually make their purchases, or use the purchased items. Occasion segmentation can help
firms build up product usage. Campbell’s advertises its soups more heavily in the cold winter
months, and Home Depot runs special springtime promotions for lawn and garden products.
Other marketers prepare special offers and ads for holiday occasions. For example, air travel is
triggered by occasions related to business, vacation, or family. Occasion segmentation can help
expand product usage.
 Benefits Sought: A powerful form of segmentation is grouping buyers according to the different
benefits that they seek from a product. Benefit segmentation requires finding the major
benefits people look for in a product class, the kinds of people who look for each benefit, and
the major brands that deliver each benefit. For example, people buying bikes are looking for
any of numerous benefits, from competitive racing and sports performance to recreation,
fitness, touring, transportation, and just plain fun. To meet varying benefit preferences, Trek
makes bikes in three major benefit groups: road bikes, mountain bikes, and town bikes.
 User Status: Markets can be segmented into nonusers, ex users, potential users, first-time
users, and regular users of a product. Marketers want to reinforce and retain regular users,
attract targeted nonusers, and reinvigorate relationships with ex-users. Blood banks cannot rely
only on regular donors to supply blood; they must also recruit new first-time donors and
contact ex-donors, each with a different marketing strategy. Included in the potential users
group are consumers facing lifestage changes—such as new parents and newlyweds—who can
be turned into heavy users. For example, to get new parents off to the right start, P&G makes
certain that its Pampers Swaddlers are the diaper most U.S. hospitals provide for newborns.
 Usage Rate: Markets can also be segmented into light, medium, and heavy product users.
Heavy users are often a small percentage of the market but account for a high percentage of
 total consumption. Heavy beer drinkers account for 87 percent of beer consumption—almost
seven times as much as light drinkers. Marketers would rather attract one heavy user than
several light users.
 Loyalty Status: A market can also be segmented by consumer loyalty. Buyers can be divided
into groups according to their degree of loyalty. Some consumers are completely loyal—they
buy one brand all the time and can’t wait to tell others about it. For example, whether they own
a MacBook computer, an iPhone, or an iPad, Apple devotees are granite-like in their devotion to
the brand. Other consumers are somewhat loyal—they are loyal to two or three brands of a
given product or favor one brand while sometimes buying others. Still other buyers show no
loyalty to any brand—they either want something different each time they buy, or they buy
whatever’s on sale.

Market Targeting:

Once resulting segments are developed based on demographics, behavior, etc., then the question is
whether or not these segments are attractive enough to be worth our attention. Five criteria for
segment effectiveness (i.e., attractiveness) are suggested:
1. Measurable: the degree to which useful information exists on the segment. For example, a company
may not have measures of a very small segment’s size, purchasing power, or other important
characteristics. (This should not deter creative attempts to measure this however.)
2. Substantial: the degree to which the segment is large enough and/or profitable to be worth
attention. There are notable exceptions to this: the Orphan Drug Act of 1983 facilitates the development
and commercialization of prescription drugs by pharmaceutical firms to treat rare diseases.
3. Accessible: the degree to which a firm can focus their marketing efforts on the segment. As most
college students know, your time is limited and you represent a difficult market to reach. So, firms are
especially glad to reach out to students with promotions on spring break, gift packs at dorms and rec
centers, etc.
4. Differentiable: the degree to which the segment is distinguishable and will respond differently to
changes in marketing mix elements and programs. If younger and older urban Asian-American men
within one mile of a restaurant respond exactly the same to a sushi lunch special, they may not
represent different segments.
5. Actionable: the degree to which the programs can be formulated and implemented. Sometimes,
resources may not be available for a special marcom effort for a given segment.
Several alternatives for actually selecting the segments have been deemed attractive or effective. These
target market strategies include: (1) undifferentiated marketing, in which overall marketing mix is
applied to the mass market (e.g., Model T Ford with one color and price for all Americans), (2)
differentiated marketing, in which a separate marketing mix is applied to each separate segment (e.g.,
General Motors’ separate divisions), or (3) concentrated marketing, in which one overall marketing mix
is applied to one separate segment (e.g., Mercedes and high-end owners). Of course, other factors such
as company resources, homogeneity of the market, and competition can affect one’s choice of a given
strategy.
 Market Positioning

Beyond deciding which segments of the market it will target, the company must decide on a value
proposition—how it will create differentiated value for targeted segments and what positions it wants
to occupy in those segments. A product position is the way a product is defined by consumers on
important attributes—the place the product occupies in consumers’ minds relative to competing
products. Products are made in factories, but brands happen in the minds of consumers.
In the automobile market, the Nissan Versa and Honda Fit are positioned on economy, Mercedes and
Cadillac on luxury, and Porsche and BMW on performance.
Consumers are overloaded with information about products and services. They cannot reevaluate
products every time they make a buying decision. To simplify the buying process, consumers organize
products, services, and companies into categories and “position” them in their minds. A product’s
position is the complex set of perceptions, impressions, and feelings that consumers have for the
product compared with competing products. Consumers position products with or without the help of
marketers. But marketers do not want to leave their products’ positions to chance. They must plan
positions that will give their products the greatest advantage in selected target markets, and they must
design marketing mixes to create these planned positions.

Through product differentiation, brands can be differentiated on features, performance, or style and
design. Thus, Bose positions its speakers on their striking design and sound characteristics. By gaining
the approval of the American Heart Association as an approach to a healthy lifestyle, Subway
differentiates itself as the healthy fast-food choice.

Some companies gain services differentiation through speedy, convenient, or careful delivery. For
example, First Convenience Bank of Texas offers “Real Hours for Real People.” It is open seven days a
week, including evenings.

Firms that practice channel differentiation gain competitive advantage through the way they design
their channel’s coverage, expertise, and performance. Amazon.com and GEICO, for example, set
themselves apart with their smooth-functioning direct channels.

Companies can also gain a strong competitive advantage through people differentiation—hiring and
training better people than their competitors do.

Even when competing offers look the same, buyers may perceive a difference based on company or
brand image differentiation. The chosen symbols, characters, and other image elements a brand
chooses must be communicated through advertising that conveys the company’s or brand’s personality.
A company or brand image should convey a product’s distinctive benefits and positioning. Developing a
strong and distinctive image calls for creativity and hard work. A company cannot develop an image in
the public’s mind overnight by using only a few ads.

Companies often find it easier to come up with a good positioning strategy than to implement it.
Establishing a position or changing one usually takes a long time. In contrast, positions that have taken
years to build can quickly be lost. Once a company has built the desired position, it must take care to
maintain the position through consistent performance and communication. It must closely monitor and
adapt the position over time to match changes in consumer needs and competitors’ strategies.
However, the company should avoid abrupt changes that might confuse consumers. Instead, a product’s
position should evolve gradually as it adapts to the ever-changing marketing environment.