Business is Marketing

The best of products and marketing campaigns may fall fl at when it comes to the customer. And this may be despite the best of market research backing them. But a marketer who understands the customer’s mind can utilise the 4Ps strategy in a more optimal manner; leading to stupendous results It’s turning out to be a year of new launches, making the market place more interesting and competitive. Palm launched its glitzy mobile phone “Pre” making Apple really shaky and nervous, with Apple wanting to sue it for copying the iPhone touchscreen. Microsoft has launched, rather relaunched its internet search engine with a new name Bing – planning to take Google headlong in the battle of the “searches”. Yes, this time – innovation seems to be the key to survival. But will plain innovation be enough to make a product survive? THREE STORIES TO ILLUSTRATE 1ST STORY 100 students at MIT’s Sloan School of Management were shown an advertisement of the magazine – The Economist. It was a subscription a...

Tobacco companies have successfully used basic and simple marketing tactics for years; even if it meant irreversible damage to society. It’s high time we beat them at their own game. It’s interesting that rotting teeth, lungs infected with cancer and a slew of other horrendous and horrifying images will adorn cigarette packets in India from this month (June onwards). Another interesting development occurred in Washington a few days back. A federal appeals court upheld a landmark 2006 ruling on 22nd May that cigarette makers for decades have been lying about the dangers of smoking “In a 93-page opinion, a three- judge panel cleared the way for new restrictions on how cigarette companies market and sell their products,” stated the Washington Post. What is it that makes marketing and selling of cigarettes so different that it required a 93-page letter to help reduce their effect, if not stop it totally? What is that that these companies have been doing that’s so harmful to our society. Wh...