market-sharing vs market-creation

Quoting a book I am reading from Sultan Kermally “Gurus on Marketing” and quoting back Regis McKenna (Silicon Valley marketing expert) on the book, (briefly) he says:

“Marketing should focus on market creation not market sharing. Most people in marketing have the ‘market-share mentality’. They identify established markets and then try to figure a way to get a piece of a market. In fast-changing industries, however, marketers need to think about creating markets – rather than taking a big slice of the pie, they should bake a new pie. Market-sharing and market-creating strategies require very different sorts of thinking.”

Think about it!

I will post more about this in the future.

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Perceptions make promises

What is perception?

Perception is the process, act, or faculty of perceiving. In Psychology, among other definitions, perception is considered the insight, intuition, or knowledge gained by perceiving.

Brand management is about managing perceptions. If we look at our daily life and randomly go inside our thoughts, we can take out several examples which makes us understand the power of perceiving, for instance:

- When your room is untidy, you can feel slightly disorientated

put some stuff on their place and then your perception about freshness, cleanness and organization comes up.

- When you attend a conference, the guy next to you is terrible dressed compared with the rest and looks very simple.. but suddenly is announced as one of the most acclaimed ‘star’ in the area of expertise

your perception totally changes and you forgot all the aspects you considered before, because the new information and highly respected ‘perception’ of this individual covers up everything.

- When you meet a beautiful and attractive woman, she is appealing to your eyes. But after a conversation you realize the lack of smartness and knowledge

your perception changes radically, probably, you wish you didn’t approach her at all.

- When you buy a laptop, you think this brand is highly trustable and the design looks really good. After a while you get into a lot of trouble installing programs and dealing with the problems that came up

a month before you were admiring this brand, now you are destroying it every single time you speak with anyone and with yourself.

Brand management is all about managing perceptions, but if you don’t keep your promises, most likely is that your brand will fade out.

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Repetition messages

Since August last year, the internal television at the KCR in Hong Kong (city train – similar to metro) plays an ad over and over from Macdonald’s with two repetitions, one after another.

True that after a while, you already know the ad back and forth. Even in Chinese, I already recognize the ‘voice off’ talking about the Mac’breakfast as well as its competitive prices. Music is also pretty annoying. If you don’t pay attention to the first one, you will probably recognize the second ad repetition.

Nowadays advertising clutter is getting consumer to continuously avoid it, or better, forget it soon after it plays. Considering this case, people also are probably sleepy enough in the morning to ignore it even more than usual, maybe that’s why Macdonald’s strategy clearly is to provide more and more clutter.. yet, strongly puts their brand in the minds of KCR travelers.

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small makes Big

In February this year, I received an email from a University introducing me a value added option to enrich my studies. With some equivalences, in a short time I can get another degree.

The person in the email, kindly referred every aspects of this upgrade with a resumed and effective text. In the end of the email, clearly stated that at any time or circumstances this person will be available to reply promptly to any inquiry.

Well, my interest was limited due to lack of availability; even though, after reconsider, I wanted to know more details and become aware of this process to possibly consider it in the future.

So, I send an email asking for more details to this person. No reply. The following week, I send another email. No reply.

In the next week, I don’t want to send an email, probably I want to call, but most likely my interest is already gone to another university, which without delays is replying to my inquiries, is friendly, and even enjoys more reputation than the other.

In a competitive scenario, if you’re not prepared for it, don’t even bother to try to pull attention, especially if you are a marketing and business school.

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Oasis out, Opportunities in

Oasis airlines hit the floor with a 1 billion debt. I am one of the unfortunate travelers that have a ticket and still don’t know what is going to be the solution.

In this process, other airlines are offering special fares for those affected by this, even though, special fares are priced between 200 – 300 euros, well that’s not a special fare when considering one way trip.

About 30.000 travelers, including me, and a bunch of potential clients that relied on Oasis before want solutions, comfort and trust, making it an excellent opportunity for those who till now didn’t stand for more than offering a special (normal) fare.

Is an opportunity to grasp a slice of this market making a positive impact on traveler’s who lost their flights and money. Probably, a long-term loyalty program couldn’t have been so close if they seized this opportunity.

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