A1 - Class Discussion - What is Marketing?

1 - What is marketing?

Marketing is the process in which a product is developed and promoted through audience research.
It is put through a system that can be called the "Marketplace" - mainly because it is an area in which you can buy or sell services. In this time, a marketing team can identify who they are selling the product to, primarily by conducting research on them in situations like focus groups. But at the same time, the modern audience has developed so that it is more aware that they are being targeted or that they would enjoy a product being promoted.
They are responsible for communicating a message about the product (i.e. what it is, how the audience can purchase it, how much it is, where they can by it). This also includes brand development and packaging.

Things that can be marketed include:

• Products
• People (self-promotion, bands etc.)
• Services
• Networks (Orange, O2 etc.)
• Customer Services
• Media text (Films, books etc.)
• Places (Visit Scotland campaign)
• Government
• Events (Festivals etc.)

2 - What is involved in a marketing campaign (Tools and Techniques)

One of the main processes that happens is market research. Before a product can be really promoted or created, an audience needs to be targeted and researched. Once a company has an idea of the audience's needs, then they can start to develop and change a product according to what they have dicovered. If done successfully, a company can generally create a highly successful product.
Although it is technically in a different section, advertising is another area in which a product can be marketed. It's generally the final promotions of a product and can be seen through:

• print - leaflets, posters
• outdoors - billboards
• TV - trailers, commercial, tv spots
• radio - adverts, interviews
• online - social networking, websites

Once a product has been created it's imperative that the public remain aware of it. Word of mouth is key after the initial promotion, people are the most effective forms of advertising as everyone has the urge to talk to someone or to gossip about something they have recently witnessed - if you make a memorable advert/product then people are going to want to talk to it. Also, people are the perfect testers. Trial runs are very good ideas to test out a product in a real situation - you can tell if it lives up to the standards that were expected by the audience or if there are any further improvements that need to happen.

Furthermore, the type of promotion that people little remember is the sponsorship of items. If your product becomes a sponsor for some large broadcast, event etc - like the many logos you see flashing around the outside of a football pitch in a stadium - then more people are likely to see it. Though the prime slots on TV are very expensive to purchase, if you find the perfect time to advertise your product - primarily when the target audience is watching - then you are more likely to sell it.

A great example of sponsorship dealings is Dr Pepper and Thorpe Park. For the past couple of years, Dr Pepper has been in a deal with Thorpe Park in which they will sponsor the "Sun Scream" season during the summer - which includes a motocross stunts show - if they allow Dr Pepper to be the main drink advertised throughout the park. At busy points in the day, people wearing the logo of Dr Pepper walk around the parks and hand out free samples of the drink to entice people to go and buy more.

• Focus groups
• Placement
• Online - effective everywhere. YouTube is a great source for adverts these days. Great for the promotors, that is. For the users of the website, it's been complained about that even the advertising system on there has been marketed. Adverts are almost always compulsory on highly subscribed users - such as PewDiePie, Ray William Johnson and Tubuscus. Often you can skip the adverts - after you've watched 5 slow seconds of it - but sometimes you have to sit through an advert. That, and the banners on the websites. Adverts are everywhere you look.
• Radio - it's a more subliminal form of advertising. You don't realize it's really happening because you're listening to the music anyway. Sometimes, the adverts could blend so efficiantly from or into a song that you don't realize you've heard about this product but you still know it. Catchy jingles help as music always gets stuck in your head - how many times have you heard "GO COMPARE~" since that advert came out 4 years ago?
• TV - though everyone still watches TV, this form of advertisement has started t struggle in recent years thanks to V+ and Sky+. All these on demand features (including the online ITV Player, 4OD etc) have started to obliterate the adverts - making them much easier to avoid on TV. Even when a program has been recorded straight from the TV, you can still fast forward through the adverts to skip them.
• Print - the most escapable. If you don't want to look at a piece of paper then you don't have to.
• Outdoors - this one is inescapable. When you're walking around outside or stuck in traffic, billboards are always there. Particularly around the areas where traffic becomes awful at peak times of the day - they pretty much have a captive audience.

3 - What is PR?

PR stands for Public Relations, and it is a part of the marketing mix; it is part of managing the message of a product.

PR manages have to make sure that there is a good relationship between the product, the company and the audience.

This area of the marketing has the strongest relationship with the media - utilizing the media to the best effect.

Generally, these sectors use PR companies:

• Big companies - like Apple.
• Governments
• Celebrities - Max Clifford is a big name in this area having dealt with celebrities like Kerry Katona over the duration of his career. 

4 - How has marketing strategy/techniques evolved over the past 10 years?

Since the Internet grew (Web 2.0), marketers have had easier access to niche markets - being able to go directly to people through their social networking profiles or searches to find out what they are interested in and whether that can help develop products further.

In recent times, web devices known as cookies (a data collecting "virus") have been inserted onto websites by their creators to help figure out what a user is interested in whilst they are searching. Play.com, Amazon, and eBay are prime examples of websites who use this tactic as you could be searching for Avengers Assemble on Play.com and see it being advertised by another website on banners somewhere else.

However, because of these changes the new generations have become more media savvy. Education has changed in recent years to incorporate the new technologies and media techniques. Thus this has created a more media-sceptical generation.

5 - How has our understanding of marketing audiences changed in the 21st century?

Now that the audience is becoming more media savvy, the marketers have a harder job pushing through the barriers that the audience are trying put up. However, with social networking systems such as Facebook, Xbox Live, and Tumblr the audience are already doing the marketing for the companies.

By creating multi-national sites, people have the ability to talk to people on the other side of the world - everyone connecting through their comment interests.

Tumblr is a good example of this. Through their tagging system, users are able to promote themselves, products, news to anyone else in the world with Internet access and a connection to that site. We are able to influence each other with much more ease - making an advert viral or talking about a product like the newest camera or phone. We give reviews of these products - either saying that they are the greatest invention to date or warning people to avoid them at all costs.

6 - What is more important, the product or the marketing?

In the general sense, the two need a balance but sometimes marketing happens before there is even a product.

In some cases, branding works better where marketing is concerned - for example, people were raving and wanting the iPhone 5, talking about the product before it had even gone into production. Apple were able to assess their user wants and needs to create this product - with the audience creating the hype and anticipation for it months before it was created.