PHILIP KOTLER (15th ed)
Eight demand states are possible:
1. Negative demand — Consumers dislike the product and may even pay to avoid it.
2. Nonexistent demand — Consumers may be unaware of or uninterested in the product.
3. Latent demand — Consumers may share a strong need that cannot be satisfied by an existing product.
4. Declining demand — Consumers begin to buy the product less frequently or not at all.
5. Irregular demand — Consumer purchases vary on a seasonal, monthly, weekly, daily, or even hourly basis.
6. Full demand — Consumers are adequately buying all products put into the marketplace.
7. Overfull demand — More consumers would like to buy the product than can be satisfied.
8. Unwholesome demand — Consumers may be attracted to products that have undesirable social consequences
We can distinguish five types of needs:
1. Stated needs (The customer wants an inexpensive car.)
2. Real needs (The customer wants a car whose operating cost, not initial price, is low.)
3. Unstated needs (The customer expects good service from the dealer.)
4. Delight needs (The customer would like the dealer to include an onboard GPS system.)
5. Secret needs (The customer wants friends to see him or her as a savvy consumer.)
4 A’s – Acceptability, Awareness, Accessibility and, Affordability
THE VALUE CHAIN
Harvard’s Michael Porter has proposed the value chain as a tool for identifying ways to create more customer value.
According to this model, every firm is a synthesis of activities performed to design, produce, market, deliver, and support
its product. Nine strategically relevant activities
—five primary and four support activities—create value and cost in a specific business.
The primary activities are
(1) inbound logistics, or bringing materials into the business;
(2)operations, or converting materials into final products;
(3) outbound logistics, or shipping out final products;
(4) marketing, which includes sales; and
(5) service.
Specialized departments handle the support activities—
(1) procurement,
(2) technology development,
(3) human resource
management, and
(4) firm infrastructure. (Infrastructure covers the costs of general management,
planning, finance, accounting, legal, and government affairs.)
The firm’s success depends not only on how well each department performs its work, but also on how well the company
coordinates departmental activities to conduct core business processes.
5 These processes include:

The market-sensing process—gathering and acting upon information about the market

The new-offering realization process—researching, developing, and launching new high-quality offerings quickly
and

within budget

The customer acquisition process—defining target markets and prospecting for new customers

The customer relationship management process—building deeper understanding, relationships, and offerings to

individual customers

The fulfillment management process—receiving and approving orders, shipping goods on time, and collecting
payment
Good mission statements have five major characteristics.
1. They focus on a limited number of goals. Compare a vague mission statement such as “To build total brand value by
innovating to deliver customer value and customer leadership faster, better, and more completely than our competition”
to Google’s ambitious but more focused mission statement, “To organize the world’s information and make it
universally accessible and useful.”
2. They stress the company’s major policies and values. Narrowing the range of individual discretion lets employees act
consistently on important issues.
3. They define the major competitive spheres within which the company will operate. Table 2.3 summarizes some key
competitive dimensions for mission statements.
4. They take a long-term view. Management should change the mission only when it ceases to be relevant.
5. They are as short, memorable, and meaningful as possible. Marketing consultant Guy Kawasaki advocates developing
three- to four-word corporate mantras—like “Enriching Women’s Lives” for Mary Kay—rather than mission
statements
SBU
An SBU has three characteristics:
1. It is a single business, or a collection of related businesses, that can be planned separately from the rest of the company.
2. It has its own set of competitors.
3. It has a manager responsible for strategic planning and profit performance, who controls most of the factors affecting
factors.
DEFINING VALUE
Customer-perceived value (CPV) is the difference between the prospective customer’s evaluation of all the benefits and
costs of an offering and the perceived alternatives. Total customer benefit is the perceived monetary value of the bundle of
economic, functional, and psychological benefits customers expect from a given market offering because of the product,
service, people, and image. Total customer cost is the perceived bundle of costs customers expect to incur in evaluating,
obtaining, using, and disposing of the given market offering, including monetary, time, energy, and psychological cost.
A marketing information system (MIS) consists of people, equipment, and procedures to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate,
and distribute needed, timely, and accurate information to marketing decision makers. It relies on internal company
records, marketing intelligence activities, and marketing research.
A marketing intelligence system is a set of procedures and sources that managers use to obtain everyday information
about developments in the marketing environment. The internal records system supplies results data, but the marketing
intelligence system supplies happenings data.
MARKET FORECAST
Only one level of industry marketing expenditure will actually occur. The market demand corresponding to this level is
called the market forecast.
MARKET POTENTIAL The market forecast shows expected market demand, not maximum market demand. For the latter,
we need to visualize the level of market demand resulting from a very high level of industry marketing expenditure, where
further increases in marketing effort would have little effect. Market potential is the limit approached by market demand
as industry marketing expenditures approach infinity for a given marketing environment.
A sales quota is the sales goal set for a product line, company division, or sales representative
Total market potential is the maximum sales available to all firms in an industry during a given period, under a given level
of industry marketing effort and environmental conditions.
Market-Buildup Method The market-buildup method calls for identifying all the potential buyers in each market and
estimating their potential purchases. It produces accurate results if we have a list of all potential buyers and a good
estimate of what each will buy. Unfortunately, this information is not always easy to gather
MOTIVATION
FREUD’S THEORY Sigmund Freud assumed the psychological forces shaping people’s behavior are largely unconscious and
that a person cannot fully understand his or her own motivations. Someone who examines specific brands will react not
only to their stated capabilities but also to other, less conscious cues such as shape, size, weight, material, color, and brand
name. A technique called laddering lets us trace a person’s motivations from the stated instrumental ones to the more
terminal ones.
HERZBERG’S THEORY Frederick Herzberg developed a two-factor theory that distinguishes dissatisfiers (factors that cause
dissatisfaction) from satisfiers (factors that cause satisfaction). 40 The absence of dissatisfiers is not enough to motivate a
purchase; satisfiers must be present. For example, a computer that does not come with a warranty is a dissatisfier
THE POWER OF SENSORY MARKETING Sensory marketing has been defined as “marketing that engages the consumers’
senses and affects their perception, judgment and behavior.”
Selective distortion is the tendency to interpret information in a way that fits our preconceptions. Consumers will often
distort information to be consistent with prior brand and product beliefs and expectations.
Attention is the allocation of processing capacity to some stimulus. Voluntary attention is something purposeful;
involuntary attention is grabbed by someone or something. It’s estimated that the average person may be exposed to
more than 1,500 ads or brand communications a day. Because we cannot possibly attend to all these, we screen most
stimuli out—a process called selective attention.
selective retention, we’re likely to remember good points about a product we like and forget good points about competing
products.
A drive is a strong internal stimulus impelling action. Cues are minor stimuli that determine when, where, and how a
person responds.
The hedonic bias occurs when people have a general tendency to attribute success to themselves and failure to external
causes. Consumers are thus more likely to blame a product than themselves, putting pressure on marketers to carefully
explicate product functions in well-designed packaging and labels, instructive ads and Web sites, and so on.
This process of identifying the hierarchy is called market partitioning.
The expectancy-value model of attitude formation posits that consumers evaluate products and services by combining
their brand beliefs—the positives and negatives—according to importance.
We highlight three choice heuristics here.
1. Using the conjunctive heuristic, the consumer sets a minimum acceptable cutoff level for each attribute and chooses
the first alternative that meets the minimum standard for all attributes. For example, if Linda decided all attributes had to
rate at least 5, she would choose laptop B.
2. With the lexicographic heuristic, the consumer chooses the best brand on the basis of its perceived most important
attribute. With this decision rule, Linda would choose laptop C.
3. Using the elimination-by-aspects heuristic, the consumer compares brands on an attribute selected probabilistically—
where the probability of choosing an attribute is positively related to its importance—and eliminates brands that do not
meet minimum acceptable cutoffs.
A consumer’s decision to modify, postpone, or avoid a purchase decision is heavily influenced by one or more types of
perceived risk
1. Functional risk —The product does not perform to expectations.
2. Physical risk —The product poses a threat to the physical well-being or health of the user or others.
3. Financial risk —The product is not worth the price paid.
4. Social risk —The product results in embarrassment in front of others.
5. Psychological risk —The product affects the mental well-being of the user.
6. Time risk —The failure of the product results in an opportunity cost of finding another satisfactory product
DECISION HEURISTICS
Other heuristics similarly come into play in everyday decision making when consumers forecast the likelihood of future
outcomes or events.
1. The availability heuristic—Consumers base their predictions on the quickness and ease with which a particular example
of an outcome comes to mind. If an example comes to mind too easily, consumers might overestimate the likelihood of its
happening. For example, a recent product failure may lead consumers to inflate the likelihood of a future product failure
and make them more inclined to purchase a product warranty.
2. The representativeness heuristic—Consumers base their predictions on how representative or similar the outcome is to
other examples. One reason package appearances may be so similar for different brands in the same product category are
that marketers want their products to be seen as representative of the category as a whole.
3. The anchoring and adjustment heuristic—Consumers arrive at an initial judgment and then adjust it— sometimes only
reluctantly—based on additional information. For services marketers, a strong first impression is critical to establishing a
favorable anchor so subsequent experiences will be interpreted in a more favorable light.
framing
Mental accounting
The principles of mental accounting are derived in part from prospect theory. Prospect theory maintains that consumers
frame their decision alternatives in terms of gains and losses according to a value function. Consumers are generally lossaverse. They tend to overweight very low probabilities and underweight very high probabilities.
Four main psychological processes that affect consumer behavior are motivation, perception, learning, and memory.
COMPANY BUYING
Companies that purchase online are utilizing electronic marketplaces inseveral forms: (SUPPLIER SEARCHING)
1. Catalog sites. Companies can order thousands of items through electronic catalogs, such as W. W. Grainger’s,M
distributed by e-procurement software.
2. Vertical markets. Companies buying industrial products such as plastics, steel, or chemicals or services such as
logistics or media can go to specialized Web sites called e-hubs. Plastics.com allows plastics buyers to search the
best prices among thousands of plastics sellers.
3. “Pure Play” auction company. Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers is the world’s largest industrial auctioneer, with 44
auction sites worldwide. It sold $3.8 billion of used and unused equipment at more than 356 unreserved auctions
in 2013, including a wide range of heavy equipment, trucks, and other assets for the construction, transportation,
agricultural, material handling, oil and gas, mining, forestry, and marine industry sectors. While some people
prefer to bid in person at Ritchie Bros. auctions, they can also do so online in real time at rbauction.com—the
company’s multilingual Web site. In 2013, 50 percent of the bidders at Ritchie Bros. auctions bid over the
Internet; online bidders purchased $1.4 billion of equipment.33
4. Spot (or exchange) markets. On spot electronic markets, prices change by the minute. IntercontinentalExchange
(ICE) is the leading electronic energy marketplace and soft commodity exchange with billions in sales.
5. Private exchanges. Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Walmart operate private exchanges to link with specially invited
groups of suppliers and partners over the Web.
6. Barter markets. In barter markets, participants offer to trade goods or services.
7. Buying alliances. Several companies buying the same goods can join together to form purchasing consortia to
gain deeper discounts on volume purchases. TopSource is an alliance of firms in the retail and wholesale foodrelated businesses.
E-PROCUREMENT Web sites are organized around two types of e-hubs: vertical hubs centered on industries (plastics, steel,
chemicals, paper) and functional hubs (logistics, media buying, advertising, energy management). In addition to using these
Web sites, companies can use eprocurement in other ways:

Set up direct extranet links to major suppliers. A company can set up a direct e-procurement account at Dell or
Office Depot, for instance, and its employees can make their purchases this ways

Form buying alliances.

Set up company buying sites
Based on these we can classify buyer–supplier relationships into eight categories:
1. Basic buying and selling—These are simple, routine exchanges with moderate levels of cooperation and information
exchange.
2. Bare bones—These relationships require more adaptation by the seller and less cooperation and information exchange.
3. Contractual transaction—These exchanges are defined by formal contract and generally have low levels of trust,
cooperation, and interaction.
4. Customer supply—In this traditional supply situation, competition rather than cooperation is the dominant form of
governance.
5. Cooperative systems—The partners in cooperative systems are united in operational ways, but neither demonstrates
structural commitment through legal means or adaptation.
6. Collaborative—In collaborative exchanges, much trust and commitment lead to true partnership.
7. Mutually adaptive—Buyers and sellers make many relationship-specific adaptations, but without necessarily achieving
strong trust or cooperation.
8. Customer is king—In this close, cooperative relationship, the seller adapts to meet the customer’s needs without
expecting much adaptation or change in exchange.
The buying center is the decision-making unit of a buying organization. It consists of initiators, users, influencers, deciders,
approvers, buyers, and gatekeepers. To influence these parties, marketers must consider environmental, organizational,
interpersonal, and individual factors.
The buying process consists of eight stages called buyphases: (1) problem recognition, (2) general need description,(3)
product specification, (4) supplier search,(5) proposal solicitation, (6) supplier selection, (7) order routine specification, and
(8) performance review.
GOING GLOBAL
Some companies don’t act until events thrust them into the international arena. The internationalization process typically
has four stages:
Stage 1: No regular export activities
Stage 2: Export via independent representatives (agents)
Stage 3: Establishment of one or more sales subsidiaries
Stage 4: Establishment of production facilities abroad
Direct exporting happens in several ways:
1. Domestic-based export department or division. A purely service function may evolve into a selfcontained export
department operating as its own profit center.
2. Overseas sales branch or subsidiary. The sales branch handles sales and distribution and perhaps warehousing
and promotion as well. It often serves as a display and customer service center.
3. Traveling export sales representatives. Home-based sales representatives travel abroad to find business.
4. Foreign-based distributors or agents. These third parties can hold limited or exclusive rights to represent the
company in that country
Consumer behavior may reflect cultural differences that can be pronounced across countries.60 Hofstede identifies four
cultural dimensions that differentiate countries:
1. Individualism versus collectivism—In collectivist societies, the self-worth of an individual is rooted more in the social
system than in individual achievement (high collectivism: Japan; low: United States).
2. High versus low power distance—High power distance cultures tend to be less egalitarian (high: Russia; low: Nordic
countries).
3. Masculine versus feminine—This dimension measures how much the culture reflects assertive characteristics more
often attributed to males versus nurturing characteristics more often attributed to females (highly masculine: Japan; low:
Nordic countries).
4. Weak versus strong uncertainty avoidance—Uncertainty avoidance indicates how risk-aversive people are (high
avoidance: Greece; low: Jamaica).
Arm’s-length price—the price charged by other competitors for the same or a similar product.
SEGMENTATION AND TARGETING
POSITIONING
Positioning is the act of designing a company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the minds of the target
market.
Points-of-parity (POPs), on the other hand, are attribute or benefit associations that are not necessarily unique to the
brand but may in fact be shared with other brands. 17 These types of associations come in three basic forms: category,
correlational, and competitive.
Category points-of-parity are attributes or benefits that consumers view as essential to a legitimate and credible offering
within a certain product or service category. In other words, they represent necessary—but not sufficient— conditions for
brand choice. Consumers might not consider a travel agency truly a travel agency unless it is able to make air and hotel
reservations, provide advice about leisure packages, and offer various ticket payment and delivery options. Category
points-of-parity may change over time due to technological advances, legal developments, or consumer trends, but to use
a golfing analogy, they are the “greens fees” necessary to play the marketing game.
Correlational points-of-parity are potentially negative associations that arise from the existence of positive associations for
the brand. One challenge for marketers is that many attributes or benefits that make up their POPs or PODs are inversely
related. In other words, if your brand is good at one thing, such as being inexpensive, consumers can’t see it as also good at
something else, like being “of the highest quality.” Consumer research into the trade-offs consumers make in their
purchasing decisions can be informative here. Below, we consider strategies to address these trade-offs.
Competitive points-of-parity are associations designed to overcome perceived weaknesses of the brand in light of
competitors’ points-of-difference. One good way to uncover key competitive points-of-parity is to role-play competitors’
positioning and infer their intended points-ofdifference. Competitor’s PODs will, in turn, suggest the brand’s POPs.
Regardless of the source of perceived weaknesses, if, in the eyes of consumers, a brand can “break even” in those areas
where it appears to be at a disadvantage and achieve advantages in other areas, the brand should be in a strong—and
perhaps unbeatable—competitive position. Consider the introduction of Hyundai Motor Company—the biggest carmaker
in South Korea and one of the top ten global auto companies
POINTS-OF-PARITY VERSUS POINTS-OF-DIFFERENCE For an offering to achieve a point-of-parity on a particular attribute or
benefit, a sufficient number of consumers must believe the brand is “good enough” on that dimension. There is a zone or
range of tolerance or acceptance with points-of-parity. The brand does not literally need to be seen as equal to
competitors, but consumers must feel it does well enough on that particular attribute or benefit. If they do, they may be
willing to base their evaluations and decisions on other factors more favorable to the brand. A light beer presumably would
never taste as good as a full-strength beer, but it would need to taste close enough to be able to effectively compete.
Points-of-difference are those associations unique to the brand that are also strongly held and favorably evaluated by
consumers. These differences may be based directly on the product or service itself or on other considerations related to
employees, channels, image, or services. Points-of-difference must be desirable (from a consumer standpoint), deliverable
(from a company standpoint), and differentiated (from a competitor standpoint).
Points-of-parity are those associations not necessarily unique to the brand but perhaps shared with other brands. They
help to negate any potential weaknesses for the brand. Category point-of-parity are associations consumers view as being
necessary to a legitimate and credible product offering within a certain category. Correlational points-of-parity are
associations designed to overcome perceived weaknesses or vulnerabilities of the brand. Competitive point-of-parity are
associations designed to negate competitors’ points-of-difference.
Brand equity is the added value endowed to products and services with consumers. It may be reflected in the way
consumers think, feel, and act with respect to the brand, as well as in the prices, market share, and profitability it
commands.
Brand salience is how often and how easily customers think of the brand under various purchase or consumption
situations—the depth and breadth of brand awareness.

Brand performance is how well the product or service meets customers’ functional needs.

Brand imagery describes the extrinsic properties of the product or service, including the ways in which the
brand attempts to meet customers’ psychological or social needs.

Brand judgments focus on customers’ own personal opinions and evaluations.

Brand feelings are customers’ emotional responses and reactions with respect to the brand.
Brand resonance describes the relationship customers have with the brand and the extent to which they feel they’re “in
sync” with it.
Internal branding consists of activities and processes that help inform and inspire employees about brands.
A firm’s branding strategy—often called its brand architecture—reflects the number and nature of both common and
distinctive brand elements. Deciding how to brand new products is especially critical. A firm has three main choices:
1. It can develop new brand elements for the new product.
2. It can apply some of its existing brand elements.
3. It can use a combination of new and existing brand elements.
When a firm uses an established brand to introduce a new product, the product is called a brand extension. When
marketers combine a new brand with an existing brand, the brand extension can also be called a subbrand, such as
Hershey Kisses candy, Adobe Acrobat software, Toyota Camry automobiles, and American Express Blue cards. The existing
brand that gives birth to a brand extension or sub-brand is the parent brand. If the parent brand is already associated with
multiple products through brand extensions, it can also be called a master brand or family brand.
Brand extensions fall into two general categories.
1. Line Extension
2. Category Extension
A flagship product is one that best represents or embodies the brand as a whole to consumers. It often is the first product
by which the brand gained fame, a widely accepted best-seller.
we can relate brand equity to one other important marketing concept: customer equity. The aim of customer relationship
management (CRM) is to produce high customer equity. Although we can calculate it in different ways, one definition is
“the sum of lifetime values of all customers.
Followers must define a growth path, but one that doesn’t invite competitive retaliation. We distinguish three broad
strategies:
1. Cloner—The cloner emulates the leader’s products, name, and packaging with slight variations. Technology firms
are often accused of being cloners
2. Imitator—The imitator copies some things from the leader but differentiates on packaging, advertising, pricing,
or location. The leader doesn’t mind as long as the imitator doesn’t attack aggressively.
3. Adapter—The adapter takes the leader’s products and adapts or improves them. The adapter may choose to sell
to different markets, but often it grows into a future challenger
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE (PLC)
To say a product has a life cycle is to assert four things:
1. Products have a limited life.
2. Product sales pass through distinct stages, each posing different challenges, opportunities, and problems to the seller.
3. Profits rise and fall at different stages of the product life cycle.
4. Products require different marketing, financial, manufacturing, purchasing, and human resource strategies in each lifecycle stage.
CONFORMANCE QUALITY Buyers expect a high conformance quality, the degree to which all produced units are identical
and meet promised specifications.
A company lengthens its product line in two ways: line stretching and line filling.
LINE STRETCHING
Every company’s product line covers a certain part of the total possible range. For example, Mercedes automobiles are
located in the upper price range of the automobile market. Line stretching occurs when a company lengthens its product
line beyond its current range, whether down-market, up-market, or both ways.
Down-Market Stretch A company positioned in the middle market may want to introduce a lower-priced line
Up-Market Stretch Companies may wish to enter the high end of the market to achieve more growth, realize higher
margins, or simply position themselves as full-line manufacturers.
Two-Way Stretch Companies serving the middle market might stretch their line in both directions.
LINE FILLING A firm can also lengthen its product line by adding more items within the present range. Motives for line
filling include reaching for incremental profits, satisfying dealers who complain about lost sales because of items missing
from the line, utilizing excess capacity, trying to become the leading full-line company, and plugging holes to keep out
competitors.
PRODUCT MIC PRICING
PRODUCT LINE PRICING - Companies normally develop product lines rather than single products, so they introduce price
steps. A men’s clothing store might carry men’s suits at three price levels: $300, $600, and $900, which customers
associate with low, average, and high quality.
OPTIONAL-FEATURE PRICING - Many companies offer optional products, features, and services with their main product.
The 2013 Subaru Outback 2.5i was available in five trim levels. Premium trim additional features. Pricing options is a sticky
problem because companies must decide which to include in the standard price and which to offer separately.
CAPTIVE-PRODUCT PRICING - Some products require the use of ancillary or captive products. Manufacturers of razors often
price them low and set high markups on razor blade
TWO-PART PRICING - Service firms engage in two-part pricing, consisting of a fixed fee plus a variable usage fee. Cell phone
users may have to pay a minimum monthly fee plus charges for calls that exceed their allotted minutes.
BY-PRODUCT PRICING - The production of certain goods—meats, petroleum products, and other chemicals—often yields
by-products that should be priced on their value. Any income earned on the by-products will make it easier for the
company to charge a lower price on its main product if competition forces it to do so.
CO-BRANDING AND INGREDIENT BRANDING
CO-BRANDING Marketers often combine their products with products from other companies in various ways. In cobranding—also called dual branding or brand bundling—two or more well-known brands are combined into a joint product
or marketed together in some fashion.
INGREDIENT BRANDING - is a special case of co-branding. 76 It creates brand equity for materials, components, or parts
that are necessarily contained within other branded products. For host products whose brands are not that strong,
ingredient brands can provide differentiation and important signals of quality
PRICING
Understanding how consumers arrive at their perceptions of prices is an important marketing priority. Here we consider
three key topics—
reference prices price–quality inferences - A $100 bottle of perfume might contain $10 worth of scent, but gift givers pay $100 to
communicate their high regard for the receiver.
price ending - Many sellers believe prices should end in an odd number. Customers perceive an item priced at $299 to be in
the $200 rather than the $300 range
Steps in Setting a Pricing Policy
1. Selecting the Pricing Objective
2. Determining Demand
3. Estimating Costs
4. Analyzing Competitors’ Costs, Prices, and Offers
5. Selecting a Pricing Method
6. Selecting the Final Price
Market Penetration Pricing - Some companies want to maximize their market share. They believe a higher sales volume
will lead to lower unit costs and higher long-run profit, so they set the lowest price, assuming the market is price sensitive.
MAXIMUM MARKET SKIMMING - Companies unveiling a new technology favor setting high prices to maximize market
skimming to make most profit. Sony has been a frequent practitioner of market-skimming pricing, in which prices start high
and slowly drop over time
PRODUCT-QUALITY LEADERSHIP - A company might aim to be the product-quality leader in the market. Many brands
strive to be “affordable luxuries”—products or services characterized by high levels of perceived quality, taste, and status
with a price just high enough not to be out of consumers’ reach. Brands such as Starbucks, Aveda, Victoria’s Secret, BMW,
and Viking have positioned themselves as quality leaders in their categories, combining quality, luxury, and premium prices
with an intensely loyal customer base.
7 price-setting methods: markup pricing, target-return pricing, perceivedvalue pricing, value pricing, EDLP, going-rate
pricing, and auction-type pricing.
MARKUP PRICING - The most elementary pricing method is to add a standard markup to the product’s cost.
TARGET-RETURN PRICING - the firm determines the price that yields its target rate of return on investment
PERCEIVED-VALUE PRICING An increasing number of companies now base their price on the customer’s perceived value.
Perceived value is made up of a host of inputs, such as the buyer’s image of the product performance, the channel
deliverables, the warranty quality, customer support, and softer attributes such as the supplier’s reputation,
trustworthiness, and esteem.
VALUE PRICING Companies that adopt value pricing win loyal customers by charging a fairly low price for a high-quality
offering. Value pricing is thus not a matter of simply setting lower prices; it is a matter of reengineering the company’s
operations to become a low-cost producer without sacrificing quality to attract a large number of value-conscious
customers.
EDLP A retailer using everyday low pricing (EDLP) charges a constant low price with little or no price promotion or special
sales. Constant prices eliminate week-to-week price uncertainty and the high-low pricing of promotion-oriented
competitors. In high-low pricing, the retailer charges higher prices on an everyday basis but runs frequent promotions with
prices temporarily lower than the EDLP level
GOING-RATE PRICING - the firm bases its price largely on competitors’ prices. In oligopolistic industries that sell a
commodity such as steel, paper, or fertilizer, all firms normally charge the same price. Smaller firms “follow the leader,”
changing their prices when the market leader’s prices change rather than when their own demand or costs change.
AUCTION-TYPE PRICING - is growing more popular, especially with scores of electronic marketplaces selling everything
from pigs to used cars as firms dispose of excess inventories or used goods. 3 type of bids – English, dutch, sealad.
Counter trade
Barter. The buyer and seller directly exchange goods, with no money and no third party involved.
Compensation deal. The seller receives some percentage of the payment in cash and the rest in products. A British aircraft
manufacturer sold planes to Brazil for 70 percent cash and the rest in coffee.
Buyback arrangement. The seller sells a plant, equipment, or technology to a company in another country and agrees to
accept as partial payment products manufactured with the supplied equipment. A U.S. chemical company built a plant for
an Indian company and accepted partial payment in cash and the remainder in chemicals manufactured at the plant.
Offset. The seller receives full payment in cash for a sale overseas but agrees to spend a substantial amount of the money
in that country within a stated time period.
PROMOTIONAL PRICING
Companies can use several pricing techniques to stimulate early purchase:
1. Loss-leader pricing. Supermarkets and department stores often drop the price on well-known brands to
stimulate additional store traffic. This pays if the revenue on the additional sales compensates for the lower
margins on the lossleader items. Manufacturers of loss-leader brands typically object because this practice can
dilute the brand image and bring complaints from retailers who charge the list price. Manufacturers have tried to
keep intermediaries from using loss-leader pricing by lobbying for retail-price-maintenance laws, but these laws
have been revoked.
2. Special event pricing. Sellers will establish special prices in certain seasons to draw in more customers. Every
August, there are back-to-school sales.
3. Special customer pricing. Sellers will offer special prices exclusively to certain customers. Members of Road
Runner Sports’ Run America Club get “exclusive” online offers with price discounts twice those given to regular
customers.72
4. Cash rebates. Auto companies and other consumer-goods companies offer cash rebates to encourage purchase
of the manufacturers’ products within a specified time period. Rebates can help clear inventories without cutting
the stated list price.
5. Low-interest financing. Instead of cutting its price, the company can offer low-interest financing. Automakers
have used no-interest financing to try to attract more customers.
6. Longer payment terms. Sellers, especially mortgage banks and auto companies, stretch loans over longer periods
and thus lower the monthly payments. Consumers often worry less about the cost (the interest rate) of a loan
and more about whether they can afford the monthly payment.
7. Warranties and service contracts. Companies can promote sales by adding a free or low-cost warranty or service
contract.
8. Psychological discounting. This strategy sets an artificially high price and then offers the product at substantial
savings; for example, “Was $359, now $299.” Discounts from normal prices are a legitimate form of promotional
pricing; the Federal Trade Commission and Better Business Bureau fight illegal discount tactics.
Price discrimination occurs when a company sells a product or service at two or more prices that do not reflect a
proportional difference in costs. In first-degree price discrimination, the seller charges a separate price to each customer
depending on the intensity of his or her demand.
In second-degree price discrimination, the seller charges less to buyers of larger volumes. With certain services such as cell
phone service, however, tiered pricing results in consumers actually paying more with higher levels of usage. With the
iPhone, 3 percent of users accounted for 40 percent of the traffic on AT&T’s network, resulting in costly network upgrades
to AT&T and causing the firm to set higher prices for those users.
In third-degree price discrimination, the seller charges different amounts to different classes of buyers, as in the following
cases:
Customer-segment pricing. Different customer groups pay different prices for the same product or service. For example,
museums often charge a lower admission fee to students and senior citizens.
Product-form pricing. Different versions of the product are priced differently, but not in proportion to their costs. Evian
prices a 2-liter bottle of its mineral water as low as $1 but 5 ounces of the same water in a moisturizer spray for as much as
$12.
Image pricing. Some companies price the same product at two different levels based on image differences. A perfume
manufacturer can put a scent in one bottle, give it a name and image, and price it at $10 an ounce. The same scent in
another bottle with a different name and image can sell for $30 an ounce.
Channel pricing. Coca-Cola carries a different price depending on whether the consumer purchases it from a fine
restaurant, a fast-food restaurant, or a vending machine.
Location pricing. The same product is priced differently at different locations even though the cost of offering it at each
location is the same. A theater varies its seat prices according to audience preferences for different locations.
Time pricing. Prices vary by season, day, or hour. Restaurants charge less to “early bird” customers, and some hotels
charge less on weekends. Retail prices for roses increase by as much as 200 percent in the lead-up to Valentine’s Day.
Classification of Advertising Timing Pattern
Continuity means exposures appear evenly throughout a given period. Generally, advertisers use continuous advertising in
expanding markets, with frequently purchased items, and in tightly defined buyer categories.
Concentration calls for spending all the advertising dollars in a single period. This makes sense for products with one selling
season or related holiday.
Flighting calls for advertising during a period, followed by a period with no advertising, followed by a second period of
advertising activity. It is useful when funding is limited, the purchase cycle is relatively infrequent, or items are seasonal.
Pulsing is continuous advertising at low levels, reinforced periodically by waves of heavier activity. It draws on the
strengths of continuous advertising and flights to create a compromise scheduling strategy. Those who favor pulsing
believe the audience will learn the message more thoroughly and at a lower cost to the firm
Developing an advertising program is a five-step process: (1) set advertising objectives, (2) establish a budget, (3) choose
the advertising message and creative strategy, (4) decide on the media, and (5) evaluate communication and sales effects.
Besides their Web sites, companies may employ microsites, individual Web pages or clusters of pages that function as
supplements to a primary site.
An important component of online marketing is paid search or pay-per-click ads. Thirty-five percent of all searches are
reportedly for products or services.
Advertisers pay only if people click on the links, but marketers believe consumers who have already expressed interest by
engaging in search are prime prospects.
The cost per click depends on how highly the link is ranked on the page and the popularity of the keyword.
Search engine optimization (SEO) describes activities designed to improve the likelihood that a link for a brand is as high as
possible in the rank order of all nonpaid links when consumers search for relevant terms.
Interstitials are advertisements, often with video or animation, that pop up between page changes within a Web site or
across Web sites
Viral marketing is a form of online word of mouth, or “word of mouse,” that encourages consumers to pass along
company-developed products and services or audio, video, or written information to others online.
Huba and McConnell describe the following rungs on the customer loyalty ladder (in ascending order):
1. Satisfaction— Sticks with your organization as long as expectations are met.
2. Repeat purchase— Returns to your company to buy again.
3. Word of mouth/buzz— Puts his or her reputation on the line to tell others about you.
4. Evangelism— Convinces others to purchase/join.
5. Ownership— Feels responsible for the continued success of your organization.
A conventional marketing channel consists of an independent producer, wholesaler(s), and retailer(s). Each is a separate
business seeking to maximize its own profits, even if this goal reduces profit for the system as a whole. No channel
member has complete or substantial control over other members.
A vertical marketing system (VMS), by contrast, includes the producer, wholesaler(s), and retailer(s) acting as a unified
system. One channel member, the channel captain, sometimes called a channel steward, owns or franchises the others or
has so much power that they all cooperate. Stewards accomplish channel coordination without issuing commands or
directives by persuading channel partners to act in the best interest of all.
A horizontal marketing system, in which two or more unrelated companies put together resources or programs to exploit
an emerging marketing opportunity. Each company lacks the capital, know-how, production, or marketing resources to
venture alone, or it is afraid of the risk. The companies might work together on a temporary or permanent basis or create a
joint venture company
E-commerce uses a Web site to transact or facilitate the sale of products and services online. Online retail sales have
exploded, and it is easy to see why.
pure-click companies, those that have launched a Web site without any previous existence as a firm, and brick-and-click
companies, existing companies that have added an online site for information or e-commerce.
CHANNEL CONFLICT
Horizontal channel conflict occurs between channel members at the same level. Some Pizza Inn franchisees complained
about others cheating on ingredients, providing poor service, and hurting the overall brand image.
Vertical channel conflict occurs between different levels of the channel. When Estée Lauder set up a Web site to sell its
Clinique and Bobbi Brown brands, the department store Dayton Hudson reduced the space it gave the company’s
products. Greater retailer consolidation—the 10 largest U.S. retailers account for more than 80 percent of the average
manufacturer’s business—has led to increased price pressure and influence from retailers.Walmart, for example, is the
principal buyer for many manufacturers, including Disney, Procter & Gamble, and Revlon, and is able to command reduced
prices or quantity discounts from these and other suppliers.
Multichannel conflict exists when the manufacturer has established two or more channels that sell to the same market.
It’s likely to be especially intense when the members of one channel get a lower price (based on largervolume purchases)
or work with a lower margin. When Goodyear began selling its popular tire brands through Sears, Walmart, and Discount
Tire, it angered its independent dealers and eventually placated them by offering exclusive tire models not sold in other
retail outlets.
Stores are using direct product profitability (DPP) to measure a product’s handling costs (receiving, moving to storage,
paperwork, selecting, checking, loading, and space cost) from the time it reaches the warehouse until a customer buys it in
the retail store.
A private-label brand (also called a reseller, store, house, or distributor brand) is a brand that retailers and wholesalers
develop. Benetton, The Body Shop, and Marks & Spencer carry mostly own-brand merchandise. In grocery stores in Europe
and Canada, store brands account for as much as 40 percent of the items sold. In Britain, roughly half of what Sainsbury
and Tesco, the largest food chains, sell is store-label goods. Germany and Spain are also European markets with a high
percentage of private-label sales
Many firms are embracing lean manufacturing, originally pioneered by Japanese firms such as Toyota, to produce goods
with minimal waste of time, materials, and money.
Containerization consists of putting the goods in boxes or trailers that are easy to transfer between two transportation
modes. Piggyback describes the use of rail and trucks; fishyback, water and trucks; trainship, water and rail; and airtruck,
air and trucks. Each coordinated mode offers specific advantages.
brand development index (BDI) the index of brand sales to category sales. brand dilution when consumers no longer
associate a brand with a specific product or highly similar products or start thinking less favorably about the brand.