Strategic Marketing Basics

Image is not only conveyed by brand but also by a number of other vehicles...

 

People 

Interactions between frontline employees and customers clearly affect the perception of the latter, hence the importance of human resource management as a marketing tool, especially in service activities where contacts with customers and users are frequent. Employees should be adequately trained and coached as well as motivated and evaluated in order to be conscious of their role as image providers. Also, their stance and their look may be of importance in conveying the image of their company or organization.

 

 Media

We should distinguish between "paid media" (advertising, webadvertising, sponsoring,...) and "earned media"  (public relations, press relations, events,…). Earned media may be very effective as it's considered as more neutral by target audiences. This is the attention you get from media journalists through a good PR campaign. However, given the overload of media space, it's not easy to get that attention. Regular contacts with key press people and a responsible relation strategy leading to long term trust may be today more effective than a short term event.

Word of mouth 

Word of mouth among friends, relatives, colleagues or on the internet (chats and forums) is probably the most powerful image forwarder. Marketers would like to stimulate it or at least control it but it's not so easy. Building trust among opinion leaders is the most indicated approach although no guarantee of success. Working on these matters is called reputation management.

 

and, last but not least: Symbols

Use of symbols aims to reduce the consumers’s perceived risk when buying the product/service .They appeal to the 5 senses, and their use is linked to a new discipline called “sensorial marketing”.

 

See for example:

 

Sight : color codes, logos, design, packaging, decoration and architecture (ex: Lacoste crocodile, Coca-Cola bottle, Total highway gas stations...)

Smell : smell of baked bread in supermarkets, perfume in detergents, etc.

Touch : new clothing materials, choice of glazed or recycled paper, impressions or embossed bottles etc.

Taste : mint-flavored toothpaste, wines artificially wooded through addition of wood shavings etc.