Willan Mo - The Essentials of Contemporary Marketing

Dispenses with the vast amount of marketing jargon and clearly lays out the foundations for marketing success.

Matthew Housden, marketing consultant, author, academic and trainer

One of the most comprehensive marketing books that every student and practitioner should use to learn about the latest theories, tools and techniques to take their marketing potential to new heights.

Ritchie Mehta, Founder and CEO, School of Marketing

A straightforward, easy to understand marketing roadmap on how to thrive in our fast-changing times.

Hap Klopp, Founder and former CEO of The North Face

Comprehensive yet concise and insightful, The Essentials of Contemporary Marketing is highly engaging and easy to read. Key concepts balanced with practical applications provide a valuable resource to students or those seeking to better understand marketing.

John Bredican, Teaching Fellow in Marketing, Kings College London

This book is dedicated to the memories of my father and mother with much love, respect, gratitude and admiration.

Contents

Like most disciplines, the practice of marketing is evolving on an almost daily basis, driven by advances in technological innovations as well as by changes in consumer behaviours. The local, international and global marketing environments in which companies operate are characterized by such continuous change, which implies that marketers need to also adapt, innovate and pivot their marketing activities in order to stay relevant, survive and succeed in such a challenging business landscape.

The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 decimated markets all over the world. The devastating effects of the epidemic have hit countries across the globe exceptionally hard, and almost every sector or industry is affected in one way or another. In the US, for example, at present still the worlds leading economy, consumer spending declined by 12.6 per cent in the month of April 2020 alone, and many millions of people have been made jobless. Sectors such as retail, travel, hotels and restaurants have been decimated, with many downsizing operations or going out of business completely. At the other end of the scale, sectors such as online food retailing and home deliveries, and communication connectivity providers such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, are witnessing surging consumer demand for their services.

At the time of writing in early 2021, consumer attitudes seem to be characterized by focusing on buying only essential products, a general unwillingness to interact and socialize, as well as maintaining tight controls over their spending habits. This implies that marketers are going to find it more difficult to convince consumers to make purchases, even when that pent-up demand is finally released. Simultaneously, many companies have resorted to reducing their marketing budgets in the face of such uncertainties and because of falling revenue. Therefore, the task for marketers in these challenging times the effects of which are likely to be felt for at least the next few years should be to market more effectively, strategically and compassionately by engaging in the following marketing activities:

Brands will need to build relationships and trust by demonstrating to customers an authentically caring attitude and by creating unique and special offers with high value.

Continue with repetitive sincere, genuine and altruistic messaging. The objective is to capitalize on this opportunity to build unbreakable bonds with customers by showing that the brand cares more about them and their families than the companys profits.

Many leading brands moved swiftly to take proactive steps to stay engaged and connected to their audiences. For example, in March/April 2020, Nike asked consumers to play inside, play for the world. It backed this messaging with a campaign that waived fees for premium programming on the Nike Training Club App. This implied that Nike was still inspiring people to be active during the global lockdowns, which is true to the brand, but doing it in a way that resonated with the sense of community that was required during the initial phases of the COVID-19 crisis.

The marketing challenge facing brands is in striking the right balance, which requires more than just snappy slogans. Consumers need to be reassured that their money is going towards companies that are doing and being seen to do the right thing. This implies that customers want to know whether the companys food products are sustainably sourced, for example, or how the company acted to protect its employees throughout the pandemic.

During most crises, marketing teams are often the first to be sacrificed, but the COVID-19 crisis for now seems to be different. By August 2020, Internet usage was up to almost 70 per cent on 2019 levels and while most customers might not be buying, they are at least engaging. The pandemic has no doubt changed the way people use and consume online content and services. Tolerance for screen time has never been greater and this is unlikely to change anytime soon. This would suggest that marketers need to revisit their approaches to organic traffic, where the focus should be on providing relevant content and building trust in other ways especially considering that the pandemic has made it more difficult for consumers to visit physical stores. Updating the companys homepage on a regular basis, as well as responding to customers concerns quickly and proactively, creating content that addresses such concerns, can go a long way towards fostering and reinforcing a sense of trust.

Marketing strategies, both during and after the pandemic, will need to refocus on using content to create powerful online connections. By humanizing the brand and speaking directly to consumers interests, questions and concerns, companies can nurture an ongoing conversation, even among those who may find themselves in challenging financial situations. Support is not always tied to revenue; if the quarantine has taught us anything, it is that online conversations can be just as meaningful as face-to-face interactions, and marketers need to take note of this.

The aim of this book is to provide readers with a simple, easy to understand and succinct introduction to the theories, concepts and practices of marketing. The authors motivation for writing the book is based on feedback received from the many students who commented that most of the currently available marketing textbooks were too bulky, not sufficiently reader-friendly and overloaded with too much detail. Hence, the goal of this new book is to provide readers especially those who are new to the discipline of marketing, or who find themselves needing to know more about the marketing function as part of a new role with concise and topical explanations of the essential marketing concepts, theories and practices.

The book is divided into three broad sections, namely:

The first chapters of the book focus on providing an understanding of what the discipline of marketing entails, as well as an appreciation of the marketing environment, which affects marketing decisions and practices. This part delves into how the discipline of marketing has evolved, as well as looking at some of the issues that are shaping modern-day marketing. It then discusses the marketing environment in which companies operate: marketing decisions are rarely taken in a vacuum but rather are shaped by changes in the firms environment and its interactions with multiple stakeholders. Successful marketing very much relies on having a sound understanding of the context in which the organization operates. As such, marketers need to be prepared and equipped to address changes that are constantly happening in the business world by scanning the marketing environment and making appropriate responses and changes to their marketing plans.