Marketing Strategy11 Wrong and fatal beliefs in Marketing

February 9, 2015

Internet users do not click on a new page for no reason. Although opening a new page is a simple task and everybody has enough time to open new pages, finding the information you are looking for is more complicated than what amateur users imagine.

Let’s think about this issue more deeply. Do you know why you have clicked on this article? Perhaps, one of your friends has suggested reading this article to you, but this is not the reason you spend time here. You are here because the term loser in the title calls your attention. This is the strategy many journals use, although sometimes the titles are not directly related to the contents.

There are two reasons that you pay attention to the term loser:

  • You are afraid of being a loser.
  • You are afraid of being a loser!

Now, I am going to describe the most important loser thoughts in marketing that are usually the oldest ways of thinking formed due to different reasons. These are the same thoughts that make many marketing plans to fail and be useless every year.

  • A happy ending is always more successful

A happy ending is what is used in most Hollywood movies and makes them be the most popular ones in the world. But can they all receive the Oscar Prize? It is usual for a film that is nominated for winning this prize to achieve high sales. But how many of these movies have a happy ending?

Many motivational writers and lecturers insist on using positive words in talking to others and even to ourselves. This is a helpful guideline. But in marketing, it cannot definitely be so influential in directing the attention of the audience to your advertising. However, the majority of these advertisements are based on a bad start and a happy ending. A dress is dirty, you use the washing powder of the advertised company, and then everything will be OK. Someone is not pleased with the Internet speed, you use the Internet of a special company, and suddenly the rate will be increased. Someone else is too busy and does not have enough time to make food, he/she orders the food through the web site of a certain restaurant, and then everything will be again.

Imagine a TV advertisement in which two or three drivers are shown in different cars simultaneously. First, it shows a young girl returning from a night party with her friends. Second, you see a middle-aged man or woman who is the head of the household, and you can choose the third.

You can hear the sound of screaming and commotion, quarreling with another driver on the phone, and also the music of that advertisement. Now, add these sentences as a text in the ad:

Someone presses the accelerator pedal more.

Every year, 20 to 50 million people are injured in car accidents.

More than 3000 families suffer bereavement.

In the end, show the following sentence on a black paper: it is on you to press the pedal more or not.

Such an advertisement can focus on fastening the seat belt, using a cell phone, high speed, or any other factor that is highly influential in car accidents; however, it seems unlikely that you want to press the pedal more or not to fasten your belt after imagining those cases.

Although everything is proportional and sometimes showing positive pictures leads to desired results, the statistics indicate that the success rate will be increased 1.5 to 2 times.

  • A good product has the final say

As an old saying goes, we can achieve long-term success with a good product. This is a ridiculous attitude in marketing that makes many companies and products to fail every year because these companies and products have become popular not because of their quality but our intuitions.

Perhaps, you have heard such expression many times that says “our external world reflects our internal ones.” I agree completely with this sentence because we believe what we see. In the movie Insomnia, Al Pacino plays the role of a police officer who goes to a school in Alaska to inspect a murder case. He arrives there during daylight. So he tells the local police that he wants to go to school right at that time. But the local police say to him that it is not possible because it is 10 p.m. since it was not dark and he could not see the moon or any stars in the sky, Al Pacino looks at his coworkers surprisingly. We believe what we can see!

If the product has the final say on marketing, so why are there so many pictures of Mercedes Bens, BMW, Aston Martin or Ferrari on the walls of teenagers’ room? Why don’t they put the poster of Hyundai on their walls? Is a teenager expert enough to compare the quality of different products? The position these companies create about their products in our minds makes the attitude of customers, and it is this attitude that gives life to a brand.

  • We produce everything for everybody

Who are your customers? Do you believe that producing various products for various customers results in better chances in marketing? If your answer is yes, the history, figures, statistics, and evaluative criteria are opposed to your idea! To prove this issue, answer these questions in your mind:

  • The most luxurious car?
  • The best laptop in the market?
  • The most luxurious wristwatch?
  • The best energizing drink?
  • The best cell phone?
  • The best elevator?
  • The best company producing a subway train?
  • The best microwave?

Your answers to the questions above are due to the position of the brand of each producing company in your mind. But it is worth mentioning that Hyundai offers all the above products except the wristwatch and energizing drink. It is unlikely that you choose it as an answer, even in one case.

But if you still believe that this is a rational manner, take a glance at the annual income and interest rate of Mercedes Benz and compare it with the Hyundai ones. Your opinion will be changed!

  • Dinosaurs were unfortunate!

Have you ever heard of the Persian Empire? To know more, you can search for the National Geographic documentaries on YouTube. But what is considerable is the collapse of the greatest empire that the world has ever seen!

Many entrepreneurs believe that they can stay in the competitive market forever with the power they had at their peak. So the extinction of dinosaurs is more like an accident. Therefore, it is better to remind you of the name of some extinct dinosaurs.

  • Lehman Brothers, the company with a value of $600 billion and one of the world’s largest financial corporations, filed for bankruptcy in 2008
  • General Motors, based in Detroit, was one of the biggest car manufacturing company’s in the world. With operations in more than 157 countries and more than 209,000 employees, the company eventually experienced a drastic decline in car sales and was lead to file bankruptcy in 2009.
  • WorldCom Inc, once the largest US-based Telecommunications Company, went bankrupt after its revelation of $4 billion expenses, wrongly.
  • Pacific Gas and Electric Co. 2001
  • Enron, 2001
  • Refco Inc, 2005
  • IndyMac Bancorp, 2008
  • Delta Airlines, 2005
  • Trump Entertainment Resort, 2004, 2009
  • Delphi, 2005
  • Marketing without a budget is possible

Perhaps you have the best ideas on marketing in your mind, but the fact is that you cannot survive in the market without any budget. If your attitudes have been formed based on the motivate lectures of the lecturers who say every work is essential, it is worth noting that marketing without money leads to failure.

Many speak of companies like Yahoo, Google, and Facebook as the companies that started their work without any money in an attic, garage, or bedroom. These are all some charming stories in which nobody talks about multi-million-dollar investments. The fact is that if Facebook could not find powerful sponsors, it would still work with Zuckerberg laptops!

If you have a small newly established company that seeks for more reputation, you will need a considerably large budget. Fortunately, it is easier nowadays to be professional through the Internet. Being professional means to do research and study the facts and figures. Devote some of your time to find the number of marketing budgets of the companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Mercedes Benz. Then, you will find that even these companies will be nothing without any money.

  • Loyalty to a brand

It cannot be denied that sequential planning cannot create a relative faithfulness to a brand but should not forget that this faithfulness is relative, and if there is any guarantee to stay in love, you can be loyal to a brand forever too.

Indeed, you know many who insistently want to wear Nike products when they want to participate in a sport event, and they go anywhere to buy their desired brand. But the real faithfulness is that when you are in a hurry, and you do not have access to the Nike wear, you tell your coach that you will not participate in the match because of not wearing Nike. Does it seem a ridiculous example?

Among different brands of automobiles, I’m mostly faithful to Aston Martin. I have not had a chance yet to drive one of its cars so far, but I still love it because of the poster that I have had on the wall of my room since I was eight years old and the toy control car that I received as the Christmas gift. Am I really faithful to Aston Martin? You can evaluate the level of my loyalty, presenting me a Ferrari 458 on the first of June of next year for my birthday. I would be ridiculous if I say, “thanks, but if you don’t keep it away from my sight, I’ll fire it.” I’m faithful to Aston Martin. It is more ridiculous to think that the customers will be loyal to our brand and us. How many of the iPhone supporters are ready to put their iPhone 5 away and buy iPhone 6?

  • Guerrilla marketing

There is no doubt at all that you can compete with other competitors with more human and financial resources in the market through some meticulous planning like a guerrilla. You can even win fame sometimes, but if you think marketing means that you can design and write a search engine better than Google today, I should say that this is more like Bollywood movies in which a man can knock out ten people. Such a gullible attitude is quite evident in fantasy movies like 300 in which 300 people resisted against King Xerxes the Great and made him angry! The fact is that King Xerxes defeated them heavily!

Quality is a function of quantity. The more you have access to human resources, suppliers, distribution, and selling networks, budget, and most importantly you are familiar with the customer’s attitude, the more chance you have to compete in the market. However, if you disagree with this vital principle, it is better to continue that guerrilla game.

The supporters of partisan marketing are followers of the market because the market leaders do not need such works. Your creativity and temerity to appear in a specific market as a pioneer makes you not to hold theories of losers. The supporters of the partisan theory are those who want to be like Google and not themselves because been oneself needs not only temerity but also creativity and many other factors.

  • Customer is always right

I can remember that some years ago I traveled to the north of Iran and one day I entered a large and luxurious store whose manager claimed that customer is always right and accepts the customers’ ideas incontestably. I tried to make him rectify this mistake, but he called me a theoretically mercenary person. “Don’t you say that the customer is always right? Why isn’t the right on my side? As you see, I’m your customer now and want just to help you.” I asked him. While he felt ashamed of what he had said, I picked up a 40-dollar lighter from one of the shelves of the store and told him, “I pay just $10 for this lighter. I’m a customer, and I’m always right. While he was a little taken back by what I said, I took the ten-dollar-bill, and I left the store smiling from ear to ear.

Although the customer is a king, the king is not always right. The last king who thought he was still right was Adolf Hitler, who deteriorated more the history of humanity in history.

  • We make brands through advertisement

This is just a dream today. Perhaps, many years ago, you could use an ad to make your product a famous brand, but today, the people neither have enough time to watch advertisements nor enjoy continuous interruption of their favorite movie to watch the ads.

Today, advertisement is used to remind customers of the name of exclusive brands. If the customers do not know your name, they will not be interested in watching your advertisement.

  • The luxurious brands are more successful. 

One of the worst attitudes towards marketing is that the newly established companies emerge in the market through the concept of offering luxurious products. But China did quite the reverse. The product concept and brand perception of Chinese products are cowboy brands (cheap and happy). If the luxurious brands were more successful, today, all the people should wear well-known Italian brands and listen to opera in their Ferraris and Lamborghinis.

In addition, you cannot make a brand luxurious through high pricing or improving the quality. This is the mistake that nearly all clothes brands make. They increase their prices every day and leave their production to China. Although the products do not have the final say, if the customers believe that you provide a unique product, they will not buy it anymore when they find unacceptable faults many times in what they buy. The luxurious brands are not necessarily more successful.

  • 4Ps are not enough. We need more Ps or even Cs

One of the simplest tasks that we can do as a hobby is playing with words. Unfortunately, this game has been included in marketing. Everybody is looking for new Ps because they believe that 4 Ps are not enough and need more Ps. 

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