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Brand Positioning

Pranav Bhola — Sun, 29 May 2022 07:24:30 +0000

Brand positioning is defined as the act of developing the firm’s offering (s) to hold a distinct place in the thoughts of customers (Kotler, 2003). Positioning is defined by Porter (2008) as “doing distinct activities than rivals or executing comparable activities in different ways” (p. 5). A positioning advantage is a valuable competitive asset that is inimitable and non-substitutable (Barney, 1991; Hunt & Morgan, 1996) that can lead to a sustainable competitive advantage and improve company performance. According to Kalafatis et al. (2000), the topic of positioning has been limited to advertising and analytics-related activities.

The scope of positioning should be broad enough to include the organizational processes essential to building and communicating a company’s identity to its clients (Kalafatis et al., 2000). According to Arnott (1993), Kalafatis et al. (2000) define 3 dimensions of discussions on positioning: concept, operations, and strategy.

Mühlbacher, Dreher, and Gabriel-Ritter (1994) suggest developing and managing the organization’s positioning practice in a process-oriented manner, and comprehending brand positioning as a wide concept that encompasses behaviors capable of establishing actual or perceived benefits for firms in the minds of potential customers. Positioning, in other words, is a market-based organizational capacity that may give organizations a competitive edge in the marketplace (Iyera, Davarib, Zolfagharianc, & Paswand, 2019).

References

Arnott, D. C. (1993). Positioning: Redefining the concept. University of Warwick, Warwick
Business School Research

Barney, J. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of
Management, 17(1), 99–120

Hunt, S. D., & Morgan, R. M. (1996). The resource-advantage theory of competition:
Dynamics, path dependencies, and evolutionary dimensions. Journal of Marketing,
107–114.

Iyera, P., Davarib, A., Zolfagharianc, M., & Paswand, A. (2019). Market orientation, positioning strategy and brand performance. Industrial Marketing Management 81, 16–29.

Kalafatis, S. P., Tsogas, M. H., & Blankson, C. (2000). Positioning strategies in business
markets. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 15(6), 416–437

Kotler, P. (1971). Marketing decision making: A model building approach. NewYork: Holt,
Rinehart andWinston.

Mühlbacher, H., Dreher, A., & Gabriel-Ritter, A. (1994). MIPS—Managing industrial
positioning strategies. Industrial Marketing Management, 23(4), 287–297.

Porter, M. E. (2008). Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors. New York: Free Press.

Marketing Agility

Pranav Bhola — Sun, 29 May 2022 00:24:21 +0000

Because of its significance in company performance, the idea of agility has garnered growing attention from scholars in a variety of business disciplines (Khan, 2020). Agility is defined as a higher-order skill that develops through time (Doz & Kosonen, 2008; Fosso Wamba & Akter, 2019). Agility “allows organisations to acquire, integrate, and restructure resources while positioning themselves competitively in real time” (Vickery, Droge, Setia, & Sambamurthy, 2010, p. 7028). There are just a few definitions of agility in the existing literature. For example, Sharifi and Zhang (1999) describe agility as “taking advantage of opportunities and changes in the marketing environment while dealing with new risks and obstacles.” Others describe it as the capacity to quickly combine the essential information, assets, and contacts in order to capture competitive market opportunities and detect innovative chances (Sambamurthy, Bharadwaj, & Grover, 2003).

Marketing agility enables businesses to adapt swiftly to market changes by concentrating on unanticipated incidents (Osei, Amankwah-Amoah, Khan, Omar, & Gutu, 2019). Homburg, Theel, and Hohenberg (2020) concentrated on quick decision-making and trial and error learning when conceiving marketing agility, whereas Kalaignanam, Tuli, Kushwaha, Lee, and Gal (2021) emphasized sensemaking, iteration, speed, and decisions. Marketing agility, according to Zhou, Mavondo, and Saunders (2019), is a meta dynamic capacity that combines market sense, speed, and flexibility to spot opportunities and respond quickly by reconfiguring marketing techniques in a changing environment. Khan (2020) expands marketing agility by concentrating on understudied dynamic characteristics such as proactive market sensing, response, rapidity, and flexibility.

Furthermore, the existing literature finds four primary characteristics of marketing agility, as stated by Zhou et al. (2019), which is broadly compatible with Homburg et al. (2020), Khan (2020), and Kalaignanam et al. (2021). Firstly, marketing agility is an organizational capability that allows companies to react to changing market conditions better than competitors (Roberts & Grover, 2012). Secondly, marketing agility demonstrates adaptability, quickness, response, and proactivity (Homburg et al., 2020; Sherehiy, Karwowski, & Layer, 2007; Zhang, 2011). Thirdly, marketing agility entails sensemaking and marketing response (Kalaignanam et al., 2021; Roberts & Grover, 2012; Teece et al., 2016) by proactively adjusting resources and settings in response to opportunities and risks (Roberts & Grover, 2012; Teece et al., 2016). Finally, marketing agility varies depending on the circumstance (Roberts & Grover, 2012; Zhou).

Despite the rising relevance of marketing agility in a sharing economy, its implications on marketing effectiveness under the influence of market turbulence have not been thoroughly investigated. Analytics capability management becomes a proactive necessity for organisations operating in the B2B sharing economy setting during periods of intense market turmoil (Akter, Hani, Dwivedi, & Sharma, 2022).

References

Akter, S., Hani, U., Dwivedi, Y., & Sharma, A. (2022). The future of marketing analytics in the sharing economy. Industrial Marketing Management, 85–100.

Doz, Y., & Kosonen, M. (2008). Fast Strategy: How strategic agility will help you stay ahead of the game (p. 65). Harlow, England: Pearson/Longman

Fosso Wamba, S., & Akter, S. (2019). Understanding supply chain analytics capabilities
and agility for data-rich environments. International Journal of Operations &
Production Management, 39(6/7/8), 887–912. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-01-
2019-0025

Homburg, C., Theel, M., & Hohenberg, S. (2020). Marketing excellence: Nature,
measurement, and investor valuations. Journal of Marketing, 84(4), 1–22.

Khan, H. (2020). Is marketing agility important for emerging market firms in advanced
markets? International Business Review, 29(5), 101733

Kalaignanam, K., Tuli, K. R., Kushwaha, T., Lee, L., & Gal, D. (2021). Marketing agility:
The concept, antecedents, and a research agenda. Journal of Marketing, 85(1), 35–58.

Osei, C., Amankwah-Amoah, J., Khan, Z., Omar, M., & Gutu, M. (2019). Developing and
deploying marketing agility in an emerging economy: The case of blue skies.
International Marketing Review, 36(2), 190–212.

Roberts, N., & Grover, V. (2012). Investigating firm’s customer agility and firm
performance: The importance of aligning sense and respond capabilities. Journal of
Business Research, 65(5), 579–585

Sharifi, H., & Zhang, Z. (1999). A methodology for achieving agility in manufacturing
organisations: An introduction. International Journal of Production Economics, 62,
7–22.

Sambamurthy, V., Bharadwaj, A., & Grover, V. (2003). Shaping agility through digital
options: Reconceptualizing the role of information technology in contemporary
firms. MIS Quarterly, 27(2), 237–263

Sherehiy, B., Karwowski, W., & Layer, J. K. (2007). A review of enterprise agility:
Concepts, frameworks, and attributes. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics,
37(5), 445–460.

Teece, D. J., Peteraf, M., & Leih, S. (2016). Dynamic capabilities and organizational
agility: Risk, uncertainty, and strategy in the innovation economy. California
Management Review, 58(4), 13–35.

Vickery, S. K., Droge, C., Setia, P., & Sambamurthy, V. (2010). Supply chain information
technologies and organisational initiatives: Complementary versus independent
effects on agility and firm performance. International Journal of Production Research,
48(23), 7025–7042.

Zhou, J., Mavondo, F. T., & Saunders, S. G. (2019). The relationship between marketing
agility and financial performance under different levels of market turbulence.
Industrial Marketing Management, 83, 31–41.

Marketing Strategy – Concepts

Pranav Bhola — Sat, 28 May 2022 08:53:59 +0000

Marketing strategy (MS) was originally defined by employing various terms by numerous authors. Borden, Frame, Gordon, and Smith (1954) and Borden (1986) were among the first to coin the phrase “marketing mix.” Smith (1956) identified alternative marketing methods as “product differentiation” and “market segmentation.” Dean (1951) introduced the concepts of “skimming” and “penetration” to denote different pricing, etc. Wind and Lilien (1993) established the “6C model” in 1993, which includes a broad six-factor MS, comprising “Customers,” “Channels of Distribution,” “Competitors,” “Company,” and “Culture,” and “Candidates for Cooperation.” This six-factor model replaced the preceding 2C (Company – Customers) and 3C (Company – Customers – Competitors) models.

Shaoming Zou and Cavusgil (2002) discovered main standardizations of global marketing strategy comprising product, promotion, channel structure, pricing, marketing activity concentration, marketing activity coordination, worldwide market involvement, and competitive move integration in a later research. According to Corey (2003), MS is a distinct and valuable position covering a variety of duties, but the Business Dictionary describes it as a comprehensive strategy encompassing all marketing objectives. 1

According to Craven, Piercy, and Prentice (2000), marketing strategy gives a competitive edge for the firm by boosting value-added to the business’s clients.
Similarly, Özsomer and Prussia (2000) established a marketing strategy based on three aspects, including target market similarity, standardised marketing strategy, and centralised market structure, in which the authors demonstrated that the MS is favourably connected with business success. Furthermore, the MS’s long-term business structure and goals bring value (Hong, P., & Nguyen, T.-T., 2020).

References

Borden, N. H., Frame, S., Gordon, W. C., & Smith, C. W. (1954, April). An appraisal of
census programs for marketing uses. Journal of Marketing, 18(4), 331–360.

Borden, N. H. (1986). Marketing management: Analysis, planning and control (sec-
ond edition). Journal of Marketing (pre-1986), Jan 1973, 37(000001), 110.

Smith, W. R. (1956). Product differentiation and market segmentation as alternative
marketing strategies. Journal of Marketing, 21(1), 3–8.

Craven, D., Piercy, N., & Prentice, A. (2000). Developing market-driven productstrategies. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 9(6), 369–388.

Shaoming Zou, S., & Cavusgil, T. (2002). The GMS: A broad conceptualization of globalmarketing strategy and its effect on firm performance. Journal of Marketing,66(4), 44–56.

Özsomer, A., & Prussia, G. E. (2000). Competing perspectives in international market-ing strategy: Contingency and process models. Journal of International Marketing,8(1), 27–50.

Corey, R. (2003). Marketing strategy – An overview. pp. 9500–9505. Harvard BusinessReview.

Hong, P., & Nguyen, T.-T. ( 2020). Factors affecting marketing strategy of logistics business – Case of Vietnam. The Asian Journal of Shipping and Logistics, 224-234.