C.

NAOMI REANNA

1720544

CLASS 4

ADVANCED STRATEGIC MARKETING

ARTICLE REVIEW: WHEN MARKETING
IS STRATEGY
by Barri M. Blauvelt, CEO

In the Harvard Business Review article, When Marketing is Strategy, author Professor Niraj
Dawar makes the case for moving marketing strategy downstream towards the customers. He
points out that downstream competitive advantage comes from outside of the company, from
the customers and other external stakeholders. In order to compete and win downstream he
calls for a shift in focus to downstream efforts such as how you define your “competitive set,
influence customers’ purchase criteria, innovate to solve customer problems, and build
advantage by accumulating customer data and harnessing network effect.” Professor Dawar
asks readers to “rethink” traditional strategy pillars and move thinking downstream to where
competitive advantage is outside of the firm and accumulative, to where focus is on customer
needs and “…your position relative to their purchase criteria.” This becomes a space where
you work to define how the market perceives your offering and markets are driven by shifts
in this regard, instead of by product improvements.

Professor Dawar builds his case with a number of examples, including one about Cialis and
Viagra. When Eli Lilly was bringing Cialis to market they were facing a critical decision
about whether to center marketing strategy on Cialis’s lack of side effects or to establish
longer duration as a new criterion. The team at Eli Lilly went with duration, 36 hours for
intimacy, which focused on romance over sex. This proved to be critical as duration overtook
efficacy to be the key criterion for purchase in the ED market. This decision to redefine the
customer’s purchase criteria is of course easier said than done; however, if it is done well the
impact can be game changing.

What he does not mention (because his article was published in HBR in December) is that Eli
Lilly continues to push the “downstream” opportunity with Cialis by making
CONVENIENCE the key overarching focus of Cialis, i.e. “Take it 24/7 now, so you are
ready whenever your partner is.” Then, capturing a ton of visual images for the chance
opportunities when the partner may be ready.

Most recently, however, Eli Lilly announced on May 28 that they plan to sell Cialis to Sanofi,
who will then market this as an over-the-counter drug. Sanofi has a clear strategy to pursue a
number of RX-to-OTC conversions (examples: Actonel for osteoporosis, Plavix for stroke
and heart attack prevention to compete directly with Bayer 80mg aspirin). They will start
with US, EU, Canada and Australia, to be ready for the OTC brand conversion as soon after
the product expires as possible. We think this latest development by Sanofi is an even
stronger example of downstream marketing than the examples he gives of Eli Lilly.

Professor Dawar also notes that if you are a late market entrant you can determine who your
competitors are, and whether or not to compete directly or through differentiation. In regards
to being able to choose competitors and not just being stuck with competitors, Professor
Dawar argues that this approach is determined or influenced by three decisions: “how you
position your offering in the mind of the customer, how you place yourself vis-à-vis your
competitive set within the distribution channel, and your pricing.”

ARTICLE REVIEW ON MARKETING ETHICS

Article Review on Marketing Ethics:
Marketing is one of the most important strategies towards the growth of a company. Most
business people and marketers are coming up with strategic ways in which they can sell their
products to different consumers in a given region. This has led to the need for close focus on
ethnic minority groups especially in the United States where there are different ethnic
communities. Ethnic marketing is all about a marketer or business person using marketing
strategies aimed at attracting a particular ethnic group. With the big numbers of ethnic
minority groups in major countries in the world especially in the US, marketers have to
develop their marketing strategies to incorporate these other communities since they are part
of the larger market. This has grown over time leading to focus on African Americans,
Hispanics, and Asians among others since marketers have realized that most of the
expenditure is from the ethnic groups thus a need to make them feel more recognized and
appreciated by the companies. This is an analysis on the article, ‘Ethnic Marketing:
McDonald’s is Lovin’ It’
McDonald Company was among the first companies to implement ethnic marketing strategy.
According to Helm, McDonalds have taken cues from Asians, African Americans and
Hispanics to develop menus and advertising to encourage middle class Caucasians to buy
smoothies and snack wraps in the same way they consume hip hop and rock ‘n’ roll (Helm 4).
The CEO says that the ethnic minorities seem to set the trend on how they should enter into
the market. This is because they prefer things done in a certain way and the snacks prepared
according to their taste and preferences which make them make frequent purchases. Ethnic
marketing also involves the marketer incorporating staff from the ethnic communities to
show the customers that they also appreciate working with people of their kind. McDonald’s
has set the trend for minority groups advertisements which are special for each group to feel
represented other than the generalized advertisement (Helm 1).
There are various principles to help a marketer successful in ethnic marketing that include
valuing; cultural uniqueness of the target group, cultural group’s beliefs, symbols, and
practices, differences in language, practices, accents and social conduct, bridge building and
cooperation between leaders and other interest communities and valuing word of mouth and
interpersonal communication to spread the message.
McDonald is ranked as the best at standardization of its marketing through the Big Mac
which has been used to measure inflation in the world. Through its low prices and the new
menus McDonald’s sales have increased in the year. The launch of the Fiesta menu led to
more sales in Hispanic neighborhoods and more sales from the whites as a way of
appreciating the strategy and variety of its products. Definitely, people want to try different
tastes of other ethnic communities too. The sensitivity in ethnic marketing has led to
development of new product. The advertising committee is comprised of more African
American, Asian and Hispanic focus groups, to reach out to their target consumers.
Many companies adopt ethnic marketing as they are left with no choice but to standardize
their advertisements, personal selling among other marketing tools. Having a large market,
which is comprised of consumers with different preferences, requires a marketer to focus on
the needs of these groups to help in making your products acceptable to satisfy the needs of
the large market like McDonald does.