What is marketing?

Concept:

Definition of Marketing:

1. American Marketing Association (AMA) Board of Directors, define Marketing as Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
2. Dr. Philip Kotler defines marketing as “the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit.  Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and desires. It defines, measures and quantifies the size of the identified market and the profit potential. It pinpoints which segments the company is capable of serving best and it designs and promotes the appropriate products and services.”
3. Marketing is how you tell your story to attract customers, partners, investors, employees and anyone else your company interacts with.  It’s the script that helps users decide if they’ll welcome you into their lives as a staple, nice-to-have or necessary annoyance.  It’s the way that everyone interacts with your brand.  It’s impression, first, last and everything in between. Jeff Cutler – Executive Vice President and General Manager, Vitals.com

Marketing Definition in Simple Language:

Marketing refers to activities a company undertakes to promote the buying or selling of a product or service. Marketing includes advertising, selling, and delivering products to consumers or other businesses. Some marketing is done by affiliates on behalf of a company.

My Practical Definition of Marketing:

Marketing is anything and everything that a company/firm/organization does to ultimately make Sales of their Products / Concept / Service. Meaning doing things that increase your visibility/Curiosity among target audience to approach your Sales team to know more and ultimately buy your Product/Service/Concept.

Best Indian Marketing Examples:

1. Vodafone ZooZoos

Vodafone made a splash on social media with the revelation of ZooZoos, which became an instant success during the Indian Premier League -2 (IPL-2) thereby giving them tremendous audience attention. ZooZoos grabbed attention all over social media like Facebook, YouTube, Orkut, etc.

As a result of effective marketing by Vodafone, Zoozoos have emerged as a brand in itself. Zoozoos not only to conveyed different value-added services offered by Vodafone but they helped to establish their brand presence. The cost of making Zoozoo ads was far less than getting a celebrity to endorse their services. This fresh and innovative concept was hugely appreciated. on a Year-on-Year basis, there was an increase in 30.30% in data revenue and 205.26% in other services revenue, which was quite a remarkable feat in a fiercely competitive environment. (Ultimately all this lead to an increase in Revenue for VODAFONE meaning ultimately Sales went up and Vodafone increased consumer base)

 

2.Paytm - Paytm Karo

The overall up-to-down 360-degree campaign made sure that all their offers reach out to its targeted audience on all media. Sharing their ad on Facebook and Twitter, and even sponsored posts on Instagram and at time even Snapchat.

However, the most effective of all strategies was the hashtag #PaytmKaro. It was being added to almost every conversation that is being driven on Facebook and Twitter. All the feedbacks, complaints (if any), comments etc started excessive use of this hashtag #Paytmkaro .It’s observed that the ad rolls out some life situations such as money transfer, online shopping, mobile recharge, paying at petrol pump etc, which is made easy by Paytm services. This TV commercial that rides the emotional route to connect with Indian mobile customers, has gained over 50K views on YouTube.

Paytmkaro had no digital campaign budget initially. TV was the primary medium for the campaign and that is understood with the campaign. However, it seems that the brand had decided not to invest a sizable budget for its digital marketing campaign.

With an objective of making Paytm a household name when it comes to mobile money transfer, it was really surprising that why the brand had ignored the social media savvy audience. But lately they realized its importance and grabbed the opportunity. The brand planned to run a social media campaign and even succeeded in it. Also at a more later stage it can obviously drive meaningful conversations with fans around #PaytmKaro.

(PAYTM has become the Synonym for Cashless transactions. Digital mode of transaction means PAYTM. Friends money chahiye Paytm Karna, Shopkeeper Chutta nahi hai PAYTM Kardo etc) PAYTM is Known to all and ultimately lead to huge doenloads and income from advertisements.

3. Fevicol – #TodoNahiJodo:

Fevicol has also always created very distinctive ads for its brand but this campaign was the most memorable one. The campaign was launched during the 2015 WorldCup where the brand showed the Rivalry between India and Pakistan in a very positive way- they portrayed two soldiers at the border and the Indian Soldier helps a Pakistan Soldier by fixing his shoe and rescues him from the embarrassment.  The brand here did a great job of using the cricket world cup in the campaign as we all know how crazy Indians are for cricket and the positive message was cherry on top as it sent a message of healthy and fair competition between the too and helped the brand to send their message across. (This Ad immediately stuck a cord with the Indian Consumers and Sales of Pidelite products zoomed)