When was the last time you talked about condoms in public? Can’t remember, right?
Why – because it’s a social stigma to do so? Try understanding the ironical struggles of a company that sells condoms in a country plagued with population outburst – dominated with ignorance and moral policing – hesitant to even talk about them. How would it plan its mobilisation and public outreach strategy when its product is blatantly looked down upon? This is what I am going to do, tell you as to how marketing is more than just an overhead concept of announcing your product and advertisements are more than just paying broadcasters to play your ad.
Let us take the example of Durex to understand this. A product like condom which is not openly discussed in the society is difficult to be marketed by a marketeer, leave alone having a good development strategy to increase sales. Durex uses demographic and psychographic segmentation to promote its product, where it exclusively targets the urban middle and upper classes (mainly young adults). It targets a particular section of working people and focuses on comfort and pleasure, i.e. to say it identifies itself in the personal care market. So, it markets itself as a leading proponent of comfort and fun product. So, this places the brand among the top tier ones of sexual wellbeing and trust and hygiene. It is important to note that it functions in 152 countries and thus, it has to alter and modify its marketing strategies depending on the context and social conditions, including openness to sex, of a place. When we talk about advertising and advertisement campaigns, Durex used stickers near urinals, in offices and public restrooms in the city area, because it realises that not only the target audience but the way stickers were used will also create hype around it, i.e. to say that stickers were used in a smart way, which will attract millennials and young adults alike. This brings into focus the awareness of Durex about its target audience, and also how it focuses on promotion in that target audience, as promotion falls at the core of advertising. Advertisement in this sense becomes extremely important and interesting because the way a company responds and caters to its audience in terms of advertising is extremely important.
An advertisement can be understood as something that attempts to create awareness around a particular product or service, and it mainly, inter-alia, uses print media (newspapers, magazines, etc.), electronic/ broadcasting media (radio, tv, internet, etc.), outdoor media (hoardings, billboards, etc.). Promotion would only be successful if the ad caters to the right audience, i.e. marketing and advertisement in this sense of the word are overlapping and interconnected concepts.
This constructs that marketing focuses on 4Ps, mainly product, place, price and promotion. Product refers to the intangible service or the tangible good that one provides (condom in this case). Place refers to the diversity in the marketing paradigm, which emphasizes that the product should be marketed at the right place at the right time (i.e. places young adults’ access often, including social media platforms). Marketing research and consumer analysis is very important in determining the prices. It is the last part, promotion, where advertisement assumes significance (i.e. putting such billboards and hoardings, highlighting one’s market presence and consumer analysis).
Marketing and advertising may appear to be synonymous in layman’s terms, but there are deep intricacies that differentiate these two, and it is very important to comprehend these differences.
Marketing is a complex process that involves research, data collection and analysis, identification of target group, and analysis of market. Advertising is a strategy which is understood as a subset of the larger process of marketing which involves a lot of other strategies and methods. In this sense, marketing can be loosely defined as, “the action or process of promotion and sale of products or services.”
An important and a good example of marketing strategy, which was discussed earlier in the article, is guerrilla marketing, which means using cheap and unconventional ways of marketing. It is through this that the blurred line of differentiation becomes clearer, as it might include paying people to wear tattoos advertising one’s business, or t-shirts serving the same task. It might include placing ads in unusual places like urinals (Durex, for example), on a tree or the sidewalk; or making ads out of unusual materials, such as billboard in the street, customized in the shape of your product (say a billboard in the shape of a cold drink bottle).
Taking the example of distributing t-shirts to promote business, I came across a rickshaw puller wearing a t-shirt of a particular women’s attire shop in Greater Kailash area near LSR college. Now, it is important to note that, these t-shirts must’ve only been distributed to those people who would wear these, i.e. those who might not have the resources to buy new ones. But it isn’t the only reason why rickshaw pullers were chosen. Since it was near LSR and Gargi college, and a lot of people travel by this means, it becomes imperative for the shop to tap on this section, because given the locality, a lot of well-off people aren’t affected as much by hoardings as they are by social influences and interactions (including those with rickshaw pullers). It is also important to note as to why they must’ve chosen this section is because they aren’t the consumer base of the shop, which is to say that even if the material of the t-shirt turns out to be poor, the purpose of marketing and tapping the consumer base is fulfilled.
Hence, marketing is a complex process which shapes up so intricately even at the lowest level and while advertisement is an important strategy to market the product, it just forms a small chunk of the whole pie.