Marketing and Love

To the beautiful Barbara Ellen Wijaya. Thank you for being a beautiful inspiration for me in understanding marketing and business. Thank you to keep supporting me with your beautiful heart. Thank you for your beautiful belief in me. Thank you.

In this column I would like to redefine marketing which is often perceived merely as “selling” in the business environment. However, I believe that marketing is actually involved in a lot of different aspects in our life. Intentionally or not, everyone is a marketer. Starting from having a name which is so called “our brand”. When our names are mentioned in the middle of our relatives, a lot of different perspectives and opinion would flow from each different person toward us. Some of them might like us, and hopefully not many of them hate us. This perspectives and opinions come from our attitude, manner, and acts that we have done towards our friends and relatives. This is totally similar to the situation when a brand "Coca Cola" is mentioned in the society. Some of us might like this particular classic soft drink, and some of us might hate it. At the end of the day, having a brand means developing a good culture which can be recognized by the society.

On the other hand, love is another interesting word to be explored. A life without love would only mean emptiness. When you see movie in the cinema you will find love story in it regardless the genre of the movie. It could be an action movie but it will have love story as the spice in it. When you listen to the random song on the radio, the majority of them would refer to love. These facts clearly stated that love is an important aspect in our life. I personally believe love is actually around the corner wherever you go and whenever the timing is.

Now, how can these two interesting aspects could be connected to one another? How can marketing, a concept of becoming a market leader in business be involved in a life aspect called love? And the most importantly, how can the marketing principles be applied in our love life?

Firstly, let us recall our memory when we fall in love. You would try to know them by talking to them, make some phone calls, and ask them out. Basically you are doing the very important aspect of marketing which is market research. Your target is actually your potential customer. In love better understanding on your crush will actually increase your chance to win their heart. I suppose business environment should be treated in the same manner. Better understanding on your potential customer will actually increase the possibility of creating the better product or service for them. The problem is the majority of marketers who claim to understand marketing often overlook this aspect.

I have stated for a few times that business environment is actually changing faster than what we can imagine. Political, technology and culture changes directly or indirectly alter both consumer behavior and business competition. For instance, internet has enabled a lot of new activities which was impossible. This then enables Amazon.com to become the latent competitor of the conventional offline bookstores. These changes are impossible to be stopped. Therefore, the only way to become a leader in business is to create the sustainable culture within the company in order to overcome the external changes which could have the direct or indirect impacts.

I think this condition also happens in love. Creating a sustainable relationship is also not an easy subject. You may have heard the expression “I cannot love you anymore, you have changed so much” in so many love stories. Let’s face it life is a journey. In the middle of our journey, a lot of changes in values would happen. The changes in value would affect our attitude, behavior and action towards our partners. Similar to marketing where understanding customers is a key to stay in the market, understanding our partners would be the key to create a sustainable relationship. I personally think that marketing and love are the never ending learning processes. Therefore, creating harmony within a relationship is pretty similar in creating sustainable values within the company.

In so many love stories we have seen how a guy tries to attract his crush’s attention by acting nicely as a gentleman. At the first date, a girl will dress up beautifully to create a memorable impression and hopefully the guy would become head over heels. The more I think about it, this phenomenon is actually very similar to advertising in marketing. The company actually tries to attract their customers’ attention by communicating the wonderful values behind their service or product via advertisements. In my previous column called “Towards the Good Will Marketing”, we can also see how companies try to create a wonderful impression in the community by giving positive impacts.
On the whole, by reading this column hopefully you will get a better understanding of the applicability of so many marketing principles in your life. I hope this column could further encourage more people to learn marketing in order to enhance their quality of life.

Further comments, questions, and opinions are more than welcome.

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Revisiting Your Business Concentration

I woke up this morning and went straight into the bathroom. I turn on the tap and as I washed my face, I was intrigued by one of the natures of water – its ability to reshape itself according to its containers. This enables water to fill up any empty space regardless of its shape.

I suppose this phenomenon also applies in our daily life, not excluding business and marketing sections. Often enough, we will encounter situations such as marriage and migration which require us to change. I have personally experienced this situation when I chose to further my studies in Sydney. I needed to change my daily routine, learned the new culture and of course communicate in different language.

In this modern society, business environment is changing faster than what we can imagine. These changes occur because the technology, politic, culture and also the people are changing. A decade ago, how many of us can imagine that banking transaction can be performed via mobile phone as well as the internet? How many of us can imagine that the oil and gold price will rise to the current level? How many of us can imagine the tragic incident that happen on 9/11?

According to Hermawan Kartajaya, one important aspect of marketing is being able to create a sustainable value. Being a market leader does not make you a great marketer. A great marketer is one who is able to sustain their position at the pinnacle of the market from time to time. A great marketer is also one who can understand the cultural, political and technical fluctuation of the business environment. Basically, human desire is generated by these changes. Or in other words, business opportunities are always created by the changes in any aspects in the society. You just have to spot it by expanding your sense of sensitivity.

IBM had always been a market leader in hardware industry. However, their persistent concentration on the super computer market to obtain huge profit from big companies and their ignorance on the growing PC market causes them to lose their credibility as the most admired company. In addition, they also lost their position as the market leader. PC market eventually became the most substantial marketing in the computing industry since technology change enables smaller computers to have greater ability than the humongous computers. Dell Computer on the other hand quickly noted this technology change and surpassed IBM from the PC market and become one of the great leaders in the computing industry.

Encyclopedia Britannica (EB) had been a leader in the printed encyclopedia market for almost 200 years. However, technology again changed everything. The invention of CD enables data storage to be more convenient and since modern technology allows featured animation and sound effect, it appeals more to the public. EB’s decision to stay conventional and reluctance to produce encyclopedia in CD, eroded their profit and domination.

Many years ago, the fat content in Chinese food had attracted fierce media attention in USA. As the country with the highest obesity rate in the world, this issue gravely affected the Chinese food business. Most of their profit plummeted up to 50%. A restaurant called Hunan Garden Szechuan Restaurant decided to change to Café 19 Chinese Health Food Restaurant. Still serving Chinese food, this restaurant changed their ingredients and menus to comply with the healthy food standard in USA. The so called “fat-free” Chinese food business attracted sales income much higher than before the fat controversy.

These examples clearly pointed out that it is very important for a company to recognize the market in order to be sustainable. Surely becoming sustainable in business is not a simple task. There are some situations that require us to broaden our business scope, others might need us to shrink the business scope, and of course there are some cases that require us to change our business scope. The ability to redefine the business scope in every single situation would dictate the success of that particular company in the long run. As Andy Grove said “Only the Paranoid Survive”.

Comments, opinions, and questions will be greatly appreciated. Thank you

Creating the Wonderful Values

As I stated in my previous column “Towards the Good Will Marketing” I went back to my lovely hometown, Jakarta eight weeks ago. I flew with Singapore Airlines (SQ) from Sydney to Jakarta, transiting in Singapore. When I arrived at Soekarno-Hatta, I immediately went to pick up my luggage. While I was waiting for my luggage, my name was suddenly called on the PA system by one of the airport staffs. Basically my luggage had not arrived with me together in Indonesia. The reason being was because the transit time in Singapore was only twenty minutes and the was not enough time to transfer the luggage from one plane to the next. Hence the luggage will arrive with the following Singapore-Jakarta flight.
At that particular moment I was disappointed and confused with what happened. I was not the only person who experienced this particular problem. To be honest, I did not trust with the Indonesians’ work ethic which always tries to complicate all the procedures especially in the occasions like this.

Conversely, I was treated very well at that night by the Singapore Airlines staffs. The procedure was simple. Basically the luggage will be delivered in two hours at the same night. I was promised that I will be contacted in the first hour just to ease my confusion. In one hour indeed, they made a call to inform me that the luggage had arrived safely and will be delivered via courier to my house as soon as possible. Approximately two hours later, the luggage arrived safely, being delivered by a courier who was very friendly to me. The following day, SQ phoned me to apologize for what had happened and to ensure that I had received the luggage safely without any hassle. Frankly, I was amazed by the values that their services had generated for me. The value of flying safely, the value of hassle-free compensation and the value of integrated professionalism as a company that were generated immediately impressed me.

In this particular column I would like to point out how important to create the outstanding values of your business in marketing. A true marketer once told me that being in business means creating value instead of merely providing product or service. Customers are never satisfied with values that they have. The true marketers will always be able to find new values to be their new opportunities. The true marketers also believe that great integrated values behind their product or service do not always mean cheaper price. In fact, Singapore Airlines tickets are considered to be more expensive compared to other flight carriers and yet they are always ranked as one of the best flight carriers in the world.

According to the Macquarie dictionary, a value could be thought of as the property of a thing that makes it highly regarded, desirable, useful, worth, merit. The marketing actually happens after the sales have been finalized. Therefore creating wonderful after sales value is particularly crucial in business. Again I would like to point out some real life examples to draw the thick correlation between the marketing principles to the daily routines.

Let us think about Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Vertu and the other high-end brands which cost us hundreds and thousands of dollars just to buy their items. We know that it is not the end of our life not to purchase these items. Besides, everybody knows that it takes only less than half of the retail price to produce these items. Why then do we always have the desire to buy these items? One of the most obvious reasons is that they provide prestige - the impression and sense of being successful. It cannot be denied in the modern society that having these items make us feel good about ourselves and make others admire us (self-importance value).

Everybody knows MasterCard, with their slogan “There are some things money can’t buy, for everything else, there’s MasterCard”. This slogan really simplifies the value that MasterCard offers to their customers which is convenience. MasterCard is accepted around the globe. Even different currency does not create a boundary for them. Everything that could be bought by money can be handled by MasterCard.

For Him Magazine (FHM) and Male Emporium (ME) magazines are the other example. We know that these magazines contain nothing but funky and crazy articles that do not educate in a sense. However, FHM in fact is a global magazine which exists in 31 different countries. This is due to the fact that these magazines create an outstanding value that provides their customers an escape from boredom and a way to reduce stress.

These examples outline the importance of value creation bundled into their product and service. These examples do not follow the old and conservative marketing definition that to win the market, the product or service has to be cheaper. By creating new wonderful values, the company will become closer to their customers. Hence, they would be closer to the market. As I stated in my previous column “Global Strength, Local Approach” the market is actually more important than the marketing itself. Therefore, our marketing tactic should be able to follow and to be implemented into the dynamic and modern market.

I understand that this column is still far from perfection. Hence, any comments, questions and opinions would be greatly appreciated


David Herlambang


MarketingFirst

Global Strength, Local Approach

For the last 23 years I have been living in two different countries, my beloved Indonesia and Australia. Honestly, being given a chance to study in Australia really was an exhilarating experience for a raw eighteen years old student from Jakarta. Moreover, the fact that it was my first experience to be in a foreign country really made me to feel like the king of the world.

Unfortunately, the excitement did not last very long after I arrived in Australia. This was due to the fact that there are so many differences in the culture, social aspects, daily routines, and language between Australia and Indonesia. Furthermore, the reality of living alone in a totally new environment, with new friends, and without even a single soul from my family really raised my homesick feeling to the pinnacle and it became increasingly unbearable. I struggled to adapt well to the Australian culture. They speak in different language and discuss different topics. There were times during conversation that I had to pretend that I understood what they were saying and I had to fake my laugh when they made jokes which I did not even get. It took me approximately one and a half year until I could fully blend in to the locals. This small story indicates how important local approach is towards a particular society or culture to be able to blend in with them. This situation is particularly similar with the business environment. The only way to actually understand the local customers’ needs is by understanding their culture, political situation and their social aspects.

As usual, I always try to draw a thick correlation between marketing principles and my daily experience. Based on the story above, I would like to focus on the importance of having the culture of “Global Culture, Local Approach” in a company. In fact, the sustainability of a company is determined by their ability to apply their global culture with the local approach in each and different regions. Moreover, this also determines their ability to expand globally.

Let us take McDonald as an example. According to Wikipedia, the reason McDonald could conquer as well as dominate the global market is that they vary their menu based on the culture of the host country. Mc Donald’s in Indonesia serves rice and fried chicken. In Kuta Bali, instead of only fulfilling the local appetite, the restaurant is also designed with the typical Bali ambience. They understand that all the tourists from around the globe come to Kuta with the same reason which is to treasure the valuable Bali ambience.

Meanwhile, in Australia Mc Donald’s has different local approach. Australia is ranked third for its obesity problem. Hence, the Australians become more and more aware in terms of the food nutrition and yet still demand the simplicity of having junk food in order to save their time. In order to respond to this local situation, Mc Donald’s Australia serves healthy junk food such as sandwiches which are made directly when they are ordered and contain fresh vegetables and meat. This healthy junk food is also clinically proven to have lower fat compared to any junk food burgers in Australia.

Hong Kong restaurants were famous with good food but notorious for the bad washroom condition. In fact there was a saying that stated “do not go to the toilet if you go to a restaurant in Hong Kong”. However, when it opened in Hong Kong in 1975, McDonald's was the first restaurant to consistently offer clean restrooms, driving customers to demand the same from other restaurants and institutions.

The only thing which is the same from Mc Donald’s in each different country is their consistent business system. The friendliness and professionalism of their customer service are consistent globally. Their promise to deliver food in a short period of time is met in each country regardless of the variety of food that they serve regionally. This consistency then symbolizes their global culture as one of the greatest multinational companies. Their global strength enables them to reach the economical effectiveness and efficiency. They could perfectly overlap the consistent value, process, branding, and service as their global culture with all the localize approach to each different problems in each regions. They understand that the market is actually more important than the marketing itself. Hence they tend to put more investment in order to fulfill what the market wants in each region. The combination then becomes the great universal marketing tactic.

I understand that this column is far from perfection. Hence, any comments, opinions and questions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

MarketingFirstDavid Herlambang

Towards the “Good Will” Marketing

Exactly eight weeks ago I went back to my lovely home town, Jakarta, to see my family and my loved ones. The excitement of spending the next 35 days with my loved ones in the country where I was born was overwhelmingly beautiful. Moreover, the fact that I had spent almost the previous two years in Australia working on my thesis which was particularly boring really increased the excitement level even higher.

Without wasting any time, I went to Plaza Senayan as soon as I arrived in Jakarta just to experience the nostalgic moments as a high school student before I came to Australia. The other reason I came to Plaza Senayan was to distinguish the change in the business environment and consumer behavior in Jakarta. In just minutes I can quickly spot the substantial changes in Jakarta just in two years. New shopping malls were erected almost at every corner of any strategic locations, new Busway corridors were being built, and new restaurants with different concepts have mushroomed in this city. The only thing which did not change was, as usual, the traffic jam that happened almost at every single street and lane in Jakarta.

Substantial changes also occurred in Plaza Senayan. 21 Cineplex theatre was being upgraded to studio XXI in order to satisfy their customers who from time to time become more and more luxurious oriented. However, among those changes there was one particular change that I quickly noted as the most interesting one. The new small, simple and low profiled stand appeared on the ground floor in Plaza Senayan. This stand belongs to Sampoerna Foundation from HM Sampoerna Tbk. I realized that the small stand was dedicated to promote the quality of, and access to, education. They basically publicized their national and international scholarship programs which will be given to students with beautiful mind and yet financially disadvantaged. A question popped up into my head “is it really a charity program or just a smarter type of marketing?”

A week later, I caught a taxi to go to my friend’s house since I just could not be bothered to drive around Jakarta with such a ridiculously non-stop traffic jam. I had a long chat about education in Indonesia with the taxi driver. Interestingly the driver told me a story about how HSBC as the world’s local bank has been subsidizing the improvements of many primitive schools in Jakarta. In fact, the improvements comprise not only the enhancement of the physical building but also in recruiting higher quality teachers and assisting in implementation of better educational system which results in better teaching method for the students. Surprisingly, the driver also told me that he always prays for HSBC’s prosperity in return. After I get off from the taxi, I told myself silently “This new marketing implementation really works in the society.”

Both HSBC and HM Samporna Tbk understand clearly that customers are only human who can fall in love, and I personally believe that whenever a human is falling in love they tend to ignore the price, or in other words they will stick to their loved ones no matter what happens. Both of these companies take a huge and unique step in their publicity. In this modern society, people become more and more resistant towards the traditional publication, advertising. This is due to the fact that more and more advertisements are seen in each and every mass media. Instead of allocating a huge advertising budget, these companies spend the money on educating our society and realize that good character will always be remembered longer from a generation to the other generation by our society. As I wrote earlier, having a good brand means creating and communicating a good culture towards the society.

In this column I refer this particular idea as “the good will marketing”. The good will marketing is in fact very powerful since it will induce a lot of another free publication since there is a huge possibility for mass media to cover their stories. Moreover, as I personally experienced, the good will marketing from HSBC really induced the word of mouth from the taxi driver to me. As everyone knows, word of mouth is one of the most powerful publications which cannot be valued by money since it is based on experience. Of course, we tend to easily accept the word of mouth since it comes from the third party. On the other hand, advertisement comes directly from the company therefore they can say whatever good things about themselves. Would you believe if I say to you that I can fly? However, you might believe that I can fly if there are 1000 people told you that I can fly.

On the whole, in spite of merely a marketing tactic, the good will marketing really brings about good impact to the society. Furthermore, more and more companies should concern more about our Indonesian society instead of merely taking a huge profit from our country. By doing good will marketing companies would be able to stay close to their customers. As stated by a lot of marketing gurus: “stay close to your customer if you want to be successful”.

Welcome to the era of the good will marketing.

I understand that this column is far from perfection. Therefore, comments, opinions and questions are more than welcome. Thank you.

MarketingFirst

David Herlambang