Finally, the media (editors and reporters working for newspapers, TV and radio sta-
tions, and magazines) looms as one of the greatest communication hurdles faced by mar-
keters, In a large marketing organization, the responsibility of communicating with the media
is assigned to a public relations staff Public relations people write press release stories about their organization that they hope the media will use, If the press releases are not used, the
marketer attempts to ensure that whatever the media says about the organization is accu-
rate and as complementary as possible. For smaller companies, dealing with the media
becomes everyone's responsibility, Many businesses now face a new media, the Internet:
chat rooms, websites, and propaganda campaigns intended to destroy a business have become
commonplace, Companies that are willing to focus on communication as a means of doing
business engage in relationship marketing-a type of marketing that builds long-standing positive relationships with customers and other important stakeholder groups, Relationship
marketing identifies "high value" customers and prospects and bonds them to the brand
through personal attention ,
Competition
We have already mentioned the importance that competition plays in a marketing organi-
zation, At a minimum, marketing companies must thoroughly understand their competi-
tors' strengths and weaknesses. This means more than making sweeping generalizations
about the competitors. It means basing irtelligent marketing decisions on facts about how
competitors operate and determining how best to respond.
Often the identificatior. of competitors is fairly straightforward. It is the supermar-
ket on the next block, or the three other companies that manufacture replacement wind-
shields. There are instances, however, when the identification of a competitor is not clear.
Marketing expert iheodore Levitt coined the term "marketing myopia" several years ago
to describe companies that mis-identify their competition,3 Levitt argued, for example, that
the mistake made by the passenger train industry was to restrict their competition to other
railroads instead of all mass transit transportat;on alternatives, including automobiles, air-
lines, and buses, Today we see the same mistake being made by companies in the enter-
tainment industry (movie theaters, restaurants, and resorts), who assume that their only
competition is like-titled organizations.
Since practically no marketer operates as a monopoly, most of the strategy issues con-
sidered by a marketer relate to competition, Visualize a marketing strategy as a huge chess
game where one player is consta;1tly making his or her moves contingent on what the other
player does. Some partners, like Coke and Pepsi, McDonald's and Burger King, and Ford
and General Motors, have been playing the game so long that a stalemate is often the result.
In fact, the relative market share owned by Coke and Pepsi hasn't changed by more than a
percentage or two despite the billions of dollars spent by each on marketing,
The desire of companies to accurately gauge competitors has led to the growing pop-
ularity of a separate discipline-competitive intelligence, This field involves gathering as much information about competitors through any means possible, usually short of breaking the law, More is said about this process in the Integrated Marketing (1M) box that follows,
Cross-Functional Contact
One of the first mistakes an organization might make is to allow the various functional areas
to become proprietary, Whenever a marketing department considers itself most important
to the success of the organization and self-sufficient without need for accounting, manu-
facturing, or human resources, it ceases to be a reliable marketing group, True marketers
know
they cannot be any better than their weakest link. Lack of understanding and trust
between marketing and manufacturing, for instance, could mean that a product sold by mar-
MARKETING: DEFINITION AND JUSTIFICATION
11
keting is not delivered when promised or with the right features. Marketers should con-
sider their peers in engineering, who rnjght not be able to produce an ambitious product
requested by marketing at the cost desired. Likewise, human resources might not be able
to locate the individ'lal "with ten years of experience in package goods marketing" requested by the marketing manager.
The point is that marketing is far more likely to be successful if its staff relate intel-
ligently and honestly with members of the other functional areas. In some organizations,
the walls of parochialism have been standing so long that tearing them down is almost impos-
sible. Nevertheless, creating inter-departmenta: connections is critical.
With downsizing and other cost-cutting activities prevalent during the last decade,
the need for inter-related and harmonious business functions has become even more impor-
tant. In the field of marketing, the term integrated marketing has been coined, suggesting that individuals working in traditional marketing departments are no longer specialists, but
must become knowledgeable about all the elements of the business that currently or poten-
tially have an impact on the success of marketing. At the corporate level, all managers should
share a corporate vision, and there should be an organizational structure that makes it pos-
sible for departments or divisions to share information and participate in joint planning.
This approach represents the direction in which many companies are moving, includ-
ing giants like Kraft and Disney. To be truly integrated, though, every decision at each level
of the business should support decisions made at all the other levels. To illustrate, let's say
that the corporate goal is to maximize profit. A marketing plan objective to increase sales
by marketing new products matches the goal. The previous 1M box also illustrates this point.
Community Contact
Most marketers are curious; they enjoy observing and noting what's happening in their com-
munity. Although the word "community" usually denotes a city, town, or neighborhood,
we use the word here in a much broader sense. "Community" refers to the environment in INTEGRATED MARKETING
•
SPYING TO STAY COMPETITIVE
Most corporate detectives avoid terms like spying and espi-
spectrum, business sleuths do everything from prowling trade-
onage, preferring the more dignified label "competitive intel-
show floors to combing through rivals' web sites and patent
ligence," but whatever they call it, snooping on business rivals
office filings. They keep their ears open in airports and aboard
has become an entrenched sub-industry.
flights. But sometimes they go further. They take photographs
Nearly every large U.S. company has an intelligence office
of competitive factories, and, increasingly, they rely on new
of some kind. Some, like Motorola, Inc., have units sprinkled
data-mining software that permits them to scan the Internet
in almost all of their outposts around the world. Their assign-
at high speeds for snippets about their rivals.
ment is to monitor rivals, sniff out mergers or new technolo-
gies that might affect the bottom line, even to keep tabs on
Sources: Neil King, Jr. and Jess Bravin, "Call It Mission Impossi-
morale at client companies. A veteran of the Central Intelli-
ble Inc.-Corporate Spying Firms Thrive," The Wall Street Jour-
gence Agency formed Motorola's intelligence unit, viewed
nal, Monday, July 3, 2000, pp. B1, B4; Norm Brodsky, "The First
as a model in the business, in 1982.
Step," Inc. , August, 2000, pp. 37-38; "Spy Practice," Sunday
Times (London), July 23, 2000, p. 89; "Competitive Intelligence is
Corporate intelligence relies on a slew of tools-some
Not COIporate Espionage;' Financial News, June 30, 2000, p. A6.
sophisticated, many quite basic. On the simpler end of the
12