Dynamic Marketing Communiqué

The “Father of Modern Marketing” says there are 5 levels to a certain product or service. On which level are you? [Monday: Marketing Marvels]

March 14, 2022

Miles Everson’s Business Builder Daily speaks to the heart of what great marketers, business leaders, and other professionals need to succeed in advertising, communications, managing their investments, career strategy, and more. 

A Note from Miles Everson:

Hi, everyone. Happy Monday! 

We hope you’re ready to kickstart an awesome work week ahead. 

Let’s start this day with our daily dose of inspiration from the “Marketing Marvels”―outstanding people in the field of marketing, communications, business, etc. 

Each Monday, we highlight these people and their exceptional experiences because we believe it’s good for us to gain motivation from them by learning about their work and insights. 

Today, we’ll talk about the “Father of Modern Marketing.” 

Keep reading to know more about this Marvel’s take on marketing as an academic field of study in today’s business landscape. 

Miles Everson
CEO, MBO Partners
Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute

Marketing Marvels 

Some people earn the “Father” titles in their respective industries because they pioneered a specific idea that made a significant impact in their field of expertise. 

Examples: 

Chuck Berry became the “Father of Rock ‘n Roll” for creating a new music genre that spoke to the younger generation. 

George Washington became the “Father of the United States of America” because of the great role he played in commanding the Continental Army during the American Revolution, leading the convention that wrote the US Constitution, and serving as the country’s first president. 

Peter Drucker became the “Father of Modern Management” because of his numerous books and articles on innovation, entrepreneurship, and strategies for dealing with an ever-changing world. 

Let’s think about these titles in the field of marketing. 

Are you aware who the “Father of Modern Marketing” is? 

It’s none other than… 

Philip Kotler

Photo from Brandingmag.com 

Kotler is a marketing author, consultant, and Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management in Northwestern University. He is the author of more than 80 books, including: 

  • Marketing Management
  • Principles of Marketing
  • Kotler on Marketing
  • Marketing Insights from A to Z
  • Marketing 4.0
  • Marketing Places
  • Social Media Marketing
  • My Adventures in Marketing
  • Up and Out of Poverty
  • Winning at Innovation

He is known for popularizing the definition of Marketing Mix and for describing strategic marketing as “the link between society’s needs and its patterns of industrial response.” 

He LITERALLY wrote the book on marketing and pushed for it to become a discipline in the 1960s. He also saw how important this business aspect was and worked to make marketing a major course and part of MBA programs at different universities. 

Marketing as an Academic Field of Study 

One of Kotler’s contributions in the marketing industry is creating the field of social marketing, which focuses on helping individuals and groups modify their behaviors towards healthier and safer lifestyles. 

He also pioneered the concept of demarketing to aid in reducing the level of demand from consumers. These are why many scholars regarded him as the “Father of Modern Marketing.” 

Many of his principles delved into consumer behavior―why people think a certain way and how business owners and marketers should listen to their target market. 

For him, no product or service can be profitable unless it sells… and the only way it would sell is if it satisfies customers’ needs, wants, and demands. 

In Kotler’s words, 

“Customers will choose a product based on their perceived value of it. Satisfaction is the degree to which the actual use of a product matches the perceived value at the time of the purchase. A customer is satisfied only if the actual value is the same or exceeds the perceived value.” 

Kotler’s marketing concept attributes five levels to a certain product or service. He calls this the Five Product Level business model: 

  1. Core Benefit

This refers to the fundamental need or want that consumers satisfy by consuming a certain product or service. 

  1. Generic Product or Service

This refers to basic features or characteristics that are necessary for a product or service to function properly. 

  1. Expected Product or Service

This pertains to the set of attributes that consumers expect when they purchase a particular offering. 

  1. Augmented Product or Service

This includes the additional features, benefits, and qualities that differentiate an offering from its competitors. 

  1. Potential Product or Service

This refers to all the possible augmentations or transformations an offering might undergo in the future. To ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty, businesses must aim to delight customers by constantly innovating their products and services. 

The Five Product Level provides business owners and marketers with an effective method for structuring their product or service portfolios to target various customer segments. Additionally, this enables them to analyze customer profitability more effectively. 

By organizing offerings according to this business model, operational processes such as design and engineering, procurement, production planning, costing and pricing, logistics, and sales and marketing will be aligned with customers’ needs and wants. 

The result? 

Higher profitability and an increase in customers’ satisfaction and loyalty towards your brand! 

— 

Consumer behavior. Marketing management. Strategic planning. Leadership. Organizational behavior. Psychology. 

Almost all things that make consumers act on a certain call-to-action tie back to the principles Kotler wrote and taught about. 

Because of these principles and his other insights, a lot of business builders and marketers are able to get better results from their marketing strategies and establish stronger connections with their target market.

*Applause* 

The main takeaway you can get from Kotler’s contributions in the industry? 

Customers are an integral part of a business. Without them, brands and enterprises won’t thrive for a long period of time. 

That’s why as a business owner or marketer, you have to know how to determine the needs and wants of your customers and address those things effectively and efficiently. These actions will enable you to appeal to your target market and earn their trust. 

May Kotler’s teaching inspire you to do your marketing strategies more excellently! 

By getting back to the roots of marketing a.k.a. identifying your target market and understanding them, you’ll create compelling marketing techniques and deliver high-quality products and services to your customers. 

“A good company offers excellent products and services. A great company also offers excellent products and services but also strives to make the world a better place.” 
– Philip Kotler
 

(This article is from The Business Builder Daily, a newsletter by The I Institute in collaboration with MBO Partners.) 

About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Monday Marketing Marvels”

Too often, industry experts and the marketing press sing the praises of some brand or company’s marketing strategy. 

… only for the audience to later find out that its product was a flop, or worse, that the brand or company went bankrupt.

The true ROI in marketing can’t be separated from the business as a whole. 

What good is a marketing case study if one can’t prove that the company’s efforts actually paid off?

At the end of the day, either the entire business is successful or it isn’t. And the roles of marketing and communication are always paramount to that success. 

Every Monday, we publish a case study that highlights the world’s greatest marketing strategies, marketers, and communicators. 

However, the difference between our articles and the numerous ones out there is that we will always make certain that the firm really did generate and demonstrate earning power worthy of study in the first place (compliments of Valens Research’s finance group) in keeping with a person’s leadership skills in the area of marketing and/or communication.

We’ll also study the greatest marketing fails and analyze what they did wrong, or what they needed to improve. We all make our mistakes, but better we learn from others’ mistakes—and earlier, rather than later.

Hope you found this week’s marketing marvel interesting and helpful. 

Stay tuned for next week’s Monday Marketing Marvels!

Cheers,

Kyle Yu 
Head of Marketing 
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities 
Powered by Valens Research
www.valens-research.com

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