Understanding your Customer, Competitors and Markets in Marketing

Marketing Management

1. 2: Understanding Customers,
Competitors and Markets
CORE MARKETING
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Professor Remi Trudel
Questrom School of Business, Boston University

2. Progress
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Understanding
Markets,
Customers &
Competition
Products and
Brands
Pricing
Communications
Distribution
Capstone
Management
Simulation
Exam

3. Cases Covered
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Cases
DeBeers
Dominion Motors
Memory Jogger
Diamonds, consumer marketing,
creating and fulfilling demand,
segmentation, US-Japan-China
Motors, marketing to businesses,
decision making matrix, reacting to
competitive threat & environmental
changes

4. Customer is KEY!
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Centrality of the customer
•Understanding customer needs De Beers, Dominion Motors
•Creating Customer Wants De Beers
•Different types of customers De Beers
•Consumers Dominion Motors
•Businesses
•Government
Business customers compared to consumers

5. Business Customers vs Consumers
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Key Differences
•Nature of demand: derived vs primary
•Fewer customers
•Larger customers
•Close supplier-customer relationships
•Professional buyers
•Complex decision making units
•Organizational policies and constraints

6. Understanding the Customer Purchase
Journey
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What are the BENEFITS &
BUYING CRITERIA?
Why & When do they
Buy?
What is the TRIGGER?
How do they
BUY
the product? Who BUYS?
How do they
USE
the product?
Who is the
TARGET
CUSTOMER?

7. Customer Buying Process (DMP)
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Need/Problem Recognition
Information Search
Evaluation of Alternatives
Purchase Decision
Use & Post Purchase Evaluation

8. Today’s Customers are Informed, Connected,
Empowered and Active
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9. Customer Buying Behavior is Changing
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•Seek information and are
well informed
•Use technology -ALWAYS
•Have higher expectations
•More than half of all online
searches for products start
on Amazon

10. Customer Buying Behavior is Changing
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4.2BillionInternetusers
7.3BillionMobilephones
4BillionSmartphones
2.23BilliononFacebook
85%OutsideofUS
50%usedaily
56%loginONLYonmobile

11. Opinions of family,
friends, in-groups, and
even those we do not
know are more
important than those of
the manufacturer or
retailer
Influences Are Changing Too
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12. Consumers are sharing a lot
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•Over 4 Billion views per day
•1 Billion monthly unique
visitors
•300 hours of video uploaded
every minute

13. Consumers are sharing a lot
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•Over 4 Billion views per day
•1 Billion monthly unique
visitors
•300 hours of video uploaded
every minute
•335 Million monthly
active users
•3.5 Billion tweets a week

14. Consumers are sharing a lot
________________________________________
•Over 4 Billion views per day
•1 Billion monthly unique
visitors
•300 hours of video uploaded
every minute
•335 Million monthly
active users
•3.5 Billion tweets a week
•850 Million monthly active
users
•2 Billion downloads
•$500 –the amount TikTok
isreportedlypaying influencers
to join the app and start
creating content

15. Understanding the Business Customer
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Decision
making
Unit
Initiator
Buyer Approver
User
Gate
keeper
Influencer
Decider
Decision making unit

16. Customer Defined Value
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Customer
Value
Customer
Perceived
Benefits
Customer
Cost
Total cost of buying,
possessing, using
and disposing
For example: perceived
performance, operating
costs, enhanced status

17. Competitor Analysis
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Dominion Motors

18. Dominion Motors
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Problem(s): How to recognize and respond to changing
customer needs as the market changes, competition increases,
and product moves through its lifecycle.
Takeaways:
•Value is customer centric and customer defined
•Consumer economic value
Price vs. cost to own/operate
Value created = value captured + value shared
•Triangulate decisions with both qualitative and quantitative
analysis
•Is the choice consistent with corporate strategy?

19. Change in Market Need
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Understanding the environment
•How changes in the power company’s policy and technology
can affect the market’s demand for products
Understanding the impact of competitors and collaborators
•The “report”
Understanding the company capabilities, strengths, weaknesses,
objectives, and culture
•Moving away for multipurpose to single purpose motors

20. How do customers make decisions?
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Engineers Purchaser Rig SupervisorExecutive
Motivationto
buy/benefits
Role
Evaluativecriteria
Power
Decision making matrix

21. Product Life Cycle
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22. Competitor Analysis
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1. Identifying
Competitors
2. Identifying
Competitors’
Strategies
3. Assessing
Competitors’
Capabilities
4. Assessing
Competitors’
Objectives
5. Identifying
Competitors’
Assumptions
6. Estimating
Competitors’
Response

23. Competitor Analysis
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The Razor Wars

24. MACH 3 (1998) MACH 3 Turbo (2001)
Competitor Analysis
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25. Venus (2000) Venus Crystal Clear (2001)
Competitor Analysis
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Supporting Growth and leveraging core design capabilities

26. Competitor Analysis
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Introduces 3
Disposable
Blade Razor

27. (Fall 2003)
Became the bestselling non-
disposable razor in the U.S.
20% share of total razor
sales (in a 12 week period
ending January 25, 2004).
HERE COMES THE CHALLENGER!!!
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28. How should Gillette respond ?
Competitor Analysis
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29. Blade Inflation
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30. MACH3 Power ( Spring 2004)
Competitor Analysis
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31. Look Familiar?
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32. (2004-2005)
Competitor Analysis
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33. (2004-2005)
Competitor Analysis
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34. (late 2005)
Competitor Analysis
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35. Gillette Fusion ( February 2006)
Competitor Analysis
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36. Schick ( Fall 2007)
Competitor Analysis
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37. Schick (2008 +)
Competitor Analysis
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38. Going Forward
Etc… Etc… Etc… BUT:
Did anyone really make shaving less of a pain?
Have these “innovations” really improved customers’ lives
and create real value?
What benefits are consumers looking for?
Competitor Analysis
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39. Takeaway
There is a big difference between being:
-competition oriented –driven by competition
-design oriented
-consumer oriented
-market oriented
Failure to do so leaves you open to disruptive innovation
Competitor Analysis
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40. Competitor Analysis
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41. Competitor Analysis
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42. Competitor Analysis
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43. What’s Next?
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Understanding
Markets,
Customers &
Competition
Products and
Brands
Pricing
Communications
Distribution
Capstone
Management
Simulation
Exam

44. PRODUCTS & BRANDS
READINGS; Questrom Note: Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning
PREPARE: 1. Case: Unilever in Brazil
UNILEVER IN BRAZIL
1. Should Unilever target the low-income segment of consumers in the Northeast of
Brazil? Please think about this from a short-term perspective as well as a long-term
perspective.
2. How do the North-East consumers in Brazil different from the South-East consumers?
What factors impact their behaviors? What criteria do they use to choose a detergent?
How do they rate different brands on those criteria?
Next Case: Unilever
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45. 3. Evaluate Unilever’s current brand portfolio. Is a new brand necessary to serve the low-
income segment or could Unilever reposition one of its existing brands or simply launch a
brand extension? If you believe that a new brand is necessary, write its positioning
statement and choose its name from among Unilever’s worldwide brand names.
4. What are the strategic implications of brand repositioning, brand extension, and new
brand?
5. Design a marketing program that will allow Unilever to create and capture value for
low-income consumers in the Northeast of Brazil.
-Choose the product (formulation and packaging), price, promotion (objectives and
message) and distribution that will work well for Unilever.
Please make sure that you considerfinancialas well as non-financial factors(both from
the companyand the customerperspectives) of each option.
Next Case: Unilever
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