MKT624 Brand Management Assignment No.1 Solution Spring Semester 2013


Conceptual Note:
The age of generic products is almost over because in 21st century people prefer what they may rely on
and what they may recognize distinct from others. There is a definite realization among the
entrepreneurial class of the world that only those products can survive and grow which are transformed
into brands. The basic test to check whether a product has become a brand is its ability to make a
difference. There are, beyond doubt, some certainways a product may be made a brand.
The Case:
Saleem was born in 1980 in a fertile village of Pakistani Punjab. As he grew he saw his family associated
with the cultivation of different crops with special focus on pulses. His family has been associated with
the profession for almost four generations. They normally sell their semi-finished products to the
middleman who sells them to the nearby urban whole sale markets. From Urban markets the products,
in their finished form, goes to the households of middle and upper class for the ultimate consumption.
His family is recognized in the area and considered financially sound. Saleem has had his higher
education in agriculture and marketing management. Based on what he has learned at University, he is
of the view that his family is working far below their real potential and needs to upgrade in the value
chain of products. His learning has also made him to believe that real benefit of the whole trade goes to the one who is near to the downstream of the chain and owning the brand. He also believes in serving
those who are not served by others despite forming the larger part of the society.
Saleem has decided not to be the part of the traditional business of his family rather he has decided to
add value to it. His plan is to have a buying house with dual function of buying the crop of pulses from
his family and selling it to the mega retail centers of the city after branding it. He aims for building the
national brand of pulses the people can rely on in all terms.

It Jobs
Brand Management
Business Ideas
Internet marketing strategies

Currently in this product category there is no national brand existing. Only few companies have started
selling pulses in generic packing. The only brand type existing in this category is private brands, mostly
backed by retailers. Observation clearly shows that this branding effort is not making any significant
difference. The difference is only made by the quality of generic product in terms of size of grain and
cleanliness. Experts see great margin for branding in the category at all levels.
Requirement:
Place yourself in the shoes of Saleem and advise him that how he can make the product a brand in the local and national market of Pakistan.

Solution:
Market Your Local Product in Pakistan
You get the support of your community. From Bonnie Hubbard’s “Local Girl Makes Good” brand slogan to modern locavores, there’s plenty of evidence that many people will make an intentional effort to support a local brand. Start out local and grow — your local customers will cheer you on.
Google is on your side. Google intentionally supports local businesses in a number of ways, including putting them on maps, on Google Earth, on Google Places pages, and higher in search results when local people look for the things they make. Your products will have to compete with the products made in the rest of the country or the world eventually, but you can get well established on line as a local company first.
You get more for your money. Advertising locally is always less expensive, whether it’s online ads, TV spots, or magazine spreads. Start out that way. The lessons you learn, the assets you develop, and the track record you create will all be cheaper, and you can still use them when you expand into the national market.

You need to present your suggestions in the form of a professionally crafted strategy for both local and national market. (10)
You are also required to show the link between branding strategy for local and national market. (10)
For national brand marketers, managing a network of local marketing activities is challenging—particularly given the vast array of traditional and digital channels.
Not surprisingly, when communicating with local audiences, brand marketers tend to rely on the same channels at the local level as they do at the national level: 86% use corporate websites for local marketing, 72% use email, and 49% rely on corporate social media feed.
Fewer national brands rely on local websites (33%) or locally-focused social media feed (27%).
Who’s in charge of local efforts? For the most part, senior leaders such as CMOs (31%) and corporate marketers (29%) are at the helm of local marketing strategies; fewer brands rely on regional marketing teams (24%).
Delays in Executing Local Campaigns
Legitimate work at home
Free work from home
Coil Spring
Google work at home

Though 30% of brand marketers execute local campaigns within 8 to 20 days of a national launch, 31% say they require 30+ days to distribute local marketing materials.
Nearly one-third (30%) say those delays are a result of a lack of resources to tackle both global/national and local campaigns.
However, the payoff for shorter timelines is evident: 88% of marketers who have executed local national campaigns simultaneously say their brand gained a competitive advantage by doing so.

Greater Reliance on Digital
Business Opportunities
Marketing Ideas
It Jobs
Brand Management
Business Ideas

Sponsored Links

National brand marketers became more reliant on digital marketing channels over the past 12 months:
27% of marketers say they shifted more resources to digital media.
18% worked to better centralize control of brand assets to ensure continuity.
15% have applied more rigor to measuring and integrating online and offline analytics.
9% have made social media a main channel of engagement with local customers.
4% have automated the local marketing process.

Outlook for Mobile Marketing
Notably, only 8% of national brand marketers say mobile will be critical to further local connections, and only 12% view mobile as a successful ad channel. Even so, 33% of brand marketers are still investigating the opportunity:

Bringing the Field Into Alignment

Only 8% of brand marketers surveyed say they’re extremely satisfied with the way new product, pricing, and promotional campaigns are executed and leveraged by local field sales, reseller, franchise, or partner networks.
A more comprehensive strategy (24%) coupled with a comprehensive local marketing automation solution (30%) are core to marketing’s plans to improve and transform localized marketing strategies.
Moreover, 52% of marketers agree that comprehensive brand campaign automation could strengthen ties between the head office and local customer-facing resources and touch points.

Measuring Local Campaigns

Internet marketing strategies
Legitimate work at home
Free work from home
Coil Spring

Some 40% of marketers have established a formalized measurement process for localized marketing, but nearly the same proportion (37%) say their measurement processes are managed on an ad-hoc basis.
Among those marketers who measure local campaigns, 26% have access to a comprehensive dashboard that can provide a view across all channels and campaigns. However, an equal proportion (26%) either do not have a formal process to access campaign measures or are only able to intermittently measure based on participation or level of measurement delivered from the field.
The byproduct of such random access to measures is the challenge of adjusting campaigns for optimal performance.
Only 33% of marketers say they are shifting national campaigns to have greater relevance and resonance with local markets, and 29% say they can only sometimes make adjustments because they don’t always have the right intelligence to make substantive changes.