My thoughts, insights, and reflections on marketing.

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Artists will always begin with a blank canvas; and if Murphy’s law, even in its most little ways of messing with an individual, distorts one’s creative juices then say hello to disaster.

How can an artist innovate when it is downright challenging to invent new things? Can someone really sustain being original all the freaking time?

Painting creative, innovative things to a canvas does not need  extreme originality. At least that’s what some business authors want to say.

No, it’s not finding something to plagiarize. No, it’s not about copy pasting entire ideas and what have you and claim it as an obra maestra.

It’s like doing a paper – finding a passage or quote so compelling that it begs to NOT be paraphrased. It begs to be copy pasted. But take note – only a passage or quote, and the proper source must still be cited.

What I am talking about is perhaps what Kim and Maugborne (Blue Ocean Strategy) advocated as looking across different industries to borrow certain elements that can be implemented to another industry as an innovation. Example would be the subscription model adamant in publications being implemented by software industries as service – like Google Apps subscriptions.

Perhaps it is also what Seth Godin advocated in his manifesto (Bootstrapper’s Bible) about copying business models from another industry and applying it to your own.

Copy pasting, when armed with savvy for creating synthesis of seemingly disconnect industries leading to the birth of a New Truth leads to innovation.

Then, somehow, the blank canvas will then come to life. No amount of Murphy’s Law can now mess with one’s innovative juices. Everything that goes wrong will go wrong, but everything that goes wrong is an opportunity to innovate.

Which comes first: the target market, or the product?

 

Target market comes first

Business and economic schools have taught that a product satisfies an unmet need, demand, or want in a particular target market.   Based from this, perhaps one can presuppose that the target market (which must be small enough to conquer but big enough to profit) exists first and that a product that can profitably satisfy the unmet demand comes second.

So I ask, is it possible for the product to exist first before the target market is identified?  A scenario I can think of is when a product is able to awaken a “dormant demand”.

 

Product comes first

I think that tablets are the personification of “dormant demands”.  At surface level, it seems that laptops and cell/smartphones are enough to consume media.  I remember reading an internet article questioning the existence and release of the first iPad.  Back then, I agreed – what’s gonna be the use of a tablet, when laptops are more powerful and smartphones are more portable?

Fast forward today, tablets are a category of their own. Though laptops and smartphones seemingly addressed existing demands of power and portability already, the emergence of tablets seemed to awaken the dormant demand for the perfect hybrid or middle ground of the two demands.  In fact, Samsung is even pioneering the “phablet” category.  If tablets are middle grounds of laptops and phones, then tablets are more astounding – they are the middle grounds of phones and tablets!

Did the people expressly clamor for such hybrids or middle grounds to exist?  Did the existence of tablets create the demand, or did people demand tablets?

 

So, what now?

This is when we can see how business and marketing cannot be solely described as “sciences”.  There are art, intuition, and powerful gut feelings involved.  A product can be perhaps created without a particular target segment in mind.  The basis of creating such a product may be an uncanny knowledge of how consumers, or even humans in general think and feel.  Such a product is based on a general insight, a general yet penetrating understanding of people’s demands before they even expressly and consciously know it.

In such cases when products seemingly come first, what I can think of is a product utilizing a market-driving strategy – awakening a “dormant demand” through addressing an overlooked need.  Perhaps the new product is a rejuvenated old product that inspires people to use it in a new and refreshing way (new usage).  Perhaps it is indeed a new product born out of finding the middle ground between two existing products, such as laptops and smartphones.

I do not know and cannot conclusively tell whether target market identification comes first before creating a product or vice versa.  I acknowledge my limitations as still a young student of business and marketing eager to test theories and knowledge in real life.

 

 

The best thing about today’s marketing is the ability to formulate catchy promotional stunts that can cost very little.Here are 100 Guerilla Marketing Examples courtesy of SlideShare.

100+ Guerrilla Marketing examples [slideshare id=6171009?rel=0&w=425&h=355&fb=0&mw=0&mh=0&sc=no]

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This post is about marketing slides I’ve found via SlideShare.  I aim to make this post a going concern; becoming a compilation of valuable marketing/branding/social responsibility marketing slides from SlideShare.
Transform Your Marketing [slideshare id=7447762?rel=0&w=425&h=355&fb=0&mw=0&mh=0&sc=no]

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60 Minute Brand Strategist – Limited Edition DOWNLOAD [slideshare id=1340996&w=425&h=355&fb=0&mw=0&mh=0&sc=no]

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