Hi

I'm trying to classify the primary benefits offered by marketing and
brand strategists. For example, I would expect "providing competitive
advantage" to be on this list. What are the others?

Thanks

Max

Brand and marketing strategists provide a variety of benefits.  First,
they provide a single source of responsibility for managing brand and
marketing activities.  Having a "Brand Champion" can be a very
effective way of managing the marketing activities for a brand to
ensure maximum benefit.  In many cases, having marketing
responsibilities dispersed among multiple individuals for a single
brand results in a lack of focus and inconsistent messages to the
consumer, assuming that marketing occurs at all.  Furthermore, it is
difficult for an individual with many responsibilities to acquire the
depth of knowledge of the market necessary to make good marketing
decisions.

Brand and marketing strategists fundamentally seek to segment the
market for a product, identify those segments that are most attractive
and should be targeted, and identify the most effective ways to appeal
to the attractive target segments.  Their objective is to identify
what prices, distribution channels, and advertising will most
effectively reach the targeted consumer and induce them to purchase
the product.  Determining how much promotional spending should be
directed towards the channel versus the end consumer is very important
in many industries.  The improved efficiency of marketing spending is
a significant advantage derived from the use of brand and marketing
strategists.

Brand and marketing strategists also concern themselves with all
aspects of the brand, including its name, packaging, labeling, and
product quality and cost.  Because of their closeness to the consumer,
brand and marketing strategists can be important resources to guide
research and development activities to improve a brand as well.  Brand
and marketing strategists also are in excellent position to monitor
competitive activities and determine what responses are necessary.

Whether to introduce brand extensions or not, whether or not the
expense of maintaining multiple brands is worthwhile, and how a brand
should be positioned are also decisions customarily made by brand and
marketing strategists.  Frequently, it is beneficial to maintain
multiple brands to appeal to different target market segments even
within a single product category.

Fundamentally, brand and marketing strategists seek to maximize the
efficiency of a firm's sales and marketing efforts to attract as much
profitable business as possible at the lowest possible expense. 
Identifying the appropriate mix of promotional activities, product
offerings, and research and development activities yields considerable
financial benefit to the firm.

Sincerely,

Wonko

Source: "Marketing Management" Seventh Edition By Philip Kotler,
Prentice-Hall Inc. (1991) pages 262, 442-443, and 636-637

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Request for Answer Clarification by maxb_max-ga on 11 Nov 2004 23:32 PST

Hi

Thank you.

The kind of benefits I am looking for are those they we as a marketing
consultancy could offer to our clients. Therefore, we would not be a
single source of responsibiility for managing brand and marketing
activities, or a brand champion or any internal function.

Segmentation and targeting and positioning, packaging etc. is what we
DO, but it does not describe the benefits of marketing strategy.

The benefit of marketing strategy that you do mention below is to
"maximize the efficiency of a firm's sales and marketing efforts to
attract as much
profitable business as possible at the lowest possible expense."

That is one. I suggested in the question "providing competitive
advantage as another".

Surely there must be more than these two?

Best wishes

Max

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Clarification of Answer by wonko-ga on 12 Nov 2004 12:09 PST

Thank you for clarifying what you are trying to achieve with your
question.  Let me break up the broad statement I provided you into
more detailed concepts you could use to market your consultancy.

By identifying who is the likely customer for the product, you allow
the firm to target their research spending so that they fully
understand their target market and do not waste resources on less
promising segments.

By better understanding the target market, the firm is much more
likely to produce a product that will meet the customers' needs. 
Reducing the number of failed product introductions saves considerable
sums of money.

By better understanding the target market, the firm is better able to
effectively communicate with the targeted customers both through
selecting appropriate channels and using positioning to meet
customers' psychological needs.  Spending advertising dollars
effectively both increases the chance of product success and
eliminates waste.

Having a well-defined marketing strategy reduces the chance that
inconsistent messages will be sent to customers, creating confusion
and adversely affecting sales.

A well-thought-out marketing strategy inherently includes an
evaluation of competitors' existing activities, likely responses, and
appropriate actions to combat them (a proactive approach).  In the
absence of a marketing strategy, marketing activities are often
reduced to panicked responses to competitors' activities that are not
well-thought-out, often ineffective, and sometimes even damaging to
the brand's image (a reactive approach).

In summary, as a marketing consultant, your ability to focus your
clients on specific attractive target markets allow resources to be
deployed to gain an in-depth knowledge of those markets.  This
in-depth knowledge creates competitive advantage by allowing the
client to create products that better meet the needs of its customers
and to communicate the advantages of its products to its customers
using channels and positioning they will find appealing.

The development of a marketing strategy brings additional advantages
by requiring marketing activities to adhere to a single vision of the
brand.  A proactive approach allows the marketing message to be
tailored to the firm's advantage and to place competitors on the
defensive.  Using a rigorous approach prevents inconsistent messages
from being communicated to customers and reduces knee-jerk responses
to competitive activity that can derail a marketing campaign.

I hope these benefits are more along the lines of what you were
looking for.  Please request further clarification if needed.

Sincerely,

Wonko

Very help clarification, thank you.