Defining marketing

​Marketing is the process of understanding buyers and sellers (the market). This understanding then provides the road map for the development of products/services for a target audience, how to price the products or services based upon market demand, how to communicate to the target audience, and what to communicate to the target audience. Comparatively, Public Relations (PR) and Advertising are communications strategies as they are typically not part of product/service development. An example workflow is that marketing would research the type of message that would compel a target consumer to purchase a product/service, what platform they like to use to learn about that type of product/service, and if a target consumer communicates best by video or by print media. PR and Advertising would then take the findings from the marketing research and create the content and deliver the message as part of a promotional campaign. As marketing activities help to dictate the entire strategy of a business, marketing is a core competency for any business.
Key Terms: Strategies versus Plans
This distinction of plans versus strategies gets confusing in the marketing literature. Historically sales information was only updated every few months due to manual data entry and manual data aggregation. To find out the effectiveness of a process, comparison data required months or quarters to obtain. The digital age has increased sales data’s speed of availability and provided other analytical metrics that allow for the testing of processes over much shorter time durations. This has given rise to the delineation of strategies and plans.

A strategy is a theory that by making a set of decisions, a competitive outcome can be achieved. For example: I believe that by focusing on selling craft beer, my bar will make more money than if I focus on selling beer from microbreweries. In this example:
  • Theory: “I believe that”
  • Set of decisions: “by focus on selling craft beer instead of beer from microbreweries”
  • Competitive outcome: “I will make more money.”
  • A strategy must be translatable into actionable items (steps) to attempt to achieve the outcome. However, the actionable items may not result in the theory being proven, and may therefore change with better information. Strategies also do not necessarily have a timeline for creation or completion.

For more insight on strategy:
Martin, R., & Bates, H. (2023, May 3). HBR On Strategy: The Difference Between a Plan and a Strategy. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved July 26, 2023, from hbr.org/podcast/2023/05/the-difference-between-a-plan-and-a-strategy

Plans Plans are a series of steps which accomplish a goal, and often have a timeline for completion. This goal should be something that is highly predictable in its ability to complete. For example, a plan based upon the craft brew pub may look like: "To sell craft beer, I will educate my staff by holding monthly training sessions on guiding guests through the different styles of beer. The first month will be on defining lagers and comparing them to ales." In this plan:
  • Goal: I will educate my staff.
  • Steps with timeline and high degree of predictability: I will hold monthly training sessions. . . ."
As plans are static, the “marketing plan” has lost relevance in the data driven sales environment. In place are marketing strategies.

The workflow of plans versus strategies
In the workflow of a business, management sets strategy and creates actionable items for non-management employees. Alternatively, an executive team creates strategies. Then it is the job of management to turn the strategies into plans.
Understanding a Business through Analysis
The basis of business analysis is to create a logical and repeatable framework which can function like a checklist. This prevents steps from being missed and helps to highlight patterns that occur when comparing current data with past data.
  • Market Analysis: Understanding the buyers and sellers in the immediate market.
  • PESTLE Analysis: Understanding the macroeconomic and microeconomic environment.
  • SWOT Analysis: Understanding how your company and how it compares to others in the market.
  • Brand Analysis: Understanding your company.

For more on Marketing Research and Theory
Academic Journals Recommended by NYU Libraries: 
guides.nyu.edu/marketing/top-marketing-journals

Market Analysis


What is the market? While being the most obvious question, this question sometimes gets overlooked. Generally a market is composed of buyers and sellers. This can be thought of as supply and demand. Most in business, or who intend to be in business have a general idea of the immediate market. That is, they can differentiate between a craft cocktail bar and a full-service restaurant. However, it is important to elaborate on this concept to better understand where a company stands in relation to its customers and other similar companies. This is done with a market analysis. Reassessments should be done periodically to understand market changes so the business does not become obsolete.

Market analysis goals
  • Understand the needs of the consumer for the product or service. What does the consumer want?
  • Understand who is currently meeting those needs and how those needs are being met. Who is in the market?
  • Find market forces and market trends.
    • Macro-market trends
    • Product level trends

Sector Analysis

  • General Identification of Sector and Industry
  • Data Sources for Market Analysis
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General Identification of Sector and Industry
​Sectors are large segments of the economy. Industries are composed of a specific group of similar companies. Identifying where a business sits within this hierarchy provides a systematic way to think about the general environment for which commerce will be transacted. This understanding will be used to contextualize the PESTEL analysis. General identification can be done using one of the two classification systems.
The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)
census.gov/naics
This system, which may be familiar to those filling out loan forms or even taxes, is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy. Developed in 1997 by the U.S. Economic Classification Policy Committee (ECPC), Statistics Canada, and Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Geografia, it allows for a high level of comparability in business statistics among the North American countries. Each company type is assigned a six-digit code. For example 722410 is Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages).
  • Sector: Represented by the first two digits. The highest level of industry hierarchy that groups together related industries. Example: 72 is Accommodation and Food Services—Activities of this sector are providing customers with lodging and/or preparing meals, snacks, and beverages for immediate consumption.
  • Subsector: Represented by the third digit. Example: 722 is Food Services and Drinking Places
  • Industry Group: The fourth digit. Example: 7224 – Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages)
  • NAICS Industry:
    • The fifth digit. Example: 72241 – Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages)
    • National Industry The six digit. Example: 722410 – Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages)
  • For more on the hierarchy structure:​census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census/year/2022/guidance/understanding-naics.html

The NAICS code, due to its development for statistical reporting, can be used to better gain general insight into the larger industry. This data can be helpful in determining general market size like gross revenue. For example, by using NACIS: 722410 code on the FRED Economic data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve:
Standard Industrial Classification System (SIC)
Established in 1937, this system categorizes the industries that companies belong to based on their business activities and assigns them a hierarchical four-digit code. This system can be used, but the statistical data is more sparse.​
Additional levels that could be included in the industry hierarchy
Continuing the example, Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) could further be subdivided to provide a better analytical understanding of the industry. For example if developing a craft cocktail bar this could include the following general categories:
  • Sub-industry: Craft cocktail bars
  • Location: The general location like urban, suburban, or rural, and also state or city.
  • Price point: $, $$, $$$, $$$$ (We like the dollar sign concept as it has become regularly used to convey pricing by many major platforms).
  • Product style: For example classic cocktails, bar-fresh cocktails, or molecular cocktails.
To conduct any of the following analyses, numerical data is ideal. This data can come from various sources with the goal of understanding general trends rather than getting overly caught up in the numbers. This is because the data available is typically not refined enough to make any concrete judgments.

​Economic Data from the US Government
​Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) market research list

General Market Forces and Analysis

​Market forces are trends that can be thought of as macroeconomic forces consisting of the larger global economy and monetary and fiscal policy and microeconomic forces that influence an individual or firm’s decisions. These also happen to be the general division of economic study.
  • Economic Environment: PESTLE Analysis
  • Price Elasticity: Porter's Five Forces Analysis
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Macroeconomic/Microeconomic Environment: PESTLE Analysis
A PESTLE analysis provides a local framework for thinking through the macroeconomic and microeconomic environment. This is important as these changes can positively or negatively influence the cost of doing business and consumer expenditures.

PESTLE analysis overview from Washington State University [1]
• Political factors are domestic and foreign government policies which are influenced by leadership and relationships. Examples include: Fiscal policies like taxation and government expenditure, foreign trade policies, and political issues that change the regulatory environment.
• Economic factors are those represented by the macroeconomic environment including monetary policy like interest rates, current and projected economic growth, inflation, employment rates, wages, consumer confidence, spending of both consumers and businesses, likely changes in the economic environment.
• Social factors which influence changes in an individual’s buying include changes in demographics (age, gender, race, family size), changes in lifestyle behaviors, consumer opinions and buying patterns, socio-cultural changes, ethnic and religious trends and living standards.
•Technological factors are those that influence new ways of producing goods and services, new ways of distributing goods and services, and new ways of communicating with target markets.
•Environmental factors are those that increase the scarcity of raw materials, changes in pollution targets including carbon footprints by regulators or consumers, and changes in business ethics driven by consumer sentiment.
•Legal factors are those that result in statutory or regulatory change including those to health and safety, equal opportunities, advertising standards, consumer protection rights and laws, product labeling and product safety.

Implementation
  •  Many of the elements in a PESTLE Analysis are interrelated. For this reason we advise annotating this into the analysis.
  •  In a future issue of Hawaii Beverage Guide we will create a routh template for a PESTLE Analysis including general questions to use.

For additional insight:
Washington State University. (2023, June 6). PESTEL Analysis - Industry Research. LibGuides at Washington State University. https://libguides.libraries.wsu.edu/c.php?g=294263&p=4358409
Porter's Five Forces: Price Elasticity of Inputs and Revenue
Price elasticity of demand is the economic measure of how sensitive price is to demand. This analysis provides the framework to understand the five forces that influence price elasticity inputs and the price elasticity of revenue.

​Cost of Inputs
  • Bargaining power of suppliers: Supplier power assesses influence over cost by an industry's suppliers. Influenced by supply and demand, assessment entails an understanding of factors including the number of suppliers, size of suppliers, and accessibility to substitutes goods.
  • Bargaining power of buyers: Buyer Power assesses influence over cost by an industry’s buyers. Influenced by supply and demand, assessment entails understanding the number of buyers in the market, the significance of every individual buyer as a massive buyer (relative to the industry) can influence cost, and the ability for a buyer to use an alternative source or product.

Stability of Revenue Generation
  • Rivalry among existing competitors influences the amount of revenue that can be generated per unit of sales. Influenced by supply and demand, assessment entails an understanding of factors including the number of sellers/competitors in the market, the degree of differentiation between competitor goods and services (availability of alternatives), customer demographics as the pertain to customer allegiance/sentiment.
  • The threat of substitute items or services: Close substitute items can influence the amount of revenue that can be generated per unit of sales. Influenced by supply and demand, assessment entails an understanding of factors including the number of substitute items accessible, the buyer's sentiment/propensity towards substituting.
  • The threat of new entry: A market’s barrier to entry can influence the amount of revenue that can be made per unit of sales as increased revenue can be attractive if startup costs are low (easy market entry). If this new entry occurs, due to supply and demand, revenue decreases because of the increased number of substitute items. Assessment entails an understanding of factors including start-up costs like access to capital and technology, economies of scale, and brand personality/faithfulness.

For more insight

​The Sellers: Who they are and what is sold

While market research can be conducted via surveys, to get enough data to make this a useful technique can require more resources than a brand has available. Alternatively, an analysis of the sellers in the industry can provide insight into the potential needs of a consumer through patterns that form in the analysis.
Identification of Industry Leaders
Industry leader is a loose term. It can mean the one that makes the most money. It can also mean the one that is the most “awarded” or makes the “best” product. When performing an industry analysis, this segmentation can be broken down to key in on what general strategies are working within a market. Categories can include:
  • Highest Earning
  • Operations leaders with the smoothest technical operations.
  • Product leaders
  • Communications leaders The most “popular” as measured by social media.
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Analysis
To better understand the various companies within an industry, a SWOT analysis takes insight from the PESTLE analysis and Porter's 5 Forces and uses this to create a more detailed analysis of respected companies already in the marketplace. The more detailed the analysis, the more useful it will be in finding patterns in sales and operations strategies that can help to refine your own marketing and business strategy. Additionally this should occur concurrent with the Market Analysis and Brand Analysis as it will help to refine concepts and patterns. This means that a draft should be performed before the brand analysis and then it should be revised after the brand analysis. We also include the main factors which influence adoption of an innovation as noted in Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point [2]. Which are
  • Relative Advantage: The degree to which a proposed idea is viewed as innovation relative to the product it replaces.
  • Compatibility: The innovation’s alignment with the values, experiences, and needs of the potential adopters.
  • Complexity: The ease of use/understanding of the innovation.
  • Testability: The extent to which the idea can be tested/proven to be innovative before being adopted.
  • Observability: The extent to which results can be observed as being innovative.
  • We have developed the following questionnaire to help guide a SWOT Analysis.  Note the groupings of "Strengths - Weaknesses" and "Opportunities and Threats"
  • Strengths and Weaknesses
  • Opportunities and Threats
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Strengths
Strengths are internal, positive attributes of the company that are within the company's control.

Value Proposition
  • What is the product/service best at (in a vacuum in that it’s not compared to other companies)?
  • Relative to similar priced products/services, what is the product/service best at solving?
  • How does the current iteration of the product/service best fit the current market potential?
  • Who is the current product’s utility/marginal utility maximized for relative to the other products in the market?

Relative Advantage
  • What is the product/service best at compared to other companies? Is the degree to which an innovation is seen as better than the idea, program, or product it replaces?
  • How does the product stand out from competitors? Does it provide unique features or experiences/services to potential customers?
  • What parts of operations is the brand best at in regards to maximizing cost relative to product/service quality.
  • What parts of operations is the brand best at in regards to maximizing cost relative to production output.

Observability
  • To what extent does the innovation provide tangible results?
  • What are the good customer reviews?

​Compatibility
  • Who is the innovation most compatible with in regards to the values, experiences, and needs of the potential adopters?
  • What of the current audience’s needs are met?/What pain points does the product remedy?
  • What is the pricing strategy? Does the pricing strategy work for the target consumer?
  • How do margins compare to other competitors? Does pricing strategy work for the seller? This includes meeting the costs of building the business like product development, technology, suppliers, patents, certifications and advertising?
  • Complexity: The ease of use/understanding of the innovation.
  • What sales tactics, technologies, and platforms make the customer journey appealing?
  • What communications strategies to engage and educate about the product or its use are successful?

Testability
  • What part of the product or service is the easiest to prove that it works for the consumer?

Operations Structure
  • What business processes are successful?
  • What assets are on the team, such as knowledge, education, network, skills, and reputation?
  • What physical assets like customers, equipment, technology, cash, and patents are advantageous relative to similar companies?​​
Weaknesses
Weaknesses are negative factors that detract from the company's strengths. These are elements of the business which need to be improved on to make the firm competitive.

Value Proposition
  • What is the product/service best at (in a vacuum in that it’s not compared to other companies)?
  • Relative to similar priced products/services, what is the product/service worst/defficient at solving?
  • How does the current iteration of the product/service best fit the current market potential?
  • Who is the current product’s utility/marginal utility least maximized for relative to the other products in the market?

Relative Advantage/Disadvantage
  • What is the product/service weakest (in a vacuum in that it’s not compared to other companies.
  • What is the product/service weakest when compared to other companies?
  • How does the current iteration of the product/service least fit the current market potential?
  • What parts of operations is the brand best at in regards to maximizing cost relative to product/service quality.
  • What parts of operations is the brand best at in regards to maximizing cost relative to production output.

Observability
  • What are the negative customer reviews?


Compatibility
  • Who is the innovation least compatible with in regards to the values, experiences, and needs of the potential adopters.
  • What of the current audience’s needs are NOT meet?
  • Does pricing strategy work for the seller? This includes meeting the costs of building the business like product development, technology, suppliers, patents, certifications and advertising?

Complexity: The ease of use/understanding of the innovation.
  • What sales tactics, technologies, and platforms make the customer journey unappealing?
  • What communications strategies, that engage and educate about the product or its use, are unsuccessful?

Testability
  • What part of the product or service is the most difficult to prove that is works for the consumer?
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Operations Structure
  • Are there things that your business needs to be competitive?
  • What business processes need improvement?
  • Are there tangible assets that your company needs, such as money or equipment?
  • Are there gaps on your team?
  • Is your location ideal for your success?
​Opportunities
Opportunities are external factors in the business environment that are likely to contribute to success

​PESTLE Analysis
For each segment, are there market trends, sentiments, events, technologies or regulations that will encourage people to buy more of what is being sold?

Porter’s Five Forces
  • Cost of Inputs: Will suppliers always be able to supply the raw materials you need at the prices you need?
  • Revenue Potential:
    • Do you have potential competitors who may exit the market?
    • Is consumer behavior changing in a way that could positively impact your business?

Opportunity strategy
  • How specifically do competitors’ products and services fall short, and what can be done to fill those gaps given your strengths and expertise?
  • Of Gladwell's Tipping Point factors: Relative Advantage, Compatibility, Complexity,Testability and Observability, what opportunities exist?
  • What will make your offerings appear as better alternatives in terms of value, price, and ease of purchase?
​Threats
Threats are potential external factors of which the company cannot control their occurrence. Response strategies should be in place if the threat should occur.

PESTLE Analysis
For each segment, are there market trends, sentiments, events, technologies or regulations that will threaten people to buy more of what is being sold?

Porter’s Five Forces
  • Cost of Inputs: Will suppliers always be able to supply the raw materials you need at the prices you need?
  • Revenue Potential:
    • Do you have potential competitors who may enter your market?
    • Is consumer behavior changing in a way that could negatively?

The Buyers: Who they are and what they want

To understand the specific marketplace for which a business operates, the broad understanding of the general industry is further refined. This includes developing a more specific understanding of the buyers. A primary goal of understanding the market is called segmentation. This is the identification of the various groups in the market with shared similarities that would be most likely to purchase your product.
Target Market Identification​
  • Product Adoption Cycle
  • Primary User Demographics
  • Psychological and Psycographical Factors
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Target Market Identification: Product Adoption Cycle
New “innovations”, as noted in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, are promoted by different people at different times in a product cycle. One way to identify how a target market makes decisions is by identifying where a business (product or industry) is in its product cycle. Where:

Early product cycle companies
Intuition and gut feeling are used to adapt a new idea or invention
  • Innovators want to be the first to try the innovation, and are willing to take risks and develop new ideas.
  • Early Adopters are opinion leaders that embrace change opportunities. Of these early adopters there are Mavens who are knowledgeable about things, Connectors who link people by distributing and collecting information, and Salesmen who “sell” people on an idea.

Mature product cycle companies
Rational factors, rather than intuition, are used to adopt an idea.
  • The Early Majority adopts new ideas before the average person but typically first need to see evidence that the innovation works.
  • The Late Majority are skeptics of change and only adopt innovation after it has been tried by the majority.

People who will never buy the product
  • • Laggards are very conservative and bound by tradition, making them skeptical of change. They may never adopt an “innovation”.

Target Market Identification: Primary User Demographics
After identifying the target market's decision making rational based upon the product cycle, further analysis can better help to create a communication strategy. This is because a target market is defined by a group of individuals with similarities like demographics or psychographics (values, desires, interests). This is often done by looking at demographics and making inferences.

Business to Business (B2B) vs Business to Consumer (B2C)
The broadest segmentation is if the target audience is a business or an end consumer. From this, inferences can be made about the rationale of a purchasing decision. For example: Hawaii Beverage Guide’s consumers (readers) are predominantly managers involved in setting the direction for their company. Some have no formal training in marketing, nor have the time to do a full college level marketing course, but have on the job experience and know that marketing is poignant to the success of their business. Therefore, we have written this article. If this was a consumer beverage publication, we would not include any insight into business as the goal is to only find out about what bottle to purchase to maximize utility (enjoyment) with the nothing other than opportunity cost (of purchasing something else) riding upon that decision.
If the target market is a business:
  • Identification of the people in the business who make the purchasing decision. This can help to understand how they might prefer to receive information.
  • Identification of any special needs or communication strategies within the industry. For example the craft bartending world is very Facebook and Instagram communication heavy.

If the target market is a end consumer
General data can be collected from sources like Facebook and Instagram followers. These data points can assist in drawing inferences about lifestyle choices which can be used to better understand pain-points and craft messaging.​
  • Age distribution of the target audience often correlates to their preferred communication methodology. For example, older generations skew towards TV, radio, and Facebook whereas GenZ will skew towards TikTok and Instagram.
  • Gender distribution can be used to make inferences on lifestyle choices.
  • Geographic Distribution (Where does the target audience live?): Geographical location of a non-American audience is critical as the mix of social media platforms used in other countries is different than those used domestically.
  • Race or Nationality as it pertains to cultural influences. For example a typical person with Japanese ancestry from Hawaii will have more in common with a Chinese person from Hawaii than a first generation Japanese person from the continental U.S. This is because the typical Chinese and Japanese person in Hawaii is 3+ generations removed from that country.
  • Marital status can influence disposable income and expenditures. Dual income with no kids may will spend differently than those with kids.
  • Occupation and Level of Education as this can impact the type of information that is looked for and how it is looked for. For example, a lawyer will typically read and write more in a day than a professional truck driver due to the nature of their job.
  • Income/ Disposable income: The amount of disposable income will help to dictate "entertainment" expenditure.
  • Religion is more applicable in some areas than others, however it is still relevant enough that some fast food chains only have fish sandwiches available during Lent.

Identification of Communications Style
Demographic information can be used to where the content identified in the Customer Journey will be disseminated. A general approach to understanding the customer communication channels include:
  • Preferred communications medium (Video, Still imagery, Written)
  • Preferred communications channel/platform: Email, a particular social media platform, offline via print materials, or in-person at an event?
  • Preferred way of finding information: Outbound marketing methods like phone calls or radio advertisements, or inbound marketing efforts like Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Target Market Identification: Psychological and Psycographical Factors
Psychographics are a consumer's psychological and cognitive attributes that reveal their beliefs, values, and goals. For a small company with limited access to data, psychographics can help to build an understanding of the target customer. However, Columbia University Business School Professor Dr. Sandra Matz notes that the practice of psychographic targeting has failed to deliver results In an article in Harvard Business review, Dr. Matz explains that as psycographics relies on the intuition of marketing professionals to define personas, it is an inconsistent methodology. For larger businesses, the practice of psychological targeting which uses large data sets and builds on validated psychological constructs that capture fundamental differences and how people think, feel, and behave is more relevant [3]. For smaller businesses without access to these datasets, psycographics may provide a general direction for marketing strategy. Psychographic characteristics are made up of:

Personality characteristics correspond to results from personality tests like the Big Five also known as the OCEAN model and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This characteristic determines the way a person interacts with the world. OCEAN is the most commonly used in marketing [4] and is a binary scale of the following attributes:
  • Openness to experience — Inventive/Curious vs. Consistent/Cautious
  • Conscientiousness
    Efficient/Organized vs. Extravagant/Careless
  • Extraversion Extravert/Outgoing/Energetic vs. Introvert/Solitary/Reserved
  • Agreeableness
    Friendly/Compassionate vs. Critical/Rational
  • Neuroticism
    Sensitive/Nervous vs. Resilient/Confident

Lifestyle psychographics refer to how a person views themself within society. This factor can be influenced by relationships, occupation, and other significant life choices.

Habits are behaviors that a person has become accustomed to in their daily lives that are not easily broken. This can include their preferred place to purchase items in your business' general product category, or their favorite places to shop in general.

Attitudes or Beliefs are how the target buyer thinks about the world.

Behaviors include the target customers buying patterns, product usage, and the frequency at which they purchase products. These behaviors are similar to habits, but are less recurring. They can also align with interests to varying degrees.

Interests, while being intriguing to a person are not necessarily behaviors. For example, someone interested in yachting may not have a yacht or even go boating on a yacht.

Psychographic Data Sources
  • Interviews of existing clients (individual interviews) or focus groups (group interviews with interactions)
  • Investigate website analytics
  • Use focus groups
  • Collect data from free or low-cost market research tools and market research companies like NielsenIQ.

For more on psychological targeting as found in a study by Matz et al. (2017):
Matz, S. C., Kosinski, M., Nave, G., & Stillwell, D. J. (2017). Psychological targeting as an effective approach to digital mass persuasion. Proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 114(48), 12714-12719.
Marketing Persona Creation
Based upon the understanding of the target market, psychographics and demographics, a combination of the two can be used to create a persona. That is a hypothetical person that helps to bring the target audience to life. The persona can help to rationalize through target customer needs, existing perceptions of the brand, and their overall decision making process. The goal for the business is to create an easy way for them to remedy their pain-point.

Elements of a buyer persona

Demographics: Age, gender, geographical location, marital status, occupation etc.

Psychographics
  • Personality: OCEAN
  • Habits and Behavior: What does the person’s typical day look like?

Social Communication Preferences
  • What is the persona’s preferred way to communicate socially?
  • Traditional or Digital
  • Device Preferences (Computer, tablet, phone): How will it be viewed?
  • Social media platforms
  • Schedule for using social media.

Informational Communication Preferences
  • How is the persona exposed to new topics? What channels does this information come from?
  • How does the buyer learn more about the new topic? What sources do they use for research?

Entertainment
  • How is the persona exposed to new topics? What channels does this information come from?
  • How does the buyer learn more about the new topic? What sources do they use for research?

Professional
  • Goals, Challenges, metrics for goal attainment, and how can the business help?
  • What words, phrases, ideas, and concepts do consumers in the target market use to describe their "work/professional" problems when posting on social media or engaging with competitors?

Personal
  • Goals, Challenges, metrics for goal attainment, and how the brand can help
  • What words, phrases, ideas, and concepts do consumers in your target market use to describe these problems when posting on social media or engaging with your competitors?

Marketing Messaging: Describe the solution which will have the biggest impact on the persona.

Elevator Pitch/Bumper Sticker: How to sell to that persona in a few words.

Objections: Why wouldn’t the consumer buy the product/service?

​Hubspot has useful templates on marketing
persona: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/buyer-persona-research

Empathy maps
Empathy maps, created by putting a persona in a hypothetical situation, are used to understand how a user will interact with a brand’s products/service and address any challenges that may arise. Part of the rational to empathy maps are to preemptively troubleshoot problems thereby smoothing the sales process.

Finding Trends

​To create an industry analysis, summarize the SWOT analysis of individual firms and the target market identification into a similar format as the SWOT analysis. This summary can be used to find trends, and guide strategy and planning. Trends to look for in particular are:
  • Product Development
  • Financial Strategy
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Product Development: Figuring out what the consumer is purchasing
     A new business' goal is to solve a target consumer's pain-point(s) by the creation of a innovative product/service or by improving on deficient products/services. As people are habitual and choose the familiar over the new, improvement needs to be significant enough for it to be adopted. A strategy to combat the entry of new firms into the market place that is used in the technology hardware industry is to cannabalize one's own product. For example, the Macbook Pro changes regularly with sales coming at the expense of a previous version of the same computer. These new ideas and responses to the market or key accounts can put the value proposition in flux.
     Using trends in the target consumer’s needs help a business to understand what problem the consumer is trying to solve thereby assisting in product development. These trends can also can provide insight into product segmentation. That is, categories of products that look similar at first glance, cocktail bars for example, but can be further segmented like molecular gastronomy cocktail bars versus classic cocktail bars. A challenge in trend analysis can occur when the people doing the product development are not part of the market analysis process as they often have a better understanding of the market than others on the team. As such, when performing a SWOT Analysis, gaps form in understanding the strengths, weaknesses, and understanding the product’s relative market position.
Financial Strategy
The goal with fiscal strategy is to minimize price without sacrificing the intended quality. Trends to look for are places where cost can be manipulated or structured differently. To systematically analyze this, the general pricing model Cost = Fixed Cost + Variable Cost + Profit Margin as noted in our “A Guide to Pricing Strategy” (hawaiibevguide.com/a-guide-to-pricing-strategy) can be used.
That is:
  • Fixed Cost are those that do not change regardless of the number of units sold. These include real estate/office space, equipment, utilities, and labor (which can be fixed or variable). Examples of potential manipulation include leasing space in a cheaper location while still maintaining the same level of gross income.
  • Variable Costs increase proportionally to every unit sold for example ingredients. Points of manipulation can be the utilization of a different supplier for a similar or the same product which is cheaper.
  • Profit margin is the amount of money made per unit sold. This is often where price flexibility comes from.

Brand Analysis

​A brand, as defined by advertising tycoon David Ogilvy, is “the intangible sum of a product’s attributes” [5]. In other words it is a company’s (or product’s) identity. Branding is different in that it is a verb not a noun. Branding as, popularized by Ogilvy and other advertisers in the later part of the 20th century (think Mad Men), is the practice of intentionally linking a company’s name to distinct attributes that positively resonate with the target consumer. Given these differences, a brand analysis is the analysis of a brand’s identity and perception, whereas a branding analysis (which can also be called a brand communications analysis) is the analysis of how a brand is communicated. This can be confusing as many internet articles on brand analysis do not draw a distinction between the two, and then will discuss communications strategy and “product marketing content” as if they were completely different from branding. Also confusing is that a Brand Audit has a generally defined methodology which includes brand analysis and branding/communications strategy.
Mission. Values, Tag Line
The mission and values of a brand, which may be also summarized in a tag-line, should not just be external communications, but be an internalized and guiding philosophy for the brand. With that said, analysis questions include:
  • What is the brand’s mission beyond making more money than it spends? Is this mission consistent with current operations? How is it consistent, and what parts need improvement?
  • What is the current brand promise? Is the brand currently fulfilling that promise or does the promise need to be modified?
  • What are brand values? What of the brand's products and operations are aligned with these values? Where can they be aligned better?
  • Tagline: While not necessary, it is used on brand materials to help create brand identity and voice. When developing a tagline, it is not just what you say (typically the value proposition or attribute the brand wants people to remember about it) but how you say it (word choice).

Brand History
Studying history helps one to not repeat past mistakes and to build upon past successes. While studying other brands is helpful, reflecting on your own brand’s history helps to figuring out what has and has not worked. A basic analysis question include:
  • What is the original reason for existing?
  • What value propositions are currently the same as at brand inception?
  • How has the brand’s strategy or positioning shifted overtime? What has caused those shifts?

Understanding the Brand Ethos and Identity

Brand Voice/Brand Archetype
Archetypes, originally published by Carl Jung in 1959, are universal patterns, or mental images of characters that innately exist within the human mind, regardless of culture or geography. The universality of these archetypes helps to tell the brand story by triggering instinctive responses in customers, with the goal of appealing to the target audience. Mark and Pearson (2001) developed framework that identifies twelve distinct archetypes, each with their on level, and applies them to brand and company management [6]. The challenge in implementation is finding the mix of archetypes as there is conflicting research on using a single dominant archetype versus using multiple archetypes. More recent research by Merlo et al. (2022) suggests that increasing consumer demand for transparency, increases in communications channels, and increases in technology have democratized brands as well as given rise to a successful blending of archetypes [7]. We have summarized Mark and Pearson (2021), though we highly suggest reading the entire book.​
  • Yearning for paradise
  • Leaving a Thumbprint on the World
  • No Man (or Woman) Is and Island
  • Providing structure to the World
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Yearning for paradise: Those seeking fulfillment and longing for an ideal place where they can feel fully themselves.

The Innocent: “Free to be you and me”
  • Desires and goals: Be happy and experience paradise.
  • Fear: Doing something bad or wrong that will provoke punishment.
  • Good for brands that have functions associated with a simple solution to a problem (simplicity), nostalgia, and goodness. This includes a low to moderate price point.
  • Example brands include: Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Nintendo Wii, Dove

The Explorer: “Don’t Fence Me In”
  • Desires and goals: Freedom to find out who you are through exploring the world, and experiencing a better, more authentic, more fulfilling life.
  • Fears: Getting trapped and conformity.
  • Good for brands that have a product that is pioneering, helps people to feel free, is rugged or sturdy for use in nature, helps people express their individuality, and seeks to differentiate from the successful but conformist brands.
  • Example brands include: Starbucks, Jeep, Red Bull, REI

The Sage: “The truth will set you free”
  • Desires and goals: The discovery of knowledge and the truth by using wisdom and intelligence to understand the world.
  • Fears: Being duped, misled or ignorant.
  • Good for brands that provide information, encourage customers to think, or are based upon scientific breakthrough, is differentiating itself from products that may have a questionable understanding of their topic.
  • Example brands include: Google, PBS
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Leaving a Thumbprint on the World: These brands are fearless protagonists who take risks in order to change their reality.
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​The Hero:
  • Desires and goals: To prove one’s worth through courageous and difficult/inspirational action in a way that improves the world.
  • Fears: Weakness and vulnerability.
  • Good for brands that create innovations that have a major impact on the world, address social problems, have a product that helps the user beat a clear opponent, and is associated with perpetuating morality/justice.
  • Example brands include: Nike, Duracell, US Army

The Rebel/Outlaw: “Rules are meant to be broken”
  • Desires and goals: Creating revolution by destroying what is not working (for the outlaw or for society) through disruption or outrageousness.
  • Fears: Being powerless, trivial or inconsequential.
  • Good for brands that: Have customers and employees that feel disaffiliated from society or identify values at odds with society at large, have a product that literally or figuratively destroys something, or a product that may be indulgent (not particularly good for you).
  • Example brands include: Virgin, Harley-Davidson, Diesel (jeans)

The Magician: “It can happen”
  • Desires and goals: Making dreams come true through knowledge of the fundamental laws of how the world works and finding win-wine outcomes.
  • Fears: Unanticipated negative consequences
  • Good for brands that: have a new and transformative product or service, that appeal to cultural creatives, or helps to expand consciousness, has a spiritual or psychological component, is a user-friendly technology, and is medium to high priced.
  • Example brands include: Apple, Disney, Absolut
​No Man (or Woman) Is and Island: A desire to connect and interact with others.

The Everyman: “All men and women are created equal”
  • •Desires and goals: Connect with others through realism, empathy and lack of pretense which allows them to belong and fit-in.
  • •Fears: Standing out and seeming to put on airs which cause rejection by society.
  • •Good for brands that are down-to-earth, that have products which help people belong or feel like they belong, that have functional everyday items, that want to positively differentiate themselves from higher priced elitist brands by having moderate to low priced alternatives.

The Lover: “I only have eyes for you”
  • •Desires and goals: Being in an intimate relationship with the people, experiences or surroundings they love through passion, gratitude, appreciation and commitment.
  • •Fears Being alone, a wallflower, unwanted, unloved
  • •Good for brands that inspire passion or romance, with products that foster beauty or closeness associated with romance, that have moderate to high priced items with intimate and elegant organizational structure.
  • •Example brands include: Victoria’s Secret, Chanel, Haagen Dazs

The Jester: “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution”
  • Desires and goals: Having a great time and lighting up the world by living in the moment with full enjoyment, humor and fun.
  • Fears: Boredom.
  • Good for brands that help people have a good time, have moderate to low pricing, have a freewheeling and fun organizational structure, and differentiate from self-important and overconfident established brands.
  • Example brands include: Old Spice, Ben & Jerry’s, M&Ms
Providing structure to the World: A desire for security and order.

The Caregiver: “Love your neighbor as yourself”
  • Desires and goals: Protect people from harm through compassion and generosity.
  • Fears: Selfishness and ingratitude.
  • Good for brands with customer service that provides an competitive advantage, that provides support to families, is associated with nurturing like those in healthcare and education, helps people stay connected and care for one another, helps people care for themselves.
  • Example brands include: Johnson & Johnson, Campbell’s Soup, UNICEF

​The Creator: “If it can be imagined, it can be created”
  • Desires and goals: Gives form to something of enduring value through creativity and imagination.
  • Fears: Having a mediocre vision or execution.
  • Good for brands that have a product that encourages self-expression through the fostering of innovation and imagination, is in a creative field like the arts or technological innovation, seeks to differentiate from a brand that doe it all for the customer leaving them little room for choice.
  • Example brands include: Lego, Crayola, Adobe

​The Ruler: “Power isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”
  • Desires and goals: Create a prosperous and successful family/company/community through control, organization, responsibility and leadership.
  • Fears: Chaos and being overthrown.
  • Good for brands that have a high-status product used by powerful people to maintain or enhance their power, a product that helps people be more organized, a brand that promises stability or safety in a chaotic world, a brand seeking to differentiate from the populist everyman brand.
  • Example brands include: Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, British Airways
Iconic Fox, an Australian Advertising Agency, provides great examples of these concepts in a blog post: https://iconicfox.com.au/brand-archetypes/

Business to Business usage of archetypes: If selling a spirit to the on-premise, then knowing your core bar demographics archetype is part of the approach. For example a craft cocktail bar may be perceived as a Sage because people look to them for beverage recommendations. In this case providing insight and training to the bar staff who will be hand-selling the product is critical. This is distinguished from a high-volume bar in which the customer is not looking for that but rather sticking to what they know. If this is the case then discussing your advertising campaigns is more critical than training the staff on the product.

Brand Perception and the Product's Value Proposition

Key terms from economics
  • Opportunity cost: The what needed to be given up (opportunity) in order to obtain the product or service (cost).
  • Utility: Perceived enjoyment by the consumer. Utility is an opinion therefore varies from person to person.
    • Marginal utility = Change in total Utility/ Change in number of units consumed
    • The goal of a consumer is to purchase a product that produces the greatest marginal utility with the least amount of spending. For example: If a beer from a macrobrewery is $5 and a consumer gets 5 units of utility, and a craft beer is $8 and the consumer gets 10 units of utility, then they will purchase the craft beer, as they get 1 unit of utility per dollar spent on a macrobrew versus 1.6 units of utility per dollar spent on beer from a craft beer.
  • Value Proposition Analysis
  • Brand Perception and Customer Analysis
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​Value Proposition Analysis:
Comparing the SWOT Analysis of your product/service vs the industry
      An alternative way to look at a product’s value proposition is its relative value to the target market. For example, a product positioned as a cheaper alternative to another. Another comparative value proposition is positioning as the solution to a particular problem that currently has no market solution.
     To analyze a brand’s own value proposition, a SWOT Analysis summary of the industry can be compared with an internal SWOT Analysis of a brand’s product/service.
Brand Perception and Customer Analysis
To find out what people think about your brand, you can ask and/or make inferences.

Making Inferences
Comparing the demographics of who your brand appeals to with who you thought your brand would appeal to can be done using data from digital sources like:
  • Social Media Analytics on the companies Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok accounts.
  • Web Traffic data can be obtained from the web host or by Google Analytics

Directly Asking
To find out what people think about your brand, ask. The primary methodologies are surveys, interviews and focus groups (group discussions).

Customers
  • Useful questions include:
  • What adjectives best describe this brand?
  • What problem does the brand solve?
  • How does the brand make you feel?
  • Would you recommend the brand to your friends and family?
  • What does the brand’s logo make you think of?
  • How is the brand’s customer service?
  • How could the brand improve its customer service?

Target demographic who are not customers
To measure brand awareness, useful questions include:
  • Have you ever heard of the brand?
  • Have you ever used the brand?
  • What do you know about the brand?
  • How would you describe the brand to others?
  • What problem does the brand solve?
  • How does this brand make you feel?

Employees
As employees create the customer experience, their understanding of the brand is crucial for them to convey it properly. Anonymous surveys can be used. Helpful question include:
  • How would you describe our brand?
  • What is the brand’s vision?
  • What problem does our brand solve?

Communications Strategy

At Your Dapper Consulting, we separate the communications strategy from the Brand Analysis to place the focus on understanding a brand’s identity before we look at how we want to perpetuate it or alter it.  For more insight: 
​www.hawaiibevguide.com/marketing-communication-strategy.html

Sources and Suggested Reading

[1] Washington State University. (2023, June 6). PESTEL Analysis - Industry Research. LibGuides at Washington State University. https://libguides.libraries.wsu.edu/c.php?g=294263&p=4358409

[2] Gladwell, M. (2002). The tipping point: How little things can make a big difference. Back Bay Books.
[3] Matz, S. (n.d.). What Psychological Targeting Can Do. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved June 30, 2023, from https://hbr.org/2023/03/what-psychological-targeting-can-do

[4] Wikipedia contributors. (2023, July 26). Big Five personality traits. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 12:11, July 30, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Big_Five_personality_traits&oldid=1167178458

[5] Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2023, July 17). David Ogilvy. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Ogilvy

[6] Mark, M., & Pearson, C. S. (2001). The hero and the outlaw: Building extraordinary brands through the power of archetypes. McGraw Hill Professional. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/herooutlawbuildi0000mark/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater
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[7] Merlo, O., Eisingerich, A. B., Gillingwater, R., & Cao, J. J. (2022). Exploring the changing role of brand archetypes in customer-brand relationships: Why try to be a hero when your brand can be more?. Business Horizons. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681322001355#bib21