First: Lakers open their preseason on September 30th versus Denver Nuggets at San Diego's Valley View Casino Center (6:30pm).
Plenty of excitement with LeBron. Not so much from their number two NFL draft choice last year. Would you pay $50 to
wear a Big Baller Brand hat like LaVar Ball’s? Would you pay $100 for a Big Baller Brand sweat shirt?
As a marketing and advertising expert, teacher and professional, I’m not going
too far out on the limb…
I’m going to make a
prediction. The Big Baller Brand is done. Or in a Product Lifecycle it's "matured," never got off the introductory sales
Did you know that the
middle brother didn't even get drafted.
Didn't get picked by the Lakers pick at No. 47,
when they selected Kansas’ Svi Mykhailiuk. Then didn't get picked by Phoenix when they passed on him at No. 59. Maybe his talent isn't so high and his shoplifting arrest on UCLA's trip to China had to have played a role. He said: “It
sucks I didn’t get drafted tonight. I guess it was the way I played. I guess.
Or the (expletive) I did off the court. At this point, I’m just … I’m good.”
Go to their website and there is discounting. That is a terrible sign for a new
brand. They have awareness but too much product. To sell it, they may need to use the strategies of "Price," under the 9P's. Simply, discount.
You have crowds who are booing his older brother, Lonzo, “after shooting just 36 percent from the field
and 30.5 percent from 3-point range last season.”
He was not a NBA all-star, rookie of the year and his shooting can only go up.
How do you build a brand, if
those three sons are the cornerstones? Shaky foundation, at best.
After reading a bunch of stories over the last few months, I had my own negative feelings. I
asked some media, marketing and advertising professionals what words they would
associate with LaVar Ball’s Big Baller Brand. Simple marketing research by word
association.
They were not positive.
- “plays media for brand awareness”
- “pompous, arrogant, self centered, ungrateful, cheap”
- “loud mouth, loser, lousy”
Is the brand dead?
May
be, not yet, but it is on life support. That would be discounting, now. Terrible
sign for the Big Baller Brand's business future. They have too much product and
the image very few would want to have. Or wear.
I would ask this
question of any MBA marketing class or undergraduate advertising class?
- Would
you want to wear the Big Baller Brand? The answer would be "Probably
not, maybe not in a million years." Stay tuned. LaVar's brand is on
its 16 second of fame.
Need more business, Marketing or advertising insights?
For the past 47 years, I have been a Marketing professional, a certified
Forensic Marketing Expert, Marketing and Advertising consultant with Londre Marketing
Consultants, LLC plus I teach and give seminars on Marketing,
global Marketing and Advertising. I like giving to MBA candidates and attorneys
is a presentation on "What is Marketing? What is Advertising?"
Ten years ago, I created and own a copyright for the Marketing concept, the
Nine P’s/9 P's of Marketing ©2007, which augments the
Marketing Mix or the 4P's (Product, Price, Promotion and Place) by the American
Marketing Association, Neil Borden and Jerome McCarthy in the study and
practices of Marketing.
In the late 60's I was first taught in Marketing that the "customer,"
or potential purchasers, buyers are king or kings, but they or consumers are
missing as one of the P's, in the 4P's. For marketing professional, the
"target market," "People," buyers and users are more
prominent and has its own "P" or "People," in the 9P's of
Marketing.
The Nine
P's/9P's of Marketing help brand managers, companies,
firms and business managers to find marketing problems, to identify and create
Marketing opportunities or solutions, in a number of areas.
The utilization of the 9P's of Marketing help, develop and guide a company or
a firm's marketing objectives, strategies, tactics and solutions.
The Nine P's can be truly insightful, in many
ways and in many possible actions.
I consult, teach and work as a Marketing, business and Advertising expert using
many Marketing concepts and practices, including the Nine P's/9P's of Marketing.
So what is Marketing, you and others
ask? Marketing is a planning and execution process that involves a product
or service's attributes, research, distribution, pricing, partnerships or
alliances, promotion and more.
All of these activities and tasks must work together to assure successful
marketing practices. Firms, associations and companies with the most
effective marketing efforts try to thoroughly understand their potential buyers
and customers ("People") and the marketplace.
Companies
and new product/service development pros create products and services to meet
market needs. These firms and others use marketing research and channels for
understanding and communicating to market segments, a target market or audience
("People" in the 9P's of Marketing).
In the study and practice
of Marketing, Marketing manager and brand agents develop planning,
objectives, strategies and tactics.
For any size firm and entrepreneurs, the 9P's of Marketing include important
components, elements, actions and efforts.
Let's start with targeting, "People," one of the nine elements or
components. :
- People
- "People" or targeting has almost always been
left out of the traditional "Marketing Mix," almost every
diagram includes the four P's with Product, Promotion, Place and Price.
- Look and analyze potential, new, existing and repeat
customers and users.
- Place "consumer" or "People" or
"potential buyers" in the middle of a circle. Find information
or data on them.
- Add the other components in the nine P's. In
Marketing, from my education, training, research and analysis plus
testimony, there needs to be greater focus on the buyer,
"customer," or "People."
- "People" or market segments may utilize many
characteristics, including demographics, geographics, psychographics,
behavioral characteristics and technographics, which may be a vital
component or components of the 9P's of Marketing.
- Once a target market is chosen, the organization can
develop its marketing strategies to target a market segment or marketing
segments.
- Simply it's about Segmentation and Targeting. Add
Positioning and you have STP, as a major first step.
- Planning:
- It starts with research and researching. This element
of planning in the nine P's is a method for achieving an end, and,
looking at the eight other parts, can be a detailed formulation of a
program of action. I like using a phrase from John Wooden. He said
"Failure to plan is planning to fail."
o
Developing and
transforming marketing objectives to marketing strategies to tactics, marketing
management and managers must make basic decisions on marketing targets
(“People”), marketing mix, pricing, distribution, marketing
budgets/expenditures and marketing allocations.
- Review dividing the total marketing budget among the
various tools in the marketing mix and for the various products,
channels, promotion, media and sales areas.
- Product and Services:
- A product (service) is anything that can be offered to
a market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption that might
satisfy a want or need.
- It's the goods and service combination the firm offers
to the target market, including variety of product mix, features,
branding, designs, packaging, sizes, services, maintenance contracts,
warranties and return policies.
- Place (Distribution):
- Offering the right product at the right PLACE or
location, at the right time, at the right price. It's the company’s
activities that make the product available, using distribution and trade
channels, roles, coverage, assortments, locations, inventory and
transportation characteristics and alternatives.
- Consider, develop and review store and non-store
options, e-commerce and “brick and mortar” factors, geographic
considerations, objectives, strategies and tactics, including “Partners,
too.”
- Price or Pricing:
- Pricing decision making involves adjusting prices
concerning the competitive environment, economic situations and involve
buyer perceptions. Simply, all aspects regarding pricing.
- “Pricing” is the sum of the values that customers
exchange for the benefits of having or using the product or
service.
- The amount of money a consumer is willing to pay to
obtain the product.
- Pricing includes wholesale/retail/promotional prices,
discounts, trade-in allowances, quantity discounts, credit terms, sales
and payment periods and credit terms.
- Promotion:
- There are eight (8) major, strategic components or
communication elements which are personal and non-personal communication
activities.
- The activities that communicate the merits of the
overall product include:
- Personal Selling/ Sales Force: Sales persons
- Listen more than you talk. People who listen more,
learn more, plus helps you position your service/product/solution or
offering.
- Advertising: There's an expression "It is only
creative if the product or service sells." I wanted to add "It
is only good media spending if it sells."
- Sales Promotion
- Collateral Materials
- Direct Marketing (also referred to as Action or
Direct Response Advertising)
- Interactive/Internet/Web, Digital Media, Social
Media:
- Events and Experiences
- Public Relations/PR
- Here are some strategic comments and questions under
Promotion:
- What should you promote? Strategic copy points.
- Evaluate the eight different elements under Promotion
and your brand's practices. Ask is there a better way?
- Have you noticed that you may watch what you want to
watch in TV programing when you want to watch it and anywhere, any
screen? That affects media planning.
- What are your costs in dollars and manpower or person
power? Ask "Is there a different way or ways to budget?"
- Look at different strategic partners? Their costs?
- To whom should you target and promote? Under
"People/"Targeting, target market, audience with media falls
here.
- You can differentiate with
price. Discounting? Special sales? What economic and discount
levels should you offer? Look at revenue versus costs.
- What form or combination of promotion should you
offer? Features?
- How frequent? Add media planning here.
- Partners:
- Also referred to as Alliances.
- Working with others and organizations which take part
in an undertaking with another or others, in a business or company with
shared risks and profits.
- With "Partners" and your Marketing efforts,
it is vitally important to partner and align with firms that have similar
corporate philosophies. Simple but complex and difficult, have agreed
upon objectives and strategies.
- Presentation:
- This “P” or “Presentation” is the act of presenting,
displaying and putting forward any of the different 9P’s© and/or
components to your customers, suppliers, wholesalers, retailers, sales
force, marketing intermediaries, clients, employees, partners, and/or
others.
- Look at “real” product and service experiences.
- Enabling consumers and “allowing” them to feel the
brand. As part of "presentation," I also place “events and
experiences” under Promotion.
- While traditional marketing is based on target
audience impressions/ views/ clicks/ exposure, experimental marketing
involves engaging with your potential consumers.
- Passion:
- Those intense, driving or overmastering feelings,
emotions in the planning, developing, executions of pricing, promoting,
partnering, selling and overall marketing of products or services.
