Fundamentals of Marketing

Module Mindmap
Welcome to the first module of this course: Fundamentals of Marketing.

Let's hear from Kavea as she explains the agenda and the structure for this module.

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Note: The 'Introduction to Marketing' session is optional. You may skip if you have a basic
understanding of marketing.

Let's begin!

Session Overview
Welcome to this session on Introduction to Marketing.

In this session

In this first introductory session, you will learn:

1. What marketing is and why it is necessary

2. How marketing has evolved over time
3. The industry roles available in marketing
4. Typical processes followed by a marketing team

So, let's begin!

DISCLAIMER: This learning module may contain images, both still and moving, including
photographs, advertisements, third party trademarks, video clips, etc that may constitute
copyrighted material procured from open-source, public domain, social media, or other print or
digital publications, with the sole and bonafide intention of imparting education, disseminating
information and illustrating an academic concept or issue. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair
dealing' exception under section 52 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957.
What is Marketing?
Before we go ahead and learn in detail about the fundamentals of marketing, let's answer the
most important question here: What is Marketing?

Take a look at this ad from Amul.

Question 1/1

A majority of Indians have seen this Amul ad at some point in their lives. Ad campaigns such as
these have cemented the position of Amul in our minds as the most recognisable Indian milk
brand.

Let’s hear from Kavea Chavali as she explains the concept of marketing to us.

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As you learnt from the video, advertising is just a small part of marketing. Philip Kotler defines
marketing as:

"The science of choosing target markets and keeping and growing customers through
creating, delivering and communicating customer value."

Now, advertising is one of the major ways through which this value is communicated to the
customer. It is often the best source to analyse the thought process of marketers.

Therefore, we will take help of advertisements throughout this module to demonstrate marketing
concepts. However, as a business student, you must never use the words 'advertising' and
'marketing' interchangeably.
Why is Marketing Necessary?
Effective marketing is one of the key aspects of the success of a business. Marketing helps
generate revenue and build long-term relationships with customers. It is an ongoing process that
begins when a company decides to introduce an idea or a product in the market, and continues
throughout the product's life cycle.
After going through this segment, you should be able to identify the major reasons behind why
marketing is important to businesses.

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In this video, you saw how Nike spends billions of dollars on global advertising. This has
allowed Nike to create a strong brand name for itself. You also learnt about the major functions
of marketing:

1. Marketing keeps the customers engaged.

2. It helps a company stay ahead of its competitors.
3. It drives profitability.
4. It helps identify reasons for losing customers and increases customer retention.
5. It helps in keeping the customers informed.

In the next segment, you will learn about the different industry roles in marketing.

Industry Roles in Marketing

Almost every company today has a marketing department that looks after its marketing activities.
Let’s learn about the responsibilities of a few major industry roles that exist in the field of
marketing.

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In this video, you learnt about the typical hierarchy of the marketing department within an
FMCG company. It goes without saying that the titles of the positions could differ across
different companies; however, their key responsibilities remain the same to a large extent.

Now, the marketing department of a company works along with external marketing agencies at
several points. These could be when the company decides to launch a new product and requires
data through market research or when it wants to design a promotional strategy for its product.

Let’s learn about these external marketing agencies in detail and get a better understanding of the
hierarchy within them in the next video.

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In this video, you learnt about the roles available in market research agencies and creative
agencies. The structures described represent a typical scenario.
The Journey of Marketing
Marketing is a process that has evolved through several decades of experimentation. Today, it
helps companies and consumers in identifying the right product to purchase.

What started as a practice of simply exchanging goods for sustenance has now become a practice
for businesses to attract more customers.

Let’s look at the different eras of marketing in this video.

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The eras of marketing are as follows:

 Era Activities
• The market was a combination of supply and demand for a product.
• It had few to no competitors.
Simple Trade Era
• Supply was limited and industries produced only one product at a time.

• Mass production of goods was undertaken.

• Demand became secondary.
Production Era
• This era was in line with the Industrial Revolution.

• After the Industrial Revolution, products were produced at high rates; hence,
selling them became important.
Sales Era
• Human-to-human marketing was adopted widely.

• Consumers’ expectations became a priority.

Relationship
• Companies started creating dedicated marketing departments.
Marketing Era
• This is the current era of marketing.
• Advancing technology has given customers the option to choose the best
Digital Marketing Era
product from a wide range of options.

Moving on, in the next video, let’s look at the marketing journey of Nike, a company that has
been a market leader in the sports products space for more than half a century now.

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Through Nike's marketing practices, we get the following mantra:

Don't just promote your product, promote an identity, a lifestyle or an emotion. This will help
your consumers form a personal relationship with your company.
The Marketing Process - I
Have you ever wondered what a typical process of launching a new brand or its variant looks
like? It involves making crucial decisions and also the work of multiple stakeholders.

Let’s look at a demonstration of the process of launching a new variant for an existing product.

Note: The following situation is merely a demonstration of the marketing process. It is not meant
to be a template for marketing decisions.
The Situation

A multinational conglomerate headquartered in New Delhi owns a beauty cream brand called
Freshnex. Freshnex has been losing sales, and the brand manager must take immediate action.

In the following video, the brand manager and the marketing head discuss the situation and come
up with a plan to tackle it.

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The Marketing Process - II

You saw that the brand manager and the marketing head propose a plan for launching a new
variant of Freshnex.

As the first step, the brand manager decides to contact an external agency, Surveyation.

In the video below, we will take a look at the different steps taken by the agency. Before going
further, can you answer this question?

The Marketing Process - III

Let's fast-forward a bit. The brand manager has received the research report from Surveyation.

In the following video, you will see him present the results to the marketing head of Freshnex.

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Through these videos, you learnt how major decisions are taken while launching a sub-brand.

Session Summary
Now, let's look at a summary of what you learnt in this session in the following video.

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Session Summary

Download

Attempt the following questions to test your learnings from this session. These assessments
will not be graded.

Byson Detergents

Byson is a brand of detergent manufactured by an FMCG giant. It used to be a market leader, but
of late, its sales have been declining. The brand manager has gone through the existing consumer
feedback data but did not find any consumer complaints. She wants to arrive at the root cause of
declining sales.
JEEmaster

Suppose you and your friend Hemant have both worked in the education industry for 10 years.
You both decide to open a startup 'JEEmaster' that provides online coaching for JEE Mains and
JEE Advanced aspirants.

Now, Hemant does not want to make any investment in marketing at all because he believes that
a good product trumps everything.

Session Overview
Welcome to the session on Marketing Strategy. In the last session, you learnt the basics of
marketing. You also understood the difference between marketing and advertising, the different
functions of marketing and the industry roles in marketing, along with understanding the
different eras of marketing. You also saw a few demonstrations of the marketing process.

In this session

You will focus on how to build an effective marketing strategy and will cover the following
topics:

1. Market segmentation
2. Evaluation of a segmentation strategy
3. Targeting strategies
4. Product positioning

Note that the graded questions are given on a separate page labelled 'Graded Assessments' at the
end of this session. These questions will adhere to the following guidelines:

First Attempt Marks Second Attempt Marks

Question with 2 Attempts 10 5

Question with 1 Attempt 10 0

People you will hear from in this session

Prof. Abhishek

Associate Professor, Marketing Management, IMT Ghaziabad

Prof. Abhishek is currently an Associate Professor of Marketing Management at IMT Ghaziabad.

He has completed his Fellow Program in Management from IIM Ahmedabad and Postgraduate
Diploma in Management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). He was an
Assistant Professor at IIM Ahmedabad from June 2011 to December 2016. His areas of interests
include marketing communications, e-commerce and digital marketing, promotion planning, and
consumer behaviour in the retail context. Prof. Abhishek has also authored research papers on
many topics, including advertising issues, the implications of public policies and the role of
technology in marketing communications, which have been published in different journals. One
of his papers is:

Abhishek (2016). ‘Do time constraint and emergency purchase situation exert the same influence
on shopping? A study under haptic touch influence’. Journal of Retailing and Consumer
Services, 30, 242-251.

Dhaval Doshi

Founder, Smarthome NX

Dhaval is a serial entrepreneur with 11 years of experience in marketing, advertising and e-

commerce, and is the founder of Smarthome NX. He has chalked out successful strategies,
managed large-scale campaigns, created champion ventures and built winning teams from
scratch. His previous stints have been with e-commerce ventures and, most recently, with Indigo
Consulting (Leo Burnett), where he managed digital marketing mandates for brands such as
Bajaj, Axis Bank and Amazon Prime Video. He has now stepped into the world of IoT and
automation with Smarthome NX, along with like-minded people who share his vision to make
homes better and smarter with technology.

Khurram Hamid

Ex-Senior Director, Pfizer

Khurram led the digital marketing channels of Pfizer across the Asia-Pacific regions after
working with the organisation's regional presidents across the Middle East and Africa. He is an
active advisor for multiple companies across diverse industries and is also a board member at
The Cheeky Panda, which is voted as one of the UK's Top 100 startups and is a top-selling tissue
brand on Amazon. In addition to the current role, he has more than 15 years of experience in
leading digital transformation projects for companies. His work includes managing marketing
funds of over $120 million in diverse markets such as Africa, India, the Middle East, Europe and
the US.

Salma Nisar

One Commercial Partner - MEA Sales Excellence, Microsoft

Salma is responsible for taking the ‘digital transformation go-to-market strategy’ to Microsoft’s
branches across the Middle East and Africa. She joined Microsoft in 2006, and since then, she
has held several positions in the service sales of the company’s division in Africa. She was also
part of the delivery management team at Microsoft and has previously worked as a technology
strategist at the Enterprise Commercial Group. Prior to her current role, she worked as a business
manager at Microsoft’s MEA Multi-Country Cluster. Salma has a strong passion for technology
and digital experiences and wishes to bring about a positive change in the lives of consumers
globally.

Pulkit Gupta

Ex-Assistant Brand Manager, ITC

Pulkit graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi,
and has completed his post-graduation from XLRI Jamshedpur. Pulkit has a wide range of
experience across industries. After completing his PGDM, he joined ITC Limited, where he
completed his Trade Marketing and Distribution Divisional training in the Bengal Up-Country
Branch, which involved a rigorous understanding of ITC's sales and distribution (S&D) systems
and processes, a deep understanding of the company’s multiple channels and service packs, and a
thorough knowledge of its grocery and convenience channel businesses. Within a short duration
of time, Pulkit was promoted to the position of Assistant Brand Manager - ITC Limited, where
he managed several brand campaigns, headed new launches and designed market research
modules for multiple cigarette brands.

Sabia Gulati
Ex-Chief Marketing Manager, Marks & Spencer
Sabia is a senior marketing professional with over 16 years of experience in integrated
marketing, strategy-making, CRM, social media marketing, global consumer marketing, market-
entry, and brand launch and positioning. She led the sales and marketing team for Madame
Tussaud's first-ever launch in India. In this project, she created a trade sales plan for increasing
attraction and also worked with global and regional trade sales teams. Prior to this, Sabia was
associated with Marks & Spencer India as their Chief Marketing Manager. In one of her projects
with the company, she was part of the core team that fuelled the company’s footprint expansion
to 50 stores. She was awarded the title of the Most Promising Employee with high-performance
ratings for her contribution to this project. In addition to her professional wins, Sabia has been a
regular speaker and panellist at various marketing forums.

The STP Framework

Before we delve deeper into the process of segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP), let us
first understand the STP framework.
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Now that you have understood the STP framework, answer the questions below.

Organising meetups

Let’s say you are in charge of organising meetups for your cohort. Because the learners in your
cohort are located in different geographies, you realise that you will have to organise separate
meetups for separate locations. The objective is for the learners to get to know each other in a
fun, informal environment.

Based on this situation, answer the following questions.

Segmentation
"Don't find customers for your products, find products for your customers."

-Seth Godin

Different individuals have different needs and choices. A single product cannot satisfy all their
needs. For example, a college student, a graphic designer, a business consultant and an IT
professional would all have different needs and expectations from a laptop.

If a PC manufacturer tries to satisfy all customer needs with the same machine, design and
specifications at the same price, it would not be able to sell its computers, let alone make a
profit.

So, every brand must decide to choose certain customers that it can effectively serve. This
process is called segmentation.

In this session, you will look at three personas that belong to different segments. With the help of
their examples, you will be able to better understand how the elements of an STP framework
affect different segments.
Personas

The first one is Kartik. He is an engineer who works for a Mumbai-based start-up. Kartik is fun-
loving, adventurous and takes his own decisions.

The next one is Pooja, who is an elementary school teacher. She is a mother of two and takes
most of her decisions keeping her kids in mind.

The third is Sanjeev, who is the Procurement Head at upGrad. He leads a luxurious life and
takes all his decisions by himself.

Let's now understand what segmentation is and why a company must segment its market as the
first step in building an effective marketing strategy.

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You saw how Cinthol changed its overall marketing strategy by targeting different types of
consumers. The first step in designing a marketing strategy is to correctly segment the
market. However, before a marketer does this, they must understand the different bases of
segmentation.

Let's learn about these different bases of segmentation in the following video:

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You can use one or many of these methods to segment customers before you choose the most
relevant segment/segments.

Let us now look at how Apple and Microsoft used behaviour-based segmentation.

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But how would you know whether you have chosen the right segment or not? Can you measure
the effectiveness of a segment? Let's find out in the next segment.
Question 2/2
Mandatorys
Evaluation of a Segmentation Strategy
While segmenting the audience, one of the most important factors that you must keep in mind as
a marketer is to check whether the type of segmentation base chosen is relevant to your product
category or not.

You can do this using the MAADS framework.

The acronym MAADS stands for Measurable, Accessible, Actionable, Differentiable and
Substantial. Let's learn more about this in the following video.

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Let us now learn more about the applications of MAADS criteria with an example.

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You saw how the MAADS framework helps you evaluate segments. However, applying the
MAADS criteria is only one of the many ways to check a segment's effectiveness.

Now, let us learn about a few more methods of checking the effectiveness of a segment.

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In this video, you learnt that the different bases of segmentation can be classified as general or
product-specific and observable or unobservable. This classification helps companies understand
their consumers better. These bases would fall under the 2×2 matrix, as shown below:

General Product-Specific
Observable Demographic segmentation Behavioural segmentation
Unobservable Psychographic segmentation Benefit-based segmentation

In the next part of this session, you will learn about how effective targeting strategies are
implemented.

Targeting
After you segment your market, you can choose to cater to the needs of one or many of these
segments. This process is called targeting.

An effective targeting strategy would involve segmenting the market, choosing the appropriate
segments and determining the products that will be offered to each segment.

Let’s learn about targeting and its different strategies in the following video.

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Now that you saw which factors must be kept in mind before targeting your audience, let us learn
about the different targeting strategies used by marketers.

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You learnt about the different targeting strategies and heard Salma talk about Pandora's
differentiated targeting strategy. In the next segment, let's learn about the last element of the STP
framework - Positioning.

Question 2/2

Mandatory

Question 1IncorrectQuestion 2Correct

Additional Reading

• The Beginner's Guide to Customer Targeting by Kayla Carmicheal

Positioning
More often than not, most consumers fall back on their perception of a particular brand, and a
marketer can use this opportunity to shape their consumers' perception of their brand. This
process is called positioning a brand's image in the minds of its target consumers.

Let’s learn more about the positioning process in the following video.

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Now, let's see another example of a unique value proposition. Let's also learn how the concepts
of 'points of difference' and 'points of parity' are used to position a product.

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Now, let's learn about the perceptual map, which is an important tool used to define the product
positioning.

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Let's now learn how an effective perceptual map can help you launch a new product in the
market.

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You saw how a perceptual map helps in visualising your product's competitors in the market and
positioning your product vis-a-vis your competitors' products. This is the final step in the STP
framework.
Industry Applications of the STP Framework
Now that you have a good idea of how Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning are used by
marketers to create an effective marketing strategy, let's hear from Pulkit about the STP
strategies used for ITC's Sunfeast YiPPee Noodles.

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Now, let's hear from Sabia about how Madame Tussauds and Marks & Spencer entered the
Indian market and look at the elements of their marketing strategies.

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You heard from Pulkit and Sabia how different brands devise robust strategies in line with
the STP Framework.
Session Summary
So, what did you learn in this session?

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Session Summary

Download

Use the following questions to test your learnings from this session. These answers will not be
graded.

Kurkure Lite

Kurkure is a brand of corn puffs, produced and developed by PepsiCo India. When it was
launched in 1999, it created an entirely new category of snack, something with the convenience
of a pack of potato wafers and matching the taste palate of traditional Indian namkeens.

Over recent years, however, with the emergence of healthier alternatives, Kurkure's brand image
has taken a hit, with the product being seen as a spicy, unhealthy snack. PepsiCo plans to launch
Kurkure Lite - a healthier, baked, wholewheat variant.
Session Overview
Welcome to the session on ‘Marketing Mix’. In the last session, you learnt about segmentation,
how to decide who your target customers are, and how to position your product in the minds of
the target customers. In this session, you will learn about the levers that govern the process of
positioning.

In this session

To position your product better in your target audience's minds, you must use the 4Ps of
marketing. In this session, you will learn about the strategies related to the following:

1. Product
2. Price
3. Place
4. Promotion

Note that graded questions are given on a separate page labelled 'Graded Assessments', at the
end of the last session. These graded questions will adhere to the following guidelines:

First Attempt Marks Second Attempt Marks

Question with 2 Attempts 10 5

Question with 1 Attempt 10 0

People you will hear from in this session

Pulkit Gupta

Ex-Assistant Brand Manager, ITC

Pulkit graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi,
and has completed his post-graduation from XLRI Jamshedpur. Pulkit has a wide range of
experience across different industries. After completing his PGDM, he joined ITC Limited where
he completed his Trade Marketing and Distribution Divisional training in the Bengal Up-Country
Branch, which involved a rigorous understanding of ITC's S&D systems and processes, a deep
understanding of the company’s multiple channels and service packs, and a thorough knowledge
of its grocery and convenience channel businesses. Within a short duration of time, Pulkit was
promoted to the position of an Assistant Brand Manager - ITC Limited, where he managed
several brand campaigns, headed new launches and designed market research modules for
multiple cigarette brands.

Sabia Gulati
Ex-Chief Marketing Manager, Marks & Spencer
Sabia is a senior marketing professional with over 16 years of experience in integrated
marketing, strategy-making, CRM, social media marketing, global consumer marketing, market-
entry, and brand launch and positioning. She led the sales and marketing team for Madame
Tussaud's first-ever launch in India. In this project, she created a trade sales plan for increasing
attraction and also worked with global and regional trade sales teams. Prior to this, Sabia was
associated with Marks & Spencer India as their Chief Marketing Manager. In one of her projects
with the company, she was part of the core team that fuelled the company’s footprint expansion
to 50 stores. She was awarded the title of the Most Promising Employee with high-performance
ratings for her contribution to this project. In addition to her professional wins, Sabia has been a
regular speaker and panellist at various marketing forums.

Session Transcript

Download

The 4Ps Framework

In the previous session, you learnt about the segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies
(STP Framework).

Next, let us look at a few positioning components that deeply determine whether a marketing
strategy will generate desirable outcomes or not. These components are collectively called the
4Ps of Marketing or the Marketing Mix.

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Let's learn about the 4Ps of a product's Marketing Mix in detail in the next few segments.
Product
Imagine you go to a store to buy a new phone.

You have a budget in mind and know your desired specifications: a top-of-the-line Snapdragon
processor, at least 8 GB RAM, a dual-camera set-up, and a high screen-to-body ratio.
Luckily, you find two phones that match your expectations.

But there’s a catch! Phone A has a glass back and charges wirelessly, whereas Phone B does
not. Also, Phone A comes with an extended warranty, but you are not sure about Phone B’s post-
sales services. The choice of purchase is simple now, isn’t it?

Now that you have gradually begun to think like a marketer, you must have understood that the
two phones had similar specifications, which were the points of parity. However, the purchase
decision was made between the two phones based on the points of difference.

In the case of Phone A, the tangible benefits of better product design and the intangible benefits
of post-sale customer services helped in differentiating it from Phone B. Product-level decisions
are extremely important in influencing customers’ purchase decisions.

But what exactly is a product? Is it just a physical, tangible good that you get when you purchase
it?

Let’s learn about the different components of a product and how an effective product strategy
can fulfil the customers’ needs in different ways.

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In this video, you learnt about the first element of the marketing mix: Product.

Starting with the different product levels, you understood the components essential to meet the
customers’ needs.

Let's now learn about the different stages in a product's life cycle.

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You now have an all-rounded knowledge of developing, launching and maintaining a product.

In the next segment, you will learn about the second element in the 4P Framework: Price.

Price
Until now, you have learnt about segmenting and targeting your consumers in order to
effectively position your product in the minds of your target market.

You also learnt how to formulate an effective product strategy.

Now, do you know why is pricing an important lever of positioning a brand? Let’s try and
understand this with the use of an example.

Adidas sells three types of shoes at three different price points.

• You can pick up the Adidas Cloudfoam for around ₹3,000.

• For the Adidas Bounce, you need to shell out ₹6,000.

 • For the Adidas UltraBoost, you need to spend more than ₹10,000.

Adidas sells each of these products on the same pitch – It feels like you’re walking on a cloud.
But, according to you, which of these three products is the softest, the bounciest and the most
comfortable?
When consumers pay a high price, they have high expectations from the product. Companies
must ensure that these expectations are met.

In this segment, you will learn about the second P of the marketing mix: Price.

We will also look in detail at the 'What' of pricing: What does pricing entail? What are the
different pricing strategies available to a marketer?

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In this segment, you learnt about the importance of pricing your product effectively and also
understood the three pricing strategies.

Let's proceed by learning about the next P of the marketing mix: Place.
Place
You already know how product elements like the logo, packaging, colour schemes and labelling
are strategised by marketers.

In the previous session, you learned why and how a product needs to have an effective pricing
strategy in order to appeal to its target segment.

But let us imagine that a perfect product exists, which solves an important problem in the
consumers’ lives. Moreover, it comes at an attractive price and, consequently, there exists a huge
demand for it. However, owing to inefficient placement, customers cannot make any purchase.
In this case, what do you think will happen to the intended marketing objectives? They go for a
toss, right? This brings us to the third element of the marketing mix - Place.

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Moving on, let's look at two important factors that a marketer must keep in mind in order to
manage his/her distribution channels effectively.

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Now that you have a good idea about the first three elements of the 4Ps Framework, let's learn
about the last component of a product's Marketing Mix - Promotion, in the next segment.
Promotion
Let’s begin this session by understanding why developing a promotional strategy is important for
a brand and how it helps them reach their target audience effectively.

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You heard Pulkit talk about key elements of a promotion strategy. Here are some of the ads from
Oreo that he referred to.

Industry Applications of the 4Ps Framework

Now, you have learnt about the marketing mix of several products and have a fair idea about
how it controls the success of your product.

Let us now hear from Pulkit about the Marketing Mix of ITC's Sunfeast YiPPee Noodles.

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Moving on, let's hear from Sabia about the Marketing Mix of Marks & Spencer.

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Note: In the video above, the image at 4:52 is a representation of using local language and not
the actual language used in Amritsar, Punjab.

In the video above, you heard from Sabia about the marketing mix of M&S when it decided to
open a store in Amritsar, Punjab. Starting with understanding what the consumer wants, the
product offerings focussed on producing bundled items like multi-packs of shirts, t-shirts and
socks. At the stores, the women's section of clothes was larger in size as compared to the men's
and kid's section. Moreover, the consumers preferred these products in a bright colour with
simple silhouettes.

Since Amritsar is a tier-2 city, the products were priced in an affordable range and placed
strategically in malls where families prefer to spend their time in leisure activities. The idea was
to open stores at all locations in the city that were convenient and easily accessible to families.
The communication of the product, its price and distribution was done through simple and
hardcore traditional advertising. Newspaper ads were printed in the local language to enhance the
connect between M&S and its customers.

The examples above should help you appreciate the vast applications of the 4Ps framework in
different industries.
Session Summary
Let's summarise what you learnt in this session in the following video.

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Session Summary

Download

Use the following questions to test your learnings from this session. These answers will not be
graded.

Kurkure Lite (Cont.)

Kurkure is a brand of corn puffs, produced and developed by PepsiCo India. When it was
launched in 1999, it created an entirely new category of snack, something with the convenience
of a pack of potato wafers and matching the taste palate of traditional Indian namkeens.

Over recent years, however, with the emergence of healthier alternatives, Kurkure's brand image
has taken a hit, with the brand being seen as a spicy, unhealthy snack. PepsiCo plans to launch
Kurkure Lite - a healthier, baked, wholewheat variant.
Consumer Behaviour

Module Overview
Welcome to the second module of this course: Consumer Behaviour. Let's hear from Dhaval as
he explains the agenda and the structure for this module.

So, let's begin!

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[Note: Some experts use the term 'marketing funnel' whereas others use 'purchase funnel'. Both
refer to the same concept.]

In this session

You will learn about the basics of consumer behaviour and cover the following topics:

1. The importance of understanding consumer behaviour

2. The basic consumer behaviour model

People you will hear from in this session

Prof. Abhishek
Associate Professor, Marketing Management, IMT Ghaziabad
Prof. Abhishek is currently an Associate Professor of Marketing Management at IMT Ghaziabad.
He has completed his Fellow Program in Management from IIM Ahmedabad and Postgraduate
Diploma in Management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). He was an
Assistant Professor at IIM Ahmedabad from June 2011 to December 2016. His areas of
interest include marketing communications, e-commerce and digital marketing, promotion
planning and consumer behaviour in the retail context. Prof. Abhishek has also authored research
papers on many topics, including advertising issues, the implications of public policies and the
role of technology in marketing communications, which have been published in different
journals.
Dhaval Doshi

Founder, Smarthome NX

Dhaval is a serial entrepreneur with 11 years of experience in marketing, advertising and e-

commerce, and is the founder of Smarthome NX. He has chalked out successful strategies,
managed large-scale campaigns, created champion ventures and built winning teams from
scratch. His previous stints have been with e-commerce ventures and, most recently, with Indigo
Consulting (Leo Burnett), where he managed digital marketing mandates for brands such as
Bajaj, Axis Bank and Amazon Prime Video. He has now stepped into the world of IoT and
automation with Smarthome NX, along with like-minded people who share his vision to make
homes better and smarter with technology.

Khurram Hamid

Ex-Senior Director, Pfizer

Khurram led the digital marketing channels of Pfizer across the Asia-Pacific regions after
working with the organisation's regional presidents across the Middle East and Africa. He is an
active advisor for multiple companies across diverse industries and is also a board member at
The Cheeky Panda, which is voted as one of the UK's Top 100 startups and is a top-selling tissue
brand on Amazon. In addition to the current role, he has more than 15 years of experience in
leading digital transformation projects for companies. His work includes managing marketing
funds of over $120 million in diverse markets such as Africa, India, the Middle East, Europe and
the US.

Salma Nisar

One Commercial Partner - MEA Sales Excellence, Microsoft

Salma is responsible for taking the ‘digital transformation go-to-market strategy’ to Microsoft’s
branches across the Middle East and Africa. She joined Microsoft in 2006, and since then, she
has held several positions in the service sales of the company’s division in Africa. She was also
part of the delivery management team at Microsoft and has previously worked as a technology
strategist at the Enterprise Commercial Group. Prior to her current role, she worked as a business
manager at Microsoft’s MEA Multi-Country Cluster. Salma has a strong passion for technology
and digital experiences and wishes to bring about a positive change in the lives of consumers
globally.

Pulkit Gupta
Ex-Assistant Brand Manager, ITC

Pulkit graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi,
and has completed his post-graduation from XLRI Jamshedpur. Pulkit has a wide range of
experience across industries. After completing his PGDM, he joined ITC Limited, where he
completed his Trade Marketing and Distribution Divisional training in the Bengal Up-Country
Branch, which involved a rigorous understanding of ITC's sales and distribution (S&D) systems
and processes, a deep understanding of the company’s multiple channels and service packs, and a
thorough knowledge of its grocery and convenience channel businesses. Within a short duration
of time, Pulkit was promoted to the position of Assistant Brand Manager - ITC Limited, where
he managed several brand campaigns, headed new launches and designed market research
modules for multiple cigarette brands.

DISCLAIMER: This learning module may contain images, both still and moving, including
photographs, advertisements, third-party trademarks, video clips, etc. that may constitute
copyrighted material procured from open-source, public domain, social media, or other print or
digital publications, with the sole and bonafide intention of imparting education, disseminating
information and illustrating an academic concept or issue. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair
dealing' exception under section 52 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957.

We do not advertise any brand mentioned in the module.

Importance of Understanding Consumer

Behaviour
In today’s world, as companies face growing competition, it is crucial for them to understand the
needs of their target audience. This helps them meet the expectations of their customers and,
eventually, meet their marketing objectives.

In this video, let us learn about the different benefits that an organisation derives by having a
good understanding of its potential customer's behaviour.

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In this video, you saw that one of the ways in which an organisation can maintain strong
consumer focus is by studying its consumer’s behaviour.
Consumer behaviour can be defined as the study of the behaviour displayed by an individual
while obtaining, consuming or disposing products and services and the decision processes
that precede and follow these actions.

You learnt that the study of consumer behaviour helps companies in a number of ways.

Importance of studying consumer behaviour

Brands are increasingly using their understanding of consumer behaviour to improve customer-
centricity by using digital strategies. Here's an example from our expert Khurram on how GSK
used their understanding of consumer behaviour to boost sales.

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Moving on, let’s hear from Salma as she talks about how a few institutions and brands studied
their consumer's behaviour and designed exemplary customer-focused digital strategies to cater
to their needs.

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Now, based on your learning from this segment, attempt the following questions.
The Basic Consumer Behaviour Model
One of the most effective ways in which companies can bridge the gap between their products
and their target audience is by correctly identifying the different stages of their consumers’
decision-making process and the factors that affect their decisions, directly or indirectly.

Let’s learn about this in detail from Professor Abhishek.

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In this video, you learnt about the Basic Consumer Behaviour Model, which lays down the
factors that affect a consumer’s decision-making process while purchasing a product or a
service.

Basic Consumer Behaviour Model

Now, based on your learnings from this segment, attempt the following assessments.
Session Summary
So, what did you learn in this session? Let’s take a look at the summary video.

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Session Summary

Download

Answer the following questions to test your learnings from this session. Please note that these
assessments will not be graded.

Question 2/2

Mandatory
Question 1Correct

Question 2Correct
Session
Overview
The major factors that influence consumer behaviour and decision-making can be broadly
classified into two categories: internal and external. In this session, you will focus on learning
about the external factors and their role in a consumer’s decision-making process.

In this session

You will learn about the following external factors that influence a consumer’s buying decision:

1. Culture
2. Family and friends
3. Lifestyle
4. Socioeconomic class

Note that graded questions are given on a separate page labelled 'Graded Assessments', at the
end of the last segment. These graded questions will adhere to the following guidelines:

First Attempt Marks Second Attempt Marks

Questions with 2 Attempts 10 5

Questions with 1 Attempt 10 0

People you will hear from in this session

Prof. Abhishek
Associate Professor, Marketing Management, IMT Ghaziabad
Prof. Abhishek is currently an Associate Professor of Marketing Management at IMT Ghaziabad.
He has completed his Fellow Program in Management from IIM Ahmedabad and Postgraduate
Diploma in Management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). He was an
Assistant Professor at IIM Ahmedabad from June 2011 to December 2016. His areas of
interest include marketing communications, e-commerce and digital marketing, promotion
planning and consumer behaviour in the retail context. Prof. Abhishek has also authored research
papers on many topics, including advertising issues, the implications of public policies and the
role of technology in marketing communications, which have been published in different
journals. One of his papers is: ‘Do time constraint and emergency purchase situation exert the
same influence on shopping? A study under haptic touch influence’. Journal of Retailing and
Consumer Services, 30, 242-251.

Dhaval Doshi

Founder, Smarthome NX

Dhaval is a serial entrepreneur with 11 years of experience in marketing, advertising and e-

commerce, and is the founder of Smarthome NX. He has chalked out successful strategies,
managed large-scale campaigns, created champion ventures and built winning teams from
scratch. His previous stints have been with e-commerce ventures and, most recently, with Indigo
Consulting (Leo Burnett), where he managed digital marketing mandates for brands such as
Bajaj, Axis Bank and Amazon Prime Video. He has now stepped into the world of IoT and
automation with Smarthome NX, along with like-minded people who share his vision to make
homes better and smarter with technology.

Saugata Bagchi
Head - Global Content Marketing, Tata Communications
Saugata currently heads Global Content Marketing at Tata Communications. He manages and
guides a team of enthusiastic professionals to create content and publish it on the right brand
assets. Saugata’s key responsibility is to deliver stories which are based on the organisation’s
customer, business and brand objectives. Before joining Tata communications, Saugata was the
National Head of Quasar Media, where he improved upon the agency's products by developing
and sharpening existing capabilities in Communications Planning, UX/UI and Web Analytics,
Consumer Insights and Digital Activation, along with his core team. His career and work
experience have provided him with an in-depth understanding of the marketing ecosystem,
consumer behaviour, and changing purchase journeys.

DISCLAIMER: This learning module may contain images, both still and moving, including
photographs, advertisements, third-party trademarks, video clips, etc. that may constitute
copyrighted material procured from open-source, public domain, social media, or other print or
digital publications, with the sole and bonafide intention of imparting education, disseminating
information and illustrating an academic concept or issue. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair
dealing' exception under section 52 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957.

Session Transcript

Download
Culture
Before we begin, take a look at this video by the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, which
shows people from across the globe, talk about the term 'Culture' and what it means to them.

Now, let’s hear from Professor Abhishek about the influence of Culture on the consumer's
buying behaviour.

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In this video, you learnt that culture can be defined as a set of fundamental beliefs and customs
that influences an individual’s way of life and choices. These practices may have been passed
on by the family, society or other similar institutions.

Different cultures often give rise to different consumer needs. This is why companies like
McDonald's include some vegetarian items on their Indian menu.

Now, let’s hear from our expert, Saugata, as he talks about Bajaj’s strategy to identify and cater
to the culture-based needs of its consumers.

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Through the example of Bajaj in the above video, you learnt how different resellers and
distributors cater to different audiences and consumers based on their culture-specific needs.

Now, based on your learning from this segment, attempt the following assessments.

Workplace Activity

Think of the most valuable product that your company produces. Use the following practice
sheet to define its consumer behaviour model. After completing the task, get your answer vetted
for accuracy by someone from your company's marketing department.
Note: If you are not working currently or are self-employed, you may perform this activity on
any product of your

Family and Friends

Let’s say you found an expensive, fancy shirt online and wish to order it for your birthday. You
send its picture to your family and a few friends, but each one of them has a different opinion
about it.

Question 1/1
Mandatory
Question 1Submitted

Let us learn how consumers’ decision-making process is influenced by the opinions of their
friends and family.

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In this video, you learnt that individuals’ family members and friends form an important part of
their reference group and have a direct or indirect influence on their buying behaviour.

You also learnt that reference groups can be classified as follows:

Types of reference groups

Now, based on your learnings from this segment, attempt the following questions.
Lifestyle
Lifestyle can be defined as the way an individual lives their life based on their personal choices
and interests. Lifestyle also depends on other factors such as the person's background, education
and the nature of their work.

Let’s discuss how marketers learn about their consumer’s buying behaviour based on their
lifestyle and leverage it to influence their purchase decision.

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In the video given above, you learnt that lifestyle is the pattern of living as expressed through
an individual’s activities, interests and opinions.

These are also called ‘lifestyle dimensions’ and have a direct impact on the manner in which an
individual spends his/her time and money.

Lifestyle
Description
dimension
These include a person’s daily routine and other related tasks, which directly affect
buying behaviour. For example, a working professional will have a different purchasing
Activities pattern than a freelancer. Similarly, social events, choice of entertainment, and
recreational ideas, among other things, can give companies clues about a consumer’s
purchasing behaviour.
These are ideas that drive an individual’s passion. A passionate reader may include
Interests and reading and writing as his/her interests and might choose to spend more on buying books
Opinions as compared to a travel enthusiast who would not mind spending heavily on travel
interests.
These differentiate consumers based on their age, income, marital status, and other
Demographics characteristics. Consumers falling in a particular age/income group or residing in a
particular region might prefer a certain brand over other brands.

Now, based on your learnings from this segment, attempt the following questions.

Socio-Economic Class (SEC)

The next external factor that you are going to learn about is the socio-economic class of the
consumer.

So, let's look at this video to understand the influence of an individual's socio-economic class on
his/her purchase decisions.

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In this video, you learnt that socio-economic classification is based on two parameters:

1. The education level of the chief earner of the individual's family

2. The number of consumer durables owned by the individual's family

Based on these two parameters, 12 grades are created: A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, C1, C2, D1, D2, E1,
E2, and E3, which are in decreasing order in the context of SEC.
SEC Classification

Now, based on your learnings from this segment, attempt the following questions.
Session Summary
So, what did you learn in this session? Let’s take a look at the session summary.

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Session Summary
Download

Answer the following questions to test your learnings from this session. Please note that these
assessments will not be graded.
Session Overview
In the previous session, you learnt about the external factors that have either a direct or an
indirect impact on a consumer’s decision-making process. Let's now focus on internal factors.

In this session

You will learn about the following internal factors that influence a consumer’s buying decision:

1. Motivation
2. Perception
3. Learning
4. Attitudes and beliefs
Note that graded questions are given on a separate page labelled 'Graded Assessments', at the
end of the last segment. These graded questions will adhere to the following guidelines:

First Attempt Marks Second Attempt Marks

Questions with 2 Attempts 10 5

Questions with 1 Attempt 10 0

People you will learn from in this session

Prof. Abhishek
Associate Professor, Marketing Management, IMT Ghaziabad
Prof. Abhishek is currently an Associate Professor of Marketing Management at IMT Ghaziabad.
He has completed his Fellow Program in Management from IIM Ahmedabad and Postgraduate
Diploma in Management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). He was an
Assistant Professor at IIM Ahmedabad from June 2011 to December 2016. His areas of
interest include marketing communications, e-commerce and digital marketing, promotion
planning and consumer behaviour in the retail context. Prof. Abhishek has also authored research
papers on many topics, including advertising issues, the implications of public policies and the
role of technology in marketing communications, which have been published in different
journals. One of his papers is: ‘Do time constraint and emergency purchase situation exert the
same influence on shopping? A study under haptic touch influence’. Journal of Retailing and
Consumer Services, 30, 242-251.

Dhaval Doshi

Founder, Smarthome NX

Dhaval is a serial entrepreneur with 11 years of experience in marketing, advertising and e-

commerce, and is the founder of Smarthome NX. He has chalked out successful strategies,
managed large-scale campaigns, created champion ventures and built winning teams from
scratch. His previous stints have been with e-commerce ventures and, most recently, with Indigo
Consulting (Leo Burnett), where he managed digital marketing mandates for brands such as
Bajaj, Axis Bank and Amazon Prime Video. He has now stepped into the world of IoT and
automation with Smarthome NX, along with like-minded people who share his vision to make
homes better and smarter with technology.
Khurram Hamid

Ex-Senior Director, Pfizer

Khurram led the digital marketing channels of Pfizer across the Asia-Pacific regions after
working with the organisation's regional presidents across the Middle East and Africa. He is an
active advisor for multiple companies across diverse industries and is also a board member at
The Cheeky Panda, which is voted as one of the UK's Top 100 startups and is a top-selling tissue
brand on Amazon. In addition to the current role, he has more than 15 years of experience in
leading digital transformation projects for companies. His work includes managing marketing
funds of over $120 million in diverse markets such as Africa, India, the Middle East, Europe and
the US.

DISCLAIMER: This learning module may contain images, both still and moving, including
photographs, advertisements, third-party trademarks, video clips, etc. that may constitute
copyrighted material procured from open-source, public domain, social media, or other print or
digital publications, with the sole and bonafide intention of imparting education, disseminating
information and illustrating an academic concept or issue. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair
dealing' exception under section 52 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957.

Motivation is a factor that drives consumers into purchasing products that might directly or
indirectly fulfil their needs. Leveraged by marketers, motivation plays a crucial role in a
consumer’s decision-making process.

Let’s learn more about the impact of motivation in this video.

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[Note: In the above video, at about 1:42 to 1:55, the professor mentions the terms external and
internal motivation. These mean the same as extrinsic and intrinsic motivation respectively.]

In the video, you learnt about two categories of motivation:

Types of motivation

You also learnt about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that qualitative researchers use to gain
consumer insights.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Now, let’s look at an example where P&G applied Maslow’s theory to penetrate the African
market.

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Thus, P&G addressed the lower levels of Maslow's pyramid and solved the most pressing
concerns of their consumers.

Now, based on your learnings from this segment, attempt the following assessments.
Perception
Different consumers have different perceptions of products. Sometimes, their decision-making
process is influenced by these perceptions in addition to a product’s actual features.
So, as a marketer, it is necessary to understand the factors that led to the formation of these
perceptions and make the most of the insights gained.

Let's learn about the formation of consumers’ perception and its different stages.

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In the above video, you learnt about the formation of perceptions. Its stages can be defined as:

Perceptual Process

You also learnt that perceptual selection can be further divided into three types:

Types of Perceptual Selection

Based on your learnings from this segment, attempt the following assessment.
Learning
According to Philip Kotler:

“Learning involves changes in an individual’s behaviour, arising out of experiences.”

But, how does a consumer’s learning influence his/her purchase decisions? And how can
marketers leverage this to attract more customers? Let’s find the answers to these questions
through this video.

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[Note: In the video at 1:25, the screen size of iPhone X is written as 4.8 inch instead of 5.8
inch]

From the video above, you learnt that learning can be divided into the following categories:

Types of learning

You also learnt about the three models of learning, which are as follows
Models of learning

Based on what you have learnt in this segment, attempt the following assessment.
Attitudes and Beliefs
An individual’s belief about a product or service depends primarily on their initial knowledge
about the product or the brand associated with it, while their attitude is developed over a
significant period of time. Most often, an individual’s attitude towards a particular product or
service is dependent on their beliefs.

Now, let’s learn in detail about the different types of attitudes and beliefs and their influence on
consumer behaviour.

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In the video, you learnt how the buying behaviour of consumers is affected by their beliefs
pertaining to a product or a service. Eventually, they develop an attitude towards the brand.

An individual’s attitude towards a product/service is usually developed in three ways:

Ways to develop attitude

Now, based on your learnings from this segment, attempt the following assessments.
Session Summary
So, what did you learn in this session? Let’s take a quick recap through the following video.
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Answer the following questions to test your learnings from this session. These assessments will
not be graded.

Session Summary
Download
Session Overview
Welcome to this session on ‘Consumer Decision-Making Process’. In the last session, you
learnt about the internal factors that directly or indirectly affect a consumer’s decision-making
process.

In this session

You will learn about the following topics:

1. Decision-making process
2. Decision-making rules
3. Online purchase decisions
4. Business-to-business or B2B purchase decisions
5. Purchase funnel

Note that graded questions are given on a separate page labelled 'Graded Quizzes', at the end of
the last segment. These graded questions will adhere to the following guidelines:

First Attempt Marks Second Attempt Marks

Questions with 2 Attempts 10 5

Questions with 1 Attempt 10 0

People you will hear from in this session

Prof. Abhishek
Associate Professor, Marketing Management, IMT Ghaziabad
Prof. Abhishek is currently an Associate Professor of Marketing Management at IMT Ghaziabad.
He has completed his Fellow Program in Management from IIM Ahmedabad and Postgraduate
Diploma in Management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). He was an
Assistant Professor at IIM Ahmedabad from June 2011 to December 2016. His areas of
interest include marketing communications, e-commerce and digital marketing, promotion
planning and consumer behaviour in the retail context. Prof. Abhishek has also authored research
papers on many topics, including advertising issues, the implications of public policies and the
role of technology in marketing communications, which have been published in different
journals. One of his papers is: ‘Do time constraint and emergency purchase situation exert the
same influence on shopping? A study under haptic touch influence’. Journal of Retailing and
Consumer Services, 30, 242-251.

Dhaval Doshi

Founder, Smarthome NX

Dhaval is a serial entrepreneur with 11 years of experience in marketing, advertising and e-

commerce, and is the founder of Smarthome NX. He has chalked out successful strategies,
managed large-scale campaigns, created champion ventures and built winning teams from
scratch. His previous stints have been with e-commerce ventures and, most recently, with Indigo
Consulting (Leo Burnett), where he managed digital marketing mandates for brands such as
Bajaj, Axis Bank and Amazon Prime Video. He has now stepped into the world of IoT and
automation with Smarthome NX, along with like-minded people who share his vision to make
homes better and smarter with technology.

Sabia Gulati
Ex-Chief Marketing Manager, Marks & Spencer
Sabia is a senior marketing professional with over 16 years of experience in integrated
marketing, strategy-making, CRM, social media marketing, global consumer marketing, market-
entry, and brand launch and positioning. She led the sales and marketing team for Madame
Tussaud's first-ever launch in India. In this project, she created a trade sales plan for increasing
attraction and also worked with global and regional trade sales teams. Prior to this, Sabia was
associated with Marks & Spencer India as their Chief Marketing Manager. In one of her projects
with the company, she was part of the core team that fuelled the company’s footprint expansion
to 50 stores. She was awarded the title of the Most Promising Employee with high-performance
ratings for her contribution to this project. In addition to her professional wins, Sabia has been a
regular speaker and panellist at various marketing forums.

Anuri Mehta
Ex-Marketing Manager, Hindustan Unilever Limited
A passionate marketer having over 14 years of experience building brands, Anuri has worked
with Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) in roles across segments including Homecare (Surf
Excel Matic), Foods & Refreshments (Kissan and Brooke Bond) and Personal Care (TIGI
Professional Hair Products). Anuri was associated with Sony Pictures Networks as an Assistant
Vice-president of the company’s marketing department. Her core skills include brand building,
insight mining, brand proposition and communication development, consumer research, digital
marketing, and media management.
DISCLAIMER: This learning module may contain images, both still and moving, including
photographs, advertisements, third party trademarks, video clips, etc that may constitute
copyrighted material procured from open-source, public domain, social media, or other print or
digital publications, with the sole and bonafide intention of imparting education, disseminating
information and illustrating an academic concept or issue. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair
dealing' exception under section 52 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957.

Decision-Making Process
In the earlier sessions, you learnt about various external and internal influencers of the
consumer’s decision-making process. But what exactly is a consumer’s decision-making
process? What are the different stages of that process?

Let’s find out the answers to these questions in this segment.

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In this video, you learnt about the five steps in a decision-making process. They can be listed as
follows:
Steps in the decision-making process
Class Opinion

Go back to the last time you purchased a consumer durable- say a refrigerator or a washing
machine. How did the entire journey from need recognition to the purchase begin?

332 Responses
AM
Ankita Morgaonkar
The purchasing journey started from need recognition. Old washing machine was not working
well and repairing cost was too high. The best option was to purchase the new in exchange offer.
After going through many online options available short listed a few based on price, brand image
, warrantee and service center availability. Got a know there is significant discount available on
purchasing with a particular credit card. - Went ahead with that
Bhavesh P
The buying process began with the identification of a need. Repairing the old washing machine
was too expensive. In the end, purchasing the new exchange offer was the wisest decision to be
made. After looking at a slew of online alternatives, we narrowed it down to a select handful
based on factors such as price, brand image, warranty, and proximity to a repair centre. Learned
that shopping with a specific credit card results in considerable savings. - Decided to move
forward with it
Your response has been recorded!

Decision-Making Rules
'Decision rules' are simple strategies used by consumers to choose the best product or service
from a variety of alternatives available to them.

But, what are these decision rules? And how do they differ from one person the other? Let's hear
from Anuri, our expert, as she talks about the different decision-making rules that consumers use
for evaluating all available options and selecting one or more among them for the final purchase.

[Note: In the video, the ratings for product attributes are for reference purpose only and do not
reflect on the brand in any way]

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In this video, you learnt about the different decision-making rules that consumers follow while
purchasing a product. They can be broadly classified into three types:

Consumer decision-making rules

Furthermore, you learnt that the non-compensatory decision rule can be of three types:

Types of Non-compensatory Decision Rules

You also learnt that consumers do not actually sit down with a pen and paper and do all the
maths, even though the decision-rules appear very comprehensive and quantitative.

Now, based on your learning from this segment, try to answer the following question.
Online Purchase Decisions
Let's begin this segment by answering a simple poll.

Question 1/1
Mandatory
Question 1Submitted

Let's hear from Professor Abhishek as he talks about the "Online purchase decision-making
process" and the basic difference between the online and offline decision-making process for
consumers.

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In this video, you looked at a typical scenario of purchasing a camera online and the steps
followed by a consumer during the process. Now, depending on the type of product or service
being purchased and the company a consumer is purchasing from, these steps are likely to vary a
bit.

Based on what you learnt in this segment, attempt the following questions.

B2B Purchase Decisions

Till now, you learnt about the traditional customer decision-making process and the online-
decision making process. Moreover, you might have realised that the process we described is
majorly relevant in a business-to-customer (B2C) scenario.
The business-to-business (B2B) customer, on the other hand, goes through a different process,
which is typically longer and more complex in nature.

Let’s hear more about this from Professor Abhishek.

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In the above video, you learnt that a consumer's decision-making process in a B2B scenario
typically consists of the following steps:

B2B Consumer decision-making process

You learnt that a typical B2B decision-making process is longer than a traditional process
because it requires adherence to the organisation's procurement process and involves multiple
vendors.
Based on what you learnt in this segment, attempt the following questions.

Purchase Funnel
Every day, people form impressions about several brands that they come across on various
online and offline platforms. When they step out or look online to buy a particular product, they
have multiple options to choose from.
In such a scenario, how do you think companies ensure that they acquire new customers along
with retaining the existing ones? What process do they follow after analysing their consumer’s
buying behaviour?

Let’s find out the answers to these questions in this segment.

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In the video, you learnt about the four stages of the purchase funnel which can be defined as
follows:

1. Awareness: In this stage, the focus is on creating brand awareness and generating interest
among the target audience.

2. Consideration: In this stage, brands provide more information about their product and ask the
customers to evaluate and choose a product.

3. Purchase: In this stage, brands drive their target audience to buy their product.

4. Delight: In this stage, the customer is provided post-purchase benefits and special offers.

Now, once a business has acquired new customers after applying unique strategies at the
different stages of the purchase funnel, it must ensure that the customers remain loyal to its
brand. A consumer's post-purchase experience is the key factor in determining whether the
consumer comes back for repeat purchase or not.

Let's hear Sabia explain how Madame Tussauds and Marks & Spencer managed to keep their
customers loyal to the brands using loyalty clubs.

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In this video, you started by learning about the loyalty programs of Madame Tussauds (The
Priority Pass). Next, you saw how Marks & Spencer focussed on acquiring and retaining its
customers by analysing their purchase data and segmenting them as highly loyal, loyal and
potential loyalists. Based on the amount they spend while purchasing M&S products and the
number of visits they make to the stores, M&S identified the groups that could be targeted to
convert them into either, loyals or high loyals. In addition to this, M&S also focussed on
improving its marketing strategies to win back the lapsed customers.

Let's now hear more about Marks & Spencer’s loyalty program from Sabia.

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Based on your learnings from this segment, attempt the following questions.

Purchase Funnel
Every day, people form impressions about several brands that they come across on various
online and offline platforms. When they step out or look online to buy a particular product, they
have multiple options to choose from.

In such a scenario, how do you think companies ensure that they acquire new customers along
with retaining the existing ones? What process do they follow after analysing their consumer’s
buying behaviour?

Let’s find out the answers to these questions in this segment.

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In the video, you learnt about the four stages of the purchase funnel which can be defined as
follows:

1. Awareness: In this stage, the focus is on creating brand awareness and generating interest
among the target audience.
2. Consideration: In this stage, brands provide more information about their product and ask the
customers to evaluate and choose a product.

3. Purchase: In this stage, brands drive their target audience to buy their product.

4. Delight: In this stage, the customer is provided post-purchase benefits and special offers.

Now, once a business has acquired new customers after applying unique strategies at the
different stages of the purchase funnel, it must ensure that the customers remain loyal to its
brand. A consumer's post-purchase experience is the key factor in determining whether the
consumer comes back for repeat purchase or not.

Let's hear Sabia explain how Madame Tussauds and Marks & Spencer managed to keep their
customers loyal to the brands using loyalty clubs.

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In this video, you started by learning about the loyalty programs of Madame Tussauds (The
Priority Pass). Next, you saw how Marks & Spencer focussed on acquiring and retaining its
customers by analysing their purchase data and segmenting them as highly loyal, loyal and
potential loyalists. Based on the amount they spend while purchasing M&S products and the
number of visits they make to the stores, M&S identified the groups that could be targeted to
convert them into either, loyals or high loyals. In addition to this, M&S also focussed on
improving its marketing strategies to win back the lapsed customers.

Let's now hear more about Marks & Spencer’s loyalty program from Sabia.

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Based on your learnings from this segment, attempt the following questions.

Session Summary
So, what did you learn in this session? Let’s take a quick recap through this video.

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Session Summary
Download

Answer the following questions to test your learnings from this session. Please note that these
assessments will not be graded.
Marketing Channels

Module Overview
Welcome to the third module of this course: Marketing Channels. Let's hear from Kavea as she
explains the agenda and the structure for this module.

So, let's begin!

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In this session

You will learn the basics of advertising and its different forms. You will cover the following
topics in this session:

1. Objectives and execution of an advertising strategy

2. ATL, BTL and TTL advertising strategies
3. Ad campaign analysis

Guidelines for graded questions

Note that the graded questions are given on a separate page labelled 'Graded Assessments' at the
end of this session. These questions will adhere to the following guidelines:

First Attempt Marks Second Attempt Marks

Question with 2 Attempts 10 5

Question with 1 Attempt 10 0

People you will hear from in this session

Prof. Abhishek
Associate Professor, Marketing Management, IMT Ghaziabad
Prof. Abhishek is currently an Associate Professor of Marketing Management at IMT Ghaziabad.
He has completed his Fellow Program in Management from IIM Ahmedabad and Postgraduate
Diploma in Management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). He was an
Assistant Professor at IIM Ahmedabad from June 2011 to December 2016. His areas of
interest include marketing communications, e-commerce and digital marketing, promotion
planning, and consumer behaviour in the retail context. Prof. Abhishek has also authored
research papers on many topics, including advertising issues, the implications of public policies
and the role of technology in marketing communications, which have been published in different
journals. One of his papers is: ‘Do time constraint and emergency purchase situation exert the
same influence on shopping? A study under haptic touch influence’. Journal of Retailing and
Consumer Services, 30, 242-251.

Rahul Kartikeyan

Head of Digital Marketing, upGrad

Rahul has been associated with diverse roles in the domains of marketing and strategy for more
than 15 years now. He is currently the Head of Digital Marketing at upGrad and looks after the
execution of the firm’s major marketing campaigns. Prior to this, he worked as the Digital
Performance Head at Wavemaker, a marketing and advertising agency headquartered in London.
During his tenure with Wavemaker (earlier MEC), he delivered beyond-the-banner high-value
services, which included digital workshops, content marketing and new technology solutions.
Besides these high-power roles, he also managed the company’s platform-led partnerships with
DeltaX and DBM to drive ROI for leading brands such as Eureka Forbes, NMIMS and Flipkart.
He also worked closely with the GroupM Central Trading Team to oversee and benchmark
buying performance, invariably leading to savings on Brand Digital Media Spends.

Sabia Gulati
Ex-Chief Marketing Manager, Marks & Spencer
Sabia is a senior marketing professional with over 16 years of experience in integrated
marketing, strategy-making, CRM, social media marketing, global consumer marketing, market-
entry, and brand launch and positioning. She led the sales and marketing team for Madame
Tussaud's first-ever launch in India. In this project, she created a trade sales plan for increasing
attraction and also worked with global and regional trade sales teams. Prior to this, Sabia was
associated with Marks & Spencer India as their Chief Marketing Manager. In one of her projects
with the company, she was part of the core team that fuelled the company’s footprint expansion
to 50 stores. She was awarded the title of the Most Promising Employee with high-performance
ratings for her contribution to this project. In addition to her professional wins, Sabia has been a
regular speaker and panellist at various marketing forums.
DISCLAIMER: This learning module may contain images, both still and moving, including
photographs, advertisements, third-party trademarks, video clips, etc. that may constitute
copyrighted material procured from open-source, public domain, social media, or other print or
digital publications, with the sole and bonafide intention of imparting education, disseminating
information and illustrating an academic concept or issue. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair
dealing' exception under section 52 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957.

The brands mentioned in this session are for educational purposes only.

What Is Advertising?
Let’s look at this ad released in 2019 for Apple’s new Macbook Pro.

MacBook Pro is a device known to match the interests and needs of professionals from diverse
backgrounds. Most of you would agree that this 2 minutes and 30 seconds advertisement
creates a sense of excitement for the MacBook Pro.

Advertising is a powerful tool that has the ability to build a brand’s image and communicate its
message to consumers effectively. Before we understand how advertising works and what its
major intricacies are, let’s first understand what advertising is.

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In this video, you saw how advertising is used by businesses to communicate a brand’s message
and inform the customers about the benefits of their products.

Class Opinion

What is the best ad you have seen so far and why? (Please share links if available.)

330 Responses

AC

Ankit Chansoria

I love Nike's Find Your Greatness ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYP9AGtLvRg
It is a very motivating ad and tells us that we can achieve greatness if we strive for it and make it
a fun process.

NJ

Nishtha James

The share the load campaign by Ariel was awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QDlv8kfwIM

It opens a much-needed conversation on how household chores should be shared between

partners.

Your response has been recorded!

Advertising Strategy
Advertising has changed significantly over the years. Traditional advertising like print media
was one of the first forms of advertising which is still effective.

However, whether a company prefers to run an online or an offline campaign, it must ensure that
the outcomes from the advertising strategy align with its goals. The objectives of an advertising
campaign should be clear to an organisation. Do you want to generate leads or create brand
awareness? It is important to decide on these aspects so that you can design an effective
advertising campaign.

Let’s learn more about the objectives of an advertisement in this video.

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Once the objectives are defined before the launch of the campaign, companies set certain goals to
measure the success of their campaign. While setting these goals, many organisations follow the
S.M.A.R.T. framework.

S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-
bound. Let’s understand these terms from a marketer’s point of view.

Specific: Once you have defined the broad objectives for your campaign, the next step is to set
specific goals within those areas. For example, if your objective is to generate leads, then your
specific goal would be to generate leads for a particular product.
Measurable: Measurable goals help you judge the effectiveness and success rate of your
campaign. For example, if your specific goal is to generate leads, then you should be able to
measure the number of leads acquired (for example, 200 or 1,000 leads).
Attainable: An attainable goal is one that you can achieve with the resources available at your
disposal. For example, if your objective is to generate 200 leads, you must consider factors such
as the size of the market or the budget for the campaign.
Relevant: Your goal must be relevant to your marketing objectives. Let’s say your company’s
objective is to increase revenue by 5% and your marketing objective is to increase the market
share. To achieve this, your advertising goal must support such objectives.
Time-bound: This means that your goal should be achieved within a predefined time period.

Once you have decided the objectives and goals of your advertisement, the next step is to decide
the message strategy, the creative strategy, and the message source. Let's learn about these in the
next video.

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In this video, you learnt that marketers need to work on various elements like messaging,
creatives, message source and media channels to make an ad successful.

ATL, BTL and TTL Advertising Campaigns

In the previous segment, you learnt about advertising strategies at a broad level. Now, let's look
at three different forms of advertising that involve key marketing communication decisions such
as deciding on the objectives, setting goals, figuring out the budgets and choosing the right
channels.

LIC, one of the first insurance companies in India, runs its advertisements across various
channels such as television, print and billboards. It also sets up kiosks at various business parks
and sponsors events in colleges.

There is a difference in the way LIC reaches its audience in both these scenarios. LIC’s
advertisements can be categorised into two types: Above the line (ATL) campaigns and below
the line (BTL) campaigns.

Let’s learn about these in this video.

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In the above video, you saw how TTL or Through the Line advertising campaigns utilise ATL,
BTL as well as digital marketing channels to increase brand awareness and profits.

Another significant development that we have seen in recent years is the digitalisation of
marketing channels. Consumers are switching from television, radio and print to iPads, tablets
and smartphones. So, the future is about being available on the Internet.

Now, let's hear from Sabia as she talks about the advertising strategies used by Marks & Spencer
and Madame Tussauds.

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Sabia talks about the advertising strategies used by Marks and Spencer and Madame Tussauds.
M&S and Madame Tussauds used both offline and online media channels to strengthen their
foothold in India.
Analysing Ads - I
You must have seen several ads on TV, in newspapers, on YouTube and on the huge billboards
placed alongside roads. Even though you know that these ads are a method to propose a sale,
some of these ads catch your attention to such an extent that you end up looking for the brand on
the Internet.

Such is the power of advertising.

For a company, advertising helps build a strong brand image. For customers, it helps
differentiate between products by providing the correct information.

Now, let’s hear from Kavea as she talks about two impactful ads released by Amazon for its
ebook reader - Kindle.
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Now, look at the first ad of Amazon Kindle.

Session Overview
Welcome to this session on ‘Offline Channels’. In the previous session, you learnt about the
objectives of advertising and the three broad categories of advertisement campaigns: Above the
Line (ATL), Below the Line (BTL) and Through the Line (TTL).

In this session

A marketing campaign can be successful only if it is able to effectively communicate a brand’s

message to the target audience. In this session, you will learn about one of the two types of
marketing channels used by companies to achieve this goal. The following topics will be covered
in this session:

1. What is Offline Marketing?

2. Offline Media Channel - Television
3. Offline Media Channel - Radio
4. Offline Media Channel - Print Media
5. Measuring the Success of TV, Radio and Print Media Ad Campaigns
6. Offline Media Channel - Outdoor
7. Measuring the Success of an Outdoor Advertising Campaign
8. Offline Media Channel - Event
9. Measuring the Success of an Event Marketing Campaign

Guidelines for graded questions

Note: The graded questions are given on a separate segment labelled 'Graded Assessments', at
the end of the session. These graded questions will adhere to the following guidelines:

First Attempt Marks Second Attempt Marks

Question with 2 Attempts 10 5

Question with 1 Attempt 10 0

People you will hear from in this session

Prof. Abhishek
Associate Professor, Marketing Management, IMT Ghaziabad
Prof. Abhishek is currently an Associate Professor of Marketing Management at IMT Ghaziabad.
He has completed his Fellow Program in Management from IIM Ahmedabad and Postgraduate
Diploma in Management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). He was an
Assistant Professor at IIM Ahmedabad from June 2011 to December 2016. His areas of interests
include marketing communications, e-commerce and digital marketing, promotion planning, and
consumer behaviour in the retail context. Prof. Abhishek has also authored research papers on
many topics, including advertising issues, the implications of public policies and the role of
technology in marketing communications, which have been published in different journals. One
of his papers is: ‘Do time constraint and emergency purchase situation exert the same influence
on shopping? A study under haptic touch influence’. Journal of Retailing and Consumer
Services, 30, 242-251.

Eiti Singhal
Brand Strategy & GTM, Samsung Electronics
Eiti is currently heading the Brand Strategy & GTM at Samsung Electronics. She has a
Postgraduate Certificate in Retail Communications (PGPRCM) from MICA. Before joining
Samsung, Eiti headed the Brand and Marcom division at Panasonic. Prior to this, she worked as
the Associate Director of Marketing Communication at Snapdeal and as the Marketing Chief at
edabba.com. She was responsible for creating and developing a B2B marketing model for
franchisees to accelerate awareness and customer acquisition through market activations.