Without a market-driving strategy, a marketing plan focusing solely on the served market is incomplete as it risks losing the underserved or unserved markets (sometimes even bigger than current customers) to other competitors. Thus, market-driving strategy should be viewed as a source of innovation and growth for old businesses as well as a new and major revenue source of firms. Market-Driving […]
Market Driving Strategy
Q1: Your competitors have attacked your makeup and skincare categories. How are these products doing now and what did you do then to defend your turf? A: Being the world’s number one beauty company gives us two huge competitive advantages in “defending our turf.” The first one involves product innovation. Given our huge investment in our Research & Innovation division […]
There is a saying that “If you give a man a hammer, he will see everything as nails”. Similarly, when a person learns about the marketing mix (product, price, place and promotions) as a way to attain marketplace advantage, he may apply it without questioning the bigger picture for validity. My journey in analyzing marketing as a lifelong student continues to allow me to […]
Q1: You have been importing medicines for decades. What made you decide to open a retail network via franchising all of a sudden? What was the inspiration? A1: In early 2000, physicians from PGH would recommend their patients to our office in Quezon Avenue, but since we are in the business of wholesale, unfortunately, we cannot sell retail to these […]
Q1: When you started Summit Media in 1995, your glossy, higher priced magazines became the new industry standard. What was your insight behind the new concept or what inspired you to tackle something different? Did you have a back up plan if it had not succeeded? In 1995, when we launched Preview, our first title, the magazine industry was dominated […]
Q1: Bayad Center, as a bill payment center, was set up because you had to address unremitted collections and increasing cost of collection (hold ups of Meralco electric bill collectors, delayed remittance, etc). How serious was this situation then or what was the tipping point that caused the creation of the Bayad centers? Have you attained your goals why Bayad […]
Q1: When you founded Ahead Tutorial, what made you decide to focus on students doing well than students having flunking grades? At the time I started AHEAD, there was a negative perception attached to tutorials, which were mostly done at the students’ or tutors’ homes. Most people saw tutoring as a last resort for students who were failing or in […]
This is continuation of our interview with Universal Robina Corporation’s Vice President-Marketing Edwin Totanes on Launching and Defending New Products. In this second part, Mr. Totanes generously shares about lessons he learned from failures. For Part 1 of his interview, click here Q7: One of your early marketing assignments was as brand manager of Procter and Gamble for Crest. While […]
“Research results should be “used directionally” and not necessarily to be “followed directly” Edwin Totanes Q1: Congratulations on your winning the prestigious Agora Awards for marketing management from the Philippine Marketing Association last 2013. What do you consider are your biggest marketing achievements so far and why? I have selected 3 examples from my previous employment at a) Kraft Foods, Inc.; […]
Q1: CDO has become an aggressive force in the food industry. You have, in fact, launched the first canned corned tuna in the industry. What was the idea behind the product? The idea came about by thinking of the personal thing disliked most about the main competitor’s flakes in oil product, which is “in oil”. Canned products should be filled […]