Hermawan Kartajaya's tips

Last week, the president of World Marketing Association, Hermawan Kartajaya was in town to talk about new ways approach marketing in today's economic climate.

During my college days, I learned about the four P’s of marketing (price, place, promotion and product) but in Kartajaya’s approach he says there are 12 C’s to the new marketing wave. Without trying to bore you with too much detail (it is a blog post after all) the 12 C’s, in a nutshell, clarifies when, what and how to do marketing right.

Here are some of his tips:
1) Strategy is vital as it is the key to successful marketing
2) When selling your product, sell the differentiation not the product
3) Online marketing only creates excitement but not intimacy
4) Database is NOT a community. You must have interaction
5) Most new product launches will fail so co-creation is very important.

He then cited Starbuck Baristas tell their story campaign as a good example to support point (5).



And Kartajaya's advice to marketers attempting to figure out how boost their brands during the current economic climate was:

"Redefine your advertising and marketing terminology. Try to rethink about traditional media when it comes to what product you are offering."