Professional & Business English: Marketing

Hi everybody, welcome to www.engvid.com, I'm Adam.

In today's video, we're going to have a bit of a business English lesson, and we're going

to focus on marketing.

But marketing is a very broad area of business.

So, we're going to focus more specifically on a couple of things.

We're going to look at brand and branding, and we're going to look at little bit at promotion

after a couple of minutes.

So, let's start talking about what is a brand, what is a product, what is the relationship

between these things.

What's the relationship between companies and consumers, etc.

So, first of all, what is a brand?

For most people, if you ask most marketers, they will give you very different answers,

but all of them work more or less in the same area.

A brand is an image or an identity.

It's the image that a company wants the consumers to have, or it's the image that consumers

do have, for better or worse.

Sometimes, the image that the company wants the consumers to have is not the image that

they actually do have.

In which case, they need to do a lot of work, which is called branding.

Which we'll talk about in a second.

Now, a product is the actual thing that the company is selling.

It could be an actual physical thing, like a product directly.

It could be a service; it could be a combination of these things.

And it's very important to understand that brand and product are not the same thing.

So, I'm going to mention a bunch of companies as examples, but let's start with a brand.

I think most people know what Porsche is, or Porsche, depending how you want to say

it.

And the most famous product that Porsche sells is the 911, or the Boxer, whatever you want

to call it.

Different times, different names.

The 911 is the car.

It's the type - the particular model of car.

But when somebody thinks of Porsche, of course they may think of the 911, but they also might

think of other things.

So, the brand is the full identity, in terms of what the company sells - the 911, plus

a few other models.

What the company stands for.

So, when people think "Porsche", they think rich people.

They think luxury.

They think unaffordable to most people, right?

So, something that makes you a little bit special.

But that's exactly the image that the company wants you to have, right?

That's what their brand is all about.

And these days, branding is extremely important, especially with the new generations.

The Millennials and, soon enough, the Gen Zs, who care about different things than the

Gen Xers and the Baby Boomers, the older members of society.

So, companies are now struggling to understand the new generation and they're trying to rebrand.

So, I'm actually going to put this here.

Rebrand means change the way the way they brand themselves.

They change the image they're trying to portray.

Because young people care more about the environment and climate change.

And they care more about ethical business practices.

And they care more about sharing the wealth and things like that.

They don't want luxury items.

They don't want diamonds, they don't want Porsches.

They want everybody to be happy and health and peaceful.

Which is a good thing.

Not so good for companies that are trying to sell a particular product.

So, brand and product, two different things.

Think of another example.

Let's think about McDonald's.

McDonald's is a brand, and Big Mac is a product.

When I think - or when most people think of McDonald's, everybody will have a different

idea.

And when they think of products, everybody will choose a different product.

So, some people will think "Big Mac", some people will think "McChicken", some people

will think the sundae, the ice cream sundae that they sell.

Everybody has a different favorite product, but most people will have a very similar idea

of McDonald's itself.

Fast food, hot, cheap, delicious, or disgusting.

There's really not much of a middle ground.

Some people will think of Ronald McDonald, you know, the clown that is the mascot of

McDonald's.

Because Ronald McDonald houses, at least in Canada, they do a lot of charity work.

So, people have a very good image of McDonald's here.

Of course, they make a lot of money, but they also help people with that money.

And they provide jobs, etc.

So, brand and product.

Now, branding means thinking a lot about how to create that image.

So, one of the things they need to think about is the logo, because the first association

that people make with a company is the logo.

So, if you think of McDonald's, the first thing you think of is the golden arches.

Or, as you're driving along the street and you're a little bit hungry and you see the

two arches, the golden arches, right away you know there's' food there.

There's McDonald's, there's hamburgers or whatever else you like.

Starbucks.

When you think of Starbucks, you think of that green circle with the lady inside and

the weird fish hair.

But then you think of Exxon.

Exxon, again, I'm not sure everybody knows this company.

It's a big oil company.

But in North America, when people think "Exxon", they don't necessarily have a very good image.

Why?

Because however many years ago, there was a big accident.

One of the tankers carrying their oil crashed into an iceberg and spilled all the oil in

the ocean.

So, people might think that Exxon is an irresponsible company, or that it - they just care about

money.

They don't care about nature or the animals or whatever, right?

So, branding is very important.

Obviously, the name is very important.

McDonald's, this was the family name of the two brothers who started the company and it

just grew and stayed.

Starbucks - very deliberate thinking.

Exxon - very deliberate thinking.

The name is what's going to stick in the mind.

It has to roll off the tongue, so very, very important.

Colors.

Certain colors are associated with certain emotions or reactions, right?

For example, red - again, this is also very cultural.

Red, in some cultures, is a very good color for business.

In some cultures, it's a very bad color.

Green - very like, nature and calm and clean.

All these things are very important.

And of course, juxtapositions.

Juxtaposition means how you place items next to each other.

Do you put the name on the top, on the bottom, on the side?

Do you put the two images facing each other, if that's what you have?

Do they look up and down?

How you place things in your logo, in your brochures, in your advertising things, all

of these things are very, very important in terms of branding.

Now, what you want to create is brand loyalty.

So, not only do you want brand recognition, which is what branding does.

It makes it easy to recognize - I'll just do it like that, a little bit mixed caps,

but that's okay.

They want you not only to recognize the company, but they want you to stay with that company.

They want you to like the company and, of course, the product.

So, brand loyalty.

The best way to measure brand loyalty is word of mouth.

How many people are telling their friends about this company?

And they're telling their friends, and their friends.

Not only is word of mouth the best advertising, it's also the best measure of brand loyalty.

It means also that the customer or consumer is not going to the competition.

They come back to the same brand every time.

This is especially common in food items.

Like, if you go to a supermarket, you can go to the shelf and you want milk, let's say.

If you go to a Canadian supermarket, for example, you will see six different brands, six different

companies selling milk.

Most people will buy the exact same one every single time.

Because they like the milk, and they like the company.

They trust the company.

And that's what brand loyalty is mostly about - trust.

Then, you also have to think about positioning.

So, part of branding is actually positioning.

Where - which part of the market do you want your company to be associated with?

Or your product associated with?

Do you want people to think of your company or your product as budget items?

Or do you want them to think of them as luxury items?

So, let's look at Louis Vuitton, for example.

I can go and buy a bag anywhere, even a leather bag, for $20, let's say.

But, if I go to Louis Vuitton, I can spend maybe $2000 on a bag.

But if I'm thinking of Louis Vuitton bag as a luxury item that I can be proud of and walk

in the street and people will look at me, maybe I will spend that money.

If all I need is something to carry my groceries home from the supermarket, then budget is

all I need.

So, what do you want your product to represent?

What do you want your company to represent?

That's positioning.

You can be premium.

Premium means like, a little bit better quality.

So, people automatically think "better quality".

You can be niche, so this pronunciation "niche", like "ee" sound.

Niche means very, very specialized, right?

So, you have a very particular part of the market that not many people are filling.

Not many companies are trying to be there.

So, you have very little competition.

And you can be exclusive.

To position yourself as being exclusive means that not everybody can have your product.

Either it's too expensive or it's just not accessible.

Very, very few people have it and those people somehow feel proud because they were able

to buy this product, right?

And then they will come back and buy more of this product.

Again, they can show off to other people.

And especially in the day of the internet and social media, people like to show the

things they buy.

It's just things, but it has a certain image and it creates a certain image of a person.

And the companies understand this, and they want the person to feel that they're exclusive,

that they're in the luxury market.

And they manufacture or they promote their products as such.

Okay?

So, these are just some of the things we're going to look at.

And now, we're going to think about how these companies promote themselves and their products.

Okay, so now, we're going to look a little bit more at how they promote, how companies

promote themselves in order to build a brand image and, of course, make money.

That's what it's all about.

So, the first thing they need to do is do some market research.

They need to study the demographics of an area.

Now, demographics is a measure of the types of people in a particular area, including

race, ethnicity, nationalities if there's a lot of immigrants.

They need to think about ages, what's the most common age?

What's the mobility?

Are they people moving in, are people moving out?

They need to think about the median income.

What is the average person in this area make, in terms of salary or income?

And how much disposable income do they have?

So, disposable income is the income that is left after you've paid all of your bills.

So, you get a certain amount of money every month from your employer.

You have to pay your mortgage or your rent.

Buy some food, pay for electricity, internet, all these things.

And then you have a little bit of money left over.

That money you can buy things with.

You can dispose of, so that's why it's called disposable income.

So, all of this makes up your target audience.

The company needs to decide who do they want to target.

Who do they want to try to sell to, and whether that fits within the demographics of an area.

So, that's your market research.

Then, you have to basically start or figure out how to get market penetration.

This is especially if you're going into a place where you don't already have basically

a visibility or a standing.

So, penetration, to penetrate means to enter.

So, and another thing they want to do.

If they're already in the market, they want to try to corner the market.

They want to basically take out the competition and have the strongest presence for their

product or for their industry.

So, I'm just going to give you a whole bunch of vocabulary here.

If they're in a market, and part of cornering the market is increasing market share.

So, for example, if you think about a market as a pie chart like this - that's not the

clearest, but let's say this is my company.

These are my competitors.

I want a bigger piece of the pie.

So, what I need to do is figure out how to go from there to - and then make these guys

smaller and now this is me.

I've increased my market share.

And the more I do it, now I'm starting to corner the market.

Okay?

So, that's the mission, that's the goal of any marketing department.

Now, how do they do this?

Obviously, there's advertising - TV commercials, radio commercials, newspaper ads, magazine

ads.

But then there's also something called product placement.

Now, if you go to any sporting event - let's say you go to a hockey game.

Around the boards of the ice, you'll see companies advertising their products.

That's one way to place a product.

If you think about - carefully think about TV shows that you like.

Let's take the TV show "Friends".

If you look very carefully, you will sometimes see particular products.

These companies that own these products paid the studio that makes the show a lot of money

to put their product there so that people watching the TV show think that these characters,

who they have a sort of relationship with, are using this product.

And then the consumers, the people watching the show, want to go buy that product.

They want to be like the characters on TV.

So, this is called product placement and it's very expensive.

Another thing you can - another thing companies do is they get celebrity endorsements.

And these days, with social media and all these, they get influencer endorsements.

So, a celebrity is somebody who is very famous, like actor, musician, athletes.

An influencer is somebody who has many followers on social media, like Instagram, YouTube,

Facebook, etc.

If these people - celebrities or influencers - recommend a product to all the people watching

them, then a lot of people will buy this product because they trust celebrities.

They trust the influencers and companies understand this.

They pay these people a lot of money to endorse their product, to say that their products

are good and that a lot of people buy them.

Another way to grow market share is through organic growth.

Organic means just natural.

You have a very good product; you don't need to promote it.

People will find that it's a good product.

Word of mouth - they will tell each other about this product, and more and more people

will start to buy it.

But this is very, very difficult to achieve.

Because, again, if you go into a supermarket, you will see shelves - rows and rows and aisles

of shelves with so many different products.

It's very difficult for any one product to stand out.

That's why they need to go through all of these steps in order to become the market

leader.

Okay?

So, there you go.

A whole bunch of different things for branding and promotion.

And another thing I forgot to mention before, I wanted to mention.

Remember, I mentioned positioning?

How you're a luxury product or a budget product?

In the 1980s, I think it was late 80s or early 90s, Porsche, I'm going to go back to Porsche,

everybody thinks 911.

Porsche decided to produce a model - I think it was the 944, if I'm not mistaken.

And this was supposed to be like, the budget version of a Porsche car.

Because they thought maybe more people will buy Porches if it's more affordable.

But this was almost a disaster.

Not only did they not increase their market share, they actually lost market share.

Why?

Because the brand image of Porsche was luxury.

It's supposed to be unaffordable.

It's supposed to be for the rich people.

So, the rich people stopped buying Porsches because they saw poor people driving - not

poor people, but middle-class people driving a Porsche.

So, if I'm a very rich person and I'm driving a Porsche and here's a middle-class person

driving a Porsche next to me, I don't really feel very special anymore.

So, they stopped buying.

The company had a big problem.

They got rid of the 944 and now they're a luxury brand again.

So, that's a lot to think about.

Know your target audience.

What are they going to think?

How are they going to feel?

How are you going to make them feel special and associate with your brand?

That's the key.

So, that's it for now.

If you have any questions about any of these vocab terms or expressions or points, feel

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Bye bye.