SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

STUDENT ID No: 140019055(If group coursework, please list all ID Nos.)

MODULE CODE: MN5405

SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENTTaught Postgraduate Programmes

MODULE TITLE: Dialogue and Debate in Marketing(Masterclass)

PROGRAMME: M.Litt. Marketing(eg. MLitt Marketing, MLitt International Business, MLitt Finance and Management, etc)

MODULE COORDINATOR: Julie Brooks

WORD COUNT: 3,189(Tables, even those input as images, will be counted as part of

the word count)

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DEADLINE DATE: 05th May 2015In submitting this assignment I hereby confirm that:

I have read and understood the University’s policy on academic misconduct.

I confirm that this assignment is all my own work. I confirm that in preparing this piece of work I have not copied any

other person’s work, or any other pieces of my own work. I confirm that this piece of work has not previously been submitted

for assessment on another programme.Introduction

As a part of MN5405 module assignment, I was asked to

write a fortnightly blog on each master-class topic. This

piece of paper is an edited version of my five original

blogs. I enjoyed writing these blog entries as they

helped me build a new skill of critical reflective

writing. We tend to reflect back on a lot of things when

we talk to friends about our past experiences, however, I

never had a chance to reflect on my academic knowledge

and learning in an assignment. Thus, I thoroughly enjoyed

writing and then compiling these blogs together because

they enhanced my knowledge on some topics and changed my

outlook on others.

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Blog 1: TRUST and WOM

Trust in EWOM was the focal point of discussion in the

lecture and the seminar and if there is one thing I

learned in the past two weeks, it is that trust is the

most important element in eWOM (Reichheld and Schefter,

2000). On a personal level, I never gave trust in eWOM

much importance and till today, treated it as traditional

WOM. I trust an Amazon rating as much as I trust a

friend’s recommendation. This however, depends on the

friend’s credibility. Therefore, trust, as an issue in

traditional WOM is equally important as eWOM because

personally, I would choose a restaurant recommended by

random peers on Tripadvisor over than a restaurant by a

friend who has given a bad recommendation previously.

CELEBRITY!

The argument of credibility leads from trust in peers to

trust in experts. Despite being more credible, Carswell

(2014) maintains that most experts are influenced and

biased, therefore, should not be blindly trusted. Experts

might be credible, but can be biased. Highway On My

Plate, an experts lead review show of street food across

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India was my favourite and most trusted source for street

food until they rated a dhaba (roadside restaurants in

India) in my hometown very highly, which I always thought

was disgusting. This reduced my trust in the experts,

however this does not mean that they are not credible.

Biasness was introduced by me (trustor) and not than the

experts. Biswas et al. (2006) argue that experts are more

trusted in technology-oriented products whereas

celebrities are more likely to be trusted in non-

technical products. People like me might have more faith

in their favourite celebrity’s food choice than an

expert’s, but what happens when the expert becomes a

celebrity and a fan favourite. I believe that that we do

not trust celebrities; we just admire them and therefore,

are more inclined to buy products/reviews endorsed by our

favourite celebrities. I would buy Puma football boots

not because they might be the best, but because Santi

Cazorla, a footballer I admire, endorses them.

EXPERTS!

The tutorial facilitators’ innovative games tested the

debate of trusting peers or experts/celebrities. Our

fellow colleagues trusted us blindly even when half of us

were lying, highlighting how big an issue trust is in

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traditional WOM rather than eWOM because the reviewers

and the recipients were neither anonymous, nor

celebrities and/or experts. Finally, they were both

minimal in volume. In eWOM, I believe volume is an

important factor. King et al (2014) stressed on the

importance of eWOM and how it has enhanced volume and

provides a broader platform than traditional WOM. Nis and

Nebler (2014) maintain that eWOM has high volume of

reviewers and recipients, making it a more effective tool

than WOM. I did not go to a number 1 rated restaurant on

Tripadvisor because it only had 25 reviews, leading me to

believe that low volume of reviews means either all

reviews are influenced, or the rating it 1st based on 25

reviews reduces the credibility of peer reviews. Jeacle

and Carter (2011) support the notion as they argue that

Tripadvisor possesses incredible power to influence the

travel industry.

PEER!

To conclude, from personal experience, trust is a big

issue in WOM and eWOM. Celebrities and celeb-experts

rather than experts are more influential. Peers, on the

other hand, are trusted when they are anonymous, but

large in volumes whereas trusting a peer providing WOM

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personally depends on congruency between the trustor and

the peer and also on previous history.

CELEB EXPERTS!

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Blog 2: Retail Logistics and SCM

I personally enjoyed this lecture and the topic a lot

because I have covered SCM, and Collaborative Planning,

Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR), Sales and

Operations Planning (S&OP) and their effects on SCM

during my undergraduate degree at Loughborough

University. Furthermore, my role while working at the

Birtley depot for JT Dove involved SCM where I our

company was the middleman between the manufacturers and

our customers, who were builders and plumbers.

As illustrated by Zara’s exemplary efforts, SCM has now

become a key business area that can give a company a

competitive edge over its rivals (Fernie and Sparks,

2009). Rising demand to get the products delivered at the

customer’s convenience highlights the significance of

SCM. However, SCMs is not restricted to online sales

only. I don’t buy clothes online. Maybe, because I am a

male but still, I think clothes and fashion products are

something that need to be tried and evaluated and

therefore, physical stores are still the priority. Schuh

generates only 15% of its revenue from online sales and

their representative stressed on how in-store sales are

still the most focused upon by their SCM. Similarly, in

the building industry, while working in supply chain for

JT Dove, the customers made most orders physically after

observing the products rather than online. This

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highlights two things in terms of SCM. First, customers

still want to see what they buy, especially when they are

not making a repeat purchase. Second, as JT Dove were

mostly engaged in sales to trade and clients and not the

general public physical stores even in B2B sales are

still important. Therefore, agile supply chain in

seasonal products such as fashion and building materials

is still the most economical and efficient way of SCM.

Thanks to satnav’s occasional bungling, a problem for

Dove and fashion retailers face is the last mile problem,

making SCM inefficient. That is why in-store pickups what

companies want. DCs control the 50% of Next’s online

orders are collected from stores, resulting in efficient

SCM as it minimises the last mile problem (Fernie and

Temple, 2009). An advantage to customers is what the

Clark’s salesman in St Andrews suggested to me when I

went to return a pair of shoes; order as many pairs as

you want and get them delivered to the store for free

rather than to your place for extra charge, try them all

and then keep the one want and return the rest in-store

and also save on return postage.

Things are quite different in food retail. Fernie et al.

(2010) maintains that Tesco’s model of introducing DCs

for online deliveries and in-store distribution has set

SCM standards for other retailers in the UK. However, the

lectures slide maintain that Tesco, in a lot of areas,

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still does pick up from stores rather than from RDCs

whereas all other food retailers use RDCs to deliver

online ordered products (Fernie and Corcoran, 2011).

Tesco’s partnership with Otto in carrying predictive

analytics to forecast demand and managing SCM has made

their model a champion as this saves them from running

the risk of unavailability of products for delivery or

for in-store customers (Clarke, 2013). Another reason for

this model being more successful is it saves cost on

transporting and storing refrigerated food to different

locations, especially in countries like India where

warehousing conditions are horrendous.

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Reflective Blog 3: Social Marketing

Whenever marketing or advertising is mentioned, one

mostly thinks about the negative side of the subject. We

tend to think of the ethical issues, consumerism,

materialism, and how these are facilitated by marketing

and advertising. Being a student of the subject, I

relished the topic of social marketing as it illustrated

the good side of marketing and advertising. Social

marketing was not widely covered while studying marketing

in my undergraduate management degree. The lecture was

also immensely helpful for the essay for MN5554.

Lefebvre (2012) described social marketing as part of a

wicked problem. I am going to focus on some aspects of

wickedness of understanding social marketing.

One thing that wasn’t clear for me was the difference

between cause related is and social marketing. I wouldn’t

think so because cause related marketing might be for a

social cause, but its ultimate aim is to promote the core

product through the cause. For example, KFC’s campaign of

raising breast cancer awareness through pink chicken

buckets was not because they wanted to solely prevent

breast cancer, but because KFC would have increased

goodwill and higher sales (Newman, 2012).

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The second thing that intrigued me was whether

philanthropy is similar to social marketing. According to

Paredo and McLean (2006), Ben and Jerry’s donated £1bn

for creating homes for the poor in the UK (a noble

cause). They are creating social benefit, but is this

social marketing? I don’t think so because I am raising

£2,850 for Meningitis Research Foundation to climb

Kilimanjaro and despite being glad that I can contribute

to reducing a social problem my ultimate goal is to climb

Kilimanjaro and not create social benefit. Similarly, Ben

and Jerry’s goal through charities is increased goodwill

and awareness and not purely social benefit. Finally,

Polonsky and Wood (2001) support the argument by

maintaining that corporate giving is commercialised,

resulting in harming the society rather than benefiting

it. My dad is a banker and that bank sells a self clicked

photo of the Golden Temple, Amritsar for a minimal price

and all the earnings through the those sales are

proceeded to Pinglewara, an institute for the destitute

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and disabled. Does this mean the bank is involved in

social marketing or just philanthropy? I think the bank

is just making charitable donations whereas any

advertisements by Pinglewara would be classified under

social marketing.

Now does all this mean that social marketing is limited

to government campaigns only? No, because a lot of

celebrities and also companies address social causes with

no intentions to promote a product or enhance goodwill

through it. For example, PETA does not promote any

products or services and despite involving celebrities,

solely focuses on its core purpose of abolishing animal

slavery.

Social marketing is not very popular because its success

is not measured. (Southwell et al, 2002). For instance,

it is not necessary that cigarette sales declined because

“Truth” was successful. Maybe, “Truth” was very

successful, but there is no direct method to establish

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the successfulness of a social marketing campaign. When

does a company decide that the campaign should be

withdrawn? If measuring success is difficult, it makes it

difficult for the company to decide if it should be

withdrawn and whether the firm should stop further

investments in it or not? Grier and Bryant (2005)

maintain that social marketing campaigns need thorough

research and continuous monitoring, but do not provide a

solution on when or after how much time does the campaign

need re-evaluation.

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Blog 4: Public relation (PR) and Marketing- Same

Difference?

Until the lecture, I really thought of PR as a small part

of marketing. However, my outlook on the two fields is

completely changed now. The best thing about the lecture

was that we had a richly experienced journalist and a

very passionate and enthusiastic PR professional giving

us their inputs and sharing their knowledge of their

respective fields. This helped me because I listened to

people with first hand experience with original ideas and

points of views on the importance of journalism, PR,

marketing, and their integration.

From my perspective, marketing is about products and

services whereas generally, PR is about the whole

company. For example, UNESCO’s #LikeAGirl was a perfect

PR campaign. However, that makes me wonder whether PR

campaigns can be linked to social marketing, especially

if carried out by non-profit organisations. #LikeAGirl

focused on women empowerment and stereotypes against

women, which is a social issue. Does that make it a PR or

a social marketing campaign? After the lecture, I built a

clearer perspective on PR. As per Wynne (2014), for

profit-oriented companies, PR is non-paid promotions,

therefore, more credible because they are not bought but

independently verified by third parties like BBC, Capital

FM etc. However, I still think that PR is about the

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company rather than one product. I understand PR is more

of a stunt, rather than a campaign, that a company hopes

to bring under journalists’ or public notice in order for

it to be covered on social media or news channels. The

Oscar selfie or the tweets by Virgin Trains are some

examples of PR stunts. One stunt, however, can be turned

into a campaign like the ALS ice bucket challenge,

resulting in ALS research raising over $100 million

(REFERENCE).

UNESCO #LikeAGirl

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Virgin Train’s PR Stunt:

Be it social media, news channels or TV, radio, etc., PR

links aptly with WOM and Flatt (2012) maintains that

Journalism acts as opinion formers and facilitates WOM.

Tinder’s bad image was transformed after their PR

campaign of adopting dogs rather than finding humans of

the opposite sex resulted in wide media coverage,

positive social media and general response (WOM), and an

improved company image. Social media plays a fundamental

role in PR in today’s world. I, like most others, treat

Facebook and Twitter to some extent as newspapers,

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resulting in clicks and tweets becoming the new gauges of

measuring popularity (Mitchell et al., 2013).

Now, where does journalism fit in all of this? Social

media might become the new news channel for a lot of us,

but traditional journalism, print and media, cannot be

ignored. One thing I strongly took away was that

journalists, to a large extent, have the final say.

Journalism acts as opinion formers and facilitates word

of mouth (WOM) communication (Flat, 2012). A fitting

current example of how bad PR can influence the core of a

football club is Wigan Athletic, who just because they

did not address their fans’ concerns sacked three

managers in under a football season has resulted in the

sub-standard performances leading to relegation from the

Championship (BBC, 2015). The PR team addressing the

issue with fans and sacking managers in a sensible way

could have saved Wigan their media harassment.

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Blog 5: Branding: I’ve got the power!

No matter how good the brand is, one thing that is

certain is that maintaining status quo is not beneficial

in the long run. Innovation is the key in this ever-

changing environment. Blockbuster, a one-time market

leader, lost the golden opportunity to buy Netflix in

2000 (Satell, 2014) and as a result, declared bankruptcy

in 2013 (BBC, 2013). According to Baskin (2013), the

company itself and not the Internet was responsible for

its decline, suggesting that Blockbuster failing to

innovate and sitting on past laurels of brand image was

the reason of its failure. Keller (2011) maintains that

brands allow customers to reduce risk, enhance

satisfaction, and simplify decision-making. Now each

brand has to offer something new with each new product or

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service. The classic example here is Apple. I laugh and

criticize those people who queue up a night before to get

hold of the new apple product because I think about those

people as blind followers, who would buy anything that

Apple launches. Such is the power of the brand that even

I, who mocks the blind followers of Apple, am an owner of

three Apple products. This is because Apple has reduced

risk of social exclusion, enhanced satisfaction through

its user-friendly software, and made decision-making easy

because I would not swap it for Samsung even if they

offer a better product. Despite Apple being a company

that doesn’t pay taxes, hasn’t made one charity, is

rubbish at CSR, it is the world’s most valuable brand

(Forbes, 2014). This is because they probably spend that

money on creating the brand image they want. The company

innovates, (for e.g.: you can receive and make calls from

your Macbook or iPad now) and more importantly, knows how

to sell its image through innovations in its products.

Keller mentioned brand mantras in the lecture and that is

exactly where I thought about Adidas and Nike creating

powerful brand images through their core mantras (or

taglines). Just do it and Impossible is nothing, for me,

are the most powerful taglines a sport company could

have. Nike is a more powerful brand, but being a keen

footballer, I believe that Adidas as a brand has edged

Nike in football in the past decade. I have shifted from

wearing Nike boots to Adidas, why? It’s simply because of

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the brand image it has created in the world of football.

Yes, it offers great products, but the way Adidas has

championed its brand image through creating campaigns

like #Allinornothing are amazing. The twitter battle and

the Adidas London Bus below show how the company has used

PR and advertising to create an image of champion in the

footballing world, suggesting that every brand needs

great products and services but ultimately, it is all in

the brand image.

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ADIDAS Twitter responses:

ADIDAS London Bus #Allinornothing

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The power of brands is something consumers should very be

scared of. Keller, in his lecture, stressed enough on how

brands still possess more power than the consumers. Yes,

social media, WOM, etc. transformed a lot of traditional

marketing practices, however, consumers are not the only

ones that use social media. We can criticize Burberry for

being expensive or “chav” on social media and think that

would harm their image. But in all reality, if I did that

on Facebook, the maximum number of people I can reach is

700 friends, most of whom will ignore my criticism. In

contrast, Burberry has more than 16m likes on Facebook

and that is because of the classy image it has created

through Brooklyn Beckham etc. Do I really think I am more

powerful than Burberry?

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Conclusion

When I wrote a book review for MN5002 in the first

semester, I thought that was the most unique piece of

work produced by me because I had never done anything

like a book review before. However, the reflective blogs

have taken the pole position in that category as the

assignment not only made me think differently to do a

distinct task, but also bettered my way of

interpretation, evaluation, and reflection on a topic,

incident, coursework, etc. I believe that the gains from

this assignment will help me produce a better

dissertation than the one I would have written without

doing the blogs. My outlook on a lot of master-class

topics has changed, my knowledge on some has increased,

but most importantly, I had the chance to look back on

the topics and relate to them on a very personal level.

As a result, the skills I gained from this assignment

have already helped me producing be producing better

answers for jobs, interviews, other assignments, and also

while I am having a general chat with my friend.

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References

Blog 1:

Biswas et al., (2006). ‘The Differential Effects of

Celebrity and Expert Endorsements on Consumer Risk

Perceptions: The Role of Consumer Knowledge, Perceived

Congruency, and Product Technology Orientation’. Journal of

Advertising. Vol. 35. pp. 17-31.

Carswell, D. (2014). 'If We Can't Trust Politicians, We

Shouldn't Trust So-Called 'Experts' Either’. [Online].

News - Telegraph Blogs. [Accessed 12 Feb. 2015].

Jeacle, I. and Carter, C. (2011) 'In Tripadvisor We

Trust: Rankings, Calculative Regimes And Abstract

Systems'. Accounting, Organizations and Society. pp.293-309.

King, R. A., Racherla, P. and Bush, V. D. (2014). 'What

We Know And Don't Know About Online Word-Of-Mouth: A

Review And Synthesis Of The Literature'. Journal of Interactive

Marketing. pp.67-183.

Lis, B. and Nebler, C. (2014). ‘Electronic Word of

Mouth’. Business and Information Systems Engineering.

Reichheld, F. F., and Schefter, P. (2000). E-Loyalty:

Your Secret Weapon on the Web. Harvard Business Review. pp.105-

113.

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Blog 2:

Clarke, L. (2013). Analysis: How Tesco and Otto are using

data to forecast demand. Retail Week. [Online] Available at:

http://www.retail-week.com/topics/analysis-how-tesco-and-

otto-are-using-data-to-forecast-demand/5053784.article.

[Accessed: Feb 2015].

Fernie, J., Sparks L. and McKinnon, A C. (2010) .'Retail

Logistics In The UK: Past, Present And Future'.

International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. pp.894-914.

Fernie, J. and Corcoran, L. (2011). 'Responses To Out-Of-

Stocks And On-Shelf Availability In UK Fashion

Retailing'. The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer

Research. pp.309-322.

Fernie, J. and Sparks, L. (2009). Ch1 Retail logistics:

changes and challenges. Logistics & Retail Management. London:

Kogan Page Ltd.

Fernie, J. and Temple, C (2009). The Footwear Supply

Chain: the Case of Schuh. In Logistics & Retail Management.

London: Kogan Page Ltd.

Blog3:

Grier, S. and Bryant, C. A. (2004). Social Marketing in

Public Health. Annual Reviews in Public Health, 2005.

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Lefebvre, R. C., 2012. The History and Domains of Social

Marketing. Spatial Politics, Everyday Life and the Right to the City.

Routledge: London.

Newman, A. A. (2012). Yum Brands Puts Focus on Hunger

Relief. New York Times. [Online] Available at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/business/media/kfc-

taco-bell-and-pizza-hut-continue-campaign-for-hunger-

relief.html?_r=0. [Accessed: March 2015].

Peredo, A. and McLean, M. (2006). Social

entrepreneurship: A critical review of the concept. Journal

of World Business, 41(1), pp.56-65.

Polonsky, M. J. and Wood, G. (2001). Can Over

Commercialization of Cause-Related Marketing Harm the

Society? Journal of Marcromarketing. Vol 21. pp. 8-22.

Southwell, Brian G. et al. (2002). 'Can We Measure

Encoded Exposure? Validation Evidence From A National

Campaign'. Journal of Health Communication. pp. 445-453.

Blog 4:

Bbc.co.uk, (2015). Wigan's season is a PR disaster, says

ex-player Kevin Kilbane. BBC. [Online] Available at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32277462 [Accessed

12th March 2015].

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Flatt, M. (2012). Point of View: PR and WOM can co-exist.

Admap. March- 2012.

Mitchell et al., (2013). The Role of News on Facebook.

Pew Research Centre. [Online] Available at:

http://www.journalism.org/2013/10/24/the-role-of-news-on-

facebook/. [Accessed: 10th March 2015].

Pollard, C. (2015). The Best Times to Post on Social

Media. The Huffington Post. [Online] Available at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/catriona-pollard/the-best-

times-to-post-on_b_6990376.html. [Accessed: 10th March

2015].

Wynne, R. (2012). The Real Difference Between PR and

Advertising. Forbes. [Online] Available at:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwynne/2014/07/08/the-

real-difference-between-pr-and-advertising-credibility/.

[Accessed: April 2015].

Blog 5:

Baskin, J. S. (2013). The Internet Didn't Kill

Blockbuster, The Company Did It To Itself. Forbes.

[Online] Available at:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathansalembaskin/2013/11/0

8/the-internet-didnt-kill-blockbuster-the-company-did-it-

to-itself/. [Accessed: April 29 2015]

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BBC News, (2013). Blockbuster goes into administration.

BBC. [Online] Available at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21047652. [Accessed

April 29 2015]

Forbes, (2014). The World’s Most Valuable Brands. Forbes.

[Online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/powerful-

brands/list/. [Accessed: 29 April 2015].

Keller, K. L. (2011). How to Navigate the Future of Brand

Management. MSI Summer 2011. pp. 37-43

Satell, G. (2014). A Look Back At Why Blockbuster Really

Failed And Why It Didn't Have To. Forbes. [Online]

Available at:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/09/05/a-look-

back-at-why-blockbuster-really-failed-and-why-it-didnt-

have-to/. [Accessed: April 29 2015].

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