Trends and challenges in the

field of marketing
Guest Lecture
Mulawarman University Indonesia

11 November 2021

Muhammad Kashif
Assistant Professor, GIFT University, Pakistan
Editor-in-chief, South Asian Journal of Marketing, Emerald Publishing
Email: kashif@gift.edu.pk
 Lecture outline
• Defining marketing- making it understandable for business and society

• The marketing process- core processes and a practical insight

• Marketing after the pandemic: New realities in marketing thought and

practice

• The way forward

What is marketing?

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating,

communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for
customers, clients, partners, and society at large”. (AMA Approved 2017).

- Activity
- Set of institutions
- Process
- Creating, delivering, and exchanging a Value for stakeholders
Pakwheels.com- understanding modern marketing

- Selling and buying cars

- attracting car owners, sellers, banks,

and car brands

- Offering them a value

Marketing is learning about the society- observe and
anticipate social trends intelligently
1960s 1980s 2000s 2006s

- People do not use - Outdoor games were - No soap for urban - Privacy
soap common children – an unserved
market - English-medium upper
- Water and dust is - Movies and sports class schools
regarded as sacred to celebrities were - High pester power of
clean hands discourse urban kids - High income groups

- Masculine society - Physical health was - Over-conscious dual - Pester power

important couples

Kashif | University of Colombo

Historical development in the marketing thought

COVID-19 Pandemic –digitalization

Fifth era? 

- Social media, online, home

delivery, e-trade, voice & video,
and privacy
A critical appraisal of marketing practice
• Deception- hiding information

• Exaggeration- over-admiration

• Manipulation- selling the unwanted

• Inflated goods- covering costs

The Marketing Process
A variety of human needs
Understanding human needs –observation
Understanding human needs –market statistics
Selecting right customers and value propositions
Developing the marketing mix
Sustainability branding –for lifetime
Marketing after the pandemic
1. Know your customer– segment
• Traditionally, knowing customers was the heart and soul of marketing

• Contemporarily, getting to know your target segment

• Affordability first (32% of consumers): Living within their means and budget, focusing
less on brands and more on product functionality.
• Health first (25%): Protecting their health and that of their family, choosing products
they trust to be safe and minimizing risks in the way that they shop.
• Planet first (16%): Trying to minimize their impact on environment and buying brands
that reflect their beliefs.
• Society first (15%): Working together for the greater good, buying from organizations
they find to be honest and transparent.
• Experience first (12%): Living in the moment to make the most of life, often making
them open to new products, brands, and experiences.
 2. You are competing with your last
performance? 
• You are competing with your competitors

• You are competing with your own performance- the last experience customers
had with your brand- but, how to?
• Companies should follow three strategies to ensure their experiences deliver their
customers’ rising expectations:
• Make brand scores a KPI for the full customer-facing organization, ideally using
real-time analytics as opposed to a snapshot looking backwards from a point in
time.
• Build the right data and technology foundation to support important use cases
throughout the customer journey.
• Align individual and collective goals across the customer journey so any
disconnects between functional silos like marketing, sales, and customer service
are invisible to your end consumer.
3. Customer expect you have EXACTLY what
they want
• Customer hope you have what they want

• Customers expect you have EXACTLY what they want- but how?

• Content (that can be provided in experiences like emails or mobile apps);

• Commerce (such as physical retail, e-commerce, or a hybrid experience);
• Community (such as convening B2B buyers at a virtual trade show or
hosting a webinar on home repair for consumers); and
• Convenience (like offering consumers coupons or benefits from a loyalty
program).
4. Branding around values
• Your brand supports the products to be sold

• Customers give sufficient importance to value-system of a brand

which is reflected through various marketing actions:

- Sustainability
- Trust
- Ethical sourcing –say NO to a taboo labor
- Responsible management –employee welfare
 5. Make human connections
• Relationships with stakeholders matter most

• Relationships matter but long-lasting and based on already evoked emotions



• The children's apparel brand Carter's launched a family-centric campaign

called "Stay Home & Make Memories," starring employees and their children.
The ad focused on embracing time with family and friends at home. The
brand also pledged to donate $1 million worth of products to families affected
by the pandemic.
 6. Define the purpose of your business, not
merely your brand
• Brands should have a purpose

• Brands –with a purpose different than the core business units become a victim of
incongruity from within- leading to failures

• Recently, Burger King put its long-standing rivalry with McDonald's aside and asked
people to order from its biggest competitor.

• Similarly, Nike announced that it was donating merchandise worth $5.5 million to
front-line healthcare workers. Other major brands, including Timberland, Reebok and
Adidas, donated to Sneakers for Heroes, an initiative to provide comfortable footwear
to healthcare workers.
Contemporary issues in marketing theory and research
Haenlein, M., Bitner, M. J., Kohli, A. K., Lemon, K. N., & Reibstein, D. J. (2021). Guest editorial: Responsible research in marketing.
Thank you 