So, what is marketing communication?

In a nutshell, marketing communication is a

messaging strategy aimed at establishing the topic of the primary selling message to be
communicated to the target market. Another important aspect of marketing communication is
the purposeful process of developing a positioning statement for a company or its product,
concentrating on what the firm sells and the rationale behind why a buyer should buy it.

Brand image is defined as consumers’ perceptions of products which reflect their memory
about the product. It is considered as consumers’ opinions and confidences on the product
quality produced by the company and its honesty in delivering on its promises. A successful
brand image enables consumers to identify the needs that the brand satisfies and to
differentiate the brand from its competitors, and it consequently increases the likelihood that
consumers will purchase the brand. Given this, the good impressions about a brand can occur
when the brand has unique advantages, good quality, popular, trustworthy and willing to
provide the best service. This indicates that while a strong positive brand image will give the
company a long-term success in terms of increased sales revenue and market share, a poor
brand image may negatively affect the survival and success of the company. This is because
consumers consider the attributes of the brand in terms of quality, performance and other
indicators prior to purchasing it. This indicates that a positive brand image will enable the
effectiveness of the company’s marketing programme influencing the consumers to like the
advertised brand, thereby creating unique association to the brand that always exist in
customer retention.

Firstly, advertising. Perodua has used 3 means of advertising, namely the digital media, print
advertising and television commercial advertising. Advertising has been utilized aggressively
by Perodua whereby almost all car models have its own advertisement. For instance, Perodua
Myvi Facelift has its own print advertisement carrying the tagline ‘Lagi best’. From the
concept of advertisement layout, the contingency is that Perodua is putting significant
emphasizes on its car Unique Selling Proposition (USP). As for the television commercial,
Myvi facelift successfully portrayed the sleek design and car performance for the new
improvement feature with new additional features.
As for event marketing and sponsorship, Perodua is a main sponsor in major sports events in
Malaysia, being actively involved in engaging the public with the events they sponsored. By
being the sponsor for these events, Perodua will be able to enhance their corporate image
dimensions. This step is a soft sell and a means to improve the public perceptions that is
reliable and social-conscious. The consumers are expected to credit Perodua and favor it in
their purchase decision on the cars.
As for public relations, Perodua promotes its brand Myvi by public media such as popular
Malaysia Magazines, newspapers and press release to market its brand. The company uses
public relation in this stage of production because it is at low cost as a result it educates
buyers with the necessary information about its product. As an example, Perodua is donating
13 units of the Myvi to various non-government organisations, institutions of higher learning
and selected government agencies as well as cash to a religious institution as part of its
Corporate Responsibility Programme (CRP).

What are some of the product strategies and communication strategies that Perodua or Honda
could use to further enhance the level of perceived differentiation between its divisions?
How can online digital marketing and social media be utilized to strengthen the
distinctions across brands within a particular portfolio?

1 How can online digital marketing and social media be utilized to strengthen the
distinctions across brands within a particular portfolio?
- How useful and effective is digital marketing and social media
Digital and social media marketing allows companies to achieve their marketing objectives at
relatively low cost (Ajina, 2019).
Digital and social media technologies and applications have also been widely used for
creating awareness of public services and political promotions (Grover et al., 2019; Hossain
et al., 2018; Kapoor and Dwivedi, 2015; Shareef et al., 2016).
People spend an increasing amount of time online searching for information, on products and
services communicating with other consumers about their experiences and engaging with
companies. Organizations have responded to this change in consumer behavior by making
digital and social media an essential and integral component of their business marketing plans
(Stephen, 2016).
Social media enables companies to connect with their customers, improve awareness of their
brands, influence consumer’s attitudes, receive feedback, help to improve current products
and services and increase sales
Twitter can be viewed as an open discussion among consumers in which they discuss and
provide their honest thoughts and opinions about certain brands (Smith, 2012). Due to the
personalized nature of Twitter, it is a great platform for brands to share content with their
consumers and receive feedback from them. It has evolved into a platform for consumer-to-
consumer recommendations, and brands can use this as a way to reach consumers with their
products and services and monitor what they are saying about the company and the content it
produces. This data can then be used to make improvements on the products and brands to
tailor their content specifically to the target market (Morrissey, 2010).
Facebook is similar in this respect to Twitter, and studies have shown that consumers
frequently use this platform to talk about brands, have discussions with one another, and
connect with companies that interest them (Smith, 2012)
Proactive marketer attention on this platform can provide firms with a litany of data on
consumer perceptions and interactions with their brand

- The use of online digital marketing campaigns to strengthen distinctions

Develop a digital marketing campaign that enables you to publish your differentiating content
through various channels to ensure adequate reach-and-frequency with your target audience.
In other words, do you have messages scheduled regularly that will be seen and heard by the
largest percentage of your best prospects?
https://www.smartinsights.com/online-brand-strategy/brand-positioning/5-steps-digital-
marketers-can-take-create-differentiation-strategy/
YouTube’s video-based platform comprised of mostly user-generated content makes it a
platform that has heavy influence on buyers' brand perceptions (Smith, 2011).
https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1529&context=honors
- Brand as a relationship increases differentiation
https://hbr.org/2016/05/build-your-brand-as-a-relationship

- Examples of online digital marketing and social media that helped

Examining social media branding profiles of logistics service providers
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JBIM-09-2019-0399/full/html

2 Theory
https://www.frontify.com/en/blog/digital-branding-and-digital-marketing-why-both-matter/

Brand Distinction
Creating a distinctive brand is about more than brand positioning: it’s about brand identity.
Distinctive brands leverage design in a considered way that evokes and facilitates
connections and memory-making. When it comes to building brands that rise above in the
market, uniqueness and consistency are key.
With that being said, social media has a great impact on brand identity and marketing.
https://www.researchoptimus.com/blog/make-it-or-break-it-impact-of-social-media-on-
brands/

Perodua – product strategy

A product strategy is a high-level plan describing what a business hopes to accomplish with
its product and how it plans to do so. The strategy should answer key questions such as who
the product will serve (personas), how it will benefit those personas, and the company’s goals
for the product throughout its life cycle.
Perodua already has