Kern Marketing

  Hello, Levinson writes that the only definition of creativity in the realm of marketing is that of something that makes money (Levinson, 2007). Let us not forget that the purpose of a business is to make money. It is eerie how similar both concepts are, but they must be similar as the guerilla conducting marketing is conducting business. The life force of a business is money. If a business has no money, the business is drained of its life force, and will die. That is why it is important for the guerilla marketer, on the mission to sell a product or service, not forget that the best advertisement is useless if it does not generate any money. To have a successful marketing campaign to sell the product or service in order to generate money, the guerilla must be concise in their advertising message. To be concise, Levinson give seven guidelines. Find the product’s drama, equate the drama to benefit, be believable in the explanation of benefits, get the audience’s attention, motivate ...

Hello, Information saved digitally for prosperity has two elements. First, the need to preserve the information, and second, the ability to understand the information at a future time. What good is collecting and storing all the data that mankind can muster if no one is able to make use of the information? Think of all the ancient Greek and Roman texts, that even if they were not lost in the Library of Alexandria, or the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols, would be unreadable due to the general lack of knowledge on how to read ancient Greek or Latin. Storage is one thing, but to be able to pull the information out of storage, blow the dust off, and make use of the information is quite another. For one to retrieve the needed information is a start, but knowledge of the information is required to bring about anything of use. The answer is then education and continuous learning for mankind. Let the instructions be stowed away, but the knowledge of how to use must flow through communi...

Hello,   Price is derived from supply and demand, but a firm has some wiggle room on what they charge based on what they want to communicate through the price. For example, a firm that charges the most amongst its competitors wants to convey the message of a premium product, versus the lowest priced product conveying a bargain message. The start-up needs to determine where they fit into the market and price accordingly. Nevertheless, all pricing is not equal. A start-up can maximize their revenue through their price structure. This is the focus in Chapter 4 of Ascend your Start-Up .   Hopefully the start-up will have customers in many regions. With a diverse customer base comes the question of how to charge them for product or services provided? The book outlines two options. The first is extension pricing in which the same price is applied to all customers regardless of location, or second, competitive pricing which negotiates different prices for different customers (Y...

  Hello, Sun Tzu writes that “if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles” (Sun, 1983). One must know their capabilities, their strengths, and most importantly their own weaknesses. You must know this for when you compare your adversary’s capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses against your own. By doing so, you know the limits of what you can do and what your adversary can do. From there a plan can be formulated that maximizes your strengths, minimizes your weakness, and exploits your adversary’s weakness while avoiding their strengths. For a company, this method of assessment can be applied to understanding the customer and their needs.     The echoes of Sun Tzu can be heard on Jay Conrad Levinson’s advice to the budding marketing guerilla, “when you fully understand the true nature of your business, your goals, your strengths and weaknesses, your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, and the needs of your target m...

  Hello, Is AI good or bad? Instead, the argument should be that AI is neutral, with the outcome dependent on the human using it. AI is simply a tool to be used to accomplish the desired goal. Without the necessary tools, the time required for mankind to progress is extended. Notre Dame Cathedral took about two hundred years to complete using the tools available at the time (Notre Dame Cathedral Paris, 2022). How long would it take to build a new skyscraper in New York if the same tools that built Notre Dame, had to be used today? If we continue to use the same tools of yesterday, no traction can be gained to move us towards tomorrow.   What can AI be used for? The answer, both bad and good. AI built into facial recognition software in China is used for surveillance of its population (Davies, 2021). The tool that is AI does not change, only how it is used. On the opposite end of the AI spectrum, AI is utilized to produce medicines faster and doing so at lower cost (IMB, ...

  Hello, In Chapter 2 of Helen Yu’s book, Ascend Your Start-Up , when preparing to build the Minimal Viable Product, an action item is to establish the necessary team. Picking the right person for the right job to carry the Minimal Viable Product forward in the evolution of the start-up. The focus then shifts from the product to the team, and the right team at that. The complexity of a start-up requires a team to specialize in different areas. Finding the right people for the job in order to gain market visibility of the start-up’s product, is the focus of Chapter 3. There are key roles that need to be filled within the leadership of a start-up. Helen describes these roles as the thought leader, challenger, collaborator, and operator (Yu, 2021). Each plays a unique but important role. Who should staff these roles? The warning from Helen is to stay away from friends and family (Yu, 2021). Instead, look for industry experts who will share their knowledge to add value to the fledg...

  Hello, One could argue that there are many means to successful marketing. How many books are available on the subject, eager to teach their own variation of the standard methods? But, for a small firm who must elbow their way into a market full of established heavy weights, Jay Levison has the guerilla marketer focus on sixteen simple words. The words are commitment, investment, consistent, confident, patient, assortment, subsequent, convenient, amazement, measurement, involvement, dependent, armament, consent, content, and augment (Levison, 2007). A few words that cover a wide swath of necessary guerrilla marketing activities.     For this blog, there will be a focus on only a couple of these words and their corresponding impact. Be warned, Levinson does caution that for a successful guerilla, all sixteen words must be utilized. Commitment, investment, and armament are linked together. First, the marketer must be willing to make the commitment of resources an...

  Hello, An idea sparks a business, and that idea manifests itself in the form of a product or service. In its first iteration, the product or service only needs to be unique, something that sets the start-up apart from other competitors. Helen Yu advises that the first product does not need all the bells and whistles that future iterations will have, instead the first product should represent the why of the start-up’s existence (Hu, 2021). This Minimally Viable Product presents to the market the opportunities the start-up can offer the consumer but done so in a simplified form. This distills the ideas of the start-up into the simplest message in the form of the product. Helen asks the following questions to which a successful start-up must answer for their product; who cares about the product, is there other products in the market, and what type of team is needed to accomplish the goals (Yu, 2021)? The who cares question asks who is the product made for, or what value is this ...

  Hello, In Chapter 2 of Jay Conrad Levison's book Guerilla Marketing, includes a concise list of the danger signals all firms must be leery of. Signals such as price driven sales, customers cannot distinguish between the firm's and the firm's competitor's offerings, or a disunified marketing strategy (Levison, 2007). A large firm can absorb these deficiencies through their financial resources, but these deficiencies can prove deadly for small business. A firm's product or service should offer value to the customer, and that value is what the customer is paying for. If the customer only purchases the product or service based on price, the firms is not selling something unique. Instead, that service or product is a commodity, indistinguishable from other competing offerings. This reemphasized by Levison's danger signal of the lack of product distinction.  Without product differentiation, there is no company differentiation. This becomes dangerous for the small bu...

 Hello, The article TikTok May Be More Dangerous Thank It Looks by Ezra Klein brings up the concern of how to liberalize social media. To liberalize social media would be to minimize the effect of market dominant platforms and their ability to shape public opinion. Both of these objectives can be accomplished without involving the platform. This helps reach platforms which are based outside of the United States. The first is how to shift power from dominant platforms in the market. The source is to limit the barriers of entry into the social media market. With a shrinking economic moat, new platforms would be able to be rapidly introduced to the market, giving the consumer more options and forcing established platforms to adapt. A reintroduction of a perfect market economy, which swings the pendulum of power from the firm back to the consumer. Second involves the education of the consumer. Alarms should ring when Ezra writes that of his experience asking student where they source...

 Hello, Helen Yu in the first chapter of her book, Ascend Your Start Up , uses the analogy of climbing a mountain to describe beginning a start up company. Both activities are daunting due to the complexity, involvement, and risk. Yet, both activities yield great reward. Both journeys begin with the first question of why. Why to undertake this journey, what will keep the fire to succeed burning in tough time? This must be understood first. Helen Yu started her climb of Everest to lay her grandmother’s ashes at rest on the tallest mountain (Yu, 2021).   Why should one start a venture? The answer cannot be money alone, nor allowing money to be the end all be all. If the why is answered solely with money, there will be a point where a challenge will appear and the decision to not push through will be based on the thought that it is just not worth the money. Instead, the why should be answered by what can the money do. What is the money buying? Financial security and stability f...

 Hello, The introduction and implementation of artificial intelligence in production opens a new world of opportunities. As one who is involved in manufacturing, these opportunities excite me. Current processes are very labor intensive partially due to the complexity of the activities performed to make raw material into a finished good. It is exciting to think about the possibilities that robots can offer. Consider this video of a Tesla production facility in Berlin. Each robotic arm performs a repetitive task precisely, efficiently, and consistently. What are the benefits of automation? To quote from Dr. Kelsey’s book, Surfing the Tsunami , “This kind of advance in physical manufacturing allowed a great many more products to be manufactured at a much higher rate” (Kelsey, 2018). Economies of scale come into play, driving down the unit cost of each product produced. This allows the product to be sold at a lower price point, expanding access to the product for more people in the ...

 Hello, my name is Matt Kern and I am an Assistant Operations Coordinator at a small company in Chicagoland. Though the position focuses on manufacturing operations and overseeing production, the company gives me a lot of freedom in how I accomplish the tasks assigned. I play a role in purchasing, production planning, data analysis and reporting, as well as sometimes diplomat when the need arises on the production floor. The pursuit of the MBA is to expand both my breadth and depth of knowledge in key areas of business which I utilize each day. When not working or at school, I enjoy golfing, bicycling, archery, fishing, and reading. On the topic of reading, I focus on non-fiction in the hope of gaining some of the leadership skills exhibited throughout history by such as Churchill, Washington, Patton, and the like. On the subject of guerilla marketing. Typically, when one hears guerilla, they first think of a large hairy primate until they are corrected. The next thought is that of...