Complete Summary Strategic Marketing Management Tilburg University - Includes lecture notes, mandatory articles, and guest lectures(328251-M-6)

STRATEGIC MARKETING MANAGEMENT 2025

Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3
Lecture 1 - Introduc on -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3
Strategic marke ng and marke ng strategy: domain, defini on, fundamental issues and
founda onal premises – Varadarajan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5
Strategic Pricing-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6
Lecture 2 – Pricing Strategy --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6
Is innova on pricing your next source of compe ve advantage? – Hinterhuber & Liozu ------------ 21
The six pricing myths that kill profits - Hinterhuber ------------------------------------------------------------- 25
Social Responsibility: CSR and ESG (in a fast-changing world) ------------------------------------ 28
Lecture 3 – Marke ng Ethics by Ronald de Jong ----------------------------------------------------------------- 28
ESG Is Under A ack. How Should Your Company Respond? – Harvard Business Review -------------- 34
Crea ng Shared Value – Porter & Kramer ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 36
Lecture 4 – Strategic Social Responsibility------------------------------------------------------------------------- 37
Your CSR strategy needs to be goal driven, achievable, and authen c – HBR ---------------------------- 44
Saving the planet: A tale of two strategies – HBR --------------------------------------------------------------- 45
Corporate Social Responsibility and Marke ng: An Integra ve Framework – Maignan & Ferrell --- 46
Innovations ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 46
Lecture 5 – Innova ons ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 46
Pioneer advantage: Marke ng logic or marke ng legend? – Golder & Tellis ----------------------------- 57
Fortune at the bo om of the innova on pyramid: The strategic logic of incremental innova ons -
Varadarajan --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 58
Strategic Decision Making ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 60
Lecture 6-7 – Strategic Decision Making --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 60
Weblecture 1 – Ra onal Decision Making ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 78
Weblecture 2 – Game Theory ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 81
Market Orienta on and the Learning Organiza on – Slater & Narver ------------------------------------- 82
Before you make that big decision – Kahneman, Lovallo & Sibony ----------------------------------------- 85
Customer Experience ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 87
Lecture 8 – Customer Experience ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 87
The consumer decision journey – McKinsey ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 99
The truth about customer experience – HBR ------------------------------------------------------------------- 101
Compe ng on customer journeys – HBR ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 102
Digital Marketing Strategy ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 103
Lecture 9 – Omni-channel marke ng strategy by Eva van Rhee ------------------------------------------- 103
Lecture 9 part 2 – Online marke ng strategy ------------------------------------------------------------------- 108


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,Increasing the ROI of social media marke ng – Kumar & Mirchandani ---------------------------------- 112
What Marketers Should Know About Personality-Based Marke ng – HBR ----------------------------- 114




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,Introduction
Lecture 1 - Introduction

Rolex, Apple vs Chopard

What makes these firms (brands) di erent?

They have something that defines who they are. E.g., Rolex – luxury, and Apple – innovation

Marketing strategy:

- “A thoughtful plan by a company to produce desired outcomes in the marketplace vis-à-
vis customers, channel members and competitors”
- “An organization’s integrated pattern of decision that specify its crucial choices
concerning products, markets, marketing activities and marketing resources in the
creation, communication, and/or delivery of products that o er value to customers in
exchanges with the organization and thereby enable the organization to achieve specific
objectives”

Marketing strategy

- Distinctive. Di erent from - Similar characteristics or decisions
competitors. It stands alone. as competing firms
- Coherent. Things should fit together. - Set of (uncoordinated) tactics
- Dynamic. Needs to move the - Poor implementation of activities
marketing strategy forward in a
dynamic way. E.g., if a new
competitor enters the market,
entering a new market. BUT stay true
to your values.
o To create a sustainable
competitive advantage


Strategic marketing decisions

Long-term holistic decisions concerning the future directions for the organizations

Features:

- Entail major resource commitments spread over long periods
- Impact over longer time periods
o Long-term perspective!
- Result in a distinguishable competitive advantage
- Irreversible or di icult to reverse
- Entails trade-o s (e.g., if strategy A --> strategy B & C foregone)
- Made in the context of other strategic decisions (interdependencies)
- Made at a higher level of the organization

Versus

Tactical marketing decisions

- More short term

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, - Less expensive
- Easier to change
- E.g., a slight price change

Example 1: setting up a loyalty program

Setting up a loyalty program is a very strategic decision (you can’t just start it and drop it 6
months later)

Recognize what your customers are like --> British Airways is an expensive airline and mostly
used by business travelers.

So, discount is not a good benefit as they do not really care about that. What they do care about
is status, comfort, etc.

Some benefits:

- Access to business lounges
- Priority boarding
- Dedicated contact number
- Free seat selection at bookings
- Members only o ers

Example 2: establish a strategic partnership

When Apple released the Apple Pay app, the brand e ectively changed how people perform
transactions. This app allows people to store their credit or debit card data on their phone, so
they can use them without physically having the card with them. But in order for this app to
succeed, it needs credit card companies to integrate with this technology.

To get out ahead of its competition, MasterCard became the first credit card company to allow
its users to store their credit and debit cards on Apple Pay. MasterCard not only showed support
of a major consumer tech developer in this partnership -- it evolved along with its own
customers in how they choose to make purchases at the counter.

Partnership transfers some of the associations with Apple to MasterCard. Furthermore, first-
mover advantages.

Other examples of strategic marketing decisions:

- Launching of a new product
- Rebranding: changing your brands’ position
- Entering new product-market combination
- Introduce a loyalty program
- Catering to new market segments
- Developing product leadership
- Promotional policy changes
- Rationalizing a product line
- Expanding distribution coverage
- Initiating a major advertising campaign
- Divesting/withdrawing from the market
- Install a social media campaign
- Establishing a supplier partnership


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