In these days in which we are living, in which the words “cutbacks”, “austerity”, etc., have become magical, talismans against the crisis, I was reminded of certain basic concepts of some great American businessmen on how to position a brand, a product? Of course, now we have to adapt to the times, eliminate superfluous expenses that, perhaps, we happily squandered, tighten our belts: cutbacks, austerity, yes, but be careful, let’s not deteriorate the product so much that nobody wants to buy it.
Savings and rationalization are welcome, but in a golf course, skimping excessively on basic aspects such as maintenance, restricting or reducing marketing processes and eliminating promotion can be lethal. Whoever does so will be condemned to not come out of this “special period” well, as Cubans have been saying about their situation for almost thirty years.
In the area of communication and promotion, which is what concerns us, some people are making bets that are risky, to say the least. There are those, for example, who have discovered the Internet and, like fanatical converts, trust only in “the net”, firmly believing that golfers -people of a certain age, by the way- are going to find them among the hundreds of millions of pages that exist, and that the rest is useless. They are undoubtedly wrong, although, obviously, if you are not “connected” you are nobody. They think that marketing is just a battle between products, but it is not: it is a battle of perceptions.
Success consists in achieving a clearly differentiated image from competitors, and advertising and communication is a means to achieve this. Of course, advertising cannot be an end in itself: it is only a tool to consolidate a company’s positioning.
I don’t know if it was Rockefeller, Henry Ford or another of his level who said: if I only had 100 dollars left, I would spend 10 to create a product and 90 to advertise it, to make it known. Unfortunately, it seems that this is not the way it is understood now: “cutbacks”, “austerity”, of course, but without turning off the tap of “intelligent investments”.
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