Principles of Marketing

Kotler and Armstrong said that the success of brands affirms that products are more than just the physical entities. They gave an example of women buying cosmetics, and how they mainly buy it not for the oils, chemicals, and fragrance, but mostly for the how the company markets the products, with naming products such as: passion, romance, fantasy, love, dreams. It makes women want to feel that way when they wear the cosmetics, and I think it is a good way to attract women who may feel insecure about themselves, and feel that they need that extra something to make them feel better about themselves. Kotler and Armstrong also said that products are the key element in the market offering, which brings value to attract costumers and satisfy their needs.

This discussion of branding and marketing compares to the design of experience by Tom Kelley by addressing that products and services are external and experience are internal; take place in the minds of the costumers. A good example was a mother who makes her own cakes from scratch at home for her child’s birthday party, a mother who buys Betty Crocker to make the cake, or the mother who spends $100 or more to have the entire event at Chuck E. Cheese, which would be a very memorable event for the mother and the child. Experience are full of emotion, excitement, physical, intellectual, or spiritual for a costumer.

Kalamazoo College brand is the honey bee or hornet, and everything that is part of the college is black and orange. They have the “K” everywhere it can be. Design reinforces K’s brand by having a signature symbol of how the college is recognized. The teams names are “The Hornets”, the uniforms have the logo and the colors. The brand is what represents K college and what differentiates it from others.