International Marketing Giant's Marketing Strategy - Knowing Himself

Under the background of economic globalization, domestic and foreign companies began to compete on the same platform. Industry insiders pointed out that under the trigger of foreign lighting giants' involvement in the Chinese market, the demand for consumers to select lighting products is diversified, and they are more inclined to choose individualized and artistic lighting products. So how can a Chinese lighting company become the winner of international games? The head of the China Illuminating Engineering Society pointed out: "Chinese lighting companies must step into the brand building stage from the product development stage and win and consolidate their competitive advantages in the international market through proprietary intellectual property and brand building."

Compared with foreign lighting companies, China's lighting companies, especially in the brand and product marketing, both have a large gap. Chinese lighting companies can use Philips and GE as reference objects, taking their advantages and making up for them.

Philips: A lifestyle-oriented company that emphasizes customer experience

Philips, the Dutch consumer electronics giant, has shifted its business focus from technology to lifestyle.

“Philips partners with original designers and original equipment manufacturers. If you want to win the Asian market, you have to use the power of the company in all parts of the world. At the same time, you must tailor your clothes according to the specific conditions of the local market. Now that you are playing on the market is not an 'awareness game' but a 'preferred game', you must play this game with a retailer and turn it into a sales conversion game.” With this sense of the game, Philips will focus on marketing.

Focusing on products in marketing 4P, Philips began to work on product design. The brand promise of Philips is emotional and concise. In order to realize its own brand promise, Philips' product design principle is: Products must be designed around consumers; products must bring a unique experience to consumers; products must have superiority , innovative and mature technology.

“This is no longer just an era of technological innovation. Philips now positions itself as a lifestyle business.” Rudy Provoost, chief executive officer of Philips Lighting Group, said, “Technological creation does not mean that companies can Creating value in the market. Over the past few years, we have successfully changed Philips and turned it into a more design-driven business, rather than a technology-based power station as in the past."

“There is only one way to solve the problem of product popularity. This is innovation, but innovation is not just adding more features to the product. There are too many appliances in the consumer electronics industry. In contrast, they do not have enough consumers. Now is studying customer experience, trying to provide consumers with a wonderful experience, rather than providing them with 'tech & specgame'. From a sensory experience, Philips is now very different from the past."

Philips started with the manufacture of lighting bulbs and is still operating the lighting bulb business. In the past, the design of Philips lighting bulbs has always maintained the same style, and it can be said to be the same. Many of its series of products, such as lighting bulbs, semiconductor products, and radioactive systems, have long maintained the same appearance. Therefore, although the Philips brand has been widely respected by consumers, there is no doubt that due to the lack of attractiveness that can appeal to people's emotions, Philips' products are placed on the terminal shelves and are not able to sell smoothly. Perhaps all this will be the past, and Philips seems to have had a momentum for change.

If you look at the Philips website, your guess will be validated by Philips' newly released products that are released to the market. For target consumers, Philips has defined its own positioning "emotions and simplicity" and re-established its own marketing strategy.

Philips still wants to sell its products to consumers, but the entire sales process has changed greatly from top to bottom. Now Philips' business processes are U-shaped. Provoost explained that Philips holds both ends of the U-shape—product design and marketing, while the remaining intermediate links, including production, logistics, and maintenance services, are outsourced. Philips’ past slogan was “Let's make things better” and now is “emotion and simplicity”. At least, Philips' business processes are quite "simple."

"If there is no fashion component in the business, it will not be possible to run a lifestyle-oriented business." Provoost said, "If the company considers from the perspective of consumers, it involves the design of products and the suitability of brands. Philips in these We have done a lot of work to let designers, marketers, and employees fully understand Philips' brand ideas. Now designers report directly to me because design is a bridge between creativity and innovation. Design can make Philips unique Others: Design is not just about visual methods, but it is also elaborating and spreading an interactive brand language. In short, we want consumers to see at a glance that they are Philips products, even if they are not marked on the product. We must create a unique brand experience for our products at every consumer touch point."

“Our annual investment in product research and development is about 7% of sales, which is about 1 billion pounds. Consumers are not concerned about these things, but our patented technology is exactly there. However, patented technology itself is not Representing too much market value, if you can't wrap it in a wonderful design and then put it in front of consumers and let consumers have a feeling of 'This is really amazing', then you will never be able to innovate from the product. We get any rewards," Provoost said.

In such high-growth market environments as China, India, and South Korea, Philips has adopted different strategies from Europe in terms of both innovation and innovation. In contrast, Philips is more focused on creating and innovating strategies in these markets. Provoost said: "Our Eastern strategy is focused on innovation, such as the establishment of a software lab in Bangalore, India, and the establishment of an R&D center in Beijing. Philips puts these emerging markets with great potential in an important position. Philips has positioned itself as a global market player from the beginning, which is determined by Philips' own DNA characteristics. But in any case, we must transform innovation into a wonderful customer experience."