Chapter # 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_jWgzGjkrY&feature=related

Business planning is defined as an ongoing process of decision making that guides the firm both in the short term and the long term.  Netflix provides a unique example this.  You can see in the interview with Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, that from the very beginning of this corporation that they had a business plan for the long term.  Their initial plan was to be a company that provided online streaming of movies.  But in 1997, the year that Netflix began, no one knew exactly where the internet would go or how fast it would progress. In order to grow as a company and develop a consumer base they invested all their capital in dvd rental.  The business plan is brillant; creating a consumer base in the millions by offering a known product, so that when the timing was right they shifted their product focus onto a new type of medium.  To have a business plan that required suspending the original goal for an unknown number of years and to have invested in a related market until technology caught up shows tremendous foresight by the companies founders.

Chapter # 1

I think that this first chapter was a great introduction to the field of marketing.  While there are some principales that I have been familiar with for some time it is interesting to learn the terminology that is associated with them.  However, my favorite part of the chapter was the response to the criticism that "Marketing corrupts society." The rebuttal simply explains the difference between a want and a need.  We have natural needs, those will always be present. Marketing a product is simply telling the consumer how we should satisfy those needs, i.e., with their products.  I like how simple this idea is.  Commonly you hear that we are living in a world consumed with "things" when in reality we are the people that continue to find our identity in these possessions.  We let our products define how others perceive us.  Marketing is just selling an image, we are the ones that decide to adhere to it.  "We tend to think of ourselves as rational decision makers, calmly doing our best to obtain products and services that will maximize our health and well-being and that of our families and society. In reality, however, our desires, choices and actions often result in negative consequences to ourselves and the society in which we live." These couple passages left me with a good amount of food for marketing thought.