Introduction to Marketing Strategy and Innovation

Beo Thai

Hi everyone, welcome to MARK344 Week 1. I’m Dr Beo Thai, and I’m really excited to kick off this series on marketing strategy and innovation. Today, we’re laying the foundations—so let’s start with how marketing has changed over time. You know, if you look back, marketing didn’t always look like it does now. There are five major eras, starting from the Industrial Revolution, and each one has been shaped by big shifts in technology, society, and culture. In the early days, before 1900, marketing was all about basic exchange—think Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations, where the focus was on rational choice and market exchange. As incomes rose, people wanted more than just the basics, and suddenly you had things like market segmentation, brand image, and even celebrity endorsements popping up. I always find it fascinating how these concepts, which we take for granted now, actually started so early. And when I travel—say, between Vietnam and Australia—I see how these marketing ideas play out differently. In Vietnam, for example, celebrity endorsements are everywhere, but the way brands use them can be quite different from what you see in Australia. It’s a reminder that marketing is always adapting to local culture and context. So, as we move through these eras, keep in mind that marketing is never static—it’s always evolving with the world around it.

Beo Thai

Now, let’s talk about how marketing thought itself has shifted. If you look at the academic side, marketing started out really focused on distribution—just getting products from producers to consumers. But over time, it fragmented into all these different schools of thought. You’ve got consumer behaviour, relationship marketing, macromarketing, and more. The American Marketing Association’s definitions are a good way to see this change. In 2004, the AMA defined marketing as an organisational function for creating, communicating, and delivering value, and managing customer relationships. But by 2007, the definition had broadened: marketing became the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. That’s a big shift—it’s not just about the company anymore, but about the whole ecosystem. And you can see this in practice. Take LEGO Ideas, for example. They’ve moved from just selling toys to actually co-creating value with their customers. Fans submit their own designs, and some of those become real products. That’s a huge leap from the old model, where companies just pushed products out to the market. On the other hand, you still see companies stuck in the past, just pushing out products without really engaging customers. Those are the ones that struggle to keep up. So, the way we think about marketing has really broadened, and the best companies are the ones that embrace this new, more collaborative approach.

Beo Thai

Alright, let’s shift gears a bit and talk about strategy. There’s a classic debate in management: what’s the difference between strategic planning and strategic thinking? Mintzberg, who’s a bit of a legend in this field, says that planning is about programming—basically, following a set process. But strategic thinking is about synthesis, creativity, and intuition. It’s not just ticking boxes. If you look at how strategic management evolved, it really took off in the 1950s and 60s, when big conglomerates started breaking up into strategic business units, or SBUs. The idea was that you can’t treat every part of a business the same way—what works for one unit might not work for another. I remember a classroom discussion where a student asked, “Why not just have one strategy for the whole company?” And it sparked this great debate. If you try to force every business unit into the same mold, you end up stifling innovation. Each unit has its own market, its own competitors, and its own critical success factors. So, you need to give them the flexibility to develop their own strategies. That’s how you get real innovation and growth. And honestly, I see this all the time—companies that treat every division the same way usually end up missing out on new opportunities.

Beo Thai

Now, as we moved into the 1990s and beyond, strategy thinking narrowed down to four main paradigms. First, there’s the competitive forces approach—think Michael Porter, where the structure of the industry shapes your options. Then there’s the strategic conflict approach, which is more about rewriting the rules and influencing competitors. The third is the resource-based view, or RBV, which says that your internal resources and capabilities are what give you an edge. And finally, dynamic capabilities, which is all about being able to renew and adapt your resources as the environment changes. This last one is especially important today, with how fast things move. Look at Apple—they’re a great example of dynamic capabilities. They’re constantly reinventing themselves, whether it’s moving from computers to phones to services. If they just stuck with what worked in the past, they’d be left behind. So, the key takeaway here is that strategy isn’t just about having a plan—it’s about being able to adapt, renew, and stay ahead of the curve.

Beo Thai

So, how do we put all this into practice? That’s where the strategic marketing management process comes in. If you look at the model—there’s a nice diagram on page 34 of the slides—it starts with the organisation’s mission and vision, then moves through business definition, strategic analysis, strategy development, implementation, and finally evaluation and control. It’s a cycle, not a one-off event. And at every stage, marketing needs to have a strong voice, especially at the top management level. Whether you’re working at the corporate, SBU, or product level, the decisions you make have to be aligned and strategic. I always tell my students, look at the supermarket brand map—most of the brands you see are owned by just a handful of multinational companies. These brands have to be strategic to stay profitable, and they have to adapt to local markets. For example, the way a brand positions itself in Australia might be totally different from how it does in Vietnam. I’ve seen this firsthand—international brands that succeed are the ones that really understand and adapt to local culture, not just copy-paste what works somewhere else. So, as you go forward in this subject, keep thinking about how strategy, innovation, and marketing all fit together. That’s the foundation for everything we’ll cover in MARK344. Thanks for joining me today, and I’m looking forward to diving deeper with you in the next episode!