Holistic Marketing Management, Volume 10, Issue 2, Year 2020

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“ Mar k et i ngSc i enceandI ns pi r at i ons ” :Mat c hi ngwi t hCus t omerEx pec t at i ons DanSMEDESCU

Themat i cUni v er s i t yNet wor k :COVI D19Chal l enge, Pac k agi ngCompet ence,FoodAv ai l abi l i t y ,MEFOSA,andBl endedLear ni ng Ber ndHALLI ER

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Editorial Board of “Holistic Marketing Management” (A refereed journal published four times annually by the School of Management-Marketing of the Romanian-American University) Editor-in-Chief Theodor Valentin PURCĂREA

Bernd HALLIER

John SAEE

John L. STANTON

Léon F. WEGNEZ

William PERTTULA Levent ALTINAY

Andrew KILNER Dana ZADRAZILOVA Riccardo BELTRAMO Sinisa ZARIC Gabriela SABĂU Hélène NIKOLOPOULOU Vasa LÁSZLÓ Peter STARCHON John MURRAY Kamil PÍCHA

Holistic Marketing Management

President of European Retail Academy; President of EuCVoT, Member of the Astana Economic Scientists Club; Former Managing Director EHI Retail Institute, Germany, Chairman of the Advisory Board of EuroShop, Chairman of the Board of the Orgainvent, Trustee of EHI Retail Institute at GLOBALG.A.P. President - Association of Global Management Studies (USA); Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues & Former Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Management Systems, USA; Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, the Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology; Member of France’s National Academy of Scientific Research (CNRS); Director - ESB International Teaching and Research Exchanges, Reutlingen University, Germany Professor of Food Marketing, Erivan K. Haub School of Business, Saint Joseph’s University Philadelphia, USA; Director, Institute of Food Products Marketing, Editor, Journal of Food Products Marketing; Hall of Fame of the European Retail Academy, Honored Personality 2016 Secretary General, International Association of the Distributive Trade, AIDA Brussels; Member of France’s Academy of Commercial Sciences; Doctor Honoris Causa of NUPSPA (SNSPA) Bucharest; Hall of Fame of the European Retail Academy, Honored Personality 2015; Administrator Secretary General of the Diplomatic Club of Belgium Internet Marketing Professor, College of Business, San Francisco State University, USA Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Research Area Leader, Oxford School of Hospitality Management, Faculty of Business, Oxford Brookes University, UK First MBA Director at the Rennes Graduate School of Business in France; Director of RAFME Research into Management Excellence; PhD (Cambridge), MBA (City, London) Faculty of International Economic Relations, University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic University of Turin, Italy University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia Memorial University, Grenfell Campus, Corner Brook, Canada University of Lille 3, France Szent Istvan University, Hungary Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia Faculty of Business, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland Faculty of Economics, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice 1

Irena JINDRICHOVSKA Norbert HAYDAM Constantin ROŞCA Hans ZWAGA Roxana CODITA Dumitru MIRON Valeriu IOAN-FRANC Iacob CĂTOIU Virgil BALAURE Gheorghe ORZAN Luigi DUMITRESCU Marius D. POP Petru FILIP Ion VOICU SUCALA Virgil POPA Alexandru NEDELEA Olguța Anca ORZAN Ana-Maria PREDA Ovidiu FOLCUȚ Doinița CIOCÎRLAN Marius Dan DALOTĂ Mihai PAPUC Gheorghe ILIESCU Costel NEGRICEA Alexandru IONESCU Tudor EDU Olga POTECEA Oana PREDA Nicoleta DUMITRU Monica Paula RAȚIU Elisabeta Andreea BUDACIA

Deputy Head of Department of Business Economics, University of Economics and Management, Prague, Czech Republic Faculty of Business, Marketing Department, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa President of Romanian Scientific Society of Management - SSMAR Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences, Finland Technische Universität München, TUM School of Management Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest National Institute for Economic Research, Romanian Academy; Romanian Marketing Association; Romanian Distribution Committee Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Dimitrie Cantemir University, Bucharest Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Management and Economic Engineering Department; University of Glasgow, UK, College of Social Sciences, School of Social & Political Sciences; Managing Editor, Review of Management and Economic Engineering Valahia University of Târgovişte Ştefan cel Mare University of Suceava Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy Bucharest Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University

Associate Editors Diana SOCA Irina PURCĂREA Dan SMEDESCU Art Designer Director Alexandru BEJAN

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“Holistic Marketing Management” (A refereed journal published four times annually by the School of Management-Marketing of the Romanian-American University)

Volume 10, Issue 2, Year 2020

Contents

Theodor Valentin PURCĂREA - Paying Attention to the Unrevealed Slice of the Current Unprecedented Crisis: Leadership Accountability, Making Evolving the Business Models, and Implementing Lean Marketing Actions......................................................................................4

Costel NEGRICEA - The Connection between Digital Marketing and Relevant Matei PURCĂREA Public Relations. The Brand Building Role of Digital Communication..........................................................................................8 Dan SMEDESCU - “Marketing Science and Inspirations”: Matching with Customer Expectations.................................................................................................21 Bernd HALLIER (by courtesy of) - Thematic University Network: COVID-19 Challenge, Packaging Competence, Food Availability, MEFOSA, and Blended Learning.........................................................................................................26

Theodor PURCĂREA - Putting Radical Marketing into Practice Immediately, Keeping Agile and Adaptable.......................................................................................32

The responsibility for the contents of the scientific and the authenticity of the published materials and opinions expressed rests with the author.

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Editorial: Paying Attention to the Unrevealed Slice of the Current Unprecedented Crisis: Leadership Accountability, Making Evolving the Business Models, and Implementing Lean Marketing Actions “Behind every great work experience is a great workflow,” Bill McDermott , President and CEO, ServiceNow

“The pre-COVID workplace no longer exists… We will do dramatic shifts to make sure we’re safe, healthy, productive and adaptable for the new workplace…” highlighted ServiceNow Chief Talent Officer Pat Wadors, on the occasion of the recent ServiceNow’s Knowledge 2020 Conference, an all-digital experience spanning six weeks. “You’ll have the head of talent thinking about things like virtual onboarding and how to keep employees engaged… You’ll have the CFO thinking about modeling out cash flow forecasts, supply chain officers thinking about logistics and routes to market. But there’s one thing in common, which is that it’s all powered by tech”, underlined at his turn ServiceNow CIO Chris Bedi. (Dowd, 2020) The six weeks of ServiceNow’s Knowledge 2020 Conference covered significant core themes (Accelerate, Build, Succeed, Connect, Dream, and Act”), inviting in the last one to “put all this Knowledge knowhow to work with our employees, our customers, and in our jobs”. (ServiceNow, 2020) It is suggestive that on June 12, 2020, the Chief Editor of the American Marketing Association San Francisco Chapter (AMA SF) Blog, who is also on the AMA SF Board of Directors, revealed key insights from the conference Knowledge 2020 Digital Experience (Empowering the Company-wide Remote Workforce; Technology Makes the Difference in Times of Uncertainty; Addressing the Human Side of the Equation; Turning the Opportunity into Positive Results), concluding with the message that is the right time to embrace uncertainty and keep innovating, keeping in mind that communication is king, and generating the necessary sense of community and oneness. (Lee, 2020) There is no doubt that in these times of unprecedented crisis there is a real need of accountable leaders, stimulating teams to be more connected and resilient within the more flexible workplace, establishing priorities, adequately communicating the strategy, providing a sense of hope for the future while facing uncertainty, innovating and ensuring transformational change, creating lasting value, and nurturing talent. (Jones, 2020) To build a culture of leadership accountability involves starting with self-reflection, advancing step by step, and focusing on key priorities on the basis of accurately understanding the voice of the customers. As a critical issue within their organization, leadership accountability has impact on the performance of a company.

(Routley, 2020) Within the current “new normal” there are significant pledges, for instance, for humanfirst CEOs, who are remaking jobs work for all employees by reimagining their long-term approach, with a human-first approach to customers (better understanding that business success requires customer success), with human-first approach to community (going beyond being Holistic Marketing Management

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responsible to their shareholders, and proving a better understanding of the dependence on the community around all of us). According to such an approach now it’s time for Human-first Leadership. (Mehta, 2020) On the other hand, in the perspective of what comes after COVID-19, McKinsey Resilience Advisory Council recommended leaders to not bring together aspirations with a prescience about the future, paying attention to the unknown portion of this crisis, coaching and advising its management team managers to build the organizational capability to quickly learn and act accordingly because resilience comes through speed. They also recommend them to evolve their business models, to strengthen their capability to engage and work with regulators and the government and many other core themes. (Levy et al., 2020) Of course, we are all consumers, and we know that time is a valuable resource. Without bringing into discussion different approaches of the opportunity cost (which refers to what consumers have to give up to buy what they want in terms of other goods or services, on the other hand also knowing that consumers usually mean opportunity cost when the economists use the word “cost”, as reminded by Econlib), it was interesting to note in April this year, thanks to AMA Marketing News, that armed with the new reality (being forced into new behaviors overnight), seeing all through new lenses and beginning to operate in the new ways, having a new baseline of possibilities, consumers see with other eyes their experiences across their customer journey, and do not want any more to waste their precious time, expecting better experiences and real-time communication. (Sweezey, 2020) Marketing, argued recently the rigorous McKinsey’s representatives, is considered “the primary means of both consumer engagement and driving business value”, being “front and center for how companies need to respond to the downturn, especially in terms of building up cash reserves and driving revenue response”. Under the complex pressure to ensuring companies’ businesses successfully navigate the downturn and catalyze future growth, it is necessary to better understand the critical role of the marketing spend management, its impact being game changing if it is done well. Considered the most glamorous component of marketing, spend management (defined here by McKinsey’s representatives as “the rigorous tracking and active management of the way marketing dollars are spent”) allow marketers not only to rapidly adequately redeploy funds on the basis of agile decision, but also the necessary flexibility to innovate and deliver, all of this on the basis of a fundamental rethinking of the way of working of the marketing organization: thinking through which services company really need, doubling down on what works (by creating a flexible and iterative statement of work – SOW, and tailoring company’s agency’s account team); changing the way the work is done (by creating an antiredundancy culture, working with finance to reform the annual budget process, and continuously demonstrate the value of marketing); optimizing where the work is done (by bringing businesscritical activities in house, creating the right ecosystem of agencies, and establish a clear clientagency relationship model); paying the right price, knowing exactly what the company is Holistic Marketing Management

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spending (by arming the company with comparable price data, giving agencies a reason to go the extra mile, and soliciting regular and robust pitches). (Butt et al., 2020) This is no doubt one of the many valuable McKinsey’s works needing to be quickly deepened and valorized. For instance, take a look at two significant McKinsey’s exhibits included in other two valuable McKinsey’s works: ▪ the “Matrix for prioritizing measures for rapid revenue recovery” (presented within the context of a recommendation to focus on four strategic areas: recovering revenue, rebuilding operations, rethinking the organization, and accelerating the adoption of digital solutions): (Sneader and Sternfels, 2020)

Figure no. 1: Recovering revenues is an important element of reimagining the return. Matrix for prioritizing measures for rapid revenue recovery, illustrative Source: Sneader, K. and Sternfels, B. (2020). From surviving to thriving: Reimagining the post -COVID-19 return, McKinsey & Company, May 1, 2020 (work cited)

▪ “An agile-squad model can raise a company’s metabolic rate” (presented within the context of developing a rapid-fire agile operating model, with agile squads assigned to specific areas of focus, from consumer/customer insights to digital marketing, and this while considering three for effective marketing-and-sales responses to the COVID-19 crisis: navigating the now, planning for the recovery, and leading in the next normal): (Gregg et al., 2020) Holistic Marketing Management

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Figure no. 2: An agile-squad model can raise a company’s metabolic rate Source: Gregg, B., Hazan, E., Kim, A., Perrey, J. and Spilleck, D. (2020). Rapid Revenue Recovery: A road map for postCOVID-19 growth, McKinsey & Company, Marketing & Sales Practice, May 7, 2020 (work cited)

We express the conviction that these are truly lessons to learn, and paraphrasing Seth Godin (cited by us in 2011), we started in the present approach from the fact that “all our HMM customers are smarter than average”.

Theodor Valentin Purcărea Editor-in-Chief References Butt, C., Hakim, H., Jacobs, J. and Schaffne, R. (2020). An essential marketing tool in a downturn: Spend management, McKinsey & Company, Marketing & Sales Practice, May 6, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/business -functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/anessential-marketing-tool-in-a-downturn-spend-management Dowd, K. (2020). Knowledge 2020: 4 Main Takeaways From the Virtual Event, BizTech, June 9, 2020. Retrieved from https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2020/06/knowledge-2020-4-main-takeaways-virtual-event Jones, K. (2020). Navigating Uncertainty: Leadership Accountability in Times of Crisis, Visual Capitalist, April 20, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.visualcapitalist.com/leadership-accountability-in-times-of-crisis/ Gregg, B., Hazan, E., Kim, A., Perrey, J. and Spilleck, D. (2020). Rapid Revenue Recovery: A road map for postCOVID-19 growth, McKinsey & Company, Marketing & Sales Practice, May 7, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/business -functions/marketing-and-sales/ourinsights/rapid-revenue-recovery-a-road-map-for-post-covid-19-growth Lee, C. (2020). Four Keys to Pivoting Your Business in Times of Adversity, AMA SF) Blog, June 12, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.amasf.org/blog/four-keys-to-pivoting-your-business-in-times-of-adversity/ Levy, C., Mieszala, J-C., Mysore, M. and Samandari, H. (2020). Coronavirus: 15 emerging themes for boards and executive teams, McKinsey & Company, Risk Practice, June 2, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/risk/our-insights/coronavirus-15-emergingthemes-for-boards-and-executive-teams Mehta, N. (2020). The World Needs Human-first CEOs, Not War-time CEOs, Customer Experience Uupdate, June 17, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.customerexperienceupdate.com/edition/daily-customer-success-user-experi ence-2020-06 -17?

Purcarea, T. (2011). Contributing to reinventing management for the 21st century, by building our holistic story of realizing holistic marketing and developing a position guided by customer insights, Holistic Marketing Management, March 2011, Volume 1, Issue 1, pp. 03-04 Routley, N. (2020). How Leadership Accountability Drives Company Performance, Visual Capitalist, March 10, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.visualcapitalist.com/leadership-accountability-and-company-performance/ Sneader, K. and Sternfels, B. (2020). From surviving to thriving: Reimagining the post-COVID-19 return, McKinsey & Company, May 1, 2020.

Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/ from-surviving-to-thriving-reimagining-the-post-covid-19-return Sweezey, M. (2020). The Big Shift: A Prediction of What’s to Come Post-Pandemic, AMA Marketing News, 4.6.2020. Retrieved from https://www.ama.org/marketing-news/the-big-shift-a-prediction-of-whats-to-come-post-pandemic/ *** Overall conference + week 6 highlights from Knowledge 2020, ServiceNow Blog, June 12, 2020. Retrieved from https://blogs.servicenow.com/2020/knowledge-2020-week-6-highlights.html *** Opportunity Cost, https://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/College/opportunitycost.html

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The Connection between Digital Marketing and Relevant Public Relations. The Brand Building Role of Digital Communication Professor Costel NEGRICEA, Ph.D. Matei PURCĂREA

Professors Matthew R. Lee, Mitsuhiro Shimmen, William Perttula, Costel Negricea, and RAU Valedictorian Matei Purcărea

Abstract Being under pressure of reviewing the crisis communications strategy in full digital acceleration of the business world caused by the new coronavirus crisis, on the way of protecting and promoting brand reputation it is useful to consider the connection between digital marketing and relevant public relations (PR). Marketers are carefully looking through the window of opportunity represented by the synergy between the “5Ds of Digital” and the brand building role of digital communication, struggling to better understand the digitally savvy buyer behavior and improve customer lifecycle marketing, including by considering how different channels can be utilized across different stages of the buyer’s journey. They also take into account to advance in the continued move to a digital/marketing Centre of Excellence model (DCoE) as smaller digital innovative services units. And with regard to the digital brand building in higher education, within the digital credentialing ecosystem, it is important to be community driven going from promise to reality, on the basis of both right digital marketing action plans including effective pitch writing as an essential part of PR and inspiring design, and continuously transformation of the brand’s energy into new action, creating and activating friendships, building emotional connection, better understanding that digital transformation is essential for a resilient organization. .

Keywords: Digital Marketing, Public Relations, Brand Building, Digital Communication, Higher Education, Digital Transformation JEL Classification: D83; L86; M15; M31; M37; O33 Holistic Marketing Management

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Relevant PR: Forming a mental picture of social media communications and integration, and thinking harder about the strength of the reputation intelligence In our last HMM issue we expressed our firm conviction that digital transformation based on a very human-centered approach is a must, being a real need of adequately managing digital marketing, the new norm reshaped by technology and trends, including by better controlling company’s social strategy and improving social branding, considering the integration of AI with IoT. (Negricea & Purcarea, 2020) Within this framework we reminded the words of “The Father of Modern Marketing”, Philip Kotler, who said at the end of the last year that: “Ironically, as we move more into digital marketing, we might find someone earning the title of The Father of Digital Marketing… Marketing plays its greatest role when it makes life better for the majority of people. I chose marketing because at its best it lifts the Common Good”. (Intermite, 2019) Over 20 years ago Philip Kotler wrote the Foreword to the book “Value-Added Public Relations: The Secret Weapon of Integrated Marketing” (McGraw-Hill, 1 edition, December 11, 1999) by Thomas L. Harris, a management consultant specializing in marketing and public relations, and Kotler’s colleague at Northwestern University. Over 35 years ago (First Published 1984, eBook Published 17 April 2018, Routledge, 1 edition, 10 April 2018) in a book written by Frank Jefkins, and entitled “Public Relations for Management Success” it was underlined the following definition (as the so-called “Mexican Statement” issued on the occasion of the International Conference of PR Institutes which took place in August 1978 in Mexico City): “Public relation practice is the art and science of analysing trends, predicting their consequences, counselling organization leaders, and implementing planned programmes of action which will serve both the ‘organizations’ and the public interest”. Within this framework it was highlighted that management has to communicate at all levels, appreciating firstly the situation, in other words “communication audit” (also being underlined, among other aspects, that the PR practitioner should report to the CEO and co-operate with all other departments).

Over 40 years ago (1976) the American academic Rex Harlow argued that he produced the first all-inclusive definition of PR (after identifying 472 definitions): “Public Relations is the distinctive management function which helps establish and maintain mutual lines of communication, understanding, acceptance and co-operation between an organization and its publics; involves the management of problems and issues; helps management to keep informed on and responsive to public opinion; defines and emphasizes the responsibility of management to serve the public interest; helps management keep abreast of and effectively utilize change, serving as an early warning system to help anticipate trends; and uses research and sound and ethical communication as its principal tools”. (Butterick, 2011) Over 90 years ago (1928) Edward Bernays, “the father of public relations”, promoted the term “public relations”, being considered today as pioneering a form of branding. (Gunderman, 2015) According to his opinion: “Public relations are the engineering of public consent” (Crystallizing Public Opinion, 1923).

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Without entering in other details with regard, for example, to the link between public relations (PR) and reputation (according to the definition given by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, UK, which equates PR with reputation management – as underlined by Keith Butterick in 2011, work cited) or other different emphasis put by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA: “Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics”), which also consider PR as encompassing protecting the reputation of an organization, reputation management being considered both a function of public relations, and (often) a priority in crisis management, allow us to reveal some significant issues: ● The coincidence between the above mentioned idea of management’s need of firstly making the “communication audit”, and both the event name chosen by PRWeek UK (recognized as the leading source of news, analysis, features jobs and social media for the PR industry) for its online Conference from June 30, 2020, “Crisis Communications”, and its message: “We are living in the greatest global crisis of recent times, with the COVID-19 pandemic and resultant social restrictions drastically altering the way that consumers can interact with brands.” It was a suggestive invitation to review the crisis communications strategy. ● The suggestion made very recently by PRWeek’s Editor-in-Chief Danny Rogers that: “COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement may have accelerated 'purpose' marketing so swiftly as to leave many brand campaigns appearing out of touch”. (PRWeek Creative Inspiration Bulletin, 2020) ● The suggestive point of view told on June 30, 2020 to PRWeek by the former advertising industry legend Sir Martin Sorrell that (within the context of COVID-19 crisis which has led to a “digital acceleration” of the business world, with more “dispersed” companies and workers on the way of recovery taking a “reverse square root” shape, in his opinion): “Public relations conjures up images of writing press releases… It feels analogue to many of our people.

To be relevant today it should conjure up social media communications and integration”.

(Rogers, 2020) ● The invitation made (from the beginning of this year) by PRWeek to think harder about the strength of the company’s reputation intelligence, taking into account that for anyone in PR a crucial focus is to protect and promote brand reputation, comparing to the company’s peers, and identifying the proper way of building a realistic picture of the company’s profile and reputation across traditional and digital media. And in this respect PRWeek recommended Kantar Brand Reputation Benchmark which “brought together the most comprehensive and actionable intelligence on media consumption, performance and value to create a holistic picture of the changing media landscape”. (PRWeek, 2020) Allow us to add within this framework that: the Kantar Consulting’s new Business Purpose practice (The Purpose 2020 report; there were surveyed more than 20,000 consumers and carried out 100 deep dive interviews with leading Holistic Marketing Management

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brands) outlined three key steps to inspiring purpose-led growth: Articulation (the findings revealing that brands are over-investing in purpose “articulation”), Infusion (brands are underinvesting in the “infusion” phase) and Amplification (brands are under-investing in the “amplification” phase) – the last two phases embedding the purpose within the organisation and customer base (Kantar pledging for the need to reverse the current 80-20 investment model KANTAR CONSULTING, Purpose holds the key to igniting brand growth); on August 12, 2020, will took place the Finalist Announcement for the PRWeek Purpose Awards: “The global COVID-19 pandemic has many searching for meaning… As consumers and potential staffers increasingly insist on brands they engage with and organizations they work for communicating what they believe in and standing up publicly for those values, winning a Purpose Award is the perfect way to demonstrate your organization’s authenticity in this crucial area”.

In the latest years there was an abundance of practitioners’ approaches with regard to the relation between PR and Digital Marketing, such as: “Public Relations is certainly evolving with the influence of digital marketing” (Franziska Pirkl, Public Relations, SEO, Social Media at Online Optimism), (Pirkl, 2016) “Why PR and digital marketing are connected – and how to capitalize” (Michelle Garrett, PR consultant and writer for Garrett Public Relations), (Garrett, 2018), “Role of Public Relation in digital marketing” (Curvearro, a leading, award winning digital marketing agency), (Curvearro, Dec 19, 2019) According to Digital Marketing Institute:“Ideally, digital PR (aiming more to increase traffic and awareness) and marketing (more focused on conversions) should work together, with each strategy complementing and enriching the other”. There is no doubt, as Michelle Garrett wrote last year, that: “The value of public relations is increasing, as PR pros continue to prove their worth as storytellers who can write and place stories, building links in the process and getting the word out on social media which further enhances a brand’s SEO”. (Garrett, 2019) Curvearro, the above mentioned leading, award winning digital marketing agency underlined in December 2019 that: “In digital marketing, PR is the most effective method to communicate and relate to the market. It is one of the most cost-effective methods of all promotional activities… public relations is a vital component of digital marketing that truly wants to dominate the market and provide a better experience to both marketers as well as customers. As a marketer, you must include a public relations management strategy to get the best result from your marketing and also you can amalgamate it with an SEO campaign”.

And, of course, taking into account that, as also recently highlighted by Eric Lebowitz, Director of Marketing at Critical Mention (which provides real-time tracking of TV, radio, online news sources, and social media - according to the Blomberg profile), the rapid evolution of the way PR and communications professionals communicate with the media has been accelerated even more by the COVID-19 pandemic. (Lebowitz, 2020) There is a clear awareness of the fact that the landscape for communicators and PR professionals was drastically changed by the COVID-19 crisis, as revealed in May this year by the new report of PR Daily entitled “The Future of the Role of the PR Pro” (there were surveyed 315 communicators). It was Holistic Marketing Management

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highlighted between this PR Daily framework that “COVID-19 highlights power of collaboration for PR pros”, (Kitterman, T. (2020) collaboration being considered crucial (the Csuite ranking appearing as the top partner for better communication and reputation management), and respondents also confirming flexibility and creativity as top skill sets for media relations professionals.

Digital Marketing, the “5Ds of Digital”, Digital Communication and Lifecycle Marketing As the reputed digital strategist Dr. Dave Chaffey (we referred to him many times in our HMM issues) showed in April this year, digital marketing (which is, simply said, about utilizing digital technology and media in order to achieve marketing objectives) represents the term most frequently used today, that is why he considered useful to offer a graphical summary definition of the scope of digital marketing, breaking it down into easier to manage areas (activities across the customer lifecycle) that can then be planned, managed and optimized on the basis of the valuable RACE Digital Marketing Planning framework, as shown in the figure below: (Chaffey, 2020)

Figure no.1: RACE Digital Marketing Planning framework Source: Chaffey, D. (2020). What is Digital Marketing? A visual summary, Smart Insights, 20 Apr, 2020 (work cited) Holistic Marketing Management

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Chaffey started here from the fact that digital marketing today involves managing and harnessing what he coined as the “5Ds of Digital” (Digital devices, Digital platforms, Digital media, Digital data, Digital technology) which define both consumers’ opportunities (to interact with brands) and businesses’ opportunities (to reach and learn from their audiences in different ways). For example, businesses need to collect the insight about their audience profiles and their interactions with businesses (digital data, which now needs at their turn to be protected by law).

Chaffey argues that there is still a digital marketing’s necessity for integration of the online communications techniques (such as: the likes of search engine marketing, social media marketing, online advertising, e-mail marketing and partnership arrangements with other websites) with traditional media (such as print, TV and direct mail as part of multichannel marketing communications) to be successful, developing the customer relationship through ECRM and marketing automation.

It is useful within this context to recall that three years ago Chaffey thanked (as cofounder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights) to Debbie Inglis (author of the Smart Insights members guide to Digital Branding; a strategist and brand planner with many years’ experience building consumer brands based on strong consumer insights) for sharing her advice and opinions with regard to digital branding as digital communication (considering digital branding’s role in the context of the business strategy and brand planning). Inglis showed how branding concepts should be applied to digital media and technology in order to develop brands through interactions with consumers on their digital devices, brand marketers communicating directly and interactively with their target consumers or customers. (Inglis, 2020) Allow us to remind that Chaffey highlighted in the above mentioned April 2020 article his preference to use the terminology “digital marketing channels” rather than “types” (considering that the complexity of each channel used to reach potential customers is depending on the level of integration and tactics applied across company’s digital marketing strategy and campaigns).

In turn, Inglis underlined her perspective on digital branding as follows: “Digital channels and assets are used to communicate a brand’s positioning (or purpose) as part of multichannel brand communication or engagement programmes”. Within this framework Inglis made reference including to the brand building role of digital communications (as shown in the figure below), giving suggestive examples of where brands putted the brand-building principles into practice, and underlining how more ways of delivering engaging, consumer-centered brand experiences are provided by new buying behaviours, channels and technologies, recommending an integrated approach of online activities with offline brand events so as to deliver both an authentic and consistent total brand experience.

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In a book published at the beginning of this year – and entitled “Principles of Marketing for a Digital Age” – Tracy L. Tuten, a Professor of Marketing and author of several books (such as: “Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 World”, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008; “Advertisers at Work”, Apress, 7 sept. 2012) including co-author of the awardwinning textbook “Social Media Marketing” (Tracy L. Tuten, Michael R. Solomo, SAGE, 9 dec.

2014), also author of articles published in “ Journal of Marketing Communications”, “Psychology & Marketing”, and “Journal of Business Research”, argued that the most influential source of information across marketing decision making is perhaps understanding buyer behavior, digital advances having a double impact, they have both forced marketing to evolve, and changed forever the context, roles, and process of buying, the digitally savvy buyers using and being influenced by digitally enabled devices, channels, applications, and experiences (digital customer experiences benefitting from AI, VR, mobile apps, and digital payment systems, and occurring moment by moment, offering marketers the possibility to identify the opportunities at different points in the customer journey, clarifying both pleasurable moments and pain points, and focusing on good moments to outweigh the bad ones). She attracted our attention on the fact that we are all customers, and the traditional consumer behavior patterns have been disrupted by the digital age. (Tuten, 2020) At the beginning of October last year Dr. Dave Chaffey argued that in order to boost conversions and retention is recommendable to build companies’ and brands’ relationships with their customers by integrating communications across multiple digital channels (within a planned always-on marketing approach), on the basis of a coordinated always-on contact strategy (engaging through automated email marketing, display ad retargeting, on-site personalization, social media retargeting, traditional channels like direct mail or phone contact) for the whole customer lifecycle.

In other words, using customer lifecycle marketing (which was coined originally as a term to explain their services by the CRM provider Infusionsoft, their marketing approach including three stages: attract, sell, wow), defined by Chaffey as: “Creating a managed communications or contact strategy to prioritise and integrate the full range of marketing communications channels and experiences to support prospects and customers on their path -topurchase using techniques such as persuasive personalised messaging and re -targeting”.

(Chaffey, 2019) Chaffey showed the importance of lifecycle marketing to managing communications by developing a visual used as a gap analysis for typical lifecycle marketing activities managed by retailers and Ecommerce across the lifecycle for across the valuable Smart Insights RACE planning framework (see the figure below).

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Figure no. 2: Lifecycle Marketing Model Source: Chaffey, D. (2019). What is customer lifecycle marketing? Smart Insights, 01 Oct, 2019 (work cited)

And as when formulating a lifecycle marketing plan it is critical to consider how different channels can be utilized across different stages of the buyer’s journey, Chaffey recommended the chart shown in the figure below:

Figure no. 3: Lifecycle Marketing Model Source: Chaffey, D. (2019). What is customer lifecycle marketing? Smart Insights, 01 Oct, 2 019 (work cited)

It was not coincidentally that Chaffey introduced (from the very beginning of 2020) Lifecycle Marketing as the first essential marketing trend for 2020 (together with: conversational Holistic Marketing Management

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marketing; insights-driven marketing; marketing technology; consumer privacy and know your customer – KYC, as new identify management; digital transformation and marketing transformation). Chaffey pledged within this framework for integrating always-on digital marketing activities with brand and product marketing in the business, one hand, with the improvement (on the basis of a roadmap) of the digital capabilities and skills, and this considering the aim of digital transformation, being expected, in his opinion, a continued move to a digital/marketing Centre of Excellence model (DCoE) as smaller digital services units tracking the latest developments (with regard to the development, advising on new digital techniques and technologies). (Chaffey, 2020) As Smart Insights demonstrated, a “DCoE or Marketing Centre of Excellence encourages the adoption of the best practice in deploying relevant digital media, experiences, insight and technology across an organization”, its role being “to maximise the potential opportunities of digital media and technology to meet the multichannel marketing goals of an organization”.

Digital brand building in higher education Four years ago, in a Foreword to a book – entitled “The Future of University Credentials: New Developments at the Intersection of Higher Education and Hiring”, Harvard Education Press, September 6, 2016, Author Sean R. Gallagher – Diana G. Oblinger, President Emerita EDUCAUSE, U.S., showed that: “Communications skills, problem solving, and critical thinking have long been goals of education… Credentials signal education and skills. And the emerging digital credentialing ecosystem provides an increasingly better opportunity to align pathways, needs and skills… ” (Gallagher, 2016) On May 18, 2020 John O’Brien, President and CEO of EDUCAUSE, stated – in an article entitled “Digital Ethics in Higher Education: 2020” – that: “New technologies, especially those relying on artificial intelligence or data analytics, are exciting but also present ethical challenges that deserve our attention and action. Higher education can and must lead the way… I believe we are at a crucial point in the evolution of technology. We must come to grips with digital ethics, which I define simply as << doing the right thing at the intersection of technology innovation and accepted social values>>”.

(O’Brien, 2020) In the latest years there was also an abundance of approaches with regard to the brand building in higher education, about good marketing and bad marketing: 2015, “… marketing can much too easily damage the perception of those very aspects of the university it purports to promote: critical thinking, independence, originality, innovation, rigour, prestige, and, if we really must, << brand >>” (“Words fail us: university marketing-speak”, Professor Philip Moriarty, University of Nottingham); (Moriarty, 2015) 2016,“Looking at the current maturity of universities’ digital brands shows a remarkable opportunity for the forward thinkers and an established order waiting to be upset. As with so many other markets, those who master the ability to connect will reap benefits and those Luddites that don't will slip into irrelevance” (“To build digital brands, universities need to relinquish control”, Max du Bois, Executive Director of Holistic Marketing Management

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Spencer du Bois); (Du Bois, 2016) 2018, “Branding comes from within. It must be believed in and supported by all members of your community. Great brands are those whose missions people want to be a part of because they are the aspirations of the community. When a brand is community driven, it goes from promise to reality” (“How to Improve Your Institution’s Brand Identity”, George Mattis, Digital Content Marketing Executive, QS); (Mattis, 2018) 2019, “Scott Lucas, professor of international politics at the University of Birmingham… recommends that academics take a dialogue approach when engaging with the media and avoid preaching” (“Careers intelligence: how to talk to the media”, Anna McKie, Times Higher Education); (McKie, 2019) 2020, “Students can be influenced 24/7 and be inspired to bond with your brand.

Thus, here are 15 useful digital marketing action plans that you need to consider…: Mobile Optimization, Technical SEO, Link Building, Re-targeting Campaigns, Managed Ad Placement, On-page SEO, Conversion Oriented Content, Traffic Oriented Content, Social Sharing Oriented Content, Stakeholder Networking, Effective Pitch Writing (must be an essential part of PR process for higher education institutions), Gather Media Attention, Identify your Podium, Go Live!, Engage 24/7 with Chatbots” (“15 Digital Marketing Action Plans for Educational Institutes in 2020”, Akshay Rao, Professor of Marketing, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota); (Rao, 2020) 2020, “… for a higher education institutional rebrand to be successful, it is necessary to ensure that mid-level administration and management are aware of the benefits of branding… while a brand launch event was important, ongoing brand reinforcement and education is also valuable and necessary… internal communications supporting institutional re-branding activities have a powerful and valuable role for an institution’s re-brand strategy” (“Branding higher education: an exploration of the role of internal branding on middle management in a university rebrand”, Paul Clark, Thompson Rivers University, Canada, Chris Chapleo Bournemouth University, UK & Kati Suomi Turku School of Economics, University of Turku, Pori Unit, Finland); (Clark, Chapleo & Suomi, 2020) It is useful to come back to one of the above mentioned articles (that written by Max du Bois) to highlight a comment: “How academic communities (in particular) perceive this notion of 'brands' is itself a major obstacle to overcome. Experienced design thinkers acknowledge that when we talk about 'brands' we are describing not only the visual manifestation through corporate identity but also the tone-of-voice through our marketing and communications.

Importantly, we are also talking about the personality of an organisation - how it interacts with its clients and partners; how it acts out its values. Extolling the virtues of 'brand' to a community of sceptics and developing dynamic global university brands will only be possible, I argue, through bold leadership and inspiring design. We might enroll students, alumni and staff in the co-creation process, but ultimately we're all looking for inspiration and motivation emergent from design- and people-led leaders” (submitted by PartisReputo on April 11, 2016 - 3:27pm).

A few years ago it was highlighted in one of our HMM issues how the RomanianAmerican University (RAU) learned values and ideals (that inspired RAU Brand and the professions that it serves) from interactions and experiences impacted RAU Alumni, confirming the continuous remarkable transformation of RAU Brand’s energy into new action, revealing the Holistic Marketing Management

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inseparably threaded together of the RAU brand and student experience, being also suggested that this RAU Brand’s energy is powered by the fuel which is emotion (in spirit and letter of the valuable Forrester research), this emotion-driven RAU approach to branding being built on the interrelatedness of experience, perception, and outcome. (Purcarea, 2017) In the same HMM issue we showed that technology adoption is powered by emotion, hyperadoption being a defining characteristic, and the digital customer experience evolving step by step, the customer being one (offline and online) and challenging marketers to offer relevant content and messaging within the customer journey in which there is a real need for increasingly personalized interactions at all points. (Negricea & Purcarea, 2017) Next year, in 2018, we made reference, among other aspects, to: the invitation made by Kotler, Kartajaya and Setiawan to carefully look at some critical changes including the necessary shift from “Brand Positioning and Differentiation” to “Brand Characters and Codes”; the fact that we are witnessing an acceleration of the convergence of both the offline and on line worlds of businesses and customers (an evolution specific to the concept of Marketing 4.0), being an increasing need for marketers to create and activate friendships, building emotional connection.

(Negricea & Purcarea, 2018)

Figure no. 4: April 17, 2020, Romanian-American University’s 29th Anniversary, an Opportunity for Reflection as well as Celebration Source: https://www.facebook.com/HolisticMarketingManagement/

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Conclusions Starting from the above mentioned reflection in our HMM April 17, 2020 message, and paraphrasing a SAP’s representative, (Snell, 2020) we can say that considering now it is the moment to reevaluate what is necessary to successful brand building, we tried to make sure we answered the right questions involved by the path forward, better understanding that digital transformation is essential for a resilient organization.

On the other hand paraphrasing McKinsey’s representatives, (Blackburn et al., 2020) we can say that we were taking the opportunity of gaining unique insights to both inform our response and help ensure that our digital future is more robust coming out of COVID-19 than it was coming in, considering that in this time of crisis our changing needs are driving rapid shifts in our mindsets and behaviors so as to innovate and valorize our talented team members and stakeholders, including our Customer Lifecycle Marketing, by an improved collaboration and sharing data and learnings.

References Blackburn, S., LaBerge, L., O’Toole, C. and Schneider, J. (2020). Digital strategy in a time of crisis, McKinsey Digital, McKinsey & Company, April 2020. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/businessfunctions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/digital-strategy-in-a-time-of-crisis Chaffey, D. (2020). What is Digital Marketing? A visual summary, Smart Insights, 20 Apr, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/what-is-digital-marketing/ Chaffey, D. (2019). What is customer lifecycle marketing? Smart Insights, 01 Oct, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.smartinsights.com/ecommerce/web-personalisation/what-is-lifecycle-marketing/ Chaffey, D. (2020). What’s new? What’s next? 6 essential marketing trends for 2020, Smart Insights, 06 Jan, 2020.

Retrieved from 06 Jan, 2020 Clark, P., Chapleo, C. & Suomi, K. (2020). Branding higher education: an exploration of the role of internal branding on middle management in a university rebrand, Tertiary Education and Management, Volume 26, pages131–149 (2020), DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s11233-019-09054-9. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11233-019-09054-9 Du Bois, M. (2016). To build digital brands, universities need to relinquish co ntrol, Times Higher Education, April 10, 2016. Retrieved from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/build-digital-brands-universities-needrelinquish-control Gallagher, S.R. (2016). The Future of University Credentials: New Developments at the Intersection of Higher Education and Hiring, Harvard Education Press, September 6, 2016 Garrett, M. (2018). Why PR and digital marketing are connected – and how to capitalize, PR Daily, Aug. 20, 2018.

Retrieved from https://www.prdaily.com/why-pr-and-digital-marketing-are-connected-and-how-to-capitalize/ Garrett, M. (2019). Why PR pros should be part of your SEO and social media teams, PR Daily, July 11, 2019.

Retrieved from https://www.prdaily.com/why-pr-pros-should-be-part-of-your-seo-and-social-media-teams/ Gunderman, R. (2015). The manipulation of the American mind: Edward Bernays and the birth of public relations, , July 9, 2015. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernaysand-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393 Harris, T.L. (1999). Value-Added Public Relations: The Secret Weapon of Integrated Marketing, McGraw-Hill, 1 edition, December 11, 1999 Inglis, D. (2020). What is ‘digital branding’? Smart Insights, 06 Mar, 2017. Retrieved from https://www.smartinsights.com/online-brand-strategy/brand-development/digital-branding-definition/ Intermite, S. (2019). Brand Activism: An Interview with Philip Kotler and Christian Sarkar, The Marketing Journal (the translated version of the Italian interview in DomaniPress.it), December 18. https://www.marketingjournal.org/brand-activism-an-interview-with-philip-kotler-and-christian-sarkar/

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Jefkins, F. (2018). Public Relations for Management Success, eBook Published 17 April 2018, Routledge, 1 edition, 10 April 2018 (First Published 1984) Keith Butterick, K. (2011). Introducing Public Relations: Theory and Practice, Sage, 2011, pp. 6-7 Kitterman, T. (2020). SURVEY: COVID-19 highlights power of collaboration for PR pros, PR Daily, May 19, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.prdaily.com/survey-covid-19-highlights-power-of-collaboration-for-pr-pros/ Lebowitz, E. (2020). The Evolving Relationship Between PR and the Media, Critical Mention, June 10, 2020 .

Retrieved from https://www.criticalmention.com/blog/public-relations/evolving-relationship-between-pr-and-themedia/ Mattis, G. (2018). How to Improve Your Institution’s Brand Identity, QS World University Rankings, February 14th, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.qs.com/how-to-improve-your-institutions-brand-identity/ McKie, A. (2019). Careers intelligence: how to talk to the media, Times Higher Education, October 20, 2019.

Retrieved from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/careers-intelligence-how-talk-media Moriarty, P. (2015). Words fail us: university marketing-speak, Times Higher Education, September 24, 2015.

Retrieved from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/words-fail-us-university-marketing-speak Negricea, C.I. & Purcarea, I.M. (2020). Adequately Managing Digital Marketing, Considering the New Consumer Behaviors Driven Including by the Daily Health News, Holistic Marketing Management, Volume 10, Issue 1, pp.

11-26, March Negricea, C.I. & Purcarea, I.M. (2017). Digital Marketers at the Intersection of Digital Transformation with CX, Holistic Marketing Management, Volume 7, Issue 4, pp. 20-26 Negricea, C.I. & Purcarea, I.M. (2018). Digital marketers challenged to drive results within the connected world, Holistic Marketing Management, Volume 8, Issue 3, pp. 08-13 O’Brien, J. (2020). Digital Ethics in Higher Education: 2020, EDUCAUSE Review 55, no. 2 (2020), May 18, 2020.

Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/5/digital-ethics-in-higher-education-2020 Pirkl, F. (2016). Public Relations is certainly evolving with the influence of digital marketing, Online Op timism, August 7, 2016. Retrieved from https://www.onlineoptimism.com/blog/public-relations-digital-marketing/ Purcarea, T. (2017). Understanding Emotion and Connecting It to the Brand, and the Brand to Results, Holistic Marketing Management, Volume 7, Iss ue 4, pp. 04-09 Rao, A. (2020). 15 Digital Marketing Action Plans for Educational Institutes in 2020, Digital Agency Network: DAN, 27 January 2020. Retrieved from https://digitalagencynetwork.com/15-digital-marketing-action-plans-foreducational-institutes/ Rogers, D. (2020). Digital natives see PR as 'press releases and gin soaked lunches', Campaign Asia, June 30.

Retrieved from https://www.campaignasia.com/article/sorrell-digital-natives-see-pr-as-press-releases-and-ginsoaked-lunches/ Snell, R. (2020). Want A Resilient Organization? Digital Transformation Is Essential, SAP, June 8, 2020. Retrieved from https://news.sap.com/africa/2020/06/want-a-resilient-organization-digital-transformation-is-essential/ Tuten, T.L. (2020). Principles of Marketing for a Digital Age, SAGE Publications Ltd, 1 edition, January 3, 2020, pp. 42, 321 *** An Assortment of Public Relations Definitions reflecting various theories, philosophies, and phases of public relations practice, https://www.nku.edu/~turney/prclass/readings/pr_definitions.pdf *** https://www.prsa.org/about/all-about-pr *** Crisis Communications tomorrow, PRWeek conferences@em.prweek.com, June 29, 2020, 11:51 *** PRWeek Creative Inspiration Bulletin with Cannes, Dove, Skittles, and why brands must stand for somet hing or fall for anything, PRWeek UK Creative Inspiration Bulletin bulletins@em.prweek.com, June 26, 11:31 *** How does your brand reputation compare to your competitors, PRWeek, January 27, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.prweek.com/article/1672090/does-brand-reputation-compare-competitors *** KANTAR CONSULTING, Purpose holds the key to igniting brand growth. Retrieved from https://consulting.kantar.com/news-events/purpose-holds-the-key-to-igniting-brand-growth/ *** . Retrieved from https://www.prweekpurposeawards.com/ *** Role of Public Relation in digital marketing, Curvearro, Dec 19, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.curvearro.com/blog/role-of-public-relation-in-digital-marketing/ *** DIGITAL MARKETING INSTITUTE, How can digital PR improve a brand’s presence? Retrieved from https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/what-is-digital-pr *** https://www.prdaily.com/white-papers/the-future-of-the-role-of-the-pr-pro/ *** Digital Marketing Centre of Excellence best practices. Retrieved from https://www.smartinsights.com/guides/digital-marketing-centre-excellence-best-practices/

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“Marketing Science and Inspirations ”: Matching with Customer Expectations

Dr. Dan SMEDESCU Associate Editor of the “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal School of Management-Marketing of the Romanian-American University

JEL Classification: Y30 As relevant brand of the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, the “Marketing Science and Inspirations” Journal is always reconfirming its well-known vocation of giving its educated, affluent and implied readers a holistic perspective on modern marketing issues, constantly encouraging their engagement and improving the brand image by maintaining the memorable connection with them, ensuring that experience desired by highly motivated readers with purpose. Consequently, we are continuing to witness our partners’ hard and smart work to ensure that this “Marketing Science and Inspirations” Journal is always a good match for both current and new readers seeing meaning in the high-quality content on actual business situations and key challenges faced by agile marketers.

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We were happy to receive by post the Issue 1, Volume XV, 2020, of our Partner Journal “Marketing Science and Inspirations”, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. The new issue of this well-known academic journal addressing to academics and practitioners covered as usual a wide range of interesting topics in the marketing research field: • “Publicity as a tool of PR activities within CSR concept in food enterprises in Slovakia”.

The authors Zdenka Kádeková and Ingrida Košičiarová analyze CSR concept use in terms of foreign participation, production focus and size of enterprises and subsequently evaluate the benefits of using publicity as a tool of PR within CSR concept. The research was conducted among 125 food enterprises, the authors using several methods of statistical evaluation, such as: the frequency and contingency tables, the absolute and relative frequencies, χ2 test of good agreement, Likert scale, Cramer's V Coefficient and Kruskal-Wallis test. The research findings confirmed that the publicity as a part of PR within CSR concept in the practice of analyzed food enterprises is primarily focused on building the reputation of the company, and offered actionable information for practical application in food enterprises.

• “The dropout in tertiary education at Czech public and private universities as a result of school marketing”.

The author Hana Kučerová showed how the situation of tertiary education in the Czech Republic has changed dramatically in the last 15 years, after the Czech Republic joined the European Union. The demographic decline of the population, structural changes in the number of employees, the expansion of tertiary education and the impact of economic cycles changed the overall extent and structure of the transition of university graduates to the labor market. The resulting changes can lead to serious problems, both on the supply side and the labor demand side, an equally significant impact on the dropout of university education having the implementation of school marketing. A school that makes better use of marketing in its activities has a greater chance of getting material and quality teachers, and to some extent, private schools are in a better position because they have effective marketing policies in place for some time now. This author’s article dealing with the development of the dropout at public and private universities in the Czech Republic compared the dropout according to the degree of the study program, the answers to the research questions being obtained through the analysis of secondary data (literature, research, annual reports and long-term intentions of universities). The fact that in the Czech Republic the dropout rate is increasing every year was confirmed by the performed analysis, and thus represents one of the main actual problems of both the Czech public and private universities.

• “The relevance of virtual showrooms for sanitary retail”.

The authors Marcus Diedrich and Markus Peplinski started from the fact that hardly any other technical achievement has influenced the economy and society as strongly as the Internet, Holistic Marketing Management

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which not only offers unhindered access to almost all information in the world, but also helps to process transactions faster and more efficiently. And as brick-and-mortar retail is losing market share, being increasingly under pressure due to the sometimes much cheaper competition from the Internet, one solution is a multi-channel strategy that incorporates virtual aspects into customer service. In order to investigate the extent to which virtual showrooms are used in sanitary retail and what benefits they bring to companies, this study used five hypotheses, surveying among 250 sanitary retailers and provided answers to questions such as whether the use of virtual showrooms: will increase; saves time in the customer service process; has a positive effect on perceived customer satisfaction.

• “The consumer behavior of young Slovak consumers (under the age of 25) in the private label market”.

The authors Ingrida Košičiarová and Zdenka Kádeková underlined from the very beginning that despite the fact that consumer behavior, factors affecting the purchasing process of consumers, the process of consumer decision-making etc. have been the subject of matter of several research projects, papers and studies, in the field of private labels this issue has been quite recent. The aim of their paper was to find out how respondents under 25 years perceive private labels (the authors focused mainly on the segment of milk and dairy products), whether they buy them, are their final users etc. As the main research method it was chosen an anonymous questionnaire survey attended by 549 respondents aged under 25 years across Slovakia. This was subsequently supplemented by statistical verification of the formulated twelve hypotheses. Statistical tests such as Pearson Chi-square test, Phi coefficient, Kruskal-Wallis test and Cramer´s V coefficient were used for this verification and they were calculated in the statistical programs of XL Stat and SAS Enterprise Guide. The authors presented at the end of the paper both the key findings of their research, and possible recommendations for the practice.

This new issue of the “Marketing Science and Inspirations” Journal also includes other sections such as: ▪ “Marketing Briefs”: Pavel Štrach – “Before, during, and after: Marketing amid coronavirus crisis”; ▪ “Captured us”: “Czechs and advertising 2020”; “The best PR projects in Slovakia”; ▪ “Reviews”: Dušan Pavlů – “Fotr, Jiří and Souček, Ivan: Scenarios for Strategic Decision-Making and Management”; ▪“Dictionary of Useful Marketing Terms”, Dagmar Weberová.

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We always remember with pleasure that the Editor-in-Chief of the “Marketing Science and Inspirations” Journal – Professor Peter Štarchoň, Faculty of Management, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia – is also a Member of the Editorial Board of the “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal and of the “Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine”.

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It is our honor and pleasure to remember both the significant meeting in Koln, Germany, in 2011, on the occasion of the working meeting of the European Retail Academy (ERA), and the different significant moments when the ERA President, Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier (also a Member of both above mentioned Editorial Boards), visited the Romanian-American University.

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Thematic University Network: COVID-19 Challenge, Packaging Competence, Food Availability, MEFOSA, and Blended Learning Bernd HALLIER

Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier, President of the European Retail Academy (ERA) is a distinguished Member of the Editorial Board of our “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal. The Romanian-American University (RAU) has awarded Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier a “Diploma of Special Academic Merit”. Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier is continuing to strongly support the Thematic University Network (TUN) for Research and Knowledge Penetration along the Total Supply Chain from farm to fork (TUN EQA), working hard to institutionalize TUN as an excellent platform for global dialogue. He began many years ago a fruitful collaboration with the prestigious Professor Klaus Toepfer (former Federal German Minister for Environment, former director of the United Nations Environment Program UNEP and initiator of the Kyoto Protocol), and with Dr. Angela Merkel (today Chancellor of the Federal Republic, and who pushed “environment” to become a high political issue during the EU-Presidency of Germany, in 2007).

Our Friend Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier congratulated us on the designation of the Romania n President Klaus Werner Iohannis as recipient of the Charlemagne Prize in Aachen, in April 2020: https://holisticmarketingmanagement.ro/romanian-president-klaus-werner-iohannis-thedesignated-recipient-of-the-international-charlemagne-prize-of-aachen-april-2020/.

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COVID-19 Challenge The CREATIVITY of retail can be seen according to Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier in a lot of short-term initiatives to protect consumers in the food business against COVID-19. Some of the best practices will become teaching material for blended learning at this ERA Site in one of the next News-editions.

Part of the overall effort to contain the spread of the virus had been on the level with trading partners to guarantee supplies despite panic buying; instore-operations had been partly re-arranged; own personnel had to be educated for the new situation and consumers to be instructed to change shopping-behavior; e-commerce had been speeded up to reduce risks for people better to stay at home. Prof Dr. Bernd Hallier gives a lot of credit-points to the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Heroes of Supplyâ&#x20AC;?.

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Packaging Competence Mass Production for consumer goods is only possible by pre-packaging of industry. It is worth to mention according to Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier that in Germany in context of the change of life-style after World War II in 1957 the Institute of Self-Service/ISB (today EHI) was founded to standardize within a dialogue with the branded goods - and package-industry solutions for the new store-formats “supermarkets”. Examples of that meanwhile 60 years existing work-shop are publications like technical demands for one-way package or multi-trip.

In 1958 the packaging and machine sector founded the fair “Interpack” - followed in 1966 by the “EuroShop” exhibition of the retail institute: both today world-leaders of competence in their sectors at the Düsseldorf Fair Ground and show-cases for Applied Sciences.

“The national GNP is determined by the amount of practical results from Research” Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier claims.

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Food Availability Environmental Challenges like the Climate Change as well as growing Egoism in national Economies - as seen lately in the Corona crisis - will increase according to Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier the gap between the rich and the poor: in individual economies and in the worldwide competition. Food Availability will become one of the social battlefields in the next decades.

As ERA-trainee Dr. Alina Pukhovskaya looked into buying habits in affluent countries versus increasing demand of poorer populations for EU-publication about Food Waste (See eBook). Later she expanded the topic and analyzed in her PhD research at CIRCLE International/Vitez University the case of the Mexican Food Bank (See Publication). According to Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier this project should be enlarged by the Global Green University to further countries: also to be customized to other cultural habits/needs around the globe.

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MEFOSA MEFOSA from Beirut/Lebanon is the Middle East North Africa Food Safety Association.

Permanently they inform by newsletters or webinars about actions how to improve food safety.

An example is the explanation of ISO 9001 and its potential action extension via ISO 22000 or ISO 17025 to go global or to interconnect with the own laboratory or accredited external systems or to measure impacts/benefits.

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Blended Learning Having been involved in the development of Tracing/Tracking and Good Agricultural Practices in the middle of the 90ies by EHI, Orgainvent and EUREPGAP/GLOBALGAP today Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier is pushing those tools of applied sciences mainly by the Sites of the European Retail Academy.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;We need a world-wide interdisciplinary communication about the food-standards and standard-setters. Beside exchanges of staff, teachers and students we should use also the tool of Blended Learning for reasons of lower costs. One of those training-platforms has become the Site Thematic University Network(Food)â&#x20AC;? he stated at ANUGA 2019.

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Putting Radical Marketing into Practice Immediately, Keeping Agile and Adaptable Theodor Purcarea Abstract It’s that time of thinking in non-traditional ways and identifying a sense of direction within the dramatically changed things, going beyond yesterday’s techniques and assumptions, involving the more possible perspectives, revisiting the customer journey map as a response to COVID-19 and building the necessary capabilities to anticipate and delight the savvy customers. Marketers are under pressure to focus their metrics on the quality of CX, and to better understand the identity resolution, the Customer Success function, the retention strategies implemented at a holistic level, the need of powering customer retention and reactivation, continuously adapting to the new normal, being better placed both to provide creative solutions in these times of restarting the economy, and to predict the future, remaining constructive in valorizing both people as the greatest assets, and applying the lessons learned so as to adequately implement the new strategies accordingly, confirming a better understanding of the mega-trends shaping the so-called Second Golden Age of Martech. There is no doubt about marketers’ need to reinvent themselves so as to fit into the “new normal” space, contributing to offensive measures, exploring, reorienting, and normalizing, being creative and proactive, planning for potential futures, ensuring customers’ reliance on valuable brands, resetting guiding values.

Keywords: “New Normal”; CX; Customer Success; Martech; Agile Marketing JEL Classification: L86; M31; M37; M38; O33

Starting thinking in non-traditional ways Facing an economic crisis caused by the new coronavirus there is a real need for a sense of direction within the dramatically changed things, understanding where we are going into, making teams understand the big picture (on the basis of shared consciousness, facts and real data synchronizing supply chains), adequately communicating, keeping team members updated and empowered on a frequent basic, being a digital-first entrepreneur, and better prepared for such crisis situations like this in years to come, caring about people and doing the right things, as The Marketing Journal revealed in May 2020. (Clancy and Lochhead, 2020) Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that The Marketing Journal invited us from the very beginning of this year to start thinking in non-traditional ways, and creating, reviewing and updating marketing plans, radicalizing them, by: designing and dominating a giant market category (as the marketing organization’s job); having a radical way to evangelize our category POV (brands – which are about companies – being made by categories, which are about customers, and are marketed by legendary marketers with a provocative point of view, evangelizing their category POV so as to create a sense of inevitability with their target customers; being known, allow us to add, that the point of view category is defined on the basis of both its hierarchical position and its function, also considering the interplay with other categories such as anchoring and classification); generating leads and driving revenue in a radical way (designing the category for the mid-long term and driving revenue in the “ASAP, right now” term, dominating digitally, and gaining Holistic Marketing Management

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target customers’ attention by making them a radical offer). (Lochhead, 2020) In other words, as the reputed Christopher Lochhead recommended (making reference to his friend, the legendary designer John Bielenberg) in January 2020, it is necessary to apply Bielenberg’s approach of “thinking wrong”. That means using “future’s radical problem-solving system to reliably produce surprising, ingenious, and seemingly magical answers to your most wicked questions”, going beyond the “techniques and assumptions of a prior era”, beyond the “conspiring of biology and culture to obstruct the progress”, considering different angles and creating that kind of new solutions by making necessary changes so as to “help more people move off the well-worn paths that have gotten us to this place”. (Bielenberg, Burn and Galle, 2016) It is also worth recalling within this framework two significant moments: the founding by John Bielenberg in 2003 of the so-called Project M (Mentor, seeing “Think Wrong” as a means of making the world a better place through design); the founding, in January 2011, by Bielenberg together with Alex Bogusky and Rob Schuham (both having backgrounds in advertising and marketing), of a new project socalled COMMON (seen as a creative community for rapidly prototyping social change). (Fell, 2012) In our last HMM issue we showed that within the current more complex general context marketers are under pressure of holistically thinking about the customer journey, and overcoming his anxiety and friction, considering customers’ purchasing’s increase influenced more by the mental cost. (Purcarea, 2020) There is no doubt about the significance of: ● Considering the customer journey map as the backbone of the customer experience (CX) program (by clarifying: the way of presenting a new offer to the customer, how will the customer’s expectation be with the new process, if this new process is going to de-value or make redundant other touchpoints or if this new process will require additional follow-up, and if the chosen place to introduce this new process/offer is the best etc.), and involving the more possible perspectives, without forgetting the emotional journey of individual touchpoints so as to determine the appropriate course of action; (Local Measure, 2018) ● Revisiting the customer journey map as a response to COVID-19 with regard to the new impacts and implications for touchpoints and moments of truth (including micro moments), reviewing the Voice of the Customer Analytics, and updating personas and customer segmentation accordingly; (Mattox, 2020) ● The more self-directed B2B buyer journey, B2B marketers needing to plan their personalization road maps accordingly (this rapid transformation of the B2B customer journey being accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic), also building the necessary capabilities to anticipate and delight the savvy customers; (McLaren, 2020) ● Better understanding the link between CX, one hand, and customer satisfaction and loyalty, on the other hand (CX being all about improving both of them), knowing that CX management is considered (by Gartner) to be “the practice of designing and reacting to customer interactions to Holistic Marketing Management

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meet or exceed customer expectations and, thus, increase customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy”; and that is why is necessary for both marketing (still mostly focused on driving prospect engagement which might turn into revenue), and sales (still mostly focused on closing deals and making quota) so as to adequately focus their metrics on the quality of CX, creating a journey for individual customers tailored based on experience, and increasing incremental revenue; (Thompson, 2020) ● Measuring the content’s consumption gap (defined by NetLine as “the time between the moment content is requested and the moment it’s opened for consumption”), knowing: the importance of this data point to guide the timing of follow up contacts with potential B2B buyers (content marketing being one of the most widely-used techniques in B2B marketing); the need to consider also other aspects such as: the best times to offer content, the most requested content formats (considering including the dramatic increase in webinars’ use driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, beyond the traditional use of eBooks, white papers, guides etc.); (Dodd, 2020) ● Better understanding the identity resolution as a critical enterprise capability needed to differentiate CX with a company’s brand, knowing that: wherever customers engage they expect relevancy and consistency from a brand; with device and channel proliferation it is more difficult for marketers to recognize people (who are moving seamlessly anonymously or authenticated) as they engage with a brand, marketers needing adequate strategies (such as: protecting their customer data in a safe haven, in accordance with the increasing concern about data protection and privacy legislation; identifying & unifying their customer data; learning about the whole person, with detailed professional and personal insights; recognizing in real-time; measuring their Omni channel performance); (FullContact, 2020) ● The Customer Success (CS) function (which is not yet being considered as part of the core CSuite in most organizations, according to a recent global survey – 22 countries, 250 + respondents –conducted by SmartKarrot; only 9% of organizations reported as having Chief Success Officer and Chief Customer Officer roles), a recent study revealing, among other aspects, that: this function is somewhat integrated + siloed (65% of respondents); CX is a key responsibility area of the CS team (84% of respondents); Customer Churn is used as CS performance measure (74% of respondents); Customer Churn & Revenue are no. 1 & 2 top metrics used currently, and with the new normal post COVID-19 it is expected that Revenue Expansion to slowly become the go-to metric for CX Officers (CXOs); (SmartKarrot, 2020) ● An adequate customer retention program in place (on the basis of retention strategies implemented at a holistic level in order to prevent churn and grow the company’s business), calculating the customer lifetime value (CLV) on the basis of the retention rate, knowing that the higher the retention, the higher the CLV; (Ahmed, 2020)

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● Powering customer retention and reactivation by using loyalty data, scaling or ensuring personalized and consistent Omni channel CX (by discovering customer insights, testing hypotheses, and optimizing CRM campaigns accordingly); (Vexelman, 2020) ● The evolution of the economy and customer for CX approach, because many underlying principles of it will remain the same but CX will no doubt continue to change, what will make it necessary to keeping both an open mind and a willingness to adapt to the new normal so as to can ensure continued growth and sustained customer loyalty. (Interactions, 2020) Marketers’ challenge of keeping agile and adaptable Mid May this year the reputed Scott Brinker introduced a guest post entitled “Reflections on agile marketing by leading practitioners and analysts”, in which the findings of Andrea Fryrear of AgileSherpas from her latest State of Agile Marketing report were shared. (Brinker, 2020) Within this framework, the different manifestations of marketing agility (we referred to agile marketing also on other occasions in our HMM issues) were underlined, the most important reasons for adopting agile within a marketing department being as follows: to improve productivity (58% of respondents; n = 267), to enhance the ability to manage changing priorities (54%), to increase innovation (49%), to accelerate delivery of campaigns (44%), to improve project visibility (42%), to improve alignment with other teams/business units (36%), to improve team morale (32%), to better manage distributed teams (31%), to enhance predictability of campaign delivery (26%). We remarked among other opinions that expressed by Michael Brenner, CEO of Marketing Insider Group: “Agile approaches, terminology, processes, and outcomes have become mainstream in marketing”.

More recently, it was interesting to also see the opinion expressed by another well-known expert, Daniel Burstein, Senior Director, Content & Marketing, MarketingSherpa and MECLABS Institute, with regard to the fact that: “The world needs marketers today more than ever – your unique skillset, the way you see the world, the way you connect those who produce value with those who seek it… Marketing transcends technology or data or even business.

Marketing is the art and science of letting people know when value is created – value that will help them achieve a goal or overcome a pain point. And yet, too many marketers are trapped under a myopic view of their role in society. You’re told you just need to hit numbers. You’re told you just need to please clients. Marketer, you do so much more”. (Burstein, 2020) Marketers are indeed better placed to provide creative solutions in these times of restarting the economy, by adequately positioning their organization for automation, strategically aligning their organizations’ systems and teams, and getting consensus on adequately defining qualified leads. (Customer Experience Update, 2020) They are also better placed to see beyond of what has happened (NPS, CSAT, CES scores), and predict the future, using the so-called “customer math” to reduce churn and using the data obtained so as to bring customers back into the flow of loyal traffic. (Phillips, 2020) Holistic Marketing Management

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Also recently, the CMO of Sitecore, a global leader in digital experience management software, approached the issue of the new foundation for the way businesses function postpandemic, remaining constructive in valorizing both people as the greatest assets, and applying the lessons learned so as to adequately implement the new strategies accordingly. She underlined within this framework some top predictions for marketers and marketing organizations, such as: the benefit of a solid digital strategy will be fully recognized by the business leaders truly understanding the value of digital marketing (reprioritizing accordingly their multichannel, content creation, and personalization strategies); the faster coming of the marketing plans will (a new marketing strategy being now created and implemented in weeks, cutting lead times, and making use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to further improve efficiencies and enhance personalization); the increasing work from home of more employees with the right tools and appropriate support (including video conferencing); the organizing of innovative virtual events allowing staying in touch with customers and prospects (including by involving those unable to attend in-person events in the past); the emboldening of marketers to moving agile while adapting by learning along the new way of dealing with the unexpected business environment.

(O’Neill, 2020) And speaking about making use of AI it is also worth underlining: ▪ The approach of AI (as the “How”, helping to process the data and arrive at actionable insights much faster; see the figure below) – by the CEO and the Chief Data Scientist of Trust Insights – in relation with Marketing Intelligence (as the “What”, the action taken to meet company’s goals and the data that helping to understand if the efforts made are working) and “Business Intelligence” (as helping to understand the WHY of company’s marketing): (Robbert, Penn, 2020)

Figure no. 1: Where marketing intelligence fits in with other forms of business intelligence Source: Robbert, K., Penn, C.S. (2020). What Is Marketing Intelligence? Definition, Best Practices, Use Cases and Tools, Marketing Toolbox, April 22, 2020 (work cited) Holistic Marketing Management

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▪ The recommendation made recently by a Director for Strategy & Product Marketing at Pegasystems, Vince Jeffs (recognized as an experienced product manager, consultant, and analyst in MarTech), with regard to the so-called “The Next-Best-Action” approach (driven by AI) to customer engagement, coupled with the right engine so as to deliver in-the-moment relevance to individuals, the major components of such an engine (which is crucial before, during, and after a crisis, customers needing fast solutions to the current situation within a reasonable path forward) being illustrated in the figure below: (Jeffs, 2020)

Figure no. 2: Components necessary in a Next-Best-Action Engine Source: Jeffs, V. (2020). How Next-Best-Action CX helps – before, during, & after a crisis, CustomerThink, May 26, 2020 (work cited)

In the above figure we can see how these technologies (customer data processing and analytics, a rules engine, and an arbitration layer, where P = Propensity and V = Value) must work closely together.

▪ A 2020 eBook of VantagePoint – entitled “Jetson’s or Terminator? The Current State and Possible Future of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in B2B Marketing and Sales” – showed that: even in a profession eagerly increasing the role of AI and ML human sales and marketing have a very important role to play, buying in the B2B space being a human decision made by people who are driven more by emotions (than logic), the competition in selling being stimulated by people’s understanding and guiding of the buyer’s emotional journey taken for a deal to happen; there is a clear need of digital intelligence such as AI and ML within the current focus in sales and marketing to build tech looking very quickly through very large amounts of data, calculating patterns and correlations, and serving up insights to people about what these data are saying; (VantagePoint, 2020) ▪ The scenarios highlighted by the co-founder of Alterna CX (the team behind the AI-based Customer and Employee Experience Management solution), Poyraz Ozkan (former principal at Holistic Marketing Management

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the well-known management consulting firm Peppers & Rogers Group), as appreciably helping out an organization to provide better CX: designing smart interactions (AI bring prediction power to experiences as they happen); monitoring the emotion/feeling in channels and products (customer comments can be decoded â&#x20AC;&#x201C; thanks to text analytics â&#x20AC;&#x201C; into metrics which can be contrasted across these channels and products); understanding the root causes behind low scores (AI enabling both triggering the right questions, and covering a whole array of different flows and situations). (Ozkan, 2020) The closed chasm between marketing and technology Coming back to the reputed Scott Brinker we see very recently that he highlighted: the end of the 10-years war between marketing and IT, marketing technologists being already an integral part of the marketing team, a pillar capability in the department being now represented by the marketing operations and technology management; also now the time has come to reevaluate the worldview on software and technology in marketing because of completely reshaping of the dynamics of the software industry over the past couple of decades, the cloud (where everything connects with everything else) has completely reshaped the dynamics of the software industry; in the decade ahead services companies and brands themselves will build many of the new apps and software services, and this decade will be dominated by marketers and agencies becoming part of the marketing technology (Martech) landscape. Brinker argued that the Second Golden Age of Martech (see the figure below) will be shaped by three mega-trends (platform ecosystems; blended models of software and services; custom apps and ops on a common core), the last two of them turning marketersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; relationship with software upside down.

(Brinker, 2020)

Figure no. 3: Spectrum of SaaS Platforms and Apps Powering the Second Golden Age of Martech Source: Brinker, S. (2020). Why does the massive landscape of marketing services firms not bother people the way martech does? Chief Marketing Technologist, June 22, 2020 (work cited)

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In fact Brinker showed already in January 2019 that ecosystems, experts, and (citizen) engineers are the trends driving this Second Golden Age of Martech, shaping the next decade of marketing technology. With regard to this Second Golden Age of Martech Brinker argues that whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s now different with it is that companies can start (instead of a build vs. buy dichotomy which is something specific to the First Golden Age of Martech) with a commercial platform, simply tailoring then their own custom apps and ops on a common core (seen as a much better approach). (Brinker, 2020) On the other hand, it is also worth reminding that in April 2020 Brinker highlighted the Philips Digital Marketing & E-Commerce Ecosystem graphic as the most beautiful stack visualization this year, this stack having at its heart the voice of the customer, which: is connected to three core marketing capabilities (for surveys, social listing & publishing, and reviews), from each of those capabilities branching out specific tools; has entwined within the infinite customer lifecycle of awareness, conversion, and service; also has connected around marketing capabilities (optimization, experience management, marketing content and translation, commerce and marketplaces, communities, sales and service, customer engagement), while supporting technologies are clustered on the edges (analytics and activation, collaboration, reporting), as shown in the figure below: (Brinker, 2020)

Figure no. 4: Philips Digital Marketing & E-Commerce ecosystem Source: Brinker, S. (2020). 7 amazing marketing stacks from Cisco, Infutor, Juniper Networks, Philips, Poly, Sargento, and USPS, CustomerThink, April 27, 2020 (work cited)

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Instead of conclusions Four years ago, at the beginning of the year, as context and managerial relevance matters to marketers needing to be both objective and action-oriented, seven big problems driving content for the entire AMA community were underlined: effectively targeting high value sources of growth; the role of marketing in the firm and the c-suite; the digital transformation of the modern corporation; generating and using insight to shape marketing practice; dealing with an Omni-channel world; competing in dynamic, global markets; balancing incremental and radical innovation. (Jaworski, Malcolm and Morgan, 2016) In April 2020, we found out also thanks to AMA Marketing News that in order to understand how marketers and their organizations are responding to the all-embracing impact of the coronavirus AMA and Kantar surveyed (from April 2 to13) almost 600 marketers. (Zwegers et al., 2020) And as a commencement for understanding what marketing organizations are currently both doing, and planning so as to adequately acting in this time of the new crisis, they introduced a comprehensive Kantar framework: ensuring the health, safety and productivity of employees (the respondents confirming the huge impact of the current situation on marketers); putting a rapid response team in place (ensuring this way both agile decision-making and responsiveness); taking stock of the commercial situation across retail, marketing, sales and digital (the respondents confirming theirs good placement for assessing where their organizations currently stand position, and contribute to both capturing immediate and future business opportunities, and determining the impact of potential shifts); minimizing business exposure (but avoiding as marketing budget cuts to hurt brand equity in the long term and to aggravate business recovery challenges, knowing the need of focusing now marketing activities to more longer-term brand building); capturing immediate business opportunities (by capitalizing on behavior changes among their customers, being authentic to the brand and positive for people impacted by the pandemic); monitoring and updating in real time (looking at marketers’ organization and their customers’ changing mindsets, behaviors, and evolving expectations from brands); planning now for the recovery (going beyond immediate needs and priorities, and being proactive, testing marketers’ organization’s readiness for the future by doing scenario planning).

The last idea expressed within the above mentioned AMA framework from January 2016 underlined the importance of learning from the re-invention of different firms or brands so as to “fit” into a new competitive space. Paraphrasing that approach we can say that now it is the time for marketers to reinvent themselves so as to “fit” into the “new normal” space. Paraphrasing the second approach, that of April 2020, we can say that now it is the time for marketers (dealing with this globally recognized unusual, disruptive and rapidly changing situation) to look beyond survival tactics, providing focus and decisiveness while moving from defensive measures to offensive ones, being creative and proactive, planning for potential futures, ensuring customers’ reliance on valuable brands.

With regard to the planning approach special attention needs to be paid to the way in which supply chain shock waves are generated, identifying the necessary concrete steps to Holistic Marketing Management

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master them, and this combined with both prioritizing customers and suppliers, and adjust company’s current systems (becoming successful in the key customers’ order-development process), as suggested in May this year by recognized experts. (Byrnes, Wass, 2020) On the other hand, with regard to the evolution of the human behavior (customers, employees, and leaders) as response to the new environment, it is useful to take into account the opinion expressed also in May 2020 by the reputed experience management (XM, seen as a critical capability during times of change which provides the necessary human-connected adaptability to successfully navigate company’s way back to business) catalyst Bruce Temkin (who is leading the Qualtrics XM Institute): “The evolution to a new normal will be a tug of war between people’s heightened anxiety about staying safe and their desire to return to highly engrained normative patterns of behavior”. (Temkin, 2020) Temkin argues that considering the above mentioned behavioral struggle, it is recommendable to companies heading back to business to plan for the following three phases: Explore, Reorient, and Normalize (as shown in the table below).

Table no. 1: Experience Management Areas of Focus across Three Phases Heading Back to Business Source: Temkin, B. (2020). Three Phases For Heading Back To Business, CustomerExperience Update, May 4, 2020 (work cited) Holistic Marketing Management

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And Temkin is insisting on staying focused on people (customers, employees, partners, and suppliers), identifying the right way of emerging with both improved capabilities, and enhanced offerings. And as we reminded in March this year, (Purcarea, 2020) resetting our guiding values!

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Burstein, D. (2020). 5 Marketing lessons from a unique nonprofit that sells products (and why the world needs marketers today more than ever), MarketingSherpa, June 10, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/why-the-world-needs-marketers Byrnes, J., Wass, J. (2020). Coronavirus: How to Manage Your Supply Chain Shock Waves, MarketingProfs , May 11, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2020/42891/coronavirus-how-to-manage-yoursupply-chain-shock-waves?

Clancy, H. and Lochhead, C. (2020). “Leadership in a Time of Crisis: General McChrystal’s Advice for President Trump, Governors & CEOs”, The Marketing Journal, May 3. Retrieved from https://www.marketingjournal.org/leadership-in-a-time-of-crisis-general-mcchrystals-advice-for-president-trumpgovernors-ceos-heather-clancy-and-christopher-lochhead/ Dodd, D. (2020). How B2B Buyers Actually Consume Content, CustomerThink, June 8, 2020. Retrieved from https://customerthink.com/how-b2b-buyers-actually-consume-content/?

Fell, S.J. (2012). Why Designer John Bielenberg Thinks Wrong, Design Indaba, 12 Jan. Retrieved from https://www.designindaba.com/articles/interviews/why-designer-john-bielenberg-thinks-wrong Jaworski, B., Malcolm, R. and Morgan, N. (2016). 7 Big Problems in the Marketing Industry, AMA Marketing News, 4.1.2016. Retrieved from https://www.ama.org/marketing-news/7-big-problems-in-the-marketing-industry/ Jeffs, V. (2020). How Next-Best-Action CX helps – before, during, & after a crisis, CustomerThink, May 26, 2020.

Retrieved from https://customerthink.com/how-next-best-action-cx-helps-before-during-after-a-crisis/?

Lochhead, C. (2020). “Is Your 2020 Marketing Plan Radical Enough?”, The Marketing Journal, January 14, 2020.

Retrieved from https://www.marketingjournal.org/is -your-2020-marketing-plan-radical-enough-christopherlochhead/ Mattox, A. (2020). Changing Customer Expectations and the ‘stay safe’ Lens, Andrew Reise Consulting, 06/19/2020. Retrieved from http://www.andrewreise.com/changing-customer-expectations/ McLaren, M. (2020). How B2B Marketers Can Align With the Self-Directed Buyer Journey, MarketingProfs, June 24, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2020/43093/how-b2b-marketers-can-align-withthe-self-directed-buyer-journey?

O’Neill, P. (2020). The Future of Marketing Organizations Post-Pandemic: Top 5 Predictions, MarketingProfs, June 23, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2020/43092/the-future-of-marketingorganizations-post-pandemic-top-5-predictions?

Ozkan, P. (2020). How is AI transforming Customer Experience? CustomerThink, May 28, 2020. Retrieved from https://customerthink.com/how-is-ai-transforming-customer-experience/?

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Phillips, S. (2020). Use Smart AI to Reduce Churn in Three Steps, Customer Experience Update, June 25, 2020.

Retrieved from https://www.customerexperienceupdate.com/edition/daily-roadmap-customer-base-2020-06-25?

Purcarea, T. (2020). Marketing Differentiators and the Corollary Mindset Shifts within the New Marketing, Holistic Marketing Management, Volume 10, Issue 1, 2020, pp. 36-50 Purcarea, T. (2020). The Future of Marketing Management and Accurately Understanding the News Impacting the Business, Resetting our Guiding Values, Holistic Marketing Management, Volume 10, Issue 1, 2020, pp. 04-10 Robbert, K., Penn, C.S. (2020). What Is Marketing Intelligence? Definition, Best Practices, Use Cases and Tools, Marketing Toolbox, April 22, 2020. Retrieved from https://marketing.toolbox.com/articles/what-is-marketingintelligence-definition-best-practices-use-cases-and-tools Temkin, B. (2020). Three Phases For Heading Back To Business, CustomerExperience Update, May 4, 2020.

Retrieved from https://www.customerexperienceupdate.com/edition/daily-management-customers-2020-05-04?

Thompson, B. (2020). CX ROI: Making the Case to Improve the Buying Experience, CustomerThink, June 12, 2020. Retrieved by https://customerthink.com/cx-roi-making-the-case-to-improve-the-buying-experience/?

Vexelman, R. (2020). How To: Use Loyalty Data to Power Customer Retention and Reactivation, Customer Experience Update, June 22nd, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.customerexperienceupdate.com/edition/dailycustomer-success-communication-2020-06-22?

Zwegers, J., Tremblay, A., Sheikh, A. and Seredenko, D. (2020). Coronavirus Forces Dramatic Change in Marketing, But More Can Be Done to Adapt, AMA Marketing News, 4.21.2020. Retrieved from https://www.ama.org/marketing-news/coronavirus-forces-dramatic-change-in-marketing-but-more-can-be-done-toadapt/ *** Mapping the Emotional Customer Journey, Local Measure, June 25, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.localmeasure.com/post/mapping-the-emotional-customer-journey? *** 5 Steps to Connecting Identities Across Your Marketing Ecosystem, FullContact, Adweek Partner Fri, June 5, 2020 4:45 pm. Retrieved from FullContact-Guide-5-Steps-to-Connecting-Identities-Across-Your-MarketingEcosystem-1 *** Customer Success Survey 2020, SmartKarrot Editorial Team, Jun 1, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.smartkarrot.com/customer-success-survey-2020/ *** Redefining your CX strategy: The COVID-19 Effect, Interactions, May 28, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.interactions.com/blog/customer-experience/redefining-your-cx-strategy-the-covid-19-effect/nt to learn more? *** Marketing-led Post-COVID-19 Growth Strategies, Customer Experience Update, June 27, 2020, https://www.customerexperienceupdate.com/frs/13932899/marketing-led-post-covid-19-growth-strategies/email *** Jetsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s or Terminator? The Current State and Possible Future of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in B2B Marketing and Sales, VantagePoint Performance Leader Series, 2020, artificial-intelligence-machinelearning-sales-marketing

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