Agile Marketing & Branding

Organizations currently face different challenges from what they used to encounter in past decades, and potentially in the next decades as well. For instance, consumers’ behavior is in continuous change; they tend to change their minds, and switch from one brand to another within short periods. Moreover, purchase of different products that were not attractive to them yesterday will most likely be switched to other products tomorrow. That is why it is mandatory for businesses to be flexible to adapt or they will fade out fast .

Extensive and thorough product development and orientation processes were recently replaced by better-quality products in the fastest way possible. Due to this shift, the marketing and agility concepts were brought together as two complementary components, introducing the concept of agile marketing. Due to the current market diversity, old ideas are rapidly replaced by new ones, which endorsed developing the concept of agility in marketing with its roots in software development. Its main objective is to move from rigid and mass production strategies to more flexible and customizable ones; it is developed as a competitive advantage to meet and exceed market dynamic demands.

Scrum is the most used agile method within recent years; it is designed to deliver any type of project with improved outcomes given a changing market environment. Scrum is not exclusive in software development; Nonaka and Takeuchi (1986) used it in product development in manufacturing. Since the principles of project management is applied in the marketing field, discovering flaws earlier and acting quicker are the main objectives of scrum. It is still early to realize the complete implementation of scrum in marketing, since its adoption is still in its early stages.

On the other hand, within the last decade, branding has been included in the top priorities list for top managements due to the growing realization that brands are one of the most valuable intangible assets. Many researchers explored different brand related topics including relationships, effects and reports about its importance, causes and effects.

Well-branded businesses benefit to a great extent from their brands. With intense competition, strong brands help companies communicate why their products and services are able to uniquely satisfy customer needs. Functional differences between products and services have been nearly invisible by the adoption of total quality management; brands provide the basis for establishing meaningful differences between competing companies.

This is why it is critical how companies can enhance their brand and branding in the marketplace to stand out among rising competition by adopting one of the unique methodologies in marketing: agile marketing. Adopting agile marketing dimensions (Robustness, Responsiveness and Proactiveness) allow firms to be in a continuous readiness mode for any changing consumer demands, competition moves, and environmental dynamics.