Ever since Arthur (Red) Motley's insightful description of marketing, it is now common knowledge that marketing is a common place process which goes on not only in business organization but also in the most unlikely of places such as church, school, a dating scenario, etc. It is not the purpose of this paper to speculate but the bottom line concept behind marketing is to get someone take an action such as giving their time, money, attention etc with the expectation that both the one convincing and the one being convinced will benefit in some way.

People are in business to sell and as per the words of Motley, nothing happens until someone sells. Organizations in a bid to sell their products and services venture into marketing to woe people to buy that they have to offer. This paper seeks to highlight marketing management in its entirety. The aspect of marketing management shall be highlighted extensively in the sense that when a given brand performs well in the market, it is because the marketing department has a competent management function that gives direction to the marketing activities.

Marketing and management
As intimated earlier, marketing is the very life determining activity because it induces sales and hence profits. If a business organization goes into business, it goes in to make profits and marketing function can not be ignored. Nevertheless, business organizations should observe marketing ethics while marketing because it is immoral and against the general business ethics to cheat so as to make profits. It is the responsibility of the marketing management function to ensure that marketing ethics are upheld. Any organization found cheating in marketing in order to reap more profits through highly enhanced sales risks legal litigation.
Ethics in Marketing

Marketing is defined as the set of activities and processes carried by organizations so as to create, deliver, communicate and exchange offerings that have value to the customer, partners, the organization itself and the society at large. All these activities are possible through competent management of the marketing function of an organization. Basically, marketing is all about advertisement, distribution and selling. It is aided by market research which helps marketing organ of any organization to anticipate the present and future needs of customers and therefore affording them foresight to reap from these needs through increased sales. Marketing is almost synonymous to advertisement but according to the 4Ps model, marketing is seen to be concerned about Product, Pricing, Placement and Promotion. These four elements are at times referred to as Marketing Mix and are often used by marketers to conceive and craft a marketing plan (Hisrich, 2000).
Marketing Plan

Marketing management needs to come up with a plan that will guide the marketing activities. Working without this may prove to be counterproductive. A marketing plan is basically a written document that shows detailed courses of action aimed at achieving one or all of the marketing objectives. Basically, a marketing plan can be conceived for either a product, a service or even   a product line. A marketing plan can be used by an organization for a long period of time ranging from only one year to five years and may or may not be part of the elaborate business plan. However, it is important to note that a marketing plan relies heavily on a marketing strategy. The two are different only to the degree that one lays a foundation for the other; marketing strategy lays a solid foundation and basket for a marketing plan. Basically, planning is always done according to an underlying strategy (Westwood, 2002).

Marketing strategy
Strategy is the core function of management. Therefore, to appreciate the aspect of management in marketing, it is good to consider Nike. Nike has remained a marker leader in the apparel industry for a very long time. This is because of the strong strategy formulation which enables effective and successful marketing. Strategy formulation is a management issue and the management function in marketing is responsible for the formulation of strategy useful in marketing activities. There are a number of strategies that are necessary for successful marketing. These include but are not limited to promotional and communication strategies, distribution strategies, pricing strategies, targeting strategies, market segmentation and a general marketing strategy. To understand this aspect of strategy in marketing management it is important that we view Nike's strategy which in a way explains why it has always had an edge in the apparel market.

Nike Incorporated Company is a marketer of sports clothing or apparel and shoes. This American company is simply a multinational enterprise which has evolved over time to become overly successful in the market. The company having been founded in 1964 under the name of Blue Ribbon Sports changed its name to Nike in 1978 and since then it has grown to become a world renowned sports equipment and sportswear supplier with its headquarters in Oregon USA with its revenue running well over $18.6 billion in the 2008 financial year. This is truly a market giant which has remained on the top of the market for quite some time. However, Nike has often faced a steep competition from other sportswear and sports equipment suppliers such as Puma, Reebok and the German based Adidas. Based on the fact that Nike produces a wide range of sporting goods, it competes with every sport designs and fashions in existence. However, due to lack of single branding supplier of sportswear and sports equipment, Nike has no direct competitor other than Adidas, Puma and Reebok. The Reebok-Adidas merger earlier this year poses a likely steep marketing challenge for Nike (Michael C, 2007, pp103).

Nike produces a wide range of sportswear and sports equipment. Even though they started off with their first product being the track shoes they later diversified their products to include products such as shorts, jerseys, t-shirts etc for various sporting activities such as soccer, baseball, ice hockey, hockey, basketball, cricket, tennis etc. Nike also supplies urban fashion clothing popular with the hip hop culture.

Marketing strategy
Nike's marketing strategy rested entirely upon a brand image which is favourable and has evolved into a great multinational enterprise over time. The favourable brand image has been kept afloat due to the strong association with the Nike's logo which is quite distinctive and the slogan "Just Do It" which has been used in advertisement for quite some time. The company has been known to invest heavily in advertisements and brand promotion (Fill C, 2005 p.54).

Marke segmentation
Most of the consumers of Nike's products are mainly sportsmen. This is so because of the utility that comes with the products. An athlete is more likely to go a sports shoe designed and marketed by Nike more than a person who detests sporting and exercises. Nike targets these consumers by agreements between Nike and athletic teams, college's athletic teams1 etc for product sponsorship and eventual promotion to the members of these teams. In this way, Nike is able to reach a wide number of consumers and consumers who are more likely to buy. Even though others are likely to buy the products, Nike pays specific emphatic targeting to the athlete more than any group of individuals even though it also targets the youth who have embraced the hip hop culture.

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* Forest is a freelance writer.
* The views expressed by the author in this feature are entirely his/her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of SME Times.