Positioning crap in a jargon conscious declining market

Upon targeting the innovators in the STI paper of yesterday, I had assumed that the introduction of crap in my answer life cycle would find sufficient response at least from the market's early adopters (Considering that the STI teacher is new and enthusiastic).

However, given a more mature market today, as any marketing manager worth his weight in Kotler volumes would have told you, it did not make sense to use the crap awareness or even crap distinction methodologies of positioning. An innovative marketer however, in the words of the typical consumer of the mature market, hardly goes by the jargons of Kotler and of those whose worth is judged by their weight in Kotler volumes. An innovative marketer innovates, and that is what I tried to do by carefully positioning my crap such that the final marking is adequately provided for by mass customisation of answers.

In trying to offer whatever is typical to the consumer's behavioral patterns, I did end up in the declining stage of the marks life cycle. Expecting a case study in the question paper, the consumer's behavior brought all my previous marketing research to naught. The difference between a developed and developing market notwithstanding, I tended to position my answer in the middle, not forgetting, in the process, to consider the answer's orientation towards the concepts of developed and developing economy.

To illustrate (as I often had the chance to do in the paper), a product called Revival was positioned not only as the medicinal capsule that it actually is, but the ambivalence among the consumer towards the augmented product attributes was exploited to the hilt by positioning the brand name as atypical, suited to any one of a shampoo, a cooking oil, an engine lubricant, or a medicinal drug...as the actual case may be. If you are still wondering as to my infinite capacity for wonders, I ask you to refer back to the section where I was talking about innovative marketers.

The buying decision for the answers lies in the hands of the consumer who has a distinctive buying pattern...if only I had known in the exam hall that this buying pattern refers to his willingness to solve a problem (read give marks) based on some information search (which he will have a tough time doing in my paper), I would have made the marketing mix accordingly and not based the buying behavioral pattern one of fashion, fad and style...might as well have given some promotions in the form of RRB, EPSB and/or some such other perceived high-value abbreviations...