The Purpose of Marketing - Essay Example

Marketing Mix of the Contents 2 Introduction 3 Product Mix 4 Place Mix 5 Promotion Mix 5 Price Mix 7Conclusion 7 References 9 Introduction The purpose of marketing is to convey to customers what the company has to offer and how it is better and distinctive than its alternatives (Brooks & Simkin (2012). Generally, it directs the company to understand the procedure of building and selling value to the customers. Ultimately, the customers buy those goods and service what they identify as the best value for their money. The formula of success is the implementation of marketing campaigns that display great products at reasonable prices. To get better return from the marketing investments, it is essential to find affordable marketing strategies. Another important criterion that needs to be highlighted is that the target group has to be clearly examined. The price and the product provide some directions in recognizing the right audience. Choi, et al., (2014) defined marketing mix as the set of strategies that a company applies to promote and advertise its goods or services. It is the crux of marketing process. It has to be reviewed constantly to meet the changing requirements. The changes in the external environment and changes within the firm necessitate alterations in the mix. There are 4Ps which typically constitute a marketing mix. They are Place, Price, Promotion and Price. However, it has started including other Ps as well like positioning, people, packaging and politics. Nike, Inc. is a renowned designer and manufacturer of footwear, services, accessories, apparel and equipment. It is an American Multinational Corporation established in 1971. It was earlier founded by the name Blue Ribbon Sports by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight (Gordon, 2012). Product Mix Product mix is defined as the total variety of goods or services offered by the company. Nike Inc. provides a wide range of products like athletic footwear like running shoes, cleats and apparels that include jerseys, layered clothes, shorts, sports equipments for wide range of sports like baseball, tennis, ice hockey, soccer, cricket, basketball, golf, athletics, combat sports, cross training for men, women and children, etc (Huang & Sarigöllü, 2012). It also manufactures shoes for other outdoor sports and activities like cycling, volleyball, wrestling, cheerleading, auto racing, aquatic sports, etc. Apparels also include urban fashion clothing. The first line of shoes released by Nike, Inc. in 1987 was Nike Air Max. Air Huarache, an additional line of products, was introduced in 1992. The new lines of goods that are recently added are the Nike NYX, Nike 6.0 and Nike SB shoes especially designed for skateboarding. It has also introduced cricket shoes known as Air Zoom Yorker, which is 30% lighter than the rest of the competing brands. In 2008, a high-performance shoe called Air Jordan XX3 was launched keeping in mind the environmental issues (Talpau, 2014). According to Kumar and Ghodeswar (2015), Nike Inc. has recently joined hand with Apple Inc. for the production of Nike+ products that can track a runners’ performance with the help of a radio device that is attached to the shoes. The device is linked to the iPod Nano. Nike+ Sports band was launched in 2009 which record distance run, keeps time, calories expended, etc. SPARQ Training program was launched in 2004 which sells cross straining footwear, equipment and apparel in the US. To decrease weight, Nike made shoes from Flywire and Lunarlite Foam. Nike Pro Combat jerseys are also worn by students of different Universities in the US during Sports Competitions. Place Mix Place mix is concerned with various techniques of storing and transporting goods and services to the customers at the right place and at the right time. Since Nike has a long list of products that it offers to the customers, so each product targets a specific group of individuals according to their tastes, likings, habits. Nike Inc. contracted more than 700 shops around the globe and opened offices in 45 countries outside US. Most of its plants are located in Asia that includes Indonesia, India, China, Vietnam, Pakistan, Malaysia, Taiwan, etc. Exclusive Nike stores and multi-brand stores around the globe carry Nike products. It distributes its products to 20,000 retail accounts in the US and sells in 200 countries around the globe. Its customer service centers and other operational units are also situated worldwide (Lantos, 2014). Nike sells its product in the international market through independent distributors, subsidiaries and licensees. Initially, Nike was reluctant to disclose information regarding the contract companies, but due to controversy it has revealed the information in its Corporate Governance Report. Since the company deals with sports, so it targets youngsters who are interested in sports. It is further trying to create its impact in Russia, Brazil and China since it believes that they can target football crazy fans. It has benefitted by opening stores in countries like India, Pakistan, Australia, South Africa because cricket is famous in those countries (Moradi, Aghaie & Hosseini, 2013). Nike also supplies its products through individual stores that are situated in major departmental stores and shopping malls all over the world. Promotion Mix Onyeocha (2015) refers promotion mix as the process of informing, persuading and influencing customers regarding a product to help them make a choice which is favorable to the company. There are four elements of Promotion Mix: Advertising, Personal selling, sales promotion and publicity. Nike abides by all the rules and policies of marketing strategy and widely focuses on all the four points mentioned. It has targeted electronic media such as television, official website and print media such as newspapers, fashion magazines, sports magazines, etc. for its promotional activities. It has adopted new media marketing strategy via various social networking sites, by using email management technologies, broadcast and narrowcast communication technologies for multimedia marketing campaigns. They have appointed different sports personalities such as the Brazilian Soccer team, Lebron James and Jermane O’ Neal (basketball), Lance Armstrong (Cycling), Tiger Woods (Golf) and Rafael Nadal (Tennis) as the brand ambassadors for the promotion of its items. It has also sponsored other athletes like Carl Lewis, Sebastian Coe (Lantos, 2014). Nike’s publicity and sales got its biggest boost when Spike Lee promoted its goods as Mars Blackmon (fictional character). Since 2005, it has sponsored the official kit of the Indian Cricket Team. It also promotes events such as The Golden West Invitational and Hoop It Up (Portela & Thanassoulis, 2014). Websites are also being personalized by the company. It is a great way of promoting about the company’s goods and services and it also provides detailed information about its various sponsored events. They have created exclusive sports websites like nikebasketball.com, nikefootball.com and nikegolf.com. The Brands Swoosh logo and its image play a crucial role in its branding. Sponsorship agreements with college athletes’ team are another method of promotion (Sachdev & Mahna, 2013). Through this strategy, they attract the attention of youngsters. In a way, it indirectly promotes those sports which are not popular. Price Mix Price mix is the process by which a company can determine about its earnings for the sale of its goods or services. The price of a product is affected by the type of good that is marketed (Sachdev & Mahna, 2013). Vertical Integration in pricing is applied by Nike. At various channel levels, they own participants or are involve in more than one channel level operation. It is also an endeavor for controlling costs and influencing pricing strategies. Its pricing practices are structured to be more competitive to other brands. It competes massively with its rival Adidas because of their association with eminent sports personalities. Since, it has a brand value and supplies premium products, so it follows premium pricing strategy. Even competition exists in such pricing strategy with Adidas since it also produces premium goods. The important feature of its pricing strategy is the variability of its price. The prices depend on the size and type of the item (Talpau, 2014). Statistics reveal that the giant shoe producer is raising the prices of it goods when other brands are adopting markdown strategies and promotional activities. Analysts observed that this pricing architecture is acting as a driving force of economics growth in the US and the company is gaining new competitive edge over its competitors (Gordon, 2012). It has also gained consumers’ approval for charging high price for its compelling products. Along with the new pricing structure, it is also trying to reduce the quantity of materials and labor required for production and adopting modern approach towards waste elimination and lean manufacturing. Conclusion Marketing mix is a fundamental approach towards optimal strategy. Where other strategies are related to sustainability, the 4Ps of marketing are like the four wheels of a company on which the success of marketing strategy depend. Nike is considered as the marketing chief in terms of product innovation and brand awareness. The brand image of Nike, its trademark Swoosh logo along with the brand name promotes it as one of the top shoe manufacturer in the international business world. One of the reasons of Nike’s high revenue is its high brand value. However, the company needs to be careful of their overexposures, controversies and criticisms of the working conditions of their factories and deceptive marketing backlash. Other than these threats, Nike’s exquisite products, devoted customer base and superior marketing techniques contribute towards it success. References Brooks, N., & Simkin, L. (2012). Judging Marketing Mix Effectiveness. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 30(5), 494-514. Choi, S., Friske, W., Lee, S., & Wilcox, J. (2014). The effects of price promotion depth on new and mature products. Journal of Brand Management, 21(3), 202-215. Gordon, R. (2012). Re-thinking and Re-tooling the Social Marketing Mix. Australasian Marketing Journal, 20(2), 122-126. Huang, R., & Sarigöllü, E. (2012). How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand equity, and the marketing mix. Journal of Business Research, 65(1), 92-99. Kumar, P., & Ghodeswar, B. (2015). Green Marketing Mix: A Review of Literature and Direction for Future Research. International Journal of Asian Business and Information Management (IJABIM), 6(3), 42-59. Lantos, G. P. (2014). Marketing for Entrepreneurs. ( 2nd ed.). Journal For Product And Brand Management, 23(3), 140-143. Moradi, M., Aghaie, A., & Hosseini, M. (2013). An Agent-Based Knowledge Management Framework for Marketing-Mix Decision Making. International Journal of Strategic Decision Sciences (IJSDS), 4(3), 109-128. Onyeocha, C. E. (2015). Effect of product mix on multi-product pull control.Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory, 56, 16-35. Portela, M. C. A. S., & Thanassoulis, E. (2014). Economic efficiency when prices are not fixed: disentangling quantity and price efficiency. Omega, 47, 36-44. Sachdev, S., & Mahna, V. (2013). Green Marketing Mix. Asian Journal of Research in Business Economics and Management, 3(10), 70-84. Talpau, A. (2014). The Marketing Mix in the Online Environment. Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brasov. Economic Sciences. Series V, 7(2), 53. Read More