Marketing and Promotion - Essay Example

Marketing and Promotion Affiliation: A mission ment is supposed to be clear sothat it is understood by everyone; it should clearly distinguish the company while explaining what the company is all about and what it plans to do. The mission statement should also evaluate what the current activities of the company are. Companies whose mission statements do not fulfil the above mentioned criteria as a guideline are termed as having bad mission statements and those that follow have good mission statements as will be discussed below.

Barnes & Noble is a bookseller company with a bad mission statement which reads in part “Our mission is to operate the best specialty retail business in America, regardless of the product we sell. Because the product we sell is books, our aspirations must be consistent with the promise and the ideals of the volumes which line our shelves. To say that our mission exists independent of the product we sell is to demean the importance and the distinction of being booksellers.” This mission statement starts out well but contradicts itself towards the end.

It is too long and becomes too broad as well as ambiguous with the mention of “regardless of the product we sell.” Southwest Airlines’ mission statement which reads “dedication to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride and company spirit” is an example of a good mission statement. It is short, goes directly to what the company does and what it aspires as well as distinguishing the airline from the others in the business with specifics on its quality and services it provides.

ReferencesBarnes & Noble Booksellers. Our Mission. Retrieved from: http://beta.barnesandnobleinc.com/our_company/mission/our_mission.htmlSouthwest Airlines. About Southwest Airlines. Retrieved from: https://www.southwest.com/html/about-southwest/