Marketing Management - Report Example

Marketing Management Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 4 The STP Analysis of Ultron 4 Segmentation 4 Target Market 4 Positioning 4 Brand Awareness Objectives for Ultron 5 Traditional Promotional Tools for Promoting Ultron 6 Advertising 6 Publicity/ Public relations 7 Mall displays 7 Personal selling 7 Sales Promotion 8 Direct Marketing 8 Sponsorship 8 Digital Promotional Tool for promoting Ultron 9 Social Media Marketing and Games 9 Company Website and SEO/SEM 9 The Use of DRIP Model in Promotion 10 Ethical and Social Responsibility Dimensions 10 Print Advert 11 Conclusion 11 Reference List 13 Introduction Promotional plans are a framework of the strategies and resources to be allocated and the marketing tools to be used by the company to promote its product or service. It is considered as an important planning and forecasting tool used by most organisations to implement its promotional strategies that contribute towards the launch of its new brand of product or service successfully and helps in new market expansion. Promotional campaigns are sequence of advertisements which are propagated to the target audiences using various promotional tools to increase brand awareness. This report would focus on the development of a promotional plan to launch a new car brand. The study would reflect the importance of ethical and social responsibility dimensions in the promotional campaigns. It would further illustrate the traditional as well as digital promotional tools used for the campaigns to increase brand awareness (Goldstein, 2009). The STP Analysis of Ultron The new car brand, Ultron is to be launched the company for which a promotional Campaign is been structured. Segmentation Ultron is a C segment car belonging to the large car market. The starting price of the car brand is 10 lacks and the top model costs 14 lacks. Target Market The target customers are the top management executives as well as the high income groups who are socially affluent. The target segments are of age group 25-40years who are looking forward to speed, style and class. Positioning Ultron is positioned as a technological master piece having the features of a sport car and a luxury car emoting speed, performance, elegance and pride. Brand Awareness Objectives for Ultron In order to aware the consumers about the brand, billions of dollars are spent annually to plan the branding and promotional strategies. The brand awareness helps the consumers to decide on which product to buy or service to avail and increases the loyalty towards the brand. A well planned promotional campaign helps to increase brand awareness, brand value and the brand identity of the product which the consumers relate by satisfying their motivational needs such as the esteem, sociological needs or safety needs. The most important step in structuring a brand strategy is the consumer awareness stage. The objective of the organization is to differentiate its product from its competitors through promotional plans and pricing strategies (Aaker, 2011). The stages involved in brand awareness of Ultron are as follows. The initiative of Ultron would be to establish a simple yet reliable brand message which the consumer would relate to and would be able to recall. The Ultron brand message would be “An Aura of Pride, Performance, Speed and Innovation”. Ultron must create a striking logo. This is the stage of creating brand identity. The logo help the consumers recognize the brand visually. This helps in visual promotions like print ads in hoarding or new paper (Duncan and Moriarty, 2007). Developing presence in the internet is very important. Therefore, Ultron must have a strong web and internet presence by promoting itself in the social media, co-branding itself with other established brands that have major internet presence. It should develop a website for its brand awareness to increase its visual reach as well as get identified and should hire a search engine optimisation company which would help the brand to reach out to a greater number of customers in one click. Ultron should promote its brand on other brand website by creating a greater presence in the market. The company should target the social media for its promotion as most of its target customers are active in Twitter and Facebook. Most consumers discuss about their purchase needs or decisions through social media and even indirectly promote a brand through word of mouth as well as recommend brand for future purchase to friends or social group (Aaker, 2011). Brand advertising using traditional tools can help Ultron to leverage its brand awareness and identity. Though these are old methods of promotions, but many consumers resort to traditional tools to communicate with brands. Also, traditional promotional tools help in increasing customer’s visual reach through print ads and television ads as well as physical reach through sales promotion, direct marketing and display promotion (Duncan and Moriarty, 2007). Ultron may also sponsor public events, engage in films and celebrity endorsements. Ultron may host charity events or contribute to philanthropic activities increasing its brand value and awareness. The main motto of Ultron should be enhancing brand loyalty with the target customers. Finally, Ultron’s ultimate goal would be satisfying its target market through offering the best service facilities. Consumers are more loyal to brands ensuring premium service, therefore before and after sales service should be the ultimate mission of Ultron to initiate repeat purchase, customer retention and brand loyalty (Duncan and Moriarty, 2007). Traditional Promotional Tools for Promoting Ultron The propagation of the company’s brand and product message and image to its target customers is known as promotion. Certain promotional mediums are used to help in the delivery of the desired campaign or message to reach the customers and these mediums are known as the promotional tools. The tools are divided into traditional and digital promotional tools and each of them deliver the message in a different way to reach the mind of its consumers and attain the communication objectives. These promotional tools further lead to increase brand awareness, brand identity and knowledge thereby enhancing sales (Chattopadhyay and Laborie, 2010). Advertising Advertising is the mode of promotion in which the company uses a third party medium to deliver its message to its target audiences. The traditional mediums of advertising are print media (like newspapers, billboards, magazines, newsletters) television, radio. Ultron being a semi luxurious sports car can advertise through television during prime time shows as well as through newspapers and magazines like Economic times and Over Drives as its target customers approach to these medium (Pieters and Bijmolt, 2008). It can advertise its car features keeping the customer requirements in mind and establishing its brand image and awareness. Ultron may use celebrity endorsements to promote its car as it will enhance the brand image and identity by adding star value. It can also promote itself through films like Fast and the Furious or Transformers which has a large audience base and therefore can reach to more target customers. The target audiences would be able to relate to the brand increasing customer loyalty and brand awareness (Cova and Dalli, 2009). Publicity/ Public relations It is a non personal mode of communication for promoting a brand reaching the highest public awareness. The main objective of publicity is to draw attention of the target audiences towards the company’s product without paying the media. Therefore, it resorts to mass media promotion by creating hype through promotional events, press releases or shows that are covered by news channels (Chattopadhyay and Laborie, 2010). Ultron may use this promotional tool to market its brand. It may plan a grand launch of its car creating a buzz in the market. Media and news channels would cover the launch and press release thereby promoting the brand for free. The media would arrange test drive shows that would highlight the product features uplifting the brand awareness and brand image to the audiences. Mall displays Ultron may resort to display marketing by arranging free test drive to the customers visiting the shopping malls. Arrange contests and interview customers on their feedback of the new product as well as their brand experience after the test drive. This would attract more consumers which would initiate the sale of the car (Cova and Dalli, 2009). Personal selling Ultron may resort to personal selling through dealership showrooms. Customer arriving in the showroom would be approached by highly skilled and knowledgeable sales person who would aware the customers about the brand features and convince them to believe in the brand increasing brand awareness and loyalty. This would enable the customers to bond with the representative and communicate their brand preferences and perceptions leading to higher brand experience. The company may participate in trade fair shows and car expos where the customer can experience the brand value and features personally and may book the car for future purchase (Clifton and Ahmad, 2009). Sales Promotion This type of promotional tool is used for short term buying as it encourages customers through gifts, coupons, discounts, point of purchase displays and offers, influencing their buying decisions. The customers focus more on the promotion than on the product. Ultron may promote its car through exchange offers where it may give discounts to customers purchasing the car on exchange of an old car of any other brand which the customer wish to dispose (Cova and Dalli, 2009). The company might also bundle its product with Apple Inc. and provide a free Apple iPod on purchasing the top model of Ultron. This would initiate sales, generate greater revenue as well as reinforce customer loyalty and experience. Direct Marketing For semi luxurious cars, the forms of direct marketing are email and catalogue marketing. The company might analyse customer from the database and target them who has ventured on cars 2 years back and send them mailers and catalogues of their brand Ultron for enhancing brand awareness and need generation (Clifton and Ahmad, 2009). Sponsorship Sponsoring events are one of the successful methods of promoting a brand. The company may sponsor Go-Kart Events as they are very popular among the youth. In order to attract its target customer, Ultron may become the main sponsor partner for the race shows or rallies. This would strengthen its positioning as the car with speed and performance. Ultron may also resort to sponsoring reality shows where it may showcase the brand as the winning price which would help in gaining visibility and recall value as a wide range of audiences are subjected to reality shows and have high TRPs. Digital Promotional Tool for promoting Ultron Interactive marketing of a product or a service through digital media to reach its target customers is known as digital marketing. The main objective is to promote brands through different digital promotional tool, the internet (Clifton and Ahmad, 2009). Social Media Marketing and Games In the 21st century, promotional campaign through social media is the most popular way of advertising a brand. It has a mass media coverage and high customer reach of varied age group. Ultron may upload its video trailers in You Tube, Facebook, Twitter to initiate buzz and viral marketing. Sharing of the videos would enhance the customer’s visual reach and awareness. It may publicize its launch through social media; give promotional coverage, sales promotions, test drive and feature promotions. This digital tool is the cheaper and faster medium of promotional campaign where the company initiates the promotion and the customers develops it as well as makes it viral (Alvesson, 2008). It may collaborate with sports games like Grand Theft Auto, Need for Speed and promote itself through the games via social media. It helps in co branding leading to brand awareness and increased brand image and identity (Chadha and Husband, 2006). Company Website and SEO/SEM Ultron needs to develop a well designed website which is highly attractive and informative for the customers. The website would initiate brand awareness to increase its visual reach as well as get identified and should hire a search engine optimisation company which would help the brand to be visible through search engines to greater number of customers in one click of its keyword (Chadha and Husband, 2006). The Use of DRIP Model in Promotion Figure 1: The DRIP Model (Source: Pieters and Bijmolt, 2008) The DRIP model in figure 1 helps in planning the marketing communication strategies and achieves promotional objectives. The promotional campaign of Ultron would help the brand to get differentiated from the other competitor brands. The brand message would be reinforced in the mind of the customers increasing brand identity. Advertising would help the customers to be informed about the brand and its features leading to brand awareness. Finally, the campaign would persuade and influence the customers to purchase the brand (Pieters and Bijmolt, 2008). Ethical and Social Responsibility Dimensions It is very important for every company to promote its brand ethically and being responsible to the society. Ultron during its promotion must follow the ethical and socially responsible values to protect its customers from product ambiguity and unawareness of the brand. Honesty, fairness, respect should be reflected through the advertisement. The brand should deliver the values as promised through the promotions (Bronner and Neijens, 2006). The company should be responsible towards the information propagated about the brand as well as towards its customer’s well being. The advertisements should follow transparency and should protect the interest of the customers as well as the society. For example, the carbon emission from the cars should be in compliance with the environmental protection policies and should not be hazardous to the customers and the society. These values by being incorporated by the company during its brand promotion would enhance customer expectation and satisfaction leading to greater customer attraction, retention and loyalty. The brand worth, image and values would also get escalated in case of Ultron (Bronner and Neijens, 2006). Print Advert (Source: Trak.in, 2015) Ultron is a semi luxurious car belonging to the C-segment, targeting the socially affluent top management executives desiring speed, style and class. The car design depicts the features of a luxurious as well as sports car emoting high power with elegance. The target customers would relate to the strap-line as they have a strong desire for social recognition. They have a sense of prestige, power, style and are in a constant race for higher achievements reaching greater heights. Conclusion This study discussed the promotional strategies to be implemented by the company to launch its new car brand, the Ultron. It compared the different promotional tools needed to advertise the brand and the factors that lead to its brand awareness. The report further analyzed the importance of the DRIP model in planning the marketing communication strategies of Ultron and the social and ethical issues involved in advertising the brand. On estimation of the report a further print advert was designed justifying the source, design and the strap-line that attracts the target market. Reference List Aaker, D. A., 2011. Building Strong Brands. USA: Global Professional Publishing. Alvesson, M., 2008. Critical theory and consumer marketing. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 10(3), pp. 291-313. Bronner, F. and Neijens, P., 2006. Audience experiences of media context and embedded advertising: A comparison of eight media. International Journal of Market Research, 48(1), pp. 81-100. Chadha, R. and Husband, P., 2006. The Cult of the Luxury Brand. London: Nicholas Brealey. Chattopadhyay, A. and Laborie, J. L., 2010. Managing Brand Experience: The Market Contact Audit. Journal of Advertising Research, 45(1), pp. 9-16. Clifton, R. and Ahmad, S., 2009. Brands and Branding. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Cova, B. and Dalli, D., 2009. Working consumers: the next step in marketing theory. Marketing Theory, 9(3), pp. 315-339. Duncan, T. and Moriarty, S., 2007. A communication-based marketing model for managing relationships. Journal of Marketing, 62(2), pp. 1-13. Goldstein, S. D., 2009. Superior customer satisfaction and loyalt. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Pieters, R. G. M. and Bijmolt, T. H. A., 2008. Consumer memory for television advertising: A field study of duration, serial position, and competition effects. Journal of Consumer Research, 23(4), pp. 362-372. Trak.in., 2015. 9 Sizzling Cars Which Would Be Showcased During Auto Expo 2014. [online] Available at: < http://trak.in/tags/business/2013/12/23/9-sizzling-cars-showcased-auto-expo-2014/> [Accessed 12 June 2015]. Read More