The Marketing Mix - Essay Example

Marketing The marketer has to ensure that the marketing mix meets the s needs and wants." Brassington and Pettit (2005) Discuss the implications of this statement in terms of formulating the appropriate marketing mix to meet customer needs. Illustrate your answer with appropriate examples from case study material and other sources. The marketing mix is a planned package that makes up the product or service offered to the market aimed at supporting the company reach its target market and sales objectives. Also called the marketing "tactics," the key elements to be considered are price, product, promotions and place, although there are other factors to marketing mix that may include people, physical evidence and process. But in other instances, the marketing mix included product planning, pricing, branding, distribution channels, personal selling, advertising, promotions, packaging, display, servicing, physical handling, and fact finding and analysis Brassington and Petit (2000) emphasised that marketing includes "absolutely essential business activities that bring you the products you do want, when you want them, where you want them, but at prices you can afford" These statements, including "The marketer has to ensure that the marketing mix meets the customer's needs and wants," from Brassington and Petit only means that the customer's needs and wants shape the way marketing executives and companies in the conceptualisation, presentation and delivery of products and services. One example of this is Nokia. Nokia from Finland have consistently provided cutting edge technology in the mobile phone industry catering mostly to young, mobile urban market aged 18 to 39. Their leading the industry was due to their compact designs and variety of optional services provided for by their phones which at launching, were definitely not available among its competitors. Previously dominated by Motorola, Nokia combined a marketing mix of reasonable price, new product that delivers, as well as accessibility that the young market were looking for which was then not available. In a 2003 marketing campaign, Nokia tied up with DVC Worldwide in the launching of camera phone 3650. Appealing generally to tech and media-savvy teens, Nokia went beyond standard marketing and advertising channels by inserting its brand into the consciousness of dominant young teenager females that actually influence the buying behaviour of other teens (Mucha, 2003). The strategy identified "social leaders" of teen groups that in turn informed DVCX how and where to promote the product hitting restaurants, malls, and even high school parties in order to introduce and demonstrate the camera phones across seven U.S. key areas Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. DVCX president John Palumbo was quoted saying, "We try to find the right places, the right times, the right fit You merge the brand into their lives." The report had also indicated other strategies used for Nokia 3650 of giving "alpha teens" free phones and three months of free service, $50 rebates to people who voluntarily e-mailed camera photos to their friends, so that the campaign reportedly reached 200,000 potential customers, teens walking away with more than 100,000 rebates, 25,000 camera phone pictures snapped at potential customers, 20,000 new e-mail addresses, and a 2,000 contact base of social influencers. Mucha (2003) added that the Nokia teenage girl campaign is a sample of a larger trend called experiential marketing defined by Palumbo as, "marketing programs that involve the target audience with the brand to create an experience. If people remember it, are interested in it, and talk about it, the brand becomes an experience, both physical and emotional," (qtd., Mucha, 2003). Other companies or brands that have launched the same marketing strategy include AT&T, Campbell Soup, Claritin, Apple, Jet Blue, Mini Cooper and Nike which brands were "all designed to involve people" (Palumbo qtd. in Mucha, 2003) and hoped to create deep, lasting brand associations. Today, Nokia's success is unquestionable as it leads the mobile phone industry globally leaving its competitors behind, whether these brands are European, American, Japanese, Korean, or even the most affordable Chinese products. TOTAL WORD COUNT excluding question 610 2. Explain and describe the main marketing uses and benefits of the internet. Illustrate your answer with appropriate examples. The main marketing advantages of the internet was enumerated by Schuman and Thorson (1999) for its Richness of information wherein a continuous growth occurs every moment and available for a minimal fee to today's more than 1 billion (IWS, 2006) of worldwide users. Typical example would be Wikimedia, the group or organisation behind Wikipedia now considered as the biggest repository of encyclopaedic information online. It is updated easily by almost anybody around the globe and accessible to all without subscription fee, or payment for use. Easy updating of data, entry, information, images, video, and streaming media. With the advent of broadband allowing for multi-functioning, downloading, uploading and exchange of all kinds of information and media, it has also become the most accessible store for the billion of internet users. Every tangible thing as well as ideas can now be accessible, payable, and deliverable online, from AAA server to zymurgy, and everything else in between and beyond. Internet updating has gone beyond programmers and tech-savvy individuals as blogging and podcasting has taken another chunk of the industry. Almost all major website and internet service providers today subscribe or make their prospects subscribe to free website use, posting, sharing and learning. Each individual internet user can now log in and have his or her own website using the major network's host provider. Popular blog sites include Yahoo!'s Geocities, Google's Blogger, as well as MSN's, among others. Even new sites cater to this service to its internet visitors and users. Brand information is easily accessible online from major brands like Coca-cola, Kodak, HBC, United Airlines, to small and lesser known entities like greeting cards, barefoot jewels, small crafts and tutorial services, among any other product or services idea. Online, any company, major or diminutive, may upload all the information, hype, fact, data, images, videos, designs, among a lot of other visual and audio graphics and effects in order to convince users and inform them. Some interesting sites feature independent videos, film clips, user uploads, photos, graphics and other free downloads that entertain, inform and amuse internet users. In an instant, anybody can become a celebrity or a hit as long as a unique and awesome product or service hits the right target. Word of mouth also spreads faster as it only takes an e-mail to reach 50 persons in seconds, and an additional seconds more to multiply the spread of information. Data collection is also made more effective in much less time so that most of today's students and workers rely mostly on the internet for most of their basic, professional and institutional needs. From academic research, marketing research to buyer profile, the richness of data as well as ease of use make the internet very appealing, and extremely useful. A lot of data which were previously sold in most websites especially media companies have become free and accessible to all in websites such as Yahoo, Wikipedia, and other entities. The free e-mail subscriptions in many major networks are also a big plus as it only takes connection to access all these services. From sports, entertainment to finances, these free e-mail portals have compacted the information making the accessible more accessible and palatable. Actual selling is the end-reason of them all as companies like E-bay, Amazon, among other middle-man sites sprouted like fungi in a moist field. While the dot-com bubble may have appeased doomsters, the IWS (2006) recently posted that retailers alone totalled $87.5 billion in 2004 sales, 25% higher than 2003's $70 billion. E-bay and Amazon.com leads the internet retail trade as anybody from around the world may now sell their wares, services and products, either with fixed rate or auctioned. TOTAL WORD COUNT excluding question 615 3. Discuss the reasoning behind companies segmenting consumer markets. With the use of case study material and other sources what could be the potential disadvantages of an un-differentiated strategy. Companies always aim for higher profits distributed or targeting as many consumers as possible. But it cannot happen that one price or product fits all. Most of the time, there are companies that need specialised or specific products or services which may not be available from a mass-produced product or service package. The main aim here is defining the buyer's need. If a manufacturing company A, for example, a vegetable drier, need to adjust size or tonnage output of its one product to cater to demands of a small upscale market, such as other manufacturers (in this manner, it is called business to business, of B2B), it will do so for a limited volume, same as limited edition for cars such as Ferrari. At this instance, A may price at premium, and realise high income. But it's limitation for this high-end market is that, only a few will be expected to buy this product. Nevertheless, A's vegetable driers also target its main market, which are other smaller manufacturers called medium-scale, that require their mass-produced vegetable driers. Company A may concentrate on this market to get the bulk of its sales. It will offer its standard quality and features of its products at the price affordable to this market segment without having to sacrifice the quality or features expected by its main market. If company A decides to expand its market to the low-end market where profit margin is low per one unit, but with the potential to have higher sales volume than the high-end and middle market segments, it may do so by providing same product with less features affordable by the target market. Most companies do this kind of market segmentation in order to maximise market share and margin profits. But one of the most successful and popular market segmentation is the Yahoo business services. They have packages that fit most budgets from multinational companies to small enterprises. Their hosting packages start at $12 monthly to thousands of dollars per month, their advertising rates with various entities and means starts at $5 deposit and dependent on the agreed and available budget of advertiser, and may also reach several thousand dollars monthly depending on, of course, the budget of advertiser. But it does not mean that Yahoo do not cater to those who cannot pay cash or credit online. They provide free website hosting through their geocities, and probably, other services where businesses and individuals may post their information, data or promotional info for free. Yahoo mail also has free services that cater mostly to students. Besides the mail, users may post for answer to their questions or problems, big and small, send instant messages in seconds, or talk from computer to computer, send instant messages to mobile phones, get the latest in world news, entertainment and sports, download games, music or videos, create and listen to personalised radio station, with no or very minimal charges. Their bigger, or more lucrative market get a bulk of their business package or advertising services connected with other portals and major media outlets like MSN, Alta Vista, Info Space, Ecite, iVillage, Sympatico, Juno, Netzero, Dogpile, Metacrawler, Web Crawler, ESPN, CNN, Consumer Review Network, MyFamily Network, National geographic, Wall Street Journal, among many others. This marketing strategy of market segmentation is a sweeping idea to maximise gains and profit. It cannot be said that one customer who has less would or could not avail of any service or product at one time or multiple times in her or her life. Change is constant. One small group or enterprise today may become big a little later, and these are all factual considerations that most marketers adhere and look out for. TOTAL WORD COUNT excluding question 615 4. Briefly explain and discuss the main characteristics of business to business buying behaviour. Indicate how these characteristics affect the business to business decision making process. Illustrate your answer with relevant examples. Business to business buying is when one company buys the product or services of another company in order to sustain its own services or production. Also called B2B, most businesses exercise this practice for security reasons, continuity of provision, allowance for choice for value, competitiveness, strategy, operations, and functionality. When a business enterprise conducts its purchasing of raw materials, products or services for its operations, this enterprise may choose to buy from individuals who can provide this products or services. But current regulations (local and international) has become standardised in a manner that even individuals who wish to sell their produce need to register a business name, provide official and regulated receipts, and allow background checks, among others so as to ensure the proper delivery of exact and specified order or need. Most businesses are wary of fraud, failure of delivered goods, products or services, among other things, and it needs to protect the interest of its stakeholders (consumers, investors, management and staff) in order to continue operations. Doing business with another business entity ensures protocols such as refund, insurance, federation law on bankruptcy, among other things, in case something else fails in the process of B2B. These provisions may not be available in instances when business enterprises conduct their business with individuals. Likewise, current globalisation trend have allowed expansion of most enterprises so that businesses now rely on one another in order to survive and earn. One example of B2B relations is like Kentucky Fried Chicken purchasing its chickens from another company which we may call at this instance Texaco. KFC reduces its expenses as well as concentration of activities to retailing / fast food service by allowing another company to raise and dress its chickens, which may not be KFC's expertise. This process is undertaken because of what Hamel and Prahalad (1994) call "core competencies" of which companies are better advised to leave the rest of their non-expertise to the experts and concentrate on what they deliver best. This way, companies may seek to improve their products or concentrate on what markets may need and demand later through research and development. One big advantage why companies subscribe to B2B practice is to ensure that they are also tied up with secure companies that may be useful or helpful now or in the future. This idea will help companies sustain one another, help each other survive in times of crisis, and probably, even vie for merger and acquisition. There had been a moment in the past that all a major company did was distribute services / information or advertisement through its media network. But a time came when it became interested to a business partner or a business client and finally decides to merge or acquire it. This step is usually undertaken for security reasons behind profit. As more companies emerge and threaten other established and existing ones which may be bigger by hundred-folds, other companies are also finding ways to remain in business. And in order to remain in business, most companies ally themselves with other businesses usually with those having proven track record, new but aggressive and promising ones, or simply the good old reliable ones. One good example of B2B relationships include those of independent media or production entities such as the then Pixar (Toy story 1 & 2, Finding Nemo, Cars). It was distributing its finished products through Warner Bros. Another example is indie or independent labels such as Sub-pop under Giant Records that was also under BMG distributorship. Companies like Fox, Warner, Times, America on Line, and even smaller production and entertainment outfits and media entities previously had B2B relationship but acquisition and merger soon followed that led to the formation of a giant called Time-Warner AOL. Whereas there had been previous relationship of production, distributorship or marketing, these mentioned companies grew up and merged. It is therefore conclusive that companies adhere to B2B practice for sustenance, growth, stability, strategy, and competence. And of course, survival. TOTAL WORD COUNT excluding question 662 5. Discuss the main components of an effective Marketing Information System. How can such a system help marketers in their decision-making. The marketing information system is composed of external and internal marketing information database. The external sourced information includes published market research, government statistics, media, and trade associations. The internal sources include sales records, customer records, marketing communications, market research studies, and sales force information. All these are collected and sourced under the MIS database to aide marketing decision-maker in defining data needs as well as analysing data in the decision-support system (B202, 2006). Lancaster (2006) acknowledged that "Information is the life blood of successful marketing. It is of great strategic value to marketers, as well as contributing to tactical and more routine operational decision making. Knowing what kind of information to obtain and how to make effective use of it once you have got it, are the key skills of strategic marketing. Such information gives the firm an opportunity to gain competitive advantage over competitors," therefore, the basic components in management information system allow each enterprise an edge in the industry, and among its competitors. The MIS aides the marketer in decision-making by allowing proper information as guide and tool in penetrating market in value-based strategy that is unique and fitting to consumers or buyers. It has been acknowledged that everybody is a consumer, wherever one looks, from a bus commuter, to postmen, to drivers, and executives, everybody else consumes products and services everyday. The ever-changing details in trend that affect consumer wants, needs and attitudes must be properly fed to marketers not only to be able to maintain market share in operational level but in order to gain edge in a highly competitive global environment. Chotani (2006) was acknowledged to have devised a good MIS practices as follows in order to serve their purposes: "Clearly defined tasks, indicators & time frame Well defined information gathering tools / templates - manual, semi - auto or auto Timely and accurate quantitative and qualitative information / data that represents organizations business and performance Performing analysis & forming trends for sound business planning & competitive advantage Ability to accommodate organizations potential growth / diversification Secure and reliable for reuse Cost effective in a medium period of time." Likewise, he has suggested the following for a smoother take-off of which organisations may follow: "Start with a mission and specific objectives Define the products / services Define your clients by socio - economic and geographical parameters Define impact indicators (both qualitative and quantitative) Define your organizational structure Define service delivery mechanism Define transactions flow chart. Define management requirements Define internal controls and statutory compliance's Chart out replanning processes." With the right data and information, each marketer prepares strategy and plans to address wants, needs, and demands, changing or constant, so that even if there are outside threats such as tight competition, economic downturns, bubble bursts, or other worse scenario, the company remains competitive. But of course, it is not only the external factor that is considered when MIS is involved. Usually, the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) and PESTEL (Political, Environmental, Social, Technological, Ecological, Legal) analysis are obtained and carefully evaluated using MIS data in order to gauge the possibilities and limitations of a product or service in a very volatile market. Maximised data may be necessary in the MIS process but focus has to be made between what is really important and contributory to aims, targets and goals in marketing. Given the above factors for analysis, processing and defining data, it is necessary that certain factors be magnified in order to gain a clearer view on what is ahead for a brand, a product or a service for the over-all good of the company. TOTAL WORD COUNT excluding question 617 TOTAL WORD COUNT excluding question & Reference: 3119 Reference: Brassington, F. and Pettit, S. (2000) Principles of marketing, Pitman. B202 Index. (2006) "Marketing Information System Components." From http://www.auhy69.dsl.pipex.com/b202index.shtml Chotani, Harish. (2006). "MIS : A must for every MFI." Citigroup. From http://www.indianngos.com/issue/microcredit/misandmicrofinance.htm Hamel, G. and Pralahad, C.K. (1994). Competing for the Future. Harvard. Internet World Stats (IWS). (2006). From http://www.internetworldstats.com/links1.htm Mucha, Thomas. "It's, Like, Oh My God, Totally Awesome Marketing Nokia targets teens by luring alpha girls." Business2.0. November 25, 2003. From http://www.lacomunidad.nl/docs/Case_study_Nokia.pdf Schuman, D. and Thorson, E. (1999) Advertising and the world wide web. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Read More