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Key Topics
- Requirement
- Solution
- 1.1 Marketing Concept
- A. Marketing Philosophy and New-era Orientation
- B. Marketing Value and Marketing Mix
- C. Ethical and/or Social Issues
- 1.2 SWOT Analysis
- A. Internal Environment Factors and Marketing Mix Implications
- B. External Environment Factors and Marketing Mix Implications
- C. Important Internal Environment Factors
- 1.3 Segmentation & Positioning Concepts
- References
Requirement
Consider an organization of interest to you. This might be a church, a club, a service organization, a sports organization, a company that you would like to work for, or simply an organization that you admire or want to understand better. This should not be a company with whom you are currently employed. It would be helpful if the organization you choose has a website that describes it and its products in some detail.
A. Based on your own understanding of this organization, assess the extent to which it follows the philosophy behind the marketing concept and new-era orientation. What specific observations or findings led you to draw your conclusions?
B. What type of marketing value does this organization create for customers? What marketing mix (product, price, distribution, and communication) decisions has it made to create this value?
C. Describe two ethical and/or social issues that affect this organization. What, if anything, does this organization do to respond to or address these issues? What else could it do to be more socially or ethically responsible?
Solution
1.1 Marketing Concept
A. Marketing Philosophy and New-era Orientation
The company that has been selected for the analysis is Samsung, which is a multinational conglomerate from South Korea. Headquarter of the company is in Samsung Town, Seoul.
The philosophy behind marketing concept is that the company should understand the need of the customers and then devise methods that can fulfill these needs appreciably well in comparison to the competition (Wilson et al, 2012). Samsung has been customer oriented for number of years and almost all its products are targeted towards the customer and address one or multiple need of the customers. Price, product, distribution and promotional strategies implemented by the company are in accordance with the need of the customers.
The pricing strategy of the company follows “Skimming” most of the time. It launches smartphones with high price points and gradually reduces the price sighting the activity of the competitors. Moreover, the company has successfully implemented new-era strategies that are venturing towards web to attract the consumers who are present on the online medium. The company has adopted most of the modern strategies to touch all the points where there is possibility of the customers interacting with the company in any manner.
It can be stated that the company truly follows significant part of marketing philosophies and has adopted most of the new-era marketing tools and techniques to attract the customer groups.
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B. Marketing Value and Marketing Mix
If the products and services of the company are taken into consideration, particularly the smartphone segment, then it can be stated that the company provides four types of value to the customers, namely, practical value, perceived value, social value, and identity value (Fahy and Jobber, 2012).
The features available on the Samsung smartphones provide practical value (utility) to the customers. Moreover, the company has a well-established brand value in the market and, therefore the customers gain perceived value from the Samsung smartphones. The purchases of Samsung products make the customer feel that they have made good purchase decisions. Most of the high end Samsung smartphones fulfill the social value of the customers as they feel proud and prefer to show off their phones in public. However, as per identity value is concerned, the Samsung brand associate less with the customers in comparison to its direct competitor Apple (Hosseini and Moezzi, 2015).
Mentioned below are some of the marketing mix decisions made by Samsung to create the aforementioned value:
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Product: The product development has been robust in the last few years (performance wise) which establishes the brand strongly in the market. Product problems are rare and after sales service have ensured instant product replacement or error correction.
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Price: Normally follows “Skimming” price strategy, but only for the products whose prices can be managed. Smartphone pricing are always based in accordance with the competition and their timing of product launches.
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Distribution: Samsung utilizes modern retail (e.g. Croma, Hypercity, etc.) and distributors to reach the consumers. Samsung is valued among customers, therefore becomes mandatory (in a way) for retailers to keep the store sale going.
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Communication: Samsung actively uses online and offline medium to reach the consumers. Push and pull strategy are used simultaneously by the company.
C. Ethical and/or Social Issues
The two ethical issues that were faced by Samsung are Illegal Labor Practice (China): In 2012, the investigation of Samsung’s manufacturing plant in China led to the revelation about the working hours of employees (normally 16 hours) and employment of child labors (Soylu, 2015); Samsung’s “fanboy” Factory: Samsung lures (using foreign trips and gifts) bloggers from around the world who are die-hard fan of Samsung to get them write about its products without mentioning about the endorsements which is illegal under Advertising Standard Authority rule 2009 (Parrott, 2015).
The company should consider the long term impact of such activity on its brand. Things will come out (gradually) and it may impact the way company is seen among consumers. Only the consideration by the Samsung can be the solution (which does not seem to be working currently).
1.2 SWOT Analysis
A. Internal Environment Factors and Marketing Mix Implications
Mentioned below are the six factors of internal environment (Strengths and Weaknesses) of Mega Bloks and their implications on Marketing Mix:
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1. Strength: Mega Bloks has license for Production of Barbie, Power Rangers and other popular characters.
Implications: This helps the company to differentiate itself from the competition and built brand. -
2. Strengths: Company has strong distribution networks in more than hundred countries.
Implications: It allows the company to ensure that the demands are met on time and customer feedbacks are taken periodically regarding the products and services. -
3. Strength: Presence of wide variety of product types to attract different interest of kids.
Implications: It allows the company to target large number of target market. -
4. Strength: Company has strong brand presence in various countries.
Implications: It allows the company to introduce new products in the market successfully. -
5. Weakness: The prices of Mega Bloks products are high due to the quality products.
Implications: Customers looking for cost-effective look for local cheaper alternatives. -
6. Weakness: Mega Bloks is limited to certain product categories such as developing bricks (in most part and some licensed characters).
Implications: Limits the company in targeting other kids segments such as video games, etc.
B. External Environment Factors and Marketing Mix Implications
Mentioned below are the six factors of external environment (Opportunities and Threats) of Mega Bloks and their implications on Marketing Mix:
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1. Opportunity: Company can use the licensed characters to reach the market and acquire some more licenses under its brand.
Implications: It will allow the company to increase its product range and attract more customers. -
2. Opportunity: Company can venture into movies to gain popularity like LEGO.
Implications: It will allow the company to improve the brand name. -
3. Opportunity: Company can expand its manufacturing bases to emerging market such as India, etc.
Implications: Low cost labor of these countries will allow the company to fight in pricing with competition such as LEGO. -
4. Threat: The presence of competition (such as LEGO and local manufacturers) is impacting the company’s success.
Implications: It prevents the company to enter into the market where LEGO or local suppliers are already prevalent. -
5. Threat: Video Games, Cartoon, and internet games are major threats at present.
Implications: Kids are orienting more towards these and thus overall bricks market getting impacted. -
6. Threat: Governments around the world pushing companies towards environment.
Implications: Effort to go green would be costly for the company.
C. Important Internal Environment Factors
The first important internal environment factor is “Licensed Characters” that help company get positioned differently than competition without fear of copy products. The second is distribution that allows strong outreach. The third is price concern (weakness) which needs to be handled by opening more production houses in low cost countries to beat the competition. The fourth is limitation to product variety which needs to be improved. It restricts company from other market segments and impacts profitability. It also increases dependability on limited number of products and target market that can impact the company’s sustainability in the long run.
1.3 Segmentation & Positioning Concepts
A. Segmentation Approach and Justification
The automobile market Canada produces various types of vehicles whether it is light vehicles or heavy vehicles. Light duty vehicles are vans, cars, and others, and the heavy duty vehicles include school buses, trucks, military vehicles, and others.
The major approach that has been considered for the segmentation of the market of the Canada’s automobile industry is psychographics.
The Psychographics is concerned with the way individuals prefer to spend their life, that is, social class they consider to live with, the lifestyle they adopt, and their personal opinions and personality. There are various companies in Canada that manufactures the vehicle considering the way people prefer to spend their life.
Mentioned below are the four different target market segments that have been developed using the approach (Wedel and Kamakura, 2000):
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1. Green Conscious: These people prefer to live their life devoted towards the sustainability of the planet and therefore prefer products that are supportive to the environment. The lifestyle of these people is simple and can include any income age group.
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2. Economical: These people prefer to live simple lives and try to save as much as they can. Their needs are limited and they rarely look beyond the utility of any product.
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3. Family: They are family oriented target group and make purchases that support the whole family at once. Most of the purchases are oriented towards the whole family and not the single individual.
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4. Stylish: The stylish target market look for vehicles that are trendy and in fashion. These people prefer flaunt their stature in the public and, therefore purchase high end cars that are different from the normal market.
The selected segmentation approach is an appropriate one because it helps in understanding the difference between all these four groups clearly. The difference is in the way they take their lives and things around them. Their attitude towards lives (one of psychographic elements) shows the clear difference among them.
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Heyman, R., & Pierson, J. (2013). An explorative mapping of the Belgian social media marketing value network and its usage of personal identifiable information. In IFIP PrimeLife International Summer School on Privacy and Identity Management for Life (pp. 203-213). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
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Hosseini, M. & Moezzi, H. (2015). Exploring Impact of Marketing Mix on Brand Equity in Insurance Industry (Case Study: Asia Insurance Firm, Iran). Journal Of Asian Scientific Research, 5(1), 38-45. http://dx.doi.org/10.18488/journal.2/2015.5.1/2.1.38.45
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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. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.02.003
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Fahy, J &. Jobber, D. (2012). Foundations of marketing. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. (pp. 128-135)
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Kainth, J. & Mathur, T. (2016). Hyundai Motors India Limited: positioning towards market leadership. Em Mkts Case Studies, 6(1), 1-49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/eemcs-05-2014-0130
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Parrott, L. (2015). Ethics, Values and Social Work Practice. Ethics And Social Welfare, 10(1), 82-83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2015.1066053
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Soylu, A. (2015). Labor Practices in China and its Effect on the Country’s Economy. Alphanumeric Journal, 3(2). http://dx.doi.org/10.17093/aj.2015.3.2.5000139828
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Wedel, M. & Kamakura, W. (2000). Market segmentation. Boston: Kluwer Academic. (pp.75-78)
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Wilson, A., Zeithaml, V., Bitner, M., & Gremler, D. (2012). Services marketing. Maidenhead, Berkshire: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. (pp. 124-129)
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