Want help to write your Essay or Assignments? Click here
Product Vision
In an existing and competitive market, the need to develop a compelling and innovative product is important. The new product should meet the needs of all the stakeholders, and be part of the company’s mission and vision. To ensure that the new product creates customer traffic, an intensive feasibility study is essential in determining the expectations of the market.
Moreover, a business model that showcases the qualities needed for business to succeed would be created about the company’s business and corporate values. To succeed in the competitive market, a well-articulated product vision acts as a motivator to stakeholders and is key to bringing growth and profitability to the business. The new market is in food and beverage industry, and it seems viable due to low restrictions to entry, low start-up capital, and a high market share.
Product vision and organizational values
Product vision is an outline of the expectations of the product. According to Tim (2015), a good product vision incorporates the needs of the customers, the value the product will add to the customer, and how it will gain a competitive edge. To develop a persuasive product vision, one should illustrate the elements of motivation towards the new product, make the vision be an inspiration to all stakeholders, integrate all parties to the product, and make sure the vision gives guidance towards decision-making processes.
For a start up, a compelling product vision goes a long way in ensuring the business gets a substantial market share. If the vision does not meet the standards of the product and market competition, the business is bound to fail. For the new product, the product vision will be “Our vision is to improve the lives of people daily. Our organizational goal supports the vision by making sumptuous and natural foods and beverages that help people preserve their health.”
Business and corporate values define and support product vision and mirror the company’s image (Wendy, 2013). These values incorporate internal and external structures of the business, assist in decision making and are used by customers and potential investors to evaluate the company.
Thus, there is a dire need to come up with business and corporate values that will help the new business realize its goals. The business and corporate values that I intend to create are: commitment to a quality product and other aspects of the business, exercising utmost integrity towards all stakeholders, innovation for product and brand improvement, corporate social responsibility, and having a balanced work life for the employees.
Want help to write your Essay or Assignments? Click here
Need for the product and market overview
As a start-up company, there is a need to diversify the product portfolio to ensure that the business is sustained. Depending on one or a few products is risky thus it is important to develop the new product so as to tap a new target market for increment in revenue generation. There is a market gap in the form of unsatisfied customers who are ready to exploit new products thus if the necessary components are incorporated into the product the potential for business success is high. Thus, the need for a new product is to increase product portfolio for the business, increase market share, increase revenue and profits and increase value to customers.
The new market is in foods and beverage industry. Though it’s one of the most competitive industries in the world, entry is free and restrictions are few, initial capital set up is low since raw materials are easily and cheaply accessible, a high number of potential customers and operational costs are low. Though competition is high due to a high number of substitutes, customers go for healthy and nutritious products which most competitors haven’t been able to provide.
Currently, most customers have filed complaints regarding the service and quality of products offered by most of the existing businesses thus creating a golden opportunity for the business to introduce the product. Customers will flock in the firm to try out the new product and will be looking forward to a product that satisfies their needs. Therefore, since the business is committed to the provision of a quality product as per the product vision, customer traffic, and revenue will increase leading to sustained growth for the whole organization.
Business model
The business model is the layout that a business uses to describe what it intends to offer in the market, project profitability and market expectations. A great business model is one that attracts customers to the new product, retains the customers, increases value to the customers, and generates revenue to the business. On the other hand, a business model that makes it hard to satisfy customers does not position the product in the market, and does not provide required capital for growth should be avoided.
Thus, for a business model to qualify for application, it should bring value to the customer and the business (Andrea, 2015). Some of the elements of the business model include a statement describing what the business has to offer that the competitors do not have, product choices in the form of a menu, the targeted customer base, profitability and financial forecasts, and strategies the business will use to penetrate the market.
By using the example of Amazon, the applicable business model will be price cut so as to first penetrate the market for long-term sustainability at a later stage. The first thing to do is to get market share, and since the industry is already over-populated, provision of quality products at low prices to the target market.
Afterward, given that the company will grow, supplies will be engaged so that they can reduce the price for the supplies, more investment will be made on capital structures and technology so that service and product delivery will be enhanced. As a result of reduced product costs, the business will continue to provide the products at low prices and market share will increase.
Feasibility analysis
The main reason for carrying out a feasibility study is to identify root issues that relate to a particular product or service. At the end of the analysis, the business idea should be termed as viable or be rejected (UWCC, 2013). Most importantly, the feasibility study should identify potential roadblocks for the business idea so that necessary precaution measures can be undertaken. For the analysis, the areas covered include market, financial, and organizational analysis.
Market analysis: Competition is intense in food and beverage industry due to low start-up costs and not restrictions on entry, market is in existence for the product due to high number of unsatisfied customers, raw materials are readily available since most of them come from nearby town that is agricultural based, the target population for the product is the working population since it the premises are within the town centre.
Technology and organizational analysis: Since the company is partnership form of business, the partners will take full control of managing the business thus it will be possible implement the idea. It is easy to plan and execute the idea when owners of the business are the ones involves since they have undivided interest towards the business. To tap into technology, use of online marketing tools would serve as an innovative tool to access a market share.
Financial analysis: initial set-up costs and operating costs will be funded by partners from the capital contributed during the start-up process.
From the feasibility analysis, the business idea is feasible since most of the required resources are available. However, some of the roadblocks the new product may face are competition from substitutes, financial problems since it’s hard to source for revenue without enough security, and conflict of interest among the partners.
Want help to write your Essay or Assignments? Click here
Future financial position of the company
The future of the company depends on the success rate of the new product line. Getting into a new venture is usually a risky process, and it requires proper implementation and dedication to succeed. Based on the feasibility analysis, there is a high chance that the product will succeed and bring profits both in the short-term and long-term. If all the stakeholders have a common goal and use the product vision and set up business and corporate values, the future financial position of the business will be high.
From the market analysis, it is evident that a market gap exists in the form of value addition to the customers. It, therefore, calls for the business to acquire quality materials and manufacture products that meet the desires of the customers, which will drive sales and profits thereby. Additionally, supplies are available from the nearby community thus costs will reduce and make it possible to offer the new products at low prices.
The premises are based within the town center, and the target market is composed of the working people who have specific times for accessing the stores. Thus it makes it easy to plan for processing, packaging, and sales. The use of the online platform is meant to increase awareness of the new products and increase market share. Though competition will be high due to existing substitutes, financial success is likely to be realized in the short term.
Penetrating a new market and get a consistent flow of customers usually takes time but if a proper feasibility analysis is carried out and right resources put in place, success is guaranteed. Food and beverage industry is one of the most competitive due to few restrictions to entry and low start-up capital requirements. However, it takes a compelling product vision and company values to be able to make right decisions that will see the business satisfying the needs of the customers and generates profits.
If all the needs of the stakeholders are met and every employee works towards realization of the product vision, a business is guaranteed of future financial growth if the right resources are matched with the market needs. The business already has enough capital to implement the idea, the owners will take responsibility for managing the resources, a gap exists in the market for possible product penetration, and fresh and quality raw materials are readily available.
Low-caloric foods which have already been frozen and can be warmed in a microwave have over the recent past continued to receive wide acceptance by consumers prompting many big food manufacturing companies to embark on expansion strategies both in the production potential and market share (Wall & Griffiths, 2012). The economic aspect in the demand estimation of the firm’s food for managerial and marketing decisions is to be covered in this paper.
The basis of the assignment is on focused on two regression models or equations highlighting two marketing options, and the data used in the demand estimation is for the month of April from 26 supermarkets that sell the firm’s foods. Thus, for effective marketing decisions to be made it becomes inevitable to adopt a multifaceted approach by considering a wide range of factors that have potential to influence the demand and supply of the firm’s foods (Frank, 2013; Samuelson & Marks, 2013).
Calculations
In demand estimation, it is very imperative to apply analysis of demand in managerial economics to achieve the biggest market share possible (Sullivan & Sheffrin, 2013; McGuigan, Moyer & Harris, 2014; Metcalf, 2015). The demand estimation of either a single a multiple products in the market are very essential to provide a firm’s management as well as marketers with necessary market insights (Frank, 2013; Metcalf, 2015).
This is a very important step in devising and planning for an appropriate marketing strategy based on informed decisions that are data based as evidence (Frank, 2013; Sullivan & Sheffrin, 2013).
For the first option, the regression equations or model used in the calculation of the firm’s demand elasticities as well as the allowable standard errors and regression statistics are shown below:
Elasticity Implications
The implications of elasticity have far reaching effect on the quantities demanded as well as supplied in a market (Pettinger, 2012). According to Samuelson and Marks (2013), reiterate that this is because it provides important insights on demand estimation and making vital marketing decisions on whether the firm should embrace a discounting strategy or increasing or decreasing prices for its foods for increased generation of revenue.
Elasticity implications are a true manifestations of the law of demand to determine market equilibrium, whereby this phenomenon concurs with the law of demand and market dynamics, which outlines that demand is inversely related to prices whereby the former increases with a decrease in the latter and vice versa (Wall & Griffiths, 2012; Samuelson & Marks, 2013).
According to Frank (2013), calculation of elasticitiees allows the determination of the nature of demand in the market whether it is elastic or inelastic and also if it is absolute or in absolute value so that the sensitivity of consumers to prices can be established for an appropriate pricing strategy to be devised. The calculated elasticity values are shown in the table:
Pricing Recommendations
The firm’s price demand elasticity obtained through calculations is a 1.19 absolute value, which means that it is elastic. According to Wall and Griffiths (2012), this elasticity implies that price discounting is definitely that more appropriate marketing strategy that the firm can adopt. This is mainly because, this strategy has a very high potential to optimize market expansion and increase sales significantly (Frank, 2013).
This means that, by the firm reducing the prices of its foods, a significant influence of the foods supply and demand as well as sales levels. As a result, income elasticities of 1.62 and 1.11 are obtained through demand estimation calculation for both option 1 and option 2 respectively, which means that both are elastic an indication that the is a significant influence of the quantities demanded by consumers based on per capita income (Wall & Griffiths, 2012; Metcalf, 2014).
Therefore, in a market where consumers’ sensitivity to changes in prices is high because of their per capita income provides the company with an effective economic condition to embrace reduction of prices or provision of discounts in order to increase sales (Pettinger, 2012; Metcalf, 2015).
The Demand Curve
The firm’s calculated demand and supply based on the changing factor, that is, the price as well as the plotted firm’s demand and supply curves assuming that, apart from prices all other factors that affect the foods’ demand remained constant. Therefore, firm’s food prices utilized in plotting demanded and supplied food quantities of the firm are increasing at a fixed interval of 100 cents between 100 and 600.
Equilibrium Price and Quantity
According to Wall and Griffiths (2012), the determinant of market equilibrium is the relationship between the market demand and market supply. For instance, the market equilibrium for the food prices of the firm foods obtained through calculations is equivalent to the equations quantity supplied and for quantity demanded. Therefore, the intersection at where the two curves meet is referred to as point P, and which at the market equilibrium price value of 384.48 (Frank, 2013; Metcalf, 2015).
The most significant factors that can cause a shift in demand as well as supply curves are prices and income per capita within the region considered for statistical analysis of market dynamics (Wall & Griffiths, 2012). For instance, when the prices of the firm’s foods is decreased by 300 cents from 500 cents to 200 cents, an inelastic demand of 0.44 in demand elasticity results leading to an increased supply of demanded units of the firm’s foods by 284,400.
According to Wall and Griffiths (2012), this phenomenon concurs with the law of demand and market dynamics, which outlines that demand is inversely related to prices whereby the former increases with a decrease in the latter and vice versa. Alternatively, there is a likely for the supply and demand curves of firm’s foods to be shifted by consumer income whereby decreasing consumer income levels, especially during a recession leads to an outright decrease in demand (Pettinger, 2012; Wall & Griffiths, 2012).
In conclusion, it is evidently clear that demand regression equation calculations are an ideal technique for the estimation of demand in the market for food products and in particular low-calorie and microwavable foods. Therefore, these calculations and modeling as well as demand plots can be can be a very important way through which informed marketing decisions can be made. However, it is also imperative to consider other factors that inform purchasing decisions in order to come up with an appropriate marketing strategy for the expansion of the firm’s market share as well as continue gaining more market competitiveness.
References
Frank, R. (2013). Microeconomics and Behavior, (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
McGuigan, B. P., Moyer, R. C., & Harris, F. H. (2014). Managerial economics: Applications, strategies and tactics, (13th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.
This report will analyse the Adidas Company. This report provides an analysis and evaluation of effective marketing planning process, techniques for controlling marketing activities, contemporary marketing techniques, and their use in global and international markets. Furthermore, the report examines the skills of marketing managers and their role in the effective management of the marketing team, value of a brand from a number of different stakeholder perspectives, and the organisation’s marketing campaigns in different international markets.
Methods of analysis will include SWOT analysis, marketing controls, and international marketing trends. Results of analysis depict that Adidas has abundant opportunities and strengths, but suffers from a number of weaknesses and threats. The report finds that Adidas has taken advantage of its strengths and opportunities to develop effective marketing plans that have assisted them to achieve their marketing objectives.
The Adidas Company has adopted marketing controls, such as annual control, profitability control, and strategic control that have helped in spotting deviations in its marketing activities and provided timely remedies to the variations. Adidas has implemented contemporary marketing techniques, such as email marketing, PR marketing, mobile marketing and the use of social media that have assisted in growing awareness of its new products in different international markets.
Marketing manager skills, such as excellent communication skills, problem solving skills, and project management skills are noted to be vital in offering effective management to marketing teams. Stakeholders, such as employees, suppliers, and customers play a significant role in influencing the value of the Adidas brand. The various stakeholders participate in building the brand equity.
The Adidas has tailored its marketing campaigns to suit the different international markets. The company uses local athletes from various countries and influencers of markets to promote its new products, X 15 and ace 15 in different international markets. The report recommends that Adidas should design products that are affordable to several customers and implement marketing techniques that promote and differentiate its products from its competitors.
Introduction
The purpose of this report is to analyse the effective marketing planning processes and evaluate techniques for controlling marketing activities of the Adidas Company. This report also studies the contemporary marketing techniques and their use in global markets, examines skills of a marketing managers, and evaluates their role in providing management to the marketing team. Furthermore, this report assesses the impact and value of the Adidas Company brands from diverse stakeholders perspectives. In addition, this report looks into the marketing campaigns the Adidas Company has employed in different international markets.
The competitive global market calls for companies to plan their marketing activities, establish their strategies and accomplish their objectives more effectively. The contemporary marketing techniques aim to create a link between the customer and the organisation. Companies attract customers through social media content significant to their needs or writing newsletters that have valuable information.
Businesses that employ contemporary marketing techniques are seen to be successful in achieving their objectives than those companies that rely on conventional marketing techniques. The report will utilise references from the company website and other research articles. Besides examining the Adidas Company marketing strategy, this report will look at modern strategies that the company can utilise to expand its international markets.
Effective marketing planning process
Companies in all industries require marketing plans to succeed. Effective marketing planning process offers companies guidelines on how to market and trade their new products in the market within a specific period. The marketing plans guides the company in choosing an appropriate target market and then fulfill the customer needs in that segment. Moreover, the marketing planning process establishes the promotional strategies that can boost the sales volume of the company products.
The Adidas Company is an international corporation that designs and fabricates sports shoes, outfits, and accessories. The company is a leading sportswear in Europe and the global market. The Adidas Company has adopted a three divisional structure for its Adidas brand. The divisions include sport performance, sport heritage, and sport style. The adidas sport performance division centers on novelty, functionality, and design.
Furthermore, the division designs products for sports performance market, but have design appeal that pushes the consumers to wear the products off the playing field. The adidas sport heritage division includes adidas original products that aim to expand the exclusive and valid heritage of adidas to the lifestyle market. The sport style division is a fashionable assortment that consists of men’s and women’s shoes, clothing, and accessories.
The division targets young consumers who are looking for fashion-oriented sportswear products. The three divisional structures assist the Adidas Company to design and market innovative products, which satisfies the needs of varied customers. The Adidas has introduced new products like X 15 and Ace 15. X 15 is designed for players who control and bringing order to a chaotic game, while Ace 15 is designed for players who cannot be controlled.
Therefore, the Adidas Company requires an effective marketing planning process that would establish a target market for its new products and formulate plans of marketing its products and fulfilling the needs of that market. The marketing planning process is achieved through five fundamental steps. The five steps include objective and goal setting, assessing organisational resources, evaluating risks and opportunities, developing marketing strategy, and implementing and monitoring marketing plans (Adidas 2016).
Objective and goal setting
This initial stage of marketing planning process includes setting of goals and objectives the company wants to achieve. The company should link the marketing plan with its mission statement and determine the primary target audience. Moreover, the company should establish the profit margin it wants to achieve after implementation of the marketing plans (Social care institutes for excellence 2013).
The Adidas Company has developed a global brand in sporting products industry by designing quality new products that seeks to fulfill the expectations of customers. The Adidas Company has developed objectives that will assist the company to expand the global market of its new products. The company objectives include market penetration, which would aid in attaining market share in the global markets that the company competes.
The market development objective will enable the company to capture new business markets and respond to the needs of customer segments. In addition, the product awareness objective would offer visibility and realization of the company new products. The company objectives conform to its mission statement that states that the Adidas Company endeavor to be the global leader in sporting products industry with brands built on passion for sports and a sporting lifestyle (Chartered Management Institute 2015).
Assessing organisational resources
Marketing plans are influenced by internal factors, such as organisational resources. The organisational resources include capacity in manufacturing, advertising, finance, and technology. Assessment of these resources will enable organisations to locate their strengths and limitations. Strengths aid organisations to develop objectives, establish plans for accomplishing objectives, and gain from marketing opportunities. On the other hand, resource limitation might hold back an organization from benefitting on marketing opportunities (MLF4 2012).
The Adidas Company has several strengths that assist it to achieve its objectives. The company has strong financial position that is attributed to its several stores around the globe that make the company to achieve a profit of billions of dollars annually. The company trades its products from company owned stores, online stores, and supermarket stores. The effective distribution system enables the company new products to be available through diverse channels. The Adidas Company has increased consciousness of its new products through supporting major sports organisations, such as UEFA, NBA, world cup, and Olympics. The Adidas Company has uitilised YouTube to create videos that promote consciousness of its new products. Moreover, Adidas created videos that used David Beckham to promote its new products X 15 and Ace 15 (Nadeau et al. 2015).
However, the company has some limitations that prevent it from taking advantage of marketing opportunities. The company faces a risk of over dependency on outsourcing. The Adidas Company has subcontracted a bigger percentage of its production to third party manufacturers, such as Asia to benefit from easy accessibility of raw materials and fair labour cost. The premium prices of X 15 and Ace 15 sporting shoes due to inventive technology and manufacturing techniques have made the products exorbitant to deprived customers, particularly in developing countries (Adidas 2015).
Evaluating risks and opportunities
Nevertheless, the company has myriad of opportunities that will aid in fulfilling its marketing plans. The shifting lifestyle, taste, and preferences of rising economies have increased demand of premium brands. Furthermore, the company can extend its product line that will unlock new opportunities and attain an edge over its rivals through differentiation. In addition, the Adidas Company can integrate backwards that will aid in protecting their patent rights and combine their research and development division with the operational division in order to enhance brands innovation and development (Teach a man to fish 2014).
Nonetheless, the Adidas Company faces threats that might influence its marketing plans. Despite Adidas being a global brand, it still faces strong competition from other premium brands, such as Nike. Moreover, local companies and substitutes provide standard competition to Adidas brands. The over dependency on outsourcing its production has made supplier to have more bargaining power than the company (Institute of Risk management 2013).
Developing marketing strategy
Marketing strategy assist organisations to win market shares and converse to target market the advantages and aspects of a new product. Furthermore, the marketing strategy communicate the general value to their customers (Planning effective marketing strategies 2013).
The Adidas Company utilizes online marketing and other promotion campaigns to communicate their legacy of innovation and technology to customers. The company uses celebrities in its online marketing. Adidas use players like Mesut Ozil to promote its Ace 15 sporting shoes. Adidas argues that Ace 15 is built to control and suited to players like Mesut who bring order to a chaotic game. On the other hand, Adidas use players like Gareth Bale to promote its X 15 sporting shoes. The X 15 is built to give thorough traction to energetic and agile players in the world. The Adidas has adopted sports marketing through sponsoring sporting events that offer many opportunities to the company, such as new products promotion and brand consciousness. In addition, the Adidas utilises search engine optimization (SEO) tools to optimize its website by considering the key words used by people in search engines. The strategy has generated high consumer traffic for Adidas. Furthermore, Adidas place banner advertisements on other webpage that has promoted awareness of its new products (Khankaew et al. 2015).
Implementing and monitoring marketing plans
After developing the marketing plans, organisation follow the steps outlined in the plan towards achieving the stated objectives. The organisation provides continuous assessment to evaluate whether adopted strategies are achieving the objectives and goals. The Adidas Company stresses flexibility when implementing their marketing plans. The environmental opportunities and threats might not match with the company expectations. Shift in consumer demand, extension of distribution channels, and changes of supply costs might influence the outcomes, thus should be included into the monitoring of the plan (MLF4 2012).
Needs and techniques for controlling marketing activities
For Adidas Company to effectively control its marketing activities should adopt control systems that provide standards for assessing performance in each division of marketing. The outcomes of marketing departments, such as interactive advertising and marketing research department cannot be evaluated by similar standard because they are not similar. Hence, Adidas should implement control system that has matching standard for each department.
Furthermore, effective control system should be able to discover variation and report them to the management. The control system should also recommend possible remedies that can correct the deviations. In addition, the control system should be easily understandable by employees and cost-effective to the organisation. A control system that is customized to Adidas specifications provides comprehensive information that is significant to the company line of business (Adidas 2015).
Annual plan control
Annual plan control assists Adidas to evaluate its current marketing activities and outcomes to ensure that the yearly sales and profit objectives are attained. The annual plan control detects any variations on the performance of its X 15 and Ace 15 products and suggests possible corrective actions. The annual plan control utilizes tools, such as sales analysis, market share analysis, market expense analysis, and financial analysis to evaluate marketing activities and detect any deviations (Adidas 2015).
Profitability control
Profitability control helps Adidas Company to establish the definite profitability of its X 15 and Ace 15 products, market segments, and distribution channels. The information generated from profitability control will influence the company decision on extension, reduction, or deferment of its marketing activities.
The profitability control will identify the functional expenditure, allocate the functional expenditure to the marketing entities, and prepare income statement for every marketing entity. Therefore, the profitability rely on the of sales and marketing cost analysis in determining the profitability and expenditure of the marketing entities (Adidas 2015).
Efficiency control
The efficiency control aids the Adidas Company to enhance the effectiveness of its marketing activities, such as video marketing, network marketing, and blogging. The efficiency control assesses and reduces the marketing expenses of the marketing activities. Efficiency and profitability control are closely connected. Higher profits signify efficient management of the marketing activities (Adidas 2015).
Strategic control
The strategic control ensures that Adidas marketing objectives and strategies are suited to the present and predicted marketing environment. Furthermore, the strategic control will evaluate if the company is pursuing the opportunities presented by the distribution channels, products, and markets. T
he company management should continuously utilize the strategic control because the continuously shift in marketing environment might render the company objectives, strategies, and policies obsolete. Moreover, the strategic control examine the company marketing efficiency by employing tools, such as marketing audit and marketing effectiveness ranking appraisal (Adidas 2015).
Contemporary marketing techniques and their use in Global and International markets
Companies seek to expand their market share by venturing into global markets that are unsaturated and that offer the companies with several growth opportunities. Companies use contemporary marketing techniques to promote their new products in international markets. Most companies recognize they have limited markets when they concentrate in their local markets.
Hence, companies respond by looking international opportunities to raise their market share and customer base. The emergence of technology that crosses both cultural and national boarders presents the companies with the opportunity of utilizing technology to promote their products in global markets.
Moreover, the technology has resulted to development of contemporary marketing techniques, such as email marketing, social media, blogs, and public relation marketing that aid companies to market in global and international markets. Adidas Company has responded to customer migration to online world by embracing email marketing to promote its new products. Adidas utilizes email marketing to connect with current and prospective customers (Direct Marketing Association 2014).
Public relation marketing increases the awareness of the new products offered by Adidas and advances the company reputation in the media. The public relation marketing also publicizes new products introduced to the market by the company. The PR is responsible of writing press releases, newsletters, and speaking about the organisation in public meetings, which help in promoting the image of the company (Introduction to Public Relation 2012).
Social media sites, such as face book, and twitter offer Adidas exclusive opportunity to interact with customers and promote its new products. Adidas has utilized social media networks to increase consciousness of its new products, X 15 and Ace 15.In addition, studies suggest that companies who participate in social media platforms and mobile marketing enjoy higher loyalty from their customers.
Moreover, Adidas has embraced mobile marketing by acquiring an Australian fitness app maker, Runtastic. The app maker have over 130 million downloads and 75 million registered members globally, and is offered in 17 languages, thus giving Adidas a platform to market and promote its new products (Mobile Marketing Association 2014).
Adidas has shifted its bulk of its marketing budget into online marketing through focusing on instantaneous content and online video. The company has developed Adidas’ digital newsroom that aid in promotion of its new products. The brand newsroom aid the company to create quality contents that is unique and form emotions. Furthermore, the digital newsrooms create content that is tailored to its audience and it is delivered promptly and to the accurate standards (Adidas 2015).
Marketing manager skills and their role in the effective management of the marketing team
Technology advancement has altered the role of marketing to a point that the duties of present marketing managers vary significantly from those of some years ago. Nowadays marketing managers should understand how trends, technology, and social media work in the marketing mix. However, there are essential skills that marketing manager must possess to enhance their management and performance of marketing roles.
The Adidas Company success greatly depends on the effective management of its marketing managers to devise strategies that enhance new products promotion and increase sales. The marketing manager should possess excellent communication skills and create open and operating channels of communication. Strategic thinking is a vital skill that assists marketing managers to reflect and solve challenges with exceptional perspectives.
Furthermore, the marketing manager is able to make decisions based on long-term viewpoint and recognize how to handle the exclusive needs of each member participating in the project. The marketing managers are faced with the need to handle challenges from clients, team members, and the management. Excellent problem solving skills enable the marketing manager to handle swiftly the challenges from the three stakeholders.
In addition, the marketing managers are required to hone their project management skills to guide their teams in realizing their objectives and taking advantage of social media opportunities (National careers Service 2012).
Marketing managers play a vital role in providing effective management to their marketing teams. The marketing managers develop departmental targets and individualize them for each departmental staff. Moreover, they demonstrate how the individual targets would assist the department and the organisation as whole.
The marketing managers also identify the distinctive behavior of the team members and encourage them to achieve their targets by utilizing their unique traits. In addition, the marketing managers conduct performance appraisal of their marketing teams and congratulate them in departmental meetings when their transitional targets are achieved. This strengthens the significance on their individual capacities (National careers Service 2012).
Impact and value of a brand from a number of different stakeholder perspectives
Brand equity can enable companies to set premium prices to their products because customers believe that products with famous names are better than products with unrenowned names. Customer-based brand equity results when customers recognize the brand and hold exceptional brand association in their mind. Adidas has positioned itself as a premium brand and customers are willing to pay more for its products. The positive customer-based brand equity has offered Adidas long-term revenues and capability of charging premium prices for its new products (Angulo-ruiz 2014).
Employees play vital role in developing brand equity. Adidas recognizes its employees as major stakeholders in building the value of its brand. Adidas involves their employees in decision-making process and boost their satisfaction in order to attract the best talent that would help in designing new products. In addition, suppliers aid companies to have excellent reputation in the market. The brand equity of the Adidas Company assists in attracting reliable suppliers who might not be willing to render their services to unbranded firms (Cornell University ILR School 2013).
Organisations marketing campaigns in different international markets
The competitive environment prompts companies to develop marketing campaigns that will increase the brand consciousness and sales. However, due to diversity organisations should tailor their marketing campaigns to suit the international audience when expanding to international markets. The Adidas Company has used different marketing campaigns to promote its X 15 and Ace 15 products in different international markets.
The Adidas has promoted its new products in the US market by utilising online marketing that feature top players of National Hockey League (NHL) and National Football League (NFL). Moreover, the company has initiated major basketball marketing campaigns that resulted to a significant increase in its sales. The online purchasing has made it easy for consumers to purchase products directly from manufactures.
Adidas has adopted online purchasing by placing links on other websites like Google homepage that create high consumer traffic to the company website. The links help to promote product awareness to potential consumers. Furthermore, use of SEO tools to optimize the company website has made it visible to new consumers (Tesseras 2014).
The Adidas has used the Chelsea FC’s players and collaborated with the British Paralympics Association to promote its new products in the UK market. This year Adidas launched a marketing campaign dubbed I am here to create that comprised a sequence of films that featured several sporting celebrities. The marketing campaign aired in fifty countries during broadcast of UEFA champion league and the Grammys awards.
In China market, the campaign featured the local players that have the power of influencing the market. The marketing campaign helped to promote the X 15 and Ace 15 sporting shoes that Adidas launched to the market. Adidas has embraced Web public relations (WPR) by placing news of product or service launches on company’s website and review sites for consumers to read. Furthermore, Adidas uses direct e-mail for its online promotion. Both WPR and direct e-mail have helped adidas in promoting its new products to consumers (Department for culture, media, and sport 2012).
Conclusion
A company success is greatly attributed to the effective role played by is marketing function. Adidas effective marketing planning has guided the company to develop business activities that helps in achieving its organisation objectives. Marketing control systems have aided Adidas to assess its marketing activities and offer swift remedies to detected deviations. The Adidas Company has embraced contemporary marketing techniques, such as social media that have significantly enhanced its new products awareness. Furthermore, the Adidas marketing techniques that are tailored to different international markets have been successful in promoting its new products.
Recommendation
Customers are noted to be satisfied with the design and durability of the Adidas products, however in aspects of price; Adidas should design products that are affordable to deprived customers, especially in developing countries. Moreover, the company can provide special offer of price in a certain period to boost its sales and attract more customers. In addition, Adidas should develop more marketing campaigns and techniques that promote and differentiate its brands from competitors.
Online marketing,Top player brand ambassadors,Sponsoring teams
References
Angulo-ruiz, F., Donthu, N., Prior, D. & Rialp, J. (2014) ‘The financial contribution of customer- oriented marketing capability’, Academy of Marketing Science [online] 42 (4), 380-399. Available from [17 October 2016]
Institute of Risk management (2013)A risk management standard [online] available from <https://www.theirm.org/media/886059/ARMS_2002_IRM.pdf> [17 October 2016]Khankaew, C., Ussahawanitichakit, P. & Raksong, S. (2015)A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF ALTERNATIVE MARKETING STRATEGY AND MARKETING OUTCOMES‘Allied Academies International Conference’ Academy of Marketing Studies [online] 20(2), pp. 1-16
Mobile Marketing Association (2014) ‘MMA and adidas publish The Mobile Marketing Playbook to Drive Global Marketing Efforts’Marketing WeeklyNews [online], pp. 179
Nadeau, J., O’Reilly, N. & Heslop, L.A. (2015) ‘Cityscape promotions and the use of place images at the Olympic Games’Marketing Intelligence & Planning[online] 33(2), pp.147
Planning effective marketing strategies for a target audience– Adidas (2013) Business Case Studies LLP, London [online] available [17 October 2016]
During this era of digital advertising, podcasting has undoubtedly become a substantial channel through which consumption of digital content take place (McNurlin, 2009). An example of using a podcast as an advertising tool include the use of Apple iTunes app through which advertisers can upload their promotional media clips that are viewed by subscribers as they stream their preferred digital content (O’Brien, 2013).
The possible revenue model of podcasting would be through subscriptions whereby a fee is paid, and the difference between podcast and traditional advertising is that the former is based of digital content consumptions (McKeen & Smith, 2014). Some examples of mobile applications possible for use in podcasting include Apple iTunes app, Oracle, IBM among others.
Podcasts allows brands to communicate to a captive audience. With lifestyle on-the-go, the power to have the podcasting on demand allows companies and brands tell their story anywhere at any time, which helps to establish authority in your industry and create advocates brand along the way.
You can use podcasts to assume a greater engagement to your current and potential customers, providing an email address associated with the podcast where people can respond directly to the content. This will also give you material for new content. In the next episode you can answer questions or deal with the feedback you received.
References
McKeen, J. D. & Smith, H. A. (2014). Making IT Happen: Critical Issues in IT Management, Wiley Series in Information Systems. New York, NY: Prentice Hall.
McNurlin, B. (2009). Information Systems Management in Practice (8th ed.). New York, NY: Prentice Hall.
O’Brien, J. (2013). Management Information Systems: Managing Information Technology in the Internetworked Enterprise. Boston, MA: Irwin McGraw-Hill. ISBN0-07-112373-3
In the modern world, there exists stiff competition in the global business arena on the perception of the entrepreneurial marketing. Recently, many organizations work in business environments that consist of increased uncertainties, reduced ability to foresee, fluid companies and industries jurisdictions. The competitive advantage has also been featured by the major factors such as contradiction, chaos, complexity, and change. These factors have the significant impact on marketing in an international know-how economy where clients are becoming tougher.
What appears to be apparent to the readers or researchers about the traditional marketing activities is where they are not in a position to opposite for entrepreneurial companies competitiveness amidst antagonism. Therefore, it can be noted that entrepreneurial marketing is view as a paradigm that combines certain aspects of the entrepreneurship and marketing into a comprehensive theory where marketing turn out to be a procedure used by the organizations to conduct themselves entrepreneurially.
There is a developing evidence to sustain the concept that organizations which are competitively advantaged are those which are betrothed like entrepreneurial marketing. That means that the marketing ways that are used by the entrepreneurs show the innovative orientations. The approaches vary in their connection or impact on the enterprise performances.
It becomes severe for a new business to comprehend the entrepreneurial marketing activities to apply and therefore it becomes significant to attain diversity of successful outcome and in due course for increased performances.
Lincoln marketing associates are described as the beehive of marketing operations, and it has been achieving a lot of concentration. Lincoln marketing associates top management and the working staffs use the innovative and creative marketing techniques to compete fairly in the market arena. Therefore the top management together with the workers requires taking on to the cord of conducts that guarantee the growth and application and development of the dimensions of the entrepreneurial marketing strategies.
The idea of entrepreneur marketing appears to have not been paid a lot of attention even if it is considered of great significance factor that counts in the development and extraordinary performances of the entrepreneurial companies. The general objectives of this essay are to discuss into details the dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing strategy.
Problem statement
The diversity in the competitiveness arena inside the marketing business environment has created competition for the companies to be terrible. The urge for an adequate comprehension of the entrepreneurial marketing strategies and the employment to the entrepreneurial organizations has continuously become a subject of vital concern to many researchers, employees and entrepreneurs of the business enterprises. The inadequacy of attention paid to the entrepreneurial features such as pro-activity, opportunity recognition and innovative poses a significant challenge to the Lincoln marketing associates.
The entrepreneurial pro-activity is serious to build an edge over the rivals. It entails the capability and the attitude that permits the control and the implementations of services, products or even the processes in front of the principal competitor in the global market within the same industry. On the contrary, entrepreneurial corporations are challenged with continuous dynamic changes in political, social, economic and technology thereby coming up with a congruent requirement to re-plan their entrepreneurial marketing operations to suit the changes.
Entrepreneurs are inclined to adhere with the uncertainties business as chances represent the probability of returns. The pursuit of these returns is challenged by the potential of risk over the underestimated efforts. As companies strive to pursue such chances, the top management of a given company is countenanced by the technical solving tactics, decision-making potentials and the potential to choose the right chances which make sure a competitive edge is higher than that of their principal rival.
The entrepreneurial firms are plagued with the problem of selecting from key projects that will maximize their performances, bearing in mind that not or corporations services or products innovation come to be successful, due to the fact of a high rate of return.
The concept of entrepreneurial marketing
The phrase entrepreneurial marketing comes from two different fields that are used to explain the marketing system of companies pursuing chances in dangerous market conditions always under the limited resources. To comprehend the entrepreneurial marketing, it is vital first to introduce the meaning of the expression entrepreneurship and commercialization.
The established conceptualizations of marketing hearts on the onset of operations which smooth the progress of the exchanged connection. According to the American Marketing Association, “Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals.”
Recently, an entrepreneur is becoming heroes in the recessionary period and the capability or the potential to work and develop an enterprise in an uncertain business environment which is of greater significance to the community. On the other hand, the term entrepreneurship is defined as the “process of creating value by bringing together a unique package of resources to exploit an opportunity.”
The system entails the set of operations that are essential to identify a chance, describe a business idea, look into the required resources, get those resources and control and reap the business.
The theory of entrepreneurial marketing explains the principles, tactics, and cord of conduct of an entrepreneur in addressing their problems and looking for business chances. It shows various ways to envisaging the venture by itself, its linkage with the marketing place and the purpose of the marketing functions inside the company or as a plan entrepreneurial pose or cord of conduct in marketing that is characterized by corporations.
Enterprises work in business environment represented by high uncertainties and low probability of forecasting categories of forces such as contradiction, complexity, change and chaos. Entrepreneurial marketing is defined as the “effectual actions or the adaptations of marketing theory for the unique needs of the firms.” The valid activities sited address many marketing issues simultaneously. These problems include resource constraints, risk, innovation, and opportunities.
Dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing strategy
Pro-Activeness
Researchers have argued that the pro-activity is an original cord of conduct built which shoe a relatively firm propensity to impact the business environmental changes. Other says that the pro-activity have a positive effect on a person as well as an enterprise performance.
The pro-activity helps the owner and the managers to be able to define their organizational objectives and their vision and the mission statement they will use to enable them to attain their strategic objectives. Therefore, Pro-Activity can be explained as a state of thought and will be broadly be driven by an individual perception to maintain the organization’s mission, vision and to attain the planned goal, (Hooi, Ahmad, Amran, and Rahman, 2016)
It is imagined that the vision towards the formulation of the strategic restriction for recreating, impacting and influencing the nature of which they work in line with their foreseeable future. The entrepreneurial pro-activeness can also be viewed as the awareness of the firm. Scholars suggest that the entrepreneurial pro-activeness does not continue living or have to turn out to be unsuspected to rich clients and where the new process of processing that may be unidentified to other tend to be practicable.
Pro-activeness portrays the entrepreneurial enthusiasm to control competition by combining the aggressive and proactive moves. For example by establishing new services or product ahead of the competitors and working in the imaginations of the forecasted demand so as to build change and shape the nature of doing business. Furthermore, encompassing proactive orientations entails the satisfactory and the discovery of the unarticulated requirements of clients by gathering them and the competitor based data.
The dimension of pro-activeness is stated to show the top management orientation in following improved competitiveness, and it entails the risk-taking, initiative, boldness, and the competitive aggressiveness. The pro-activeness portrays a stable active connection with the performance.
The entrepreneurial pro-activeness is not enough for it to be associated to the know-how of organizing the transformation of inputs to output for making sure that high performance is recorded. It makes the entrepreneurs look into the past, present and the future with same passion, using the historical pattern to describe and fully comprehend the present and to confront and build its own pro-active in future.
Pro-activeness is creating change, initiative taking, achievement oriented, foreseeing the evolution towards a serious condition and early preparation before the emergence of short risks. It reveals itself by the activities in the creation of the “stated belief” and the implantations of individual’s attitudes.
The tendency of the pro-active offer a company the potential to imagine the changes or the requirements in the market arena and be amidst the first to operate on them and the first to apply it is assured of excellence performance.
Opportunity recognition
The concept of entrepreneurial marketing stress on takings on the chances regardless of the resources available. Chances portray themselves unnoticed to the market positions which are capable for the sustainment of profit potentials. Pursuit and recognition of opportunity are marketing operations significant to the success of a company. Marketability is estimated by the degree of firmness which links to the abilities and resources of the business.
It is the firm tendency to show the best opportunity that establishes success, (Shane, and Nicolaou, 2015). Even if the opportunity may come randomly, the entrepreneurial marketers have the propensity to survey for new chances proactively. Being pro-active and having the willingness to be lead the way allows the entrepreneurial companies to serve the unsatisfied requirements and take gain of upcoming chances before the competitors.
Creativity and innovation are vital tools that help the entrepreneur’s companies to change opportunity onto the reality. Chances pay a fundamental role in the company’s ability to choose the best opportunity that establishes success, (Maine, Soh,. and Dos Santos, 2015). Opportunities are viewed as a goal phenomenon which exist sovereignty of the entrepreneur and as such be inherent in a flowing exposure that is outside the entrepreneur awaiting exploitation and discovery.
It is suggested that a firm market knows how establishes whether the innovation is employed at best era, under little idea perceptions. The marketing know-how provides as a restriction, stopping the companies from extravagating resources in vain. Also, it allows the organization to take the best of its time, direct the firm towards its success.
The availability of the chances is likely to show a relationship between the rates of the changing business environment, indicating the demand for the marketing personnel to connect in heightened categories of both actions for the discovery and search. Moreover, the exploitations of the chances include the continuous adaptations and the learning by the marketing staffs prior, during and after the formal employment of the innovative ideas.
Opportunities portray unidentified marketing positions which are the sources of sustainable income potentials. They are consequential from the market imperfection, where the know-how relating to the defect and how to take advantage of them are differentiating the entrepreneurial marketing.
Innovation
The concept of entrepreneurial marketing is found in the ideas and the innovation development that are linked to the intuitive comprehension of the market demands. It can promote the essential core competencies for a proactive company that finds innovative ways for the clients. Innovativeness is explained to the dynamic organizations that discover new chances rather than just make the most of the recent strengths. Therefore, it seems necessary to an innovative effort that is capable of expanding the customer’s wants, (Boso, Cadogan, and Story, 2012)
Scholars have argued that innovativeness entails promoting the spirit of supporting research, creativity, development, establishment of new product and services, technological leadership, experimentations and developing new processes. An innovation-oriented marketing operation helps the company to aim at concepts that lead to new processes, products, and markets.
The degree to which flourishing the companies places innovation in its marketing operations can grow from highly innovative new market know-how. Companies may select to aim at the original lines of marketing since the organization may not have the asset to attain or sustain the industry requirements. An entrepreneur shows a general openness to the introduction, and they also portray a single domain in the research that compares entrepreneurial marketing, corporate marketing, and the traditional marketing.
It can be said that, in the scenario of the entrepreneurs, the marketing plans take over from the traditional marketing ideas by the innovation shown by the entrepreneurs of today, flexibility, and creativity, (Pahnke, McDonald, Wang, and Hallen, 2015)
Innovation consists of positive technical knowhow concerning how matters can be done better that the previous state of creativity. Being innovative will assist the companies to increase new ventures and sole proprietorships opportunities and successfully finalize in a changeover economy. It helps firms determine a leading competitive position and can have enough money to a new venture and change to receive an edge in the market.
Firms that sustain the culture of innovation have a higher probability to maintain a competitive market and dynamic in a way that it is by an intuitive comprehension of the marketing demands. Creativity and innovations are conditions intrinsic in the purpose of the entrepreneurship and show a company needs to improve techniques which may impact in the establishment of products, technological systems, and processes.
Scholars argue that innovativeness has to turn out to be a pre-requisite for an organization’s core competencies and survival. It seems specifically significance to SMEs with limited assets. Innovativeness is a significant determinant of a company’s performances.
Calculated risk taking
The authority of risk taking entails the willingness to use the substantial asset for exploiting the chances by using business plans based on the effects which may vary with risk. Companies which have taken on the entrepreneurial marketing develop the calculated take, rational and weigh uncertainties, (Lückenbach, Baumgarth, Schmidt, and Henseler, 2016)
Companies that have taken on the entrepreneurial marketing developments are not speculators but are risk takers who comprehend that the innovation in the current technological, social and economic environment is intrinsic unsure and needs the rational laying a bet on the long shots. One technique for managing risks is to operate in coalition with other groups, that the companies thought will offer the complimentary potential and assist tilting the loss to other people.
Customer intensity
The dimension of client’s strength creates on what is seen as the driving factor of marketing in the corporation. The client-centric-orientation applies the innovative manner to build and maintains the customer based relationship, (Lechner, and Gudmundsson, 2014).Some of the researched studies explains that the organization successes are which placed on a greater stressing of the customer intensity. On the contrary, it has additionally opts those extreme clients orientations might slow down the burst through of the innovation which builds markets and disrupt equality.
It is because the fundamental changes are out in front of the client. Customer orientation has its base in introductory services marketing text in that the significance of customer focused workers was a physical sign of quality for the company and its services. Since then, the ideology of customer orientation inside the company has been examined by various researchers and authors. Indeed, some of them see the client directions as the “pillar of marketing,” (Anning-Dorson, 2016)
Value creation
The optimal point of the entrepreneurial marketing is the innovative value creation. It is assumed that the value creation is the precondition for the relationship and transactions. The work of the marketing workers or the marketers is to find out the unused resources of the client value and to build a first integration or asset to bring into being value, (Amit, and Zott, 2012).
It is because, the paramount ability to see and utilize chances is argued that the companies that take on the entrepreneurial marketing system are well able to recognize good-looking entrepreneurial prospects and use them by leveraging innovation to improve the sacrificed merits and reduce the sacrificed costs that result in paramount value for the client, (Dess, Lumpkin, and Eisner, 2014).
Resource leveraging
The primary challenges that occur for the new business as far as marketing is concerned are the limited of personal and financial resources. The insufficiency requires a thorough monitoring of the marketing expenditures and constrains the intensity and the range of marketing operations within the new business that can be pursued, (Hallbäck, and Gabrielsson, 2013).
The entrepreneurs can deal with this challenge by trying to attain additional assets like the bank’s loans, venture capital, and trying to meet the optimal impact of the limited resources. Two approaches can be reviewed on how to deal with the scarcity of the resources. The first one is the strategies and techniques that are used to minimize the amount of asset used for a given marketing operation.
They entail; strategies for creating a coalition with other firms and the free rising plan. The second ones are the strategies and methods that need only a few assets yet assure to regenerate higher return in the marketing arena. They include step by step development plan, adoption of a niching strategy, low-cost guerilla methods in marketing, (Becherer, and Helms, 2016)
Implications of the findings
The study has shown that the entrepreneurial marketing is a multi- dimensional assembly whose features have an important, optimistic power on the greater performance of the Lincoln marketing associates. The essays portray that the seven dimensions of the entrepreneurial marketing strategies that is the resource leveraging, value creation, customer intensity, risk taking, innovation, opportunity recognition, and the pro-activeness by the Lincoln marketing associates will improve the performance.
Moreover, the essay confirmed that the entrepreneurial pro-activeness is the fundamental driving factor to attain the core competencies. The aggressive steps and system by the establishment of the new products or services ahead of the key rivals determines the core competencies firm exposure to other companies within the same industry, (Franco, and Haase, 2013)
Additionally, the entrepreneurial company’s pursuit and recognition of the chances are the marketing operations that are significant to the performance. Therefore going by the latent marketing chances by looking innovative explanations to improve core competencies. A chance of a company aims at the capability to choose the good chances to establish success. Thus the Lincoln marketing associates chances recognition potential has an enthusiasm result on the performances, (Alegre, and Chiva, 2013)
Bibliography
Alegre, J. and Chiva, R., 2013. Linking entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance: The role of organizational learning capability and innovation performance. Journal of Small Business Management, 51(4), pp.491-507.
Amit, R. and Zott, C., 2012. Creating value through business model innovation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 53(3), p.41.
Anning-Dorson, T., 2016. Interactivity innovations, competitive intensity, customer demand and performance. International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, 8(4).
Becherer, R.C. and Helms, M.M., 2016. The Role of Entrepreneurial Marketing in Improving Market Share for Small Businesses Facing External Environmental or Resource Challenges. Journal of Business and Entrepreneurship, 27(2), p.119.
Boso, N., Cadogan, J.W. and Story, V.M., 2012. Entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation as drivers of product innovation success: A study of exporters from a developing economy. International Small Business Journal, p.0266242611400469.
Dess, G.G., Lumpkin, G.T. and Eisner, A.B., 2014. Strategic Management: Text and Cases.
Franco, M. and Haase, H., 2013. Firm resources and entrepreneurial orientation as determinants for collaborative entrepreneurship. Management Decision, 51(3), pp.680-696.
Hallbäck, J. and Gabrielsson, P., 2013. Entrepreneurial marketing strategies during the growth of international new ventures originating in small and open economies. International Business Review, 22(6), pp.1008-1020.
Hooi, H.C., Ahmad, N.H., Amran, A. and Rahman, S.A., 2016. The functional role of entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial bricolage in ensuring sustainable entrepreneurship. Management Research Review, 39(12).
Kuratko, D.F., 2016. Entrepreneurship: Theory, process, and practice. Cengage Learning.
Lechner, C. and Gudmundsson, S.V., 2014. Entrepreneurial orientation, firm strategy and small firm performance. International Small Business Journal, 32(1), pp.36-60.
Lückenbach, F., Baumgarth, C., Schmidt, H.J. and Henseler, J., 2016. Identity, customer needs or risk-taking? Empirical analysis of the impact of brand, market and entrepreneurial orientation on the performance of Social Entrepreneurship Organisations (SEOs).
Maine, E., Soh, P.H. and Dos Santos, N., 2015. The role of entrepreneurial decision-making in opportunity creation and recognition. Technovation, 39, pp.53-72.
Pahnke, E.C., McDonald, R., Wang, D. and Hallen, B., 2015. Exposed: Venture capital, competitor ties, and entrepreneurial innovation. Academy of Management Journal, 58(5), pp.1334-1360.
Shane, S. and Nicolaou, N., 2015. Creative personality, opportunity recognition and the tendency to start businesses: A study of their genetic predispositions. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(3), pp.407-419.
Want help to write your Essay or Assignments? Click here
Competition in an industry presents itself in various ways. Thus, a company should always seek a means of gaining a competitive advantage over its competitors. Michael Porter’s industry analysis approach is a useful mechanism of ascertaining where the power in a market lies. In the lead industry, there are several companies producing lead products which mean that the competition is high. Rivalry within the industry is high because of the high rate of substitution within the industry.
The threat of substitution, according to Michael Porter, regards a situation where the clients of a company can get a similar product that fulfills a similar need from a different source at comparatively lower prices (Yeonshin et al., 2016). That means that the customer base of the organization will be affected. The threat of substitution increases because the product is also imported by other companies which render the competition even stiffer.
Gaining a competitive advantage against the competition requires that Swansea TV embraces a new marketing strategy and that is digital marketing. The use of this mechanism will increase the company’s ability to connect to more clientele which will increase the customer base of the organization. The following are mechanisms that Swansea will use to gain traffic over the Internet:
Referral traffic
Persuading other websites to connect to Swansea TV website is costly and time-consuming. For example, some will demand remuneration for creating traffic while some may not agree. Averting this situation is possible through the use of referral traffic. That can be done by creating website content that is good to the extent that other sites seek linkage from the Swansea TV website (Barry et al., 2015).
An instance can be traced back to the Google’s Panda update regarding the kick in the proverbial teeth. The content was attractive so much that eBay was willing to purchase. Having attractive content on the website will require prolific content writers who are creative and innovative.
Implementation of schema micro data
Corredoira and Sood (2015) define schema markup as a code or semantic vocabulary put on a website with the purpose of helping search engines provide much more informative outcomes. Therefore, the schema can tell the search engine the meaning of the data on a website and not just what it says. For the users, this is helpful while they search the internet. For Swansea TV, this will be extremely helpful in ensuring that the website is among the first options that come when someone searches for related content.
Digital marketing:Email marketing
Critchlow et al. (2016) describe email marketing as a direct marketing form involving the use of electronic mail as a medium of disseminating fundraising or commercial messages to a specific audience. Swansea TV can seek to use this mechanism as it is one of the simplest digital marketing tools to employ. It is also less costly, and the fact that it is a direct means of reaching out implies that it has great potential of directing traffic to the company’s website.
It entails crafting a message to the potential clients of the organization driving them towards the Swansea TV company website (Summers, Smith and Walker, 2016). That means that the message will advertise the competitive prices of the company’s products as a basis of attracting the clients.
Conversion tracking
This is a tool whose purpose is to show the events that take place once a customer clicks on an advertisement (Xia and Pedraza-Jiménez, 2015). That is, it informs the owner if the customer signed up for the business newsletter, downloaded the app, called the business call center or even if they purchased the product. Swansea TV will utilize the server to server tracking method which stores the tracking information on the servers instead of using cookies. The need of a conversion approach is to evaluate the success of the digital marketing approaches that will be used.
References
Barry, A. E., Johnson, E., Rabre, A., Darville, G., Donovan, K. M., & Efunbumi, O. (2015). Underage Access to Online Alcohol Marketing Content: A YouTube Case Study. Alcohol & Alcoholism, 50(1), 89-94.
Corredoira, L., & Sood, S. (2015). MEETING NEW READERS IN THE TRANSITION TO DIGITAL NEWSPAPERS: LESSONS FROM THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY. El Profesional De La Información, 24(2), 138-148. doi:10.3145/epi.2015.mar.07
SUMMERS, C. A., SMITH, R. W., & WALKER RECZEK, R. (2016). An Audience of One: Behaviorally Targeted Ads as Implied Social Labels. Journal Of Consumer Research, 43(1), 156-178. doi:10.1093/jcr/ucw012
Xia, H., & Pedraza-Jiménez, R. (2015). CHINESE SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIES: COMMUNICATION KEY FEATURES FROM A BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE. El Profesional De La Información, 24(2), 200-209. doi:10.3145/epi.2015.mar.14
YEONSHIN, K., SANGDO, O., SUKKI, Y., & HWASHIN HYUN, S. (2016). CLOSING THE GREEN GAP: THE IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITMENT AND ADVERTISING BELIEVABILITY. Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 44(2), 339-351. doi:10.2224/sbp.2016.44.2.339
Want help to write your Essay or Assignments? Click here
PANDORA is global fashion jewelry from Denmark. It has at least ten thousand retailers in the international market. It reflects in its stable brand loyalty from its customers. The PANDORA brand is unique and of high quality. It has made PANDORA get the brand awareness regarding marketing. In the year 2015, as it was disclosed on 2012 financial reports, three hundred and seventy-five PANDORA concepts stores were opened. Opening more stores aimed to create PANDORA brand image.
Hence, they were keen to visual effects of showcase so as to attract the target customers in sensitivity manner and motivate them to minimize the decision-making steps and purchase it as soon as possible, (Bucuta, and Balgaradean, 2016). Due to their lower pricing, fast fashion trends, friendly and relaxed customer services in their stores make customer’s decision making simple and improve the trust for the management.
PANDORA have benefited from fast fashion, flexible strategies, renewal of goods which make it simple for the customers to believe their perceived risk so as to have product involvement highly when making informed decisions, (Howeidi, and Nguyen, 2016). PANDORA has more than a thousand products that satisfy the individual expression. Their brand does express personality.
For example; their essence bracelet is assumed to bring different inspiration or wishes. On every festive season or holiday, PANDORA will come up with new products that are related to the gift giving, holiday and cultural value in ritual ways to cover on grooming, (Anca, and Cristina-Maria, 2016). It makes people relate to reality and loves the brand of PANDORA.
In Europe, PANDORA recorded a twenty-eight percent revenue growth. The primary market that contributed in large part to this was the United Kingdom. The revenue of Pandora in the United Kingdom rose by seven percent through the second quarter of this fiscal year. The income was heightened by an opening of seven subsidiaries concepts stores which brought the number of the PANDORA concept stores to two hundred and nine.
Andersen stated that “these are another set of fantastic which we are all incredibly proud of- to be a presence in every major UK town and city is a phenomenal achievement.” Additionally, he proceeded by saying that “After eight years at Pandora, it has been both challenging and immensely rewarding, watching the brand grow and resonate so well with women of all ages.”I am delighted with the progress the brand has made in the UK, in particular in such a competitive industry and on what is widely considered a tough high street to crack.”
The company had a steady momentum in Europe where they recorded a 28% increase in sales revenue. Among the 28%, the United Kingdom contributed a half of the growth of income. The high momentum was fostered by three factors that influence consumer behavior, and they are Motivation, Perception, and Identity, (http%3A%2F%2Fwww.retailgazette.co.uk%2Fblog%2F2016%2F08%2Fpandoras-uk-sales-account-for-a-quarter-of-companys-emea-region-growth&usg)
Motivation
Consumer motivation is the force to satisfy wants and both psychological and physiological during the acquisition of products and services. PANDORA recognized motivation as a compelling and impelling force that is required in its concepts stores. To understand how motivation applies it’s important to comprehend three behavioral models and foresee on how customers will act to them, (Grunert, Hieke, and Wills, 2014)
First is the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Abraham Maslow describes personal development through satisfaction and identification of the hierarchy of needs from basic needs to complex psychological needs, (Anderson, 2014). Maslow suggested that these motivating drives work more or less one after the other. If one level is entirely or partially met, there is always hunger to next level and the feeling is more intensely. PANDORA used the Maslow’s hierarchy comprehensively to comprehend what motivates their target customers and how the motivation can be utilized in a broader variety of ways to clients and individuals across the globe.
Secondly is the Dichter’s Major Consumption Motives. It was established in 1950 where Dichter on behalf of Procter and Gamble conducted research on customers’ demands that motivates the buying of the Ivory Soap, (Ahn, Duan, and Mela, 2013). He deduced that “bathing as a cleansing ritual has a symbolic appeal among consumers, signifying purification from the taints of the world.”
From the research, Dichter steered the growth of a tremendously winning advertising campaign. According to Dichter, the consumption of goods is determined by twelve vital motives which are security, eroticism, power-masculinity virility, individuality, social acceptance, moral purity, magic mastery, and social connectedness, mastery over the environment, femininity, and status.
Lastly is the Sheth’s Consumer Motives. The incentives were developed to foresee customer’s decisions. Although it was meant for traveling decisions, Sheth’s model also applies to other goods and services. Sheth secluded five dimensions of motivation, each leaning to an attainment of particular goals, (Wind, Thomas, and Sheth, 2014). Also, the functional motive entails the utility of goods or services or the work it performs.
Besides, the emotional motive is attained by the attractiveness or appearance of a good or service. Furthermore, the social motive is revealed in the esteem or status value of a good or service. Additionally, the situational motive is activated by unforeseen advantages of a good or services and lastly the curiosity motive which is simply the concern aroused by a good or a service.
PANDORA has used the Sheth’s models to foresee the brand choices by customers. Various brands, for example, the ones with charms are associated with the emotional motives. It gives the customer the power to decide what kind of a meaning their jewelry possesses and they make them buy or not to buy. The choice of PANDORA brand whether golden or silver or silk is associated with functional and social motives.
By comprehending the customer’s motivation, PANDORA can better target products and services to attain the demands of particular market segments such as the United Kingdom. For example, PANDORA can advertise about the charm jewelry that has meaning of given personalities and incidences, pleasing the demand of the traditional or older customers who used to purchase jewelry with no meaning at all.
Perception
Consumer perception measures the growth of perception through various variables and recognizes those factors that influence the buying decision of the customer. Customer usage and purchasing of any good depend on with their perception towards the goods, (Font, and Guerrero, 2014). Perception is widely developed regarding how effectively and efficiently a product has been marketed or advertised.
PANDORA has employed all its hard work in marketing so that to acquire or attain the consumer’s attention and the positive feeling on the consumer’s thoughts. The customer perception can be well recognized by the taste and preference of the good, color, and shape, (Tieman, Ghazali, and Van Der Vorst, 2013)
There are several physical factors that affect perception. Those are a mode of payment, availability, regular supply of product, accessibility, durability and quality, (Fall Diallo, Chandon, Cliquet, and Philippe, 2013). Product quality is categorized into two. First is the perfect quality and second is the expected quality. The special quality contains the real benefits attained from the buying of the product. On the contrary, the apparent quality contains the customer expectations from the goods.
At first, the perception qualities of the good of PANDORA were weighed as customer’s perception of the quality of good offered by Denmark. Researchers and scholars argue that expectations, country of origin and perception fosters to cognitions. It also puts importance on specific goods and marketing characteristics. These were regarded as the factors that drove customers to marketplace or the concept store where the jewelry was marketed or sold.
Price determines the purchasing power of the customer. Normally, a price is regarded as the primary determinant of the customer’s brand choice when selecting a good or service. It is comprehended that when a customer is experiencing a purchasing decision for good buying, then the consumer is more concerned about the prices of the goods and scrutinize prices keenly, (Jin, He, and Zhang, 2014).
The pricing strategy assists the consumers to maximize direct utility that they possess from the buying. On the contrary, when the customer come into contact with PANDORA brand that has fluctuating prices and apparent quality levels, the consumer will have to make the informed decision about the favorite they make on the ground of characteristics of the goods.
Customer favorite of good features differs according to the nature of the product as well as its economic and social nature of consumer. Goods characteristics are frequently eye-catching in nature. The characteristics model that was proposed by the Gwin and Gwin in two thousand and three posits that customer preference of good is based on maximizing their utility from the goods attributes subject to the financial shortage.
Some scholars argued that customer services and store images stimulated the consumer store choices and at the same time, location and parking facilities always have a negative effect on the consumer choice. On the case of PANDORA, the two hundred and nine concepts stores are strategically relocated, and they offer incredible customer services like free delivery of the jewelry. The consumer perception of store pictures and the characteristics pressured by types of goods, formats, shopping need and cultural value explains the store nature, parking facilities, place, kindliness of staffs are among the factors that pressure the customer’s choice of stores, (Claiborne, and Sirgy, 2015).
From the record, PANDORA added seven concept stores in the United Kingdom bringing the number to two hundred and nine. It means that PANDORA has offered or provided their customers will all basic needs that affect the choice of stores. The effect of store setting such as the eye-catching shelf, incredible services activities and facilities attract more customers to purchase more.
Store images are an important factor in store loyalty and store alternative. The perception towards stores is established significantly by visual attributes of a store such as a distance of store from home, size, and intangible factors such as the atmosphere of the store.
Although the store picture has been comprehensively analyzed all over the globe, there is a lot to be analyzed for the developing retail nature where consumers, as well as the store owners, are in solid phase and different and large retail formats by the prearranged retailers being moved out. What might build the high image and what forces the choice of a store in the long-term is the myth. The PANDORA new stores have the capacity to attract more customers into the stores because of their notions.
Identity
Identity construction is a significant improving sector in consumption theory. Description of how the customer makes choices among goods and services assist in describing the connection between the consumption and identity. The demand concept proposes that customers should select the goods which offer them maximum utility for their disposable income they possess where their utility is the pleasure of consuming the product, (McAlexander, Dufault, Martin, and Schouten, 2014).
An option to this perspective is that customers select goods which are closely equivalent to their aspired or popular personalities. The post-modern theorists like the Sartre would recommend that possession is significant to identifying who we are and offering a sense of being, (Hatch, and Cunliffe, 2013). Customers might select goods based upon their valued but offered multiple choices in the concepts stores; they may still choose the same product since it fits their personality.
For example, if a customer is to choose a PANDORA charm bracelet over A PANDORA jewelry with no charm, given another chance will still choose the PANDORA bracelet with charm since it warms his or her personality. Scholars argue that selecting goods is relatively simple since one thing is likely to strike us “symbolically more harmonious with our goals, feelings, and self-definitions than other.” The choice of goods and services offers the customers a chance to express their originality and act a way of communicating with others.
In the United Kingdom, there is so much relative wealth and choice. It makes it almost not surprising that consumption and shopping are the major leisure acts. Researchers suggest that culture and society are very significance to identity and consumption of products and services.
The detection of consumers’ identity building is significant for the retailers. It enables them to advertise to the right individuals at the right time while targeting their market group. It can only be achieved through close monitoring of the retail shopping behaviors, (Thompson, 2014). Inducements such as the loyalty cards can be used to gather data on consumption habit and attempt to recognize potentially loyal customers and profitable customers.
Additional processed data entailing the demographic, socio-economic and geographical data such as marital status, income bracket, postcode, age, and gender can be used to analyze the customers. For example, PANDORA target customers are women of all ages. They have products that suit the taste and preference of each woman no matter their age.
Identity is transformed through consumption. It is argued that the significance of the b body image to the self-theory regarding an evaluation of size and attractiveness and perception is mostly drastic and symbolic, (Tuškej, Golob, and Podnar, 2013). PANDORA focuses mainly on young population. It is because young people are more into consumption and identity. The goods they buy frequently have stable and strong representation as well as the social work.
The information about the PANDORA brand is used to build an identity based on the understanding of the “consumption ideals prevalent in popular culture.” It is believed that with time and culture changes, the identity is expected to adjust.
The connection between identity and consumption activities are described through the consumption the significance of possession, various selves, group identities and consumption concepts. Consumption choices assist in describing the identities of both the group and people either at unconscious or conscious level, (Ekinci, Sirakaya-Turk, and Preciado, 2013).Equally, an identity by itself may pressure the consumption behaviors.
Even if the relationship between identity and consumption might be controversial, it is motivating to consider the reason as to why we purchase goods and services over the others. The frequent asked questions whether they provide greater utility or not or are they cheaper or do they imitate our personalities? With the question above, PANDORA has been able to provide answers to their customers making them want to purchase more and more product from their concepts stores.
Conclusion
Conclusively, the three factors which are motivation, perception and identity have helped PANDORA to increase its sale revenue in the second quarter by 28%. PANDORA marketing strategy has been comprehensively effective because after analyzing their target market and population, they established a structure and mechanism which they could use to attract more customers. For example, establishing the jewelry with charms led to many people purchasing the products because they believed that the message possessed by the jewelry reflects their personalities.
It motivated a lot of its customers to purchase the jewelry even though the sense of being never changed, (Solomon, Russell-Bennett, and Previte, 2013). Their marketing strategies changed customer’s perception on how they viewed the concepts stores. When customers recognized the jewelry with charms, they would purchase the product with different images or visual effects to portray a meaning. For example, since they targeted the young population, they introduced love jewelry.
If friends or couples purchase the love jewelry, it changed their perception of how they are affected by each other. Their personalities drove them to purchase more and more products. Lastly, the store images bring the sense of what goes inside the store. It creates the identity that every customer wants to be associated with. PANDORA concepts store are modernized, and most of them are of glass. It makes it clear for every person to view from outside what is sold inside.
Since identity is majored on group personalities and peers have different opinion about the PANDORA jewelry brand, it attracts the potential customers to purchase the products so that to be identified as part of the PANDORA loyalty customers. Due to these consumer behavior tactics by the PANDORA, it was able to record a sales revenue increase of twenty-eight percent as compared to other quarters in the year 2015.
Bibliography
Ahn, D.Y., Duan, J.A. and Mela, C.F., 2013. A Rational Expectations Model of User Content Generation and Consumption. University of Chicago.
Anca, B.U.C.U.Ţ.Ă. and Cristina-Maria, B.Ă.L.G.Ă.R.Ă.D.E.A.N., 2016. Affordable Luxury. The Newest Trend in the Fashion Industry? Case Study: Pandora Jewelry. Marketing From Information to Decision, 1(9), pp.61-62.
Anderson, A., 2014. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The Prairie Light Review, 36(2), p.7.
Bucuta, A. and Balgaradean, C.M., 2016, January. Affordable Luxury. The Newest Trend in the Fashion Industry? Case Study: Pandora Jewelry. In The Proceedings of the International Conference” Marketing-from Information to Decision” (p. 61). Babes Bolyai University.
Claiborne, C.B. and Sirgy, M.J., 2015. Self-image congruence as a model of consumer attitude formation and behavior: A conceptual review and guide for future research. In Proceedings of the 1990 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 1-7). Springer International Publishing.
Ekinci, Y., Sirakaya-Turk, E. and Preciado, S., 2013. Symbolic consumption of tourism destination brands. Journal of Business Research, 66(6), pp.711-718.
Fall Diallo, M., Chandon, J.L., Cliquet, G. and Philippe, J., 2013. Factors influencing consumer behaviour towards store brands: evidence from the French market. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 41(6), pp.422-441.
Font-i-Furnols, M. and Guerrero, L., 2014. Consumer preference, behavior and perception about meat and meat products: An overview. Meat Science, 98(3), pp.361-371.
Grunert, K.G., Hieke, S. and Wills, J., 2014. Sustainability labels on food products: Consumer motivation, understanding and use. Food Policy, 44, pp.177-189.
Hatch, M.J. and Cunliffe, A.L., 2013. Organization theory: modern, symbolic and postmodern perspectives. Oxford university press.
Howeidi, M. and Nguyen, D., 2016. VIRAL MARKETING (Doctoral dissertation).
Jin, L., He, Y. and Zhang, Y., 2014. How power states influence consumers’ perceptions of price unfairness. Journal of Consumer Research, 40(5), pp.818-833.
McAlexander, J.H., Dufault, B.L., Martin, D.M. and Schouten, J.W., 2014. The marketization of religion: Field, capital, and consumer identity. Journal of Consumer Research, 41(3), pp.858-875.
Solomon, M.R., Russell-Bennett, R. and Previte, J., 2013. Consumer behaviour: Buying, having, being. Pearson Australia.
Thompson, C.J., 2014. The politics of consumer identity work. Journal of Consumer Research, 40(5).
Tieman, M., Ghazali, M.C. and Van Der Vorst, J.G., 2013. Consumer perception on halal meat logistics. British Food Journal.
Tuškej, U., Golob, U. and Podnar, K., 2013. The role of consumer–brand identification in building brand relationships. Journal of business research, 66(1), pp.53-59.
The use of polysemy, intertextuality, and symbolism in advertising
The use of polysemy, intertextuality, and symbolism in advertising
Introduction
Advertising has become the most powerful tool in marketing for business and organizations. It’s an essential factor in the creation of brand awareness and enhancing trust among the consumers of advertising products. It is the process of communicating with current customers and potential buyers about goods and services (Linda Carlson, 2007). Given that the primary objective of advertising is to make people aware of certain products within the market, different companies have various approaches to ensuring they make more profits through advertising and keep off competition (Skorupa and Dubovičienė, 2015; Hackley, 2010).
These firms, for instance, Coca-Cola, Snickers, and Heinz -use sophisticated strategies and theories of advertising to accomplish their goals. Looking at some of the multinational companies ads, it’s easy to discern the creativity used by directors in making the commercials. Some of the concepts used by these companies include polysemy, intertextuality, and symbolism. The three concepts – as seen in some of Coca-Cola, Heinz, and Snickers advertisements and they offer strategic ways for the firms to ensure people relate well to the message put across in a simple way.
Advertising and polysemy
Advertisers and media practitioners have expressed difficulty in the interpretation of advertisement messages (Mark Ritson,Stepano, & Jonathan, 2010). More so, the current trends in advertising have focused on the ever-growing role of metaphors and its complexity. While the creators of advertisements have one or two messages to all the audiences, different people perceive the information differently (Hackley, 2010).
The perception of the adverts is associated with people’s beliefs, ideas, indoctrination, and attitudes. Polysemy refers to the presence of varying interpretations of the same advertisement message by the recipients. While advertising meaning refers to the decoding of a commercial that is influenced by the consumer’s culture, polysemy here implies the existence of more than two interpretations in the same advertisement by different audiences over time.
It simply means that two people can consume the same advert and get varying understanding of the message put across. It is, therefore, paramount that companies understand the concept of polysemy in advertising to ensure their advertising objectives have been well understood.
The Coca-Cola “Taste the feeling” commercial is a good example of advertisements that may bring both synchronic and diachronic polysemy’s in interpretation of the meaning. The advert begins with a bottle of Coke which is already full of the product and more coke is being poured until it overfills. There is no narration but a smooth, relaxing song by Swedish musician Avicii. We are then shown a scene of a lady with the bicycle helmet and eyeglasses.
She looks happy and gives her viewers a smile while sipping coke using a straw. After the drink, she looks even more energetic and starts playing with snowflakes. The interpretation here is that drinking coke makes one happy and lively. Other scenes from the advertisement follow, and one can see visuals of two young ladies sharing a coke, and immediately after they start smiling. One can also see happy- looking girls taking a ‘selfie’ after drinking coke.
The advert takes the viewers to a beach where a man and a woman are carrying a basket full of Coke filled bottles. Additionally, there is a scene of two people, a lady and a gentleman, who are seen taking a product from the same bottle using straws. Shortly after sharing the drink, they look directly at each other in an intimate manner. It appears they are going to kiss but the video changes to a different a scene.
Towards the end, viewers can see a well-dressed man using a mobile phone and holding a bottle of Coke in his left hand-likely waiting for someone. It’s then that a lady comes, and the scene again changes to a love-making part. This time the woman making love to the man is holding a bottle of coke. The last scenes are filed with happy looking people; the lady on the beach and another scene where people are dancing after taking the coke drink.
The Coca-Cola Anthem advertisement, used with the “Taste the Feeling Slogan,” has multiple interpretations, both synchronic and diachronic. At, first, one would believe that Coca-Cola product makes the consumer energetic, lively and happy. In another form of understanding, one would believe taking the drink makes the consumer active in love making.
Also, the two interpretations can occur between two different individuals, resulting to a synchronic polysemy. One can also interpret that the benefit of drinking coke is enhancing a lively and happy mood, but after watching the commercial several times, one might infer that the drink enhances love making, resulting to a diachronic polysemy.
Advertisers can intentionally use polysemy commercials to appeal to different audiences. Due to the fact that levels of understanding are influenced by variables such as beliefs, geographical location, social, and economic aspects, viewers will tend to interpret adverts differently.
The Snicker advertisements “You are not you when Hungry” is set in the ancient Chinese context, but with characters who look modern like Mr. Bean. The story in the advert is that of Mr. Bean in the company of Chinese Martial artists who appears to be intruding a highly guarded compound at night. Mr. Beans give the impression that he is a foreigner, and the skills of martial arts do not go well with him. While running on rooftops, he regularly falls and almost makes the team get caught.
After a failed jump from one roof top to the other, he accidentally lands down on the enemy’s chamber. Its then that he gets a snicker to eat. The advert ends by saying that “you lose focus when you are hungry.” So it seems that eating snickers makes one to be more focused. This is the basic and the most common interpretation of the Snicker commercial, but other interpretation can be seen. For a Chinese brought up into the culture of martial arts, the interpretation is that Snickers makes one an accomplished martial artists.
According to Punton (2006), consumers of advertisement usually read things that never existed and that were not intended by the creators of the commercials. However, there is a standard interpretation in the market shared by all people, although modern day commercials will always possess difficult rhetorical devices. Also, all forms of commercials encompass polysemy concept. Polysemy can either be synchronic or diachronic. The former refers to advertising that happens to two audiences at a certain point in time.
As such, the intended meaning is interpreted differently by different consumers. This is usually the case when the audiences have varying cultural backgrounds and beliefs. The latter, on the other hand refers to polysemy that occurs within an individual. The audience may have varying interpretations of the same commercial. The consumer sees the advert firsthand and then tries to decode the meaning, but with time and after watching the advert several times, other interpretations begin to emerge. Both synchronic and diachronic polysemy’s are critical in determining the success of an advert.
The HEINZ Ketchup, “Game Day 2016” hot dog commercial is extremely difficult to decipher. Dogs are seen running towards a team of men and women. The animals have loads of sack, and they seem to be in a competition. The individuals who stand to wait for the dogs in a finish line, have clothes labeled Heinz.
It’s not possible to tell whether the dogs are running to the people who have Heinz labels, or they are just competing in a race. One meaning is that Heinz Ketchup motivates people do compete favorably. Another possible interpretation is that the HEINZ product makes collaboration much easier by triggering a good feeling. The dogs are running together, and people are waiting to embrace them.
Use of Intertextuality
Advertisers have a way of engaging consumers through the application of intertextuality. Intertextuality is an important and very useful technique in advertising that involves a combination of quotations, parody and sometimes allusion. According to Liu and Thao (2013), intertextuality “is a network of textual relation.” Jinxia (2014) defines this concept in advertising as the relations that exist between texts. It refers to how one text depends on each other.
In other words, it explains how different texts in a piece of art refer relate with each other in deciphering a message. To make advertisements effective and for the readers to grasp the meaning, Jinxia notes that “Intertextuality connection in advertising language is important to make an advertisement easy-accepted and understood by the consumers.” The three aspects of intertextuality advertising, parody, allusion, and quotations, are traditional elements of intertextuality.
Citation, parody, and allusion make the consumers relate the texts given with previous ones (Withalm, 2003). Not only do they impress the viewers, but also grab the attention of the audience. The purpose of any advertisement is to persuade the consumers of the commercials into buying the product. This cannot be achieved without relating the advert and the audience in a good manner.
More so, the advertisers always seek to arouse people’s desire for the product promoting attention. This concentration value is made possible through intertextuality, where the consumers can relate certain aspects of the advertisements to their daily environmental conditions (Karlsson, 2007). This, in the long run, ensures that the audience remembers the advertisements. Most advertisements usually contain memes such as idioms, phrases, songs and other works that the consumers can relate to.
In the Snicker advertisement that features Mr. Bean’s, the characters seem to possess martial artistry. For an Asian audience, the advertisement uses the culture of Chinese martial arts to impress Asian audience. For a person outside China who does know of martial arts, the advert may look impossible to relate with. However, any Chinese person will always remember the commercial as it appeals to their way of living.
“Brotherly love business”- part of Coca-Cola global ‘Taste the Feeling’ campaign uses a version of Avicii song “Hey Brother.” To people who love Avicii songs, they will more likely relate with the advertisement and end up remembering the commercial. The theme of the initial Avicii “Hey Brother” is about love among family members, and especially the one between two brothers.
The song is calling for brothers to believe in their families, as “blood is thicker than water.” Likewise, the commercial by Coca-Cola depicts a brother who is being protected from bullies by his brother. The lyrics of the song used in the advertisement are also inter-texts of Avicii “Hey Brother Song.” The concept of using two related works in ads makes it easier for the advertisers to achieve their intended objectives; creation of a memorable and easy to remember advert.
Symbolism usage in ad commercials
Advertisers convey complex meanings by the use of symbols (Homes, 2008). Most of these symbols are visuals and they are usually are polysemy in nature. They therefore have the potential of inferring different messages to the consumers. While some are easy to interpret, others will require a comprehensive analysis (Percyand Elliott, 2009). Companies and organizations use logos as a way of branding. Symbols are things used to represent other things. They are signs and fall under the broad topic of semiotics (Holmes 2008).
In his book, “Fallibilism, Continuity, and Evolution” Pierce referred to semiotics as the analysis of the structures of meaning in verbal and non-verbal forms (Akpan, 2013). One of the most fundamental components of semiotics, according to Holmes (2008), is a sign. While a sign stands for something else, it is usually connected to an idea that it represents. This concept of the sign is interpreted by the person consuming the artwork and the sign, the object it represents, and the interpreter.
Some symbols are just simple logo-types like Coca-Cola and Siemens while others are complex like Subaru car manufacturers. The Subaru logo seen in most of the firm’s adverts contains six stars, with one bigger than the rest. The meaning of the stars requires an understanding of Japanese culture, and it’s difficult just to look at the logo for the first time and decrypt the meaning.
The stars are also symbolic. In astronomy and Japanese belief systems, there is a cluster of seven stars in the sky that is made up of seven sister stars. They are the nearest to the earth, and one of the seven stars is invisible. The Subaru logo, therefore, has seven stars, but visually there are six since one is invisible.
There are three categories of signs, icons, index and symbols. An icon represents an object by virtue of the features it has to the object. This includes a curved a drawing of stones falling to warn people that the area has stones that fall. An index sign, on the other hand, shows the connection that exists between the object and the sign. An example of index sign is smoke that is used to represent fire.
Finally, symbolism sign represents an object with the acceptance that the individual’s beliefs portrayed in the object (Elliott, and Wattanasuwan, 1998.). One good example is the use of color to represent different ideas and agendas of the advertisers. Black represents darkness and evil, while red represents blood and danger. One of the most important types of symbols used in advertising is use of color to.
For a good advertisement, the symbols used must relate to the company’s brand (Meenaghan, 1995; Jenkins, 2008). The Coca-Cola’s “A Coke for Christmas” commercial uses a character dressed like Father Christmas to symbolize the period and event of Christian’s 25th celebrations of Jesus Christ. To the Christian audience, the colors, and dressing of the character relates to Christmas.
There are also Christmas trees, and people are seen preparing in a similar version for Christmas season. The meaning of these symbols used in advertising will transfer to a brand, and the consumers will therefore desire to purchase the goods and services hoping to experience some of the emotions communicated in the advertisements.
“The brotherly love advertisement” by Coca-Cola where an older brother always bullies the younger one is full of symbols. However, the signs are not easy to relate and interpret. The story is a conflict between two brothers, where one is using his physical attributes to harass the smaller one. In most of the scenes, the older brother is dressed in blue whereas the smaller one is in red outfits.
While the choice of the color of cloth may look unimportant when interpreting the advertisements, it’s good to understand that the branding color of coca cola is red. Consumers of the product are always aware that red is the brand color for Coca-Cola. On the other hand, a rival company, Pepsi, uses blue as its brand color. As such, the colors symbolizes lack of formality in society (Leigh, and Gabel, 1992)
It therefore seems that the creators of the advertisement had the unintended message by giving the older brother blue colors and letting the younger one have a red color. In reality, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi have been for years been in a conflict which is also similar to the one depicted in the advertisements. If this statement is the true, the colors used imply that Coca-Cola is a “well behaved” company, younger brother, while Pepsi is the bully.
Interestingly, towards the end, the older brother saves the boy from other bullies yet he had been harassing in the beginning of the advert. In this last scene, the color of the older brother’s cloths changes to red, while the three boys harassing the smaller one are dressed in blue. While the roles have changed and there is harmony, the idea of the conflict between Coca-Cola and Pepsi is still intact.
The antagonist in the advertisement is in blue which symbolizes Pepsi while the protagonist is in the red symbolizing Coca-Cola. Finally, the opponents are trying their best to steal the drink from the young boy. This expresses the concept that Coca-Cola rivals are always trying to steal the firm’s ideas and intelligence. The fact that the bottle of coke is worth fighting for, the young boy feels bad when it’s taken away from him, signifies the idea and belief that coca-cola is something worthy possessing.
Conclusion
The purpose of any advertisement commercial is to create more awareness about a product and therefore increase sales revenue. However, the messages being portrayed in the advertisements are subject to varying interpretation and consumers are likely to react differently. There are key variables that are determinants of how people perceive meaning, ranging from education, age, beliefs, location, and attitudes.
For this reason, advertisers are forced to use a combination of different strategic concepts to drive their point home and subsequently achieve their objectives (Jenkins, 2008). These strategies include polysemy, intertextuality, and symbolism. The three strategies are meant to give the audience an effective advert that is memorable, engaging and relates to their way of living. They are used with powerful audios, a visual and technical device to sell the commodities and relate with consumer’s cultural settings. How well companies make use of these advertising concepts serves as a critical determinant of how far the advertisement will go in winning people’s loyalty to a firm’s brands.
References
Akpan, I. 2013. A Semiotic Deconstruction of Symbols in Print Advertising Contents: Implications for Consumers Purchase Decisions. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 3(13). http://citeseerx.ist.p su.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.458.8913&rep=rep1&type=pdf
.Elliott, R. and Wattanasuwan, K., 1998. Brands as symbolic resources for the construction of identity. International Journal of Advertising, 17(2), pp.131-144.Jingxia, l. and painting, c., intertextual analysis of rhetorical devices in advertising.
Holmes, G.R., 2008. Symbolic Visuals In Advertising: The Role of Relevance. ProQuest
Hackley, C. (2010) “Theorizing Advertising: Managerial, Scientific and Cultural Approaches”, Chapter 6
Jenkins, H. (2008) Convergence Culture- where old and new media collide. NYU.Cook, G. (2001) The Discourse of Advertising, London, Routledge.
Karlsson, L., 2007. Advertising Theories and Models-How well can these be transferred from text into reality?
Liu, J. and Thao, L., 2013. Intertextual techniques in advertisements. International Journal, 21, pp. 11-19.
Logica, Dialogica, Ideologica. I Segni Tra Funzionalitá ed Eccedenza. Mimesis, pp.425-36.
Leigh, J.H. and Gabel, T.G., 1992. Symbolic interactionism: Its effects on consumer behavior and implications for marketing strategy. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 9(1), pp.27-38.
Meenaghan, T., 1995. The role of advertising in brand image development. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 4(4), pp.23-34.
Pauline MacLaran, Michael Saren, Barbara Stern and Mark Tadajewski (Eds) The Sage Handbook of Marketing Theory, London, Sage, pp. 89-107 ISBN 9781847875051
Percy, L., and R. Elliott (2009) Strategic Advertising Management, 3rd ed, Oxford, Oxford University Press
Puntoni, S., Schroeder, J.E. and Ritson, M., 2006. Polysemy in Advertising. ERIM Report Series Reference No. ERS-2006-043-MKT Withalm, G., 2003. Commercial intertextuality.
Skorupa, P. and Dubovičienė, T., 2015. Linguistic Characteristics of Commercial
Social Advertising Slogans. Santalka: Filologija, Edukologija, 23(2), pp.108-118.
Want help to write your Essay or Assignments? Click here
The article Marketing’s Contributions to Society by Willkie and Moore (1999) is a farfetched reflection of the numerous impacts of marketing to the society. I find the authors presentation of the benefits of the aggregate marketing system and how it continues to benefit the society argumentative and convincing. The article is largely a celebration of some of the aspects of marketing field to the society.
The authors, Willkie and Moore present the benefits of marketing by discussing its contribution to the larger economic issues .They further examine some of arguments raised by critics of an aggregate marketing system. Three of the major issues that have widely been covered in the article are marketing and economic development, effects on consumers and impacts of unethical marketing activities.
However, the article does not delve much into the benefits of engaging in ethical marketing, but rather focuses on the general economic and social benefits of aggregate marketing system. Perhaps the greatest benefit a firm can accrue from ethical marketing activity is not only propelling the
aspect forward, but that it may never be entangled in a legal lawsuit or ethical dilemma that can lead to losses and unnecessary cover up expenses.
Marketing and economic development
Aggregate marketing system has largely benefited the area of economic development. The articles argue that marketing is an entrepreneur and an organizer of resources. Areas with increased population in marketing tend to have a higher Gross Domestic product. In support of this argument, Patterson (2012) note that on an average of £1 spent on advertising- a form of marketing- the UK economy gains £6. This implies that for £16 billion of UK advertising in 2011, £100 was generated for the UK economy.
Advertising in UK helps export more than £2 billion in addition to presenting a strong international recognition where the UK can export a wide range of goods and services. This type of marketing has successfully supported advertising sectors of the economy such as photography, film production, music and entertainment. Patterson states that there are over 550 000 people employed by advertising, or involved in creation and production of advertising (2012).
Through marketing practices such as advertising, businesses are able to deliver a wide range of innovative and high quality products and service that can help match buyers and sellers more efficiently. This allows business with novel ideas to succeed faster and in a unique manner (Binsardi and Ekwulugo, 2003). The revue generated form advertising provides help provide valuable services to consumer’s such as news, entertainment and travel information.
These services are highly beneficial to the economy as they support online and high street sales. Nonetheless, it’s insufficient to define the role of marketing in terms of advertising alone. The role is broader with a critical role in the making of key economical functions. It’s at the core of diferent cycles of competition and innovation.
The treatment of aggregate marketing economy, according to Willkie and Moore (1999) is a complex political context. Government policies help determine opportunities for the contribution of marketing to the society (Theorell, 1996). Governments will usually pursue five possibly contradictory goals: income distribution, price control, payments balance and fuller employment. In social terms, marketing must be ethical and embedded in the society’s culture.
However this can be difficulty where diferent cultures fail to synchronize with prevailing marketing systems. Certain consumer characteristics like handling of finance, saving, ethical orientation and persuasion must be learned for the marketing system to function well.
Marketing has a critical effect on the aggregate demand although so many business persons have not realized the full contribution of marketing to the wellbeing of the economy (Min and Mentzer, 2000). Kinnear (1994) argues the reason is that benefits are not seen in the classic macroeconomic equation. They fail to look into efficiencies and skills form wholesaling, retailing and logistics.
The aggregate supply depends on capital stock, labor, raw materials and technology. Willkie and Moore (1999) argue that if economists’ equation were to identify the effects autonomous consumption and the value of marketing efforts in the economic system would be clear. This would in the end stimulate interest in calibrating that magnitude of these conditions.
Both regional and national marketing are a powerful tool for economic development. When done properly, regional marketing has the potential to attract foreign and domestic investment through effective policies (Bordaskaya, 2012; Thorne and Ferrell, 2002.). The marketing will further lead to preservation and development of intellectual capacity through the development of science and education.
Other benefits range from creation of favorable conditions for the development of small and medium sized firms, enlarging of existing institutions for economic and social expansion. Additionally, marketing encourages increased production by organizing and operating networks for communication and exchange (Weerawardena, 2003).
The equalization of demand and supply occurs through transport, storage and price where a special connectivity joins different locales in larger market. This ensures there is a place to provide efficiencies of scale and reduce the price of goods and services for the consumers. With time, these will serve as springboard for marketing and entrepreneurs.
Contributions to Buyers from Specific Marketing Activities
The article agrees that there are numerous competing firms in the aggregate system at time that presents uncountable benefits to the society in parallel. To understand the scope of these benefits, the article starts by examining the concept of utility. Distributing series add more value to the economy than production, and elementary utility which refers to extraction of crops and raw materials is arguably beyond market purview.
Other form of utility results from operations where marketing activities contribute by supplying essential inputs to the production process and the provision of insights from the marketplace. Place utility on the other hand represents the value added by offering goods needed by the buyers while marketing utility contributes to time utility by preplanning, and promotion activities. This ensures customers obtain goods when they need them. The final utility is possession utility which is offered through marketing transactions and allows customers use goods for the right purpose.
Marketers have paid significant attention to the purchase process given that they benefit from payments of purchases. Yet, the benefits received by customers result from consumption. Interestingly, each usage occasion creates an opportunity for another delivery from the system. The consumers will get multiple benefits from single purchase since one product can present more than one benefit. For example, a car can not only provide transportation service, but also music entertainment or shelter when it’s raining.
Also, facilitation of transaction process is one of the most powerful aspects of the marketing system in any given society. This saves consumers time and effort while maximizing purchase opportunities. Some of these benefits include extended store hours, free parking, stocked shelves, displays ad smooth checkout. Process for buyers credit enables some of the expensive purchases to be realized which would have otherwise been delayed. The channels of distributions at entry point for new products and services.
Ethical aspects of marketing
It’s not easy to understand the numerous benefits and implications of marketing without looking at the interplay between the ethical and legal aspects of the sector. Although the article fails to sufficiently diagnose ethical marketing and its role in the society, there is a clear argument by the critics of an aggregate marketing system. Some of these practices noted by the Willkie and Moore (1999) include stress conformity and promotion of materialism.
Furthermore, marketing discourages participation in non-economic activities like arts while undermining family ties, altering socialization and the enabling the practice of manipulative persuasion. Additionally, aggregate marketing leads to creation of artificial needs and wants, causes depletion of resources through continued exploitation of resources (Caudill and Murphy, 2000).
To maintain their competitive advantage and maximize market presence, firms might be entangled in illegal and unethical practices. Harris (2001) notes that marketing is either part of the law, or subject to the law. Consumers should be concerned about marketing of products and how companies present information (Carrigan and, 2001; Shaw, and Shiu, 2003.).
How do oil producing firm’s influence environmental research that goes against increased carbon dioxide emission? What is the role of big pharmaceuticals in health related researches? Do alcohol manufactures have a hand in research that supports moderate alcohol consumption? Even if the article seemed to avoid this aspect of marketing, there is a need for consumers to question the morality of marketing practices noting that many firms are primarily driven by desire make more profit.
According to Friedman (2000), firms are plunged in a universe of relationships where there are many stakeholders. The emergence of global groups of stakeholders has further complicated the globalization scenario. The competition has seen companies rush to identify creative and workable solutions to create a competitive edge. Marketing ethics therefore becomes a prerequisite for running any type of activity in the market place.
Verhezen (2005) adds that the role of ethics in marketing has been understood using two approaches. The first states that business executives have a sole responsibility to increase the shareholders’ value. The article contends that ethical business activities are rewarding, suggesting that choosing to engage in ethical marketing can enhance shareholder wealth. Due to the sensitivity of ethics and its implications, governments have lately established strict regulation measures to protect consumers from unethical marketing behavior (Azmi, 2006; Eon and Van Vuuren, 2010).
However these regulations are not sufficient enough. According to Geoghegan & Azmi (2005), a company that boasts of having a good regulation must have found ways to fit the ethical values of an individual agent and when it’s appropriate. One of the major functions of marketing is to create a positive corporate reputation.
Companies will spend a lot of money to improve their public image but all the effort is meaningless if it’s unethical. Fan (2005) defines s corporate reputation in terms of various attributes that form in the consumer’s perception about a products reliability, goodness, trustworthiness and reputation. Corporate reputation has also been referred to by (Fombrun, 2000) as being concerned with how people feel about a company based on the information they have the firms activities and past performance.
Conclusion
As seen in the article, Marketing’s Contributions to Society, marketing plays a key role in the development of social economic activity of any given society. There are several benefits ranging from advertisers, transporters, distributers manufacturers and wholesalers who get employed in marketing activities. This in turn leads to creation employment in news, entertainment, fashion, design and transport sectors.
Willkie and Moore have consistently held that marketing is the key driver of the economy that leads to economic development. If well played out well, marketing has the potential to attract foreign and domestic investment for the upward mobility of the society. Furthermore, marketing is a leading promoter of competition and product differentiation.
Coupled with innovation, marketing helps new entrants penetrate the market and remain competitive. Not only do consumers demand the products at a higher rate thorough marketing, but also become price sensitive. This benefit can be seen clearly in every market type ranging from transportation, flight, entertainment, tourism and manufacturing. At the core of marketing are the legal ad ethical aspects that have the capacity to ruin or polish any firm’s corporate reputation. Global competition and increased awareness of product features by the consumer’s has resulted to unhealthy competition for market dominance. However, only firms that understand proper marketing strategies while engaging in ethical and legal activities can sustain their customer base for a long time.
Reference
Azmi, R.A., 2006. Business ethics as competitive advantage for companies in the globalization era.
Binsardi, A. and Ekwulugo, F., 2003. International marketing of British education: research on the students’ perception and the UK market penetration. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 21(5), pp.318-327.
Bondarskaya, T.А., The Role Of Marketing In Socio-Economic Development Of The Territory. Tambov State Technical University, Tambov
Carrigan, M. and Attalla, A., 2001. The myth of the ethical consumer–do ethics matter in purchase behaviour?. Journal of consumer marketing, 18(7), pp.560-578.
Caudill, E.M. and Murphy, P.E., 2000. Consumer online privacy: Legal and ethical issues. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 19(1), pp.7-19.
Fan, Y., 2005. Ethical branding and corporate reputation. Corporate communications: An international journal, 10(4), pp.341-350.
Fombrun, C. (2000) “The value to be found in corporate reputation”, Financial Times, 4 December
Friedman, Douglas (2000). “Ethics needed to be Part of the Cutting Edge”, Erlanger, Vol. 104, pp. 2-14.
Geoghegan, J. and Azmi, R. (2005). “Corporate Governance Enforcement: Between Institutional Investors and Social Pressure”, the Fifth Annual Conference of the Faculty of Commerce – Alexandria University on Corporate Governance, Alexandria, pp. 545-560.
Harris, H., 2001. Making business ethics a competitive advantage. Hawke Institute, University of South Australia.
Min, S. and Mentzer, J.T., 2000. The role of marketing in supply chain management. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 30(9), pp.765-787.
Moore, Elizabeth S. and William L. Wilkie (2000), “Criticisms, Con- troversies and Problems in the Aggregate Marketing System,” working paper, Graduate School of Business, University of Notredame
Patterson, Gavin . 2012. Advertising Pays: How advertising fuels the UK economy, Deloitte LLP, Advertising Association, London
Shaw, D. and Shiu, E., 2003. Ethics in consumer choice: a multivariate modelling approach. European journal of marketing, 37(10), pp.1485-1498.
Thorelli, Hans B. (1996), “Marketing, Open Markets and Political Democracy: The Experience of the PACRIM Countries,” Ad- vances in International Marketing, 7, 33
Thorne McAlister, D. and Ferrell, L., 2002. The role of strategic philanthropy in marketing strategy. European Journal of Marketing, 36(5/6), pp.689-705.
Verhezen, Peter (2005). “Integrity as Good Reputation”, International Conference on Ethics and Integrity of Governance: A Transatlantic Dialogue, Belgium
Weerawardena, J., 2003. The role of marketing capability in innovation-based competitive strategy. Journal of strategic marketing, 11(1), pp.15-35.
Wilkie, W.L. and Moore, E.S., 1999. Marketing’s contributions to society. The Journal of Marketing, pp.198-218.
Want help to write your Essay or Assignments? Click here
