Marketing management assignment on: Marketing mix of companies

Assessment 2

Q.1.) what determines and what goes into the marketing mix?The model of the marketing mix may be implemented to help the individual and the Company how to produce the new offer to the place of the market. It may also be used to examine the current strategy of the marketing (Hamel & Prahalad, 2010). In general, marketing mix transacts with the path in which the business implements product, price, promotion and distribution to sell and market its product. In general, marketing mix considered as the path in which the strategy of the marketing is taken into action.

Q.2.) Describe the following- product, price, promotion, place or placement?

Product – In general, attributes of the product consider to the features, design and the quality of product. The product must serve the objective for which it is formed in respect of quality and utility.

Price – Price is considered as the amount which is charged for the service or product. It is the amount paid by the customers for the using of any service or product.

Promotion- Promotion considers communication methods with 2 objectives such as informing the potential and existing consumers about the service and product and to influence the consumers for buying of the product. It is the significant component of the marketing mix.

Place- Place is also significant component of the marketing mix. Once products are packaged, promoted and priced they should be available to customers. Q.3.) what does the 7p’s model seek to add to the marketing mix?

The 7p’s model seeks to add to the marketing mix with the help of People, Process and the Physical Evidence.

People: All individuals which are directly and indirectly indulged in the service consumption are considered as the significant part of Marketing Mix. It is very clear that employees, consumers, knowledge workers and management add huge value to entire service or product offering.

Process: It is very clear that mechanisms, procedure and activities through which the services are used considered as the essential component of marketing mix.

Physical Evidence: The surrounding in which the service or product is delivered considered as the significant component of expanded marketing mix.

Q.4.) how does the Gabbott approach to the marketing mix differ from the 4 P’s approach?

The Gabbott approach to the marketing mix is also known as Service Industry Marketing this approach mainly considers the marketing mix for the services which includes 7Ps as compared to the normal marketing mix comprising of 4 Ps. The 3 extra Ps in case of Gabbott Approach consists of People, Process and Physical Evidence (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003).

Q.5.) what are the 4Cs

It is very clear that 4Cs model of the marketing is all about consumer oriented and tries to adjust the shift from the mass marketing to the symbiotic marketing.
Commodity: Commodity considered as the product for the citizens and consumers. In other words, commodity can be explained as the raw material like metal, oil and wheat etc and the price of the commodities changes on the daily basis because of the supply and demand of the commodities.

Cost: This component includes producing cost, purchasing cost, social cost and selling cost of the product and service (Hamel & Prahalad, 2008).

Channel: This component includes channels of the marketing such as Distributive and Retailing Strategy.

Communication: In general, communication among the seller and the buyer plays a very important role during the process of buying.

Q.6.) Marketing Mix of the David Jones

Marketing Mix:  Marketing Mix could be defined as a process which would help the consumers to be well versed with the existing & the new products being offered by any organization (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010). The four aspects mentioned below would play a crucial role in the decision making process of the David Jones.  The marketing mix would involve decisions related to the products & charging a price for the same. The Marketing mix has been done on the product of the David Jones. It is viewed that the David Jones is the oldest departmental store of the Australia and still operating under its real name in the world.

Product – The Product Bassike of the David Jones made in 2006 and it is the Australian designer brand of the women wear (David Jones, 2011). The USP of this product is about offering the quality for the wardrobe essentials permits the women to adapt the appearance of the character and save outfits to exchange between. This product might influence the decisions of the customer because of making the quality for the essentials of wardrobe that comprises sustainable fabrics with longevity and style. There are other competing products in the market but this product is completely different from the competitor’s  products and offering of the quality for the wardrobe essentials would obviously fascinate the women’s in Australia between the age of 25-50 years.

Price – It is viewed that Prices are reasonable and this feature would attract more customers for buying the products of David Jones as compared to its competitors. Reasonable pricing would help the David Jones to lure more customers in minimum period of time.

Place- This product is sold at the stores of the David Jones. When customers come at the store for buying of other products at that time sales executives tell the customers about the quality made Wardrobe. In general, if customers are not interested to buy the wardrobe physically they can order the product from online shopping with the help of credit card.

Promotion- Promotion can be done with the help of pamphlets, advertising and Internet. This quality made wardrobe is promoted with the help of advertising and pamphlets. Some people must be hired who can distribute the pamphlets in the society and aware the women about this product. Internet is the best medium to promote the product because when customers buy the product online they generally see the highlights of existing and upcoming products. Cross- selling plays a very important role in the promotion of the existing and upcoming new product in the market and it helps the David Jones to maintain the competition in comparison to its competitors.

Q.7.) Explain how you think each component of the marketing mix interrelates?

The marketing mix refers to the process which includes the four essential elements known as Product, Price, Promotion and Place. All the four Components mentioned above are related to each other in some or the other manner. The first component of the marketing mix that is product plays a very significant role as it refers to the main offering of the organization. The buying capacity of the consumer would depend on the price of the product. Promotion is also related to the product, because without promotion consumers would not be educated about the upcoming products. At last, it can be said that the physical evidence also plays a very crucial role in the process of the consumer buying.

Assessment 3

Introduction

Marketing Mix refers to a broad concept in marketing which takes into consideration the four main aspects of a particular product such as Price, Place, Product & Promotion. Marketing Mix could be defined as a process which would help the consumers to be well versed with the existing & the new products being offered by any organization. The four aspects mentioned above would play a crucial role in the decision making process (Moon, Youngme & Quelch, 2005). The marketing mix would involve decisions related to the products & charging a price for the same.

This report majorly takes into consideration the marketing mix for one of the leading coffee house i.e. Starbucks. Starbucks is a specialty coffee house which originated in Seattle. Today the organization has over 15,000 outlets worldwide. It sells a range of hot and cold drinks, food items and accessories. Its philosophy is to create an experience for the customer and a human connection (Starbuck, 2011).

Body

Once the target market for a particular organization is being formulated, the next step would be to frame a structured marketing mix. This would help the employees as well as the customers to know about the various products being offered as well as how the way Starbucks has been positioned.

The marketing mix for Starbucks could be studied as under. They are as under:

Þ    Product:

The first aspect of marketing mix refers to the product being offered by any organization. Starbucks refers to a coffee house or a shop which offers premium products in the beverage industry (Tewell, Odom & Snider, 2006). Starbucks has been referred to as a coffee brand which provides highly innovative, high quality products to its customers.

The product range of Starbucks is quite wide in nature. This means that, the apart from offering different variants of coffee, variety of eatable products were also served. In order to provide one of the best qualities of coffee to its customers, the coffee beans were purchased for Kenya, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, etc. The use of non fat milk was being done at Starbucks in order to provide its customers with fat free coffee & milk products. Various quality management techniques were being used at Starbucks which helped to (Tewell, Odom & Snider, 2006) improve the overall process thereby increasing the quality of the products being offered by the same.

Þ    Price:

Price refers to the second most important aspect of the marketing mix. Price refers to the amount being charged by Starbucks for the various goods or services being offered to its customers. Price plays one of the crucial roles to attract as well as retain its customers (Starbuck, 2011). Price would refer to one of the major indicators to see whether more number of people would try this coffee house or not. Initially, Starbucks was referred to be one of the costliest coffee houses & was not successful in some parts of the globe (Tewell, Odom & Snider, 2006). They delivered what they promised i.e. they purchased one of the best coffee beans, proper training skills were given to their staff members, proper ambience & a place where people would come to relax & rejuvenate from their busy lives.

Þ    Distribution:

Distribution refers to the next aspect in the marketing mix. Distribution is also known as the place where the product would be offered. Structured distribution channels would help Starbucks to create a link between its customers & its outlets (Learn Marketing, 2011). The more would be the number of outlets more people or customers would visit the same. This would also help in order to make its presence felt as compared to the various competitors available in the market.

Starbucks believes in maintaining personal relationship with each & every customer who visits the coffee house. The people at Starbucks make it a point to deal with each & every customer wearing a smile on their face (Starbuck, 2011).

Starbucks has been referred to as one of the coffee houses which have an added advantage in terms of the distribution strategy. Starbucks generally open their stores in such a location where they would be easily visible (Moon, Youngme & Quelch, 2005). They have built a strategy where in cluster of stores would be opened. This would help in order to serve more number of people & reduce the level of traffic. With a constant increase in the demand for coffee (Learn Marketing, 2011), Starbucks opened more & more clusters of stores. There was a stiff competition amongst the various coffee houses.

In order to stay in the competition, Starbucks captured more & more customers with the help of the services & the quality of food being offered to them. Starbucks had invested huge amount of money in order to train their employees as to how to deal with the customers. Various innovative as well as tactics have been used by Starbucks to attract more number of customers & have an added advantage over its competitors (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010). The major source through which they differentiated as compared to their competitors would be with through the services being offered by the same.

Thus they differentiated themselves in the market by constantly providing higher quality services.

Þ    Promotion:

The various marketing activities which have been used by the organization in order to attract customers towards them is known as Promotion. It has been seen that, Starbucks too have used various promotional activities to attract more number of customers as compared to its competitors. This too would help in order to increase the level of revenues for the same (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010).

Some of the promotional activities which have been used by Starbucks could refer to the big events being organized in the various parts of the globe. Starbucks is known for organizing big & glamorous events just before inaugurating a new store in some part of the world (Moon, Youngme & Quelch, 2005). The first 100 visitors who used to visit Starbucks newly inaugurated store were greeted with a Coffee Mug & a colorful T Shirt (Learn Marketing, 2011). This coffee maker is also known for hiring stars from the Bollywood & Hollywood industry. The people from the industry were hired to endorse Starbucks & promote the brand with the help of word of mouth marketing strategy (Starbuck, 2011).

Evaluate the success of Starbucks:The success of Starbucks could be measured with the help of the following:

Þ    SMART goals should be formulated by Starbucks in order to evaluate the goals being formulated by the same.

Þ    The business plan should be evaluated & upgraded in order to fulfill the strategic plan

Þ    Evaluation of the business should be done by taking fair feedback from their customers, visitors, employees, etc with the help of questionnaires (Moon, Youngme & Quelch, 2005).

Þ    Proper track of the promotional or marketing strategies should be done which would help them to see as well as evaluate the market position of Starbucks.Conclusion

Hence, it could be concluded that marketing mix plays one of the most important roles in order to educate the customers regarding the current product offering & its position in the food & beverage industry. The above report discusses the market mix of Starbucks in a well detailed manner. It highlights the 4 major P’s of the marketing in a detailed manner.