Unit 4 Marketing Principles Solution Assignment

Introduction

For a business organization, marketing always plays a crucial role in stabilizing the operations and increasing the profit margins. This report would cover these marketing aspects with the help of a case study on Ben Sherman. We would analyse on the elements of marketing and would also do a SWOT analysis on Ben Sherman. Next section would be dedicated towards the marketing strategies of segmentation and targeting. We would study the macroscopic and microscopic factors which impact the marketing strategies of Ben Sherman. Analysis of buyer behaviour and positioning of a certain product would also be analysed. We would also analyse on the 7 P’s of marketing mix and how they fair for Ben Sherman. The last portion of report would include planning of marketing mixes for two different segments and in the end we would have a brief comparison on domestic and international marketing.

TASK 3: Understand the individual elements of marketing mix

3.1 Products Development to sustain competitive advantage

Over the years, Ben Sherman has been producing fine range of clothing to be used high upper class, corporate and upper middle class customers. It is very important to keep the quality of products to highest standards. This requires a very streamlined approach from production to promotion. To keep the customer interested, Ben Sherman has been involved in designing and producing unique cloth ranges. Its good relations with the suppliers has always proved crucial in this context. This makes Ben Sherman to be ahead of its rivals in terms of customer satisfaction. The idea of keeping the brand value to maximum possible has always served them well and helped to maintain the competitive advantage (Berry, 1995).

3.2 4 Ps of Marketing Mix

While designing the execution model of marketing, an organization needs to make sure that it taken all the four elements of marketing mix into consideration. In this section, we would discuss the four elements of marketing mix: Price, Product, Place and Promotion. Price needs to be optimally set reflecting upon the business objectives of the organizations. Price of a product reflects cumulative addition of manufacturing cost, branding and marketing cost and expected profit a manufacturer or seller is looking to have. For Ben Sherman, it is important to keep the price as per the standard and class of the product. Product need to be of very high quality and should meet the expectation of the customers. Place for marketing depends on the market segment which is under consideration. Proper promotion is required for any product to increase its visibility among the customers. Thus, it is very important to plan these four elements of marketing mix prior to the execution of marketing strategies (Belch, 2008).

3.3 Price Setting to reflect Organization’s objectives

Generally, Ben Sherman does a good investment of design and development of a new product. All the products are kept high-class and thus the basic idea behind price setting would also get impacted due to this. Of you are putting all your might and intension in keeping the customers satisfied, then that should be accompanied by a considerable amount of cost. Similarly for Ben Sherman, the prices of the products are always on higher side. Nevertheless, it always targets the affluent customers and upper class customers, for whom price would never be an issue, as far as clothing is concerned. This has helped Ben Sherman to be a top class brand throughout the 35 countries they operate. But this condition of price setting on a higher side comes with a constraint. The quality of product needs to be very good, as all could go in vain, if the quality is degraded. Thus, we can safely conclude that the price setting of products directly reflects on the organization’s objectives.

3.4 Integration of Promotional activities to achieve marketing objectives

Advertisement and Promotional activities are very crucial for marketing a particular product. Ben Sherman are a giant in promotional activities. One of the most recent and unconventional way of promoting brand and products in social media. Any asset which is shared on social media spreads like contaminable virus through the web. Ben Sherman fully utilizes promotional potentials social media websites and means like Facebook, twitter and Instagram. Apart from that the inside the coffee shop experiences is very special for every customer and every customer becomes a marketing symbol for Ben Sherman. However, there is a lot amount of investment in promotional activities and campaigns in the forms of advertisement in electronic and print media, but these peculiar kinds of promotions through social media target the youth and helps to the cause of Ben Sherman marketing team. Apart from that, Ben Sherman helps the youth customer with various offers and discounts at all times, which obviously attracts the buyer these days. All these marketing strategies and promotional activities are properly integrated such that there is no cross interference of two activities or any activity should not go surplus or unprofitable to the organization (Palmer, 2012).

3.5 Additional elements of extended marketing Mix

In addition to 4 Ps of marketing mix, i.e., Price, Place, Product and Promotion, we can add three more elements which are termed as additional elements of marketing mix. These three elements are Process, Physical Environment and People.
Process is the overall process which needs to be very streamlined. From producing a product to packaging to marketing and selling, everything should fall in a planned set-up. Physical environment involves the competition and the behaviour of customer and rival companies impact it. People are ultimately various stakeholders involved in the process. Primarily the employees of Ben Sherman which needs to be treated well and given sufficient perks to be satisfied. Intermediate parties and suppliers also need to be taken care well. In the end, the customers which are the real soul of business environment are taken into utmost consideration. These are the additional 3 P’s of marketing mixes.

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TASK 4: Be able to use the marketing mix in different contexts

4.1 Planning marketing mixes for two different segments in consumer markets

Segment 1: Affluent Customers
Product: Product need to be of high quality and uniqueness factor should be there.
Price: Price will be on higher side, as it should not bother this segment of customer
Place: Not only better choice of the places which are chosen for doing the marketing, but also the shopping centres need to be world class to attract the affluent customers.
Promotion: Airports, luxury restaurants, shopping malls and social media are good way of doing promotional activities.

Segment 2: Corporate Customers
Product: Products need to have formal looks and class which would easily attract the attention of corporate customers.
Price: Price again is a not a big constraint unless the expectation of the customers are met.
Place: Similar classy look of the shopping centre would also be desired by this class of customers.
Promotion: In addition to social media and electronic media, corporate offices can be used to promote the products.

4.2 Marketing products and services to Business

Marketing a certain product is always different from marketing a product. It has many aspects associated with it. For smaller companies which have very limited variety of products pay maximum attention towards branding products. But for bigger companies like Ben Sherman, it is crucial to build a brand name for organization. This helps in having variety of products to be branded at the same time. For example, we are not branding a particular product Polo T-shirt and instead we brand the brand name Ben Sherman, this would also help us to place other products simultaneously without any extra effort. Thus, for Ben Sherman it is beneficial for the organization to market business brand than marketing products (Schultz, 1992).

4.3 International marketing vs. domestic marketing

International marketing is completely different from domestic marketing. For any organization, base location country is always in synch with the strategies. However, when the products are exported out of the country, we have different parameters that come into place. Different countries have different legislative rules for business and those need to be considered by the organization while doing business abroad. Moreover, there are various taxes that can be applied to the exported products that increase the cost price of product and certainly increases the marked prices also. If the organisation eyes to open production centres in other countries, that would also require various formalities to be done. Then, we have different ethnicities across the countries and sub-continents, which also should be taken care of while designing the products and doing their marketing. Thus, international marketing is a bit trickier than domestic marketing (Craig, 2005).

Conclusion

Ben Sherman has a big brand name for itself, which helps it to bag the customer base at all times. However, it can be seen that they do their marketing in a very organized manner, keeping in view the basics of marketing mixes. Strategies like segmentation help them a lot in planning the strategies. In addition to segmentation, strategies of targeting the segments of market and position the products among these segments are also crucial for Ben Sherman. Thus, we can safely conclude that Ben Sherman has been doing a good job in executing the theoretical marketing strategies to perfection.

References

Belch, G. E., Belch, M. A., Kerr, G. F., & Powell, I. (2008). Advertising and promotion: An integrated marketing communications perspective.
Berry, L. L. (1995). Relationship marketing of services—growing interest, emerging perspectives. Journal of the Academy of marketing science, 23(4), 236-245.
Craig, C. S., & Douglas, S. P. (2005). International marketing research. John Wiley & Sons.
Dickson, P. R., & Ginter, J. L. (1987). Market segmentation, product differentiation, and marketing strategy. The Journal of Marketing, 1-10.
Gandy, O. H. (2001). Dividing practices: Segmentation and targeting in the emerging public sphere. Mediated politics: Communication in the future of democracy, 141-159.
Moorman, C., Deshpande, R., & Zaltman, G. (1993). Factors affecting trust in market research relationships. The Journal of Marketing, 81-101.
Narver, J. C., & Slater, S. F. (1990). The effect of a market orientation on business profitability. Journal of marketing.
Palmer, A. (2012). Introduction to marketing: theory and practice. Oxford University Press.
Schultz, D. E. (1992). Integrated marketing communications. Journal of Promotion Management, 1(1), 99-104.

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