Marketing: a Guide to the Fundamentals Case Study

Promotions strategies.

There are two types of promotion strategies:

Above the line promotion where TV, radio, newspapers, internet, and billboards are used amongst other stratagems)

Below the line promotion intended to be subtle so that consumer is unaware of advertising purpose (e.g. testimonials, sponsorship, product placement, direct mail, trade shows, and public relations).

The five elements that would be involved in promoting / selling the following two components are: personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, and publicity.

The promotional objectives for both are also similar in that their overall strategy is to: present information to consumers; increase demand for the product; and differentiate the product.

BREAKFAST CEREALS

A combination of above the line and below the line promotion will be used with emphasis on below the line. I will use Internet advertisement, special events, endorsements, and newspapers. I will also give incentives like discounts (“two for the price of one”), a contest, a quiz show, and/or prizes listed at the back of the box that consumers can buy with x amount of coupons. I will also pay researchers to conduct special research on the benefits of using the equipment, and will then publish this research.

Games and recipes can be featured on cereal boxes, and features connected to popular trends for e.g. children or adolescents. Each box, too, will informally state the benefits that can be expected from consuming this product. This will make consumer feel good whilst motivating him or her to buy more of the product. All of these strategies are currently employed by best-selling products such as Kellogg and Post.

CARBONATED SOFT DRINKS

I will use Internet advertisement, special events, endorsements, and newspapers. Similar to the above, a combination of above the line and below the line promotion will be used with emphasis on below the line.

Coke uses the ‘my Coke’ rewards strategy where customers enter codes found on specially marked coke products on a website. These codes can also be ‘texted’ from a cellular phone. The codes, converted into points, can be redeemed for prizes or sweepstake entries. In a similar way, in 2008, Pepsi Stuff featured premiums, such as t-shirts, hats, leather jackets, and mountain bikes — that could be purchased with Pepsi Points either online or thoguh a special catalogue. This is a covert type of promotion where the product incentive itself seduces customers to buy more of the product. This promotional strategy can easily be applied to breakfast cereals too, particularly since both products are relatively small in scale and are also sold in bulk, therefore can readily employ these strategies. Compare, for instance, to large-scale products such as funeral homes or exercise machines where size and expense of the product warrants more over line promotion than below line promotion. (The larger and more expensive (quality-containing) the product, the more below line strategies such as some of those adopted by Kellogg’s and Coke would cheapen the product).

Being that carbonated soft drinks do not, by their nature, have nutritional value, I will have to focus on other features and create my own. I would, therefore, connect it to relaxation and invent — as Coke has done — the connection of sparkling drinks with being ‘cool’. Researching the ‘in’ trends of the time and researching the audience most likely to buy the drink, I will forge connections between the drink and audience by manufacturing a certain image. (I can do this too with cereals, focusing on the nutritional and natural, health-promoting image). This image can also be promoted via celebrities on TV shows and in other advertisements.

The main and perhaps the sole distinction between the promotion of breakfast cereals and carbonated drinks is that whilst breakfast cereals will have to stick to a more ‘clean’, nutritional, and healthy image, and therefore be more ethical and perhaps traditional in their marketing, carbonated drinks can use more unethical and dramatic means. Both can use above the line and below the line promotion in targeting their prospective consumers.

R

Marketing Mix

Target Corporation was founded in 1902 and is now the sixth-largest retailer in the United States founded in 1902 in Minnesota. Target Corporation currently operates over 1,450 stores in 47 states. The key to Target’s success is how it uses the marketing mix. The marketing mix is a controllable variable that the company puts together to satisfy customer needs. The marketing mix is also referred to as the four P’s or four elements product, place, price, and promotion. This paper will provide a brief description of these four elements and how each one of the elements affects the development of their organization. Additionally this paper will describe the implementation of each element.

All four P’s of the marketing mix are necessary and final decisions about them should be made at the same time to ensure maximum congruence between the variables. Product for Target refers to the goods that they stock. Target characterizes its product offering as focused on value (Target.com, 2011). This refers to goods that are generally low-priced but are of good quality. The scope of the product generally includes supporting elements such as warranties, branding, and packaging. Target aims to have a mix of name brands and relatively unknown but low priced brands in its stores, attempting to be seen as higher quality than main competitor Wal-Mart but to still offer low prices on select goods. The ability of Target to offer low prices relates in large part to the purchasing function, where Target selects products that it can get at prices it likes.

Place is the concern for getting the product or service to the customer where and when it is needed using channels of distribution or flow of products and services from the producer to the final consumer. For Target, place relates primarily to their choice of locations — in particular sites that are convenient for customers and highly visible to encourage higher traffic volumes at its stores. Target also seeks to locate in areas that are near its core demographic audience.

Promotion is the concern of telling and selling the customer (Kotler, 2002, p. 37). Promotion includes three methods of communication personal selling, mass selling, and sales promotion. Personal selling is a form of direct communication between sellers and customers such as customer service. Mass selling is communicating with a large number of customers at the same time such as advertising. Sales promotion is other nontraditional promotional activities such as coupons, samples, and catalogs. Price is the concern for pricing product in consideration of not only the competition but also the customer’s reaction to the price as they may or may not buy the product or service depending on the price. Target is focused on providing goods at a low price, and aggressively seeks to deliver prices that are in line with the competition.

As noted, the different ways in which product, placement, promotion and price come together are critical to the development of an effective marketing plan. For example, product affects the development of the organization’s marketing strategy and tactics. In this case, the marketing strategy is built around communicating to the customers the concept of value that Target delivers, with both product and price being built into that value concept.

Target has several different types of retail stores containing different product for different target markets. Target operates basic stores selling general items like clothing, limited groceries, as well as seasonal and holiday items. Many of the stores have a portrait studio,

Forsyth, P. (2009). Marketing: a guide to the fundamentals. New York: Bloomberg Press


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