Marketing Mix Case Study

What is the Marking Mix?

The recipe for effective marketing: The 4 P's (price, product, place, promotion)
Decisions about these are based on the result of Market Research.

Product

Marketing is about providing the correct bundle of benefits to the audience.
'Anything is capable of satisfying customers needs'

Price

Cost Plus Pricing

This is the simplest pricing strategy and is aimed at ensuring the business covers its costs and makes and acceptable profit; covering your costs and adding on the make of a product.
E.G. Water.

Competitive Pricing

Where the amount of competition in the market is so strong so customers have a wide range of suppliers to buy from so business match the competition or make their prices better.
E.G. Supermarkets.

Penetration Pricing

The products price is set significantly lower than any competitors prices, usually to capture a larger share of the market. The price is usually raised later.
E.G. Primark.

Price Skimming

A new product that is likely to generate a high volume of intake sales and a high price may be charged in order to maximise profits.
E.G. Apple Products.

Destroyer Pricing 

A destroyer pricer involves setting a price so low that competitors cannot match it. The price can then be raised without threat of competition.
E.G. Sky TV

What is the importance of the Marketing Mix?

To meet customers' needs a business must develop proper market mix for them. These entails products to satisfy them, charge the right price get the goods to the right place, and it must make the existence of the product known through promotion.

Our Chosen Product: Topshop

Product

Topshop is a high street fashion retailer that specialises in fashion clothing, shoes, make-up and accessories. Their target audience is young, fashion conscious women, it meets this target market by taking inspiration from the catwalks and fashion weeks to keep with the latest trends. 

Topshop's main USP is to offer a wide range of fashionable, young and trendy clothing at affordable prices. If you walk in to any Topshop store you can see straight away who they market their products at.

Another USP is their ranges for example the Kate Moss Topshop range; launched in 2007, this was highly successful as everyone knows Kate Moss as being high up in the fashion world.

Price

The pricing strategy Topshop use is Price Skimming; where the product is likely to generate a high volume of initial sales because of their high quality of clothes, shoes and accessories etc. The price will then be reduced when the initial high demand has subsided. People are going to pay regardless because of the name and quality. 

These Topshop jeans are £60.                                                            These New Look Jeans are £22.99

Place

Topshop is a high street store with over 300 stores across the UK, so customers are always going to find a store near them; this is an advantage. 

Promotional

Topshop use high end promotional methods such as creating different lines such as Tall and Petite they also have celebrities or designers create lines that people will buy into because of the name or the brand for example Kate Moss created a line for Topshop in 2007 that has become a worldwide collection. 

Public Relations and Branding

What is Public Relations?

Public Relations is the practice of managing the spread of information between an individual or an organisation and the public, this may include an organisation or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment. PR uses the media by promoting an object or person to a certain audience; this could be via social media, television/radio and newspapers/magazines.

What is Branding?

Creating a brand is about trying to create an idea or image of a specific product or service that consumers connect with. An successful example of branding is Coca Cola, the brand is recognised worldwide.

What could harm a brands image?

There are several things that could harm a brands image; these are:

• Negative press. For example Nestle have had their brand's image harmed by encouraging new mothers to buy their baby formula in countries which doesn't have clean, healthy water. This means they were mixing the formula with unsatisfactory water which was harming the children.
• Poor treatment of workers. Companies such as Primark have a bad reputation for treating their workers poorly.
• Rumors. The Gap designer brand has had a rumour that people at a young age who would have worn their clothing at a time has spread a rumour that it stands for the gay and proud. By this it puts audience of on purchasing the product and doesn't want to associate with the group on purchasing the brand.
• Scandals. The News Of The World phone hacking scandal had such a big impact on the paper that they stopped publishing it.
• Reviews. A bad review on a well known website such as Tip Advisor or even a clothing website will degrade your branding hugely. 
• Celebrity endorsement. Using a celebrity with a bad reputation to promote your product/service will put buyers off, for example Iceland used Kerry Katona to advertise. 

What methods do organisation use to promote their image?

Even though using celebrities could harm a brands image it could also promote their image if an A-List celebrity promoted the product for example Keira Knightly for CoCo Chanel.

Raising and giving money to charities could promote a brands image, if people know a company do a lot for charity they are more likely to trust the brand and buy their products for example Tesco's are a big supporter of Breast Cancer UK. 

The Marketing Mix (4 P's)

What is marketing?

Marketing is about providing benefits to customers including product, place price and promotion (The 4  P's).

Above The Line 

Using media that broadcasts a promotion to a mass audience e.g. X Factor Talk Talk Advert.

Below The Line

Using the media that broadcasts to a niche audience e.g. emailing existing customers and cookies.

Through The Line

This is a mixture of below and above the line marketing.

What is the Marking Mix?

The recipe for effective marketing: The 4 P's (price, product, place, promotion)
Decisions about these are based on the result of Market Research.

Product

A product is 'anything capable of satisfying customers needs', it is one thing created to please the audience.
Marketing is about providing the correct bundle of benefits to the audience.
Quality is key when creating a product; if the quality of a product is not great the product will not sell as well as maybe expected 


Price

When deciding a price for a product; organisations need to be able to make a profit from the product but not to over price the product.
There are five different terms of pricing which are:

Cost Plus Pricing

This is the simplest pricing strategy and is aimed at ensuring the business covers its costs and makes and acceptable profit; covering your costs and adding on the make of a product.
E.G. Water.

Competitive Pricing

Where the amount of competition in the market is so strong so customers have a wide range of suppliers to buy from so business match the competition or make their prices better.
E.G. Supermarkets.

Penetration Pricing

The products price is set significantly lower than any competitors prices, usually to capture a larger share of the market. The price is usually raised later.
E.G. Primark.

Price Skimming

A new product that is likely to generate a high volume of intake sales and a high price may be charged in order to maximise profits.
E.G. Apple Products.

Destroyer Pricing 

A destroyer pricer involves setting a price so low that competitors cannot match it. The price can then be raised without threat of competition.
E.G. Sky TV

Promotion 

Promotion is about informing the customers of the product and showing the benefits. it may also persuade customers to buy the product by making them think they need the product rather than just wanting it. it presents a good image of the product.

Place

This is about ensuring the product is in the right 'place' for the customer to consume.
There are two different ways of distributing a product 'Direct Distribution' and 'Indirect Distribution'.

Direct Distribution comes straight from the Manufacturer to the Consumer E.G buying directly from the company website.

Indirect Distribution comes from the Manufacturer to a Retailer and then on to the Consumer E.G the consumer buys the product from Amazon.

PR Case Study - McDonalds

Business

McDonalds is a hambuger fast food restaurant that caters to people all around the world.

Subsidiaries 

Leaps and Bounds (play place)
McCafe

Founded

May 15th, 1940

Operations

McDonalds operates in 34,000+ restaraunts all over the world in 119 countries in California and Illinois, America.

Employees 

1,800,000 employees worldwide as of 2013

Claims/Achievements

Mcdonalds claim they foster sustainable agriculture and fisheries with the help of Conservation International. McDonalds also claim they have a humane treatment of animals, and are committed to working with suppliers and outside experts to continuously improve the standards and practices, both within McDonald’s and across the industry.

Concerns 

There are many concerns with the company such as the fat content in the food. This ties in with obesity concerns, a regular fries has 11g of fat in. 
Another concern is that McDonalds reportedly are responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of cows per year. In Europe alone they use half a million chickens every week, all from windowless factory farms.

Which PR activities might you use to create a positive image for the brand?

There are a number of ways McDonalds could create a positive image for the brand; such as using a celebrity or a well known personality to promote their product. 

Another way you create a positive image is donations to charities; a lot of respect comes to those who donate large amounts of money or other donations to charities.

Marketing and PR: The Big Six Questions

What is Marketing?

Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling the product or service. It is a critical business function for attracting customers.
Lots of companies have different interpretations of what marketing is for example;

• promoting a product.
• financing/budgeting a product.
• selling a product.
• USP'S.
• understanding the audience.

This industry is competitive and to get your product out there and recognised you need to take a lot of things in to consideration including; who your market is, developing your product to the highest standard, pricing and placing products and promotions.

What is involved in a marketing campaign?

There are many aspects of a marketing campaign including promotional activities which could include; street promotion such as handing out leaflets, endorsements, sponsorships and events such as premiers or parties. There is also Print Marketing which could include; adverts, posters, leaflets. Then there is also Direct Marketing; this includes a lot of ways of marketing a product, such as the internet; using social networking, YouTube, viral marketing, emails and the most effect way of marketing; Word of Mouth. 

What is PR?

PR stands for Public Relations. It is about managing the message, some people see it as exposure. PR is important for a organisation because it communicates a message in a way that doesn't put a mass audience off and the public depends on it. 

How has marketing strategy/technique changed over the past 10 years?

The main way marketing technique has changed over the past 10 years is technology; mainly the internet. There are many ways to market a product in the 21st Century over the internet, such as social networking; marketeers have created Twitter accounts with their own hashtags for example. 
Marketeers have insured their techniques are more direct and are individualised for example the iPhone 5C creating different colours. 

How has our understanding of marketing audiences changed in the 21st Century?

As an audience we have higher expectations and higher demands for products. There is also a bigger status when it comes to high expectations of these products for example Apple; it's like being in a club if you have an Apple product. 
We also have more power over products than ever before; we say what we want and the companies have to listen. Social Media also has a big impact in the way consumers interact with the organisations such as Tweeting our opinion on a new product; spreading the opinion across the internet with carries all around the world.

What is more important, the product or the marketing?

I think it's a mixture of both. The marketing because people are going to be enticed to buy a product and what is being said about it rather than the actual product. But then the product is important because of a status the product holds and the status the company hold.