Marketing and Communication: Addison Lee Case Study

This report analyzes the marketing strategies of Addison Lee, an organization offering private hire services in the UK. It covers the evolution of marketing, marketing environments, marketing strategies, and marketing mix. The report suggests changes to the product, price, and promotion elements to improve the business.

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Marketing and communication 1
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Table of Contents

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Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Task 1: Evolution of marketing...................................................................................................................4
Task 2: Marketing environments.................................................................................................................5
Task 3: Marketing strategies........................................................................................................................7
Task 4: Marketing mix................................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................12
References.................................................................................................................................................13
Introduction
Addison Lee organization has been offering private hire services to the residences in UK. They
have been in operation over 40 years offering various services that are delivered to the customers

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(Armstrong, Kotler, Harker and Brennan, 2015). In this report, it is a case of Adison Lee
organization, there are various tasks which will be examined. Task one looks at the evolution of
marketing, task two marketing environment, task three marketing strategies and the last task is
on marketing mix of the organization.
Task 1: Evolution of marketing
a. Describe the Production, Product, Selling, and Marketing orientations.
The concept of the marketing has evolved over time. In today’s business the consumer is the
king.
Production orientation
The focus of an organization is to reduce the cost through mass production of their services. The
business orientated around the production usually believe that the economies of scale is
generated by the mass production which will reduce the cost and maximize on the profits (Belch,
Kerr and Powell, 2014).
Product orientation
Addison Lee organization believes that that their high quality products and functional features
makes their products more superior than the competitors. Therefore they believe that if they have
superior products the clients would automatically like them.
Selling orientation
The sales orientation focus is simple; it entails making of the product and then selling to the
target market. The organization they are providing transport services target various consumers

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across London and other markets (Zhang, 2015). This orientation entails making what the
organization thinks the customer would need without any relevant research.
Marketing orientation
Marketing orientation will put the organization at the heart of the business. All the activities
within organization will be based on the customers. The client is the true king. This orientation
endeavor the organization to understand the client’s needs and want, then implement the
marketing strategy that is based on the market research.
b. Orientation adopted by Addison Lee
The orientation which has been adopted by Addison Lee is selling orientation. The organization
has been offering the same range of services for over 40 years. They have made these products
and then selling to the customers (Anwar, 2016). Moreover this kind of services is what the
customer wants. The company has also invested heavily in the mirroring the features of the
competitors such as providing off peak weekend fares, sharing of the ETA as well as tipping the
drivers (Anwar, 2016). Moreover, the organization is also aiming to increase the number of fleet
drivers. This shows that they are using aggressive sales methods to gain higher sales (Zhang,
2015). The central aim of using this theme is to make products which will enable them make
more money. The use of promotion facilities is to gain a higher market share from the
competitors and to encourage customer loyalty aspect.
Task 2: Marketing environments.
a. Marketing environment analysis and importance of Addison Lee to set up
marketing strategy.

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The marketing environmental analysis is a strategic tool. It is a process of identifying all the
external as well as the internal elements which could affect Addison Lee organization
performance. The analysis entails assessment of the levels of threat or even the opportunity
factors which could be present (Zhang, 2015). Once these evaluations are made they are
translated into the decision making process. The analysis helps in the alignment of the
strategies that are within the environment.
Addison Lee should establish a marketing strategy because it will provide the organization
something they ca rally behind. It will help the employees to understand the goals and
become customer focused (Zhang, 2015). Moreover, it will empower them to make the
decisions on their own which are consistent to the objective of the organization.
b. Macro environment of Addison Lee.
Economic factor
One of economic factor which impact Addison Lee organization is the economic
environment in different markets. In London the organization is planning to expand their
business to the consumer offering (Yadav and Pavlou, 2014). The economy of the country is
favorable for the growth of the company.
Sociocultural factor
On the social-cultural factor that impact Addison Lee is the consumer preferences. Focusing
to increase the customer experience, the organization has invested heavily in mirroring the
Uber’s London features such as the peak weekend fares, tipping the drivers as well as sharing
of the ETA.

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c. Micro environment factors
One of the key competitors of Addison Lee is the Uber, Gett and Mytaxi. These organization
are potential threat to the Addison Lee since they got a loyalty programmes to benefit as well
as incentivize their clients that are frequent. The organization cannot compete with such
unless they implement better practices than these competitors. Additionally, these
organizations have reduced the prices, thus many users prefers these alternative as compared
to Addison Lee.
d. Internal environmental factors
Organizational direction is one of the internal factor which could be a strength to the Addison
Lee organization. The organization has expanded the business to the consumer offering, with
more than fifty percent of the business going through the company application (Hanssens etl.,
2014). The organization is also intending to use a personalization strategy to offer more
personalized deal to the customers through the email.
Strength of the employees is also a crucial internal factor and this is an advantage to the
organization. In September 2017 the company is intending to increase the fleet driver from
3600 to 4450. These individuals are talented and hardworking who will offer better results.
Task 3: Marketing strategies
Concept of marketing segmentation and importance of planning a marketing strategy
for Addison Lee.
Marketing segmentation refers to the process of dividing the market of the potential clients
into the groups or the segments which are based on various characteristics (Fan, Lau and

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Zhao, 2015). The segments which are created are composed of the customers who would
respond to similar marketing strategies.
Planning of the marketing strategy is significant to Addison Lee since they will be able to
personalize on their marketing campaigns. Through arranging the organization target market
in to the segmented groups rather than targeting each potential clients. The organization
could be more efficient with their time, as well as other resources than when they were
targeting the clients on a personal level (Argenti, 2015). Planning a marketing strategy helps
to reduce the risk of the unsuccessful or even inefficient marketing campaign. Planning helps
to prioritize on the target audience for Addison audiences. The company will be able to
identify the segments which they will focus to get the customers who would likely prefer the
services they are offering.
b. Segmentation approaches which Addison Lee could adopt.
The segmentation which could be adopted by Addison Lee organization as they are
segmenting their market is geographic segmentation and demographic segmentation.
Geographic segmentation
The market could be divided based to where the consumers are located. Addison Lee
understanding the cultural differences between various countries might be pivotal for the
success of the business. They will need to tailor their strategies based to where the consumers
are. The geographic segmentation is the division of the market to various geographic units
such as the regions and the neighborhood (Anwar, 2016). This form of the segmentation will
provide the organization with a snapshot of the customers that are within a delimited area.

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This might be a useful strategy to segment the market since it offers a quick overview of
various differences and the similarities between the clients and the geographic unit.
Demographic segmentation
The market can be divide through demographic variables. Understanding who the clients are
will enable the organization to closely identify as well as understand their needs, products
along with the usage of the services and wants (Watson, Worm, Palmatier and Ganesan,
2015). To understand who the consumer are entails the company will need to divide then into
the groups based on the variables for example such as gender, age, and the social class. The
clear merit of this strategy over the other vs that there is vast amount of the secondary data
which is present that will enable one to divide the market based on the demographic
variables.
The demographic variables are usually used in the indexes and databases in order to measure
the client’s preferences for the brands, and products.
Task 4: Marketing mix
Use of 7P’s to describe Addison Lee current marketing mix
Product: Addison Lee should provide services which fit the task of the consumers want. The
services need to work and they need to be what the consumers are expecting to get (Argenti,
2015). Currently, Addison Lee range of hire services to the customers through use of the
minicabs, taxybikes, coaches as well as private jets.
Place: The products and services need to be available from where the target consumer, find it
easy to get. The organization has been able to expand the business to consumer offering with

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more than fifty percent of the business going through the company application that they were
able to launch in 2009.
Price: The services should always be regarded as the representation of the good value of
money. Nonetheless, this should not necessary mean it need to be cheaply available. One of
the tenet associated to the marketing concepts is that the clients need to be happy to pay little
or more for something which work best for them (Leonidou, Katsikeas and Morgan, 2013).
Addison Lee organization has provided incentives by providing off peak weekend fares,
sharing the ETA as well as tipping the drivers (Steenkamp, 2017). This way they will
encourage more customers to seek their services and they will be able to gain a larger market
share than their rival organization.
Promotion: This can be carried out through advertising, sales promotion as well as personal
selling. Addison Lee they have tried to enhance on the experience of the customers by
investing heavily in mirroring the features of Uber London organization such as off peak
weekend fares (Kumar, 2015). They have reduced the prices during the off peak period in
weekends to encourage the customers to use their services.
People: Any organization is reliant on individuals who run them from the front lines sales
employees to the Managing Director. Having the right individuals is important since they are
part of the business offering as the services they are offering (Grönroos, 2016). Addison Lee
organization is dedicated to personalisation strategy where the data will be used in order to
offer deals through the email or the text based on the previous journey behavior of the
customers.

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Processes: The delivery of the services is done with the client present so that the service is
delivered is part of what the customer is paying for (Steenkamp, 2017). Addison Lee
organization has been delivering the services through various means such as the taxybikes,
coaches as well as the private jets.
Physical evidence: All the services usually include some physical elements even if the bulk
of what the customer are paying for are intangible (Fan, Lau and Zhao, 2015). The
organization has license for the operation in London and through this the company can
operate fully in this market. In the recent news one of their key competitor UBER they have
lost operating license (Fan, Lau and Zhao, 2015). Therefore, this document is a form of the
physical evidence which enable the organization to operate.
b. Recommendation of the changes to the product, price and promotion element.
Product
Addison Lee organization should rebrand their strategy in order to attract the customers. The
hiring services needs to be improved more than the other competitors to enable the organization
to slate signifies commitment through providing passengers quality as well as service (Wedel,
and Kannan, 2016).
Price
The hiring services which are provided by the organization need to have a fair price to enable the
customers to afford the prices (Kitchen, 2016). One way to improve the prices would be offer the
incentives to the customers, through providing week days peak fares to enable the customer
afford the services.

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Promotion
The organization should utilize the social media in all their communication tools. These tools
should be used to relay messages to the audiences in regards to any new promotion which they
are having. Additionally, the organization needs to provide other incentives in prices to the
customer to motivate them to use the organization hiring services.
Conclusion
The research has look into Addison Lee organization and analysed various tasks which are
numbered 1,2,3,4. If the organization implements all the concepts which have been highlighted
in the report they will be able improve their business and be ahead of the competitors who have
been dominating UK market over the years. Additionally, it has been found out that Addison Lee
is adopting the marketing orientation strategy to respond as to what their clients wants. The
organization is operating in sharing of the economy and it has become an outstanding brand who
have exceptional services.

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References
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction.
Pearson Education.
Anwar, S.F., 2016. Evolution of Marketing as a Discipline. In Strategic Marketing Management
in Asia: Case Studies and Lessons across Industries (pp. 1-14). Emerald Group Publishing
Limited.
Argenti, P.A., 2015. Corporate communication. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Belch, G.E., Belch, M.A., Kerr, G.F. and Powell, I., 2014. Advertising: An integrated marketing
communication perspective. McGraw-Hill Education.
Fan, S., Lau, R.Y. and Zhao, J.L., 2015. Demystifying big data analytics for business intelligence
through the lens of marketing mix. Big Data Research, 2(1), pp.28-32.
Grönroos, C. and Grönroos, C., 2016. Internationalization strategies for services: a retrospective.
Journal of Services Marketing, 30(2), pp.129-132.
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attitude metrics for guiding marketing mix decisions. Marketing Science, 33(4), pp.534-550.
Kitchen, P.J., 2016. Is IMC “Marketing Oriented”?. In Rediscovering the Essentiality of
Marketing (pp. 441-442). Springer International Publishing.
Kumar, V., 2015. Evolution of marketing as a discipline: What has happened and what to look
out for. Journal of Marketing, 79(1), pp.1-9.
Leonidou, C.N., Katsikeas, C.S. and Morgan, N.A., 2013. “Greening” the marketing mix: do
firms do it and does it pay off?. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 41(2), pp.151-
170.
Steenkamp, J.B., 2017. Global Marketing Mix Decisions: Global Integration, Not
Standardization. In Global Brand Strategy (pp. 75-109). Palgrave Macmillan UK.
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Wedel, M. and Kannan, P.K., 2016. Marketing analytics for data-rich environments. Journal of
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Yadav, M.S. and Pavlou, P.A., 2014. Marketing in computer-mediated environments: Research
synthesis and new directions. Journal of Marketing, 78(1), pp.20-40.

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Zhang, L., 2015. The effect of social media marketing, on brand marketing and communication
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Denmark.