Marketing Research Review & Analysis

This assignment tasks students with reviewing a selection of academic articles on various aspects of marketing research. The provided list encompasses studies on the structure of sustainability research, business models and marketing, cross-cultural marketing theory, methodological approaches like PLS-SEM and mixed methods, the state of international advertising research, editorial board composition in marketing journals, and human brand analysis. Students are expected to critically analyze these papers, identifying key trends, areas of development, and potential future research directions within the field of marketing research.

Introduction to MK

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Marketing techniques are used to market products in two organisations...............................1
P2 Limitations and constraints of marketing...............................................................................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
P3 Marketing research to contribute to the development of its marketing plans........................3
P4 Use marketing research for marketing planning....................................................................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................4
P5 Explain how and why groups of customers are targeted for selected products......................4
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................5
P6 Develop a coherent marketing mix for a new product or service...........................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is a crucial function in all businesses and organizations, and is becoming
increasingly crucial to success in our modern global economy. Marketing management employs
tools from economics and competitive strategy to analyse the industry context in which the firm
operates. These include Porter's five forces, analysis of strategic groups of competitors, value
chain analysis and others (Chabowski, Mena and Gonzalez-Padron, 2011). Present report is
based on Morrison company which is fourth largest chain in supermarkets. The company is listed
on the London Stock Exchange and is part of the FTSE 100 Index of companies. The Morrison
family currently owns around 10% of the company.
TASK 1
P1 Marketing techniques are used to market products in two organisations
Marketing is a role of individuals or organizations to sell products or services to other
firms or businesses then they resell them, and use their products or services to support their
income and work. Many huge companies do use other services and products to sell them and
start their own business and make it successful by introducing growth strategies to gain
maximum products and compete against other neighbouring competitors.
Growth strategies is when an organization tries to gain maximum profit from their
services and products (Coombes and Nicholson, 2013). Therefore, they want an increase in
market share and profit. In order to increase market, share and profit, the company needs to take
into account with the 4 growth strategies factors. The four growth strategies factors are, Market
penetration, Market development, Product development and lastly Diversification.
Kellogg's and Morrisons use various different marketing techniques to market their
products. They use the same techniques but in different ways.
Ansoff's Matrix- The Ansoff Matrix is a growth strategy used by businesses to decide on
their product and how they are going to expand. The Ansoff Growth Matrix is a diagram that
helps businesses grow in the right direction.
Diversification: - Product diversification is a form of corporate strategy for a company. It
seeks to increase its profits through greater sale volume obtained from new products and new
markets. Diversification can occur either at business unit level, or cooperate level. At Business
level, it is most likely to expand into a new segment of an industry that business is already in. At
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cooperate level, it looks at the overall scope of the enterprise, while taking stakeholders
expectations into the business.
Market Development- Market development is when a business sells its existing products
into new markets, this can be done geographically, which means exporting existing products to
other countries, they could also create new packaging and different pricing policies.
Branding - A brand is the identity of a specific product service or business. Branding can
take many forms, such as; name, sign, symbol, colour or slogan (Craig and Douglas, 2011). Both
Kellogg's and Morrisons have branded themselves, and are easily recognised.
Market Penetration- Market penetration is increasing market share of an existing
product, or promoting a new product though strategies such as bundling, advertising, lower
prices, or volume discounts. Kellogg's use this strategy by introducing a range of products to
suit all age types. They do special offers, discounts, and sell larger packages for less. Diesel
increase their market share of an existing product by advertising their products, and making them
available for sale in other outlets.
P2 Limitations and constraints of marketing
Consumer laws are rules that must be adhered to. Morrison company must make sure that
they comply with consumer law this means that they are legally obliged to keep up to date with
them. These consumer laws include – Sale of goods act, consumer protection from unfair trading
regulations, consumer credit acts, consumer protection regulations, and data protection.
Sale of goods act 1979 – It is required to ensure that business people to not ‘rip off’
consumers. The aim of it is to stop people from abusing their position of power over the
consumer (Engelen and Brettel, 2011). Businesses can comply with the terms by ensuring they
don’t lie about the products they are selling.
Consumer protection from unfair trading regulations 2008 – This means that business
cannot use contentious selling techniques which could be perceived as aggressive and obtrusive.
They cannot be dishonest behind the causes of them doing certain activities, such as they cannot
have a closing-down sale if they are not actually closing.
Consumer Credit Acts 1974 and 2006 – Businesses must have a license if they want to
sell goods on credit or sell loans (Hair and et. al., 2012). The act sets out a list of requirements
such as they must update their customers on their accounts and if they fall behind on payments.
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This is to protect people from forgetting and then years later getting a large bill from the
company and demanding them to pay.
TASK 2
P3 Marketing research to contribute to the development of its marketing plans
Marketing research is the notion of collecting valuable information from the public of
where the business will open, and the information will be about their opinions of the product and
service that the business will provide. The information gathered from the research helps the
entrepreneurs whether to open the business in the market. It also helps the entrepreneurs which
type of business they should open with the chosen products and services which were researched
by asking the people in the public. Morrison carry out marketing research because they want to
know the background information before starting the business. In this case they could review the
geographic area if it's suitable for the business to open (Harrison and Reilly, 2011). The business
entrepreneurs could ask people questions about their services and products and this will give
them an open up view and it will help them on what type of business they should set up.
Marketing research is important for gathering information about the customers in that
specific location. Marketing research will carry out a method to ask the people in the public
about what type of products they would like to have, and then it's the business opportunity to
build upon it. Marketing research can also be done to analyse the existing customers and ask
them questions about the products and services that the business provide, and what can the
business do to make changes to the business and make it better for customers.
Qualitative and quantitative method - Qualitative market research means "quality."
Conversely, and importantly, it does not mean "quantity." Qualitative research methods are
designed to talk to a relatively few people in the target audience of interest. The purpose of
qualitative research is to plumb the depths and range of buyer attitudes and beliefs, not to
measure incidence, project, or forecast quantity (Khang and et. al., 2016). Quantitative market
research methods attempt to gauge quantity. Using a range of sampling strategies, quantitative
market research methods seek to project results of a quantitative market survey to the entire
marketplace.
Primary and secondary research - Primary data is data originated for the first time by the
researcher through direct efforts and experience, specifically for the purpose of addressing his
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research problem. Secondary data implies second-hand information which is already collected
and recorded by any person other than the user for a purpose, not relating to the current research
problem. It is the readily available form of data collected from various sources like censuses,
government publications, internal records of the organisation, reports, books, journal articles,
websites and so on.
P4 Use marketing research for marketing planning
Manager of Morrison company is conducting SWOT analysis.
Strength
 Consistently earning strong revenue
and profitable growth.
 Morrison is vertically integrated with
food suppliers and manufactures.
 Morrison is fourth largest supermarket
chain in Britain with 11% market share.
Weakness
 Weak online offer
 Weak loyalty programme
 Lack of personalised couponing
 Less number stores
Opportunities
 Convenience, online and discount
channels are the fastest growing sector
in UK grocery stores which reflected in
Morrison around 90 stores.
Threats
 Difficulties and challenging economic
conditions continue to depress
discretionay spending
 Exponential growth of discount sector
which is led by Aldi.
TASK 3
P5 Explain how and why groups of customers are targeted for selected products
Market segmentation is an idea of how the market is made up of different groups
(segments) of people. These different segments include different groups with the same wants,
purchasing power, geographical location, buying attitudes or habits (Pan and Zhang, 2014).
Segmenting a market helps a business to design products that these different segments want to
buy to ensure that they can get the maximum profit possible, they also can figure out how much
they would be able to sell the product for which would increase demand. There is a typical way
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that businesses may segment their market and this is by dividing the consumers into geographic,
demographic, psychographic, socio-cultural.
Geographic is to do with the location of the customers, is either to do with rural or urban
or regional/national boundaries.
Demographic is to do with age, sex, race, economic status, and so on. For example, a
business that offers rejuvenating creams that (targeting older people).
Psychographic is about the lifestyles or beliefs of their customers (Peter and Donnelly, 2011).
For example, a business can target groups of people that are unable to eat gluten or dairy by
providing product that do not contain this.
Socio-cultural is mainly to do with the class of the customers. For example, people may
see trends in what people spend their money on and act on it to ensure that they provide services
all different people in the UK that may have different cultures to one another.
TASK 4
P6 Develop a coherent marketing mix for a new product or service
Marketing Mix of Morrison analyses the brand/company which covers 4Ps (Product,
Price, Place, Promotion) and explains the business & marketing strategies of Morrison’s.
Product - It is a value-led grocer and is focused on fresh food. High quality and fresh
food is the key for the success of Morrisons. They run business under the brands Morrison
Cellar, M Kitchen, NuMe, Just for Kids, M Signature. The company prepares and delivers fresh
food products as they have own their manufacturing production facilities that ensure best
product.
Price - Price is the biggest reason for the customers to choose Morrison stores.
Morrison continuously improves their customer offering through lowering their prices and
providing better quality of products and services. They ensure that the price never becomes a
reason for a customer to shop elsewhere (Wilson and et. al., 2012). Morrison’s use premium
pricing, promotional pricing and product bundle pricing. They also offer match and more cards
which is a price comparison tool. Morrisons also focuses on factors like range, quality, ease of
shop and service which help customers to make a decision to choose Morrison’s stores over
others.
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Place – Mentioned company serve across the UK and have physical presence in the form
of 660+ stores, of which 150+ are convenience stores with around 117,000 employees. The wide
geographic presence is the place and distribution marketing mix strategy of Morrison. The
company is also the second largest fresh food manufacturer in the UK (Morrison Marketing Mix,
2017). The company operates and controls great portion of the fresh food supply chain, most of
the food is sold online and in retail stores. They have one national centre and seven regional
distribution centres. The company has over 545 tractors and 1606 trailers which help in efficient
deliveries. Company has a service agreement with Ocado, that helps in the home deliveries of the
orders received through morrisons.com.
Promotion - Morrisons work with its suppliers through Morrison farming program so that
British farming remains competitive and sustainable. Company offers lower prices on a
permanent basis with improved quality and range of products to its customers (Zamudio, Wang
and Haruvy, 2013). The company aims to make their store a pleasant place to shop which offers
a customer rewarding scheme through the match& more cards. Morrisons believes in facts then
opinion. Morrison’s triumph by offering cheap and good products to customers and the pull is
created by promotions and special offers offline and online.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from above report that marketing is playing in modern era. It is
responsibility of manager to adopt new technologies in which they can promote their products
and services of company. Through this they can target new customers also. Further, analysing of
marketing mix will help to organisation in attaining their goals and objectives.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Chabowski, B. R., Mena, J. A. and Gonzalez-Padron, T. L., 2011. The structure of sustainability
research in marketing, 1958–2008: a basis for future research opportunities. Journal of
the Academy of Marketing Science. 39(1). pp.55-70.
Coombes, P. H. and Nicholson, J. D., 2013. Business models and their relationship with
marketing: A systematic literature review. Industrial Marketing Management. 42(5).
pp.656-664.
Craig, C. S. and Douglas, S. P., 2011. Assessing cross-cultural marketing theory and research: A
commentary essay. Journal of Business Research. 64(6). pp.625-627.
Engelen, A. and Brettel, M., 2011. Assessing cross-cultural marketing theory and
research. Journal of Business Research. 64(5). pp.516-523.
Hair, J. F., and et. al., 2012. An assessment of the use of partial least squares structural equation
modeling in marketing research. Journal of the academy of marketing science. 40(3).
pp.414-433.
Harrison, R. L. and Reilly, T. M., 2011. Mixed methods designs in marketing
research. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal. 14(1). pp.7-26.
Khang, H., and et. al., 2016. A retrospective on the state of international advertising research in
advertising, communication, and marketing journals: 1963–2014. International Journal
of Advertising. 35(3). pp.540-568.
Pan, Y. and Zhang, J. Q., 2014. The composition of the editorial boards of general marketing
journals. Journal of Marketing Education. 36(1). pp.33-44.
Peter, J. P. and Donnelly, J. H., 2011. Marketing management: knowledge and skills: text,
analysis, cases, plans. Plano: Business pub., INC.
Wilson, A., and et. al., 2012. Services marketing: Integrating customer focus across the firm.
McGraw Hill.
Zamudio, C., Wang, Y. and Haruvy, E., 2013. Human brands and mutual choices: an
investigation of the marketing assistant professor job market. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science. 41(6). pp.722-736.
Online
Morrison Marketing Mix. 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.mbaskool.com/marketing-mix/services/16798-morrisons.html>. [Accessed
on 16th August 2017].
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