Asda's Marketing Mix Strategies

This assignment analyzes Asda's marketing mix strategies across four key elements: product, price, promotion, and place. It examines how Asda utilizes these elements to achieve a competitive advantage in the retail market. The analysis includes a discussion of Asda's pricing strategy, promotional tactics, store locations, and efforts to differentiate its products from competitors. Furthermore, the assignment identifies potential challenges faced by Asda in maintaining its marketing effectiveness.

University
INTRODUCTION TO MK
By
Date
Name
Lecturer’s Name

INTRODUCTION TO MK
Table of Contents
Task 1..........................................................................................................................................................3
Marketing techniques for marketing products in Water Aid and Asda....................................................3
The limitations and constraints of marketing...........................................................................................5
Task 2..........................................................................................................................................................7
Marketing Plan development of Asda......................................................................................................7
Limitations of marketing research methods.............................................................................................7
Strategies to improve the validity of the marketing research...................................................................8
Task 3..........................................................................................................................................................9
How and why customer groups are targeted for selected products..........................................................9
Task 4........................................................................................................................................................10
Development of coherent marketing mix...............................................................................................10
References.................................................................................................................................................13
Page 2 of 14

INTRODUCTION TO MK
Task 1
Marketing techniques for marketing products in Water Aid and Asda
Here, the selected organisations are Water Aid and Asda from the United Kingdom. Water Aid is
a non-profit organisation, and Asda is a profit organisation. Marketing techniques for marketing
the products of both the organisation are discussed here.
Ansoff’s Matrix
Source: https://www.mindtools.com/media/Diagrams/Ansoff-Matrix-1-NEW.jpg
The figure shown above is an Ansoff Matrix. The particular marketing model consists of four
categories such as market penetration, product development, diversification and market
development. Talking about market penetration, market penetration will help both the companies
to increase market shares of their current products (Young, 2013). It will also secure the
supremacy of growth markets. Moreover, are market development will aid these businesses to
open a new distribution channel, a new geographical market, new dimensions for packaging of
products as well as various pricing policies. The product development strategy requires the
Page 3 of 14

INTRODUCTION TO MK
development of new skills and modified products which can appeal to current markets.
Diversification helps a business to manufacture innovative products in the new market.
Relationship Marketing System
Source: http://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineImages/relationship_marketing_desktop.jpg
The figure shown above is the picture of a relationship marketing system. The particular
marketing technique is made for getting a direct response from the marketing campaigns which
consists of customer satisfaction and customer retention issues. Therefore, relationship marketing
system can be performed only with their clients (Levenda, 2007). There are two types of
approaches to this marketing system such as satisfaction and retention. At first, Water Aid and
Asda needs to satisfy the customers by providing excellent services and products, and after that,
they need to retain them for the future revenue of both these companies.
Branding Technique
Page 4 of 14

INTRODUCTION TO MK
Source: http://www.markcoweb.com/2015/images/services/branding_pq.png
The above figure represents the various aspects of a branding technique. The particular method
has four characteristics such as attribute, identity, positioning and value. From these four
elements positioning plays a significant role during first time marketing. Initially, both these
organisations need to stand them at the appropriate place for commercialization. Water Aid and
Asda both must build their identity by serving well to their customers (Weiss, 2002). Identities
can be built well by strengthening the relationship with the customers. A positive customer
feedback about any particular product or service will determine the level of value and identify
the company in front of millions of customers.
The limitations and constraints of marketing
The limitations and obstacles of marketing are based on individual legal acts and procedures.
Laws such as consumer law focus on the protection of customers while purchasing a product and
service from the organisations. The protection act is built to aware customers from buying fraud
products. There are many limitations and constraints in the consumer law (Devadoss, 2007).
These restrictions and limitations help the customers to understand and know their rights and
thus protects them.
Page 5 of 14

INTRODUCTION TO MK
Consumer Protection from unfair trading regulations 2008: According to this particular act,
it is an offence to utilise aggressive methods in sales by promotion and advertising. Besides that,
it applies mostly to business to customer sales as well as all the businesses should obey the
regulations along with treating the customers in a courteous manner (Tonner, 2000).
Examples: A company known as Safe Style UK was the first organisation to be put on trial
under these regulations during February 2011. The action was brought by the Council of North
Lincolnshire, Department of Trading Standards. Under the section 25 of this particular act, the
organisation was charged with four thousand euro plus eighteen thousand euro for recurrently
calling the customer in Sculthorpe.
Sales of Good Act 1979: According to the Sales of Good Act 1979, the services along with the
products must be retailed in a perfect condition. Water and Asda must remember about the
safeness of the product. Both these organisations must take care of the qualities of each of their
individual products and services. Water and Asda must have to explain the product accurately to
the customer so that it becomes for the client to examine the product before purchasing it. The
particular Act is applied not only to the customers but also to sales between the businesses
(Esmail, 2005).
Example: Sales of Good Act 1979 provides the customers irreversible rights when the product
has been developed with faults in it. Based on this act, the customer must have to inform about
the damaged product within fourteen days. From a customer review about Asda, a customer has
bought a printer from Asda, and he had to take it back to the shop for exchange after he found
problems in the printer machines. It's because of the Sales Act; the customer can exchange the
product (McNeil, 2005).
Page 6 of 14

INTRODUCTION TO MK
Task 2
Marketing Plan development of Asda
The marketing plan development of Asda includes objectives, actions and tactics along with
strategy and segmentation. The development of marketing plan of Asda is described below:
 Asda has the intention to focus on the value of customers. The company is planning to
perform marketing by providing discounts on a certain range of products and services for
accomplishing competitive advantage (McNeil, 2005). The cuts will raise customer's
expectations to buy newly launched products from the organisation. Moreover, the
organisation will invest low on recruiting employees since the company already has
qualified workers. Asda is trying to get positive customer feedback by providing clients
with superior customer service. The organisation believes that a continuation of positive
customer feedback will strengthen the relationship marketing system of Asda.
 At next, Asda needs to position their market at an area where there is a lot of customer
demands on supermarket products (Simkin, 2000). The organisation will look to segment
the market into various consumers who will be related to location, demographics, income
and so on. The position should be made in such place where the customers of that area
can afford to purchase their product. For example, most of the females come to buy
grocery products for their family. Therefore, research list should consist of married status
apart from age, sex, religion, education, income and other related factors (Thomas, 2000).
Limitations of marketing research methods
During a market research process, Asda must perform research by looking at the limitations of
market research. The limitations are described below:
Page 7 of 14

INTRODUCTION TO MK
 A marketing research is not a complete solution to any issues related to marketing as
there are numerous dominant variables between research market response as well as
research conclusions.
 The outcomes of market research are very imprecise as the market research is applied to
intermediaries, customers and suppliers who are living objects (Thomas, 2000). The
consumers and the respondents of the market research process behave artificially when
they become aware that their beliefs, views and attitudes are being observed.
 Moreover, a market research faces time restrictions. Asda needs to maintain a balance
between the necessities for having a broader perspective of demands of customers as well
as the requirement for quick decision making. It helps the company to gain competitive
advantage.
Strategies to improve the validity of the marketing research
Here, plans are provided as a recommendation to improve the validity of the marketing research.
 Initially, organisations like Asda can implement questionnaire technique to extract
information from people. Surveys are normally performed using post or telephone.
Today, this particular strategy is done on the internet. It is a very easy process as it is easy
to administer and easy for the respondents to deal with (Capelli and Jolibert, 2009).
Questionnaires are useful for simplifying the analysis of outcomes and can provide
comprehensive information.
 At second, Asda must make the sample match the target. The organisation should
represent a cross-section of the target group of the company with the people they survey.
Moreover, the company can extend the outcomes to the whole group as long as the
sample of the company is representative. During matching time, the company must keep
Page 8 of 14

INTRODUCTION TO MK
in mind about the key factors such as sampling time as well as the number of people
surveyed (Capelli and Jolibert, 2009).
 At third, the company must use screening to make their sample representative. A
technique based on random sampling introduces responses from people who are not the
members of the target group. The company can use screening questions to block the
outside respondent from participating in the interview process.
Task 3
How and why customer groups are targeted for selected products
Market segmentation is well explained by involving customers inside the market segmentation
process. It is impossible for the organisation to consider all types of customer targeted for a
selected product. For example, the old peoples are not interested in purchasing CD and computer
games. These types of products are meant for the kids, and that is why a market segmentation
process is necessary. A segment oriented marketing approach enables decisions about the
strength of marketing methods for the particular sections. It is the primary basis for the
development of effective as well as targeted marketing plans. The market segmentation is the
key function of a marketing plan where the general population of the market choose the
achievement of the business. In this situation market segmentation turns out to be imperative for
any business with a specific end goal to think about the criteria and the requests of the clients.
Clearly, in the different portion of the market, there are different customers who have a mixture
of applications relying upon their attitudes. Market segmentation is done for meeting the
demands and needs of the consumers (Awan, 2014). Moreover, the businesses can improve the
premium segments in which the clients accepts a higher price level of products. On the other
Page 9 of 14

INTRODUCTION TO MK
hand, these segments could feature additional goods and services, a particular point of sale along
with the variations in the product.
Market segmentation should be possible by isolating the market into numerous parts like
psychographic, demographic, geographic as well as behavioural segmentation. Geographic
segmentation tells about the area and the area of the clients. Demographic segmentation of the
market says about the age, sex, pay, way of life of the clients. Psychographic segmentation
explains the brain research of customers in various parts of the market (MAYHEW and
ROSEWELL, 2009). In conclusion, the behavioural segmentation tells about the conduct of
clients in an other component of the business. Asda must experience all the segmentation
lawfully with a specific end goal to think about customers in the market. It will help the
organisation to proceed with the work stream inside the environment of the company.
Task 4
Development of coherent marketing mix
Here, the marketing mix is done according to the needs and demands of a targeted group of
customers.
Page 10 of 14

INTRODUCTION TO MK
Source: http://cdn.relativemarketing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/the-marketing-mix.jpg
The above figure represents a coherent marketing mix of Asda.
Product: Asda has a range of services that is unique, and these services are available for 24
hours. The organisation provides a range of products such as grocery items, electronic goods,
clothing and so on. The team also offers services to the doorsteps of each and every customer
regarding the delivery of merchandises. The company has 30000 products in the largest of their
list of stores all over the world.
Price: The Company is setting price according to the income of the customers. The prices of
products are not very high and are affordable (Srivastava, 2016). The company also offers
products to the customers at a discount rate. Consequently, it helped them to gain competitive
advantage.
Promotion: Asda also understands the need to move buyer wisdom that the acronym CBY
significance Chosen by your attempts to change. Asda assumed that given its ownership under
Page 11 of 14

INTRODUCTION TO MK
the Walmart Group, the clients reliably assumed that Asda was just about regard evaluating. The
promotional strategies should be made according to the demands of the customers.
Place: In several locations, organisations like Asda has got its presence. Asda has plans to make
a hundred stores which are non-food stores. Taking after an 'Essential and Fresh' approach to
managing store gatherings, Asda then moved to the Walmart style after its getting with 3 zones
of foolish shopping yet spread over a practically twenty percent more prominent space
(Srivastava, 2016). Taking a claim to fame store strategy for more unmistakable usefully in the
whole deal, Asda does not place stock in making after neighbourhood individuals tore
methodology.
Page 12 of 14

INTRODUCTION TO MK
References
Awan, M. (2014). International Market Segmentation: Exploring Cell Phone Market of Young
Adults. International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, 5(2), pp.151-154.
Capelli, S. and Jolibert, A. (2009). Metaphor's validity in marketing research. Psychology and
Marketing, 26(12), pp.1079-1090.
Devadoss, S. (2007). Optimal Tariff Analysis of India's Apple Import Restrictions. Journal of
Food Products Marketing, 13(1), pp.45-59.
Esmail, A. (2005). Failure to act on good intentions. BMJ, 330(7500), pp.1144-1147.
Levenda, P. (2007). The Mao of business. 1st ed. New York: Continuum.
MAYHEW, K. and ROSEWELL, B. (2009). LABOUR MARKET SEGMENTATION IN
BRITAIN*. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 41(2), pp.81-115.
McNeil, K. (2005). Staying in the spa marketing game: Trends, challenges, strategies and
techniques. Journal Of Vacation Marketing, 11(1), pp.31-39.
Simkin, L. (2000). Marketing is marketing – maybe!. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 18(3),
pp.154-158.
Srivastava, R. (2016). Shift of Marketing Mix to E-Marketing Mix: The Birth to New Era. SSRN
Electronic Journal.
Thomas, M. (2000). Marketing Intelligence & Planning. Marketing Intelligence & Planning,
10(7), pp.3-4.
Page 13 of 14

INTRODUCTION TO MK
Tonner, K. (2000). Consumer Protection and Environmental Protection: Contradictions and
Suggested Steps Towards Integration. Journal of Consumer Policy, 23(1), pp.63-78.
Weiss, A. (2002). How to establish a unique brand in the consulting profession. 1st ed. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.
Young, L. (2013). The marketer's handbook. 1st ed. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
Page 14 of 14