Marketing Communication of Primark: Expanding into the Chinese Market

This report discusses the marketing communication strategies of Primark as they plan to expand into the untapped market of China. It includes an analysis of SWOT and PESTLE factors, as well as the use of the SOSTAC framework. The report provides insights into Primark's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and offers recommendations for their market entry strategy.

Running head: MARKETING COMMUNICATION
MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Executive Summary
In this report, the aim of the discussion will be to discuss about the marketing communication
of Primark, an Irish retail brand, who wants to expand their business into new untapped
market of China. Analysis on SWOT and PESTLE will be done, as well as the tool of
SOSTAC will be used.

2MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Marketing Communication........................................................................................................3
SWOT Analysis of Primark...................................................................................................4
PESTLE Analysis...................................................................................................................6
SOSTAC Framework.............................................................................................................8
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10

3MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Introduction
In this report, the discussion will be on the marketing communication as well as the
marketing strategies of Primark. A detailed analysis will be done of the company, and want to
expand their business in China. The untapped market analysis along with the strengths and
weaknesses of the company will be discussed. On the other hand, the opportunities and
threats of the company will be evaluated, so that the company can strategize their plans to
penetrate the market of China. Primark is a multinational organisation from the retail
industry. The company was founded in the year 1969 and headquarter is in Dublin, Ireland. It
is a fast fashion retailer company, which is located to almost 368 locations worldwide
(Killian and McManus 2019). Arthur Ryan is the founder of the company. Paul Marchant is
the Chief Executive Officer and John Lyttle is the Chief Operational Officer of this
prestigious organization. Total number of employees is 70,000 approximately and the
revenue of the company is over 6 billion pounds. The company sells a various range of
products, which includes new-born and children’s clothing, men’s clothing, women’s wear,
footwear, home ware, beauty products, accessories and confectionaries. The company serves
the community in about 14 countries (Batra and Keller 2016).
Marketing Communication
Marketing communication are those tools or techniques that an organization or a
business individual adopts to convey or pass the promotional news or messages about their
products or services to the society or to the end customers or consumers. It is the process or
way to communicate the messages to the market where they are serving or where they want
to serve, like Primark in this case, who wants to sell their brands in the brand new
marketplace of China. It includes the tools which includes advertising, sponsorship, personal
selling, direct marketing, promotion and communication to the people or the marketplace.

4MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Marketing communications include the marketing mix. The overall process or the system
helps the people to familiarise with a brand. Primark will take the help of the marketing
communication tool to advertise them in the marketplace of China, along with laying the
strategies to target and penetrate the market of China. The marketing plan helps to identify
the major opportunities, threats as well as the strengths and weaknesses, which will help
Primark to set their objectives and develop a proper marketing plan to achieve the set targets
from the market of China (Strähle, Will and Freise 2015).
SWOT Analysis of Primark
It will help to identify the strengths and weaknesses of Primark as well as to identify
the opportunities and threats of the company which will be beneficial for the company to
strategize their plans accordingly before entering China (Poazi, Tamunosiki-Amadi and
Fems 2017).
Strengths
Huge trust of customer towards the brand
The economies of scale or escalation
High value for money
Simple, systematic and organized structure of business
Huge employment facility for the company
Extensive range of products to be sold from their outlets
Always achieving an increased rate of profit
Ever increasing rate of the reach of the company
Providing of sustainable goods
Less advertising cost due to the advantage of word-of-mouth publicity
Increase rate of sales on every year
Contribution towards the society and its value
Great presence over the continent of Europe

5MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Involvement in the Corporate Social Responsibility activities
Weaknesses
Poor working conditions
Selling less quality products
Customer service not up to the mark
Less concern on ethical issues
Slow economic growth of the European Union
Inconsistency in the quality of the product due to outsourcing the manufacturing of the
apparels
Lack of marketing activities
Opportunities
Focusing on the other untapped markets like China and other parts of the world including
Asia, Europe and Africa
Sportswear as one of the fastest growing department for Primark
Chance of investment for the plus size clothing variants
Rapid growth of the online business
Threats
Low growth curve since all the outlets are present in Europe till date
Negligible presence in the emerging markets like China, United States or India
Supply chain is defenceless to the natural disasters and other incidents
Brexit issue
Threat from the rival brands
Primark still has sections which need to be developed although it is a brilliant CSR
company. It has some limitations regarding its uniqueness as compared to other competitors
as recorded from a previous SWOT analysis. Therefore, in order to get brand recognition,
they must gear up and be more polished about their products and services and bring about
new and innovative ideas. For instance, they can create small parts of their product line as a

6MARKETING COMMUNICATION
premium and distinguish them from their basic designs to counterbalance the competitive
brands. This will help to enlarge their estimated audience and maintain a premium image of
their brand. Primark can readily benchmark the “premium lines” which has been already
launched by brands like Zara and H&M. Another way to grow or expand the awareness of
their brand name is to collaborate with other brands. As a suggestion, Primark can merge and
connect with H&M and promote product lines or they can also collaborate with different
industries such as smart phones or automotive in order to launch a totally unique and
different product from their competitor brands. Moreover, to increase their market globally,
Primark must include advertisement and marketing which in turn will help to grow their
brand image innovatively. Whenever there will be any doubts or hindrance made by the
customers based on less wage or child labour, Primark needs to avoid the controversies by
tactful counteraction for enhancing the reliability of the brand (Killian and McManus 2015).
PESTLE Analysis
This analysis will help the company to evaluate the political, economic, social or
cultural, technological, legal and environmental factors of the market of China, so that it will
help the company to strategize their plans accordingly to invest in the untapped market of
China (Aldhaheri and Bach 2013).
Political Environment – The People’s Republic of China is led by the working class
and is a socialist state dictated by the people’s democracy. The government consists of
people’s congress system and has a multi-party cooperation under the Communist Party of
China (CPC). It assures that the CPC is the one and only party which have power in China.
There are some political risk factors which Primark needs to take into consideration. China is
prone to hazards in case of political risks. One of the main potential problems is the
devaluation of money and sudden inflation. The continuous struggle between the central

7MARKETING COMMUNICATION
government of China and the local ones is a serious political risk. This creates problems for
foreign companies to understand what are the actual rules and norms.
Economic Environment – As China is an upcoming economy it provides numerous
opportunities and scopes for foreign investment. Primark must keep in mind that though the
country has a large potentiality for economic development which provides access to huge
market and proper investment in labour costs, they must be self-cautious about the
dissimilarities in the cultural and political environment. It may lead to risk and create
uncertainty for global investors. China has also remained a chief recipient of the Foreign
Direct Investment recently. About 190 foreign countries invest in China and while the foreign
exchange reserves were very less in the year 1987, in 2001 it has become capable of joining
the World Trade Organization and made a fast growth in import, export and FDI inflows
crossed about 60 billion dollars yearly (Dimitrova 2016).
Social and Cultural Environment – China holds the position of the most populated
country of the world with a population of around 1,133,682,501 people (census 1990). It must
be taken into note of the fact that providing a quality life to this huge population is a serious
concern. For a foreign fashion brand like Primark, it is essential to know the ethnicity of the
society. China has a rich culture and heritage. In spite of a culture with huge diversity, the
Chinese communities share common characteristics. The traditional values must be kept in
mind for a successful venture of a foreign brand or company (Tabrizi and Kabirnejat 2015).
Technological Environment – Not only the conventional areas of machinery,
electronics, automobiles or aviation, but China has advanced hugely in fields like advanced
nuclear energy, robotics, space science and technology, super computers, e-commerce and
renewable resources. There are some big tech giants in China e.g. Baidu, Alibaba and
Tencent. Despite of all these, China’s productive analysis show that the country’s TFP (Total

8MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Factor Productivity) has a weaker track as compared to other developing countries like India.
So while investing as a foreign company, Primark should know about the technological
advancement and its level of acceleration.
Legal environment – Legal environment plays a vital role for investment
environment and is important to attract foreign investors. A series of foreign investment laws
has been published to create a lawful environment for the foreign investors and increase
global market. “Law of the people’s republic of China on foreign-owned enterprise” and “the
law of foreign-owned enterprise implementation regulations” are some of them. But still
there are certain incomplete factors which prohibit the foreign enterprises to further develop
in the business market of China. These factors affect the overall foreign trade and business.
Environmental factors – The rapid economic growth of China has resulted in the
environmental degradation of the country. Various types of pollution, climate change, loss of
biodiversity are some of the instances of this. It is mentionable that the government of China
has taken a lot of initiative measures to put the situation under control. But a few things are
still lacking like responsibility of the citizens to participate and spread awareness.
SOSTAC Framework
SOSTAC is a model used in marketing which was developed by PR Smith in the
1990s. It consists of six fundamental aspects or angles of marketing. Primark should use this
model at the time when they are trying to invest in the market of China. It contains a normal
marketing strategy which helps to be applied in any kind of marketing scenarios. It can be
termed as an extended version of SWOT analysis, and this model targets the implementation
stages more and is helpful on marketing communications. The steps which should be
followed by Primark are (Cavender 2018):

9MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Situation (S) – This stage helps to evaluate the position of a business currently.
Primark need to assess the current position of their business before entering the market of
China. This will help them to target the market and segment it properly as well as to analyse
the proper marketing areas where they have to invest more and where they have to invest
less. Proper budget allocation will help the company to manage the asset management
effectively, so that the revenue generation is not hampered.
Objectives (O) – This stage helps a company to set the aim or goals. Primark has to
set their objectives for the marketplace of China. A mission should be prepared by Primark,
which should be followed by them to penetrate the market of China and earn profit from
there. A proper set objective will help Primark to carry their business smoothly in the new
market of China. This will help the company to face the adverse situations more efficiently.
Strategy (S) – It helps overview the plans or the ways or processes of achieving the
objectives set by the company. Primark needs to evaluate the plans of achieving the targets,
or the objectives set by the company. Finding the proper way of achieving the objectives set
by Primark is very important as right selection of ways will help them to grow their market
share in China which is totally new for them, and the wrong way will hamper the growth as
well as the company have to incur loss due to the wrong selection.
Tactics (T) – This are the detailed information of a strategy. Primark need to be very
particular about selecting the tactics before entering the market of China. This will include
the evaluation of the strategies followed by their rivals and as per to the opportunities
available for Primark.
Actions (A) – This helps to analyse the ways of proper execution of a plan. Primark
need to ensure the proper execution of the plans set for entering the market of China. It will
help to take the advantages of the opportunities available for them, and to minimize the

10MARKETING COMMUNICATION
threats to be faced by them. Proper execution will help to evaluate the market scenario of
China and what more should be needed to continue a successful run as well as earning profit
by the company.
Control (C) – This stage helps the organization to analyse the situations whether the
company is achieving the targets set before or not. In this case, Primark needs to prosper the
ways to measure or evaluate the process whether that are able to achieve their aims and
objectives set for the market of China or not.
Conclusion
From the above report, it can be concluded that the there is no doubt about the
business performance of Primark which they are currently doing in the market of Europe. So
there is a great opportunity for them tom expand their market in China, by maximising the
opportunities available to them and minimising the threats. This will help them to grow in a
better and proper way, and earning revenue at a good space, which will again help them to
tap some new markets globally.

11MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Reference
Aldhaheri, A. and Bach, C., 2013. How to implement marketing 2.0 successfully. arXiv
preprint arXiv:1308.4894.
Batra, R. and Keller, K.L., 2016. Integrating marketing communications: New findings, new
lessons, and new ideas. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), pp.122-145.
Belasen, A.T. and Belasen, A.R., 2018. Integrated Corporate Communication: A Competing
Values Perspective. Available at SSRN 3096046.
Cavender, R., 2018. The Marketing of Sustainability and CSR Initiatives by Luxury Brands:
Cultural Indicators, Call to Action, and Framework. In Sustainability in Luxury Fashion
Business(pp. 29-49). Springer, Singapore.
Chaffey, D. and Bosomworth, D., 2013. Digital marketing strategy planning template. Smart
Insights, pp.1-14.
Dimitrova, Y.P., 2016. Communication strategies for reputation management of the
company. Romanian Journal of Economics, 43(2 (52)), pp.5-13.
Eisenberg, P., 2019. Financial Analysis of Primark Stores Ltd. With Regard to a Stock
Exchange Floatation (IPO). International Journal of Management, 7(1), pp.91-112.
Killian, G. and McManus, K., 2015. A marketing communications approach for the digital
era: Managerial guidelines for social media integration. Business Horizons, 58(5), pp.539-
549.
OSIPOVA, М., 2014. A BRAND AND ITS MEANING (S): DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
ON HOW BRANDS EVOLVE.

12MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Poazi, F.D.W., Tamunosiki-Amadi, J.O. and Fems, M., 2017. The Resource-Base View of
Organization and Innovation: Recognition of Significant Relationship in an
Organization. World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International
Journal of Social, Behavioral, Educational, Economic, Business and Industrial
Engineering, 11(3), pp.692-699.
Strähle, J., Will, C. and Freise, M., 2015. Communication of sustainability at European
fashion online shops.
Tabrizi, S. and Kabirnejat, M., 2015. Management, Strategies, Tools, and Practices in
eMarketing. Journal of Knowledge Globalization, 8(2).