Impact of Marketing on Cash Flow

This assignment delves into the crucial connection between marketing strategies and a company's cash flow. It examines how different marketing behaviors influence both the level and volatility of cash flow. The analysis draws upon academic research and real-world examples to illustrate the practical implications for businesses. Students are expected to demonstrate an understanding of key marketing concepts, financial principles, and their interplay.

MARKETING
COMMUNICATIONS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
Measure the background to consumer behaviour for Morrisons and explanation of the impact
of psychological and environmental variables on customers......................................................1
Role of advertising and promotion in marketing........................................................................3
Communication Process and regulation......................................................................................3
The role of advertising and branding in promotional strategies.................................................4
Current trends in marketing........................................................................................................4
Evaluate the benefits of relationship marketing..........................................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................1
Marketing and integrated promotional plan.....................................................................................1
Goals and strategies.....................................................................................................................1
Barriers that may affect the implementation of plan...................................................................2
Pricing, distribution and communication policies.......................................................................3
Market segmentation...................................................................................................................4
Effective monitoring and control................................................................................................6
Steps to measure campaign effectiveness and requirement in performing these steps. .............7
Intellectual of ethical and legal marketing issues.......................................................................8
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................10
3.1 Comparison of Below the line and above the line techniques............................................10
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................11
4.1 Evaluating the organisation capability for planning marketing activities...........................11
4.2 Evaluating the impact of ethical issues on market planning...............................................13
CONCLUSIONS............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................16

INTRODUCTION
Marketing communication briefly cited as MC, marcom and marcomm is the process in
which a business communicates with the market. It is basically relevant to the promotion element
of the marketing mix (Patti and et.al., 2017). The steps included in the marketing
communication process are analysation and evaluation of database information, allocation of
budgets, creation of marketing communication programme, capturing responses and record &
maintain data. In this learning, the impact of variation in organisation's psychological and
environmental on customer is evaluated. Also, market promotion and advertisement are
considered as most important tool for marketing and this learning states their role through
communication process and regulation. This assignment contains a marketing and integrated
promotional plan that meet the expectations of the target market. This plan shows the realistic
and achievable goal and the hurdles in achieving them. Moreover, this report helps in
understanding different marketing techniques such as BTL and ATL. This assignment further
helps in evaluating best pricing, distribution and communication policies for the organisation.
Furthermore, this study involves the advantages of relationship marketing for the business
premises.
The present report is done for the organisation, Morrisons. This study is undertaken as the
Marketing Manager of the entity. All the marketing research is performed in context to the
launching of a new product by the organisation. The main aim of the entity is to withstand in this
competitive era and it is only possible when they attract the customer figure towards them.
Again, customer enhancement depends upon the effectiveness of the marketing. They further
aims to develop popular and useful services which is a plus point for them in the campaigning
process. Organisation also wants to implement the current trends in their advertising and
promotion to boost up the advertising and promotion of their product.
TASK 1
Measure the background to consumer behaviour for Morrisons and explanation of the impact of
psychological and environmental variables on customers.
Consumer behaviour is the learning of different characteristics possessed by various
individuals, groups and organisations. This study also involves their product select, usage and
experience. Behaviour of consumers can be well explained with the help of different theories
which are explained below-
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 Marshallian Economics: According to this their, customers buy that services which
provides them most with the personal satisfaction. This theory helped the organisation in
estimating several factors such as- lower priced services are most liked by the customers,
sales of product depends upon the income of consumer, etc. Thus, this model helped
marketers in setting the target market depending upon the class of the people, doing
pricing of the services, etc.
 Psychoanalytic Theory- In this theory, it is stated that customers do not understand their
own motivations because of the unconsciousness of the psychological factors that form
them (Hajli, 2015) This unconscious part is full of desires which influence them in
buying the luxurious services that helps them in meeting their desires. Thus, this model
suggest to contain an emotional appeal in the the marketing process of the business. Pavlovian Theory- This theory states that most of the customer decisions results from
conditioned responses. This theory will help marketers of Morrisons in acquiring the
knowledge which can made or alter the habits of user.
 Vebelenian Social-Psychological Model- According to this model humans are that
creatures that set their standard and culture depending upon the social conditions they are
residing in. This theory further explained by monitoring the culture, the desires of an
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Illustration 1: Marshallian Graph
(Source: Patti and et.al., 2017)

individual can be controlled. This model can help Morrisons by providing them an
advantage to understand the social influences that can assist them in altering culture.
Thus, these are some theories that assist in understanding the consumer behaviour so that
the organisation can design the innovative marketing strategies accordingly.
There are some factors that influence the behaviour of consumer towards the services
offered to them by the organisation. Some major variables that highly impacts upon the
consumer behaviour are as follows: Psychological Factors- This are those factors that states the mental thoughts of an
individual that forces him/her to find satisfaction in a service. Some major psychological
factors involves: Motivation, perception, learning and attitudes & belief. These are the
elements that influence the buying behaviour of a consumer of the cited Morrison
through motivating them towards the product, their perception that decides the buying of
product, their learning of the services and products they are about to buy and their belief
towards the service and the associated firm from where they are buying it (Royle and
Laing, 2014).
 Environmental Factors- Environmental factor involves the social, cultural, personal,
family and social group influences that dominates them in buying a service or product.
The buying behaviour of an individual highly depends upon his social class, the products
that are accepted in their culture. Cultural trends are also an important factor that
influence consumer in purchasing goods and services of Morrison. The sum of factors
involves belief, traditions, customs, art, cultural knowledge, etc.
 Consumer of the Morrison company are both high and middle class people. Further both
man and women buy product and services of Morrison company.
Both psychological and environmental factor impact the consumer behaviour as because if the
product is not environmental friendly. Along with this if product do not fulfil the basic need of
customer then they may switch to other company products.
Role of advertising and promotion in marketing
Communication Process and regulation
Marketing is an integral procedure of Morrisons that directly results in enhancing their sales by
together rising their profitability agenda to a great extent. It is however associated with numerous
other activities that largely assists the cited firm to carry out an effective procedure of marketing.
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It is with a specific concern of engaging more number of consumers and attracting them towards
the offered goods and services (Jerath, Ma and Park, 2014) For which, there exists a huge
contribution of advertisement and promotion that in turn results in an effective marketing
procedure. This is for instance to ascertain the role of advertisement in marketing, one can easily
relate to its essentialist where it is often referred to be one of the most important constituent of
marketing. However, it is together specified to interlink with the tactics of marketing where it
directly supports in acknowledging people about any newly proposed products and services. On
considering the type of interaction done through advertising, it indicates the passive form of
communication. This reflects the one-way nature of advertisement where the businesses like
Morrisons hereby insists the consumers to buy a promoted product without affecting the choices
made by them. It together shows the persuading nature of advertisement that in turn leads to
encourage brand recall.
The role of advertising and branding in promotional strategies.
Link between role of advertising and promotional strategies
Promotional strategies and advertising role is to create awareness among customers
related to the products and services. Company can promote its product with the help of social
media marketing while advertisement need TV or newspaper of product which company want
to sale. Further both role is to provide information of the new products.
Advertising and branding are those key elements that enhance the marketing process.
Advertising is a marketing communication tool either in form of audio or video that promotes the
service with specific message (Kanchanapibul and et.al., 2014). It is considered as the most
important tool of promotion. Some major factors governed through this instrument involves-
 Control- Advertisement involves some investments to be made on the promoting tool and
this investment enables better monitoring of the function of the Morrisons.
 Brand Management- The main purpose of advertisement is on development of the brand
image of the organisation. In case of Morrisons, they aim on proving their services as
distinct from many of other entity and this image helps them in receiving the set prices.
 Helps in creating value proposition- Through advertising entity can promote their pricing
statements in front of the audience. The value thus created ion concentrated on
persuading the customers .
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 Passive communication- In contrary to the traditional direct buying and selling methods,
advertising helps in attaining the market research top evaluate the impact of ad on their
services. This factor impacts upon the brand image 0of the products that are being offered
by the Morrisons.
Branding is a marketing practice to create the name and image of products and services.
This tool helps Morrisons in clear delivery to the message that helps in assuring the creditability.
Further, it helps in combining set targets with the products. It also plays a great role in
motivating buyer to buy the products (Hajli, 2015).
Current trends in marketing
Nowadays, various tools are used by the entities in their advertising and promotion.
Current trends of them includes-
 Social media- In present time, social media sites are the largest platform for promoting
the services of the organisation. These sites are accessed by large mass of audience that
helps organisations in passing their message to a large group of people enabling
profitability to the company.
 Emails- It is secondly most used promotion method via which entities directly contact
with individual person through mailing them with the recent offers they are keeping with
them in their services.
ICT stands for information communication technology which when assisted to the
advertising and promotion methods, brings effectiveness in the marketing process of the
organisation. This system improves the customer services and demand through various database
development, website designing, translation software, direct mailing, etc. Further, internet helps
in advertisement via websites, E-mails, social media, etc. Present era is of internet and almost all
the marketing methods are based on it.
Impact of ICT on the company
The use of ICT and technology has affected every aspect of business, transforming not only the
way that business is conducted but also creating new business sectors and jobs. With the help of
ICT it becomes easy for company to increase sale and profit. The use of websites has allowed
companies to develop new and cheaper ways of reaching new markets, offering customers the
opportunity of buying goods and services whenever they want and often at reduced cost, whilst
also enhancing the level of customer service.
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the impact of social media
Social media play significant role as it help in developing the awareness related to the
products and services in consumers. Further it can be stated that it help in increasing the sales as
many of people use social networking sites and they like to buy product after comparing it from
different company.
Evaluate the benefits of relationship marketing.
The main objective of relationship based marketing is to create loyalty between the
offered services and customers. There are many type of customer relationship marketing for
example electronic , operational, analytical and data mining. All these factors accounts in
evaluation of past purchasing. Few major advantages of these relations are explained below-
 Communication- Relationship marketing enhances the level of communication with the
customer (Hajli, 2015). This communication further helps in more customer feedback to
the organisation which will help Morrisons to improve and develop the product and
services. Customer satisfaction can also be enhances by addressing the complaints made
by them through communication.
 Customer profitability- Maintaining communication with the customers helps in
motivating and influencing them it buy the services. This influence directly helps in
boosting up the profitability of the entity.
 Easy targetting- Better relationship with the customers simplify the targeting step of the
organisation. With possessing good relations Morrisons can easily target the customers.
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TASK 2
Marketing and integrated promotional plan
Integrated marketing of Morrisons is the combination of various marketing strategies
which can be used to optimize the proper communication channel of the brand name of the
company to their stakeholders (Patti and et.al., 2017). This marketing communication plan is
having different thematic messages which can be promoted by using several promotional
activities. Before making any plan, the goals, mission and vision of the company should be clear
so that it will be easy for them to decide the marketing strategies.
Goals and strategies
The marketing policies of Morrisons is not only about providing goods and services to
the consumers, but to meet their demand and give them benefits as per the needs and demands
from the consumers. The process of marketing is very long as it requires very specific and
particular set of skills from the employee to co-ordinate and manage the activities and implement
the plan successfully.
Goal: To increase the revenues and profitability by providing quality products and
becoming food specialist.
Vision: to become “better and different than ever”. It will always bring improvements in
the performance of the company.
Marketing strategies
It can also be considered as the process which can permit the organization to focus more
on the assets of the as an opportunity to increase the sales rate of the company. At the same time
they can gain competitive advantage in the market. Few of the principles of marketing strategies
are as follows;
People oriented marketing: The strategies developed by the company is to create the
advantage for the company among their competitors. They are more oriented around the
consumers, so that they are able to fulfil the needs and demands of the customers (Shkurkin and
et.al., 2016). By this strategy, the company will be able to retain their customers and will attract
more users towards their product and services.

Flexible cost: Anther strategy used by the company is keeping the cost of the products
well within the reach of the consumers of all level. The aim of the company is to increase their
sales rate. This can only be done by keeping the cost low and the quality of the products very
high. Consumers will not think anything else if the quality of the product is high and they will
spend the money also, so this strategy can be used by the company for marketing their products.
Promotional strategies
The promotion of the product is very necessary as it is one of the essential thing in
putting the product of the company in front of public and attract new consumers (Eisenack and
et.al., 2014). There are several ways by which the company can promote their products.
Social media: it is the best way to promote the product because majority of the people are
using social networking mediums to getting the information and to attract with people. It can be
said as the direct marketing at its best.
The advantages of social media is that it help in targeting large number of customers in less time.
On the other hand its disadvantage is that it become difficult to target particular group of people
only.
Product giveaways: This is another promotional strategy which can be used by
Morrisons. The company can give sample products to their consumers, whenever they are
launching new products. They can also take feedbacks from the customers, so that it will give
them some idea about the position of the product in the market.
Barriers that may affect the implementation of plan
Lack of employee involvement: This can be considered as the most common barrier.
Employees are always feared about change, it can also be possible that the most loyal member
will resist to change. Most of the organizations are not including employees in their decision
making process and this is creating some negative image on the mind of the employees (Royle
and Laing, 2014). They will not be having that desire to contribute in the success of the plan and
thus, it will become a barrier. Any plan will become successful only when the company is
including all of their workers in the plan. They will listen to their opinions and according to that
the final decision is being made. This is the way by which Morrisons will be able to reduce the
effect of this barrier.
Lack of communication: Effective communication is the most essential thing for the
implementation of any plan. There will be few people in the organization, who thinks that once
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they have announced something, then it will be clear to all the employees. But it will not happen
all the time. Some people will take time to understand the processes involved in the plan and it is
the role of senior members of the company to clear their doubts (Taiminen and Karjaluoto,
2015). The board of directors and senior member of the company should stop announcing the
plan directly in front of the employees. They must discuss about the development of the plan by
keeping their opinions in mind. They have to ensure that the workers know how that plan will
affect them and how it will be helpful in increasing their performance level.
Organization complexity: It is possible that the organizational culture and structure will
become complex. The process of making the plan and it's implementation can also become
complex. The complexity will include the products of the company and the process of
development of the promotional plan which can be complex. These are sometime difficult for the
worker to understand (Wang and et.al., 2016). Therefore, Morrisons have to make sure that the
integrated plan should be clear to all the employees including the senior members of the team.
They have to use such approaches by which the plan can be made in the simplest way possible.
They should not keep on changing the techniques and methods used to develop that plan because
it will again create confusion.
Lack of creativity: This is the ability to think more originally and develop such ideas
which are innovative. If the company is not using any creative thinking while making the plan,
then it will not be having that much effectiveness during the implementation. Therefore, they
have to ensure that the employees who are selected for the development and implementation of
this plan should have creative thinking capabilities (Zeng, Dasgupta and Weinberg, 2016). They
should be able to create it in the most effective way so that it will be implemented successfully
and it will be beneficial to the company. The leadership should be proper and the leader must
inspire other people to work harder so that the target set by the company can be achieved.
Pricing, distribution and communication policies
Company used pricing policies in which it set out its pricing such as penetration pricing policy
which help in selling products and services effectively. Further, for distribution of the product
company sale its product online as well as it has physical store through which it sales products
and services. Apart from this all the information related to the product is communicated with the
help of social media and email
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The pricing policy of Morrison is economic pricing. They are putting themselves as the
low price supermarket and using the strategy of love it cheaper. The company has completely
changed the supermarket pricing strategy by this and they have started taking the food market
from their competitors like Lidl and Aldi. The economic pricing is done by keeping the price of
the product well below what their competitors are offering (Helm and Gritsch, 2014). Such kind
of pricing strategy is implemented to attract more number of consumers who are price conscious.
The company have reduced the cost which are related to the marketing and promotional activities
as well as their production methods, so that they will be able to keep the cost of the product at
the lower level.
The consumers can buy the products and services without any frills. This type of pricing
strategy can be very successful for the large organizations like Morrisons, because they are
distributing their products in bulk. Therefore, they will be able to generate more profit even
when they are keeping the low prices for their products. Skimming pricing can also be used, so
that they will be able to increase their sales rate for the new product developed.
The distribution of the products can be done either by using direct distribution or indirect
distribution. Morrisons is using both the techniques because they are selling their products
through their stores and through online marketing. The indirect distribution is when the end
product is reaching to the consumers via various paths. Firstly the product will go to C&F from
the manufacturer and then it will go to distributor, then to retailer and finally it will reach to the
end customer (Boyle, 2015). This is very long chain. Direct distribution is when the company
will sell their products directly to the consumers through their retail stores or via online. This
process is very small and the end product will reach to the consumer in very short duration of
time.
Communication policies are the one by which the company is communicating to their
consumers. They are organizing various campaigns so that it will be easy for them to be in touch
with the local people. Use of social media is the best way to communicate with the people
because majority of the population is using social networking medium to get the news or to share
the information (Backer and Morrison, 2015). The company can also communicate with their
employees so that they will also get to know about the marketing plan which will be used by
them to sell their products. They can also use the referral incentive program through their
application. By this way they will be able to keep majority of the users in touch with the
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company. This is the new way to encourage people to visit the store. The code can only be use
when any consumer will go to the retail outlet of the organization. The consumer will also get
big discounts and free incentives. This is the way by which the company can increase their sales
rate and keep in contact with their consumers.
Market segmentation
The company has already created very strong market in context with the supermarkets
and grocery stores. The products offered by the company have already becoming favourite to the
consumers. Morrisons will expand their market in the coming years by using the geographical
segmentation (Hine and et.al., 2014). The organization has divided the country into four different
parts where they are further categorised into cities or particular regions. They are opening their
stores in the north and east part of UK because the demand of the product is very high in those
parts. It will be easy for Morrisons to attract more number of consumers and increase their sales
rate. Those stores are very easily accessible to the consumers, so it will be easy for them to buy
the products.
They are also taking feedbacks from the consumers about their products and services, so
that they will improve on the defects found by the customers. The company is giving the choice
to the customer to design their product the way they want. They are also including customer's in
the decision making process of the company (Wen and et.al., 2014). The quality of the
merchandise and services are very high, so it will be easy for the consumers to decide whether
they want to purchase the product or not. It will be helpful in creating the brand loyalty among
the consumers because they are receiving quality products at very optimum price. The brand
image will be increased. Through this segmentation, the company will be able to find out the
potential consumers of their products. So, they will gain some competitive advantage in the
market because of the positioning and segmentation.
Morrisons are able to attract new consumers and retaining the old ones, so they are able
to grow their market. It was possible only because they have found the right and loyal
consumers. They are also including those consumers in the decision making process. It will give
them a slight benefit in creating their corporate image (Maity and Dass, 2014). The consumer
will repurchase the products because of the quality of the merchandise. The resources of the
company are utilized at the right places because of the geographic segmentation, therefore the
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investment cost is reduced and their sales rate is increased, which results in increased
profitability.
The consumer's decision making process is based on several steps. The first step is need
of the product. It is the most significant step in purchasing the product. The second step is the
collection of information. Customer will search about the products and compare the prices of that
product to the same product of other companies. He will further look for the alternatives. It is
possible that the consumer will get the same product with the lower prices, so he can easily
switch the brand. Then, finally the consumer will purchase the product, because Morrisons are
producing the best product in the present market (Hazır, 2015). The consumer can also give
feedback about the quality of the merchandise, if he didn't like the product. These are the ways
by which the consumer will decide whether to buy the product or not. The company will also
able to segment the market so that the sales rate can be increased and the profitability can be
improved.
Effective monitoring and control
The business plan is very essential document which tells about all the key elements
essential in running the business. Some companies are not able to monitor the plan and the
effectiveness of that plan will be reduced, so it is important that the company should use such
tools and strategies which will monitor and control the plan more effectively. It can be done by;
Creating the review dates: The integrated plan should be reviewed on the constant basis.
It will become more important when the business is expanding. The reviews should be done
timely, so that the cash flow problems can be reduced and the Morrisons will be able to launch
the new product more effectively (He and et.al., 2014). The review dates will be aligned with the
short and long term goals, so that proper analysis can be done whether the objectives are
achieved by using this plan. If not, then company can make certain changes to improve the plan.
Develop a tracking system: This is very crucial, if the goals are measurable. The
Morrisons can track their sales rate per month or even weekly. It will give them an idea about the
growth rate of the product. There will be some key elements as well, so they are able to track
those elements as well (Yin and et.al., 2015). These are having the market condition, the
competitors revenues and the changes which are taking place in the market. This will give them
idea about their condition in the market irrespective of the issues faced by them.
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Make changes when necessary: it is not that the developed plan can not be changed.
This plan is very much flexible which can be changed as per the requirements in the market and
according to the business condition. The previous elements which are outdated can be changed,
so that the Morrisons will be able to attract more number of consumers. They can even change
the whole plan if their growth rate in not increased (Dinsmore and et.al., 2015). It is very
essential to make continuous changes to sustain in the market for the longer time. The
monitoring system will keep on monitoring the performance of the product and its growth rate. If
the sales is not increasing, Morrisons can change some specification in that merchandise, so that
the quality will be improved and more number of consumers will purchase the product. The
strategies for effective control and monitoring will keep the sustainability of the merchandise.
Steps to measure campaign effectiveness and requirement in performing these steps.
The steps that are used in tracking the results of marketing so that the effectiveness of the
procedure can be evaluated are as follows- Plan the campaign- This step is based on the requirement of the Morrisons from the
marketing. The campaign should be planned in order to achieve the objectives of the
advertising. Further, this step also involves the method in which the campaign would be
tracked so that the effectual can be checked (Claiborne, and Sirgy, 2015) Defining the channels that are to be tracked- The marketing traffic is segmented into
different parts known as channels so that they can be monitored easily. Once the
categorisation is done then depending upon the category they were put it, marketing
operations will be performed.
 Campaign Measurement:
 Measuring " search" marketing performance- This is done with the help of google
analytical. In this step, traffic and data related to the traffic to website is measured.
Further, some more tools that can assist in this measurement are SWO position and pay-
per-click ads.
 Measuring the effectiveness of the social media marketing- All the marketing social
media sites contains a default analytic set up in them which helps the Morrisons in
monitoring the effectiveness of the marketing through posts and messages (Kitchen and
Burgmann, 2015)
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 Measuring Print ads and other media- By creating a devoted webpage in order to measure
the data of print ads, the effectiveness can be measured. This can also be done by tracking
URL.
Some essential requirements in checking the effectiveness of the measuring [process are
as follows:
 Google Analytics: This tool is proved as the most effective marketing measurement tool.
This analytical model is based on the data-drive acknowledgements which contains
advanced segments for the Morrisons. Further there are many comparison tools are also
present in this method.
 Kiss-metrics- Funnel reporting: This tool uses the information from the individual
channel that helps in tracking conversions. Thus, it states the effectiveness of each and
every channel. Further, it also states about where the traffic in bulk type of situation is
arising and also provides the report of origination of the customers of Morrisons
 Marketo- This tool accepts the sophisticated data and then convert it into the simplified
form that can easily be interpreted. The benefits of this tool involves the determination of
the impact of various marketing scheme in generating revenue (Luxton, Reid and
Mavondo, 2015). It also helps in concentrating on the marketing budget of the
organisation.
 Rapid Miner- This tool analyse the modern day reports foe analysing the data mining,
machine learning, etc. This technique helps in combining the data with the business
process to execute the effective business planning.
Intellectual of ethical and legal marketing issues.
Advertising industry needs to follow some regulations by the Federal Trade commission.
These issues covers the ethical and legal factors that can impact upon the adverting and
promotion process. Considering them at the planning of the strategies can help Morrisons in
preparing the tools accordingly. Some legal and ethical issues are as follows:
 Market Research- In context to the market research some ethical issues that are
associated are of privacy penetration and stereotyping. Sometimes, in order to perform
the targeting step, entity penetrates in the private matters of the customer which is not at
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all acceptable by them. Also, if research representation contains any data that is not liked
by the audience then it may also ruin the entire market research.
 Market Audience- These are already present mindset of the earlier organisation towards
the gay, ethical minority and large sized markets that imp[acts the working of present
entities too. These issues are need to be resolves soon in order to perform proper
functioning (McDonagh and Prothero, 2014)
 Misleading claims- These are the false content displayed by the organisation during
promotion. This claims may be about the quality of the product and the service
availability. Organisations are required to ave sufficient evidences to prove these claims
else in case when any damage occurred because of their services then they are liable to
compensate it.
Legal issues involves the false or deceptive messages that were being used by the
organisation during their advertising process. It further involves leaving important information
and using assertive marketing techniques. Business advertising illegal activities also involves
using the trademark or logo of competitive organisation. Also, comparisons made by one entity
with the other is not acceptable according to the government laws. Demoting products and
services of some other enterprise is also considered as a illegal task. Thus, Morrisons need to be
aware of all these function while planning fir advertising and promotion methods. Some legal
actions taken by the Morrisons are as follows:
 Truth in advertising- According to the Federal Act commission act it is necessary to state
truth in advertising (Shah and et.al., 2017). It essential for organisation to have
appropriate evidence of all the matter and claims they used in their promotion. The laws
are also present to deal with such unfairness in case when the product or service causes
damage to customer, these regulations may be used by them.
 Advertising to children- Some content and pictures used in the promotion may harm the
children, as they have habit of imitating the things which they see. Also, some overdone
statements may create bad impact on them and thus, organisations needs to stop such type
of advertising. In context to Morrisons, they use child-friendly content and images in
their promotion.
 Privacy and data Collection- Almost all the customers are highly concerned with leaking
of their personal data shared with the organisation, thus entities need to protect the
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confidentialness of those data . Also, they are not allowed to share the data collected by
them.
 Anti-spam law- According to this law, organisation can not use false or misleading
information to the customers. Morrisons in this context also has a guide to make the
business consumer friendly (Dahl and Yeung, 2015). Also, it implements all the FTC
stated regulations in the operation of the entity and provided employees with the
knowledge of the legal rules.
 Copyright- Morrison keeps the copyright of all the messages and content used by them in
the advertising on the websites. These copyright states the authorship of the original
works.
The barriers involved in marketing planning
Barrier which are involved in the marketing plan are lack of monetary resources due to which
marketing plan cannot be carried out effectively. Further limitation of time is one of the barrier
which can impact the organisation marketing plans.
In respect to overcome the barrier all the resources which are used in an effective manner further
due to limitation of time highly advanced research is not conducted.
There are different factors which can affect the plan such as changes in the taste and preference
of customers and lack of financial resources can also impact the marketing plan.
Task 3
3.1 Comparison of Below the line and above the line techniques
Above the line and below the line techniques are the methods through which Morrisons
used to sell its products in the market. These techniques are used by the organisation to create
brand awareness and make successful sale by giving different offers (Ryan, 2016). Below the
line techniques used by Morrisons are defined as follows:
Door to Door selling:
In this technique, the salesman goes door to sell the product in the public. The product
sold by the salesman is of the same quality which is available at the stores of the organisation. In
door to door selling, the main products involved are washing products, home improvement
products etc.
Coupons:
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Morrison involve various offers like coupons, discounts etc. to attract more customers.
They give coupons to the public with the help of newspapers, direct mails etc. to aware them that
their products are available with high discounts (Suh, 2014).
Trade-in programs:
In this program, the customers are allowed to exchange their old products and purchase
new items in place of it. This technique helps both the customers and organisation as consumer
get new product at low price and exchange the old product which have no use for them.
Above the line techniques:
This technique helps in making mass appeal to the customers. These techniques are used
where the targeting becomes difficult. Tools of these techniques include television, radio,
newspapers, cinema and theatres. Television is the best way to reach the people with a creative
message. The organisation gives adds of their product with the help of televisions so that they
can attract more customers. Further, radio is another method by which awareness among the
people can be generated. Radio is useful for local business and it is easily affordable to every
class of people.
Newspapers and magazines also play an important role in encouraging the people for
purchasing more products. These techniques are purchases by every person as they are the
cheapest medium to increase once knowledge (Igliński and et.al., 2016). Morrisons has
advertised its products with the help of newspapers and magazines to increase the popularity of
their products and services.
Above the line techniques are different from below the line techniques as these
techniques uses promotional strategies like telemarketing, direct mail, sales promotions and
printed media without any graphics. Above the line techniques are used where the promotion of
brands must be done among wide spread of customers rather than individual. On the other hand,
below the line technique are proved to be effective when the target group is large and difficult to
handle (Tuffaha, 2016). Below the line techniques focuses on individual and distributes
pamphlets, stickers, posters, brochures at the point of sale and banners and placards on the roads.
It also includes road shows, boardings, moving vehicles etc. below the line techniques is
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preferred when TG is niche and test marketing strategies. On the other hand, above the line
techniques uses print media, flyers and includes graphics to interact more customers.
Below the line marketing generally is known as the marketing practices which make use
of forms of promotion that do not consider the use of mass media, where, in a firm’s use of an
advertising agency, there is usually no commission charged by the advertising agency, and thus
the expense typically appears ‘below the line’ on the ad agency’s bill to the firm.
Task 4
4.1 Evaluating the organisation capability for planning marketing activities
Morrison believes in meeting the needs of their customers and given second priority to
their competitors. They listen to customers, colleagues, stakeholders, suppliers so that they can
shape their plan to become successful. The organisation has identified their valuable resources as
they help in identifying the physical and financial assets of the firm. Physical resources
determines the building and production capacity of the organisation. Morrison has 132,000
employees and 498 stores which helps them to increase their productivity (Zalengera and et.al.,
2014). Further, human resource of the organisation includes skilled employees which helps them
to achieve their long term objectives and profits. Intellectual capability includes business system,
customer database etc. Morrison has developed various business strategies business plan to
increase their sale and customer database.
SWOT analysis:
Strengths:
Morrison has great distributed networks and efficient supply chains which helps it in
increasing their customer base. It is fourth largest supermarket company in UK. The biggest
advantage of this organisation is that it has 450 stores in different countries and employed
130,000 employees which has contributed in increasing their sale and productivity.
Weaknesses:
The information technology network of Morrison is not developed well which creates
inconvenience for the people (Ho, 2014). Further, it does not focus on the training and
development program of the employees which has affected the performance of the organisation.
In home services and outsourcing facility are not strong and created various issues.
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Opportunities:
As the market of the organisation is increasing continuously which has given it the
opportunity to grow market for organic products. It has grown the opportunity to increase their
international market. Further, the demand for private labels increased which helps them to raise
their sale and revenue.
Threats:
The major threat of Morrison is from their competitors as their market share is increasing
exponentially. This has created pressure on the organisation to focus more on their business
strategies. Further, manpower costs also increased which has directly affected the budget of the
company.
PESTLE analysis:
PESTLE analysis is used to determine impact of future trends of political, economic,
social, technological and legal factors affect the company. This analysis helps in determining
how these factors affect the market planning of the organisation.
Political factors:
Political factors plays an important role in affecting the company's revenue. These factors
include government and legal policies. Government imposes various tax to the organisation's
products which increases their price and hence the company has to raise the costs of their
product. It will increase the burden on the customers (Safa, and et.al., 2015). Morrison has to
suffer loss if it does not increase the price of the products.
Economic factors:
Due to food consumer price inflation, the customers are not able to buy the high costs and
branded product which has adversely affected the economic condition of the organisation.
Social factors:
Due to increase in the number of aged people in UK, Morrison has great opportunity to
increase their supermarket in the country. Retired consumers have higher income which
encourages them to buy branded and high quality products.
Technological factors:
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Technological changes brings various changes in the market. Increase in use of internet
encourages people to buy more and easily the products of the organisation. Morrison has
introduced grocery e-commerce services to increase its sale through internet.
Legal factors:
This factors include legal laws and legislation which every organisation has to follow in
order to prevent from legal issues. Morrison has supported and followed all the policies related to
the government so that it can increase its sales and gain the trust of their customers.
Environmental factors:
Morrison has used environment friendly methods to increase their sale. They have
increased the use of paper packeting and plastic bags which are recyclable (Luxton, Reid and
Mavondo, 2015). Further, it has also focused on methods which are carbon free.
4.2 Evaluating the impact of ethical issues on market planning
There are various ethical issues which affect directly to the performance of the
organisation. Morrison interact directly to their customers with the help of internet. This creates
various ethical repercussions and directly affects the life of the customers. The organisation has
to face public backlash in the case when unethical research practises are found. Further,
unethical practises divides the public into different segments. This will decrease their revenue
because the demand of the customers is declined rapidly. Further, ethical issues are arises when
the company promotes its products (Ahuja, 2016). The negative policy of advertising will
adversely affect the company as it will give golden opportunity to the competitors to increase
their sale. Additionally, the company will lose the trust of their customers which in turn affect
their economy.
The organisation is also facing various problems from anti competitive policies as
increase in bit and switch policies misguides the customers and they buy duplicate products.
They are encouraged by the advertisements which are wrong and comes in trouble. Further,
stereotyping is another ethical issue for Morrison which creates numerous ethically undesirable
results (Shen and et.al., 2016.). Further, the organisation collects various data for developing
marketing policy. The company track customers details for promoting their products. Collection
of data will help them to choose the best technique for their users. Morrisons has to make sure
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that ethical pricing strategies are performed so that the firm can increase its profits. Buyers and
sellers looks to make profits. Buyers wants that get high quality products at reasonable price
while sellers concentrates that will make more profits.
Price fixing is to maintain the price of the products. Price fixing is considered as
unethical and irresponsible because it does not follow the laws which are essential in promoting
the products of the company and increases the competition between two firms. The impact of
ethical issues in marketing planning can be reduced by following all the laws and regulations of
the government (Blakeman, 2014). Further, it can reduce by providing workplace ethics training
to the employees. Another way is to create the policies and rules which are based on
organisation's mission and objectives. By adopting these methods, Morrison can effectively
handle the ethical issues and increase its productivity.
CONCLUSIONS
Marketing communication and consumer behaviour are two important tools needed in
marketing. This report covers the various aspects of these two to bring the effectiveness in the
promotion and advertisement procedures. In this study, different consumer behaviour models
and impact of environmental factors on them are also explained that provides marketers with the
knowledge to deal with them. Further, the importance of advertising and promotion in the
marketing is also highlighted in this learning. Also, role of advertising and branding in
preparation of promotional strategies are also existing in this learning. It is crucial to have an
impelling plan for marketing and integrated promotion of a service and product and this plan
depends upon numerous factors that are studies in this assignment. Marketing is a process that
involves various techniques in its completion and this report provides deep knowledge of those
techniques. Further, the calibre of the chosen organization in planning activities of marketing are
also evaluated using an audit. This unit also comprises of the various legal and ethical issues
along with their impact which are present on the way of advertising. Also, ways to suppress
those problems are also existing in this study.
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