The Marketing Mix and Product Development

This assignment delves into the relationship between the marketing mix and product development. It examines the seven Ps of the marketing mix (Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People, Process, and Physical Evidence) and how they influence each stage of the product development process. Students are expected to analyze the significance of these elements in creating a successful product launch and market penetration strategy.

MARKETING ESSENTIALS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
P1 Role and Responsibility of marketing function.................................................................1
P2 Explain how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organisational
context....................................................................................................................................4
P3 marketing mix of different organisation............................................................................6
P4. Marketing plan for Argos.................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCE.................................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is a business function that deals with buying and selling of goods and services.
Marketing is the effort done by an organisation to gain more customers or to maintain the
satisfaction level of existing customer. Earlier marketing focused only on advertisement and
promotion but with the changing time, now it includes marketing research and as well as after
sale services. This study describes the role and responsibility of marketing of Argos. Argos
render technological retail product like TV, camera, games, home audio and video, car, radio etc.
to its customer. Company also provide Furniture, toys, clothing’s, jewellery, health and beauty
products, baby care product, gifts. It is subsidiary of Sainsbury. Study try to get the idea of
marketing mix imply by different company. Study also covers the basic marketing plan made by
Argos for its new and existing product. The way different functional unit have interrelation with
marketing to achieve organisation objective also included.
P1 Role and Responsibility of marketing function
Marketing role and responsibility has very thin line to differentiate between these two.
Marketing role are playing a part in specific function like marketing play a role of researcher and
communicator, where responsibility are expectation attach while paying the role. For instance it
is a general expectation of Argos from its marketing department that it would conduct market
research with full accuracy so that company can get reliable data about customer need and
preference, accordingly it can make new product and improvise the existing product and service
to meet customer satisfaction level (Kladou. and et.al., 2016) Detailed roles and responsibility of
marketing department are given below:
Role of marketing
1.recognition of customer need
This role can be understand as researcher's role pay by marketing team by identify the
customer need and preference. To play this role marketing team of Argos first identifies its
market segment after that it look into factor affecting their buying behaviour, habits, expectation
of consumers. Following role become so important when a company render product which can
be use by customer in day to day life. Argos first get clear idea about its customer choice, trend
and preference than only it makes its customer because one of the important objective of retail
industry is to enhance customer satisfaction, if an organisation even don't know about its
consumer how can it make something for them. Agroes enjoys competitor advantage because it
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always tries to grab the market share and profitably form its competitor by making its costumer
happy. Organisation recently launch electronic item having artificial intelligence. Apart from it
company make technological changes in its store to offer best shopping experience to
customer(Holbrook, 2018)
Communicator
Marketing function facilitate internal and external communication. As internal
communicator marketing team give information of market, sales, competitors, customer
behaviours knowledge , technological changes to internal department of organisation, where in
external communication it introduces new or value added product and service to existing and
potential customer by promotional activities. Company use integrated information software to
share real time data with others. Argos marketing department has good relation with finance,
HR, production and IT department. To convey massage and information with customer company
use social media tools, TV, radio, events, newspaper. For new product it offers discount, coupon,
rebate , lucky draw, finance options, contest etc (Verma, 2017.)
Responsibility of marketing function
product development:
Product manufacturing is responsibility of production department but product
development come under marketing function. Product development activities cover customer
need recognition, idea generation , product designing, innovation pricing, costing, competitors,
commercialization, internal and external business environment scanning, etc. for instances
Argos's marketing team find that traditional electronic material are tough to recycle, it
contributes to E wastage and it also add toxic in water, soil, sea. So team decide to make organic
electronic devices. These devices contain environmental friendly material. Marketing team has
to know its internal, external weakness to know that company has enough technology and fund
available or not for this kind of product.(Gillespie. and Riddle, 2015)
Develop promotional plan
Promotional plan is use to communicate about new and existing product to its target
audience. Various promotion activities are advertisement, personal selling, direct marketing
which are used to introduce a new product, re-launch value added and innovative service and
product, improve awareness of existing product, more usages' suggestion, to increase sale and to
enter in new market. Marketing department is responsible to opt most suited promotional tool for
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customer. For instance company use internet for advertisement and promotion among youngster
and opt direct selling promotion tool like newspaper and TV for 50+ age customer because these
customers have less technological acceptance(Gillespie. and Riddle, 2015.)
M1
Marketing environment comprises internal and external factor which affect the relation of
customer and organisation. Internal marketing environment comprises employee, shareholder,
distributor, customer and retailer. Role of marketing for employee to inform them about skill,
knowledge and experience required to enhance their performance in current marketing situation.
Marketing team responsible to make enough profits so that shareholder can get expected return.
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Figure 1products development
(Sources: steps of product development, 2018)

Marketing function role to is for its customer is to increase their satisfaction. Marketing manager
must set price for the product which render adequate profit margin to retailer and distributor.
Marketing manager design product and promotional strategies which is acceptable in
particular social and cultural framework. In case of adverse economical condition, marketing
team try to cut down its expenses so that products in less price can be offer to customer and they
will not decrease their demand in such condition. Technological change are always welcome by
marketing department because it helps in improve customer satisfaction so marketing team give
information of the latest technology to higher authority as well as IT department. Product
packaging changes are made by team to respond environmental issues (Hugos, 2018)
P2 Explain how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organisational context.
Role of marketing:
Marketing plays an important role in organisation. Marketing involves selling, advertising,
promotional activities, auditing, analysing, product management, pricing, packing, labelling,
distribution, consumer service, evaluation, etc. function of marketing are performed by
marketing managers or a group of persons of the organisation, having knowledge and skills
related to marketing.
Some important roles of marketing are as follows:
 Defining and managing the brand: it means showing a detailed description about the
company and the brand to the whole world. Argos marketing manager performs this
function by showing the world what the brand is, what are the essentials of brand, where
it stands, what the company says about itself. Mainly it defines what the customers are
going to get if they buy the products of Argos(Karnaukhova. and Polyanskaya, 2016)
 Production of marketing and promotional materials: marketing department of Argos
creates promotional materials for the sake of attracting more customers towards it. It is
also duty of manager to keep the material up-to-date and make changes time to time.
 Conducting market research: marketing also involves conducting market research after
certain time frequently. Research helps the company to be updated about the recent
trends, consumer behaviour, their needs, etc. along with these research also helps in
updating the targets opportunities in the market.
 Monitoring and managing social media: it is the key role of marketing for the Argos. In
general sense doing marketing means advertising the product on social media. Social
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media is the strongest way of advertising nowadays therefore, any advertisement must be
monitor so that no wrong message about the company could be spread out(Khan, 2014)
Responsibilities of marketing
As the marketing plays a vital role in the company, marketing also have some responsibilities
towards Argos. Some important responsibilities of marketing are as follows:
 Creation of understanding of market: Argos has given a key responsibility to the
marketing manager of have a greater understanding about the market. As unless the
market has been researched carefully, company can not stand in the market for a long
period. As to stay in the market, it is important to know the latest market strategies to
make itself updated.
 Creation of marketing plans: creation of marketing plan is important because through
marketing plans, Argos brings new strategies within the organisation for enhancement of
the business(Scarborough, 2016)
 Auditing customer's experience: customer's satisfaction is major factor of every
organisation. It is the major responsibility of marketing to continue taking feedback from
its customer, and in case if there is any negative feedback for the product, firm take
immediate action to resolve it(Burns, Bush. and Sinha, 2014)
 Identification of target market: without identification of target market for the company,
no company can stay in the market. Marketing manager has to identify its target market
and making their plans for more growth accordingly.
 Development of new product: developing the new product is one of the main
responsibility of marketing. It is essentials for every company to develop new products
over the time or bring changes in the existing products to make them more efficient or
attractive for the customers.
 Understanding strength and weaknesses of the company: any decision or plan will be
effective only if it has been made while taking into account the strength and weaknesses
of the company. Marketing plans should be made in such a way so that application of
them could enhance the strength of Argos and reduce the weakness of it.
With this context we can see that marketing managers have some major responsibilities in the
organisation. Decisions of marketing managers can change the scenario of whole department.
Therefore, it is important for the manager to take decisions carefully as success or failure of the
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Argos majorly depends upon the action and decisions of the marketing manager (Kladou. and
et.al., 2016)
Interrelation of marketing function with other functional departments:
Marketing is a core department of Argos. The actions of marketing also have effect over the
other functional departments of the company.]
 Finance department: finance department of Argos have the entire brief of every
department of the company. Marketing may help the finance department to enhance its
profitability over the year. Marketing department oversees the sales of the company.
Hence, finance department need not to focus on the sales rather it can have focus on cash
flows, costs etc.(Luo, Roach. and Jiratchot, 2016). Finance department prepares budget
for marketing department so that all the activities can be carried out in effective way.
 Operation and production management: marketing department of Argos works closely
with the production department to ensure that adequate research is helping in satisfying
the customer needs. The operational management also need to ensure that demands
generated by the marketing department is fulfilling without any shortage. marketing
department provides information to operations department regarding needs and trend of
market so that products are developed accordingly and needs of customers can be
effectively satisfy.
 Human resource department: human resource management is majorly effected by
marketing. As all marketing strategies can be achieved through it human resources only.
Whenever Argos decides to make any changes in the marketing, it effects the HR dept.
because they need to make new plans in order to trained their resources accordingly.
From the above explanation, it can be seen that marketing is an essential part of Argos.
Marketing managers plays important role in growth of the company. Roles and responsibilities
comes together. Therefore, along with important role, manager also have some key
responsibilities in the company. For the potential growth of any organisation, a
marketingmanager needs to fulfil all the roles and responsibilities efficiently(Wilson, 2014)
Marketing bridges the gap between customer and market. To provide a great market to
the customer, having a good marketing plan is very important. Marketing is the key factor to
which helps in enhancing the profitability of the company.
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All the other functional units mentioned above have a significant interrelation with
marketing as they has to change their plans and strategies accordingly in case there is any change
ion marketing like giving training to employees accordingly by HR dept, making the products
available in the market as per the marketing plans by production dept., etc.
P3 marketing mix of different organisation
Marketing mix show the effort of organisation to influence its customer's buying
decision. Marketing mix cover each and every element to bring product from company to
customer. Earlier there were only 4p's practice in marketing mix of any organisation but now
combination of 7'P are used to impress customers. Argos make and control its product, price,
promotion, physical evidence, people, process and packaging to attract potential customer and
to retain its existing customers.(Hisrich. and Ramadani, 2017) Marketing mix of Argos and it's
competitor Tesco is given below:
Argos marketing mix Tesco marketing mix
Product Product is all the items and service made
for sale or to consume by consumer.
Argos product basket is narrow than
Tesco. It offers its customer electronic
items, games, toys, gifts, Jewellery,
beauty and health product, sports etc. i
Tesco's product basket include so many
products which is frequently used by
customer like online and offline
grocery, clothings, health and beauty
products, pet food, stationary , drinks,
frozen food, bakery product etc.
Place Place is the distribution strategy of
organisation so that product and service is
easily and effortlessly make available to
customer whenever they want to purchase.
Argos directly sale the product to its
customer via store outlet, company has its
store in retail mall. Customer can place
their order from company's website and
app as well. Argos even use logistic,
supply chain and distribution of sainsbury.
Organisation want to open 600 store in
Tesco has its store in supermarket. Its
store are divided into three categories
based upon its size. i.e. Tesco
superstores, which have large groceries
and less non food items. Tesco Metro
has standard size of 1,000 square
metres, this store are situated in middle
of the cities, product having high profit
margin are kept in Tesco Express, it can
be called as premium store of company
Tesco also have its own website and
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near future. Argos also has its store
outlet in sainsbury stores.(Nguyen. et.al.,
2015) these store can be seen in shopping
mall and airport.
app. Even it makes contract with online
grocery product suppliers. Its store are
available in shopping mall, airports,
tourist places. (Wilson, 2014.)
Physical
evidence
This element of marketing mix focus on
environmental set up which attract the
customer. Physical evidence of retail
industry comprises store outlet ambience,
spatial layout sign, symbol, app and
website etc. Argos more focus on store
outlet in its physical evidence as its store
because it wants to attract its customer by
shops and walk in. employee also have
Electronic scanners in their hands which is
attached with internet. These scanners
help staff to gain real time information of
product. For instance employee can scan
the bar code available on product and
every information about product.
Tesco use logo, equipment, colour and
labels as its physical Evidence.
Company put more focus to convey
authenticity of product to its customer.
Tesco is keen to acquire the latest
technology of retail store to get
competitive advantage. So company
make required changes in company's
website and app . it does not mean
company do not pay attention to store
set and facilities. Company recent
improvise its self checkout facility for
smooth sales and purchasing experience.
People Argos and Tesco are same in its people
element of marketing mix because both
the organisation deals in same industry.
Argos's people are its employee,
customers and other stakeholders.
Company put empathise on customised
training and development programme to
render carrier growth opportunity to them.
Customer are taken care off by using
CRM. Company try to give expected
return to its shareholder by increase the
Tesco has large number of employee
with it. Organisation believe in
proactive action rather than reactive
action, means company carefully recruit
and select the employee for its
organisation. It reduces the training and
development expense of company.
Organisation enhances the productivity
of employee by give value to high
performers. Customer get benefited by
best customer service and high quality
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sale(Ryan, 2016) product.
Process Process is the also called buying process.
in retail industry process must insure how
smoothly a customer buy a product and
take it to home. Company introduce” Text
and Take Home” policy in which Argos
send massage to customer for new
product. In this policy a potential
customer can acquire the information
about weather product is available to buy
or not. Customer can reserve the product
by phone order and can pick up later.
Apart from it also introduces Quick pay
service in stores.
Tesco focus on accessibility and quality
of service and production capacity of
organisation. Customer can easily
access the product because company
has large number of store in country,
Technical changes like more use
augmented machines, AI technology,
virtual dressing experience, self check
out facility are some the effort done
Tesco to offer seamless buying
experience to customer. These
technologies help organisation to take
competitive advantage in market and get
more market share.
Price Argos use different pricing strategies as
per quality, size and value of the product.
It uses differentiate pricing policy for
differ product. When company want to
give better quality in less price than it cut
down its marketing expenses. Company
also start using technology in its supply
chain and logistic to insure cost
effectiveness.
Tesco is committed to give low price
product to its customer. Company also
work its supplier so that it can manage
the cost of product. Company opt law
pricing strategy for customer. RFID is
now used to maintain supply chain,
warehouse and logistics(Mishra. and
Modi, 2016)
Promotion Argos promotion are more focused on
brand awareness. Company categorised its
customer in two part named “the don't get
its' and 'the get its'. The don't get are the
people who are nor regular customer, but
they make buy occasionally from
Tesco use both traditional and latest
technology in promotion. Tesco Club
card” loyalty card is unique promotional
activity of the company, customer earn
point in each transaction that they can
redeem to get discount. Tesco use social
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company. Company advertisement consist
two character named an ageing rock star
for don't get it and his personal assistant.
In this advertisement don't get it gives
information regards product of company
to “the get it”. Company broadcast this
advertisement on sports' channel and
music channel frequently. (Mishra. and
Modi, 2016.)
media to target youngsters and for old
and middle adults they prefer direct
promotion tool(Scarborough, 2016)
P4. Marketing plan for Argos.
Marketing plan consist of the marketing strategy and tactics that would be use by
company to reach its existing and potential customer. Argos also develop marketing for different
objective like to penetrate in market, improve the product and brand image, suggest customer
about new uses of product etc. marketing plan is given below:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Marketing plan is a statement which contain all the activities which requires launching a
new product or to accomplish any specific goal. This marketing plan cover SWOT analysis of
Argos company. Also in cover STP, marketing mix strategies, budget of marketing and monitor
policies for new high tech furniture.
VISION : to increase the customer satisfaction and full fill their need by render them the best
furniture in market.
MISSION: to achieve the above vision, company decide to open its store across the UK.
Set marketing objective
Marketing objective are the short term goal set by marketing department. Objective
convey the purpose of specific marketing plan for instance to increase sale, increase profit,
improvise customer relation, introduce new product, target new customer, more profit to
stakeholder, risen the market share etc. Argos going to launch collection of high tech home
décor furniture. This marketing plan made to introduce product to customer. Marketing objective
must full the SMART criteria for effectiveness. Company's wants to increase its sale by 30% for
its new launching furniture till the end of 2019.
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(McDonald. and Wilson, 2016)
Situational analysis
Situation analysis done to know the business environment and Argos strength and
weakness to tackle the impact of macro environment. SWOT is used for internal assessment so
that company get to know its capability to match with its plan or not. . For instance technological
change force company to choose online marketing promotion. Cultural and social factor affect
the marketing decision of store decoration &setting and advertisement, like company can not
use broadcast unethical, and manipulative massage in advertisements(Ryan, 2016.)
Strength
 Sound financial position as company is
subsidiary of leading retail company
Sainsbury.
 Enormous working capital as company
has 51000+ employee working with it.
 Efficient distribution channel
 the best online service
Weakness
low market share
 Company do not have global presence
yet
 Argos faced some controversy which
put negative impact on its image like
employee has to work even on Sunday,
irrelevant price etc.
Opportunities
 Company get its 80% from online trade
so company must improve its website
and app.
 As company has nice financial
condition it must go for product
diversification.
 The Best distribution channel provide
opportunities to increase its market
share.
Threat
 Government policies.
 Company really have so many strong
competitor which deeply hurt
 Environment change affect the supply
chain and logistic of company.
 Economical and political disturbance
Segmentation, targeting and positioning
Segmentation is process of identifies the potential customer for product. High furniture
collection are brought for middle and high income group. Lifestyle and standard of people
demands the latest technological must be there in home. It applies demographic segmentation
strategy and targets people on the bases of their income.
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Customer can buy direct from Argos store as well as they can order the furniture from
app and website. Company choose to give discount and coupon for both options. Company
choose value addition pricing mean a customer pay high if they demand high. Standard and
normal furniture having less technology has low price. Targeting strategy of business is
differentiated targeting .target market of the company is high and middle income level people
having high living standards .
Positioning is the effort to earn positive perception for the product. Argos wants image
of best customised technology embedded furniture for its new launch. Company also try for
making “flexible shopping time” perception for this product. Flexibility mean here , when a
customer want customised and fast purchasing they will always choose Argos. To achieve image
this company take order from mobile. Customer can collect the order when they want to. (Luo,
Roach. and Jiratchot, 2016)
7P’s
Product- Argos offer all kind of home furniture set up like sofa, bed, cabinet, modular kitchen
cabinets with the latest technology in it.
Price-
Company decided to go for value addition and differentiate pricing policy for this. Like
customer has to pay more if they want premium version of furniture , where for basic technology
they have to pay less. Differentiate pricing mean company going to take differ price from high
income level group and middle income level group.
Promotion:
Argos will go for online and offline promotion. Online promotion will be done on social
media, pop ups on furniture retailer's websites and architecture's business websites. Offline
promotion cover newspaper, pamphlet distribution and home décor magazines.
Place:
Customer can avail furniture from direct company's store as well they can place order
online by suing app, website , phone and by Email as well.
Physical setup
Argos render tool on app and website which enable customer to optimise the furniture as
per their requirement. Company's store also have dummy furniture so that customer can feel real
time experience at store.
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Process
Furniture can smoothly purchase by online shopping option as well as customer receive
proper suggestion and assistance by staff at store. Staff communicate each and every aspect of
product to remove confusion of customer in buying product.
People
People of Argos incudes its customer and employee. Company design proper technical
training to its employee regarding furniture so that they can easily convey everything about
furniture to customer. Customer are taken care by rendering them so many options to buy
product.
Marketing budget
Argos required £ 16666 to marketing and promotion activities
Marketing expenses 8855
Salary to marketing team 2951
Commission to distributor and supplier 4166
Office expenses 694
Total cost 16666
Monitoring and control
To evaluate the effective and outcome of marketing plan Argos choose to get feedback
from customer. Marketing manager set the sale target to for individual marketing employee,
which also will be taken into consideration when for measure the actual result. If manager find
low gap in actual result and standard result than sale team will be rewarded. Where in case of
high variation in result marketing manager will conduct marketing audit, Ratio Analysis and
market share analysis. Organisation have integrated information system which communication
real time data and result to every department so that corrective action taken by them on time.
(Wilson, 2014.)
CONCLUSION
Through the above study it has been concluded that marketing department of Argos is
quite strong. They have prepared different plans for the growth of company. And approved the
plan only after evaluating all the key factors that affecting the growth. Manger knows that their
decisions have important role in the growth of the organisation therefore, they have taken all the
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decisions carefully. Marketing mix tools of the Argos also has been evaluated while taking
decisions and making plans. Marketing manager has carefully understood their all roles' and
responsibilities in the organisation and is working according to them. Strategies have been
designed as per the mission, vision and policies of the company for making them more effective.
In this context we can say that marketing of the company is working at its best level.
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Online
steps of product development. 2018. [Online]. Available through
<http://fortetech.in/product_dev.html>
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