Marketing Fundamentals: Processes, Stages, and Role of Marketing Mix

This article explores the fundamentals of marketing, including the processes and stages involved. It discusses the role of marketing mix in creating customer values and the impact of stakeholder engagement on marketing activities. The case of Adidas is used as an example.

Marketing Fundamentals

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
TASK 1A.........................................................................................................................................1
Processes along with stages of marketing including marketing mix role....................................1
Role of marketing for creating values for customers...................................................................5
Stakeholder engagement addition to impacts on organisational activities related to marketing. 5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is mentioned as the art and science to broadcast the value prop of a company
in market place. Marketing fundamental is described as creating customer values along with
developing loyalty and commitment regarding business products (Ashmarina and Zotova, 2016).
The marketing is needed at a firm for identifying consumer needs so that further strategies are
build and implemented within dynamic environment for satisfying customers and meeting all the
objectives promptly. To understand marketing fundamentals, Adidas is selected which is one of
multinational corporation which designs together with manufactures clothing, accessories as well
as shoes. The organisation is headquartered at Herzogenaurach, Germany and is largest
manufacturer of sportswear items. The essay includes processes addition to stages of marketing
considering role of marketing mix. It also includes marketing role for creating values for
customers and stakeholders engagement together with impacts on marketing activities of the
company.
MAIN BODY
TASK 1A
Processes along with stages of marketing including marketing mix role.
According to Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick (2019), marketing is mention to the activity
and process to manufacture, communicate, deliver along with exchange offerings which are
valuables for society and customers at large. Marketing process is perpetual series of action
addition to reaction among customers and company. It assist managers of business to analyse
opportunities, selecting target market, managing marketing efforts and developing marketing mix
so to place the commodities appropriately in the market for obtaining huge productivity level. By
following all the the stages of processes that are part of marketing, organisational marketers
think in strategic manner and develop strategies for identifying demands within the market. For
this, managers of Adidas properly follow processes of marketing that involves few stages. The
marketing process comprises of five stages through which successful outcomes could be gained
by the entity for creating values among potential customers and loyalty can be enhanced.
However, Adidas implies certain stages of marketing that are explained underneath:
1

Illustration 1: Stages and processes of marketing. 2020
(Source: Stages and processes of marketing. 2020)
The first stage is to identify and set mission of company as it is significant for marketing
success (Stages and processes of marketing, 2020). In context to Adidas, the vision is to become
design leader through emphasising on getting best of athletes with action guaranteed items in
international sports market. By having clear mission the organisation can propel all its marketing
tactics as well as performs other functions accordingly. It also assist stakeholders to identify the
organisational existence purpose. In context to the next stage of marketing, it is situational
analysis in which the internal and external surroundings are evaluated so to analyse factors
which have potentiality to affect the institution and market. Situational analysis illuminates
strengths and challenges that are faced by internal resources as well as external business
competition. It provides objective addition to clear view about business health, industry trends,
position in market and prospective customers. By using SWOT analysis method, the situational
analysis are conducted by management team of Adidas. The respective organisation has
impressive record in context to developing new commodities and effectively executing
2

operations in the market. The strength of Adidas are that it has constituted itself as youthful
brand and posses multiple product portfolio, effective distribution system, strong relationship
among sustainability area and strong financial position. In context to the weaknesses of it, it
follows premium pricing due to which product rates are high and are only affordable by limited
customers. Other than this, the company has outsourced manufacturing and limited product line
that only provides long term benefits rather than short term goals achievements. The entity can
grab opportunities such as expanding product line, developing its market, integrate research and
development with operations so to perform in open system. The major threat that are associated
with Adidas are fierce competition, changing regulations of government in distinct nations and
suppliers dominance.
The nest stage is marketing strategy in which identifies opportunities are further
prioritise as well as map out through which further activities are pursued. Marketing strategy
helps in specifying target customers together with the ways to reach them. It also includes
prediction of anticipated results. Herein, marketers of Adidas uses STP approach so to segment,
target and position the positions in the market. The segment the entire market as per geographic,
demographic, psycho-graphic and behavioural segmentations (Coussement and Demoulin,
2017). Later, they targets the suitable segmentation by considering size of area, needs of
population, occupation, income, education level, patterns of usage, brand loyalty, lifestyle and
price sensitivity. For promotion, wide marketing tools such as direct advertising, social media
promotions and many more are used by the marketers of the entity. The next stage is marketing
mix within which decisions about marketing mix elements are set by the company. In this,
Adidas managers identifies various factors within which actions are to be performed. For
example, manufacturing product, setting price, places at which product will be available to
customers and promotional mediums. The last stage of marketing is implementation and
control within which all the frameworks, actions and other are executed in proper forma. In this
stage, managers of Adidas communicate all plans to marketers and other functional units so that
plans are positioned in action. Herein, the marketers reaches to targetted customers so to inform
and persuade them for the organisational products.
Marketing mix plays huge pivotal role within a business as it assist in clean mix creation,
new product development, enhancing product portfolio, provides guidances for improving
business, helps in differentiation and aids in being dynamic (Heagney, 2016). The elements
3

provides convenient framework to the entity for opting suitable marketing strategy. The
marketing mix of Adidas is as explained:
Product: The element is concerned with diversification of commodities that are offered
for attracting mass population. It regards to Adidas, it offers huge variety of items such as
sportswear, footwear, clothings, accessories, sports equipment and toiletries. Product element
plays important role as all the success depends on these only.
Price: Within the element, cost of commodities are involved that consumers have to pay
so to acquire the products. Adidas uses skimming pricing along with competitive pricing strategy
so to run the mills of its commodities. These pricing strategy plays crucial role of attracting
people towards the brand so that profits are achieved.
Place: It is associated with the location where organisational products will be available
for customers (Deepak and Jeyakumar, 2019). In context to Adidas, its commodities are
available at retail outlets, its exclusive stores, multi brand showrooms and online mediums. The
place element plays role of on timely availability of products and improving productivity.
Promotion: Adidas promotes by using several marketing vehicles. Promotions of the
company items are done through television along with product placements, sponsorships, social
media platforms and direct advertising for communicating customers. It plays role in improving
sales volume in impressive manner.
People: These are the staff members that performs actions to achieve objectives. At
present, Adidas has more than 57000 employees working in different units and have role of
properly executing all the roles and responsibilities on time and effectively.
Physical Evidence: The working environment of Adidas stores and other premises are
hygienic as well as favourable to customers and employees. Along with this, it also maintains its
website in fantastic manner that performs role of catching attention of wide individuals and
promoting image of brand.
Process: Adidas managers follows various processes that perform role of informing
customers about diverse products and accomplishing objectives that enriches improvement in
firm profitability ratio (Johnson, 2018).
Thus, In context to Adidas, with marketing mix the managers examines market trends
addition to customer demand so that they can contribute in devising plans for attaining huge
customer satisfaction level.
4

Role of marketing for creating values for customers.
For creating values for customers, marketing plays effective role as with marketing all the
information prior to release of product are provided and after availability of products for sale
marketing helps in delivering strong messages. Marketing plays essential role to grab attention of
audiences along with creating interest of customers in the offerings. In addition, marketing
involves diverse elements including evaluating market trends, evaluating customer needs and
assessing sales potentiality of business (Keegan, 2017). In order to achieve the aspects, Adidas
makes prompt efforts for analysing emerging and existing market trends so that best strategic
decisions are implemented to obtain maximum revenues through optimal resource utilisation. In
addition, market also have role of creating, communicating and presenting values to customers
so to meet needs of targetted customers. Foremost purpose of Adidas' functional area of
marketing is to search and keep customers retained through implementing improved promotional
strategies such as sales promotion, product placement and television that helps in creating new
opportunities to remain in competitive market and enlarging business productivity. The role of
Adidas' marketing so to develop values towards the customer as it involves few phases that are
discussed underneath:
Identify customers: Herein, managers of Adidas understand wants, preferences and
perception of customers and accordingly evaluate that to whom they will target and set the ways
to reach towards them.
Customer satisfaction: In this, the marketing team of Adidas plays role of setting
suitable prices and product available at accurate location and on accurate time that satisfies the
customers that leads in adding values for them (Perreault, 2018).
Retain individuals: Herein, marketers searches new opportunities and plays role of
retaining potential customers with the brand through better ways.
Thus, marketing plays huge role in ascertaining customers needs, providing information
for manufacturing products and spreading awareness about organisational products that leads in
creating values for huge customers.
Stakeholder engagement addition to impacts on organisational activities related to marketing.
Stakeholders are independent party or group of people who have keen interest in
practices of business and either affects or are affected by the entity. Stakeholders matrix is
considered as a tool with the use of which business analyses involvement of number of
5

stakeholders within the project and determined their practices that can impact organisational
activities (Mitra, 2016). With stakeholder engagement, administrators identifies together with
frames marketing strategies. Some of stakeholders that are part of respective business are
employees, suppliers, government, investors and many more. Distinct kinds of stakeholders
impacts in different manner on activities of Adidas concerned with marketing. By using
stakeholder involvement assessment matrix, organisational administrators analyses position of
stakeholder engagement together with their impacts on some of marketing activities.
The matrix involves 5 categories including resistant, leading, unaware, supportive and
neutral. In context to Adidas, its stakeholders are further bifurcated into existing and desired
status that helps in knowing impacts on the activities. The stakeholder involvement level addition
to impacts are described underneath:
Unaware: The stakeholders of Adidas that falls in this category are community or
general public who are least aware about pertaining or new marketing activities along with
project of organisation. Such stakeholders have potentiality to decrease sales volume of products
so it is essential for the respective entity to emphasis on these stakeholders.
Resistant: Employees are the stakeholder kind that are part of the category as they are
fully aware about all the marketing function together with the impacts and they resist adopting
any change that impacts on implementing new practices in marketing (Taylor, 2015).
Neutral: Customers of Adidas falls under neutral category as they are conscious about
marketing projects addition to impacts. These stakeholders neither support and also not resistant
to the entity. They least impact on the marketing activities of business.
Supportive: These stakeholders are those who are aware about organizational project,
marketing activities and also supports changes. These are the suppliers whose decisions may
impact activities concerned with marketing of Adidas either positively or negatively.
Leading: The stakeholders which are part of leading category are investors and business
partners who have detailed information about all marketing activities that are implemented or are
to be executed. These stakeholders generally provides their key thoughts and viewpoints while
framing marketing related activities that impacts positively.
Hence, as per stakeholders involvement level the marketing strategies, activities and
plans are developed and enforced that also impacts positively or negatively on such activities.
6

CONCLUSION
All organisations performs various marketing actions so to promote and sell the items
that are manufactured at their premises. Marketing procedure generally includes wide ways
which creates values through which maximum needs of customers are elated. Through this,
marketing strategies are developed by managers to accomplish the tasks on time. The elements
of marketing mix are termed to product, people, promotion, price, physical evidence, place and
people that have significant role in promoting or marketing the brand and its manufactured items.
Stakeholders engagement level assist organisation administrators to take corrective actions so to
implement activities for gaining competing advantages.
7

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Ashmarina, S. and Zotova, A., 2016. The system of marketing information management:
development, assessment, improvement. Економічний часопис-ХХІ, (160), pp.51-56.
Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2019. Digital marketing. Pearson UK.
Coussement, K. and Demoulin, N., 2017. Marketing research with SAS enterprise guide.
Routledge.
Deepak, R. K. A. and Jeyakumar, S., 2019. Marketing management. Educreation Publishing.
Heagney, J., 2016. Fundamentals of project management. Amacom.
Johnson, P., 2018. Fundamentals of collection development and management. American Library
Association.
Keegan, W. J., 2017. Global marketing management. Pearson India.
Mitra, A., 2016. Fundamentals of quality control and improvement. John Wiley & Sons.
Perreault, W. D., 2018. Essentials of marketing. New York: Mc Graw Hill.
Taylor, B., 2015. Marketing in an audiology practice. Plural Publishing.
Online:
Stages and processes of marketing. 2020. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.smartsheet.com/strategic-marketing-processes-and-planning>
8