Marketing Mix Strategies and Distribution Techniques

This assignment discusses the importance of marketing mix strategies in business growth. It explores the four Ps (product, place, promotion, and price) and their impact on customer behavior. The study also examines different distribution techniques, such as exclusive distribution, selective distribution, intensive distribution, and franchising. A good distribution strategy should consider attributes like visibility to customers, types of stores where potential customers often go, and access to various distribution channels. The assignment concludes that marketing mix strategies differ from one company to another, and companies use various tools for promoting their products, such as public relations, advertising, personal selling, and setting prices using strategies like price skimming or competitors parity.

Marketing Mix

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK...............................................................................................................................................1
Target market..............................................................................................................................1
Comparison of 4P's of marketing ...............................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Marketing mix includes all the tools that are used to fulfil objectives of marketing , it
includes price mix, promotion mix, place mix and product mix(Andrews and Shimp, 2017).The
present study is done on comparative marketing strategy of Lucozade Energy and Red Bull
companies where Lucozade Energy is a Japanese company that manufacture soft drink
introduced in 1927 whereas Red Bull is an American company, which has the highest market
share of energy drink. Here a briefing is done on target market that differs from each other, apart
from that both have different pricing strategy that has been discussed in this study. In addition to
this a detailed discussion has been done on the way in which both the companies promote its
products and take its product towards the customers(Andrews and Shimp, 2017).
TASK
Target market
Target market refers to division of market as per collective need and preference of a
group of consumer. Market can be targeted on the basis of various factors such as demographic
which includes age, gender, education level, income level, marital status etc., geographic factors
such as radius, diameter, within the miles or postcode etc., psycho-graphic factors such as
attitudes, values, morals, ethics etc., behavioural factors such as degree of loyalty, personality,
user status, etc (Guimón and Filippov, 2017). As per latest target strategy scenario, Lucozade
Energy has been focused on targeting male Audience aged between 18 to 30 years and main
focus of Lucozade was on Athletes who needs more energy and it usually uses push strategy that
means company's effort to bring product towards consumer whereas Red bull has done market
segmentation nationally as well as internationally, also it has targeted both males and females
aged between 16 to 45 that includes bachelors, newly married couples having high level of
income and, are generally employees, professional students. Apart from that Red bull has done
its market segmentation on the basis of behavioural factor such as degree of loyalty so Red bull
has mostly hardcore loyal customers having sense of belongingness towards the brand also
these are regular consumers. (Guimón and Filippov, 2017).
Comparison of 4P's of marketing
Product Mix-refers to all the product line that a producer offers to its customer . The
product mix should have dimensions like width of the product mix, means total no. of product
line that is offered by the company , length of the product mix, means total no. of the product
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present in the mix, depth of the product mix, means no. of product within the product line and
consistency of product the means the closeness of one product with another. Lucozade offers
many drinks like Lucozade lite, Lucozade energy, Lucozade elite , Lucozade sports, and these
drinks contain glucose , caffeine , colour, lactic acid carbonated water. Apart from this it has
various flavours like original zero, pink lemonade, sport Raspberry , sport orange, sport orange
(low calorie) etc. On the other hand Red bull offers Red bull energy drink that contain taurine,
Vitamin B, Glucose ,caffeine , sucrose and red bull Sugar-free that contains acesulfame K and
aspartame. The Red bull drink is available in the form of cans having silver and blue colour on it
with two red bulls on the front(Kumar and Patra, 2017).
Price Mix – It is the another essential element of marketing mix . Price refers to money
value of a product . There can be may criteria on the basis of which price of the product can be
determined for eg. Lucozade set price on the basis of Competitors parity, which is the strategy
of companies where price is decided on the basis of price of competitors, another pricing
strategy is bundle pricing that means selling multiple products at the lower rate, in addition to
this price skimming strategy is also used to set price of a product which means setting high
prices at the time of introduction of new product and then subsequently lowering the price,
another method of pricing is pricing at a premium in which businesses set price higher than its
competitors to maintain its premium quality in the market, this marketing strategy is used by Red
bull , apart from that there is market penetration pricing in which businesses lower price of its
product at initial level to attract the customers then psychology pricing which aims at motivating
customers to respond on emotional level for ex. setting price of 99 pounds or 199 pounds(Kumar
and Patra, 2017).
Lucozade and Red bull both consider various aspects to set price of the product such as
determining fixed and variable costs, determining product development costs , understanding
policies and strategies of competitors, deciding the level of profit margins, identifying and
evaluating different factors that affect pricing decision, pricing decision for direct or indirect
distribution of the products etc.
Promotion Mix- refers to that part of marketing mix which aims at increasing sales
through mass public, it can be done through advertising, personal selling, public relation and
sales promotion(Kucuk, 2017).Red bull use advertising, which is the non personal and paid form
of promotional tool and is the most powerful tool for promoting a product among larger public
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and it uses tag line “Red Bull gives you wings” apart from this Red bull endorses various
celebrities and sports person. At the time of sports or events there are videos and TV displays
that encourage the audience to purchase the Red bull drink . Red bull also have own merchandise
stores online, so through all these promotional activities Red bull try to build a brand image in
the minds of consumers on the other hand Lucozade also promote its product from TV
advertisement as well as by sports personalities and athlete and uses tag line “Lucozade replaces
lost energy”(Kucuk, 2017).
There are other forms of doing promotion like sales promotion which includes point of
purchase sales, premiums, contests , discounts, product samples , rebates etc. apart from that
product promotion can be done through personal selling which is not very effective to reach at
larger audience , so this method is not suitable for companies like Red bull and Lucozade but it
has many benefits like seller can get immediate response from audience because there is a face
to face interaction between the representative of product and customer which also helps in
influence the customer to make first buy of the product. Another form of communication can be
direct marketing , that does not include any intermediary or paid medium , for ex. Messages, fax,
emails etc (Guimónand Filippov, 2017). In addition to this promotion can be done through
maintaining public relations, through building positive brand image for eg. Red bull is an energy
drink with less alcoholic substance so the strategy is creating brand image by reducing use of
alcoholic substance.
Place mix- Red bull has wide distribution network , it is available on various retail
outlets, supermarkets, night clubs etc. Red bull drinks are stored in visible fridge to attract the
consumers also it is mainly sold for night parties on the other hand Lucozade is sold to news
agents, sports shop, supermarkets, apart from this if a consumer wants to buy in bulk then it is
available online,from its website,with free home delivery(Guimónand Filippov, 2017).
Thus Placement of a product is very essential part as it is the final stage and very close
from consumer. There are many strategies that can be used to distribute the product like
exclusive distribution , selective distribution, intensive distribution and franchising. A good
distribution strategy should contain attributes like place where product is more visible to the
customers, kinds of stores where potential custAndrews, J. C. and Shimp, T. A., 2017.omers
often went, the way in which company access various distribution channels, need of strong sales
force etc.
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CONCLUSION
From the above study it can be concluded that marketing mix of every company differs
some companies use geographical and demographic factor to target its market while some use
psychological and behavioural factors to target the audience. Apart from that product mix also
differs from one company to another some companies are having depth product mix , some
having length and width of product mix(Aras and et.al., 2018).In addition to this it can be
concluded that after deciding target market and product mix companies uses various tools for
promoting the product like public relation , advertising, personal selling etc. where the most
effective method is advertisement and setting price of the product by using various strategies
and methods like price skimming , competitors parity etc. and it is identified that most of the
companies uses parity pricing strategy. Apart from that placing the product is very important tool
of marketing mix for every company that can be analysed from the above study(Aras and et.al.,
2018).
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Andrews, J. C. and Shimp, T. A., 2017. Advertising, promotion, and other aspects of integrated
marketing communications. Nelson Education.
Aras, M. and et.al., 2018. Marketing Mix Study at Hero Tailor. IOSR Journal of Business and
Management (IOSR-JBM). 20(4). pp.45-51.
Arda, M., 2017. Analysis of effect of promotion and word of mouth on purchase decision: Case
of student University of Muhammadiyah Sumatera Utara. Proceedings of AICS-Social
Sciences. 7. pp.334-341.
Guimón, J. and Filippov, S., 2017. Competing for high-quality FDI: Management challenges for
investment promotion agencies. Institutions and Economies, pp.25-44.
Gunasekharan, T., Basha, S. S. and Lakshmanna, B. C., 2016. A Study on impact of Promotion
Mix elements-Sales promotion & Direct Marketing of DTH manufactures on Customer
Behaviour. ITIHAS The Journal of Indian Management. 6(1). pp.67-72.
Kucuk, S. U., 2017. Promotion. In Visualizing Marketing (pp. 59-82). Palgrave Macmillan,
Cham.
Kumar, S. and Patra, S., 2017. Does Promotion Mix Really Help To Enhance Brand Equity: A
Literature Review. Asian Journal of Management. 8(4). pp.1387-1392.
Yu, J., 2018. We look for social, not promotion: Brand post strategy, consumer emotions, and
engagement. GSTF Journal on Media and Communications (JMC). 1(2).
Online
6 Different Pricing Strategies.2019.[Online].Available on
<https://quickbooks.intuit.com/r/pricing-strategy/6-different-pricing-strategies-which-is-
right-for-your-business/>
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