Marketing Concepts and Principles: A Study of Virgin Group

This report discusses the marketing concepts and principles applied by Virgin Group to achieve its objectives and goals efficiently and effectively. It covers the significance of marketing in business, marketing mix, market research, segmentation targeting positioning (STP), and the relationship between marketing functions and other departments such as HRM, IT, and finance. The report also highlights how Virgin Group uses marketing strategies to gain a competitive advantage over others.

Marketing Principles
and Practice

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Different types of marketing concepts and its technology.....................................................3
Strategies and marketing programs of Virgin Group.............................................................6
Different types of marketing concepts and strategies used by Virgin Group.........................7
Relationship of marketing functional area to the other functional area in the organisation...9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFRENCES.................................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Marketing consist of all human action of individuals and organisations which are planned
to determine, evaluate and mutually satisfy the needs of all people involved in the group action.
An organisation adopts the marketing concept when it takes steps to know as much about the
consumer as possible. They work on the supposition that prosperity depends on doing better then
competitors by understanding, creating, delivering and communicating value to their customers.
Organisation undertaken in this report is Virgin group which is private company of UK and work
in conglomerate industry which deals in products which are not related to each other like
banking, books, films, music, retail, travel, etc. This report explains the marketing concepts and
terminology used in the organisation. It also identifies the marketing strategies and programs of
the organisation which helped them to achieve objective in an ethical manner. Further more,
report defines the 7P's in the company, STP and marketing research of the organisation. This also
explained the relationship of marketing
MAIN BODY
Different types of marketing concepts and its technology
Marketing concepts is an approach which helps company to identify the unmet customers
needs and demands and modify their product accordingly so to increase sales and profitability of
company. It will help company to satisfy their existing customers and find a way to attract new
potential customers. Marketing concept assist company to modify their strategies and policies
according to the external and internal environment. (Armstrong and et. al., 2014). There
concepts of marketing which are used by every organisation and Virgin group uses those
marketing concepts for achieving organisational goals and objectives efficiently and efficiently
which will lead to organisations profitability (The Marketing Management Concepts. 2018).
Following are the four main concepts and terminologies used by Virgin Group:-

 Production concept : This concept is based on operation where consumers expect
products that are easily available and affordable. Main focus of business in this is on
increasing production efficiency, minimising cost and delivery of products and services.
It further aims at products needs rather than the features it offers. For instance, Excellent
management practices are considered the major strength of Virgin group as it diversified
into as many markets that were feasible and extended their brand at a low cost. Focus of
Virgin group is to provide the products they are offering to customer at low cost and
easily available so that customers will buy it to satisfy their needs and demands.
 Product concept : This concept is a consumer oriented concept of marketing where
consumers expect high quality of products, advanced performance and specific
characteristics. It assumes that customers are loyal when their products meet their
expectations and for this purpose organisation will offer innovative products consistently.
Virgin group with this concept in their organisation always update and release new
products. Company regularly assessing their customers needs and wants and try to
modify it accordingly so that company won't spend heavy amount of money on marketing
activities. (Burns,Bush and Sinha, 2014). For instance, Virgin group provides
differentiated products and services and promote and sell their numerous services to
various nations because of huge brand awareness and increased goodwill in the market.
 Selling concept: In this concept, organisation assumes that their products will be sold
through active promotional and selling strategies only. Organisation will produce the
product and at the same time will use strategies to convince customers to buy their
services rather than competitors. For instance, Virgin group in 1990's, to tap customers,
they relied on headlines in newspapers and foot traffics and also published
advertisements in lifestyle magazines. Apart from this, it also launched television
campaigns tap larger amount of audiences, offered various loyalty programs, use of social
media for selling their exclusive services and products to the exceptional customers, etc.
 Marketing concept: This concept focuses on the target market, its needs and wants. It is
a buyer oriented concept. It researches the market for determining the needs and wants of
customers. Marketing concept focussed on customer needs before making their products
as main reason of company's existence is to satisfy the customers needs and make profit
out of it instead of earning money then satisfying customer demands. This concept

involves focussing on customer needs before developing the product, aligning all
functions of the company to focus on those needs and realising a profit by successfully
satisfying customer needs for long time. For instances, Virgin group is an international
company with customers located in various countries. The company conducts research
about customer preferences continuously. They can further improve their services after
evaluating feedback from customers.
 Societal concept : It is a new marketing concept which highlights the needs and wants
of a target market and delivery of better products compared to competitors. It emphasises
on customer as well as social welfare of the society. This takes into account environment
and nature's resources to be used effectively and efficiently without creating damage to
the society (Lees-Marshment, 2014). For instance, Virgin group carries out numerous
projects, most of which are for community development. It is also engaged in women
empowerment activities and other social welfare programs. It also has a Virgin group
community, in which every small business unit share ideas, values, interest and goals.
Therefore, Virgin group as a corporate parent have set standards and helped the business
know exactly how to create value to the customers.
 Promotional concept: Promotion is the set of entire activities which communicate the
product, brand or service to the user. The motive is to make people aware about the
product, attract and induce them to buy those products and services. There are numerous
ways of promoting the product in the market like personal selling, internet marketing,
sales promotions, public relations, etc. For instance, Virgin group spent huge amount of
money on different types of promotion activities like advertising, sales promotion, social
media marketing etc so that there brand awareness and brand equity will increase to a
certain level which would directly make a positive impact on the profitability of group.
 Branding strategy: It is an approach where organisation tries to make a favourable
goodwill in the mind of customers. It is directly linked with all the aspects of business
operations as if goodwill of image is high then it will also persuade to increase in sales
and profitability of company. For instance, the capability of Virgin brand found
utilizations in many businesses including airline, media, financial sector, auto mobile
industry, train services , etc. The brand values pleasures, value for money, quality of the
product, improvement and innovations, excellent customer service, etc. The Virgin

branding team has made-up a global company by looking for ways to engage and inspire
customers in almost every sector.
Source : Marketing Concepts, 2018
Strategies and marketing programs of Virgin Group
Marketing strategy and programs assist company to improve their awareness about
company and products in to the market so to acquire more market and customer share. (Alserhan,
2017). It consist of marketing plan which is to be implemented by company in different timings
so to gain maximum utilizations of resources. Virgin group is one of the biggest group in the
world which has more than 100 companies under them. Marketing strategies and programs of
Virgin group helped them in many ways in achieving the objectives :-
 According to this organisation, for being successful it’s not important to become the
category leader. It has gotten big by being small. Virgin group deals in so many sectors
but is not a leader in any of the sector and is yet a big organisation. The Virgin Record
label was able to attract Rolling Stones they know they will not be evaporating on a long
list of bigger brands.
 Free advertising can be companies large promotional instrument is one of the objective.
Virgin's conceptualization has been to build a brand which depict the fun and exciting
nature of them. (Lefebvre, 2012). Virgin Atlantic went through many ups and downs but
finally it grew and flourishes in the market.
Illustration 1: Marketing Concepts

 Customers define the brand for organisation. Great customer service of Virgin group has
always helped them in defining opportunities when things go wrong. For instance, years
ago A Virgin British passenger , using on board Wi-Fi, tweeted that he was not happy
and satisfied because meal has not been delivered. The service team immediately took
action, contacted the aircraft and found the misplaced meal.
 Virgin group has been extremely tremendous in driving sales by using social media. For
instance, their promotion of Virgin America on twitter regarding a cause event of
donation for every flight booked on the respective day resulted in the fourth highest sales
of the airline on that day.
 Decision makers in Virgin groups incorporate both risk and research and development in
their preparation procedure (Dolnicar and Ring, 2014). The executives of Virgin group
first conduct market research about the market they are entering into so to identify the
risk and opportunities for them. Their main focus is to minimize the risk that could be
faced by the company so to maximize their profits. This is helpful in targeting the
customer through product improvement and innovation.
Organisation achieve the above mentioned objectives in ethical manner
Yes, the organisation that is Virgin Group achieves all the objectives in a proper ethical
manner. It always acts in ways consistent with what individuals and society think are good
values. It has a set of ethical norms and always worked on that. Following are the points
describing ethical behaviour of Virgin Group :-
 As with many business decisions Virgin group works in culture which improves
motivation among employees, which will reduce labour turnover and customer
perception will be improved as they will react positively to more ethical approach.
 Using ethics in their investment decisions helps in controlling higher costs of production
maximises profits and revenues which finally increases the profitability by following
proper taxation and financial guidelines of the government (Dinnie, 2015).
 By adopting societal concept of marketing Virgin group focuses on benefit of individual
and society both, without harming the environment and its resources.
Different types of marketing concepts and strategies used by Virgin Group
To analyse the daily operation of a Virgin group's they use the 7 P's and segmenting,
targeting and positioning model. By this analyses company get to know about their real market

position and customer base. Customer decision of purchasing product is based on the marketing
mix of the company (Lilien, Rangaswamy, and De Bruyn, 2013) . STP is a way of offering and
communicating its benefits and importance’s to the customer. So, company divides the customer
into segmentation, then target the foremost customer and then position their offerings to them.
The use of 7 P's to examine the daily organisational operations:-
 Product:- Every person start the business with the hope customer will purchase the
product. Product can tangible or intangible. Product is mixture of services, people, idea
experience etc. Its a company need to develop and reframe their products timely so that
customer will get attract. The products they offers are books, banking, commercial
aviation, consumer electronics, films, health care, jewellery, mobile phone, music, radio,
retail and rail transportation. These are the daily operations of virgin group.
 Price: - Its refers the amount which is set for the exchange of product and services & the
customer is ready to pay (Wasson, 2015) . The pricing strategy used by Virgin Atlantic
Airlines is competitive strategy. The price is set according to the services they offers.
Companies believes in quality of a product rather than quantity.
 Place:- Virgin Atlantic airlines provides services in 29 destination like Dubai, China,
USA, etc. The companies operate from three places in United Kingdom are London
Heathrow Airport, London-Gatwick airport and Manchester Airport.
 Promotion: - The Virgin Atlantic airlines launches the Social Media campaign as a
promotional activity by which they also gain the customers and connect with them. They
used the PR activity, television advertisement and company recruit the smart female
employee to attract the customer. They also run special offer according to customer,
destination and seasons.
 People:- They have around 900 employees and they take their customer and employee
seriously. They believe in providing higher quality even if the prices are bit high as
customer have to be satisfied. Their employees are warm and pleasant. They employ
young and smart employee by which customers journey become more memorable.
 Process:- The products and services are tested and tried for quality and for this company
conduct the customer market analysis as they want to provide maximum. The process is
customer can book the flight from website or from local travel agent. Then customer will

get a flight ticket with luggage and itinerary requirement. On the arrival day customer
will get the check-in based upon the class.
 Physical evidence:- The company served in 29 destination and present in every
continent. The customers are attracted to Virgin Atlantic Airlines because the services
they are providing are utmost quality. In airport they provide proper waiting area for their
customers. They proper uniform for their employees to attract customers. The in flight
meals are of excellent quality which also attract customers to buy their product only.
The use of segmentation, targeting and positioning to examine the daily operations
 Segmentation:- It refers to identifying the customers need and the segmented market.
The market can be segmented through demographic, lifestyle, beliefs & values, life
stages, geographic and the behaviour of the customer (Horner and Swarbrooke, 2012).
These are criteria in which basis customer are divided.
 Targeting: - It refers to targeting the selected market segment to sell the product.
Targeting can be done on the basis of size, difference, money, accessible and they also
focuses on the different benefits. The Virgin Atlantic airlines targeted the customers with
the high income group only. As they can afford the high quality services.
 Positioning:- Its refers to make the product available in the market to the targeted
customer. In this company use marketing mix to make the product more attractive,
effective and the inexpensive. It will done on bases of product usage, user, price, effects
etc.
Relationship of marketing functional area to the other functional area in the organisation.
Marketing mix underpins the every department of an organisation. Marketing is
done to promote the product and try to persuade the customer to purchase that product. As all the
functions are somewhere related to the customer i.e. warehouseman that packs the order for the
customer to the customer services who solves the queries of the customer (Smith, 2014). Here,
are the detailed description about the marketing and their relationship with other department:-
 Marketing and relationship with Research & development:- Whenever Virgin group
do any research and development related to the product that should be done according to
the customer need and preferences. The marketer of the company have to be collaborated
with the researcher and the engineers in order to be sure that the customer need is going
to be satisfied.

 Marketing and its relationship with the production/operations:- The production
refers to the generations of products. Operations include all the activities like
warehousing, packaging and the distribution and logistics concerned with the production
or warehousing, to retail or the customer in a effective way. Marketer need to sell the
product they are collaborated in a way to increase the sale of the company.
 Marketing and its relationship with the customer services: - Its activities are revolves
around the functions that are performed in marketing to satisfy their need. If any issue
arises related to query, make changes in order that can done solely or by the help of real
person on time (Shank and Lyberger, 2014). Its supports by the IT to provide the efficient
and the effective customer services. Customer services quickly provides the information
related to the customer need, their taste, demand and preferences.
 Marketing and its relationship with human resource management:- HRM
department work is to recruit, select, train, and develop the professionalism in the
company. Virgin group company always consider the heath and safety of employee, their
performance management and the well-being of the employee. The relationship is
between the marketing manager and the HR while recruiting the marking person.
 Marketing and its relationship with IT department:- It refers to the department in
which software, information technology, computer hardware elements are considered.
Websites are formed for business by which number of customers can reach to them. By
which customer can reach top the product and buys the product online. CRM ( customer
relationship management) supported by IT department to maintain the healthy customer
base. IT department supports the intranet and internet websites. Intranet websites
supports the supplies of information within the employee where as internet websites
support the information flow between the company (virgin group) and the customer
 Marketing and its relationship with the finance department:- To run the virgin group
company required to maintain the budget to meet the need for research, promotion and
for the distribution activities (Gibson,2013) . They always want that every department
have to work under prescribed budget. Marketing department is related has to increase
the sale volume and building the accurate market share while finance department is
focuses on cash flow, covering cost, and other investment in the company.

CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that marketing is the most important aspect
in every business. Using marketing concepts and principles is crucial in successful
implementation of plans and programs of organisation. Marketing concepts helps organisations
to accomplish the goals and objectives efficiently and effectively by properly analysing the needs
and wants of target market. It further explain that how marketing plans and strategies helped
Virgin group in achieving its objectives and goals and further explanation of accomplishing
those goals in ethical manner is done. It also explained the marketing concepts and principles
which are followed in the Virgin Group for its smooth and efficient functioning. This report has
also discussed about the marketing mix and how it assist company to gain competitive advantage
over others. It also explained the market research and STP of the organisation. And later part of
the report has detailed discussion on marketing functions and their inter relationship with other
functional areas or other departments. It has been analysed from the above report that for being
successful business, organisation must have efficient and qualified marketing team which can
plan and research market to achieve the objectives and goals.

REFRENCES
Books and Journals
Online
The Marketing Management Concepts. 2018. [Online]. Available Through
:<https://toughnickel.com/industries/PrinciplesofMarketingPart1BasicConceptsandFund
amentals>.