Barriers to Marketing Planning

1Running head: MARKETING PLANNING
MARKETING PLANNING

2MARKETING PLANNING

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Introduction:
Marketing plan is considered as a complete manuscript or structure of the outline for a
organization about advertisement and marketing effort of their product. The marketing plan is
described by marketing managers to fulfil specific marketing objectives with in a specific
timeframe. As opined by McDonald (2013), marketing plan is a part of an overall business
plan. It has been observed that proper marketing strategy is backbone of company business.
Superdrug Stores Plc is popular health and beauty care product retailer in UK. This popular
organization founded by Ronald & peter Goldstein in 1964. Presently this organization has
more than 786 stores for selling more than thousand types of health care and beauty care
products. Apart from that Superdrug had started online sales from the year 2012. This
organization has collected the revenue of £1.75 billion in 2015 (Superdrug.com, 2016). It has
been found that besides the health and a beauty care product, this company has started to sell
medicines from 2011. Therefore, this report is based on the existing marketing condition of
Superdrug. After that the learner has planned to provide suitable marketing plan for
Superdrug Advance Joint care 30S. Apart from that, the learner has planned to discuss about
the ethical issue usually faced by several companies regarding marketing planning and
consumer ethics.

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Task1:
1.1 Review changing perspectives in marketing planning:
According to Shani and Chalasani (2013), on early days the marketing strategy of
organizations was depending on the products. Marketing managers were trying to convince
customers by their products. However, in twentieth century, the concept of marketing is
totally changed. Now the aim of the organization is to design a new product based on
customers’ requirement. Now the marketing process starts from the survey process and never
ends. Now the focus of organizations is more customer centric rather than product centric.
Now organizations try to earn profit along with customer satisfaction.
As stated by Boone and Kurtz (2013), Superdrug is a popular health, beauty care
product and medicine retailer in UK. Now their marketing concept is depending on four
pillars such as target market, customer requirements, integrated marketing strategy and
profitability. It has been found that Superdrug has connected two different concepts such as
selling and marketing for implementing advance marketing strategy for high competitive
market. Czinkota and Ronkainen (2013) argued that selling and marketing concept are totally
different such as selling concept focuses on the requirement of sellers but marketing focuses
on the requirements of customers. Therefore Superdrug has implemented the marketing
strategy and understands the demand of products and then supplies the products to the sellers.
Therefore, the demand and supply equation is one of the new key factor their marketing
strategy.
On the other hand, their market competitor AVON has implemented different
marketing strategy. The production operation of AVON is started after getting the market
survey reports. The product planning department gets a clear view about the requirement of
the customers and designs the product as per customer requirement (Turnbull and Valla,
2013). Before 1 to 2 months of product launching date, the organization has started the digital
advertisements and social media advertisements to increase customer attraction towards the
beauty care products. Therefore, the organization has already generated demand in market
before product launch. After the product launch the marketing team collects feedback from
the customers and customize the product as well. Integrated sales and promotion always
creates market demand and the organization earns profit alongwith customer satisfaction.

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It has been noticed that Superdrug follows the one to one marketing strategy whereas
their market competitor follows relationship marketing strategy. Superdrug is depending on
the technology based marketing strategy. The marketing team has considered every
customer’s requirement not group’s requirement (Nijssen and Frambach, 2013). On the other
hand AVON is trying to maintain a good relationship with their customers rather than just
serving their products. The organization believes that mutual relation will increase success in
business than transactional.
The perspectives regarding marketing have evolved over time. Technology is the
basic reason behind the occurred changes in marketing techniques and planning. Superdrug
usually aimed at promotional activities with help of newspapers, posters, billboards and radio
broadcasts. As the technological developments took place, people shifted their focus over
multimedia platforms like televisions, computers and telephones. Hence, marketing
techniques like telecalling, televised advertisements, etc. started developing. Business
organisations currently use internet as the prime medium for communicating products and
services to the potential customers. Marketing planning currently is focused on the platforms
of marketing that are more accessible for customers. The strategies that enable clients and
companies to communicate directly are focused nowadays.
1.2 Evaluate an organisation's capability for planning its future marketing activity:
There are different functional areas in Superdrug Stores Plc depending on the nature of
their health care and beauty care products. Apart from that, the nature of the business or
products of all organizations are depending on different properties such as:
 Operation or production of organization
 Accounting and finance
 Marketing activities
 Distribution of products and logistic service
 Corporate planning
 Human resource management
 Market Research and product development
Internal environment of any organization is depending on strength, weakness, opportunity
and threat.

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Strength of Superdrug:
Superdrug still holds their market position. They are holding second position in health
and beauty care product retailer segment in UK market. Their strong position in UK market
makes them as a value-oriented beauty retailer in domestic market (Peck et al. 2013). They
have chosen exclusive brands and “A” category brands to attract customers. The shoppers
also get online facility to order their beauty care products and health care products. High
loyalty card membership attracts more customers towards the stores.
Weakness of Superdrug:
It has been noticed that there are low number of pharmacies in their retail stores. As
opined by Niffenegger (2013), there are lacks of focus on the product and space development.
The organization has maintained female centric products rather than male centric products.
As a result the male customers are not interested to visit stores. The stores are old fashioned
and products are not displayed proper way.
Opportunities of Superdrug:
The organization has increased the number of pharmacists in their stores. This has
increased the penetration in their stores. On the other hand the organization has determined
their boost margin and implemented strategy to improve their performance. The involvement
of more pharmacists will increase the profit margin of their stores.
Threats of Superdrug:
It has been noticed that negative consumer sentiment about new NHS laws regarding
the records of the patients have created threat for their medicine business. The organization
has faced strong competition from AVON, Boots and Tesco. Almost same types marketing
strategy like discounts and offers creates almost no different from their competitors.
According to the evaluated attributes of Superdrug, it is clear that current marketing
planning capability is quite strong. The future market activities are completely dependent on
the firm’s ability to analyse current market structure and demands of customers. The strength
of company lays in its focused target i.e. A class customers and brands. On the other hand, it
has been evaluated that Superdrug holds good analytical capabilities in planning future
market activities. Financial capabilities are strong and human resource is efficient in