McDonald's: A Study on Strategic Marketing Planning

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INTRODUCTION TO
MARKETING

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
P1. )Describe how marketing techniques are used to market products in two organisations .....3
P2 Describe the limitations and constraints of marketing...........................................................4
P3 Describe how a selected organisation uses marketing research to contribute to the
development of its marketing.......................................................................................................5
P5- Explain how and why groups of customers are targeted for selected products....................5
P6 Develop a coherent marketing mix for a new product or service...........................................6
References........................................................................................................................................9

Introduction
Marketing is used to create the customer, to keep the customer and to satisfy the
customer. With the customer as the focus of its activities, it can be concluded that Marketing is
one of the premier components of Business Management - the other being Innovation. Nike is an
American multinational corporation that is involved in the design, development and worldwide
marketing and selling of sporting equipments such as running shoes, tracksuits etc. Nike also
sells accessories and unique footwear that attracts the eyes of so many people including
celebrities
P1. )Describe how marketing techniques are used to market products in two organisations
Diesel And Kellogg's use various different marketing techniques to market their products.
They use the same techniques but in different ways.
Ansoffs Matrix
The Ansoff Matrix is a growth strategy used by businesses to decide on their product and how
they are going to expand. The Ansoff Growth Matrix is a diagram that helps businesses grow in
the right direction.
Diversification
Product diversification is a form of corporate strategy for a company. It seeks to increase
its profits through greater sale volume obtained from new products and new markets.
Diversification can occur either at business unit level, or cooperate level (Schröder and
McEachern, 2005). At Business level, it is most likely to expand into a new segment of an
industry that business is already in. At cooperate level, it looks at the overall scope of the
enterprise, while taking stakeholders expectations into the business
Market Development
Market development is when a business sells its existing products into new markets, this
can be done geographically, which means exporting existing products to other countries, they
could also create new packaging and different pricing policies. Kelloggs use this strategy with
their products, they enter into new markets by having products for kids (Coco Pops, Moons and
stars), cereals and cereal bars for the health conscious ( Special K, Bran Flakes), and sweets
such as fruit winders. They also have family size packs, and mini cereals for travel. By doing this
they are increasing their customers as they are exploring new markets. Diesel enter new
segments of the market, by selling products other than clothing. They have bough our several

different perfumes, jewelry, footware, underwear, eyeware, watches, childrens clothing and bags.
By doing this, they are introducing their brand to different people, and adding more products to
their range, which will increase their clientele.
P2 Describe the limitations and constraints of marketing
When you buy a product or service, there are laws which have been created to protect
you. I'm going to write about several laws, and how each of them impact Kellogg's and Diesel in
different ways.
Sale Of Goods Legislation 1979 Act
This law means that the person selling the product or service, has the legal right to do so.
If you are selling goods by description, such as newspaper, or catalogue, the goods have to
correspond with the description (Teeple, 2016). This also applies to selling goods by sample - the
rest of the goods have to have the same quality of the sample product. This applies to both
Kellogg's and Diesel. Kellogg's have to have the legal right to sell their products, however they
don't sell by description in newspaper as they show pictures and promote the cereal instead of
describing it, they also don't sell in catalogues. Diesel also have the legal right to sell their
products, and they do sell by catalogue, so their products have to correspond to their description.
Consumer Protection From Unfair Trading
This law is to ensure traders act honestly and fairly towards their customers. This applies
both to Kellogg's and diesel, as their customers are purchasing goods/services from them.
Consumer Credit
This law requires most businesses that lend money to customers or offer goods and
services on credit or engage on certain credit activities to be licenced by OFT. Trading without a
licence in such cases is a criminal offence and can result in a fine and/or imprisonment. This
doesn't not apply to Kellogg's as they don't offer credit for their products, however Diesel do
offer credit accounts catalogues for their products.
Consumer Protection
This law is aimed at making sure that businesses act fairly towards their customers, this
applies to both Kellogg's and diesel, and they sell products to customers. This will allow
customers to be protected, and businesses treat them fairly.

P3 Describe how a selected organisation uses marketing research to contribute to the
development of its marketing
plans
Market Research helps businesses to make the correct decisions by helping them to understand
the changing dynamics of its market (Montgomery and Chester, 2009). This might involves
finding out about customer’s interest, competitors and the overall marketing environment.
Primary and secondary research would be beneficial for Nike when planning their market
because they are an established company with a lot of competitors.
Primary research will benefit Nike because it’s the collection of first hand information. For
example, Nike may choose to hand out questionnaires in order to find out what customers think
about their product or service. Questionnaires are beneficial because it is a relatively quick way
to collect information, therefore Nike don’t need to waste time trying to obtain information from
various different sources. However, questionnaires might not be trust worthy because customers
may not have the time to answer the questions correctly. Another example will be to conduct
interviews with customers because responses from interviews are usually based on personal
experience. Nike can find out information about their products and services based on a
customer’s experience. In contrast, interviews are time consuming thus customers may answer
questions wrongly just to save time.
Secondary research will benefit Nike because it’s the collection of second hand information,
therefore Nike can find out about their competitor’s performance in the market through various
links such as newspapers, internet etc. This will enable them to know what kind of what market
their getting into, and also the type of competition they will face. Secondary research will
develop Nike marketing plans, because it can enable them to find out what style is currently in
fashion, and what customers are craving for. It can profit their business because they can also
find out about competitors prices of similar products, and they may choose to lower their prices,
in order to generate sales.
P4 - Use marketing research for marketing planning
The Challenge:

Your market research team have given you some research that they have carried out on a
fictional new product for Kellogg’s called brain food. It is a new cereal product targeted at
teenage students.
Using the outcome of the market research, create a marketing plan for the next year for brain
food. Ensure that you use all elements of the marketing mix and leverage any special events or
occasions that you can think of. The plan is to be form of report, supported by visuals to support
your ideas.
PEST analysis stands for "Political, Economic, Social, and Technological analysis,
PEST is the total of all external factors affecting business these are things that a business alone
cannot control.
Political environment
Currently the banks are not lending as much money to companies and businesses because the
government is in a coalition, which means that they will take longer to make decisions, this
means that businesses do not get help as fast.
Economic environment
Currently the economic climate is affecting all businesses as the world is on the verge of a
double-dip recession due to the euro failing and countries like greece have interest rates rising
past the amount that is payable. Also this means that import and deportation is failing due to the
lack of flowing cash around the economic system.
Social Environment
People prefere to buy things ‘on the go’ rather then sit down and take a good look around, this is
good for some business’s but for business’s such as resturants it affects there income as people
dont have the time or patients. For a company such as kellogs this means they have to bring out
new products that suit everyones needs. Kelloggs have diffrent ranges of products from cereal
bars to small packets of cereal you can take around with you.
Technological environment

The advance in technology has meant that more people will have to be trained to use the
equipment, this will cost money. Also because of the advance in technology, less staff will have
to be hired because it is cheaper to use the technology. A disadvantage of this is that we are
becoming very reliant on technology, which leaves the risk of being corrupted, malfunctioning,
and possible viruses.
P5- Explain how and why groups of customers are targeted for selected products
ike is a very big organisation; therefore it will have a large target audience. Nike specialises in
sports wear such as trainers, tracksuits, bags etc. Nike produces football boots; they can choose
to target customers, consumers and businesses (Cartwright and Cooper, 2011). For example,
Nike can make football boots for kids aged between 10-15years, so although the products were
made for the kids, their target audience will mainly be the parents, because they know kids might
not be able to afford the product. In this situation, the parents are the customers and the kids are
the consumers, because they are the actual ones using the product. Their target audience for the
football boots can also be sports men and women, in this situation the sports men and women are
the customers and consumers, because they are the actual ones purchasing the product and using
it. Nike targets businesses as well with their football boots, other businesses such as JD and
sports direct may choose to buy football boots from Nike, in order to sell to their own customers.
Nike targets their group of customers through segmentation. Segmentation is all about
identifying common needs and buying behaviour within the market. It also allows an
organisation to develop plans, which will enable them to produce satisfactory products that will
fit the needs of the customers more effectively. Nike aims their products at so many different
target groups of customers, such as parents, kids, sports men and women, Businesses, youths and
Adults. Nike decides their target audience through the categories of segmentation. The general
categories are Geographic, Psychographic, socio-cultural and demographic.
Nike targets customers in urban areas, this because the urban areas are cities and towns. They
have opened stores in different cities and towns; this is because they are a lot of customers in
those places that will be interested in their products. Nike may choose not to open stores in rural
areas because they may feel that not a lot people will be interested in their products thus profit
margin may be low if they were to invest in stores in those places (Vrontis and Pavlou, 2008).

Nike produces products that wouldn’t offend people that live in the environment. For example,
Nike wouldn’t want to produce a product that has inappropriate language printed on it, which
may offend customers. Nike Targets upper class and middle class people, they made their
products affordable for almost everyone, this will generate sales thus generating profit because
customers can afford the products, and also the quality of Nike products will persuade customers
to keep purchasing products from them. Nike segments its market by gender, for example Nike
produces skirts, and this will mainly attract females. Nike doesn’t segments its market by age;
any customer can buy a Nike product.
P6 Develop a coherent marketing mix for a new product or service.
Marketing mix
Marketing mix consist of the 4ps which are price, promotion, place and product. These are the
ideas to consider when marketing a product.
 Product
The product I have chose is the iphone 5s, the reason i chose this product is because it’s a new
product and also because its unique (Hutt and Speh, 2005).. It’s unique because of the features
and design of it. These are the factors that helps determine the quality of the product, because if
the features and design are nice, then it may attract customers. The iphone 5s has a finger print
system that enables users to unlock their phone using their finger print. This is different because
there are no other phones in the world that has this type of technology (Talpau and Boscor,
2011). Therefore this will give them an advantage over their competitors, and also customers will
be interested in the product because they may like the idea of unlocking their phone using their
fingerprint. Also, the phone is of high quality and value, so they may feel a sense of uniqueness
when the purchase the product. Apple didn’t come up with this idea like that. They must’ve
conducted market research that gave them the knowledge that no phone in the world has the
finger print unlocking system (Crawford, 2015). This is the importance of market research
because you can be able to find out useful data, that maybe beneficial for your organisation.
 Price
 The price of the iphone is pretty high, however the prices varies depending on many giga
bytes you want on your phone. The price of an iphone 5s 16gb is £549.00, the price of an
iphone 5s £629 32gb and the price of an iphone 5s 64gb is £709. Despite the prices being
high, it wouldn’t affect the sales of the product because apples are a much known brand

and also the phone is of good quality which makes the price high. Customers may feel
they are getting their moneys worth because of the services it offers them. The price
range is determined based on the combination of cost and customer based pricing. It is
based on the cost based pricing because customers who are actually buying the iphone 5s
are not interested in how much it cost for the product to be made but instead, they are
interested in its value and the quality of service that the iphone 5s provides them.
 Promotion
 Promotion is all about how a business will raise awareness of its product. During the
release of the iphone 5s, apple advertised it on tv letting people know how good it is and
what makes it different from the other phones Zeithaml, Bitner and Gremler, 2010)..
They would have to use expensive type of advertising because they are a global business
with high profit figures. Also apple uses direct marketing to get customers attention. This
is a form of advertising that enables apple to communicate straight to their customers via
text messages, website and email. For example, if you go on the apple website, you will
find information about the iphone 5s and all their other new products
 Place
 Place can be defined where customers go to purchase the product or service. In apple
case, they have provided apple stores in the United Kingdom (Teeple, 2016). People can
walk into the apple store and purchase any apple products and also they can test out
products in the apple store. If there wasn’t an apple store, then customers wouldn’t bother
buying iphone 5s because there’s no place for them to test the product that they want to
buy . Also, apple makes their products available to purchase on their websites. Customers
will find this satisfactory because it makes it flexible for them. They don’t have to leave
their house to purchase the iphone 5s, they can easily order it on the apple website.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is important for market research to be validated and reliable because it
helps improves an organisation marketing plans (Vrontis and Pavlou, 2008). Furthermore, if the
right guidelines are followed, it won’t be difficult validate market research techniques.

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