The Marketing Mix of Virgin Group

THE VIRGIN
GROUP

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
1. Key marketing concepts and terminologies applicable to The Virgin Group.........................1
2. Marketing strategies and programs for The Virgin Group that assisted them in achieving
organisational objectives in an ethical manner...........................................................................3
3. Marketing concepts and principles applied by The Virgin Group in daily organisational
operations....................................................................................................................................6
4. Relationship between functional areas and marketing function of The Virgin Group...........8
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS..........................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Marketing principles and practices play a crucial role in an organisation that are
conducted with an aim to stay in market for longer span of time with gaining a competitive edge
over others. Virgin Group was founded in 1970 by launching a mail – order record business
which then converted into virgin records. Virgin Group includes 20 holding companies and
operates in conglomerate industry which deals with many products and services related to
different sectors such as banking, books, healthcare, jewellery, retail, travel, etc. As per the given
case study of Virgin Group, key concepts of marketing applicable to company will be discussed.
Also, it will include the marketing strategies and programs of Virgin Group which assisted them
in achieving the organisational objectives. Furthermore, marketing concepts and principles used
in daily organisational operations of Virgin Group will be highlighted. Moreover, it will provide
an understanding of relationship between marketing functions to other functional areas in
company.
MAIN BODY
1. Key marketing concepts and terminologies applicable to The Virgin Group
The key concepts of marketing which includes production, product, selling, etc. There are
different products provided by The Virgin Group that consist of financial services, airlines,
trains, cosmetics, music and soft drinks (Amaro and Duarte, 2015). Virgin Group started to sell
the diversified product in order to increase their customer base also it increased their brand
image as many people were attracted towards Virgin Group as people were getting all the
facilities and products at one place which increased the attraction of people toward the
organisation.
The organisations were not associated with specific product this allowed The Virgin
Group to cross the products and market boundaries easily which is difficult for other
organisation. Marketing approach adopted by The Virgin Group was related to innovation and
offbeat marketing (Kirschbaum and Fernandes Ribeiro, 2016). For example: Virgin hotel, a
brand in The Group was created by Richard Branson. The following strategies are applicable to
Virgin hotel:
Product strategy of Virgin Hotel: The strategy adopted by Virgin Group to increase
their revenue for hotel and achieve organisational objective of Virgin hotel includes that services
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provided by hotel must be of high quality and guest must be satisfied by their services. Hotel
group mainly focuses on providing their guest with best experience to provide them quality time
at place. The group aimed to have hotels in 20 locations to increase their brand image and
profitability. The product strategy of Virgin hotel is to solve the problems of travellers and
provide them facilities of hotel which is comfortable, customisable and have fun experiences.
The Virgin Group provides value for money, quality, experience and fun.
Promotional strategies for hotel: The organisation can use various promotional
strategies to increase profitability and market share of company in market. There are various
promotional tools which includes advertisement in newspaper, magazines, etc. but the
promotional strategy adopted by The Virgin Group to promote their hotel is digital approach
which includes promotion through social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, etc. (Lazich,
Burton and Virgil, 2016). Promotional strategy also includes sales promotion to increase the
sales of hotel by attracting more customers towards the hotel. Also, the organisation have the
option to promote the services using direct marketing which includes providing information to
public about the services offered by hotel through mail or telephone etc. Sales promotion is
related to influencing the customers towards products and services of the firm. The Virgin group
also can use strategy of direct marketing in which products and services of group are directly
provided to customers. Furthermore, promotion through PR in which the public relation are
maintained by the organisation to promote products and services can be done. Also, the products
of Virgin group are promoted through personal selling in which the buyer is influenced to
purchase the same through face to face communication.
Branding for Hotel: Branding is process of creating a unique name for the product or
services to attract customers towards the firm. It uses Monolithic branding in their marketing
approach which means having a family name which is then followed by actual product. The
Virgin Group started the hotel as it is known for being a challenger brand (Imon, 2017). The
group adopted branding strategy to provide hotel services in name of Virgin hotel to increase
market share of organisation. Hotel branding strategy includes that it must fulfil customer’s
needs to improve the brand image of organisation.
Brand extension refers to the use of the existing brand name for new product categories.
Hotel industry in order to increase their brand image have used the name of Virgin Group which
provide cross products in the name of Virgin. It has built various hotels in name of Virgin group
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