Foundations of Marketing: Virgin Media's Expansion into Smart Watches

This report discusses Virgin Media's expansion into the smart watch industry, including their mission, vision, and values. It provides justification for the expansion and evaluates the tactical decisions made across the marketing mix, including product, price, promotion, and place. The report also covers the STP model and product life cycle theory.

FOUNDATION OF
MARKETING

Table of Content.
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Background Information..............................................................................................................1
Justification..................................................................................................................................2
Evaluation of the tactical decisions which need to be made across the marketing mix:.............3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Marketing refers to the one of the most important key elements that helps business
organisation to promote and sell the products and services to the customers. In order to grow
rapidly, marketing is that technique which every organisation should implement. It helps the
organisation to achieve targeted goals as this leads in increasing sale of their products and
services (Deepak and Jeyakumar, 2019). It allows the company to make strategy according
to needs and preferences of the customer which assists them in building up a strong customer
base. The purpose of the marketing is to make the products and services widely known and
recognized to the customers. It helps business organisation in increasing the profits by making
marketing strategies. Through this company can build good brand image in the eyes of the
customers which leads in customers retention. This particular report deals with the Virgin Media
which a British telecommunication company which is expanding its services in smart watches. In
additions to this, the particular report also deals with the mission values vision of the respective
organisation along with the strong justification for recommending a new product to the company.
The marketing mix is also applied so that organisation goals and objectives can achieved to order
to be successful.
MAIN BODY
Background Information
Virgin Media is a British telecommunication company which is headquartered at Green
Park in Reading, England. It was founded on 6 march 2006, 16 years ago. Respective company is
owned by Virgin Media O2, that has a 50:50 joint venture among the Liberty Global and
Telefonica. The firm provides telephone, television and internet services to its customers. But
now the respective organisation its expanding its operation in the field of smart watches also.
The Virgin media owns and runs its personal fibre-optic cable network but it doesn't reach to its
customers premises. The company have established around 48.5 million UK connections that
helps them to bring new opportunities across the nation.
 Mission: The mission of the company is to provide the customers with the valuable
products and services and become a responsible service provider.
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 Vision: The purpose of the Virgin Media is to change the business for the good and this
is the reason why they exist (Ottley, Bechwati and Sisodia, 2019). This is the reason the
Virgin Media is one of the leading company in telecommunication sector.
 Values: The values of the respective company help them to achieve the targeted goals.
Virgin Media is very adventurous and innovative that adds value to their services. Due
to this the company is now expanding its services in the smart watch industry that will
lead them to achieve more growth and success by adopting different marketing
strategies.
Justification
The business environment is becoming so innovative and dynamic that it has to work
according the consumers needs and wants. In order to gain the success and profit, the
organisation needs to work according to the demand of the customers (Marasco and et. al.,
2018). As the today's world is becoming so digital that the customers are demand more
electronic items in order to make their work more convenient. So in this report the Virgin Media
is expanding its business operation in the field of the smart watches. As the young generations
are more into adopting the technology more rapidly. By studying and looking at the market
situation the need of the smart watch are increasing more rapidly.
There are many advantages in expanding the brand as it will the helps the respective
company to build the new customer base and brand image. This will definitely attract the large
number of the customers towards the smart watch produced by the Virgin Media. By inventing
new products the customers also get excited as selling same kind of product time and again can
make the customers feel boring. So, its very important for the Virgin Media to enter in the new
field that is smart watch through which it can add exciting feature in it.
By expanding the brand image by providing innovative service will help the company to
increase the sales and profits as the customer base increasing (Ferrell and Ferrell, 2020). As the
company is selling its smart watch online it also attracts the younger generation in larger number.
So, younger generation are more into the new technology so they will buy the smart watch if the
features are according to them.
As there are many competitors available in the market in the field of the smart watch but
the trends of the smart watch are going on and by looking the strong demand of the smart watch
the Virgin Media decided to expand its business in the smart watch industry. As the main
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mission of the company is to work in the favour of the customers demand and needs. This lead
the Virgin Media to expand its brand by analysing its competitors also. As the competitors were
providing the smart watch in very high price such as Apple, Samsung but the respective
company didn't degrade the quality and provided with low price product. That's why the Virgin
Media expanded its brand.
Evaluation of the tactical decisions which need to be made across the marketing mix:
Marketing mix is a set of tools which the company utilizes to promote its brand or
product in order to achieve the goals and objectives in a targeted market (Raewf, Thabit and
Jasim, 2021). As the Virgin has expanded its operation in the smart industry so the different
marketing mix strategies adopted by the company are mentioned below:
 Product: This refers to the commodity, services or item which satisfy the need and wants
of the customers. Here, the virgin Media is providing smart watches to the customers
which are more preferred by the customers. This helps the company to build good
reputation in the market if the company is providing its services according to the
customers. There are some theoretical concepts which company applies in order to target
the market. They are discussed below:
STP model
It is a framework that helps in developing strategic approach in order to select the
valuable segments in the targeted market (AnjaniIrham and Waluyati ,2018). This model is
useful in creating marketing discipline in order to provide customers with important
characteristics of the product. This model basically target audiences rather than the products.
 Segmentation: Through this process company divides the audience into the smaller
group based on certain criteria. This process helps the respective company to
communicate better about the smart watches features, benefits that are relevant to the
customers. The company segments the audience can be based on demographic . Here the
Virgin Media mainly segments its audience based on the age group between 18- 35 years.
As this group of customers wants more innovative technologies which can help the
respective company to generate more profits.
 Targeting: In this process the respective company targets the audience according to the
taste and preferences by applying various marketing strategies (Darmawan and
Grenier, 2021). The company targets the audience based on the income, gender,
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emotions, education, martial status, lifestyle, hobbies etc. Here, the Virgin Media target
the audience based on the income level as this will help the company to increase their
sales.
 Positioning: After the segmentation and targeting is done, the respective company
focuses on developing competitive advantage in the market. There is great impact on the
brand position in the market (He, Luo and Huang, 2019). Virgin Media basically focus
on the functional positing as this helps the respective company to focus on the aspects of
the product and customers needs also. Overall position of the products help the company
to gain competitive advantage and better growth.
Key values: Here smart watches are available with the advance feature which assists the
organisation to become more innovative and dynamic. This leads the smart watch to add the key
value to the company as being innovative helps to gain competitive position in the market.
Benefits: Smartwatches provides lots of benefit to the individual such as tracking health
condition, instant communication, internet surfing, camera, different types of entertainment and
game facility. So, this innovative features allows the company in gaining higher attention from
the customers in effective manner. This assists the company to increase the sales that leads in
growth and development.
Characteristics: Smart watches have many functions that helps the individual to keep
record of every small situation which have made the life of individual more convenient. Smart
watches consists of smart navigation, health and wellness, accessibility to phone apps, search
feature which make the work of the individual more easier. So the targeted audience will be
more attracted if this feature are available to them. This will lead to the increase in the sale of the
smart watches.
 Price: This refers to the value of the product which the customers are willing to pay. The
company decides the price of the product and services on the basis of cost of production,
targeted segments and willingness of the customers to pay. The pricing strategies is one
of the most critical element in order to gain profit and growth. Little difference on the
price of the product can affect the demand and supply of the commodities. So, the Virgin
Media has to properly study the market and decide the price of the smartphones.
Basically the company focus on product life cycle in order to understand the discounts,
clearance prices so that they can select the appropriate market to sell the product. This
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can lead in increasing the price. Product life cycle helps the Virgin Media to predict the
profitability and compete with the other business. Here the respective company adopts
the low pricing strategies as it mainly focus on the younger generation as they want the
product cheaper in rate.
 Promotion: This element of the marketing mix helps the company to publicise its
products and services to the customers (Lopatin and et. al., 2019). It is one of the most
essential and expensive components in order to gain success in the market. Promotion
helps the Virgin Media to grab the attention of the customers by adopting different tools
of marketing. Some of the marketing tools used by the company to promote the smart
watches are as follows:
◦ Advertisement: The respective company can use strong advertisement that helps
them to increase the sales and create a strong brand awareness among the targeted
audience. The Virgin Media can undertake use if social media platforms in order to
enhance the customers base in most effective manner. The company can post
immersive and creative contents through its digital platforms pages such as social
media. This assists the respective firm to drawing the attention of large number of
audience for smart watches.
◦ Media: Here the company can create its own website through social media such as
WhatsApp, instagram, Facebook where young generation have active involvement.
This will increase the sale of the smart watch through which the company can achieve
its objective effectively and efficiently.
◦ Message: By creating attractive message the management of Virgin Media in
developing good brand image in customers mind and attracts towards the smart
watch. Such as company can use “ STAY CONNECTED” so that more customers
can be attracted towards the Smart Watch.
 Place: This element refers to distribution channels and the area where the company sells
its product. Virgin Media should sell the smart watch on online platform so that it can
connect the people in the larger area. As online platform provides the audience with the
low cost product as the company keeps on providing offers and discounts. As being on
online platform also helps the company to grow rapidly and provide low cost service to
people as they don't have to invest much on the outlet and building office for the
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employee. By sitting at home the company can provide the services to the customers in a
very effective manner.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that to be innovative and dynamic company
needs to keep on expanding its products and services according the needs of customers. So, in
order to make the product and services available in the market the company needs to adopt
marketing strategies in order to increase the sales. Here the respective company has expanded its
business operation in the field of smart watches due to the customers and market requirements.
The company has done expansion in older to provide the customers with innovative products in
lower price through online platforms. The company has also adopted marketing mix strategies in
order to make the product familiar with the customers. The respective company has also adopted
different theories such as STP model, product life cycle through which they can grow more
rapidly. In addition to this the company has also adopted different promotion tools in order to
increase the customers base. This leads the Virgin Media to be more consumer oriented and
provide quality products to the audiences.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Ottley, G., Bechwati, N.N. and Sisodia, R., 2019. Conscious Marketing: Meaning and
Application. Handbook of Advances in Marketing in an Era of Disruptions: Essays in
Honour of Jagdish N. Sheth, p.25.
Marasco, et. al., 2018. Exploring the role of next-generation virtual technologies in destination
marketing. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 9, pp.138-148.
Ferrell, O.C. and Ferrell, L., 2020. Technology challenges and opportunities facing marketing
education. Marketing Education Review, 30(1), pp.3-14.
Deepak, R.K.A. and Jeyakumar, S., 2019. Marketing management. Educreation Publishing.
Raewf, M.B., Thabit, T.H. and Jasim, Y.A., 2021. The relationship between the elements of
marketing mix and consumer behavior during environmental uncertainty. Cihan
University-Erbil Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 5(1), pp.50-55.
Anjani, H.D., Irham, I. and Waluyati, L.R., 2018. Relationship of 7P marketing mix and
consumers' loyalty in traditional markets. Agro Ekonomi, 29(2), pp.261-273.
Darmawan, D. and Grenier, E., 2021. Competitive Advantage and Service Marketing
Mix. Journal of Social Science Studies (JOS3), 1(2), pp.75-80.
He, B., Luo, T. and Huang, S., 2019. Product sustainability assessment for product life
cycle. Journal of cleaner production, 206, pp.238-250.
Lopatin, V.A and et. al., 2019. Increasing the level of STP in information
processing. International Journal of Engineering and Technology Innovation, 8(7),
pp.583-588.
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