Forever Young: A Marketing Plan for Anti-Ageing Cream

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MARKETING
ESSENTIALS
FOREVER YOUNG
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................3
PART 1- KNOWLEDGE...............................................................................................................4
TASK – ESSAY........................................................................................................................4
PART-2 APPLICATION............................................................................................................... 7
COMPARE THE WAYS IN WHICH DIFFERENT ORGANIZATIONS APPLY THE MARKETING
MIX TO THE MARKETING PLANNING PROCESS TO ACHIEVE BUSINESS OBJECTIVES........7
TASK..................................................................................................................................... 9
PRODUCE AND EVALUATE A BASIC MARKETING PLAN FOR AN ORGANISATION.............9
CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................... 12
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................... 13
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INTRODUCTION
This assignment is based on the topic of marketing essentials. The topic of marketing
essentials includes all the marketing strategies and marketing techniques that are used by
the marketing department for achieving the organizational goal. The marketing function of a
company has several roles and responsibilities that help the organization to achieve its goal
and these roles and responsibilities are also related to the organization as a whole and the
other department or the other functions of the organization are also linked with the
marketing function which is discussed in this assignment. The marketing function is based
on the 7ps of a marketing mix these P’s help the marketing department to achieve the
organizational goal and objective thus to implement the strategies of marketing function a
marketing plan is to be discussed in this assignment.
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PART 1- KNOWLEDGE
TASK – ESSAY
Introduction- This essay is based on identifying the role of marketing in modern
organizations and the roles are to be evaluated with their respective core factors that affect
the marketing function. The relativeness of marketing function with other functions of the
organization will be discussed.
Marketing means to increase the demand for the products and increase the customer base
of the company, this is not restricted to the selling of the goods only but the term marketing
has extended to fulfilling the consumer demands by identifying the customer needs and
developing the product for the same. The marketing department is having the role of
integrating the wants and the desires of the customers with the organization's products
(Baker, 2017).
Marketing function involves the activities that result in increasing the revenues through
promotion and advertisement of the products and services of the company. The marketing
function includes the activities of advertising the product or services, selling those services
and products and timely delivering those products to the respective customers and
generating business for the company. Marketing includes the product sales forecasting,
planning and arranging the resources for the fulfilment of the target and the desired
amount of sales quantity. To meet the required quantity on time with the proper
distribution of the product is also an important function of the marketing department
(Kotler, 2011).
The marketing department has to coordinate with the promotion and advertising channels
to raise the customer attention ration towards the brand and to increase the customer base
for the product of the company. The marketing function has the responsibility of turning the
whole process of all other company’s department into the final sale or revenue thus the
marketing function bears a lot of risks and handles the customer request, customer
suggestions, customer feedbacks about the defaults or errors in the product this is very risky
task to handle as the customers may increase or decrease the goodwill or the brand image
of the company. The role of the marketing function is extended to the designing and
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developing of the product so that it can be accepted by the general public and the targeted
audience, the designing of the product is also associated with its packaging that makes the
product more attractive and more approachable to the prospect and regular customers. The
marketing function is not only to attract new and prospective customers but also the aim is
to retain regular, loyal and existing customers. The marketing department can apply various
tactics and various promotional activities like offering discounts on the products to the
regular and loyal customer through their membership card discounts or through offering
cash back or any other gifts that please the customer and his experience from the product
(Wallace et al., 2014).
The major function of marketing function also includes branding and creating goodwill of
the company, to retain the company in the market and to survive in the competitive market
the marketing function has to build a brand image and grow or maintain it from the other
competitors (Klink and Athaide, 2012). The marketing function has the responsibility to scan
the environment and to look for the opportunities in the environment and the threats from
the competitors for which the strengths can be used to minimize the losses. The part of
scanning the environment is essential to get prepared for the future contingencies that can
impact the functioning of the company and this is the responsibility of the marketing
function.
Roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organizational context as the
biggest function of marketing is to integrate itself with the other functions of the
organization. Since every company have different functions and departments like R&D,
manufacturing or operations, marketing, finance and human resource. Thus the marketing
functions in the new originations connect the users or the consumers’ interest and link it
with all other departments of the organization. It can be easily said that not the marketing
function and not the other functions of the organization can work alone and achieve the
organizational goal, so all the functions together in coordination can work for achieving the
success for the organization. There is separate importance of every function and the
marketing function has a significant interdependency over the other functions of the
organization. The reason behind the success of the new organizations is that every
department works together in coordination and thus they create a competitive advantage
over the other competitors (Homburg at al., 2015).
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The marketing function is linked with the finance department as the finance department
allocates capital resources of the organization to marketing department so that the
marketing department can use the same allocated fund in advertising, promotional
activities, with high investments on the channels that require a high amount of investments.
The marketing function of the company is also related to research and development
department as the marketing function is the face of the company and has to face all the
requests ,feedbacks and desires of the consumer thus the marketing function communicates
the wants, the desires of the consumers that the current brands are unable to fulfil to the
research and development department, the research and development department thus is
very much dependent on the marketing function, the product specifications and the product
formation can only be done if the consumer wants that product if there will not be any
demand for the researching project in the consumer market than there is no need to
continue researching on the same, so interlinking is very important.
The human resource or the personnel department is having the highest power in the
organization as good personnel will lift up the organization and fulfil the goal but if the
personnel is not the desired one than the other departments are also affected by the same,
if the right person is chosen for the right job at the right time by the human resource
function for the marketing department than the employee will be an asset to the
organization not the liability, he should be able to generate enough business for the
company to achieve targets and hence through this HR function is related to marketing
function (Homburg at al., 2015).
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PART-2 APPLICATION
COMPARE THE WAYS IN WHICH DIFFERENT ORGANIZATIONS APPLY THE
MARKETING MIX TO THE MARKETING PLANNING PROCESS TO ACHIEVE BUSINESS
OBJECTIVES
A marketing mix is a technique that defines the elements of marketing which have a huge
impact on the marketing function of every organization. The 7ps of the marketing mix is
Marketing mix comparison between 2 companies forever young and Olay is as follows-
Marketing mix Forever young Olay
Product Forever young has a large range of
products that involves the toiletries for
men and women and also the beauty
products of anti-ageing (Enache, 2011).
The product range of Olay is
inclusive of the anti-ageing
skin care creams that are
having a good acceptance in
the market of UK. The
product portfolio of Olay in
anti- ageing category ranges
to 2 types i.e. day and night
cream and stratified for
different age groups of
people (Enache, 2011).
Place The brand has more than 50 branches in
the UK, which means it has a large market
share in the market and the company is
having a large number of outlets (Enache,
2011).
Olay is being present in
many of the outlets and
malls but it has only a few
outlets of its own even in the
international market
(Enache, 2011).
Price The price range of forever young is in the
range of prices of the competitors and
other skin care anti-ageing brands (Enache,
2011).
The price of Olay is a bit
higher than the normal
competitors and thus this
comes in higher or middle-
income age group in the
population (Enache, 2011).
Promotion Forever young can chose various channels
for advertising and promoting itself in the
market, through social media applications
like Instagram, Facebook and also through
search engine optimization technique,
offering products on the online websites
that are most preferred by people, it
promotes itself in the consumer market
(Enache, 2011).
Olay promotes itself from
the television media more
than the other mediums and
also social media promotion.
as Olay is an experienced
and popular brand so many
people are familiar with the
product and the brand name
so comparatively it requires
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less promotion than the
forever young brand
(Enache, 2011).
Physical
evidence
Physical evidence is also known as the
tangible object offered with the product
that is auxiliary to the main product or
services, forever young has the physical
evidence as to the anti -ageing cream that
it offers and the bottle in which it offers
the cream (Enache, 2011).
For Olay, the physical
evidence is the same as the
forever brand but Olay has
been offering a different and
attractive colour bottle that
is different from other
bottles (Enache, 2011).
People People means the human resource or the
personnel that is the basic requirement of
every organization if the personnel is
creative than only the advertisement of
the product will be attractive for the
customers, the marketing function is
totally dependent on the efficient efforts
of its personnel. To generate high
revenues, minimize the expenditures on
promotion, to increase the customer base
to retain the customers all is to be done by
the people and if they work coordinately
then the target can be achieved and for
forever young the personal of the beauty
giant can be used for all its work and the
personnel here is creative (Enache, 2011).
Olay brand has also a good
strength of its people and
who are experienced enough
to know the consumer
behaviour and their
preferences in the market
(Enache, 2011).
Process The process is defined as the set of
activities that are to be performed in a
continues scheduled manner for
manufacturing a product on time inclusive
of delivering the product to the desired
customers. for forever young the whole
new setup of production as beauty giant
did not have its own product earlier. The
distribution channel although can be used
for delivering the product and promoting
the same. The process is very much
lengthy but effective (Enache, 2011).
Olay has its own distribution
channel but that is not larger
than the distribution channel
of the beauty giant (Enache,
2011).
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TASK
PRODUCE AND EVALUATE A BASIC MARKETING PLAN FOR AN ORGANISATION
Swot analysis of forever young
STRENGTHS
1. Large market share and a great
presence in as there are 50 branches
of beauty giant. The large coverage
over the market in the UK can help
the company to launch its new
products easily.
2. The company beauty giant has its
presence in 30 markets.
3. The good product portfolio of
toiletries in range of both men and
women category.
4. Good relations with the big brand
and a very good supply chain (Helms
and Nixon, 2010).
WEAKNESS
1. No presence outside the UK market.
2. No product or brand of its own, thus
people don’t recognize any brand of
beauty giant on its own (Helms and
Nixon, 2010).
OPPORTUNITY
1. The biggest opportunity for beauty
giant is to launch its anti-ageing
brand forever young.
2. The forever young brand has the
opportunity for male and female
candidates in future because the only
female range for anti-ageing is not in
trend but the males also use these
creams (Helms and Nixon, 2010).
THREAT
1. The biggest threat is from the
competitors that provide the anti-
ageing skin care range and have been
into existence from very long been
recognised as the big players like
Olay.
2. The second threat is from the BREXIT
policy that may result in loss of
efficient employees and also there
can be lost in the revenues because
of the lowering business
opportunities in the UK (Helms and
Nixon, 2010).
Objectives of the marketing plan: to launch forever young and make it a market leading
brand for the people who want the anti- ageing products.
Strategy:
Segmenting – segmenting means dividing the total population of the UK according to the
different demographics and different segments. The demographics normally include age,
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gender, income, area or region and culture etc. but for forever young the demographics on
the basis of segmenting will be done are gender, age as it is an anti -ageing product and
according to the income group that the population belongs (Hassan and Craft, 2012).
Targeting- targeting means the segment in the population which the company wants to
serve or target for selling its products and services. Here the targeted audience is the
women that need anti-ageing products for redefining their face for a better younger looking
skin and the targeted audience is the only women population of UK market not serving
beyond the borders (Hassan and Craft, 2012).
Positioning – Positioning is the rank or the place in the consumer market where the
company wants to place itself. For the beauty giant, it wants it's brand forever young to be
positioned as the UK's best anti-ageing product most preferred by the consumers of the
country hence for the same the company first while entering into the market has to position
itself as the anti-ageing product of UK that everyone who wants to fight skin ageing. The
positioning should not be the luxury skin care brand nor the cheapest anti-ageing cream but
the cream that releases its impact on the consumers and heel their ageing signs (Hassan and
Craft, 2012).
Strategy – basically there are three types of strategies for a company to run its business in
the market, first is the cost leadership, second is the differentiation strategy and third is the
focus strategy and the firm can also follow two strategies from above at a time for a brand.
The cost leadership strategy is the penetrating strategy that a firm uses when it can offer
the products at a very low price or the price lower than the industry prices , this is done to
enter the market and gain a lot of customer attention from the public and the
differentiation strategy is the strategy that involves creating an innovative product that is
different from the competitors a specific characteristics that help the product in gaining a
competitive advantage and focus strategy is where the company only focuses a targeted
audience and not the whole population this helps in creating good market share in targeted
audience. Since forever young brand is offering an anti- ageing product that is specified to
only females who are at and above the age of 30 so it can use focus strategy for capturing
the market. The brand can use cost leadership technique to penetrate in the market so as to
gain a huge customer base and if the audience will like the product they will be ready to pay
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more for the same in future and can easily compete with Olay’s high price products (Wang
et al., 2011).
Budgeting: a budget is a schedule of costs that defines the allocation of funds in the
different expenditures and which activity will be requiring what amount of funds to be
accomplished and to achieve the targeted objective. The activities include conducting a
market survey for deciding the price of the product, for knowing the price at which
customer is ready to pay any other preferences of the audience for anti-ageing cream, then
for defining the strategy, hiring efficient people for implementing the strategy and then
promoting the product through various channels, and finally controlling and execution of a
plan will be the last activity including the cost of gathering the resources (Westwood, 2013).
ACTIVITIES COST (£)
Estimated Cost For Conducting a Market
survey
£ 50000
Estimated Cost For Designing Strategy And
formulation of the plan
£ 50000
The estimated cost of recruiting human
resource
£ 20000
Estimated Digital Marketing & Promotional
Cost
£ 60000
Estimated Cost For Execution Of The
Strategic Plan and allocation of resources
£ 10000
Total Estimated Cost £ 190,000
Controlling and monitoring:
The strategies which are made in the above marketing plan is needed to be implemented in
for launching of the forever young brand with a product of anti-ageing cream. For
measuring the results the company can use various techniques that include an increase in
sales and revenues, profits and also the employee performance needs to be measured and
should be compared with the desired range of targets and if the targets are not achieved
then the reason for the same should be identified to perform better next time.
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CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above assignment that every organisation have a significant
need for the marketing function and this because the marketing function performs several
roles and responsibilities that are required for achieving the goal and objective of the
organisation. The major role is to create business for the company by attracting a large
amount of target audience and converting them to loyal and regular customers. The
marketing function is the one that is interlinked to all other functions of the organisation
and these functions are also dependent on marketing function for achieving the whole
organisational goal. In the above assignment the marketing mix comparison between
forever young and its competitor Olay is done, a marketing plan is formulated for launching
the brand forever young and the marketing plan with strategies with the proper budget is
also discussed in this assignment.
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