Business Marketing Essentials: HBC's Roles, Mix & Marketing Plan

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Hungry Box Chicken's (HBC) marketing strategies, focusing on the roles and responsibilities of the marketing function, a comparative study of the marketing mix applied by HBC and McDonald's, and a detailed marketing plan to address the challenges faced by HBC due to a campaign criticizing its products as junk food. The report includes a PESTLE analysis to assess the external factors impacting HBC, defines marketing objectives, and outlines the STP (segmentation, targeting, and positioning) strategy for the new 'Healthy Chicken' product line. The goal is to provide a roadmap for HBC to regain customer trust, improve its business conditions, and achieve its objectives through effective marketing initiatives.

BUSINESS MARKETING ESSENTIALS
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Task 1(P1, P2).................................................................................................................................4
P1. Explain the key roles and responsibilities of marketing function within the organization.......4
P2. How roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organizational context..........6
Task 2 (P3).......................................................................................................................................7
P3. Compare the ways in which different organizations such as HBC and one of their
competitors (Example Mc Donald’s) apply the marketing mix to the marketing planning process
to achieve business objectives.........................................................................................................7
Task 3(P4)......................................................................................................................................10
P4. Marketing plan.........................................................................................................................10
Executive summary.......................................................................................................................10
Situation analysis...........................................................................................................................10
Marketing objectives.....................................................................................................................12
STP (segmentation, targeting and positioning).............................................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................18
References......................................................................................................................................19
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Introduction
A good marketing plan is very essential for any business to have a competitive advantage. In this
project the organization that will be discussed about is Hungry Box Chicken or HBC. This
organization is famous for delicious fried chicken which it provides in more than ten cities in
UK. A serious issue is raised against this organization by a campaign that it sells junk food and
because of this issue there is a downfall of the business. The business to regain its customers
follows new marketing strategy and the understandings regarding the responsibilities of
marketing function will be discussed below. A comparative study is done between HBC and Mc
Donald’s that concludes where the organization HBC lacks.
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Task 1(P1, P2)
P1. Explain the key roles and responsibilities of marketing function within the organization
The marketing department of any organization has a very crucial role in promoting the business
of that company. Here, in the present scenario Hungry Chicken Box is facing a difficult time due
to the ongoing campaign of PETA. Therefore, the role of marketing consultant becomes very
important for company’s future prospect. The role and responsibilities of marketing function
within the organization are follows:
Research and development:
Marketing department has to do the research first to gain the market knowledge before
developing a product (Choi and Yeniyurt, 2015).
Identify the present trend
HBC is going through a process where they are losing customers. First marketing department
will have to follow the present trend and their position in the current market. Keeping that trend
in mind marketing consultant will guide the staffs.
Customers need should be a priority:
Second most important thing for marketing department is to give priority to the customers need
and choices.
Product development
Development of new products is another important thing. At present HBC is going through a
tough phrase. Therefore, new product should be developed by the company to stable the current
situation (Chang and Taylor, 2016).
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Launching innovative products
After product development, new products should be launched in a planned and systematic way.
To control the present situation HBC is thinking to launch a new product named “Healthy
chicken “to retain and regain their customers” (Van Wulfen, 2016).
Communicate with the customers:
Communicate with the customers become very important for any company as the whole business
is all about them. Here, as HBC is facing issues regarding junk food issues issue, marketing
department has to regain customer’s faith while establishing a proper communication set up with
customers. Through organizing campaigns, the organization connects to people and discusses
about the products and the process through which they prepare the products. Moreover, the
campaigns also discuses about the healthy ingredients they add from which the health issue can
be improved more (Mann and Ghuman, 2018).
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P2. How roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organizational context
Marketing is vital for today’s business organization. Any business needs a proper marketing and
this marketing will affect the whole business as well as the whole organization. Marketing will
put impact on finance department, production department, Human resource department,
operation department in a direct way.
Interrelationship between marketing and finance department:
For growth and development of a company marketing and finance are very vital and connected.
Finance is all about profit margin, growth rate, costs, feasibility and so on. Marketing includes
Advertisements, achieve sales target and so on. Without a proper marketing, advertisements,
sales and archiving target is never possible. Therefore, in present scenario, marketing is
becoming too important for HBC, as declining customer ratio will put a negative impact on its
finance department directly (Samargandi, 2015).
Interrelationship between marketing and production department:
With a proper marketing, any product can get a lot attention of customers. If it happens, it will
put a positive impact on the production department. If demand is high, production will be high
too. This demand definitely needs a good marketing. For HBC, with the help marketing, this
company can attract more customers and it will give their production department a great boost.
Interrelationship between marketing and HR department:
Work of HR department solely involves man power. In a company, employees are main base
strength. With the help of good marketing, any company can recruit quality employees who will
take active part in company’s growth. For HBC now HR department is also very important. HR
department will make new strategies and marketing department will follow the path to provide
them with the needed help (Feng et al., 2015).
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Task 2 (P3)
P3. Compare the ways in which different organizations such as HBC and one of their competitors
(Example Mc Donald’s) apply the marketing mix to the marketing planning process to achieve
business objectives
Marketing mix elements HBC Mc Donald’s
Product HBC deals with fast foods
that are famous for burgers.
This organization gives
customers standardized
products. Their end product
is chicken that is named as
delicious fried chicken in the
menu.
This deals with fast foods
that are famous for many
food items. This organization
gives customers diversified
products such as its menu
consists of Chicken Mc
muffin, BBQ Beef Double,
Vegetable burger, Mc egg
burger, Grilled chicken,
Crispy chicken etc.
Price The pricing of the product
lines of Hungry Box Chicken
is done in a cost effective
manner. They use bundle
pricing strategy. Competitive
pricing of similar products
are used. This organization
competes with
Mc Donald’s sets the price of
their products keeping in
mind about the customers’
mentality. According to the
customers’ mentality when
the price is low, they tend to
assume that the brand and
integrity of the product is
compromised. Hence, using
low price as a marketing tool
becomes risk for them. Thus,
this organization rates their
products highly.
Place This organization has
physical stores and outlets.
The customers need to buy
In this organization, the
physical stores are available
and also at the same time
online delivery service is
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the products from the stores
of HBC.
provided (Membe et al.,
2012).
Promotion HBC uses advertisements for
promoting their organization.
They held campaigns where
they provided free food to
public at a distance of 1km
away. The intention was to
make people aware of their
stores nearby. To promote
their products they give “buy
one and get 50% free on
purchasing a single item”.
They too do promotion
through advertisements. The
advertisements are conducted
through television, radio,
internet, sale promotions
where displaying sales are
done, merchandising, direct
mails etc. To promote their
products they give buy one
and get 20% free on
purchasing any combo meal
People This being business
organization focuses on
customers and their needs.
Necessary training is given
to the employees regarding
how to manage the
customers and sessions are
held to learn from the best.
The employees of this
organization have specific
uniform. They focus on
meeting the customers with
friendly approach and attend
all the customer problems.
Training is given regarding
customer management, how
to handle short-tempered
customers and when there is
high pressure at the outlet of
the business.
Process They give the products to the
franchises and from them the
customers receive the
product. HBC sells their
products directly that is the
customers get their products
from the physical stores and
outlets.
They also sell their products
directly. Customers buy their
products from the outlet of
the organization. They also
provide home delivery
services; therefore products
reach to the customers
through a service man.
Physical evidence HBC aims to deliver healthy
food. Many campaigns
promote for the brand.
This organization focuses on
clean and hygienic interiors
for its outlet also it is
attractive. The fast food
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sector maintains a proper
decorum.
Table 1.Comparison between marketing mix of HBC and Mc Donald’s
(Source: Created by the learner)
From the above table it is seen that the HBC lacks from Mc Donald’s in terms of product variety
as, the HBC sells only one time of product that is chicken based while the Mc Donald’s sells
diversified products that include chicken, beef, egg and vegetable products. In the field of
physical evidence, the Mc Donald’s offers home delivery service which is not provided by the
HBC organization. In HBC only direct delivery service is available that is customers buy the
products from the stores.
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Task 3(P4)
P4. Marketing plan
Executive summary
A proper marketing plan is important for any business to increase its sell and achieve the
objectives. The issue faced regarding a campaign raising the blame of selling junk food, against
the HBC organization resulted in the downfall of the business .The business to regain its
customers and improve its business conditions, implemented a new marketing strategy that is to
introduce new product line “Healthy Chicken”. This new product line aims to produce healthy
chicken by using healthy ingredients that is beneficial to the customers’ health. Different
campaigns are held by HBC to discuss about the benefits and quality of this new product line and
advertisements are also given in order to make people aware of the healthy ingredients they are
using to prepare their products
Situation analysis
Pestle analysis Of Hungry Box Chicken.
Elements of pestle Analysis
Political factor The major differences in the republican and
democratic policies of UK influence the taxes
and the spending of the government. The HBC
organization is affected in a negative way, as
they invest for rents and also need to pay their
taxes.
Economical factor Due to the political factors, the economic part
of the country is also affected. The government
recovers the scarcity of money by imposing
huge taxes on the private organizations. The
business organizations in UK are affected in a
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negative way, as they need to pay those taxes
to the government. The HBC organization
spends a lot of its economic portion for the
land revenue and taxes paid to the government.
This leads them to increase the prices of the
products to gain profit from the business.
Social factor The social factor mainly deals with the lifestyle
of the people. The people of UK are health
conscious and prefer healthy products over
junk, to lead a healthy lifestyle. The rumor of
selling junk food that was claimed by the
campaigns against HBC, created a huge
declination in their business. The customers of
HBC stopped having chicken from them and
this created economic crisis in the
organization, as they sell standardized products
that is only chicken.
Technological factor UK is known to be one of the most modern
countries where the use of technology is huge.
The technologies used by HBC for payment
purpose and advertisements in the social media
are available. This makes the business more
efficient and professional.
Environmental factor The different campaigns of UK are very much
concerned with the natural resources like flora
and fauna. The killing of animals creates
destruction in the ecosystem and this affects
the entire environment.HBC deals with
standardized product that is chicken. They sell
animal product and this involves the act of
killing them. Hence this business creates a
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negative influence on the environment.
Legal factor In order to conduct sustainable business in UK
market, the company needs to comply with a
set of legislations such as “The Food Safety
and Hygiene”, “The General Food Regulations
2004” and others. UK government monitors
organizations’ activities in order to ensure that
the organizations are complying with these acts
and therefore, the companies will face negative
consequences in case of defiance.
Table 2. Pestle analysis of Hungry Box Chicken
(Source: Created by the learner)
Marketing objectives
 To conduct market research in order to understand the needs and demand of the target
market
 To conduct advertisement for the newly developed product line (healthy chicken)
 To launch the newly developed products
 To gather feedback from the customers in order to improve the products
STP (segmentation, targeting and positioning)
Segmentation
Demographic segmentation strategy:
In this segment, two factors are considered.
Age group: The organization has decided to segment its customers group on the basis of the age
of population mainly the middle aged customers.
Income group: The organization has decided to segment population in terms of income group
keeping the income level high and adapting competitive pricing strategy. Therefore, segmenting
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the group on the basis of income is mandatory. The company aims at targeting customers with
high income.
Behavioral segmentation strategy:
The company has segmented their customers in terms of behavioral choices such as people who
love to eat healthy food and maintain a healthy diet are targeted by the organization as they will
prefer the new product outline “healthy chicken”. Some of them have no issues having junk
foods; those are the generalized group of people who are also targeted at the same time, by the
company. There are also people who eat vegetable foods. Those sections of people are not the
priority of the organization while the people consume non-vegetable food is the priority of the
organization.
Geographic segmentation strategy:
The company has decided to segment its customer group on the basis of geographic location as
well. Company is targeting the city people who live a busy life and prefer picking up food from
takeaways.
Targeting:
Age group:
As the company deals with food products, it is targeting the age group of 18 to 45 years mainly.
This age group is adult age group and therefore company is targeting this particular group.
Income group:
Healthy chicken is a quality food line up that comes with a good price. Therefore company is
targeting high-income group whose income is at least more than £30,000 per month. People of
low-income group may not be able to avail these products much.
Healthy and Quality food lovers:
Company is targeting those people who love to spend money and love to eat good quality food.
Healthy chicken products are definitely for those healthy food lovers. That group is main target
of the company.
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High price
Low price
High qualityLow quality
Healthy
chicken
Geographical segmentation:
Company has set to launch its products in city areas only. This product is coming with a good
price. People who live in the cities are the targeted customers of this organization
(Schlegelmilch, 2016).
Positioning
Figure 1: Perceptual map
(Source: Created by the author)
.
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Marketing strategy
Elements of marketing mix Marketing strategy
Product The organization after facing declination for
selling junk, which was claimed by a health
campaign, planned to develop new product line
‘Healthy Chicken’. This new product outline
aims to prepare dishes of chicken in such a
way that it not only uses healthy ingredients
but also uses more hygienic approach
Price The organization after creating the new product
line increased the prices because the quality of
the chicken was enhanced and use of healthy
ingredients for the preparation.
Promotion Advertisements with tag line ‘Healthy Chicken
‘are done through campaigns. These campaigns
elaborately discuss about the
Physical evidence This organization focuses on clean and hygienic
interiors for its outlet also it is attractive. The fast
food sector maintains a proper decorum. The
store’s cleanliness is maintained as the impression
of the customer depends on the environment of the
organization.
Process HBC sells their products directly that is the
customers get their products from the physical
stores and outlets .The products are reached to
the customers through different franchises.
People Hungry Chicken Box uses the demographic
segmentation to meet the customer needs as well as
to serve the market. According, to this
segmentation the age group below eight do not
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prefer chicken and outside food. Therefore, this
organization tries out targeting people above ten
years. Also the strategy of targeting people who
live in posh area and prefer dining out, are
implemented
Place Previously, the service was available in
physical stores and also at the same time online
delivery service was provided for the
customers(Simonic et al., 2016)
Table 3: Elements of marketing mix
(Source: Created by the learner)
Evaluation of the marketing plan
The issue that the organization was facing regarding selling of junk food which was claimed by a
campaign resulted in business loss hugely. The people of UK are mainly health conscious and
thus the rumor of HBC selling junk food created a lot of fuss among them. The new business
strategy that they incorporated was to implement a new product line “Healthy chicken” that
aimed at preparing delicious chicken with healthy ingredients. The objective of this new product
line was to serve people healthy product for leading a healthy lifestyle. This new business
strategy evaluated the problems of HBC and accordingly structured the business marketing
strategy (Westwood, 2016).
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Conclusion
Business essential is the study to develop business and achieve all the objectives of that
organization. In the above project the organization that have been discussed about was Hungry
Box Chicken that serves delicious chicken to more than ten cities in UK. The rumors that were
spread regarding the quality of chicken declines the business hugely. The marketing plans had
been established in order to overcome the issue. The organization introduced new product line
‘Healthy chicken’ to retain more customers and create a healthy lifestyle of people. The
segmentation, targeting and positioning helps the organization become specific and more
effective. In addition, the pestle analysis of this organization gives more detailed information of
the business situations.
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