Marketing and Communications Strategy Analysis of Addison Lee

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Addison Lee's marketing and communications strategy. It begins with an executive summary and an introduction to the company, a London-based private hire service. The report examines Addison Lee's marketing orientation, emphasizing its market-oriented approach. It then delves into marketing environment analysis, including macro, micro, and internal environmental factors. The report also explores the company's marketing strategy, focusing on market segmentation, particularly its shift to target customers aged 16-25, and segmentation approaches. The marketing mix is analyzed, covering product, price, place, promotion, physical environment, process, and people. The report concludes with a comparative analysis and recommendations for improvements in product, promotion, and pricing strategies. The report highlights Addison Lee's efforts to rebrand and expand its business, especially targeting a younger demographic.

Running head: MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY OF ADDISON LEE
Marketing and Communications Strategy of Addison Lee
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1MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY OF ADDISON LEE
Executive Summary
The primary focus of this report is to analyze and discuss the marketing and communications
strategy of Addison Lee, a hire company based in United Kingdom. The report involves a
chronological discussion of the company’s overview, its marketing orientation, marketing
environment, the macro, micro and internal environmental factors, marketing strategies and
marketing mix. Addison Lee mostly operates in London is in service for more than forty years.
The company looks to develop its business and apply a new marketing strategy that targets
customers between the ages of 16 to 25. The report focuses on the application of new marketing
strategy in order to expand Addison Lee’s business and achieve the desired target. The report
concludes with a comparative analysis of the company and describes its present status.
Recommendations made at the end of the report includes changes need to be made in the
product, promotion and pricing strategies of the company.

2MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY OF ADDISON LEE
Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Marketing orientation......................................................................................................................3
Marketing environments..................................................................................................................7
Marketing environment analysis..................................................................................................7
Macro environmental factors.......................................................................................................8
Micro environmental factors........................................................................................................9
Internal environmental factors...................................................................................................10
Marketing strategy.........................................................................................................................11
Market segmentation.................................................................................................................11
Segmentation approaches..........................................................................................................11
Marketing mix...............................................................................................................................13
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
References:....................................................................................................................................16

3MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY OF ADDISON LEE
Introduction
Addison Lee is a London based private hire company that was founded in the year 1975 by John
Griffin. The company’s services include pick-up on demand, availability of cars with pre
indicated price, advance bookings, Wi-Fi connectivity, easy cash payment and so on (Addison
Lee 2017).
Marketing communications is the implementation of various communication tools in order to
market a product or service (Pearsoned.co.uk 2017). It is a part of the overall marketing strategy
of a company.
The report discuses the marketing strategy applied by Addison Lee to focus on a new
target group of customers in the age of 16 to 25 years.
Marketing orientation
Businesses previously used to stress more on other factors such as production, product and
selling rather than on consumers. However, this trend has changed and today, the consumer is the
ultimate ruler (Study.sagepub.com 2017). Through marketing orientation, one can identify which
factor a particular business focuses on. The four basic factors include production, sales, product
and marketing.
Production, product, selling and market orientations
In production-oriented business, companies mainly stress on mass production to reduce
costs.

4MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY OF ADDISON LEE
Product-oriented businesses rely mostly on the quality of their product or service.
Companies orientating their focus on product quality neglect the demands and desires of the
consumers.
Selling the product to the customer is the sole target of a sales-oriented company. A
sales-oriented company does not consider the wants of the consumer, rather presumes what the
consumer wants.
The most favored and applied strategy for companies in today’s world is the marketing
orientation. This type of companies put all their efforts to lure the customers and satisfy their
needs in every way possible (Dalgic and Leeuw 2015).
Figure 1: Graphical representation of marketing orientation
(Source: Created by author)
Addison Lee is undoubtedly a market-oriented company. The company invests all its
energy in providing services that cater to the needs of the customers.
ProductionSellingProductMarket

5MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY OF ADDISON LEE
In its attempt to connect with the new generation customers, Addison Lee rebranded itself
by launching its new logo with a modern look. The digital redesigning of the logo allows
Addison Lee to have a distinct look amidst a host of other similar businesses.
Figure 2: Former Black & White logo of Addison Lee
(Source: Addison Lee 2017)

6MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY OF ADDISON LEE
Figure 3: Addison Lee’s new look
(Source: Addison Lee 2017)

7MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY OF ADDISON LEE
Figure 4: Addison Lee new logo being unveiled
(Source: Addison Lee 2017)
Addison Lee was initially a business-to-business (B2B) company focusing more on profit
through other businesses. However, with the emergence of social media and increasing
competition, the company decided to shift its focus to a more consumer-based approach (Rogers
et al., 2017). This has been evident from the personalization strategy where the company allows
its customers to grab personalized deals through emails and through the company’s app.
Marketing environments
Marketing environment analysis
Environmental analysis of market refers to the process of identifying every internal and
external element that can influence a company’s performance. The best and the most common

8MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY OF ADDISON LEE
way to analyze the marketing environment are to do a PESTLE analysis. It includes, political,
economic, social, technological, legal and environmental (Percy 2014).
In case of Addison Lee, analyzing the different marketing factors becomes crucial as it is
undergoing a transformation phase. With its launch of premium look last year, the company
looks to expand its business beyond UK. To achieve this, it has to devise a marketing strategy
that encompasses demographical, geographical and other factors. In order to plan a strategy,
marketing environment analysis is extremely essential (Campaignlive.co.uk, 2017). This allows
Addison Lee to map the behavior of consumers, the shift in behavior, and the political conditions
of the targeted region, assess the economic strength of the company and so on. Most importantly,
Addison Lee’s strategy to target new consumer group comprising the younger generation can
only be achieved through environmental analysis.
Macro environmental factors
The chief macro environmental factors include political, economic, socio-cultural and
technological (Boone and Kurtz 2013).

9MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY OF ADDISON LEE
Figure 5: Macro Environmental Factors
(Source: Created by author)
To Addison Lee, economic factors like consumer assurance, service, inflation and interest
rates do have a significant impact on its business. Consumer assurance is a key to success.
The social elements such as family, reference groups and influential people and the
society overall are the factors that influence business strategies. Education, language, aesthetics,
religion and such may be termed as cultural factors.
Consumer assurance, as mentioned earlier, is the key to success and with its fresh vision
to be a consumer-centric company, Addison Lee can utilize this factor. The younger generation
is tech-savvy and almost all the leading firms have targeted it. The personalized features give it
an edge over its rivals.
MacroEnvironmentalfactors

10MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY OF ADDISON LEE
Micro environmental factors
In contrast to the macro environmental factors, six micro environmental factors are there
that affect a business.
Uber
Figure 6: Micro Environmental Factors
(Source: Created by author)
Addison Lee faces stiff competition from a number of minicab private hire companies.
Uber, Kabbee, Mytaxi (formerly Hailo) and Taxify are its top competitors.
Uber and Mytaxi are however, the two toughest competitors that pose threat to Addison
Lee. Uber, a San Francisco based private hire company has even surpassed Addison Lee’s
success. The smartest thing Uber did to dominate the London taxi hiring market was to offer a
Micro Environmental
Factors
Customers
Employees
Suppliers
Competitors
Investors
Media and public

11MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY OF ADDISON LEE
much higher pay to the drivers that was never offered by any company. In addition, it also gives
cheaper rides to passengers in comparison to Addison Lee.
Mytaxi on the other hand utilizes the 21,000 Black Cab drivers to attract passengers. It
also offers a discount of ten pounds for the first order a passenger places. Other than that, Mytaxi
sets its fare based on Transport for London regulations.
Internal environmental factors
The internal factors are the ones within an organization or a firm that have an effect on
the firm’s performance.
Figure 7: Internal Environmental Factors affecting Addison Lee
(Source: Created by author)
Among the above-mentioned factors, location and performance are the two primary
factors that could be chosen to determine Add Lee’s operations.