M&S Marketing: Promotional Campaign, Communication, and Branding

This report delves into marketing communication and branding strategies, primarily focusing on a promotional campaign undertaken by Marks & Spencer. It highlights the purpose and brand vision behind the campaign, emphasizing the company's commitment to providing premium quality products and exceptional customer experience while considering environmental and community impact. Various methods for measuring the success of the promotional campaign, such as website traffic, page views, social engagement, and email open rates, are discussed. The report identifies the target audience, including individuals aged 35-55 and GenZ/millennials seeking trendy fashion. Furthermore, it includes a reflective essay that recounts personal experiences and learnings from the project, focusing on skills gained in digital marketing and time management, while also acknowledging challenges faced and areas for improvement. The essay underscores the importance of self-awareness and ethical practices in marketing.

Marketing communication
and branding

TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS..............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGN......................................................................................................3
Purpose and brand vision............................................................................................................3
Ways to measure promotional campaign....................................................................................3
Target audience...........................................................................................................................4
Ways to communicate brand story..............................................................................................4
Connecting with target groups....................................................................................................4
REFLECTIVE ESSAY....................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is an important aspect for an organisation as it helps in creating opportunity of
sales. There are several marketing strategies that have that helps in making effective sales
promotions with the motive to attract customers and understanding their needs and demands.
Branding communications includes the idea of presenting business within the associated industry
while developing a stellar reputation. Branding and communication is combination of activities
such as advertising, social media and so on, used for the purpose of communicating with the
customers. This report deals with the promotional marketing campaign of Marks and Spencer
followed by a reflective essay regarding the skills gained and learnt in the process.
PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGN
Purpose and brand vision
Marks and Spencer works in a fashion retail brand with the image of offering premium
quality clothing and other products. This industry is very competitive and to gain competitive
advantage, it is important that company invests in an effective promotional campaign. These
campaigns work with the brand vision to provide its customers with the best customer experience
while taking care about the environment and community. The mission is to make high quality
products and services. The purpose of Marks and Spencer to invest in a good promotional
campaign is to put emphasis on spreading this vision to its target audience while identifying
various ways to communicate benefits offered by the brand within its target market. The digital
platforms of the company promote the brand, clothes for men, women and kid section. Marks
and Spencer is shifting its marketing approach to go full digital and launching promotional
campaigns on online modes to have better engagement with its customers.
Ways to measure promotional campaign
Digital and online platforms for marketing helps in producing effective results. Marks
and Spencer have made efforts for advertising its products and services on various channels. The
success of this promotional strategy includes,
Overall website traffic: Website forms the front face of the company and builds a foundation
for the purpose of activities related to digital activities. This traffic is important in accordance of

primary goals of the company. Campaigns based on boosting email interaction and building links
on other websites or even boosting the number on social media channels will lead to the main
website of the company. Increase in the website traffic for the company on regular basis will
show the about the performance of Marks and Spencer in putting such marketing efforts.
Page views: This is the most important way to measure the success of digital campaign. It is
related with the total number of times visitor views the profile of the company and therefore,
tells about the numbers of target audience, this campaign has reached out to. The number of
views on the page is very important metric for the company. It requires setting up a time line and
monitoring the visits on website and other pages related to company will determine the real time
value for the company and will identify the limited number of pages for the same.
Social engagement: It is related to the measure of number of interactions and responses on
social media platforms. This is measured in form of clicks on the posts, likes, comments and so
on that will show different forms of social interactions. Engagement is the best way to measure
social media success. It is earned on the basis of choosing ways to interact with the content
offered. Content is related with the type of engagement received and helps in guiding towards
future motives of the company.
Email open rate: Email marketing is done to send personalised emails to potential customers
regarding offers, promotions and so on. Watching over the email marketing metrics is important
and the rate of email opens measures the number of people that are interested in the products and
services from the company. High opening rates indicate that the campaign has properly
segmented list, attractive subject line along with appropriate send time.
Target audience
The target audience of the company includes individuals under the age of 35 to 55 years
men and women along with the GenZ and millennials that are looking for high trend fashion. It
has the perfect collection clothing that ranges from basic and simple to highly sophisticated
clothing.
Ways to communicate brand story
Connecting with target groups

REFLECTIVE ESSAY
The purpose behind self- reflection report is to provide a platform that will recount life
experiences and will explore the changes and things learned from this experience. Self- reflection
helps in building self- awareness that will allow one to look neutral towards the thoughts,
feelings and actions. It allows to dig deeper and reflect on the positive and negative aspects
related to the project and personal self. It helps in formulating goals that will improve personal
experience and avoiding same mistakes from happening again.
I have pursued the course in Bachelor of arts as pathway, that is pursued this course
before entering into a University. This course has helped me to improve the current stage of
educational qualification and preparing for being better at university level. BA pathways has
helped me to empower my path towards success. Learning psychology in my foundation year has
helped me to understand the behaviour patterns of customers. Marketing is an interesting field
that involves the study of various aspects involved in promoting the brand and make it reach out
to maximum audience. The subject of digital marketing was the most interesting in my
foundation year. This subject broaden my knowledge related to the concepts of marketing the
products and services of the company on online and digital platforms. This field of marketing
includes many changes at a constant rate to get the work done. It helped me to gain advanced
training related to the methods of advertising and marketing with the use of digital technologies.
Challenges faced while learning about digital marketing are mostly due to the continuous
changes in the area. Moreover, gaining just theoretical knowledge of digital platform will not
help in working on its practical applications. With a continuous dependency on gadgets, the
innovation in technology and is building new developments. Consumers are continuously
changing their choices for digital platforms. However, pursuing a career in digital marketing will
help me to explore a wide range of career options in the modern and digitalised business world.
This subject will help in enhancing my skills and creativity by building a learning mindset. I
have become more interested in exploring various fields related to the business and its marketing
opportunities. This makes an excellent opportunity to expand my skill- set and attaining more
knowledge in the process.
Working in this project helped me to explore various areas I can improve my knowledge
and skills. This project was associated with many challenges coming in the way of completing
this project and its progress. Time management is the skills that holds an important place and

helps in meeting deadlines for the allocated tasks. Developing a promotional strategy led me to
explore every concept related to the business and its marketing strategy. It took a lot of time for
me to gain in- depth knowledge which resulted in delays. I lacked time- management skills that
were big issue for me to manage my personal professional work while meeting deadlines.
Analysing every aspect related to the project in detail took a lot of time and made me miss the
achievements of certain milestones. Meanwhile, I learned ways to properly plan and implement
my work, this enabled m to work smart rather than work hard. Completion of this project
required me to work on several activities at a single time. This improved my organising skills
where I segregated different tasks that are to be performed with their associated deadlines, thus
helping me produce integrated results from these tasks on simultaneous basis.
On the other hand, I identified that my research and analytical skills are very well
developed that helped me interpret the behavioural patterns of customers and use it in marketing
to gain attention of maximum potential customers. I was able to assume the results very quickly
and in a logical manner while identifying market trends. I learnt to use available resources in
effective manner by allocating them on prior basis. This allowed my schedule to move forwards
in a synchronised manner. Working on this project helped me to gain extreme insightful
information regarding the processes involved in developing a marketing campaign. I learnt many
new things about myself and my style of working. I was able to identify my lacking as well as
strengthening points that made this project a success. Lastly, I was able to put in every ethical
way within my working practices to gave an effective contribution within the project.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Online
M&S launches most digital marketing campaign to date: must haves”, 2018. [Online]. Available
through: < https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/media/press-releases/2018/mands-
launches-most-digital-marketing-campaign-to-date-must-haves>