Marketing Analysis: Strategies of the Virgin Group Case Study

This case study provides a detailed analysis of the Virgin Group's marketing strategies and their impact on the company's organizational objectives. The study delves into key marketing concepts, including product strategy, branding, and promotional activities, and examines how these strategies have been implemented across various product and service markets. It explores the Virgin Group's diversification efforts, the use of the 7Ps of marketing, and the relationship between the marketing department and other functional areas. The assignment highlights the importance of adapting marketing plans and strategies to achieve organizational goals, improve market share, and enhance profitability. The case study also discusses the company's mission, vision, and objectives, and how they align with its marketing efforts. Furthermore, it examines the use of product mix strategy, individual branding, and promotional techniques to connect with customers and maintain a competitive advantage.

Case Study of Virgin Group

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................1
1. Key marketing concepts and terminologies applicable to the virgin group.............................1
2. Identification of marketing strategies and program that helped the virgin group in achieving
organisational objectives..............................................................................................................3
3. Relationship of marketing functions with other functional areas of organisation along with
its cross relationship with other departments of the company.....................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................10
...................................................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Virgin group was established in the year 1970. The company has built a record of
reaching a billion dollarbillion-dollar valuation in year 1992. Virgin group has 20 holding
companies and around 200 operating companies. For the purpose of grabbing more market share
in the market, and enhancing the profitability of the business, company decided to diversify its
business in variety of products and services markets, and decided to enhance its market
internationally as well. But adoption of this strategy results in a failure for the company and
hence, the company innovated its business plans and strategies of the business. Which This
resulted positively for the company. Adoption of new strategies and plans and taking innovated
decisions helped the company in regaining the market share, increasing profitability of the
company and enhancing the efficiency of the company as well for the better performance of the
business as a whole.
This study will discuss different strategies related to the production, branding and
promotional activities which can be adopted by the company in order to increase its capacity and
efficiency of working of the whole organisation. The study will include different strategies
which is helping the virgin group in achievement of its organisational goals and organisational
objectives efficiently. The study will also cover an analysis of 7p's of marketing concepts and
evaluation of segmentation, targeting and promotional activities of the company. which may
help the company in taking more effective marketing decisions, marketing plans and strategies as
well in order to enhancement of its market share and profitability of the business as a whole. The
assignment will also discuss relationship of marketing department with other departments and
functions of the company along with their cross relationship with the marketing which can help
the company in deciding proper performance of each department of the company for the purpose
of maintaining smooth working within the whole organisational structure.
MAIN BODY
1. Key marketing concepts and terminologies applicable to the virgin group
Virgin group has developed number of strategies for conducting its normal course of
business operations and enhance its profitability and efficiency as well (Barbieri, 2015). Some of
its strategies are as under:
Product strategy
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Virgin group adopted a strategy to spread it business in various markets. For this purpose,
it diversified its business in various markets like cosmetics, airlines, railroads, finance services,
music, soft drinks etc. in subsequent years.
Virgin group can use product mix strategy or flexibility strategy as it produced various
types of products and services. Being a large company, virgin group has huge production
capacity through which virgin group can produce different types of product and gain maximum
amount of profit.
The main problem with the company's decision of diversification was company took
same decisions for every products and services. Every product needs separate decision making.
Virgin group needs to make product classification properly for each product and service
provided by it. After that it needs to make different strategies for each kind of group and then
should bringsbring those strategies into working in its normal course of actions.
Virgin group also needs to innovate its business plans and strategies in order to regain
maximum amount of market share and profits formfrom its all business operations. For this
purposepurpose, company needs to analyse itsit’s all existing plans and strategy, evaluate each
strategy in order to find out problems in the plans and strategies which are leading to failure of
the company and make changes accordingly. And finally redesign its vision and mission as per
its innovated plans and strategies for each product and services.
New product development and Innovation
Virgin-group is also engaged in developing new products in order to extend their brand.
Like for example they are investing their brand for creating new cosmetic products. For this firm
is keenly engaged in doing market research.
Firm is also involved in bringing something new in the old product so that they can
attract more consumers. This has supported them in expanding their business across the globe.
Branding
Branding is the most important task for every business. Company needs to have a brand
which could elaborate company's core vision mission and have power to attract the customers
towards the company's product as well. Virgin group uses family brand strategy in its business. It
has given a single brand name called “virgin” to all the products and services provided by the
company (Muegge. and Reid, 2018).
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Virgin group needs innovation in its branding strategy. Because its brand name “virgin”
can notcannot define vision and mission of each products and services. Virgin group needs to
have separate brand name for each and every product and services. Company needs to decide
brand name for each product in such a way so that the name can effectively describe product's
specification, its vision, mission and core values of the products and services as well. In short,
company needs to have innovation in its branding strategy
Brand extension and Stretches
Virgin-group is also engaged in their established brand name into new products like
cosmetics, financial services for expanding the name of firms brand. . It needs to adopt
individual brand strategy in order to convey proper message about the product and services to its
targeted customers and attract maximum number of customers towards the company and
maximise its profit (McDonald and Wilson, 2016).
Firm is also involved in doing brand stretching where they are using same brand for
selling different type of goods like cosmetics.
Promotional strategies
Today, having a strong promotional strategies strategy is must for every company. For
the purpose of communicate communicating a detailed information about product and services to
the customers, it is have to do advertisement of the products and services in an attractive way
(Sevigné-Itoiz, 2015).
Virgin group uses both traditional and advanced or online advertisement strategies for the
purpose of performing promotional activities for each product and services. Company do
advertise its products through radios, newspapers in order to attract customers traditionally.
Company is also making use of big name endorsements like they are hiring any celebrity
to promote their products. This has supported them in increasing their sale. For promoting the
various goods Virgin-group is also organising promotional events that has helped them in
building relationship with customer's.
2. Identification of marketing strategies and program that helped the virgin group in achieving
organisational objectives.
When company got failure over the period, companybusiness was in need to have
innovation in its strategies and plans to achieve success in achieving organisational objectives
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more efficiently and effectively. Marketing plan and strategy can be defined as a way through
which company achieves its organisational goals and objectives in order to gain success in the
market.
Company has adopted product mix strategy for taking decisions regarding its products.
Reason behind adopting this strategy was that company has a large amount of business which
leads the company to have a great amount of production capacity. Through which company is
enable to work in a diversified market by producing various types of products and gain
maximum amount of market share and profitability as well (Kee. and Yazdanifard, 2015).
In order to increase market share, company made plans and strategies to enter into an
international market. For this purposepurpose, company adopted some strategies like business to
customer marketing strategy, in which virgin group sold its product directly to its customers.
This strategy leads to avoid wholesalers and retailers which resulted in reducing price of the
product. The Best quality product with cheap rate is the best way to attract the customer towards
the company and increase its profitability and grabbing maximum market share by selling
greater amount of products to its customers (Koh, 2015).
For achieving organisational goals and objectives, virgin group taken a very efficient
decision of partnering with some charitable trusts. Due to this partnership, part of profit earned
by the company is being used for helping the society and needy people. People love doing
charity whether directly or indirectly (Virgin Group, 2016). This partnership is helping the
company in attracting more consumers towards the company and enhancing their want of
spending their money for buying company's product. Because, this partnership enabled the
consumers in doing charity indirectly by purchasing virgin group's product and services. It leads
to achieve its organisational objectives and goals to earn maximum profit and market share by
attracting a great number of customers towards the company (Liu. and Wilson, 2017).
Virgin group also adopted individual branding strategy for the purpose of deciding brand
names and logos of its different products. In this strategy, company made different brand for
each and every kind of products in such a way so that the brands can be enable to describe detail
of the product, its vision and mission as well. Company also tried its best to design its brand with
some uniqueness so that it could be enable to attract maximum amount of customers towards the
brand itself (Meredith, 2016).
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In this way, through adopting various strategies in its business operations, company is
being enabled to achieve its organisational objectives and goals as well.
Marketing concepts and principles used in the Virgin Group daily organisational operations
Virgin Group is engaged in selling diverse range of products. They were involved in
investing their brand in services like airlines, roads, cosmetics, financial services, music and soft
drinks. For this they have made use of various marketing concepts and principles which includes
the following:
Mission: Virgin-group mission is to enhance their sale and attract consumers
Vision: Company vision is to establish a unique name in the market.
Objectives: To increase enhance the sale of diverse products by 20% at year end.
Uses of 7P's in Virgin Group
Product: Virgin Group was involved in designing high quality of products for the
consumers so that value can be created for customer's. Like for example firm make suressure that
cosmetics delivered by them satisfies needs and demands of individuals. Most importantly the
brand name of company was not associated with any single product, which supported them in
extending market boundaries (Parente. and Strausbaugh-Hutchinson, 2014).
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Illustration 1: 7 P'S of marketing
Source: (7 P'S of marketing, 2016)

Price: As company was involved in selling diverse range of products, they were engaged
in making use of cost plus pricing method. Like for example firm was involved in selling
cosmetic product by adding their profit value in it. In this they have added a specific amount of
mark-up to goods units cost (Wheeler, 2017).
Place: Virgin Group has extended their diverse products to different places. Like for
example they are engaged in expanding their brand to international market. They have made
selection of right place, so that the company meets demands and needs of consumers. Choosing
the right place for business is one of the most important aspect for firm (McDONALD,
M.A.L.C.O.L.M., 2016).
Promotion: Company was engaged in making use of various promotional techniques in
order to expand their brand. Promotion was basically done by the firm with the help of tools like
advertisements in radio, television and newspaper etc. Virgin group was also making use of
humour, style, fun and irreverence to promote their products (Carlucci, 2015).
People: These are the main assets of the Virgin Group. Firm was involved in taking care
of all the employees who were working under them. This help the company in expanding their
market share. It has also supported them in gaining competitive advantage and investing in
diverse range of products like cosmetics, financial services and many more (Ryan, 2016).
Process: Virgin Group was involved in following the systematic process in order to
deliver the goods and services to the consumers. This feature has supported them in expanding
their products to the international markets. Also, because of this they have gained competitive
advantage (Kee. and Yazdanifard, 2015).
Physical evidence: Virgin Group was engaged in selling the high quality of cosmetic
products to it consumers that supported them in marking their physical evidence in the
environment. Also, because of it they were able to explore large range of consumers that
supported them in enhancing their profit. Firm was also involveinvolving in creating value for
the consumers by offering them quality of service (Khojastehpour, Ferdous. and Polonsky,
2015).
Segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy
Segmentation: Virgin Group was involved in segmenting the market according to
demographic basis. They have kept their focus on the young adults. All the segmentation has
been done by the company by analysing the potential consumers (De Mooij, 2018). By
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segmenting the market firm was able to lay keen emphasis on them that can support them in
gaining competitive advantage.
Targeting: Virgin Group was engaged in making use of differentiated targeting strategy.
Targeted consumer for the firm is young adults. (Park, Mishra. and Wozniak, 2014).
Positioning: Virgin Group is involved in focusing on a quality positioning strategy as a
way of differentiating themselves from their competitors by using exceptional parts and
materials and committing to minimal defect. This has supported them in expanding their market
across the international market. Also, because of effective positioning strategy they have
invested in diverse range of products (Klonaris. and Agiangkatzoglou, 2018).
3. Relationship of marketing functions with other functional areas of organisation along with its
cross relationship with other departments of the company.
Marketing function refers to function of an organisational function in which company
performs activities regarding promotions of different products, selling the products, distributing
the products as per their demands, etc. Marketing functions can be termed as the major function
of an organisation as leads to sale maximum amount of products and gaining maximum market
shares along with maximum amount of profitability (Wirtz. and Lovelock, 2017).
Virgin groups marketing functions have cross relationship with other functional departments in
the following way:
 Finance accounting : virgin group's finance department have a major function to earn
maximum profit from the market. This department builds short term and long term
objectives by using marketing department's future projections. Functional department's
objective of earning maximum amount of profit can be achieved achieve through an
efficient marketing strategy only. As only an efficient marketing strategy can help the
company in gaining maximum amount of sales and profit as well (Davis, 2017).
Hence, it can be said that finance accounting havehas a cross relationship with marketing
function of the company.
 Purchasing department : Ppurchasing department have direct connection with
marketing. Marketing department's efficient strategy leads to attract maximum customers
towards the company. Which leads to made a great amount of sales by the company.
(Lohmann. and Spasojevic, 2018). For producing a great amount production company
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needs to purchase numerous raw materials. Which belongs purchase department.
Therefore, purchasing also have a cross relationship with marketing function.
 IT department: marketing helps the population to attract towards the company.
Marketing department helps IT to attract new talent towards the company (Torres-Ruiz,
Vega-Zamora. and Parras-Rosa, 2018). Marketing enables the IT department to attract
maximum number of employees for recruitment process through which IT can recruit the
best employees in its department. Also, IT department of virgin group enables the
company to use the best innovative techniques in the company. Which enables the
marketing department to do best advertisement of the company and attract maximum
amount of customers towards the company which is the main objective of marketing
department (Shah, Jamil, Shah. and Kazmi, 2015).
 Human resource department : Mmarketing enables the company to increase sale of the
company. Which This makes the company to produce large number of products which
results in increase number of employees required in the business. Human resource
managers perform the task to recruit the employees in the company (Randall, 2015).
Hence, the marketing also have a croiss relationship with human resource management (Burns,
2017).
 Engineering : Marketing enables the company to increase the sale for the production
department. Which generates the need of more efficient machines by production
department. Which This generates need of engineers in the company in order to innovate
a more efficient machine for the use of its production department (Dangelico. and
Vocalelli, 2017). In this way, marketing department also influences the performance of
engineering department of virgin group.
 Operation department : Ooperation department manages whole operations of a
business entity. Virgin group's marketing department enhances need of production,
need of more purchasing raw material, need of more employees in the department, etc. it
all influences the business operations of virgin group which is managed by its operation
department. Therefore, performance of operation department is also influenced by the
marketing department (Faley, Flemming. and Stovall, 2015).
 Maintenance department : Aas the marketing department's good performance leads to
increase in sale of products and services of virgin group, it results in more production of
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products and services in the company. As a result, company needs to maintain more
quantity of raw materials and produced goods as well (Burmann, Piehler. and Löwa,
2015). Which is being performed by the operation department of the virgin group.
Hence, it can be concluded that marketing department's performance is related with the
performance of maintenance department as well.
CONCLUSION
From the above study it can be concluded that, virgin group has reached in the list of
leading companies of UK. It has diversified its business in variety of product and service
market. Due to this plan of a lot of diversification in the market company had gone on a
downfall. But now the company has adopted as strong strategies and plans for the purpose of
regaining its market share and profitability. The company has created a strong product strategy
of adopting product mix strategy which has helped the company in managing its production
capacity efficiently. Virgin group has adopted a good branding strategy and promotional strategy
as well which has helped the company in attracting more customers towards the product of
company, grabbing maximum amount of market shares and profitability as well.
Virgin group has analysed 7p's of the market along with the segmentation,
targeting and promotional activities in order to perform market research activity effectively. This
analysis has helped the company in making more efficient marketing strategies and plans and
taking more effective decisions for the company as well. The virgin group has also analysed and
evaluated its marketing department's relationship with its other departments in order to know the
influence of the marketing department's performance on the business operations and maintaining
its other department's performance accordingly in order to maintain smooth working within the
organisation.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Virgin-group can adopt variety of strategies direct selling its product to its customers in
order to eliminate the mediators and reducing cost to the customers, partnering with charitable
trust in order to share its profits with the charitable trust and helping the needy people which
resulted in attracting maximum amount of customers towards the company, enhancing market
share and the profitability of the company as well. They can make use of effective
communication for building relationship with consumers
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Online
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<https://www.arabianbusiness.com/companies/virgin-group-76902.html>
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