M&S E-commerce: Contemporary Marketing Practice Analysis Report

This report provides an analysis of Marks and Spencer's e-commerce and contemporary marketing practices. It examines how M&S has embedded the marketing process within its operations, reflecting current marketing trends such as social media marketing, TV advertising, and sponsorships. The report also relates omnichannel marketing theories and models to M&S's strategies, highlighting their use of various channels to engage customers. Furthermore, it includes recommendations for enhancing M&S's marketing efforts, such as leveraging VR and AR ads, and concludes with insights into the company's approach to reaching a wide audience and promoting its products, particularly its food offerings. Desklib provides access to this assignment, offering students valuable study tools and solved assignments.

e-Commerce and
Contemporary Marketing
Practice

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
How Marks and Spencer has embedded and applied the marketing process within the trade
journal article..........................................................................................................................1
How this reflects current marketing practices........................................................................3
Relate omni channel marketing theories and models to the trade journal article...................4
Provide brief recommendations based on review and analysis..............................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
E-commerce is identified to be one of the most effective ways through which an entity can reach
the people. It can be comprehensibly referred to as the act of purchasing or selling articles over
the internet (Mihart, 2012). Businesses is today’s world make use of e-commerce and other
conventional marketing practices so as to reach out to audience in a rapid manner. The following
project is based upon Marks and Spencer which is a retail corporation based in UK. The project
consists of the manner in which the entity has embedded and applied marketing process. Further,
it provides an overview of the current marketing practices of the organisation. In addition to this,
it includes omni channel marketing approach used by the corporation for reaching to wide
audience. Lastly, recommendations are included to provide a boost to the marketing process of
retail corporation.
How Marks and Spencer has embedded and applied the marketing process within the trade
journal article
The concept of marketing has been defined differently as per the changing environment and with
the invention of new technology. As the current marketing process is totally differ from the
traditional marketing approach. With the assistance of internet and advance technology the
marketing has the changed how the business operate their market activities effectively. In the
context of M&S the management along with the marketing department tend to come up with new
ideas and innovation through which they can attract the larger customer in the well define
manner (Werner and Tang, 2017). As M&S is international company, which have widespread in
Europe as well as North America, the brand is considered as one of the leading clothing fashion
lines in entire UK and has contributed to economy growth of the company.
M&S have overhauled the marketing strategies and focus on the main towards their
products. Along with this, they have invested in the digital platform as to capture the larger
audience respectively. The main decision is taken by the chief executive of the company Steve
Rowe to bring out the festive campaign as to capture large market share effectively. As the
company have step backed from the Black Friday promotion as a part of their overall corporate
strategy which tend to reduce the sale of the company. So, in this case firm have to focus on the
market research aimed at identifying needs as well as preferences of customers in the market
place. As a result of this, it will be able to bring out the effective measures which help in
1

managing and controlling the market activities effectively so that it helps to gain competitive
market in the shorter time span (Amankwah-Amoah, Boso and Debrah, 2018). The company
have chosen their marketing strategy effectively as to align their advertising with digital
marketing and in store marketing effectively.
As the brand aware the consumers of their marketing strategy by using different
marketing tools like marketing campaigns, integrated marketing communication etc., it helps
promotion of their product upon social media. As this method help in increasing the cost and
provide effective service which help to explore and gather the attention of larger market. Apart
from this company uses its own website to publish information about their wide array of
products and services to inform the people about them. The company have seen to constantly
promote their season sales by assisting the user by heavy discount as this strategy help firm to
create loyal customer for the longer time period. Beside this company use some loyalty program
which sparks and it some points to the customer account which help in user to gain some profit
while shopping next time (Baker and Saren, 2016). The company also provide some ads on
television which is consider as the most popular way of communicating with the people as to
beneficial to aware about the product to the larger audience. Another marketing strategy which is
used by the M&S is the competitive based pricing policy as this aid firm to reduce their price
from the other competitors who are offering similar quality product and service. Hence enterprise
have to conduct intensive research about the rivalry policy which is consider an effective
marketing method to accomplish the desire aims and objective in the well define manner and
reduce the competition to some extent.
The company is bringing their most popular campaign which indicates that it is not just a food
campaign after 12 years. Rather than focusing solely on the food, they show customers
daydreaming about their favourite M&S food and able to succeed effectively in the recent years.
Further the management of the company have decided to continue the campaign until the
summer. Apart from this there will be weekly exhibition through which they can able to attract
the customer for the longer time period. Apart from this, M&S have recently announced the
sponsorship in Britain Got Talent which is one of the most popular shows in UK to increase their
reach among people and create awareness among them about the brand. However, company is
also increasing their presence on the social media platform which help to grab the attention of
larger audience in the well define manner. In accordance with the YouGov Brand Index, while
2

M&S is in the top three for public perceptions on metrics such as quality, company tends to
focus on the large market share (Soe, Moritaka and Fukuda, 2015). The company CEO Steve
Rowe have recently announced to merge with Ocado for online food delivery as to increase the
revenue and profitability (Simkin and Dibb, 2013).
How this reflects current marketing practices
Marketing can be referred to as the activity of devising strategies and tactics through which a
firm can set networking with its customers. It is an effective measure of gaining the attention of
large base of customers towards the offerings sold by the company (Baker and Saren, 2016). In
this regard, it has been identified that the main practices which are being leveraged by Marks and
Spencer are social media marketing, sponsorship, TV advertisement, ad campaigns. These are
explained beneath in a detailed manner:-
Social media marketing:
Social Media helps to involve people with a view to build the social media profiles of entities,
listening to and engaging the followers thereby to foster the development of a strong and long
lasting relationship. There are some Social Media platforms that help to leads to connect several
of followers through Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube. The respective
retailer developed an ad campaign which runs over all of their social media platforms to gain the
attention of large base of audience. It is seen that Facebook is one of the most widely used
platform by Marks and Spencer as this platform has a large number of active users which
provides organisation with a good reach. It places ads upon Facebook which assists in capturing
the attention of large base of audience in market place (M&S plans more ‘savvy’ social media
marketing approach, 2020). Further, Marks and Spencer also capitalises upon Instagram stories
to gain the attention of people towards its high quality offerings. These stories mainly emphasize
over gamification and polls (How Marks and Spencer uses Instagram Stories, 2020). This is one
way of marketing that is effectively and rigorously being used by the company to gain growth
and success in market place at global level.
Sponsorship with Britain’s Got Talent:
This is another effective way of marketing through which the companies facilitate
reaching out to the audience in an indirect manner. In this regard, it has been identified that
Marks and Spencer has entered into sponsorship with Britain’s Got Talent so as to gain the
3

attention of people towards their food offerings which the entity currently seeks to promote as
their star product.
TV Adverts:
This is a conventional marketing practice whereby broadcast media like television is
targeted by the companies across the globe with a view to communicate about the new or unique
offerings of the brand to the public at large. In this relation, it has been identified that the entity
runs the ad campaign prepared by it regarding the food offerings of Marks and Spencer on
television so that people can gain knowledge about the same.
Ad Campaigns (‘This is not just food’ campaign):
After a time period of 12 years, Marks and Spencer came back in the market with its
excellent food campaign to promote its food offerings among the people.
Relate omni channel marketing theories and models to the trade journal article
Omni channel marketing can be referred to as the practice of making use of digital and / or
traditional marketing channels with an aim of sending relevant messages to the customers of a
brand irrespective of the customers getting engaged with a company or the channels taken into
use for the purpose of engaging them. In this regard, it has been identified that Marks and
Spencer is also making use of a number of conventional and modern channels so as to reach to
the audience at large and pull their attention towards the offerings sold by the company (Werner
and Tang, 2017).
It has been noticed that Marks and Spencer, the renowned retail corporation, makes use
of a number of practices in order to appeal to its large base of customers such as social media
marketing which helps to build awareness of their business profile as well as build the brand
value by increasing the brand recognition on a global scale. It is recognised that Marks and
Spencer spends 20% of its media budget over social media as the prime focus of organisation is
upon storytelling and content to reach people with personalised message (M&S invests 20% of
media spend in social media as it ups focus on storytelling, 2020). It helps to reduce the cost as
well as time invested by the company in reaching to large number of individuals at a single point
of time. Furthermore, it leads to ease to procure time and money to reach to business clients and
also gives huge Return on Investments which holds a bigger budget for other marketing and
business payments. Other channels leveraged by the firm are recognised to be TV adverts,
sponsorships with British’s Got Talent and ad campaigns such as “This is not just food”, Must
4

Haves, Rethink to promote their food products among people across the globe. This is considered
as a way to engage or connect with the audience to increase a brand’s value, facilitate sales
maximisation and drive website traffic.
Provide brief recommendations based on review and analysis
In order to attract consumer attraction for M&S food it is recommended to Marks and
Spencer to take advantage of digital tools that provides budget-friendly advertising options to
company. This will not only aid entity to target number of audiences around the globe. But with
the help of technology Marks and Spencer can effectively able to conduct their functions, share
and track advertisements more successfully. With due to lot of competition prevailing in modern
business environment it is it hard to grab attention of customers in target market. Thus, in order
to ensure high competitive advancement and remain in competition in respective Industry
Company is recommended to have understanding approach towards hi-tech advertisement trends.
Some of the effective digital advertisement measures through which Marks and Spencer can
conduct their design business is VR and AR ads these are computer generated stimulations that
duly integrates real world experience. Both of these are future of advertising. In this company
can allow themselves to use projecting images through mobile camera to modify their existing
surroundings. For instance, AR is the animated filters in Snapchat and Instagram.
With the help of this online advertising M&S can effectively able to promote their brand
with the help of social media. While on the other hand it will aid company to create alternate
reality of their customers. Along with this, with the us these technology Marks and Spencer can
effectively advertise their products and services in industry, as the use of this innovative trade
show can effectively able to engage large base of customers to their brand. In addition to this
company is also recommended to take use of mobile ads. As per according to the survey it has
been evaluated that more than 5.13 billion individuals have access to Internet mobile services,
almost half of the population mainly spend their time on smart phones. This will benefit
company to target large base of audience. In addition with this, popup banners, ads in mobile
games, Facebook in stream ads, short videos, animations, interactive advertising are some of the
advertisement methods that are recommended to Marks and Spencer through which they can
ensure attraction of more audience towards their brand. Along with this company is
recommended to take more and more use of social media advertising. As it is one of the most
effective method through which they can effectively ensure success of their brands. Thus,
5

according to the above discussion it has been evaluated that in order to stay one step ahead from
their competitors in same industrial segment it is essential for Marks and Spencer to take
advantage of Hi-Tech advertising methods in order to grab consumer attention and retain them
with brand for long period of time. With the help of this company can not only able to generate
attention of large base of audience attention but can also ensure high success profitable results.
CONCLUSION
As per the it has been concluded that marketing process is defined as an action in which
an organisation is engaged in the function of buying, promoting, selling, branding of goods and
services via advertisement. In this company significantly aim towards offering their services and
products to end users in a well define manner. Marketing practices define as a method of high
level business organisation and operations. In this as to draw attention of large base of customers
company is required to take advantage of different type of advertising channels and modes due to
high competition. With the use of different types of hi- tech advertisements methods Company
can effectively able to ensure success in marketplace. Along with the assistance of Omni channel
approach entity can effectively able to conduct their marketing activities in a well defined
manner. In addition to this by taking assistance of recommendations company can effectively
able to perform their operations of advertisement with different type of high-tech digital
advertising methods. This will not only help them to attract attention of customers from all
around the world but also benefit them to ensure high profitability and productivity.
6

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Amankwah-Amoah, J., Boso, N. and Debrah, Y. A., 2018. Africa rising in an emerging world: an
international marketing perspective. International Marketing Review. 35(4). pp.550-559.
Armstrong, G. and et. al., 2015. Marketing: an introduction.
Baker, M. J. and Saren, M. eds., 2016. Marketing theory: a student text. Sage.
Bianchi, C. and Mathews, S., 2016. Internet marketing and export market growth in Chile.
Journal of Business Research. 69(2). pp.426-434.
Czinkota, M. R. and Ronkainen, I. A., 2013. International marketing. Cengage Learning.
Hoppner, J. J. and Griffith, D. A., 2015. Looking back to move forward: a review of the
evolution of research in international marketing channels. Journal of Retailing. 91(4).
pp.610-626.
Jean, R. J. B. and et. al., 2016. Assessing endogeneity issues in international marketing research.
International Marketing Review. 33(3). pp.483-512.
Katsikeas, C. S. and et. al., 2016. Assessing performance outcomes in marketing. Journal of
Marketing. 80(2). pp.1-20.
Martin, S. L. and Javalgi, R. R. G., 2016. Entrepreneurial orientation, marketing capabilities and
performance: the moderating role of competitive intensity on Latin American
International new ventures. Journal of Business Research. 69(6). pp.2040-2051.
Richter, N. F. and et. al., 2016. A critical look at the use of SEM in international business
research. International Marketing Review. 33(3). pp.376-404.
Simkin, L. and Dibb, S., 2013. Marketing essentials. Cengage Learning EMEA.Wirtz, J.,
Tuzovic, S. and G. Kuppelwieser, V., 2014. The role of marketing in today's enterprises.
Journal of Service Management. 25(2). pp.171-194.
Soe, W. P. P., Moritaka, M. and Fukuda, S., 2015. An analysis of the factors influencing
marketing channel choice by paddy rice farmers in Myanmar. Journal of the Faculty of
Agriculture, Kyushu University. 60(2). pp.535-542.
Werner, C. H. and Tang, M., 2017. Essentials of the Management of Creativity and Innovation in
Education, Business, and Engineering. In Handbook of the management of creativity
and innovation: Theory and practice (pp. 347-364).
Mihart, C., 2012. Impact of integrated marketing communication on consumer behaviour:
Effects on consumer decision-making process. International Journal of Marketing
Studies. 4(2). p.121.
Online
Nifty Advertising Trends Guaranteed To Bring More Conversions In. 2020. [Online]. Available
Through<https://blog.logodesignguru.com/nifty-advertising-trends-guaranteed-
conversions-2020/>.
M&S brings back ‘This is not just food’ campaign after a 12-year absence. 2020. [Online].
Available Through<https://www.marketingweek.com/ms-brings-back-this-is-not-just-
food-campaign-after-a-12-year-absence/>.
How Marks and Spencer uses Instagram Stories. 2020. [Online]. Available Through
<https://digiday.com/social/marks-spencer-uses-instagram-stories/>.
7

M&S plans more ‘savvy’ social media marketing approach. 2020. [Online]. Available Through
<https://www.marketingweek.com/ms-plans-more-savvy-social-media-marketing-
approach/>.
M&S invests 20% of media spend in social media as it ups focus on storytelling. 2020. [Online].
Available Through<https://www.marketingweek.com/ms-invests-20-of-media-spend-in-
social-media-as-it-ups-focus-on-storytelling/>.
8