Marketing Report: Analysis of McVitie's Marketing Strategies

This report offers a detailed analysis of McVitie's marketing strategies, focusing on its marketing functions, interdepartmental relationships, and marketing plan. The report begins with an introduction to marketing and its core concepts, specifically in the context of McVitie's, a British biscuit brand. It explores the roles and responsibilities of the marketing function within McVitie's, including market research, communication, product development, finance, and selling. The report then examines the interrelation between different departments within McVitie's, such as marketing, finance, production, and human resources, highlighting how these departments work together and influence each other. Furthermore, it includes a PEST analysis to evaluate the external factors impacting McVitie's. The report also includes a comparison between the marketing mix strategies of McVitie's and Custard Cream. The report concludes with a marketing plan for McVitie's, including a SWOT analysis, objectives, strategies, action plans, forecasts, and control mechanisms. Finally, it looks at current and future marketing trends relevant to McVitie's, such as interactive video content and social media advertising.

Marketing Essentials

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO1..................................................................................................................................................1
P1 Marketing function's duties and responsibilities ...................................................................1
P2 Interrelation between different departments in McVitie's .....................................................2
LO2..................................................................................................................................................5
P3 Difference between the marketing mix of McVities's and Custard Cream ...........................5
LO3................................................................................................................................................10
P4 Marketing Plan of McVitie's ................................................................................................10
1 SWOT Analysis......................................................................................................................10
2. Objectives:- ..........................................................................................................................11
3 Strategy...................................................................................................................................11
4.Action plan..............................................................................................................................12
5. Forecast..................................................................................................................................12
6. Control...................................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is defined as the process that includes buying and selling of goods and services
through different marketing strategies such as advertising, personal selling, direct selling etc. Its
Purpose is to satisfy the needs and wants of the customer (Fan, Lau and Zhao, 2015).There are
different concepts of marketing that is used by the researcher while doing extensive research to
find out the needs of the customer.
Present study will be based on McVitie's company. It is a British brand that sells food
products like biscuits. It is the best selling brand in the United Kingdom that manufacture
biscuits. It produces chocolate digestives, Hobnobs and Rich tea and Jaffa cakes.
Report will include marketing function's roles and responsibilities and how this will be
related to the organization. It also includes comparison between different organization's
marketing mix strategy and how it will help in achieving objectives of the business. Furthermore,
it will include marketing plan of McVitie's.
LO1
P1 Marketing function's duties and responsibilities
In McVitie’s, Marketing is important role in promoting the business towards the
organization. It servers the facilities when company coordinate and producing all type of
materials or representing the business. Marketing department is responsible for increasing the
growth of business (Rajavi, Kushwaha and Steenkamp, 2019). There are different roles that is
being played by marketing function such as Market research, communication, product
development, planning, finance, promotions and selling etc. it has multiple role playing the
Marketing team in the McVitie’s company.
Role and Responsibilities-
 Marketing Research- It is the primary aim of marketing department of McVitie’s to
help the business in identifying the opportunities. It helps in knowing about the needs and
requirements of consumers. It also helps in knowing about the new possible opportunities
for the business to increase their profit and provide something new to the customers. So
this is the responsibility of the marketing manager of McVitie’s to explore new
opportunities of growth and development for the company by doing market research on
timely basis (Datta, Ailawadi and van Heerde, 2017). As it helps in retaining old
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customers and attracting potential customers towards the products and services of the
company.
 Communication and Promotional Activities- In McVitie’s, Marketing manager plans
marketing campaigns and make effective communication in between the employees with
their work and finally with the customers and the company with the help of
communication and promotional activities which is also one of the most important
responsibilities of marketing manager of McVitie’s.
 Product development- The marketing department is directly connected with the
customers of the company. So the marketing manager have proper information about the
needs and demands of the customers and make suitable changes in the product in
accordance with the needs and demands of the customers.
 Finance- Finance department plays important function in the organization to make
decision of financial with the long term objectives. In McVitie’s, Financial analyst is
preparing and evaluating the overall budgets that help to identify the issues in new project
development (Massingham and Pomering, 2017). It operates the entire revenue of
company and identify the overall report of revenue generation. It is responsible for
calculating the fin that will likely to be required. It also helps the finance department
about the estimated budget amount for the successful completion of the marketing
activities of McVitie’s company.
 Selling- Selling is one of important element in the organization that help the business to
earn revenue. The connection of the marketing manager is directly with the customers
and this helps the marketing manager to have an already estimation of the future demands
of the products and services of McVitie’s Company. This is also the responsibility of
marketing manager to provide the company with estimated demands so that production
could be carried over on the basis.
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The main concepts of Marketing are stated below:
1. Production Concept – Under this concept, focusing on the interest of customers are not
important. They only focuses on large scale production. If McVities will not focus on
their consumers need then the consumers may shift to other brands.
2. Product Concept – Consumers favour those products that offer the most quality ,
performance and features. McVities offer several snacks with good colour, ingredients
and packing etc. without taking much importance in consumer tastes and preferences.
3. Selling Concept – Selling concept focuses on finding ways and means to sell their
products. When McVities introduces new product the company is using aggressive sales
on T.V. , bus stops, magazines etc. to gain attention.
4. Marketing Concept – It is consumer oriented concept and look forward to achieve long
term profits by making a network of satisfied customers. If McVities wants to achieve
long term profits then they should focus on producing the products keeping all the
consumers needs and wants.
5. Societal Concept – The organisation must take into account the needs and wants of the
consumers and deliver the goods efficiently so as to balance the consumers satisfaction as
well as society's well being.
Future Trends of Marketing
There are various trends in marketing which are not much popular in present time but had a
strong relevance in the future time. McVities biscuits will be focusing more on product
innovation and are reformulating to meet the changing demands of consumers. There are certain
marketing trends which companies will use. includes Interactive Video content , IGTV which is
operated by Instagram which is specifically made for mobile devices , Beacon Technology which
means location can be tracked as soon as application is installed in user's device which pushes
the notification when a person shopped Mcvities product. These trends can increase the
profitability for McVities in future.
Current Trends of Marketing
There are different trends in marketing which are popular in present times. It includes
communicating with customers using social media advertising like Mcvities does advertising of
its products on Facebook and Instagram. Also, they are making their T.V. Advertisements more
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interesting by changing their campaigns for relaunching the products. McVities comes with a
new campaign “Sweeter Together” which shows the small act of sharing a biscuit can have a big
impact to bring the people together. This is increasing customers involvement in the company’s
product.
P2 Interrelation between different departments in McVitie's
There are different departments in the McVitie's such as marketing, finance, production,
selling and distribution, human resource (Goh and et. al., 2019). They all are interrelated with
each other in their own ways.
Marketing with human resource department: - Marketing manager of McVitie's is
responsible of managing all the expenses that is to be invest on advertising of product in the
market. It is an important role of introducing new product without this people will not know to
the product and not aware of product that is available in the market. Similarly, human resource
manager also has to manage all the activities of the McVitie's and help marketing manager to use
effective use of resources in the company.
It also performing the specific operation by HR manager of Mcvities which are
coordinating all the activities of the company. They are planning the different strategies for
personal selling, online marketing which help for increasing the productivity and profitability in
marketplace. (Wu and Li, 2018) Human resource manager is responsible for providing resources
to marketing manager that will be needed to them. In McVitie’s, HR manager will communicate
with the marketing team to identify the need and requirement consumer, afterwards, it will give
many type of product and services.
Marketing with Finance department:- Finance manager of McVitie's is responsible for
managing accounts of the company. It helps marketing manager by providing knowledge
regarding the statistical information of needs and wants of the consumer that will be beneficial
for future course of action. Marketing manager is to ensure that proper utilization of resources is
being done by marketing department. It also builds the relationship between marketing team and
finance department, it provides fund for packaging, designing, logos that is being used to
introduce new product in the market. Finance manager plays an important role in the company in
preparing budget for promoting biscuits in the market. This department is the backbone of the
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McVitie's (Wahab and et. al., 2016.) In contrast, marketing manager also have to see that money
invested on advertising will be properly used.
Marketing with production department: - As marketing manager of McVitie's is
responsible for promoting product in the market. It is related with production department as if the
product is not manufactured then marketing manager will not be able to promote it in the market.
Similarly, in Mcvitie’s, production manager is responsible for providing better quality product to
the customer while coordinating with the marketing team to acquire information about products.
If the production manager is not working properly then product will not be promoting in the
marketplace. As production manager needs information regarding demands of the customer so
conducting survey can help production department in producing goods and services accordingly.
Production with human resource department: - Production manager is responsible of
providing better quality product to its customers. Human resource manager have to manage all
the activities of McVitie's so that work can be done effectively and efficiently. Money that is
required for manufacturing product will be invested properly as seen by the human resource
manager. Just in time strategy will be applicable for manufacturing product and services to right
people on right time at right place(Baker, 2016)In McVitie's manager is coordinating various
activities from its production till the end of its sales in the market
Finance with human resource department:- As human resource manager is responsible
for managing organizational activities of McVitie's. Finance manager is responsible for dealing
with the expenses that have been incurred in the company for promoting product in the market. If
any activity is being organized in the company, then money will be taken from the finance
manager to invest money in it. Before investing in the promotional activities a budget is to made
by finance team to allocate proper resources in the company. It is being stated that McVitie's is
selling biscuits that require investment in the packaging, designing of the product
Hence, marketing function is interrelated with other departments of organisation and its
operations also get influenced by the work performed by other departments. But in addition to
this, the operations of marketing department also get affected by external environment and
factors present in it which can be better understood by PEST analyses. The interrelationship
between PEST framework and marketing department of McVitie's can be understood by
following description:
PEST Analysis and its relationship with marketing operations of McVitie's
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PEST analysis is a framework that perform an evaluation over the external factor of an
organisation in order to determine the threat and opportunity present in marketplace that have an
huge influence over the performance of company. McVite must perform pest analyses before
preparing a marketing strategy or plan that help in reducing the risk of uncertainty or loss to the
company. The interrelation between marketing functions of McVitie's and PEST framework is
mentioned below:-
 Political:- This factor analyse the governmental policies and extend to which it shows
involvement in the affairs of particular industry in which a company operates. The
greater strength of UK is its political stability which is a positive factor for the growth of
McVitie's. In addition to this UK is also consider as the popular destination for Foreign
Direct Investment. Hence by formulation effective promotional tactics in term of
customer base, brand image and profitability of company, McVitie's become able to
attract large number of investors to invest in its business.
 Economical:- It perform an evaluation over factors like foreign exchanges rate, GDP, tax
rate, tariff etc. that have a great influence over the performance of a company. UK is
consider as the fifth larger country in term of economy as per its GDP, but the inflation
rate has increased by 3.1% in year 2017 which affect the buying behaviour of customers.
The economical condition of UK directly influence the marketing operations of
McVitie's which in turn affect its sales as the price of production also get increased which
enhance the cost of product. Hence, marketing department plays crucial role in this
situation by maintaining the sale of McVitie's by formulating effective marketing tactics
to attract customers and stay connected with the company.
 Social:- It includes the analysis of taste, preferences, custom and behaviours that people
exerts who belongs to particular area. UK is consider as biggest consumer market as it
holds the population of around 65.6 million and in this 18% of population comes under
the age group of 65. Hence, the marketing department of McVitie's can attract larger
number of old age customers by performing effective promotional strategies which
represent the healthy benefit of biscuits as it produces low calories that are very helpful
for the health of old age people.
 Technological:- The UK is consider as one of the most technologically advanced country
within the world and population of UK is also very much addicted to the use of
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technology in their day to day operations. This is the biggest strength for marketing
department of McVitie's, as by making the effective utilisation of technology such social
media company can approach larger number of customer through its promotional
techniques without physically visiting them or spending more cost over it. In addition to
this by using technology as a supply chain management software marketing department
can maintain better relationship with suppliers and distributors that ensures effective
delivery of product and proper management of inventory.
LO2
P3 Difference between the marketing mix of McVities's and Custard Cream
Marketing mix refer to the set of tactics and action that company can use to promote their
brand in global marketplace. It is the foundation model for business that has set up the marketing
tool to achieve the goals and objectives(Siguaw and Simpson, 2015)It typically makes up the
marketing mix such as product, promotion, place, physical evidence and so on.
Marketing Mix McVitie’s Custard Cream
Product  It is providing food
products to the
customer of the United
Kingdom. People in
the country try to
manage all the thing
that is required to
manufacture that
product (Bahadir,
Bharadwaj and
Srivastava, 2015..
 It mainly focuses on
 It also provides
sandwiches containing
many flavours of the
biscuits. It is a brand
that involves various
types of strategy that
can be used to
introduce product in
the marketplace.
 It made different types
of product that is
being sold in the
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the packaging of the
product so that more
customers get attracted
towards it.
 Guarantees is given
with the product that is
being sold in the
marketplace.
 It sales product on
different product lines
that will facilitate
customer easy use of
goods and services.
 Company provides
products such as
chocolate digestives,
hobnobs, rich tea and
jaffa cakes to their
customers.
 It is offering organic
product into the market
that help in protecting
health of consumers.
market.
 Branding is being
done through various
strategies that is being
used in introducing
new product in the
market.
 It gives customer care
services after sales
that will help them in
using product
efficiently.
 This company
provides their
customers with
different products
such as creamy
biscuits, custard
flavoured two layer
biscuits, butter
creams, egg custard
and many more.
 Different product that
is provided for
introducing new
product into the
market.
Price  Price of the product is
to decided based on the
needs and wants of the
costumers. Price in
 It uses different
strategies in setting up
price of the product.
 Discounts are allowed
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McVitie's is depended
on the other competitor
that they are offering
to customers. It is
selling cheap product
to the customer that
will be easily
affordable (Verma,
2017).
 Price skimming
strategy is used by
McVitie's company to
increase its sales in the
marketplace.
 For setting the prices
of the products, the
company has chosen
the competitive pricing
strategy as this help in
keeping the prices of
products in accordance
with the competitors
prices.
 Penetration pricing
strategy is used in
analysing different
aspect for selling
product into the
market.
to the regular
customers that have
not shifted to other
brands in the market.
 It is also doing online
marketing through
which it sales is
increasing day by day.
 This company has
adopted penetration
pricing policy as the
company is providing
their customers with
discounts to capture
the market share.
 Competitive pricing
strategy is followed by
the company in
gaining market share.
Place  In this different
strategies is being used
 A proper place is to be
selected for selling
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to sale product in a
particular place.
 Location will be
chosen appropriately
for selling product in
the marketplace.
 Inventory is to kept in
the warehouse for long
term purpose so that it
will not get damaged.
 It is making use of
stores, retail outlets
and online presence in
order to make the sales
of the products of the
company.
product so it uses
online marketing
strategy that will be
more suitable for it.
 Product is to be sold
in the location that
will be more efficient
in selling .
 As product is put into
warehouse that will be
more efficient to use
for long term purpose
(Javanmard, Noruzi
and Nakhoda, 2016).
 It has also adopted
retail outlets and
online presence for the
sales of the products
of the company.
Promotion  It is doing promotional
activities through
different market
strategies that is being
followed by McVitie's.
 It uses personal
selling , direct
marketing and
different strategies that
is being used to sale it
in the marketplace.
 Online promotion will
 Different market
channels is used to
increase sales and
deliver product in the
market.
 By communicating
with different
customers it promotes
product in the market.
 It will reach to the
customers through
different channels that
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