Detailed Marketing Audit Report: Samsung in the US Market

This report conducts a marketing audit of Samsung in the US market. It begins with an introduction highlighting the importance of marketing audits and the objectives of the study. A situational analysis examines Samsung's organizational goals and the competitive landscape, particularly its rivalry with Apple. The report then applies the STP framework to analyze Samsung's segmentation, targeting, and positioning strategies. An assessment of Samsung's internal strengths and weaknesses follows, focusing on its R&D team, innovative capabilities, and ethical practices, alongside weaknesses like inconsistent business cultures. The marketing objectives, including smartphone shipment goals and innovation in AI and IoT, are then discussed. The report further evaluates Samsung's marketing mix, including its product range, pricing strategies, distribution channels, and promotional activities. The conclusion summarizes Samsung's market position, the challenges it faces, and the importance of well-designed marketing strategies. The report emphasizes Samsung's efforts to establish its brand identity and maintain a strong market presence in the US electronic sector.

MARKETING AUDIT

Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
2.0 Situational analysis....................................................................................................................4
3.0 STP analysis...............................................................................................................................6
4.0 Internal strength and weakness..................................................................................................8
5.0 Establishment of marketing objectives......................................................................................9
6.0 Marketing mix.........................................................................................................................10
7.0 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................12
References:....................................................................................................................................13
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1.0 Introduction
The marketing audit is one of the most success-critical factors for every business. It is significant
for companies of every size to think of undertaking a marketing audit with the purpose of
recognizing and reviewing the present position of brand marketing related activities and assist in
reducing future expenditure. In the opinion of Baker (2014), it can be stated that predominantly
for the SMEs (small to medium enterprises) businesses, which are preferring to find out the
marketing related activities those are working and the kind of activities that are not working as
well and determine this next to expenditure. The present study aims to conduct a marketing audit
on Samsung, US. It would focus on the aspects like situational analysis of the company on the
chosen market. Moreover, the internal strength and the weakness of Samsung, US would be
determined. In addition, the researcher would attempt to evaluate the established goals and
marketing objectives of the firm in the light of management orientation. The current situation of
the chosen firm in terms of product and offering subsequently would be analyzed with the
support of Segmentation Targeting and Positioning (STP) framework. Also, the marketing
services of the firms would be evaluated with 4P’s (i.e. Product, Price, Promotion and Place)
framework. Finally, the researcher will wrap up the discussion by way of concluding note.
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2.0 Situational analysis
Organization goals
It has been identified that Samsung believes in having a simple philosophy. The brand believes
in the goals of devoting its talent technology and talent of establishing the superior products and
service lines that contribute to better the global society (Samsung Electronics America., 2018).
To attain the organizational goals, Samsung has managed to set a high value on both its
resources and technologies. In addition to the latter statement, it has been assessed that Samsung
is more committed to complying with the local regulations as well as applying the strict
international code of conduct to every resource (Samsung Electronics America., 2018).
Furthermore, it can be stated the brand aims to stand by the ethical abidance of the company.
Samsung takes effective initiatives to train its employees and operate the monitoring system
while performing fair and loyal corporate practices. With the support of its human resource and
advanced technologies, the management of the brand has been able to make an extension of its
HRM development and technical superiority with suitable management objectives.
Context and competitor activity
In the US market, Samsung faces primary competition from Apple Inc. As per the data of Verto
Watch, from the year January 2018, in the Smartphone segment, Apple has managed to capture
45% of market share, whereas, Samsung has performed below part by attaining 33% of the share
of the market (Hwong, 2018). On the other hand, LG had been the third-placed contender in the
same market, which has managed to capture only 10% of the market share and the other
combined brands have accounted for just 12% of the US market in the device section (Hwong,
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2018). The US market is specifically led by Apple Inc. However, Samsung is still struggling on
the race of ranking first in the market.
Figure 1: Samsung’s market share, 2018
(Source: Hwong, 2018)
The figure above shows that the firm has managed to gain a substantial market share as far as
other brands, except Apple is concerned. However, the firm needs to maintain the same with the
quality offering and customer satisfaction throughout as the market is highly competitive.
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3.0 STP analysis
Segmentation
Samsung's demographic segmentation approach emphasizes on both males and females targeting
the users aged between 13 to 60 years. The product lines of the brand are offered with indifferent
features to different customers depending on their levels of incomes. In the consideration of Al
Fahad et al. (2015), it can be stated that the brand has also segmented its customers as per their
occupations, for instance, students, business or daily employees. As per the Psychographic
segmentation aspect, the organization has distinguished its customers on the basis of their
personalities and lifestyles, such as ambitious, electronic-savvy or sports lover (Camilleri, 2018).
Targeting
According to McDonald and Wilson (2016), the brand has not been able to surpass the quality
assurance offered by Apple. Therefore, it usually targets the customers who usually seek to
purchase Apple's product lines but find the range to high. Samsung usually adds or try to imitate
the similar specifications of Apple and release its new flagship in the market at the much lower
range. Moreover, Palmatier et al. (2016) asserted that Samsung also targets the customers that
prefer style over quality. The brand focuses more on the styles and designs of its devices. This is
where it is trying to surpass the range of Apple, As Apple's devices are simply looking but offer
high-quality assurance. On the other hand, Samsung tends to focus more on outlook and design.
Positioning
In the recent time, Samsung is embodied with innovative technologies, combines with style,
edged designs and imposing new premium touch to its new Galaxy flagship. As per the statement
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of Bentley-Goode et al. (2017), Samsung usually differentiates its brand from its former cost
leadership structure, in which it has been able to restructure its pricing strategy and offer
products with much-advanced technology at an affordable rate. Samsung is still making efforts to
position its product lines in the category of best innovation, the value of money, healthy living,
an integral part of the family, energy efficient and cost saving.
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4.0 Internal strength and weakness
Strength
The strong research and development team of the brand has been its major strength. The team
has been efficient enough in conducting suitable research, which is resulting in the strongest
patent portfolios in the sector. The brand is also viewed as the most innovative company and
capable of producing trendy design and eco-friendly products. As per Holyash and Halushka
(2017), the brand is trying its best to stand by the ethical rules and practices its internal
performances or functions accordingly. The employees are given required attention and
appreciations in terms of rewards, benefits and not financial considerations (Wensley, 2016).
Therefore, the majority of Samsung’s employees are satisfied with the company and workplace
environment. This has been another internal strength of Samsung.
Weakness
It has been identified that Samsung usually embraces indifferent business cultures. The culture
definitely offers greater product varieties, but it fails to impose the same impact over it resources
base (Shaughnessy, 2018). In order to survive the market position and threats, the management
of the brand is constantly changing its business models and interoperation process. The constant
experimentation approach is somewhat exploiting the resources to work on one particular project
several times. Hence, the resources are getting fatigued and exhausted with this internal approach
of the brand, which sometimes turns to greater employee attrition rate as well.
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5.0 Establishment of marketing objectives
It has been identified that the brand has set the marketing objective of 320 million Smartphone
shipments in the market in order to enhance its profit margin in the competitive sector (Rox,
2018). The brand is also continued to make its efforts to distinguish its Smartphone section by
imposing the cutting edge technologies, for example, foldable OLED displays. As discussed in
the previous section that the brand is focusing more on trending its product lines with more
innovation. Therefore, to stand by its objectives, Samsung is driving forward towards new
business related artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) by strengthening its
ecosystem depending on Bixby and its 5G technology (News18., 2018). Hence, the brand is
making effort to attain its organization goals for its external aspects to introduce its product with
utmost innovation.
To stand by the ethical standard, which has been another organisational goal of the company, the
management is making the strong effort in terms of imposing a correct code of conduct within
the workplace and helping each employee to understand the rules an abidance they need to
follow while working for the brand (Kumar, 2015). The employees are given adequate training
and learning opportunities to evolve alongside the organization.
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6.0 Marketing mix
Product
Samsung's product ranges cover categories like Smartphones, tablets, cameras, televisions, air
conditioners, refrigerators, microwaves, washing machines, and other IT products. In the opinion
of Tomczak et al. (2018), the major benefit that Samsung has is that it is a trusted organization as
a result of its performance since the last few decades. Although, the brand is accused of imitating
Apple’s product lines, yet, the market is also driven strongly by trendy designs and outlooks of
electronic models (Bentley-Goode et al. 2017). Therefore, Samsung is getting into the priority
list of many US customers as well. The company is also having the goodwill of delivering fast
and quality service to its customer base.
Price
Since Samsung has a diversified product range; therefore, it follows a variety of pricing
strategies. In the statement of Camilleri (2018), the brad somewhat follows “Skimming Price”,
using this policy, the brand introduces new product lines in the market. For instance, with Galaxy
S7 Edge, Samsung had used the skimming pricing strategy in order to get high market value in
the initial stage prior to competitors introduce a substitute in the market (Bentley-Goode et al.
2017). Once the product got outdated and competitors had relapse similar range of product line,
Samsung immediately drop the price margin of the same product to retain the maximum
customer range. This policy has worked best for Samsung to retain their leading position and
uphold the market share for the long time span.
Place
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Palmatier et al. (2016) stated that Samsung is currently present in various fields and retail stores
have become one of its major places for distribution. Furthermore, Samsun also has its webshop,
which allows customers to identify a product and go through its reviews before ordering it from
the website itself. This convenient platform turns out to be quite lucrative for the brand to
enhance their sales margin with the passage of time. Moreover, the brand is also present over the
e-commerce sites, where shares the portal space of third parties or intermediaries to display its
product lines before wider ranges of the customer base (Bentley-Goode et al. 2017). Since, over
the time, people are getting more inclined towards digital access, hence, presence in the digital
platforms is helping Samsung to gain better reach in the market to enhance its profit margin.
Promotion
Samsung is making strong use of commercial advertisements. Whether it is an online or offline
promotion, the brand has always managed to create advert where its products center the attention
and deliver clear purpose or message related to its products to its target customers (Camilleri,
2018). The brand also benefits from the so-called word of mouth promotion as well, which
indicates its strong goodwill in the fiercely competitive market. The customers usually
recommend others with Samsung’s products after their usage, which ultimately results in raising
the interest of new customers to invest in Samsung's product lines (Shaughnessy, 2018).
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7.0 Conclusion
Based on the discussion and analysis performed in the preceding sections of the report, the
researcher has arrived at a concluding statement by underlining the fact that Samsung is holding
a strong market position in the US. The brand is although struggling behind the stiff competition
of Apple and the innovation it is coming with. Yet, it is still on the set of creating its individual
brand identity in the competitive market and upholding its profit-making position in the US
electronic sector. Hence, it can be inferred that Samsung is definitely managed to attain a stable
and secure market position in the US. Finally, it may be concluded that well-designed marketing
strategies coupled with strong management and objective implementation of the plans will surely
contribute towards the attainment of corporate goals of sustainability in the long-run in most cost
and time efficient manner.
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