Strategic Marketing: Managing Brands in Growth and Mature Markets

This essay provides a comparative analysis of marketing strategies employed in mature markets versus those in growth phase markets. It highlights the characteristics of each market stage, noting that growth markets experience rapid sales and profit increases, prompting competitive pricing and extensive distribution channel development, while mature markets face stagnant growth, leading to excess inventory and a focus on product enhancement and cost reduction. The essay further discusses the strategic decisions brand managers must make in each context, contrasting the aggressive, multi-channel marketing and competitive pricing of growth markets with the cost-saving measures and targeted advertising typical of mature markets. Ultimately, the document emphasizes the need for adaptable marketing approaches tailored to the specific dynamics of each market stage. Desklib offers this document to aid students.

Running head: MARKETING
Marketing
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note:

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MARKETING
Table of Contents
Difference between Mature markets and markets undergoing the growth phase............................3
Decisions on different aspects by the brand managers....................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5

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Difference between Mature markets and markets undergoing the growth phase
The product growth stage is characterized by the rapid increase in sales and profits which
in turn increases output and makes the organization to provide a more competitive pricing to the
product. According to, Bang Joshi and Singh (2016) the growth stage is the stage when the
product quality is maintained thoroughly and support services are provided for the product to
ensure maximum customer engagement. Smartphone Applications are considered to be part of
the growing product market and thus the market will try its level best to increase the demand for
the product by increasing different distribution channels to cope with the demand of the
particular product.
On the other hand, the mature market is a particular stage where the rate of the growth
gets slower and reaches almost zero. The product or the market for the product in this particular
time shows no signs of growth and the companies in the industry will end up with the stock of
excess inventory (Flammini et al. 2017). The soft drinks market is considered to be a mature
market in most of the countries. The best reason to support this fact is that the soft drink market
does not generally provide any kind of variation in the market and thus the consumers are
already aware of the product and are also aware of the value they provide to them. Therefore the
companies producing soft drinks must ensure to enhance the capabilities of the product in order
to ensure that the product stays in the market for a longer time and also ensure that it becomes
much more appealing to the customers than the products developed by the competitors. The
management of the companies must also reduce the prices of the product to make it more
affordable to the customers.

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Decisions on different aspects by the brand managers
There are striking differences in between the marketing style of the growth market and
that of the matured market. According to, Grima and Caruana (2017) the growth stage can be
said to be the pick-up point in the product life cycle of the business and thus the marketing team
for the different organizations have to provide their best efforts to gain the most from the market.
The price of the product is competitive in nature as it will depend on the price of the similar
products of the competitors in the market. The advertisement in the growth stage has to be
carried out through different media channels like print media, social media, Television and many
more as such. On the other hand, the product in the growth stage will also use a number of
different distribution channels to reach out to the maximum possible consumers.
However, the matured stage of the product will see a complete change in the strategy.
The prices will be revamped and will be lowered in order to make the product appealing to the
consumers. Whereas the loss of interest in the product from the end of the customers will
practically force the management to focus on a particular source of advertisement to save costs
and also to target the customers (Hanssens Wang and Zhang 2016). Lastly the matured stage will
experience the presence of a single or a few distribution channels as productivity will be the
lowest in this particular stage of a product life cycle.

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References
Bang, V.V., Joshi, S.L. and Singh, M.C., 2016. Marketing strategy in emerging markets: a
conceptual framework. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 24(2), pp.104-117.
Flammini, S., Arcese, G., Lucchetti, M.C. and Mortara, L., 2017. Business model configuration
and dynamics for technology commercialization in mature markets. British Food
Journal, 119(11), pp.2340-2358.
Grima, S. and Caruana, L., 2017, October. The effect of the financial crisis on emerging markets.
A comparative analysis of the stock market situation before and after. In DIEM: Dubrovnik
International Economic Meeting (Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 228-254). Sveučilište u Dubrovniku.
Hanssens, D.M., Wang, F. and Zhang, X.P., 2016. Performance growth and opportunistic
marketing spending. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 33(4), pp.711-724.