Marketing Essentials: A Report on Unilever's Marketing Strategies

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MARKETING ESSENTIALS
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Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
MEANING AND DEFINITIONS OF MARKETING..........................................................3
ROLE OF MARKETING AS A FUNCTION OF BUSINESS.............................................3
MARKETING: NOT JUST A DEPARTMENT IN A COMPANY.....................................4
STRUCTURE OF A MARKETING DEPARTMENT..........................................................5
MARKETING PROCESS AND IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING ENVIRONMENT
TO THE MARKETING FUNCTION...................................................................................6
INFLUENCE AND INTERRELATION OF MARKETING DEPARTMENT WITH
DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS OF A COMPANY.............................................................7
CONCLUSION......................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................9
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INTRODUCTION
Marketing is an essential business process for all organizations that aspire for growth,
development and stability for a long-term period in the market ( Armstrong, et al., 2015).
It involves creation and maintenance of relationship with the customers and satisfying their
needs. To discuss the detailed role of marketing in an organization, this assignment takes an
example of the management of UNILEVER.
UNILEVER is a British-Dutch transnational consumer goods company co-headquartered
in London, United Kingdom and Rotterdam, Netherlands. The products of the company are
food, beverages, cleaning agents, beauty products and personal care products. It was found on
2nd September, 1992, by the merger of the Dutch margarine producer, Margarine Unie and
British soap makers, Lever brothers. Unilever owns over 400 brand including, Knorr, Lux,
Dove, Hellmann’s etc.
MEANING AND DEFINITIONS OF MARKETING
The term ‘marketing’ has been defined by several scholars and authors. Some of these
definitions are:-
According to Philip Kotler (2012), Marketing means satisfying needs and wants of the
consumers through exchange process.
According to the Chartered Institution of Marketing (2010), Marketing is that management
process which is responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer
requirements in such a way that it generates profit to an organization.
Thus, it can be said that marketing is a process of bringing a product in the market through
broad market research, market targeting and market segmentation; by determining
distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; visioning long-term market development goals
and developing a relation with customer through communication.
ROLE OF MARKETING AS A FUNCTION OF BUSINESS
Marketing is the basic need of an organization to create customer loyalty and customer
retention. It not only promotes the product of the organization but also it plays a crucial role
in the survival of an organization (Blachetta and Kleinaltenkamp, 2018). The role of
marketing as a business function is as follows:
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BUILDING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CUSTOMERS: Marketing plays an important
role in developing relations with the customers. It gives brand recognition on a huge level and
idea of customer’s needs and wants. Marketing also shapes the image of the organization and
indeed give people a confidence about their products and services.
With the proper marketing, today, Unilever is the Europe’s seventh most valuable
company. Unilever is one of the largest media buyers in the world, and invested around 8
billion dollars in advertising and promotion in 2010.
INCREASING PROFIT OR REVENUE: The process of marketing involves advertising,
branding of an organization, participation in public activities and customer interaction
through feedback collection. Once an organization comes into the knowledge of the
customers, the demand of its product or services increases, which increases the profit or
revenue of the organization (Armstrong, et al., 2015).
The total turnover of Unilever in 2017 was 53.7 billion euros. This is because of the
quality promotion and advertising that it did and gained the trust of the customers worldwide.
ECONOMIC GROWTH: With the help of marketing, an organization gains the trust of the
customers, which, consequently, increases demand. Increase in demand will directly affect
the supply of the products or services of the company and to fulfill these requirements,
employment opportunities would be generated (Blachetta and Kleinaltenkamp, 2018). This
would improve the standard of living and boost up the economic growth.
As discussed earlier, Unilever’s products include foods and beverages, personal care
products, cleaning agents and beauty-care products as well. Unilever’s largest selling brands
include TRESemme, Magnum, Vaseline, Lux/Radox, Omo/Surf, Axe/Lynx, Dove, Knorr etc.
MARKETING: NOT JUST A DEPARTMENT IN A COMPANY
In order to illuminate a brand or an organization, it is important to have a strong
marketing department intact, regardless of the economy, so that it remains visible and
sustain in the market. The marketing department of an organization undertakes the
process of marketing, indirectly connecting with the consumers and satisfying their
needs. However, marketing is not just limited as a department in a company, i.e.,
marketing is required for all types of organizations, whether profit-centered organization
or non-profit centered. The scope of marketing is much more than that.
The marketing department of Unilever is very active and plays a very important role
in promoting and advertising Unilever products to huge amount of audiences. It is not
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just limited to the audience of London or Rotterdam, but it extends to several different
cities and countries. It also takes help of the social media and other sources to promote
its brand and distribute its products to different audiences.
STRUCTURE OF A MARKETING DEPARTMENT
Just like an organization, the different departments like marketing department have a
departmental structure too. The entire department of marketing cannot sustain with the
efforts of a single person only, it also requires a proper plan that needs to be carried out and
effective and efficient implementation of that plan. A proper flow of command must exist in
each and every organization (Miles et al, 1978). This will not only ensure smooth functioning
of the organization, but also it will make employees responsible and answerable to their
managers and it will be easy for the managers to manage their sub-ordinates as well.
The marketing department of Unilever consists of a Marketing Director, who is responsible
for creation and implementation of all marketing strategies. Under marketing director, vice
marketing president works, who makes a marketing plan, set a goal to be achieved and
identifies the methods and strategies for achievement of that goal. The vice marketing
president is answerable to the managing director and he works with the Marketing manager,
who assists him in planning and implementing different strategies and who also manages the
other employees working under him. Once the strategies are planned and implemented,
marketing researchers and analyst comes into play (Malhotra, 2015). They not only
analyze the current market situation but they also research about target audience and the
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MANAGING DIRECTOR
MARKETING
ASSISTANT
MARKETING
RESEARCHERS AND
ANALYSTS
PUBLIC RELATIONS
OFFICER
SOCIAL MEDIA
EXPERTS/ WEB
DESIGNERS/ CREATIVE
SERVICES
VICE MARKETING
PRESIDENT
MARKETING
MANAGER

competition in the market and also the best ways in which marketing strategies could be
improved.
After all the observation and implementation of the market, Public relations officers are
liable to understand consumer behavior and build relationship with the consumers to manage
the reputation of the company. The marketing function is not only undertaken within the firm
but it also requires some efforts to be taken on social media. For this purpose, Social media
experts and employees for designing services are appointed who try to reach to a larger
audience and presenting the company in such a way that public becomes aware of its
products and services.
MARKETING PROCESS AND IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING
ENVIRONMENT TO THE MARKETING FUNCTION
MARKETING PROCESS- Marketing process is a process that includes those steps which are
required to illuminate a brand or an organization and satisfying the needs of the customers.
Generally, it includes 4 steps: (1) Marketing Analysis; (2) Marketing-mix planning; (3)
Marketing implementation: and (4) Marketing control.
The first and most important component of marketing is situational and environmental
analysis of the market and the areas where great opportunities can be availed. These
opportunities are those situations where customers are not satisfied with the available
products and services in the market and are seeking new products and services (Ebbes, et al.,
2019).
The second component is marketing-mix planning. After identifying the situation and
opportunities of market, a strategic plan is needed and the best available option is chosen.
After the option is selected, tactical decisions are needed to be taken regarding the 4P’s of
marketing i.e., Product pricing, Product Development, Product distribution and Product
promotion.
After all the necessary decisions, which are needed to be taken, finally the marketing plan
is executed and all the results of marketing efforts are observed and monitored.
Finally, after all the observations and monitoring of the marketing efforts, such decisions
are taken to adjust the marketing mix according to the changes in the market.
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MARKETING ENVIRONMENT- Marketing environment refers to those external and internal
factors, which affect marketing strategies and plans of an organization, to maintain its
relations with the customers (Armstrong et al, 2015).The internal factors are owners, workers,
machines, inventory etc., while the external factors can be classified in two categories: micro
and macro. Micro factors includes factors related to production, distribution etc., however,
macro factors includes consumers, suppliers and those large societal factors that affect a
society as a whole. It must be noted that, some factor of marketing environment are
controllable while some are not. These uncontrollable factors require business operations to
change accordingly (Menguc et al, 2010). However, when a marketing manager makes plans,
he must take the note of both of these factors and make plans based on proper research and
analysis of the business environment.
Each and every business, whether it is big or small, is surrounded by marketing
environment. The sustainability and stability of a business depends on its marketing
environment. An organization and its marketing strategy should be so dynamic that it could
adjust with the changing of its marketing environment. When factors of marketing
environment changes, proper analysis and understanding is required to implement different
marketing plans to satisfy customer needs and wants. Marketing environment not only affects
the decisions of marketing department but also several other departments of the organization.
INFLUENCE AND INTERRELATION OF MARKETING DEPARTMENT
WITH DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS OF A COMPANY
To run a business successfully, it is very necessary that all the departments of the
company works with cooperation and coordination. Similarly, the marketing department and
its functioning influence other departments of the organization. Whatever a marketing
department researches or whatever decisions it takes, it consequently affect the decisions of
the other departments of the firm as well (Sherman, 2019). For example, if Unilever produces
a product that is not satisfactory and is receiving negative reviews about the product, the
marketing department would research the issue and analyze the major drawbacks of the
product and take decisions accordingly (Menguc, et al., 2010). This would not only affect the
marketing department, but also the other departments of the organization (e.g. production
department) as well.
The relationship of the marketing functions with other departments of the organization is
explained below:
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Money is the foremost requirement to establish and run an organization. Without money,
no department can function in an organization. Also, each and every department in an
organization is interrelated with each other and thus, influences each other to a great extent
(Shah, 2017). The marketing functions are closely related to the finance department to
know about the adequate funds and budget of the company so that they can plan and promote
the product or services of the organization accordingly (Ruyter and Wetzels, 2000).Without
proper funds, promotion and distribution of the products or service is nearly impossible. Also,
the second department to which the marketing department is closely related is the production
department (Dann, 2010). Through its proper analysis and research, marketing department
closely understand consumers behavior, including their likes and dislikes regarding a
particular product or service provided by the company. Marketing department not only helps
the production department about ‘What to produce?’, but also about ‘How to produce?’
which results in satisfied consumers, increased sales and huge profit for the company (Ebbes
et al, 2019).
CONCLUSION
To conclude, it can be said that, marketing plays a crucial role in sustainability and stability
of the business in the market. It illuminates the products and services provided by the
company and try to reach as much audience as it can. Without marketing, an organization
would be lifeless. It would be like sitting in the dark and expecting people to find you out
without light. Thus, it is very essential for an organization to promote its products and
services with proper marketing and for that purpose, an organization need a strong and active
marketing department. In other words, it can be said that the marketing department serves as
the face of an organization and the decisions taken by marketing department are highly
responsible for satisfaction of the consumers, building good consumer relationship, huge
sales and producing huge profit for the organization.
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REFERENCES
 Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Buchwitz, L.A., Trifts, V. and Gaudet, D., 2015.
Marketing: an introduction.
 Blachetta, M. and Kleinaltenkamp, M., 2018. Dispersion of marketing activities in
business-to-business firms. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing.
 Dann, S., 2010. Redefining social marketing with contemporary commercial
marketing definitions. Journal of Business research, 63(2), pp.147-153.
 De Ruyter, K. and Wetzels, M., 2000. The marketing–finance interface: A relational
exchange perspective. Journal of Business Research, 50(2), pp.209-215.
 Ebbes, P., Germann, F. and Grewal, R., 2019. Marketing Department Power and
Board Interlocks. Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative Research Paper.
 Malhotra, N.K., 2015. Essentials of marketing research: A hands-on orientation.
Essex: Pearson.
 Menguc, B., Auh, S. and Ozanne, L., 2010. The interactive effect of internal and
external factors on a proactive environmental strategy and its influence on a firm's
performance. Journal of Business Ethics, 94(2), pp.279-298.
 Shah, R.V., 2017. A Comparative Study Of Marketing Of Financial Services Between
Commercial Banks And Industrial Banks.
 Sherman F., 2019. What Is the Relationship Between Organizational Functions &
Organizational Structure. Chron.com, also available at
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/relationship-between-organizational-functions-
organizational-structure-18571.html , last accessed on 15th March, 2019.
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