Marketing Essentials Report: Wagamama's Marketing Strategies

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Marketing Essentials
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
LO1............................................................................................................................................4
LO2............................................................................................................................................9
LO3..........................................................................................................................................13
Conclusion................................................................................................................................18
Reference List..........................................................................................................................19
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Introduction
Every organisation conducts marketing operations in order to sell the goods of the company
in the target market. It is a management process which organisations conduct in order to
identify the target consumers for the brand’s products, figure out market conditions, and then
finally sell their products to those target customers in order to earn profits. The activity of
marketing also analyses the demands of the consumers and the market trends and create
products and services that attract consumers by being trendy and as per their demands. It is a
management process because resources of the company need to be allocated in a systematic
way to reduce operation costs and increase profits.
The chosen organisation for this report is Wagamama, which is an UK based fast-food
restaurant chain that specialises in serving Asian food that is inspired from Japanese cuisine
(Wagamama.com, 2019). This report will focus on elaborating all the key responsibilities that
the function of marketing plays and how it is related to the company and their business
operations. This report will also differentiate the methods in which two different companies
in the same business market apply the marketing mix to achieve their goals. A basic plan of
marketing will also be provided for Wagamama to provide better insight in the marketing
function of the company.
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LO1
Explain the role of marketing and how it interrelates with other functional units of an
organisation.
P1 Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function.
For a company to run, marketing planning is one of the most critical functions as marketing
serves as ideas of requirements and demands of the customer. The organisation makes the
final decision according to the concept. As per Baker (2016), every organisation present in
the market place make a marketing plan, and with the help of it, the company creates
products that can be presented in the market to fulfil the demand of the consumers. The
comprehensive procedure of the production of the merchandises and it ending up in the
customers’ hand can be evaluated by the marketing strategy of the organisation. The process
of exchanging goods from the producers to the consumers plays the most significant role in
marketing. The most fundamental task that the marketing functions have has been described
in this section of the study.
Researching the market to find out the opportunities for growth
To find out the prospects and get the competitive lead in the market, the marketing
department of the Wagamama must survey the market place to recognise the current trend
and requirement of the market. This step is considered as the preliminary step of marketing
the merchandises (Moravcikova et al., 2017). Various methods are followed by the
organisation to obtain information regarding market trends such as surveying, checking the
reaction of customers to products advertising. Information regarding the target audience,
what they need, and their demands are discussed in this step. The goal of marketing and the
process of marketing are evaluated here.
Developing a strategic marketing plan
After the survey and research of the market are over, the organisational goal of the company
can be understood. In this step, the marketing department of the Wagamama needs to plan
marketing strategies to help the company to accomplish its objective. Several elements that
can affect the organisation, such as the budgets of marketing, expected profits from the
market, the gained revenues are analysed in this stage (Blythe and Martin, 2019).
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Development of Products from the market
After gathering the needed data about market trends and consumers’ demands, the production
of goods is planned accordingly. In the case of Wagamama, they plan their dishes after
knowing what kind of dishes are the clients prefer. This process helps Wagamama becoming
a fierce competition in the food business section.
Grading and Standardisation of Product
The quality of a product is judged by its weight, size, durability, quality of the raw materials
used to produce the product and many more. Standardisation or quality check of a product
helps the production department to design the products in a way that will be different from
the other products presented in the market by competitive companies. After the quality, check
process is completed, a product has to go through the grading process. In here, the
standardised products are graded according to the product’s quality. In Wagamama's case,
after a dish is designed, the plate goes through quality check and is rated accordingly.
Packaging and Labelling of Product
The dishes offered by Wagamama must be packaged in a way in order to protect the dishes
from damages while delivering the food to the customers. Organisations use labelling on the
products they offer to increase brand awareness among the people (Shahid et al., 2017). The
marketing department of Wagamama makes sure the labelling includes information about the
location of the shop as knowing it can help to increase the brand impression.
Branding of the product
To make a positive first impression among the customers, the marketing department of
Wagamama has made sure the name of the dish is appealing, and the way the meal is being
presented to the customers look gorgeous. The branding process is a significant part of
marketing procedure as it helps to develop the brand a unique identity in the market
(McDonald and Wilson, 2016).
Product Pricing
Deciding the price of the products is one of the most important jobs of the marketing
department if not the most important one. Pricing of a product decides the gap between of
revenue and production cost. Pricing of the product is done after determining the target
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customers and scrutinising their spending capacity and how much they are ready to pay for
that particular product.
Promotion of Products
The most fundamental element for a business to survive in the market is the customers. After
developing a product, an organisation has to ensure that the customers know about the
product. To make the customers aware of the products, promotion is done by the
organisation. Customers can be mindful about a product via advertisements on T.V., Radio,
print media such as newspaper and magazines. With the growing popularity of social media
among the young people, Wagamama’s marketing department has advertised its products and
services on well-known social networking sites such as Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr. An
appealing advertisement can drag the attention of people towards the company, and it helps to
increase brand impression as well as the number of customers.
Physical Distribution of Products
For the physical distribution process, a product has to go through distribution channels to
reach to the clients. Wagamama is a famous organisation in the food sector, that has to take
help of multiple food-delivery services to deliver the dishes to its customers. Wagamama
needs to make sure the packaging has been done in a way that does not let the product get
ruin before it reaches to its customers.
Customer Support
This is one of the fundamental responsibilities of the marketing department as it helps to
improve the relationship between the brand and its customers. Customer support is the
process of brand addressing the clients’ problems and quarries as well as collecting their
feedback regarding their products and services. It does not only bridges the gap between the
organisations and the clients, effective customer service affects the brand reputation
positively, and it also helps to plan and develop new products according to the clients'
feedback.
In order to promote a product, all of these steps play a significant role. A resourceful strategy
of marketing has helped Wagamama to improve the brand reputation and generate more
profits by increasing its clients.
P2 Explain how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider
organisational context.
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The marketing department of Wagamama performs many essential duties to market the
organisation. A list of their duties is mentioned below.
Conduct market research
One if the most critical duties that the marketing department has to do is to conduct an in-
depth survey of the market in order to know about the current trends and demand of the
market. Gaining knowledge about the market’s requirement, they have to take necessary
decisions to fulfil the needs of the market people. In addition to this, an in-depth market
survey helps the organisation to know about the opportunities in the market, and how the
organisation expands due to the possibilities.
Developing a marketing strategy
To survive in the competitive atmosphere in the market as well as to enlarge the reach of the
organisation, a company must draw a suitable marketing strategy. The marketing department
of the Wagamama has to perform the duty of mapping out a plan for marketing after
surveying the market’s demands and consumers' preferences with the sole objective of
increasing the brand impression and reach of Wagamama.
Development of better customer relationship management
The head of the marketing department has to take responsibilities regarding taking necessary
decisions to improve the company’s relationship with the customers (Kang et al., 2015).
Therefore, the company can gain many loyal customers. Executing this step correctly helps
the company to generate more revenue.
The department of marketing has to maintain a strong relationship with the other important
division of the company such as the human resource department, I.T. department, and so on.
The marketing department has to walk along with the I.T. department in order to conduction
promotional activities on digital platforms (Felix, 2017). To get a clear view of the
requirements of the current market, the marketing team conducts an in-depth analysis of the
market. With the help of the human resource department, the marketing department comes
out with ideas regarding products of products according to the market demands. Apart from
the human resource team and I.T. team, Marketing team works with the finance team to
decide the pricing of the products. These two teams are also responsible for determining the
promotional budget of the firm. The promotional budget of a company is set after verifying
company’s financial condition. As the marketing department has to work with various
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departments to carry on with their duties, they need to maintain relationships with other
departments of the organisation.
If all the significant departments of an organisation like human resource, marketing, I.T. and
finance develop a healthy inter-functional correlation in order to carry on the business
process in a hassle free and efficient way. Not only this, a healthy inter-relation leads to better
communication, and it creates an understanding among the divisions. The understanding
among the divisions help the organisations to go towards to achieve its organisational goal
efficiently (De Mooji, 2018). For all these reasons, Wagamama has always emphasised on
having a healthy correlation among the divisions to increase productivity as well as market
revenue.
At the present time, with the continually growing popularity of digital platforms and social
media, Wagamama has reached the decision of taking advantage of digital platforms to
advertise their products. Promoting their products on popular social media and online
websites has helped them to expand the number of their clients globally as well as the sales
graph has gone through a boost, and the company was able to produce more profits from the
marketplace (Sajid, 2016). In the current time, a large number of young people spend a
significant amount of time on social , namely, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram.
Hence, these platforms can be used to advertise the products in order to reach a more
significant number of consumers. By trading into the digital territories, a company can gain
advantages in the market. This helps Wagamama to reach the organisational goal efficiently.
The strategies made by the marketing department play a very important role to draw the
interest of the public towards the organisation’s offered products (Charter, 2017). This
department is also solely responsible for analysing the market to get an idea of the
requirement of the consumers so that the company can produce products according to the
market demand. It also carries out an essential duty by creating a positive relationship
between the brand and its clients. As per Van Tonder (2016), having a good relationship with
the clients help an organisation to gain loyal customers with brand preference and the
company can have a competitive edge in the market. The primary object of a company is to
create brand awareness and a positive brand reputation among customers (Wheeler, 2017). In
order to get that the company must fulfil the demands of the clients as well as addressing
their quarries and complaints. Deciding a higher budget in advertising the products has
helped the company to gain more customers. In addition, the betterment of the video
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contents, and betterment of the quality of customer service have positively affected the
company.
LO2
Compare ways in which organisations use elements of the marketing mix (7Ps) to
achieve overall business objectives
P3 Compare the ways in which different organisations apply the marketing mix to the
marketing planning process to achieve business objectives.
Each organisation sells different goods and services that cater to all the different wider needs
of the target customer base. Therefore, each organisation employs the use of the 7P’s of
Marketing Mix in different ways. In this report, the marketing mix applied by Wagamama is
compared with the marketing mix applied by Yo! Sushi, another UK based restaurant chain
that specialises on serving Japanese fast food, especially Sushi. The brand is known for
advocating sustainable fish farming (Yosushi.com, 2019). The comparison will provide an
understanding on how different companies in the same industry apply their marketing mix in
different ways.
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Figure: The 7 P’s of Marketing Mix
(Source: Mohammad, 2015)
Marketing Mix Element Wagamama Yo! Sushi
Product Specialises in selling
Japanese food products like
ramen, yaki soba, katsu
curry, gyoza, and many
more; most of them being
meat dishes and noodles
Specialises in selling only
sushi; which is made with
fish and vegetables
(Donnellan, 2017)
Price The prices of the dishes are
mostly in the lower to mid
range with some dishes being
more expensive. The prices
are higher compared to Yo!
Sushi (Brennan, 2015)
The prices of the dishes are
mostly in the low range with
quite a few dishes being very
expensive. The prices are a
bit more cheaper compared
to Wagamama
Place Wagamama have opened
their stores in all
metropolitan cities of the
UK; they have 130 stores all
over the UK
Yo! Sushi have many stores
in the UK which serve food
to customers using conveyor
belts; however this is
considerably lower compared
to Wagamama (McKelvey et
al., 2017)
Promotion Wagamama have used four
of their best and most
popular products while
promoting their brand; along
with creating captivating
television and radio
advertisements that use
videos and sounds sourced
from their kitchen (Dedeke,
2015)
Yo! Sushi promotes the
concept of sustainable fish
farming by getting their fish
from sustainable sources;
they have used this concept
to advertise their brand
through television
advertisements along with
the concept of using
conveyor belt system of
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serving food to customers
Process The company have promoted
home delivery and take away
services so that the customers
can enjoy their meal
wherever they want
The company specialises in
serving their food through
conveyor belts where the
diners can just pick the dish
they want; they do not sell
their products through the
system of home delivery or
take away services (Lai and
Lim, 2017)
People Wagamama have trained and
professional employees that
serve high quality food with
an excellent delivery and take
away system
Yo! Sushi serves high quality
sushi which is made by using
traditional Japanese
techniques; the employees
are trained in following these
techniques (Bekoglu and
Onayli, 2016)
Physical Evidence The company has many dine
in stores and take away
outlets all over the UK
The company has many
stores all over the UK
Table 1: Marketing Mix Differences between Wagamama and Yo! Sushi
(Source: Created by the learner)
From the above table, the differences between the marketing mixes of the two brands can be
seen clearly. Though both Wagamama and Yo! Sushi are restaurant chains based in the UK
that specialise in serving Japanese food products, their catalogues are different from each
other in many ways. Wagamama specialises in selling noodle based products like Ramen
while Yo! Sushi sells only sushi and other fish based products. Wagamama also prices all
their products a bit higher than Yo! Sushi products. This was found when the price of Gyoza
was compared between the two brands. Yo! Sushi serves their customers through the use of
conveyor belts which helps the brand to bring in new customers to their restaurants. While
Wagamama do not employ the use of such techniques, it gives retail services like take outs
and home delivery, which also brings in its fair share of customers who prefer to eat at their
homes or somewhere else. Wagamama have used innovative television advertisements to
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promote their brand, while Yo! Sushi have moved towards the concept of using sustainable
fish farming techniques that prevent overfishing, especially of fish species that have less
population like Eel and Blue -Finned salmon (Yo!Sushi.com, 2019). This has improved their
brand image as ecology maintainers, which has brought in customers who believe in
preserving the fish from extinction.
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