Wesfarmers Media Plan: Strategies for Customer Engagement and Growth

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of a media plan designed for Wesfarmers, a major Australian retail company. The report begins with an executive summary, followed by an introduction outlining Wesfarmers' business operations and the rationale for a new media plan to promote its products and services. It delves into the process of profiling and selecting target markets, including geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral segmentation. The report then defines media objectives, explores the selection of appropriate media categories and vehicles, and examines the determination of media costs. The analysis emphasizes the use of various media tools, including traditional and non-traditional marketing methods, with a focus on social media strategies. The goal is to enhance customer base, retain brand loyalty, and increase market share. Finally, the report provides recommendations and conclusions based on the analysis, offering insights into effective media planning for the retail sector. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering AI-powered study tools and resources.

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Media Management

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Executive Summary
With the effect of globalisation in the business market, numerous opportunities have been
originated for the organizations in order to expand their businesses in the domestic as well as in
international markets. Apart from globalisation, technology has also played pivotal role in
enhancing organizational performance as it has eased the way to execute the functionalities.
Wesfarmers is one of the behemoth players of retail industry situated in Australia. Along with
retail industry, organizational operations are diversified in other sectors also and with regards to
this, organization also operates in other countries across the globe like United Kingdom, New
Zealand, Bangladesh, Ireland, etc.
This report will focus over the requirement of media strategies for Wesfarmers in order to
promote their products and services in the target market. With the objective of enhancing its
market share as well as for the objective of gaining competitive advantage, organization believes
in introduction of new and innovative products and services. This also helps the organization to
retain its existing and potential customers along with attracting new customer segments. While
introducing new products and services, a marketing and media plan is required so that the
organization could easily communicate to its target audience with relevance to the features,
specifications and other key attributes of the particular product or service. The media plan will be
discussed in this report with the objective of targeting customers along with gaining the desired
goals and objectives. From the large customer segments, appropriate target markets will be
analysed along with specifying the media objectives, tools of social media which will be used for
promotion and advertisement. In addition to this, cost of media tools will also be analysed in
order to attain the desired goals of approaching to the right customer segments at the lowest cost.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Profiling/selecting target market......................................................................................................4
Geographic...................................................................................................................................4
Demographic................................................................................................................................4
Psychographic..............................................................................................................................5
Behavioural..................................................................................................................................5
Media objectives..............................................................................................................................5
Selecting media categories and vehicles..........................................................................................6
Determining Media Cost..................................................................................................................8
Recommendations and Conclusion..................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Wesfarmers Limited was established in 1914 and from then, it has been grown as one of the
largest Australian companies. Company is headquartered in Perth, Western Australia and along
with the retail industry; organization is active in other industries like chemicals, fertilisers,
industrial and safety products, coal mining, etc. In 2016, Wesfarmers overtook Woolworths and
BHP Billiton in terms of revenues. Organization is the largest private employer in Australia and
with approximately 223,000 employees; organization has a wide, talented and skilled workforce.
With huge number of employees, organization has set up its effective presence in different
industries as well as in the international market. With the objective of gaining competitive
advantage as well as for enhancing the demand for their products and services in the target
market, organization has decided to launch a new media plan in order to communicate the
organizational messages in an effective manner to its potential and existing customer segments
and that too at lower cost. With the help of this media plan, organization would easily be able to
attain its desired goals and objectives and appropriate media tools will be selected on the basis of
business requirements and market conditions (Wesfarmers Limited, 2018).
Profiling/selecting target market
Wesfarmers is primarily engaged in retailing industry and with regards to this; organization has
expanded its product and service offering in order to satisfy target audience’s demands and
wants. With the objective of gaining positive outcomes, it has been reviewed that Wesfarmers is
very active in conducting market research analysis in order to identify the demands and wants of
their customers. Organization has a huge product offering and with regards to this, they target
almost every customer segment with the objective of enhancing their customer base as well as
for the objective of enhancing its revenues and sales.
Wesfarmers perform in the retail industry with its subsidiary company Coles. Coles is one of the
largest retailers in Australia and its primary competitor is Woolworths. Both of these
organizations have covered approximately 80% of the overall market area and with regards to
this, duopoly type of market conditions have been set in the Australian retail industry. In
relevance to the organizational new media, organization will profile their customer segments on

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the basis of their requirements as well as on the basis of buying behaviour, trends in the market,
etc. (Wesfarmers Limited, 2018).
Geographic
Currently, organization is designing media plan for the Australian region and as Wesfaarmers’
retail stores are located in almost every part of Australia, organization will target each and every
customer segment with its new media plan with the objective of enhancing its customer base as
well as for the objective of enhancing its market share in the target market.
Demographic
Customers are segmented on the basis of age, income, sex, religion, etc. in this criterion of
segmentation. Wesfarmers’ product offering is huge and they have products and services for all
types of customers and with regards to the targeting those customers on the basis of new media
plan, organization will segregated them on the basis of their age. For example, old aged people
will be targeted through television and newspaper whereas millennials and young age group will
be targeted through non-traditional media strategies such as through social media, website, third
party website promotion, email marketing, etc. (Campbell, 2017).
Psychographic
Brand conscious people falls under this criteria of segmentation. People who prefer to have
branded products and services will be targeted on the basis of their requirements and demands.
Buying behaviour and customers’ trend of this group of people are separate in comparison to the
other market segments. In order to target this group of people, organization will implement social
media strategies and email marketing as these strategies will help the organization to target
people at individual level.
Behavioural
People who purchase products on the basis of their requirements and after analysing the benefits
for purchasing their products fall under behavioural type of segmentation. Apart from this, brand
loyal people also major part of this segmentation group. In order to retain the brand loyal people
and to attract the people who purchase products after determining its benefits, Wesfarmers will
use television and internet tools. These tools will help the organization to showcase the primary
and secondary features of the particular product amongst the audience through which an

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effective brand image will be developed. Apart from this, brand loyal people will be retained
through loyalty programs as well as on the basis of providing additional benefits to stay with the
organization.
Media objectives
Primary objective of new media plan for Wesfarmers is to enhance their customer base by
attracting other customer segments. As Wesfarmers is one of the top companies of Australia,
thus, their objective is to retain the acquired position in the target market along with the objective
of building appropriate brand image amongst the target audience. Company will target all
segments of the customers as their product offering is enough to fulfil every customer’s demands
and wants. With regards to the utilisation of media tools, organization would easily be able to
enhance its performance because organizational reachability will be increased (Sutton-Brady,
Kamvounias & taylor, 2015).
Before introduction of internet and technology, organization was used to use traditional forms of
marketing and promotion in order to promote their products and services. The major objectives
behind using traditional or non-traditional marketing tools is to generate awareness amongst the
target audience, developing customers’ interest in the organization and to fulfil their
requirements through which organization could be able to attain its desired goals and objectives.
Traditional forms of marketing were the only option till early 1990s but after that period, new era
of marketing and advertisement has been originated with the introduction of internet. Today,
companies prefer to adopt internet marketing over traditional forms of marketing because
reachability is very high in internet marketing and promotion along with low cost. Once
advertisement is posted over internet platforms, it could be easily be amended but if once
advertisement is printed, it cannot be amended easily. Cost of promotion is also low in internet
market along with this, customers could be targeted along with providing them detailed
information regarding the benefits and unique features of the products and services.
Apart from this, there is a common objective behind adaptation of any new strategy i.e.
enhancing organizational performance, enhancing profitability and to attain competitive
advantage in the marketplace. With regards to the functionalities of Wesfarmers, objectives in
relevance with media plan are enhancing the demand for their products and services, enhancing

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footfall of consumers in their stores in comparison to the footfall of consumers at competitors’
stores. Wesfarmers is parent company of Coles and their major competitors are Aldi,
Woolworths, etc. which affect their performance. Attaining competitive advantage is another
primary objective for Wesfarmers along with overtaking market share of its closest competitor
i.e. Woolworths. Organization is engaged in various other activities like coal mining, chemical
and fertilisers industry, etc. New media plan will also be a useful and effective technique to
increase their overall revenues which is one of the common objectives of adaptation of any
strategy (Zakaria, Rahman, Othman, Yunus, Dzulkipli & Osman, 2014).
Following are another set of media objectives:
 Reach: With the new media plan, organization will try to reach to large number of
target audience.
 Frequency: Media tools are essential for the objective of enhancing its performance
and with regards to this, it is necessary to develop picture of the brand amongst the
target customer’s mind-set. The more times, a person will be exposed to advertisement,
the more demand for the particular will be enhanced.
 Media impact: Impact of media is high and in order to create positive impact over
target and potential customers, it is required to select appropriate channel along with an
effective message so that only positive impact could be created amongst the target
audiences. There should be no difference between the portrayed image of the product in
the advertisement and in the actual performance of the product because if there will be
difference, it will ultimately affects the demand of the products and performance of the
organization.
Selecting media categories and vehicles
Mainly media has been categorised into four sections i.e. print media, electronic media, social
media and classical media and Below-the-Line media. Companies use these categories on the
basis of their requirement as well as on the basis market conditions, consumer’s demands, their
preferences, buying behaviour, etc. Every category of media has its own significance and the role
of every media category is essential for the organization to attain its desired goals and objectives.

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Print media: Newspapers and magazines are the main elements of print media. Companies uses
this category of media for the objective of target their target customers (Chen, Chen, Fan &
Chen, 2015). In relation to newspapers and magazines, organizations could not promote their
products and services for long run and the impact of these platforms are also very weak because
these are active for short time period. Although, the new media plan of Wesfarmers will focus
over print media platforms but much focus will be on other categories as these are more
effective, result oriented and effective for the objective of gaining desired goals and objectives
(Ruiz-Pava & Forero-Pineda, 2018).
Electronic media: Electronic media includes television and radio. In this busy schedule world,
impact of electronic media is also weak because people cannot operate their TVs regularly and
with regards to this, Wesfarmers will not much invest in these platforms.
Social media: This is the trending category in advertisement and promotion market. Most of the
organizations have adopted social media platforms in order to promote their products and
services due to its high reachability and high impact. In addition to this, organizations could
promote their products at low cost in comparison to other platforms of advertisement and
marketing. Internet has brought drastic change in the functionalities of organization and the users
of social media are increasing across the globe rapidly. Thus, social media platforms will be the
major part of Wesfarmers’ new media plan.
Classical media: Theatre, books, billboards, posters, handbills, banners, pamphlets, etc. are the
major elements of classical media. These platforms are also effective if organization is
promoting its products at domestic level because international promotion with these platforms is
bit difficult as well as bit costly. Although, Wesfarmers’ new media plan will also focus over
classical media tools for the objective of developing brand image amongst the target audience’s
mind-sets’ (Strobl, Bauer & Matzler, 2018).
These categories are very broad and vast and every category consist variety of media vehicles
through which organization could easily uplift its performance along with the attainment of
desired goals and objectives. Following media vehicles will be used for the promotion of
organizational products and services along with targeting its potential customers:

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 Audio: Audio vehicles consist of radio and with regards to this; organization will
promote their products and services in the domestic market to reach its potential and
existing customers.
 Television: Television will be another media vehicle for targeting local public and
amongst them, major customer segments will be the households and old aged people.
 Print: Magazines, newspapers and pamphlets are major elements of print medium
which will mainly be used for targeting 24-65 aged group people as they are more
interested in reading newspaper.
 Digital publications: News site, blogs and third party website promotion will be used
for the objective of promoting products and services (McCann & Barlow, 2015).
 Social media & mobile applications: Social media websites and mobile applications
are the major sources of advertisement and promotion. These are the most trending and
advanced methods of promotion and advertisement and with the help of these mediums,
organization would easily be able to attain its desired goals and objectives.
 Events: This is another effective platform which will be used in the media plan of
Wesfarmers. Sponsorship of events is the trending measure of promotion and with the
help of event promotion; organization would be able to match up with its desired targets
and in terms of attaining competitive advantage (Dixon, Martinez & Martin, 2015).

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Determining Media Cost
Platforms Reach Frequency Budget
Print media
(newspaper &
magazine)
35-45% audience Once in two days till
starting two months
AUD 250,000
Electronic media
(Television and other
entertainment
channels)
25-35% audience Four times a day for
starting one month
AUD 500,000
Social media 75-80% audience As per requirement AUD 400,000
Classical media 45-55% audience 50-60 banners across
the target audience
AUD 350,000

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Recommendations and Conclusion
From the aforesaid information, it can be concluded that Wesfarmers is one of the big
conglomerate of Australia and with its vast operations; organization has acquired the leading
position in the Australian retail industry. In order to enhance their performance as well as to
attain its desired goals in terms of brand promotion, enhancing brand awareness and developing
brand loyalty amongst the target audience, it is required to boost up the advertisement and
promotional strategies of the organization. IN relevance with this, regular updates in the media
strategies are required along with analysing the market conditions and competitive environment
of the retail industry. Social media platforms are the trending measures through which
organization could easily promote its products and services at low cost in comparison to the
other measures of promotion and advertisement. Thus, it is recommended to the organization to
be super active on social media platforms along with introducing new programs like loyalty
programs, reward points and other benefits for the existing customers for the purpose of retaining
them.
It can be concluded that every organization seeks for improvement in its performance and to
enhance the performance, they adopt unique and innovative measures. Wesfarmers was founded
in 1914 and today, it is the largest company across the Australia in terms of revenues and the
major reason behind their success, growth and development are the strategies adopted by them
i.e. consistent learning, sustained growth and overall development. With the help of these
strategies, organization has been able to fulfil its target customer’s needs and wants along with
the objective of retaining its leading position in the target market.

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References
Campbell, J. (2017). Insights from the company monitor: Wesfarmers. Equity, 31(8), 16.
Chen, H., Chen, X., Fan, L., & Chen, C. (2015). Classified security protection evaluation for
vehicle information system. In Cyber Security of Smart Cities, Industrial Control System
and Communications (SSIC), 2015 International Conference on (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Dixon, A. W., Martinez, J. M., & Martin, C. L. (2015). Employing social media as a marketing
strategy in college sport: an examination of perceived effectiveness in accomplishing
organizational objectives. International Review on Public and Nonprofit
Marketing, 12(2), 97-113.
McCann, M., & Barlow, A. (2015). Use and measurement of social media for SMEs. Journal of
Small Business and Enterprise Development, 22(2), 273-287.
Ruiz-Pava, G., & Forero-Pineda, C. (2018). Internal and external search strategies of innovative
firms: the role of the target market. Journal of Knowledge Management. 17(1), 15-32.
Strobl, A., Bauer, F., & Matzler, K. (2018). The impact of industry-wide and target market
environmental hostility on entrepreneurial leadership in mergers and
acquisitions. Journal of World Business. 25(3), 225-230.
Sutton-Brady, C., Kamvounias, P., & Taylor, T. (2015). A model of supplier–retailer power
asymmetry in the Australian retail industry. Industrial marketing management, 51, 122-
130.
Wesfarmers Limited. (2018). Coles. Retrieved from: http://www.wesfarmers.com.au/our-
businesses/coles.
Wesfarmers Limited. (2018). Who We Are. Retrieved from:
http://www.wesfarmers.com.au/who-we-are/who-we-are.

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Zakaria, I., Rahman, B. A., Othman, A. K., Yunus, N. A. M., Dzulkipli, M. R., & Osman, M. A.
F. (2014). The relationship between loyalty program, customer satisfaction and customer
loyalty in retail industry: A case study. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 129(2),
23-30.