MCOM4040 Marketing and Communications and Promotional Mix theory
As a newly appointed marketing assistant of the Addison Lee marketing team, you have been asked to write a report addressing the following task areas:
Task 1: Evolution of marketing
- Describe the Production, Product, Selling, and Marketing orientations
- Identify and explain the orientation adopted by Addison Lee, and provide two (2) examples that demonstrate Addison Lee’s use of the approach
Task 2: Marketing environments
- Describe marketing environment analysis and discuss why it is important for Addison Lee, prior to setting a marketing strategy
- Considering the macro environment of Addison Lee, identify and discuss one (1) Economic factor and one (1) sociocultural factor that impact Addison Lee’s marketing decisions. Explain whether the factors create marketing opportunities or threats for Addison Lee
- Considering the micro environment of Addison Lee, identify two key competitors and discuss their potential threat to the business
- Identify and explain two (2) internal environmental factors that could be considered as strengths or weaknesses of Addison Lee’s business operation
Task 3: Marketing strategies
The Marketing Director has announced a new objective for the company: To grow the Addison Lee car service business by 3% by targeting a younger demographic of 16 – 25-year olds by June 2018.
- Explain the concept of market segmentation and its importance in planning a marketing strategy for Addison Lee
- Discuss two (2) segmentation approaches that Addison Lee could adopt when segmenting the market for 16 – 25-year olds
Task 4: Marketing mix
- Using the 7ps, Identify and describe Addison Lee’s current marketing mix using appropriate examples for each of the 7P’s
- Recommend changes to the Product, Price and Promotion element of Addison Lee’s marketing mix (7ps) which will enable the business to achieve its desired objective, of 3% growth in their car service business by targeting 16-25-year olds
Answers:
Introduction
In this study, marketing and communication aspect of Addison Lee has been explained. Addison Lee is a personal cab service providers and aim of the study is to promote the service of Addison Lee taking help o poster. In the first section, promotional mix theory has been discussed with explaining the target market of Addison Lee. The channel of promotion has been chosen as a poster and the key message has been delineated. Advertisement model AIDA has also been discussed in this study.
An explanation of the Promotional Mix theory
The marketing plan of an organisation is mainly focused on the target market and in order to allure the target market, the promotional mix is used. The promotional mix contained public relations, advertising, personal selling and sales promotion. Organisation uses communication tools in order to attract the target customers and organisation tries to increase profits through the promotional mix (Oladepo and Abimbola 2015). Promotional communication programmes are designed by the organisation in order to reach maximum numbers of customers and generate a lead.
A discussion of how the promotional mix theory was used to decide selection
The advertisement is the most popular element of promotional mix and Addison Lee could use poster advertisement as it can allow the customers to reach a large number of people. Addison Lee can have the benefits from poster advertising as the size of poster provides extra special benefits and it is hard to ignore for the customers. Design selection is important for poster and expense was less on the poster. Addison Lee decided to target young consumers and poster's textual and graphic designs can attract them.
A description of the target audience and the response sought
The target audiences of Addison Lee were mostly young generation aged between 16-25 years. The young generation is mostly tech-savvy and they are status seekers. Addison Lee needs to motivate the young generation through advertisements in order to make them passengers. The poster can be useful medium as it is eye-catching and it sells the content in a short way. Addison Lee wants highest responses from posters and it may result to increase in market share. Posters are informative and young generation and other people can get to know about discounts and advantages.
An outline of the chosen channel and justification
The chosen channel of advertising in print media as Addison Lee has selected to advertise on the poster. However, traditional marketing will be patched up with online mode. The posters will be printed and will be handed to the customers and some of the posters will be advertised through online. The poster will be a useful channel for Addison Lee and poster speaks itself and it has the possibility to reach broader audiences also. Poster and print media can be useful as it can be cost-effective and young generation can observe these (Strauss 2016).
An explanation of the communications key message
Through poster, Addison Lee will communicate to the young customers. The key message will be:
Addison Lee is going to give extra discounts on Promo Code and referral benefits on each ride. Passengers can get additional benefits on the first ride. Addison Lee is going to start quality based rides that would vary prices. Addison Lee introduces Mini, Micro, Prime and Large cab for the passengers.
Use of AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) marketing theory to explain how the promotion
Awareness: Addison Lee is going to aware the passengers about discounts on the first ride and it will be giving additional benefits to referral bonus and Promo Code. The brand awareness campaign will be done through posters and posters will also be displayed on social media.
Interests: The content and graphics of posters will gain interest to the customers and the information that it provides will attract the passengers.
Desire: The services of free discounts, promo code and customer satisfaction strategies of Addison Lee would create a desire to the customers. The contents would bring a desire to the young generation as they can emotionally connect with the services (Manning et al. 2017).
Action: Addison Lee likes to call actions from the passengers and the actions will bring market share in the industry. The marketing channel will be both social media and traditional media to attract maximum customers. The actions will be seen on the website and mobile app of the organisation.
An explanation of how feedback will be collected
Customers' feedbacks are important for an organisation as it would help the organisation to know if it is going in the right direction. Addison Lee can ask for the customers' feedbacks on app or website. They can prepare a set of questionnaire and upload this on the website page. The customers can answer the MCQ questions and provide their feedback on it.
Conclusion
It has been observed that target market of Addison Lee is the young generation who love status symbol. Addison Lee wants to take the chance as Uber is banned in London. The cab service can flourish in this situation. Through AIDA model, Addison Lee wants to create attention and desire among the users of the cab and take chance to increase the market share. Through poster, it offers discounts for the passengers and increases the customer base.
Reference List
Blythe J., 2013 Principles & Practices of Marketing. London: Sage.
Cornwell, T.B., 2014. Sponsorship in marketing: Effective communication through sports, arts and events. Abingdon: Routledge.
Manning, G.L., Ahearne, M. and Reece, B.L., 2017. Selling Today: Partnering to create value. Sydney: Pearson.
Oladepo, O.I. and Abimbola, O.S., 2015. The influence of brand image and promotional mix on consumer buying decision-a study of beverage consumers in Lagos State, Nigeria. British Journal of Marketing Studies, 3(4), pp.97-109.
Strauss, J., 2016. E-marketing. Abingdon: Routledge.
