MRKT20052 Marketing Management: Eve of the Christmas

You are required to select two electronic articles during the term, that have been published on either of the following marketing news websites, relevant to marketing issues and/or concepts:

Marketing Week (2018) - (https://www.marketingweek.com/)

Or

American Marketing Association (2018) - (https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/Current-Issue.aspx ).

Answer:

Introduction

Marketing is the major reasons for success for any company. At the time of Christmas almost all the companies tries to attract people. For this they suit advertisement campaigns. Some are highly attractive and some are able to do so. In the current business environment, any unsuccessful marketing campaign can lead to huge business failure especially when there is battle going on in the marketing space (Kraus & Myrick, 2018). This article suggests about the good and bad advertisements this year on the eve of the Christmas.

Marketing issues illustrated in this article

Marketing issues that has been addressed in this article is that advertisements must be according to the customer’s demands and not according to what company’s think about. Companies are not presenting the actual Christmas message and that is making the difference in the good and worst advertisements (Marketing week, 2018). Brands underestimating familiarity in their advertisements is another big issue. It also raises the issues that how the brand ambassadors must be used by the company so as to improve the brand recognition (Hammett, 2018). It also highlights the issue that how the too much creativity can sometimes also affect the idea of the advertisement made by the company and hence might have impact on the business. Basically it must look realistic than being more fascinating. For example Cadbury ad showed things that will not actually happen. Advertisements must be heart-warming and must be centralised around the core idea that a company wants to portray.

Important stakeholders

Important stakeholders attached with this are:

Customers: Since they are major purchasers who are going to buy products and services based on the advertisements. They always look for advertisements that are attractive and shows the ways in which the product is going to solve any specific problems of them. Since customers see lots of advertisements at a time by different competitors hence the made advertisements must be something that sticks in the mind and leads a customer to do the purchase.

Marketers: Since they have the responsibility to make the advertisement a success. In case of any mistakes or poor advertisements their efficiency gets a question mark. More the issues will be generated in any campaign more questions would be raised on the makers. Marketers shall always study the consumer behaviour before actually making a purchase.

Companies: Since they are the ultimate stakeholders who are going to get affected by the marketing done by the firms. Any failure may reduce the sales of the company or might also affect their brand image (Piedfort, 2017). Since they are the main investors in that campaign hence they must get a return of value for the made advertisements or otherwise they will have to make the advertisements sooner than thought.

Addressing the issues 

In order to address the issues the first and the foremost thing that needs to be done is to understand the consumer behaviour. This must be done by analysing the trends in the market. Second marketers must bring new ideas to the advertisements but the idea must not make the advertisements too unrealistic (Davidson, 2017). Thirdly company must focus on bringing advertisements that wanders around the central idea and hence use of 4 p’s marketing theory can be beneficial. Fourth, company shall always make the advertisements that are heart-warming because that is one of the major things that stick in the mind of the people at the time of making a purchase. Fifth company must also focus towards using the Segmentation, targeting and positioning specifically in making the advertisements.

Conclusion

From this article it can be concluded that advertisements is the core of the modern day business. There are many issues in the marketing done by several companies and hence must understand the consumer behaviour before actually implementing the advertisements.

References

Davidson, L. (2017) The 10 best Christmas adverts of all time. Retrieved from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/0/the-10-best-christmas-adverts-of-all-time/

FreePressMedia, (2018) The 4 P’s to Put Marketing Strategy Into Action. Retrieved from: https://www.freepressmedia.com/blog/article/the-4-ps-to-put-marketing-strategy-into-action

Hammett, E. (2018) Retailers struggle to set festive pulses racing with product-focused 2018. Retrieved from: https://www.marketingweek.com/2018/11/22/christmas-advertising-2018/

Hanlon, A. (2018) The segmentation, targeting and positioning model. Retrieved from: https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/customer-segmentation-targeting/segmentation-targeting-and-positioning/

Kraus, A., & Myrick, J. G. (2018). Feeling Bad About Feel-Good Ads: The Emotional and Body-Image Ramifications of Body-Positive Media. Communication Research Reports, 35(2), 101-111.

Marketing week, (2018) The best and worst Christmas ads: Marketing Week picks. Retrieved from: https://www.marketingweek.com/2018/11/26/best-christmas-ads-worst-christmas-ads/

Piedfort, M. (2017) 12 Bad Ads and Marketing Failures To Learn What Not To Do. Retrieved from: https://www.workzone.com/blog/bad-ads/