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Phillip Dean Marketing Management

Assignment 1 MK 2001

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Introduction

A marketing plan is what an organisation will implement to achieve one or more marketing objectives this will be critically appraised and examples will be shown to which organisations have implemented marketing plans successful and unsuccessful. Different aspects of the marketing plan will be shown and evaluated to see to show why a marketing plan may not always be up to date, due to certain information not being accessible and certain members of staff not possessing the required to skills to gather such information. Two examples below will show one positive marketing plan and how   a   company   used   it   to   their   advantage   whereas   another   company   didn’t   undertake   enough  research and therefore failed and lost market share due to a lack of research and a poorly written market plan.

1. Marketing Plan Outline

“Marketing planning is simply a series of activities in a logical sequence leading to the setting of marketing objectives and the formulation of plans for achieving them”  Malcolm  and McDonald (1992, p.6) This is basically stating that organisations that use a marketing plan would implement a marketing plan in a sequence that would best achieve their marketing objectives (appendix a), this shows major sections that is normally incorporated into a marketing plan according to Kotler (1976) in Greenley, G. E (1983, p.58) “Marketing planning was seen as the management discipline which could enable the firm to improve its competitiveness by becoming more responsible and adaptable to changing market conditions”  Brooksbank (1991, p. 17) This definition of Marketing Planning gives the impression that organisations would use it to improve their competitiveness within their market in the industry, which is a completely different definition to the one above. There are many definitions of marketing planning and these are just two, both which are completely different and give different strategies and ideas for what an organisation wants to achieve when developing and implementing their marketing plan. There are several sections within a marketing plan that organisations may need to consider when developing a marketing plan and before implementing it, each section within the marketing plan is important. Different organisations will use different amounts of sections within their marketing plan. Kotler (1976) states in Greenley, G.E (1983, p.58) (appendix A), these are the major sections in a marketing plan that organisations would need to consider but not every organisation would agree with this and use these sections, which will be shown later within the examples given. Before the marketing plan is established by the organisation, they must essentially understand what the organisation will be marketing and to achieve this they must comprehensively understand:

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x “the corporate strategic plan x the  company’s  vision  for  the  future x where the organisation is positioned x the strategic plan x the business plan x service delivery methods x the cost of running the organisation x how to measure that cost x the benchmark position in the market x the performance indicators and methods of measurement x the approach to knowledge management x trends in the profession x the recruiting and retention methodology used x how success is attained, measured and maintained x current marketing and communication programmes and their effectiveness”  Griffin  

(2002. p.238)

Keegan et.al (1992) quotes in Brooksbank (1999, p.78) “There are three fundamental principles which underpin the proposed planning framework” this advises organisations when developing their marketing plan they should consider the following three fundamentals:

x “The first principle is to adopt a marketing orientation, or philosophy, of business” Keegan et al (1992) in Brooksbank (1999,p. 78)

x “The second principle is to employ a comprehensive planning approach. The four ``classic'' functions of management are analysing, planning, organising and controlling” Kotler (1991) in Brooksbank (1999, p.78)

x “The  third  principle  is  to  ``keep  on''  marketing  planning.  The  fast-changing nature of the modern business environment means that marketing planning should be a continuous, ever-evolving process, which seeks to exploit these changes to the company's  best  advantage” Brooksbank (1999, p.78) Once organisations have implemented these three fundamentals then Brooksbank (1999) also goes on to say the marketing planning process would be combined of these three fundamentals with four main phases to conduct the marketing plan, the four   phases   that   Brooksbank   (1999,   p.78)   states   are   “analysing, strategising, implementing  and  controlling” Analysing  Brooksbank’s  theory  of  the  four  phases  really  gives  the  organisation  great  depth has to why they should implement these three into their plan. Analysing would be the first procedure for the organisation and they would need to analyse their company’s  situation  within  the market  and  answer  questions  such  has  “where  are  we  now”   and   “where   could   we   go   in   the   future.”     To   answer   these   questions   the  organisation need to undertake market research and gain information such has distribution channels, suppliers and etc., this sort of research carried out would be primary research, not secondary research, has the information they would need to analyse would be fact based and not feedback based. Analysing could also be undertaken by completing a SWOT analysis, which would give the organisation

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information such strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Appendix B shows the SWOT profile development process that some organisations would use when completing a SWOT analysis. The second phase strategising is how the organisation would achieve their marketing objectives, which they have set after conducting a SWOT analysis, this will basically show the organisation how they set to achieve these objectives and within what timescale. The next phase of the four phases is implementing, during this phase this is when the organisation would discuss what marketing mix they will use to target their customers and gain advantage over their competitors. However when deciding this marketing mix organisations must remember that this marketing mix will either work or not and could decide whether the brand reputation and image grows stronger or gets weaker. During this phase they must also take into consideration their position within the market and has this could be affected too. The final phase is controlling which is when the organisation will sustain their marketing and make sure that it is meeting its marketing objectives and the advertising and marketing is continuing to be effective.

2. Positives and negatives of a marketing plan with Organisation examples 2.1 Positives of a marketing plan with examples

A marketing plan will can lots of negative effects which will be evaluated later on, although marketing planning can have positive effects which some organisations have had success.

A new product called Lemonhead owned by Carlsberg/Tetley wanted to enter the lemon alcoholic drinks market, they developed a marketing plan to see if they could compete with the number 2 brand, Two Dogs. Their market plan was a high standard written one has below will show. Market research is a big factor in a marketing plan has poor research could leave gaps of information and not having the required information to achieve marketing objectives. Coomasaru, C, Day and Lee (1996) stated in their research that Lemonhead had two marketing objectives:

x Where should promote Lemonhead x Should we sell it a premium price

These objectives were negotiated by Carlsberg Tetley when they were developing their market plan. The objectives would help them advertise and promote their brand has they are a new product in the market and deciding the promotional mix within the marketing plan helps them to plan how to advertise. Lemonhead decided to use the Vignali mixed map marketing plan method (Appendix C) when they decided which plan to use. This method shows how many responses they had received from their research into how many consumers would pay cheap, value or premium prices for beer. Lemonheads marketing plan already stated that they wanted to be a premium beer, so with 33 consumers responding to premium this gave them a massive boost because their product would be a premium beer which is what their plan set out to achieve. The Lemonhead marketing plan looked into the product life cycle, Boston Matrix and also looked into different strategies in which they could become a better product than their competitors. These three sectors helped Lemonheads marketing plan because the product life cycle showed that Two Dogs was a problem child and Lemonheads marketing plan stated that they

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want to be a star, therefore this marketing plan was ambitious and high standard by Lemonhead. Lemonheads proposed advertising strategies in the market plan was decided to be Cinema, Radio and Magazine advertising and then sampling. Coomasaru, C, Day and Lee (1996) This marketing plan was a positive one and worked well for the development and introduction of Lemonhead. This was because Lemonhead had covered everything and gathered primary and secondary research before launching the brand. They researched competitors and where they were in the market, looked their brand position and how they were reaching their consumers. After gathering all this information and research and studying the information Lemonhead had created a positive and effective marketing plan. The following marketing plan shows where organisations can go wrong when developing a marketing plan and why organisations should consider every aspect. When developing a marketing plan you need to ensure that the questions you decide in the plan are the correct ones, has Kodak found out below. These questions and objectives in the plan need to be fully researched before writing a marketing plan, due to the fact that objectives you write could be in date at the time of writing but once research begins could be out of date and this sort of error could cost the brand its image and position and also waste the organisations money and time.

Kodak invented and released the first ever camera in 1975 which launched the way for cameras but Kodak was always the big player within the market and had the most market share and the brand image and positioning was strong. Seeing has Kodak invented the first digital  camera  they  didn’t  miss  the  digital  age,  their  error  was  they  never  marketing  this  new  technology, they was feared of damaging their lucrative film business, even though digital products were reshaping the model (Dan, 2012). The problem  with  Kodak’s  marketing  plan  was they had stated in their plan they was in the film business and not the story telling business and digital industry. Therefore the big players and competitors such as Sony and Canon launched their products and took the  market   share  and  Kodak’s  share  of   the  market  declined   due   to   a   lack   of   research   and   bad  marketing   planning.    Dan   (2012)   states   “When Kodak decided to get in the game it was too late. The company saw its market share decline, as digital imaging became dominant.”   This error could have been made due to a lack of research by Kodak or the people who did the research was not trained enough in market research, so when Kodak developed their marketing plan this massive error cost them their brand image and positioning   within   the   market.     Dan   also   stated   “This blind faith in marketing’s   ability   to   overcome   the   threat   from   the   new   technology   proved   fatal.   Kodak  failed to adapt to a new marketplace and new consumer attitudes.”

Both of these marketing plans show new organisations the value of how developing a marketing plan can be affect your organisation within the market or really gain advantage by undertaking critical research. Before a marketing plan is implemented, organisations should consider every aspect of the plan and should really undertake primary and secondary research to cover every aspect of the market. A marketing plan should always conduct a SWOT analysis has this gives you the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within the market, Without out this information organisations could fail like Kodak did, has not enough research was undertaken and they developed and implemented the wrong marketing plan. Whereas organisations such Lemonhead show that with a good team, undertaking primary and secondary research and conducting a full marketing plan with a SWOT analysis and PESTLE analysis then organisations will really become stronger and develop their brand

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image within the market. Marketing plan will not only affect the image and positioning but by developing a lack lustre plan it will affect sales and finances within the business and could cost   employees   their   job.     Some   organisations   wouldn’t   take   this   into   account   when  developing a market plan but this should be considered.

The positives of developing a marketing plan is it helps the organisation to look at where they are and where they want to go and gives them information about competitors. This is the information organisations need to improve and become stronger within the market as without this information organisations such has Cola, Nike and Apple would not have become has big and strong within their respective markets has they have done.

The negatives about a marketing plan is it takes a lot of time and money, some organisations don’t  have  the  amounts  of  money  to  create  a  well-developed marketing plan, or even the staff who are trained and skilled enough to develop a marketing plan.

Conclusion

Marketing  plans  are  a  valuable  tool  to  an  organisation  without  this  they  wouldn’t  know  who their competitors was within the market, how to reach their consumers and how to achieve the marketing objectives. A marketing plan covers lots of sectors ranging from SWOT to PESTLE to market research and market size. The two examples above show the how a marketing plan could affect the organisation. Lemonhead developed a positive marketing plan whereas Kodak developed a negative one and it cost them their market share. A marketing plan should always be thoroughly checked and researched before being fully developed has it could cost employees their jobs and cost business money and a waste of time.

References BROOKSBANK, R. 1991. 'Essentials Characteristics for an Effective Marketing Plan'. Marketing

Intelligence and Planning. 9(7), p.17.

BROOKSBANK, R. 1999. 'The theory and practice of marketing planning in the smaller business'. Marketing Intelligence and Planning. 17(2), p.78.

COOMASARU, C., J Day and S.Lee. 1996. 'Developing a marketing plan for Lemonhead'. Managment

Decision. 34(8), p.19.

DAN, A. 2012. Kodak Failed By Asking The Wrong Marketing Plan. [online]. [Accessed 19 November 2013]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.forbes.com>

GREENLEY, G.E. 1983. An Overview of Marketing Planning in UK Services. 'Marketing Intelligence and

Planning'. 1(3), p.58.

GRIFFIN, C.P. 2002. 'Strategic Planning for the internal marketing and communication of facilities management'. Journal of Facilities Management. 1(3), p.238.

MALCOLM, H and B. McDonald. 1992. 'Ten Barriers to Market Planning'. Journal of Business and

Industrial Marketing. 7(1), p.6.

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Appendices

Appendix A

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Appendix B

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Appendix C