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It is also defined as a function of an organization, ay of doing business and a philosophy of the company. The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CAM) stated marketing as a process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer needs profitably. American Marketing Association (2007) described marketing as “An activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society as a whole. Peter Trucker quotes “Marketing and innovation are the two chief functions of business. You get paid for creating a customer, which is marketing. And you get paid for creating a new dimension of performance, which is Innovation. Everything else is a cost centered. Kettle at al (1996) defines marketing Is all about achieving organizational goals efficiently and effectively based on customer needs and wants. Role of marketing in organizations Marketing can be viewed in three deferent functional roles. They are descriptive, diagnostic, and predictive.
The descriptive role Includes gathering and presenting facts. In the diagnostic role data and canons are explained and solutions are provided. Wherein future market culture is predicted and advance planning is done n the predictive role. This is done through present market research. The four main key ingredients of marketing are * Identifying – This will Involve answering questions such as ‘How do we find out what the consumer’s requirements are? ‘ and ‘How do we keep in touch with their thoughts and feelings and perceptions about our good or service.
This is a key purpose of market research. * Anticipating – Consumer requirements change all the time. For example, as people become richer they may seek a greater variety of goods and services. Anticipation Involves looking at the future as well as at the present. What will be the Next Best Thing (N.B.) that people will require tomorrow. * Satisfying – Consumers want their requirements to be met. They seek particular benefits. They want the right goods, at the right price, at the right time in the right place. * Profitably – Marketing also Involves making a margin of profit.
An organization that fails to make a profit will have nothing to plough back into the future. Without the resources to put into ongoing marketing activities, it will not be able to identify, anticipate or satisfy consumer requirements. Marketing Is used to Identify the customer, to satisfy the customer, and to keep the customer. With the customer as the focus of Its activities, It can be concluded that marketing management is one of the major components of business 1 org importance within the functional level of an organization.
Information from an organization’s marketing department would be used to guide the actions of other departments within the firm. As an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product, or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on nonusers’ new desires. The production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. Of the product.
Additionally, a firm’s finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production and promotion of the product. Inter-departmental conflicts may occur, should a firm adhere to the marketing orientation. Production may oppose the installation, support and servicing of new capital stock, which may be needed to manufacture a new product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure, since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization. Marketing in British Airways The British Airways marketing operation is sophisticated in its approach and creative in its execution.
Because we cover the full spectrum of above and below the line activities, a diverse range of marketing roles are represented, from research and planning to strategy, commerce and design. Brands ; Customer Proposition We pioneered the concept of branding within the airline industry in the early asses, and in First, Club, Club Europe, World Traveler and now World Traveler Plus, eave some of the strongest and most recognizable brands in the business. Our Brands teams drive and develop these different brands, along with our Mastermind, ensuring the products and services they represent meet the needs of our many different customers.
Communications Communications support the growth of profitable revenue and build brand equity by demonstrating to customers why they should choose British Airways over our competitors, by using innovative design and creative integrated communications to differentiate our brands, products and services. Marketing ; Commercial Development Marketing ; Commercial Development collects and analyses customer feedback and information to find new ways of improving our service. It was our research that led to the development of the new Club World Flat Bed – the only one of its kind to be found in business class anywhere in the world.
I-J ; Ireland Marketing We have an ongoing programmer of campaigns, promotions and offers throughout the I-J and Ireland. Our I-J ; Ireland Marketing teams devise and manage these initiatives, sometimes in conjunction with third parties such as the Daily Mail. Segmentation The concept of segmentation was developed by Smith (1956) and has defined by Dib et al. (2006) as the breaking of larger markets in smaller sub- markets were an organization can target and position based on the customers wants and needs. Segmentation is defined as the process of dividing a market into distinct segments of with a distinct marketing mix.
IAC points out that people in the same area have same needs and lifestyle. Dib et al. (2006) describes market is the collection of products, which are based on people’s need were they have the ability, willingness and authority to acquire the products. The marketing mix is based upon 4 As and Co’s such as product= customer benefits, price-??cost of customer, place= convenience, promotion= communications. A market segment should be * Measurable * Accessible by communication and distribution channels. * Different in its response to a marketing mix. * Durable * Significant enough to be profitable. A market can be segmented by various forms.
Here it has been described into consumer and industrial Consumer market segmentation The consumer market can be divided into four segments, they are as follows. * Geographic- is based on region, climate, population density and growth rate. Demographic- is based on variables such as age, gender, ethnicity, education, occupation, income and family status. * Psychological- is based on values, attitudes and lifestyle * Behavioral- is based on usage percentage, price sensitivity, brand image and benefits expected. Industrial market segmentation They can be sub-divided into three categories, they are as follows. Geographic- based on region, customer concentration, industrial growth and international economic factors. * Customer type- is based on factors such as size of the organization, its industry, position in the value chain. * Buyer behavior- based on actors such as loyalty to suppliers, usage patterns and order size. Targeting Once the segmentation is done, Decision should be taken to fix which target marketing is suitable. There are four different approaches to be considered. They are undifferentiated, differentiated, concentrated or focused and customized target marketing. Undifferentiated- one marketing strategy for entire market * Differentiated- each segment has separate market strategy * Concentrated or niche-marketing- very exclusive and target few market segments. * Customized- developed for each and every customer separately. The strategies of targeting can be classified into five types, they are 1 . Single segment concentration 2. Selective specialization 3. Product specialization 4. Market specialization 5. Full market coverage Positioning The process by which marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds of their target market for its product, brand, or organization.
Positioning is a concept in marketing which was first introduced by Jack Trout ( “Industrial Marketing” Magazine- June/1969) and then popularized by AY Rises and Jack Trout in their bestseller book “Positioning – The Battle for Your Mind. ” (McGraw-Hill 1981). Rises and Trout (1972) state positioning as the vital element of communication. “it is not what you do to a product, it is what you do to the mind of a prospect”. This determines the position of company’s offering and image so that they occupy a meaningful, outstanding and competitive position in people’s mind.
Michael Treaty and Fred Wireman (1993) suggested in their book “The Discipline of Market Leaders” that most successful firms fall into one of three categories: * Operationally excellent firms, which maintain a strong competitive advantage by maintaining exceptional efficiency, thus enabling he firm to provide reliable service to the customer at a significantly lower cost than * Customer intimate firms, which excel in serving the specific needs competitors. Of the individual customer well. There is less emphasis on efficiency, which is sacrificed for providing more precisely what is wanted by the customer.
Technologically excellent firms, which produce the most advanced products currently available with the latest technology, constantly maintaining leadership in innovation. Positioning also involves two backup variables, they are * Re-positioning involves changing the identity of a product, relative to the identity f competing products, in the collective minds of the target market. * De- positioning involves attempting to change the identity of competing products, relative to the identity of your own product, in the collective minds of the target market.
Generally, the product positioning process involves: 1. Defining the market in which the product or brand will compete. 2. Identifying the product space. 3. Collecting information from a sample of customers. 4. Determine each product’s share. 5. Determine each product’s current location in the market. Preferred combination of attributes. 7. Examine the positions of the products. 8. Finally brand position in the market place. Generally, there are three types of positioning concepts: 1. Functional positions * Solve problems * Provide benefits to customers * Get favorable perception by investors 2.
Symbolic positions * Self-image enhancement * Ego identification * Belongingness and social meaningfulness * Affective fulfillment 3. Experiential positions * Provide sensory stimulation * Provide cognitive stimulation. Application of segmentation to British Airways 6. Determine the [Source: Billfold, K. (2001) Impact of no frills carriers on the European scheduled airline market: sources of competitiveness. Comma, The Chartered Institute of Marketing. ] British Airways knew that its business passengers sometimes used its service when on holiday.
These customers wanted a different type of service on these occasions but BAA didn’t know how to deliver it. Asset stepped in and value about BAA. Asset was not competing with BAA on price. They found a segment of customers who were not catered to people who wanted to travel internationally, quickly and simply, and were not interested in the extras that cost money. It then targeted those people. Airline travel was previously sold as a luxury because that’s hat it was in the days when British Airways (and the other national carriers) started flying – and nobody had succeeded in changing the pattern.
By the time Asset came along, the contexts and lifestyles had changed. And by segmenting from context, Asset succeeded. The right way for BAA to have responded would have been to focus on their strength, good service at a higher price and market effectively to the market segment that particularly valued that offer. Ignoring Asset altogether would have been the sensible thing to do. But instead, they tried to compete with Asset by setting up GO. After spending much time pouring more and more money into a loss- making venture, GO was eventually sold off to Asset.
Today, BAA plays to its strengths, comfort, luxury and high brand values to an audience in a context that needs to be sure that it will fly to city centre airports on a recognized schedule and is willing to pay for these benefits. The success of both companies is now driven by appropriate segmentation. Both offerings work, when the context is put first. The lesson is get the offering right, segment to your market, target your segments and the customer will select brands.
BRANDING According to American Marketing Association “A brand is a customer experience represented by a collection of images and ideas; often, it refers to a symbol such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme. Brand recognition and other reactions are created by the accumulation of experiences with the specific product or service, both directly relating to its use, and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary”. Chafferer introduced the brand pyramid to help marketers analyze brand’s identity (Peter Doyle 1994).
In Principles of Marketing, by Philip Kettle ND Gary Armstrong a brand is defined as ‘a name, term, sign symbol or a combination of these, that identifies the maker or seller of the product’. P. Tailor of www. Laryngitis’s. Net defines a brand as a Marketing tool that allows consumers to recognize the maker of a product’. Overall the aim of branding is to create an identity for the product or service in the market place. Asker (1991) describes brand equity as a set of assets and liabilities linked to brand which improves or declines based on the value of the products offered. He also stated the four major constituents of brand equity.
They are brand awareness, brand identity, perceived quality and brand loyalty. Davidson (1997) stated the visibility of core elements of a brand which are visible and invisible to the customers. They are Visible elements * Symbols * Brand name * Packaging * Advertising * price Invisible elements are * Quality * Production efficiency and operational costs * Service delivery systems * Sales service * Supply chain Strategy When a company manages its brands it has number of strategies it can use to further increase its brand value. They are Line extension- organization adds new reduces to an existing product with small changes in its features.
Brand extension- if the brand name is successful it starts extended to new or existing areas. Multithreading- When new brands are added to already existing brand. New brands- organizations decide to launch new brands into the market to compete with existing giants and marketed as something new and fresh. There are about six forms of branding strategies adopted by various organizations around the globe based on brand name they are * Corporate brand- Organizations following this approach use a particular corporate brand name for all its products.
Example: Virgin * Multiplicand- Each product is given a separate brand name to develop separate brand identities. * Company and individual brand- Endorsing products with corporate brand names which provides the new product some credit and degree of freedom. * Range branding- Different brand names for different range of products, especially seen in car industry. * Private branding- when private brands are supplied to retail brands, the retail brands control the products position in the market. Generic branding- The products having no brand name falls in this category. The packing of the product states the contents. The branding policy should be developed considering * The nature of the product or service * The pattern of consumer behavior in the specific market. * The company’s competitive position. Use in marketing communications Marketing communications is the combination of 7 Up’s they are price, place, promotion, product, people, processes and physical evidence. A marketing communicator is a medium between the sellers and the customers.
The key ingredients of the marketing communications mix are * Personal selling- salesperson sells a product * Sales promotion- is an organization initiative to promote sales * Public elation’s/ publicity- proactive, future oriented, has a goal for building and maintaining the relationship. * Direct marketing- a channel free approach were customers direct linked to the manufacturers. * Trade fairs and exhibitions * Advertising- it’s a huge medium of communication were the advertising agencies target huge volume of audience. * Sponsorship * Merchandising * E-marketing and internet promotions- a rapidly developing approach which works XX. Brands- Branding is a strategy that is used by marketers. Pickett and Frederick (2001) describe branding as Strategy to differentiate products and impasses, and to build economic value for both the consumer and the brand owner. The totality of what the consumer takes into consideration before making a purchase decision (Pickett and Frederick 2001). There are a number of interpretations of the term brand (De Cornerstone 2003). They are summarized as follows: * A brand is simply a logo. * A brand is a legal instrument, existing in a similar way too patent or copyright. * A brand is a company e. G. Coca-Cola. A brand is shorthand – not as straightforward. Here a brand that is perceived as having benefits in the mind of the consumer is recognized and acts as a shortcut to recruitment large chunks of information. So when searching for a product or service in less familiar surroundings you will conduct an information search. A recognized brand will help you reach a decision more conveniently. * A brand is a risk reducer. The brand reassures you when in unfamiliar territory. * A brand is positioning. It is situated in relation to other brands in the mind of the consumer as better, worse, quicker, slower, etc. A brand is a personality, beyond function e. G. Apple’s pod versus Just any MPH player. * A brand is a cluster of values e. G. Google is reliable, ethical, invaluable, innovative and so on. A brand is a vision. Here managers aspire to see a brand with a cluster of values. In this context vision is similar to goal or mission. * A brand is added value, where the consumer sees value in a brand over and above its competition e. G. Audit over Volkswagen, and Volkswagen over Soda – despite similarities. * A brand is an identity that includes all sorts of components; depending on the brand e. . Body Shop International encapsulates ethics, environmentalism and political beliefs. * A brand is an image where the consumer perceives a brand as representing a particular reality e. G. Stella Argots Reassuring Expensive. * A brand is a relationship where the consumer reflects upon him or herself through the experience of consuming a product or service. Methods of valuing brands Initial research into the valuation of brands originated from two areas : marketing measurement of brand equity, and the financial treatment of brands.
The first was popularized by Keller (1993), and included subsequent studies bylaws et al (1995) on the measure of brand strength, by Park and Croissant (1994) on evaluating the equity of brand extension, Kumara and Russell (1993) on single- resource scanner panel data to estimate brand equity, and Asker (1996) and Ointment and Sharking (1998) on the issue of valuing brand equity across local and global markets. The financial treatment of brands has traditionally stemmed from the recognition of brands on the balance sheet (Barbwire et. Al. 1989, Lloyd, 1994, 1998), which presents problems to the accounting profession due to the uncertainty of dealing with the future nature of the benefits associated with brands, and hence the reliability of the information presented. Tolling (1989) has debated the distinction between goodwill and intangible brand assets. Further tidies investigated the impact on the stock price of customer perceptions of perceived quality, a component of brand equity (Asker and Jacobson, 1994), and on the linkage between shareholder value and the financial value of a company’s brands (Kerri and Stentorian, 1998).
Simon and Sullivan (1993) developed a technique for measuring brand equity, based on the financial market estimates of professions in providing Joint assessments of the valuation of brands has been recognized by Cauldron et al (1997) and Cravens and Gilding(1999). They provide useful alternatives to the traditional marketing perspectives of brands (Asker, 991; Seafarer, 1997; Keller, 1998; Asker & Schematically, 2000). The debate over the appropriate method of valuation continues in the literature (Peppier, 1997) and in the commercial world.
The commercial valuation of brands has been led by Interbrain, a UK-based firm specializing in valuing brands, Financial World, a magazine which has provided annual estimates of brand equity since 1992, and Brand Finance Limited, a British consulting organization. These organizations utilize formulae approaches, and highlight the importance of brand valuation in the business environment. The major indicators of brand value are Market type * Market share * Global presence * Durability * Extendibility * Protection The above are the perspectives of brand value based accountants.
According to marketers factors Judging potential brand value are * Superior products or services * Country of origin * Market domination There are four main options in structuring their operations to gain access to gain brand values, they are as follows * Manufacturers brand system * Retailers brand system * Franchise brand system * Manufacturer’s private label brand system. Through the above all an organizations brand value can be identified. The estimated value can be described as follows We are one of the world’s leading global premium airlines.
Our principal place of business is London with significant presence at Heathers, Catwalk and London City. Some 20 million people live within commuting distance of these airports, on the doorstep of the City of London, the world’s biggest premium travel market. We also operate a worldwide air cargo business, largely in conjunction with our scheduled passenger services. Operating one of the most extensive international scheduled airline route networks, together with our dashers and franchise partners, we fly to more than 300 destinations worldwide.
In 2009/10, we carried nearly 32 million passengers. We support the UK economy by providing vital arteries for trade and investment, meeting the demand for business travel and leisure travel for holidays and family reunion. In 2009/10, we earned E billion in revenue, down 11 per cent on the previous year. Passenger traffic accounted for 87 per cent of this revenue, while 7 per cent came from cargo and 6 per cent from other activities. We carried 760,000 tones of cargo to destinations in Europe, the Americas and throughout the world. At the end of March 2010 we had 238 aircraft in service.