Assignment: Creating, Communicating and Delivering Value
Students are required to upload their assignment into Turnitin (available via moodle) to ensure of the submitted assignment.
Background Reading:
You must read Chapter 9: Market Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning to understand the process of STP, before you attempt the assignment. Students relying on slides will find themselves confused. Spend time reading the chapter and ask your lecturer questions during consultation hours if you are not clear about any concept. Please do not email to understand theory.
Choosing the soft drink or airline:
This is the most critical step of your assignment. Your product/service must have a clear differentiating advantage. If your soft drink is ordinary and does not have a feature that makes it unique, you will find your assignment "bland" and so will your tutor, same applies for airline. Conduct extensive research by visiting super markets, malls, or visiting websites (for airlines) and carefully select your soft drink or airline.
Evidence:
In this assignment, we want you to give evidence to almost every claim you make. For example, if you say Kellogg's Special K is targeting female consumers who have an active lifestyle, then you should look for an advertisement that shows a girl in activity consuming Kellogg's Special K. Similarly, if you claim Dominos differentiates itself in terms of "Services" then you must find an advertisement that shows Dominos claiming to be Pizza Delivery Expert with 30 minutes delivery promise to support your claim. We know this is tough, but this is where excellence lies.
Assignment Sequence:
Your assignment is asking you to identify the target market of your organisation and describe the positioning and marketing mix created by your organisation to deliver superior value. Hence, you should follow the following steps. Please use headings followed by paragraphs. You do not need to create table of content, introduction to report or conclusion. You do not need to write theory/definitions but you need to apply theory and refer to the relevant terms.
Introduction to the Company:
In this section, you should describe your company, their line of product/services, website, geographical locations, their target markets (refer to page 258 - 259 to understand) or anything that gives the tutor an understanding of the organisation.
Target Market:
You should describe the company's target market using appropriate segmentation variables. For example, Body Shop mainly caters to adult (age) men and women (gender), who prefer natural products (benefits sought) and are concerned about environment and animals (psychographic). You should use "relevant" variables (read page 246 - 255). To get high grades, you should provide evidence of target market, using quotations from their website, advertisement or any other form of communication from the company. You should also include in your discussion, why this target market is significant. Refer to "Evaluating market segments" to make your case (page 257 - 258).
Values Demanded by Target Market:
In this section you will describe what the target market desires in a product/service i.e. soft drink/airline. This can be listed in bullet points. For example, people who like to eat healthy food but are working/busy people, determine value (benefits and costs) of a restaurant as following:
- Has a convenient location.
- Clean surrounding.
- Meals containing a variety of fresh vegetables.
- Meals that are prepared with less salt.
-Meals that are prepared with minimal amount of oil. ? Short waiting time when placing order and getting served.
- Affordable price.
- And so forth [you may add to this list].
Positioning:
In this section, you should describe the position of the product/service in mind of customers relative to other products. You have to draw a Perceptual map and discuss the position of competitors and the position of company (or brand) in relation to competitors. The dimensions (X and Y axis) of perceptual map are two most important attributes for the target market. The dimensions should be opposite e.g. Healthy/Unhealthy, Expensive/Cheap, High Quality/Low Quality etc. It is encouraged to look for evidence to support your argument. Read Page 261 - 264.
Differentiation:
Here you will describe how the soft drink/airline is different from others. Remember from lecture that products differentiate in terms of product features or image, while services differentiate based on product, service, personnel or image. Please remember, you are making a case of differentiation here and not of overall characteristics of product/service. For example, Sensodyne differentiates itself from other toothpastes claiming "No. 1 Dentist Recommended Toothpaste for Sensitive Teeth" (you can visit the website) to portray a superior image. Here you will not discuss other characteristics of Sensodyne.
In differentiation section it is mandatory (compulsory) to provide evidence of marketing communication promoting the difference e.g. Sensodyne's website and ads highlighting this difference. Not all companies differentiate themselves, and hence it is important to pick your case carefully. Read Page 264 - 267. You can also include discussion on how the differences promoted meet the criteria of important, distinctive, superior, communicable, pre-emptive, affordable and profitable.
Marketing Mix:
In marketing mix section, you will describe Product, Price, Place, Promotion (4 P's for soft drink and airline) and add on People, Process and Physical Evidence (only for airlines). Keep yourself limited to the P's relevant to the target market. Do not lose focus here. For example, if the target market is teenagers with pimples, and if you are documenting Clinique, then document "Clinique, Anti Blemish range" and skip "Anti-Aging Range". If you document everything that company offers, it means you lack understanding of STP.
Product: Describe the levels of product (page 277 - 279). Then describe the characteristics of product/service. Provide photos to support your documentation. You can include packaging and branding in this section (page 285 - 287).
Price: Describe price of product for various offerings. If you find any price adjustments (page 374-380), then document it with evidence.
Promotion: Collect as many evidence for communication e.g. Facebook page, website, brochures, advertisement.
Place: Identify the stores where the product is sold. Identify the location of the airline offices and branches (if multiple).
People, Process, Physical Evidence: Read Page 74. Identify profile of airline staff, the enquiry and booking process and physical aspect of airline that are put in place to communicate quality.
Word limit: 1500 words.