Assignment:
1. Marketing has often been defined in terms of satisfying customers' needs and wants. Critics, however, maintain that marketing goes beyond that and creates needs and wants that did not exist before. They feel marketers encourage consumers to spend more money than they should on goods and services they do not really need. With a minimum of 200 words; What is your understanding of the role of marketing and the marketing management process?
2. Select a consumer product of personal interest-one that you have purchased within the past six months. It can be anything, just as long you are familiar with the product and generally understand how it is marketed. Using the matrix model of marketing management in Table 1.2, fill in the cells of the matrix as completely and thoroughly as you can for the brand that you purchased. Be sure that your entries correspond to your perspective as a customer for this brand. In short, you are the target market. You may wish to create one or more positioning maps to help illustrate how you perceive the competitive playing field. Once you're done, examine the intersection of each cell.
a. How do the elements of the marketing mix align with the four strategy categories in the left-hand column?
b. Does every one of the 4 P's contribute to each of the strategic objectives established in the left-hand column?
c. Do you see room for improvement? How would this assessment be different for other types of customers?
3. The typical buying process consists of the following sequence of events: problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and post purchase behavior. What specifically do you do as a consumer in each of these stages in a high involvement purchase like buying a house or a car? List the four main psychological processes as discussed in the text and what should marketers do to manage these four psychological processes affecting consumer behavior.
4. Visit GE Healthcare (https://www3.gehealthcare.com/en). In context to the major points of chapter 5, define how GE is addressing the needs of their hospital customers by the design of this Web site? Where and what is GE doing right, what is GE doing wrong, and where can GE improve using marketing research? In context of chapter 3, where can GE improve using marketing research?
5. After reading the article "Conservative Nordstrom to sell trendy Topshop fashions," respond to the following:
a. How does this partnership fit into Nordstrom's current brand management strategy? Will it appeal to its target markets? How will it allow Nordstrom to differentiate itself from the competition?
b. Is this a risky move for Nordstrom considering the downward sales trends for Topshop in the UK?
6. What are the different levels of market segmentation? Synthesize the segmentation strategies that manufacturers of personal computers should implement to attract both the Gen Y and baby boomer generation to increase their purchases of computers. Are there some examples of companies that have already done a good job of marketing across generations?
7. Pricing Strategies: Identity three types of pricing strategies. Select a good or service and compare the prices of two different companies associated with the goods or service. Why do different organizations have different pricing strategies for the same good or service?
8. Do an internet search of the new product development process of any product of your choice, and analyze the process for developing the product. Review the reasons why new products fail and make two specific recommendations to improve the high failure rate of new products.
9. Analyze the challenges that organizations face in the effective transition between selling products using the traditional brick and mortar marketing channel and selling products online. Synthesize the strategies that organizations like Zara and Wal-Mart- two companies that are having difficulty developing eCommerce capability can implement to increase the effortless movement of customers between the traditional and online channels.
a. What are the benefits and limitations of selling through a store front and online?
10. Identify the strategies for entering into the global market. Assess the strengths and limitations of each. Give an example of a company that has made a success of doing business in the global economy. What lessons from McDonald's success in the global marketplace are transferable across industries?
11. Coleman-Lochner, L. (2012). P&G plays kindergarten catch-up with Unilever in Vietnam. Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-04/p-g-plays-kindergarten-catch-up-with-unilever-in-vietnam.html
a. Discuss the marketing plan insights P&G has gained through its Vietnamese marketing studies. How influential are those discoveries in the development of P&G's strategy to enter the Vietnamese market?
b. In developing a marketing plan, identify the characteristics of the marketing plan that P&G should implement to boost performance?
12. Provide a brief overview of the product for which you are going to write your Marketing Plan. Why did you choose it? Which elements of the plan are you having difficulty with? What additional information would be needed to make the most informed strategic decisions for the future implementation of your plan? ( I want to talk about a creating a T-shirt Line Company)