With a history dating back 40 years, a Retailer that sell car parts opened its first store in the United Kingdom:Unit 2: Marketing Processes and Planning Assignment, ACL, UK

Assignment Title: The Marketing Concept Webinar

Vocational scenario 

Organization

With a history dating back 40 years, a Retailer* that sell car parts opened its first store in the United Kingdom with only one store and 15 employees, has grown considerably since then. It has expanded rapidly into a retail chain that now has a total of 330 stores across the UK. Since 2000, the business has maintained an impressive presence in the UK and is one of the main ‘value’ car part stores in the UK, with annual reported revenues totaling £400 million and it has an objective of increasing it stores to 500 UK stores by 2025, on revenues of £600 million. The business has a zero-waste policy and two-thirds of its products are UK sourced. Its business model centers on offering high-quality continental style products, combined with a no-frills ‘pass-the-savings’-onto-the-customer’ approach that includes, among other things, allowing customers to pick products in-store directly from their original delivery cartons.

Role

You are a junior Marketing Analyst working in the Marketing Department. Your role encompasses new product development, from initial research through to test trials in selected stores prior to full roll out. Your duties include:

• gathering information on competitors in order to conduct analysis on their sales, prices and methods of distribution and marketing to thoroughly learn about the competition

• conducting research on marketing strategies and consumer opinions

• tracking and forecasting trends in sales and marketing, producing reports on the results for management to inform their decision making

• collecting and analysing data on customer preferences, demographics, buying habits and needs, to better identify market potential and the factors that influence product demand.

You report into a Regional Marketing Manager who, in turn, is line managed by the Marketing Director.

*Select an appropriate car parts retailer that meets local needs.

Assignment activity and guidance

You have been approached by a Television station, which has invited you to be part of a presentation panel aimed at introducing its young audience to marketing as an exciting career pathway. You have been asked to prepare a PowerPoint presentation to discuss and analyse the following areas:

• The concept and role of marketing in the 21st century

• roles and responsibilities in marketing, and the competencies required to succeed
• How the marketing function works and interacts with other departments in the supermarket and how it supports the wider organizational context in terms of vision, mission and purpose.

Providing critical reflection on, and insight into, the internal and external factors that influence your role.

The Television station has asked you to prepare the presentation using a suitable and appropriate format using PowerPoint and provide speaker notes. Therefore, your task is to submit the presentation in the form of a PowerPoint presentation along with speaker notes as one copy. You are required to make effective use of PowerPoint headings, bullet points and subsections as appropriate.

TASK TWO

Vocational scenario

In your role as Junior Marketing Analyst one of your key roles is to gather information on competitors in order to conduct analysis on their sales, prices and methods of distribution and marketing to thoroughly learn about the competition. In conducting benchmarking analysis, the organisation can identify where changes are to be made to improve performance.

The car parts retail chain is keen to explore new and distinctive market segments, where there is potential for rapid growth, and as part of this you are planning the launch of a new line of car parts with far more superior quality. The marketing challenge is to reach out to existing and new customer segments, avoid product cannibalisation and ensure that existing and similar product lines are not consequentially perceived as of lesser ‘quality’.

Assignment activity and guidance

You have been asked to carry out a benchmarking analysis that will help inform and create a compelling proposition for the new product line in the minds of customers. You and your manager have been discussing this and have decided that there would be value gained by critically evaluating marketing mix strategies across different car parts retail businesses that offer the same products and product lines. This will provide creative insight into how you develop and launch your product. Your manager has referred to this as ‘process benchmarking’.

On completion of the benchmarking analysis, you are required to prepare your findings as a briefing paper for the senior management team. The briefing paper:

• identifies and compares the extended marketing mix for two selected products/product lines

• evaluates the marketing strategies and tactical approaches adopted by each business (or business unit) and how they contribute to the success of the organisations in meeting their overall business objectives

• provides conclusions and a set of justified recommendations on what the company can learn and deploy as it plans out its marketing strategy for the new product and product line.

TASK THREE

Vocational scenario

In your role as a Junior Marketing Analyst at the car parts chain, you have been working hard on preparing the roll out for the new ‘superior’ car parts product. This product line will be positioned in a distinctive and inviting way that combines luxury, superior quality and value. Equally, the product line must sit comfortably with other regular and similar products.

You now need to develop a compelling and creative marketing plan for the new product line. It must clearly articulate a bold marketing strategy and include tactical actions that are clearly aligned to the overall organisational objectives. Your marketing plan also needs to incorporate a media plan as part of the overall marketing campaign.

Assignment activity and guidance

In producing the marketing plan, you will need to address the following areas.

• How the strategic marketing plan links with the overall organisational mission, corporate strategy and objectives.
• Clear and SMART marketing objectives.
• Marketing research to support the new product line launch.
• A situational analysis, including:
○ marketing audit, making use of appropriate analytical tools including SWOT, Pestle and 5C analysis
○ a competitor analysis including the market segments and
○ sub-segments covered
○ articulation of the new product value-proposition in the eyes of the customer.
• Development of the marketing strategies applied to the extended marketing mix.
• Setting of an overall marketing budget, including allocation of planned spend.
• Tactical actions.
• Identifying appropriate control and monitoring measures to ensure achievement of objectives including metrics to measure success such as Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).
A comprehensive media plan that supports the planned marketing campaign, this will include:
• a media budget

• recommendations and rationale for selected and integrated multi-media activities within the set budget that meet the marketing objectives

• appropriate digital, offline and social media channels for communication

• full justification for a multi-media plan based on quantitative and qualitative criteria.

Answer

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