http://youtu.be/JOjAeWFfasY

The marketing plan assignment had opened my eyes to many new business/marketing perspectives. By combining multiple marketing tools in this assignment, I was exposed to many marketing strategies being implemented by Starbucks, giving me the opportunity to understand the underlying factors that turned Starbucks from a small coffee shop into one of the world’s most successful company. After completing this assignment, I realised how important marketing is in every stages of a company. Every steps Starbucks took did not happen by accident, but they were carefully selected and planned to ensure the success of the company.

The situation analysis assignment allowed me to further understand that external factors beyond control of the business also play a major role in determining survival and success of every company. Even though was familiar with the use of SWOT analysis to analyse the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a business prior to this assignment, since high school. However, the use of macroenvironment framework (CDSTEP), was a relatively new marketing tool for me,  it allowed me to understand the importance of external factors from different aspects even better than before.

The STP outline assignment allowed me to explore strategies Starbucks is using (or have used) to segment, target, and position different types of customers. With an unanimous decision of recommending Starbucks to target ‘urban kids and teenagers from upper middle class families’, the team came up with an ultimate goal to engrave the ‘Starbucks lifestyle’ into into the younger customers and creating lifetime value. I believe that this strategy will allow Starbucks to generate a new group of loyal customers, creating a stable stream of income and therefore benefit Starbucks in the long run.

If I could go back, I would encourage more brainstorming within the team to generate even more ideas and have more frequent meetings to ensure the consistency throughout the three assignments. However, this marketing plan assignment provided a valuable and fun learning experience for me and the team, especially the video project. Lastly, the assignment also provided the opportunity for me to turn the knowledge and theories from every lectures and the textbook into a practical piece of work.

Nest is known as a newborn company that reinvents ordinary household systems like thermostat into something revolutionary after introducing its successful product of the Nest Learning Thermostat. By targeting the same niche market segment consisting of ‘green’ customers and technology lovers, Nest released Nest Protect, a smart and sleek smoke and carbon monoxide detector that connects with home wifi network and can be used seamlessly in conjunction with the Nest Learning Thermostat.

The ultimate goal of Nest for introducing this new product is to create new demand in a very saturated market of smoke detectors. There is still a big gap in this market as most customers are usually not satisfied with the smoke detectors installed in their homes. Many customers may have experienced annoying false alarms, or the low battery ‘beep’ at the middle of the night when they are resting. Nest saw this opportunity and created a smart smoke alarm that has many cool features, including waving at the unit to quickly silent in case of false alarm, the ability to notify any problems to users’ smartphones, and nightlight mode.

By applying the product life cycle, the Nest Protect is currently at its introduction stage. It is normal to expect low level of sales revenue at this stage. However, by being first in the market, Nest has the first mover advantage to capture and possess the early market share lead. But as the product is fairly easy to ‘copy and paste’, Nest must be aware of the competition from the imitators as the its product goes through the product life cycle. Also, by applying the diffusion of innovation curve, the main group of customers is most likely to be the innovators. Even if the innovators are only around 2.5% of the total market, they crucial for the success of the product as they help the product gain acceptance in the future through positive word of mouth.

Nest is doing a very good job in promoting its new product and delivering the value to customers. However, this is just a beginning of the journey of Nest Protect. The biggest complaint for this product, however, is the price. Nest Protect comes with a price of US$125 while regular smoke detectors range from $15-$80. Even though the product may be much more expensive than the alternatives available, I believe this product will be a significant premium product that may eventually be widely used in (digital-age) households.

A blog post in response to Daryl Chan‘s post on October 31, 2013.

The marketing blog of Daryl Chan perfectly highlighted the product development strategies implemented by Coca-Cola from an external marketing blog. As consumers are becoming more health-conscious by carefully monitoring their diet, Coca-Cola took into account of this social trend and developed many new products to satisfy this growing market segment. This social trend includes avoiding high sugar and calories intake, as well as avoiding unnecessary chemicals by selecting organic products. In order to adapt to these changes, many companies in the food industry have decided to implement different growth strategies, or even alter their existing product mix and product line to successfully cater this group of customers. However, I disagree to the fact that “Out of the 4 main growth strategies, the Coca-Cola Company is seen to implement product development to a huge extent”, but instead a combination between product development and diversification strategies, with some changes in the product breadth and depth.

By looking closely at its previous product mix, Coca-Cola products are targeted and positioned very similarly. Since the image Coca-Cola’s products are portrayed to be unhealthy, there are groups of health-conscious customers who were unsatisfied by the existing products offered by Coca-Cola. Adding healthier alternatives to its product line, such as low-calorie beverages like Coke Zero, or even a completely new product line of non-soda beverages including Dasani bottled water and Minute Maid, Coca-Cola successfully captured more customers from both existing and new customers. As Coca-Cola offers new products to its current and new target market, it can be concluded that Coca-Cola mainly employs in both product development and diversification strategies.

However, it can be seen that Daryl has made many interesting and relevant points on Coca-Cola’s product development strategies, branding, and values. These factors have contributed to the success of Coca-Cola, making it the biggest non alcoholic beverage company of the world, with more than 500 brands in over 200 countries.

In a price sensitive society with technological advances, consumers are more conscious about their spending. The demand for online movie and music streaming are rocketing everywhere in the world. Rdio’s music streaming  service is a free to access on mobile devices in Canada, the U.S. and Australia. Traditionally a subscription-based service, Rdio gives its customers access to more than 20 million songs, chosen by algorithms that tailor the music to the listener’s tastes. As Rdio is the first provider of free music streaming in Canada, it has the competitive advantage over its competitors in the market. Not only in Canada, but Rdio also directly lures customers away from the well-know alternatives, including Pandora, Spotify, and iTunes Radio.

Rdio was created by the founders of Skype and has been opened for private beta testing on 3 August 2010. By applying the four growth strategies, we can observe that Rdio has been using market development strategy. By marketing its current product in a new market like Canada and Australia, Rdio is able to capture many new customers that its competitors cannot.

However, there is nothing as a free lunch. The only downside is that customers can only skip six songs per hour and there’s no rewind button after the Rdio Unlimited 14-days trial. The goal is to give users a taste of the Rdio streaming experience and persuade them to upgrade to the unlimited $10/month subscription. Rdio still has to pay for the licensing of all the music that’s streamed for free.

This blog post focuses on explaining the sales trend of Apple’s two new smartphones, the iPhone 5s and 5c. What is interesting about this is that although the 5c is available as a more affordable alternative, the sales record suggests that customers are still willing to pay more for the 5s.

I believe that the main goal for Apple on releasing the new iPhone 5c is to capture a new segment of customers. By charging lower prices and adding some ‘fun’ features into its new 5c model, Apple is able to cater a new group of customers with lower income and different lifestyles, most likely teenagers. Moreover, the 5c model allows Apple to play around with its STP. In the past, Apple relies on the ‘one-size-fits-all’ strategy on its smartphone product line. The introduction of 2 products this time allows Apple to segment its customers completely into 2 different groups and therefore attracts more customers, especially those customers who were put off by the previous iPhones due to their budget constraints. This diversification strategy has been successfully implemented by many of Apple’s competitors in the market, including Samsung and Blackberry.

However, by analysing the sales record provided, it clearly shows that the new 5c does very well in terms of sales, compared to its big brother, the 5s. Moreover, the interesting point here is that even in countries with lower level of income, customers are still willing to pay more to get the better 5s model. Apple should take into consideration of these trends and use them to adjust its current marketing strategies, especially the goal to capture new customers. Cost-benefit analysis should be done in order for Apple to gain insights and consider if the company is heading in the right direction or not.

(http://www.localytics.com/blog/2013/iphone-5s-outsells-5c-by-a-factor-of-3-4x-in-the-united-states-opening-weekend/)

Nestlé is the world’s leading nutrition, health, and wellness company. Dated in 1974, the Third World Action Group and other action groups accused Nestlé of unethical behaviors of promoting and selling infant formula in less economically developed countries, resulting in the malnutrition and deaths of infants.

Breastfeeding provides infants with an unlimited and clean food supply. However, after the promotion of infant formula by Nestlé in third world countries, many mothers switched to this alternative without knowing the consequences. Due to the lack of clean water supply, refrigeration, sanitization, and education, the use of infant formula led to many cases of gastrointestinal infections and diarrhea. In addition, poor women who chose not to breastfeed were not able to afford formula and started to dilute feedings to make formula last longer. Some even believed the bottle itself had nutritional value and filled it water. These practices led to an increased possibility of severe malnutrition.

One of Nestlé’s marketing strategies in third world countries was to send saleswomen dressed up in white hospital uniforms (known as mother-craft nurses) to households and clinics, giving out free samples of infant formula and baby bottles. Information pamphlets describing potential nutritional benefits from the formula, featuring pictures of both breastfeeding and bottle-feeding women. Advertisements were placed through many channels, including television, radio, magazines, posters in local hospitals, and loudspeaker vans. Nearly all of these advertisements depicted healthy white babies being fed by the formula. These mass media advertisements were able to effectively reach mothers in a wide variety of situations and socioeconomic status.

Nestlé argued that introduction of infant formula in the third world countries was to ensure adequate nutrition for babies. Nestlé claims to have never supported bottle feeding over breast feeding, but to have always supported bottle feeding primarily as a supplement to breast feeding. Additionally, Nestlé defends its action by stating that proper instructions on how to prepare the formula were stated clearly on all of the products.