Individual Management Report

Executive Summary

This whole assessment is constructed in the form of a report which details about the different components of marketing mix which all can be either adapted or standardised with full justifications depending on a specific chosen business organisation named Sainsbury’s. It is one of its largest UK retail shops based in UK serving a huge number of customers who are existing and continuously improving its activities to increase the number of their loyal customers. Sainsbury’s basically serves overall regular household items including food items, clothes, household items, electric appliances and other items too to over 8.2 million people in UK & in other locations also & provides their customers access to all the necessary things which a person needs in their daily life making their million customers happy and satisfied. This written assessment critically analyses that how client could be built and how one can manage to build strong brand image in industry market. Further, the integrated marketing communications (IMC) concept is briefed with assessing that how client can measure marketing success and improves for the future. Students seeking marketing dissertation help can find insights here that contribute to their understanding of these concepts.

Introduction

The assessment is divided into four sections including adaptation concept and standardisation idea of the marketing mix technique, description of the model of CBBE, the next is the integrated communication mix and methods and the four and last part consists of the measurement of success all of which are related with Sainsbury’s. Depending upon these four parts the whole assessment is constructed where adaptation theory of the marketing mix and standardisation view of marketing mix along with instances that were explained. The detailed briefing of the CBBE model is also presented elaborating all four components of it in respect of taking care that what measures and strategies need to be followed by Sainsbury’s to enter into any new market with efficient strategies. And the fourth section discusses about the measurement of the success factor of any business such and fulfilment of sales targets, improvements in profitability and many more.

Marketing Mix (Adaptation theory and Standardisation concept)

Explaining the common terms of the marketing mix (adaptation theory and standardisation concept) by giving examples and demonstrating an analysis critically that whether client needs to apply marketing mix for customer specifications within various market segments or they can offer standardisation pattern of marketing mix across all segments of the same industry market.

When it comes to explaining the terms standardisation and adaption related to the marketing mix, it can be said that both of them represent the overseas product selling techniques. Adaptation mainly demands using different types of strategies linked with selling and marketing in the global foreign market and as instance the vegetarian burgers of McDonald’s introduced in India can be considered since in other foreign outlets McDonald’s has other non-vegetarian variations in their menu but specifically for India, they also introduced their vegetarian range of items in their menu for the Indian targeted customers (Yeniaras et al. 2021). However, in the standardisation aspect of marketing mix, neither there is modification performed in products range nor in their marketing approaches. The standardisation process is much cheaper and effective even if it doesn’t contain fair chances of company penetration in the different market as compared with adapting strategy & how this performs. It became very essential to note down which says a certain specific adaptation process degree becomes unavoidable because of the local authority rules where an organisation can assume that the strategy of “one size will fit all” and try infiltrating the same in the global foreign markets.

When entering into the international markets, Sainsbury’s must adapt or standardise their marketing mix. As per Ciszewska-Mlinarič and Trąpczyński (2019) the genuine nature of the global marketing states finding proper balance among the standardisation or the extension perspective for marketing mix along with the local or adaptable perspective which one will be responsive for the country or regional differences in each place where the entering is planned. Hence, this fundamental decision which every manager has to take regarding their company’s global marketing strategy like the management of Sainsbury’s have done so that their desired degree can be applied having either standardisation or adaptation of their overseas marketing mix. Åkesson (2020) suggested that consequently, each elements of this marketing mix must be found to be non-identical at different stages of the continuum in standardisation process making the products with services being generally simple to image & standardise from the pricing of individual country.

Sainsbury’s being one of the largest retailer and distributor of household and food items brand company, must take into consideration the continuum of adaptation and standardisation process is there to decide that which element/s of their marketing mix, they will be going to adapt or standardise. It is very much essential for Sainsbury’s to offer such kind of product which could be more beneficial & will covers all those other needs of customers which were left till now accordingly in order to create a competitive advantage and increase the customer loyalty and goodwill. Moreover, this product needs to be compatible and must be respecting their caste, culture, religion, race, age, community etc. with the entire society including both local customs and habits. The success of Sainsbury’s needs to be determined with the thing that what marketing strategy Sainsbury’s will apply in their strategic planning in between both the adaptation & the standardisation processes of the marketing mix. According to the opinion of Akgün and Polat (2021) this decision to choose one or the other is tough & is truly based on all the business objectives of Sainsbury’s but also must be based on the ethical differences & variations of different locations where Sainsbury’s is planning to spread their marketing. And also to plan that if Sainsbury’s gets failed in modifying their products & services to those specific markets which they have decided then it can turn up into a major issue and can result into a disaster too for that company in future. Currently, Sainsbury’s is serving their products, items and other services to around 8.5 million people covering the overall UK and other places round the globe & as well as facilitating customers with all necessary items and services which could get affected badly or it could be dangerous for Sainsbury’s if they failed to get success in the new market entering.

Model of CBBE

Explaining how the clients can develop a strong organisational brand by covering all the specific elements of CBBE Model including all Brand Salience, Brand Performance and Brand Imagery, Consumer Reactions and Responses and Consumer Brand Resonance.

The CBBE or the Customer-based brand equity which is mainly used for showing direct link of a brand's success that is involved, linked and accredited for the consumers’' attitudes for that specific brand & their image in industry market. This CBBE model which is the best-known model is originally known also by Keller Model since it was discovered by Kevin Lane Keller, a marketing professor and is printed in the Strategic Brand Management produced by him. Younas (2017) stated that when this CBBE into Keller’s four levels are divided, the marketers will be able to acknowledge that what their consumer requirements and what they think prior to buying the products or services, or it may happen even before they know that they want it.

The Customer Based Brand Equity (CBBE) Model is such a representation which shows that how an organisation just like Sainsbury’s being a well-established retail brand can build strong image of their brands & this strong image of that brand is not something which one can get delivered over a counter rather it is something which needs to be built over time. Stukalina and Pavlyuk (2021) noted that Kevin Lane Keller stated that a strong brand is the potentiality of that product brand which depends on what consumers are acknowledging, feeling, watching and hearing about that specific brand with the passing time from market. Depending upon the components of the Customer Based Brand Equity (CBBE) Model, further explanation can be explained as:

Brand Salience – J Sainsbury’s Plc, trading in the name of Sainsbury’s is originally rated as the following largest supermarket chain after the first one in UK, having approximately about 16.0% market share in supermarket sector which Sainsbury’s gained with years of hard work by making the audience attracted and made them loyal creating a sustainable market pace in high competition with competitors like Tesco, ASDA, ALDI etc. Santaniello (2020) suggested that the brand value of Sainsbury’s is currently around $7.6 billion in the food market industry. Sainsbury’s Plc provides products & services like groceries, general merchandisers, demand on groceries online, electric appliances, readymade food items and many more things around UK & other countries too.

Brand Performance and Brand Imagery – Sainsbury’s services, food items and other accessories have facilitated and furnished every single needed products and services to people in UK and also offered other general and important service facilities. In current time, it is a fully accepted thing & part of the Sainsburys’ success has also been involved in its brand performance and image. As per Tasci (2018) it defines that what makes Sainsbury’s special in expressing is that particular difference visually, in its products and in the actions of people regarding the company along with such a brand that has become one of the greatest retail service provider brand in UK.

Consumer reactions – Sainsbury’s have reported that their growth like any other brand come across its original and international market says that the consumer environment of that brand remains "uncertain" in some ways. As discussed by Stukalina and Pavlyuk (2021) the Sainsbury’s Plc. which has been started and still continuing its operations in Austria, Germany, Ireland‎ and Italy, as well as in UK also, says their revenues that they generated underlying their sales can be calculated as around 32.3 billion British pounds in the past financial year 2020/2021 along with being on the third highest value in the nine-year period (Statista, 2021).

Consumer Brand Resonance – The best method of creating finer relationships with the daily consumers is to give them personalisation in their services but this new age ignition of advanced technology turned out to be an overall new game which each brand is participating. In J Sainsbury’s 2020/21 financial year, the yearly retail sales eliminating the VAT and counting fuel in UK has approximately amounted around 28.6 billion British pounds (Statista, 2021). These figures are those which are recently gathered from the financial statements of Sainsbury’s and other financial years. This present financial year of 2020/21 will going to end on the sixth of March 2020 (Ekinci et al. 2017).

Methods of Integrated Marketing Communication Mix

Explain the definition of Integrated Marketing Communication and its significance while launching a new product. Ant three marketing communication methods are chosen which can be used to constructed as the most effective ones in reaching their consumer target

IMC or Integrated marketing communication when clearly defined reveals that it is a process which is applied to unify all the segments of marketing communication which includes social media platform, public relationships, fundamentals of business development, customer analytics and lastly the advertising of all the things involved together in showcasing the brand identity which remained fixed across all UK media channels (Melogno et al. 2019). The IMC critically acts a pivotal role while delivering the merged message to all the users with the help of distinct channels so it also has better opportunities of being attracted by the customers. Slutskiy and Ordeix (2019) declared that the IMC includes in itself four prime objectives which are - brand awareness creation, product interest generation, expanding product desires and prompting activities of the sales growth. The sections of Integrated Marketing Communication includes: basic foundation, proper corporate culture, appropriate brand focus, customer experiences, communicating and promoting instruments and lastly the integration techniques. The integrated marketing communication or IMC mainly refers towards combining the present ways of brand promotion in promoting a specific products and service within the targeted customers (Šerić et al. 2020).

The IMC is very much critically essential in the successfully launching the products in every business organisation. This mainly is consisted of the definite information of communication process about that item which is utilising that particular communication channel, program and source so that the customers could be able to receive the effective message at very low price. As stated by Tasci (2018) these channel examples consists sales people, advertising, public relations, sales promotions and not to forget the publicity. It benefits being such an approach for integrated marketing of a product that launches & helps in measuring the correct target market to reach there at exact time via the correct channels along with appropriate messages. As revealed by Santaniello (2020) not integrating the launch approach for any product or service can threaten the success of that product. Two of the integrated marketing communication concepts must be applied to give support to any product for launching (Ekinci et al. 2017).

The three IMC methods which can be constructed as the most efficient in reaching its target audience among the long list of total eight communication methods chosen are:

Event Experiences

This method is where the sponsorship comes down and when the companies sponsor various events such as concerts with fireworks or any marathon races which is called sponsorship, and is also utilised in experiencing events for creating brand awareness and brand loyalty (Folgado-Fernández et al. 2017).

Sales Promotion

This is another method which has sales and promotional offers including events for sales reps also by giving huge discounts to the retailers so they can buy more from their regular limit boosting the sales (Baardman et al. 2017). Providing the pamphlets and coupons comes under promotional activities where each of these methods entices the audiences, retailer shopkeepers and brokers for purchasing and trying those products or services.

Word of Mouth

Buzz marketing or in other words the Word of Mouth may incorporate major features of marketing communication where the target is to create hype and buzz. This is known as the people-to-people communication method whether conversations either online like through emails or in any other way (Marchand et al. 2017). Companies can’t control this method but there presents an orchestrated word of mouth or buzz marketing too.

Measuring Success

Explaining ways of measuring the succession as well as identifying the ways how it could be improved in coming future

Sales targets – Many business executives gets terribly frustrated due to the process of measuring the sales versus the original target in Sales amount. The Sales target or KPI measures the exact current sales revenue by comparing it with the set target or with the past performances and target achievements of the business. There come basically four alternatives of tracking the business performances in respect of the targeted sales of the Sales force - Forecasts tab, Dashboard gauge, GSP Target Tracker and Lightning Home Page Performance Chart (Wang et al. 2018). Out of these, the best working ways of monitoring the sales performance comparing with the Sales targets is for using the Sales Leader board method and in displaying the results on a screen for everybody to watch that.

Market share – Every company's market share is the sale figure which is measured like the percentage of that industry market’s overall revenues collected in the specified time period. Edeling and Himme (2018) mentioned that this calculation can be efficiently determined by the business's market share which is by divided by the total sales or revenue value by the industry market's overall sales amount in a fiscal period of time. Using the method for measuring gives the idea about any company size that whether it’s small, medium or big which is relative to the same industry. The ways through which the market share can be increased includes:

Selling much more to the existing consumers

Putting more focus on the consumer services and marketing tactics for holding the consumers

Expansion of the customer base including other likeable people who are currently excluded from being customers

Selling via advanced and advance channels or in another markets

Profitability – The mathematical formula says to profitability can be calculated by dividing net income with annual sales then multiplying the same by 100 & this achieved profit margin of a business is stated as profit percentage. An increased number in the profit indicates greater efficiency of the business in creating the profits. Husain and Sunardi (2020) suggested that there are primarily four key areas that help in driving profitability - reducing costs, increasing turnover, increasing productivity and lastly increasing efficiency. Profitability also facilitates to expand any business into new market sectors or gives chance to develop new products or services in the market. In every business venture, the factor of profitability comes as the prime goal and in absence of this no business will be able to survive in a long run competitive market. The two elements through which the profitability is measured are income and expenses.

Returns on Investment (ROI) – The Return on Investment abbreviated as ROI is calculated by dividing profit which is earned from the investment that is done by the actual cost of the same investment. For instance, suppose if any investment id done with a profit of $100 and a total cost of $100 then the ROI will be either 1 or can be said as 100% when expressed in the percentage form. Faccia (2019) stated that one way is there to improve the ROI which will generate improved sales and revenues or can also raise the product and service prices. If this can increased without increasing the costs then the sales and revenues will also increase this will not only increase the total cost only but will be enough to provide the total net gain of profit by improving its return.

Conclusion

The summary concludes that in the standardisation aspect of marketing mix, neither the products are modified nor the marketing approaches are changed. The standardisation process is much cheaper and efficient still it does not contain adequate opportunity to penetrate the company in a different market as compared with adapting strategy & how it performs. The CBBE model known as the best, originally known by the name of Keller Model since it was introduced by the marketing professor Kevin Lane Keller and printed in his print of Strategic Brand Management. The IMC critically acts as a critical part in delivering the organised messages to all the loyal users with the help of numerous channels which also has better opportunities of getting attracted by the customers. In every business ventures, the element of profitability is found to be the primary objective and in absence of that no brand can be able to retain their survival in this competitive and long run competitive market.

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