Case Study Marketing Mix Marketing Essay

It has already become a commonplace to say that marketing is now constantly evolving and changing; marketing approaches are increasingly applied in commercial companies and nonprofit organizations all over the world. In this regard, many elements of the marketing theory have become universally accepted “classical” marketing tools: segmentation and positioning, the concept of product life cycle, Ansoff matrix, BCG and GE matrix, SWOT-analysis, etc. The same world popular marketing tool became the concept of Marketing Mix that is generally known as the Four P’s. Thus, it is necessary to describe main elements of the marketing mix in this project. Also it is necessary to show how each of the four elements of the marketing mix affects the development of the organization’s marketing strategy and tactics. The organization of my choice is Sony Corporation.

Marketing Mix Definition

The term “marketing mix” became often used after a famous Neil H. Borden published his article titled “The Concept of the Marketing Mix” in 1964. It was not the first mentioning of this term, because Borden began using this term in the late 1940’s when James Culliton had described the marketing manager as a special kind of “mixer of ingredients”. Interpretation of those ingredients in marketing mix by Borden included not only product, price, place and promotion, but also planning, branding, personal selling, servicing, distribution channels, advertising, analysis etc. Thus, in this part of this project it is necessary to define the concept of the marketing mix.

According to Wilson and Gilligan (2004), it becomes obvious that nowadays “Marketing Mix is a major concept in modern marketing and involves practically everything that a marketing company can use to influence consumer perception favorably towards its product or services so that consumer and organizational objectives are attained, i.e. Marketing mix is a model of crafting and implementing marketing strategy.” In other words, marketing mix is a set of marketing tools through which the company seeks a way to influence the demand for goods or services; also it is a set of actions (strategies) that form the demand for certain goods at a specified price at a certain place with the use of certain promotion.

Marketing Mix in Details

As it was above mentioned Marketing mix consists of four main elements:

Product;

Price;

Place (distribution);

Promotion.

Describing marketing mix with more details it is necessary to say that the above numerated marketing tools have been isolated from many others primarily because their use has a direct impact on demand and could encourage consumers to make purchases. Conducting of market research, analysis of strengths and weaknesses of the firm, segmentation and other marketing tools, of course, also help marketers in their quest to increase demand for products and services of certain companies, but have only an indirect effect: for example, the demand will not increase just because the firm had marketing research or segmentation of consumers. The result of a successful marketing research can be used to change one or more elements of the marketing mix and is the only way to influence consumer demand. (We should note that the aim to increase demand is not always the true aim, because the elements of marketing mix can be combined and used with the aim to reduce demand that is called “demarketing”, according to F. Kotler definition.)

Another useful property of the elements included in the marketing mix, is their control – the marketer can control every element to the desired impact on demand, choose the most promising combination of elements. In addition, the order of the elements of the marketing mix clearly shows the sequence of the main marketing functions implementation.

Product as an Element of marketing mix

Product offered by a company in the market implies the presence of a set of specific properties in its nature, both material – defining the physical features of product (color, packaging, warranty, size, taste, etc.) and intangible – the elements of emotional evaluation (degree of commitment to consumers, easy handling, prestige, quality, style, etc.).

First of all, it is necessary to determine what the company promotes on the market: consumer goods or industrial goods, product or service. From the standpoint of marketing mix, during the sale of industrial products is more important factual information about a product, since the decision on their purchase depends on professionals’ opinion. In turn, when referring to buyers of consumer products marketers usually used more emotional appeal.

Price as an Element of Marketing Mix

In most cases price represents a monetary expression of value of the products and should be installed as the compromise between the seller and buyer. Marketing mix should reflect the price from the buyer’s position. Companies use price marketing mix strategies for the purpose of to stay competitive and create a positive consumer attitude to the product. In addition, for the purpose of remaining competitive marketing mix strategy, the company can sell the product, comparable to the basic properties of a similar nature at a lower price. If the seller uses the value of the products to fight with competitors, he must show the buyer the price ratio of its product in comparison with others.

Place as an Element of Marketing Mix

Distribution channels – are people and organizations that help move products from the producer to the end consumer. Marketing mix distribution is based on the following scheme: wholesalers buy goods from a manufacturer or another wholesaler and sell it using retail or wholesale trade. They tend to use promotion as an element of marketing mix (personal selling, for example) and take measures to stimulate sales. But at this stage they may also use other marketing mix strategies, such as the sale of mail order, advertising in specialized publications, issue directories, participating in trade fairs.

Promotion as an element of Marketing Mix

According to Lancaster and Reynolds (2005), we see that “in the context of the marketing mix, promotion represents the various aspects of marketing communication, that is, the communication information about the product with the goal of generating a positive customer response.” In addition Lancaster and Reynolds (2005) stated that “marketing communication decisions include: promotion strategy (push, pull, etc.), advertising, personal selling and sales force, sales promotion, public relations and publicity, and marketing communications budget).”

Sony Corporation in Brief

Sony Corporation is an active follower of marketing mix and we are going to discuss the implementation of the marketing mix four elements by giving it as example. Thus, modern Sony Corporation is a giant organism. It is large in size, complex in structure, operates in nearly all countries of the world and managed by an international team of managers. It becomes obvious that Sony Corporation is not only a multinational conglomerate corporation, but it is also considered to be one of the world’s largest media conglomerate.

In its rapid development, Sony Corporation has passed through three major stages: the small producer, specialized company and the big monopoly. The key points of Sony Corporation development are the choice of major goals and setting ambitious scientific and engineering problems.

Marketing Mix and Sony Corporation

Analyzing product as the first component of the marketing mix by giving Sony Corporation as example we see that Sony products are oriented on different people and companies that allow to make the circle of potential consumers as wide as possible. Customers always look for novelties having good brand and excellent quality, so a variety of products ranging from different electronic devices to entertainment area (such as games, for example) allows Sony Corporation to be not only competitive, but also successful company.

In Sony Corporation pricing, decisions are always made in consultation with marketing management and relating Sony’s prices to the quality of its products, all customers are sure that they will pay normal price for excellent product.

Thinking about the distribution we should mention that Sony Corporation sells its products in various channels. Three branches of distribution such as exclusive, selective and intensive network give the opportunity to satisfy the need of every consumer, who is interested in Sony’s products.

Promotion is a key element of success of any company and Sony Corporation has a huge promotional budget that covers not only advertising, but also personal selling, sales promotion, direct marketing and publicity. In this case promotion of products – is a marketing pressure applied in a certain limited period of time to stimulate trial purchases, increasing demand from customers or improve the quality of the products.

Thus, using all components of marketing mix Sony Corporation operates successfully. Despite the fact that Sony Corporation is not a young company, it can not be considered ossified. The style of the company’s management still distinguishes by newness and freshness of the young company and it remains popular through a series of measures to control the implementation of all marketing mix components.

Conclusion

Thus, after considering the transformation of the marketing mix it can be concluded that the marketing mix – is a set of parameters of the marketing activities of the organization, when it tries to meet the needs of target markets in the best way. To sum up, it is possible to say that there were discussed all necessary components of marketing mix and its implementation by giving Sony Corporation as example.