MCD2050 Marketing 1 Environment and STP Analysis
You have recently gained a position as a junior marketing assistant within an organisation. Your boss (the marketing manager) has asked you to review the marketing environment in which the firm operates, to identify target markets for your offer and to describe how the product is positioned within the market.
You are required to include the following areas:
- An introduction of your selected company and specific offer.
- An analysis of the marketing environment in which your firm operates, to be supported with evidence.
- Identification of a target market for your specific offer.
- The use of segment variables to describe your target market. Justification of your selection and the appropriateness of your target segment for the selected offer.
Assignment Cover Sheets: Major Assignment
- Work submitted for assessment must be accompanied by a completed copy of the Monash College Cover Sheet which has been signed by the student. NO assignment will be accepted or marked if it is not accompanied by a fully completed and signed Monash College Assignment Cover Sheet.
If the assignment is submitted with an incomplete or unsigned Monash College Assignment Cover Sheet, it will be deemed as late and incur late penalties until the cover sheet is filled in correctly.
- A marking criteria sheet for each assignment is available. This must be attached to your assignment after the Monash College Assignment Cover Sheet.
You are required to demonstrate that you can write in an effective manner, that you understand basic marketing concepts and that you have the ability to appropriately apply theory to practice. To demonstrate your ability to apply theory to practice you must illustrate your answer with a specific offer and specific target segment that is available in the country in which you are studying from one of the following scenarios.
- Wearable Technology e.g. Apple Watch, Fitbit, Samsung Gear
- Boxed Chocolates e.g. Guylian, Ferrero, Cadbury, Lindt
- Food Delivery Providers e.g. Ubereats, Foodora, Deliveroo
Introduction, including statement of purpose and the introduction of firm and product.
Identification and analysis of significant Micro environment actors.
Identification and analysis of significant Macro environment forces.
Clear identification of a target market. 5 Description of the target segment, including their defining characteristics and their needs and wants in relation to the product category.
Illustration and discussion with evidence of a positioning map.
Answer:
Introduction:
Wearable Technology is a gadget with modern technology which is wearable and small in size. The new age of wearable technologies tap into the connected self in which smart sensors are implemented and connectivity to the internet is possible. Generally using Bluetooth, Gprs or WAP and the sensors allow the technology to connect with an individual like a person and motivate in achieving fitness, active and help in being more organized.
This essay throws light on the Market of Apple Nike Watch and certain offers that can help in promoting this product in market and attract more customers. This essay also emphasis on the current marketing environment and its situation analysis and the marketing environment after the implementation of new offers by distinguishing in two categories microenvironment and macro-environment (Hauser, Eggers and Selove 2016). Few relevant trends of these categories are also discussed in this report such as Competitors, Customers, Suppliers and consideration of Political, technological and economical view of Australia are also explained below. Few segments and a perceptual map are also stated in this report in order to cope up different challenges faced by Apple Nike Watch in the market.
Competitors
Every organization has to note the basic things which are concerned to the competitive environment (Page 2015). Most common competition for an organization is the same product manufacturing by other organization or brand.
For Apple Nike Watch it has big competitors which are well known companies by everyone like Google, Microsoft and Samsung. Bhasin and Sharma (2015) posted in context that in the race of smartwatches common competitors of Apple Nike Watch are Samsung Gear, Fitbit and Garmin.
In the second quarter Fitbit is the highest share market holder among others with market share of 24.3 percent. In the second quarter revenue Fitbit was reported $400.4 million of market whereas 3.6 million Apple wearable watches were reported to be shipped in the second quarter of 2015. Fitbits yer-over-year market share dropped from 30.4 percent to 24.3 percent after the arrival of Apple Wearable Nike Watch in the market and acquired the shares of 19.9 percent of the market. Fitbit has launch devices which can be worn on the wrist and synced with the smartphone which gives competition to Apple Nike Watch as these are cheaper in price and it can also be used for fitness and health motivator.
Costumers
Apple aims to fulfill the demands of the customers in order to earn more profit by providing various new technologies in the new version of Apple Watch which is Apple Nike Watch. With lots of bands or belts and various software applications implemented, those are helpful in daily activities from chatting to recording heartbeats in order to keep an individual fit (Starner 2014). For the point of view of Apple Nike Watch it is better to have customers who are interested in new technology and fashionable.
Suppliers
A party that supplies services or goods of an organization can be defined as supplier, also known as vendors. A supplier can be categorized from contractor or subcontractors who are responsible for the advertisement and input to deliverables of an organization. Suppliers of an organization may be either an individual or business houses and the organization should see forward towards developing specifications, searching for potential suppliers, identifying them and offer to those suppliers who can give better mix quality for the organization. For Apple Nike Watches online suppliers are the most appropriate suppliers as they are directly linked to the costumers and do not need any mediators (Almeida 2015). Apple has also their own stores spread across different countries who are also the good suppliers for selling Apple Nike Watch.
Macroenvironment
Political
The laws and regulations of the country where Apple is planning to trade or manufacture the Apple Nike Watch poses lots of political challenges to them (Meynecke, Richards and Sahin 2017). Important aspects for apple to increase the market of Apple Nike Watch is to consider the regulations of the Australian government, taxes policies in Australia and also considering the stability and employment policies of Australian government. Manufacturing cost can be disturbed because of the social and political situation of China which will result in the disruption of Chinese imports in US in order to boost the manufacturing of the Watch which will result in the increase of the increment of the prices of Apple Nike Watch (Kim and Urpelainen 2015). Free trade policies between the developed countries should be established by Apple Nike Watch in manner to enhance the working capacity and enhance the performance in the macro-environment and the remote environment of Apple in Australia.
Economic
Apple Nike Watch need to be focused on the economic growth rates of all Asian countries which will help in the improvement of revenue through increment in sales in the foreign markets. Apple should also focus on the speed and effectiveness which are the important aspects to develop products like Apple Nike Watch and help in competing Fitbits, and Samsung Gear.
According to Jeynes (2013) “the purchasing power of consumers is directly proportional to the economic conditions in the country”. Considerable aspects for marketing Apple Nike Watch in Australia are the rate of interests, future Gross Development Product (GDP) per capita and inflation employment level.
Technological
Understanding the technological impact of the wearable Apple Nike Watch on the customers is very important in order to tackle the market (Kumar et al. 2015). Survey done in Australia on using the wearable technological watches gives positive response by the youngsters from age 15 to 30 by them who were fashionable and interested in new technologies.
For Apple Nike Watch it will be better aspect to implement new charging systems and new processor in ambition to provide unique technologies to them which are not yet implemented by any other competitors. It will help in attracting the attentions of the new generation people who are more conscious towards their fitness and more fashionable and also interested in new technologies.
Segmentation
Solomon et al. (2012) stated that “in order to select the type of customer, we need to divide the market into small subsets which is based on the characteristics or attributes of the customer”.
Apple Nike Watch appeared to be compatible with the recent features of iphone5 and iphone6 which leads to narrowing the market of Apple Inc. shares. Digging dip into the demographic variables the age and the income can be seen and social groups can be considered as one of the segment variables (Hoffman and Offutt 2015). New features implemented in Apple Nike Watch emphasis more on the health and lifestyle of an individual with the embodied applications like heart beat recorder and health routine reminders. These features will tend to attract the attention of the population between ages 16 to 40.
Identification of a Target Market
Based on the segments stated above Apple will need to evaluate these market segments and develop their profiles according to the interest of the costumer and lastly for final process choose the suitable market strategy.
The potential of the Australian government is growing in share markets and the market share of the android is as usual high from a long time with 58.2% shares. Apple Nike Watch is not a leading company in the race of smartwatch but it is trying to expand market of watch in the field of marketing. Late arrival of Apple watch in the market makes it more difficult for Apple Nike Watch to acquire the attention of more customers as competitors of Apple have already launched variety of smartwatches in the market with lots of features (Akcay 2012). This made it more difficult for Apple to launch new watches with extra features as all the innovations are already implemented in those watches even though certain offers are mentioned above like implementing quad-core processor, offering more internal memory, more cloud storage can also be useful, implementing new charging facilities which are future approaches but Apple needs to implement it now. Also its price is much higher than its respective competitors, so offering watches at low cost or launching a new smartwatch of lower price may help in acquiring attention of more customers.
Description of Target Market
Targeted customers for the marketing of Apple Nike Watch should be the young people of average age individuals between ages 16 to 40, falling in a medium to slightly premium customers who have higher income and who are ready to take chances on using the new tech with latest technology (Almutlaq 2016). This will help in leading Apple to select the differentiated targeting strategy to have a grasp over different consumers that can lead to diversify the product profile in market.
It is very difficult to interpret the current projection of demand of Apple watch as this product is young in the market and there is not more data or figures that can be analyzed. An overview can be stated that estimated sales figures are not as much expected which was around five million watches sold in a quarter (Hoffman and Novak 2016). It is expected that in year 2016 the demand will grow up to 20 million units sell and is also expected that it will go on increasing for several next years. The market revenue of the market is expected to increase in very big number from one billion dollars in 2014 to just under ten billion dollars in 2020 (Lee 2015). Major competitors are not many in the market of smartwatch, so it is possible that the figures depicted above could be mainly because of the projected sales of the Nike Apple Watch.
Positioning
Positioning of Apple Nike Watch can be done by analyzing the competitors in the smartwatch market segment with respect to the competitors (EI-Amrawy and Nounou 2015). Correct market mix in the market strategy can be implemented to attract these valuable customers.
A positioning map can be draw in order to make analysis of the market with the competitors which is drawn below
Figure: positioning map of Apple Nike Watch
Studying the map it can be explained companies like Motorola and LG have already attracted the attentions of the customers and holding on their mind by providing various looks and new features (Loucopoulos 2016). However have is designed based on simplicity and security of the user which placed it slightly above in the segment scale.
Barto, Abdullah and Wan (2012) states that the competitive strategy for Apple Nike watch in order to placing itself in market is to provide a more personalized experience to the market segment and since Apple is already considered as a status symbol, the main focus is to market the product to brand loyal customers.
Conclusion
Based on the above report it can be concluded that after making market analysis of the product starting from the microenvironment analysis to macroenvironment analysis including the customer and the consumer analysis and their perceptions towards the product and the market competitors. Some offers can be offered that will help in the enhancement of the market of Apple Nike Watch in the market. Some challenges are also mentioned in the report above which Apple Nike Watch will have to face in the market in order to get attention of the new customers. Efforts must be done towards increasing the population of loyal customers for Apple Nike Watch.
Reference List
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