Question

TASK 1                                                                                                                       [7 marks]

Study about any product and analyze the following 4 Ps:

• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion

Appropriate illustrations should be included for all 4 Ps.                                                     

TASK 2                                                                                                                       [8 marks]

Study about the same product and explain all the stages of PLC with illustration and examples.                                                                                                     

                                                                        

Submit an assignment TASK 1 by 29^th October 2020 soft copy through e-learning and TASK 2 by 19^th November 2020.

Answer 1

Task 1

The four Ps of marketing are the key factors that are involved in the marketing of a good or service. They are the product, price, place, and promotion of a good or service. Often referred to as the marketing mix, the four Ps are constrained by internal and external factors in the overall business environment, and they interact significantly with one another.

The 4 Ps are used by companies to identify some key factors for their business, including what consumers want from them, how their product or service meets or fails to meet those needs, how their product or service is perceived in the world, how they stand out from their competitors, and how they interact with their customers.

Lets study a popular soft drink and try to analyse all the 4Ps.

History:

The Coca-Cola Company was originally established as the J.S Pemberton Medicine company. Its flagship product Coca Cola was invented by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in 1886.

The Coca Cola formula and brand was brought in 1887 by Asa Candler who incorporated the Coca Cola Company in 1892.

Coca - Cola Marketing Mix: Coca Cola is the brand with highest brand equity. Undoubtedly it has been through ups and downs to reach that position. The marketing mix of Coca Cola has been changing over time with more & more products being added in a way that today it has 3300 products. Lets try to understand the 4Ps of marketing mix as below:

Product: The company has the widest protfolio in the beverage industry with 3300 products. The beverages are further categorized into diet category, 100% fruit juices, water, energy drinks, tea, coffee, etc. As per Nielson's data, Coca Cola is the No.1 Brand in sparkling beverages, juice and retail packaged water in 2010. Some of Coca Cola's brands are Fanta, Maaza, Limca, Sprite, Thumbs up, Minute Maid, Nimbu fresh, Nested Ice tea, etc.

Price: Due to availability of wide range products, the pricing is done according to the market and geographic segment. Each sub-brand of Coca Cola has different price startegy. Earlier Coke used cost based pricing however with increasing competitors in market, now their strategy is based upon mostly competitors' pricing. For instance, Pepsi is direct competitor to Coca Cola. Since beverage market is an oligopoly market having few sellers and large buyers, hence they form into cartel contract to ensure a mutual balance in pricing between sellers.

Place: Coca Cola is the world's most favorite brand and is available all around the world. The distribution system of Coca Cola follows the FMCG pattern. The effective distribution network of coke has almost eroded the small and middle level players in the market.

Promotion: Coca Cola adopts various advertising and promotional strategies to create increased demand in the market by associating with life style and behavior and targeting value based advertising. Coca Cola uses CSR as its marketing tool to gain emotional benefits in consumer's mind. It employs both push strategy through promotions and pull strategy through advertisements and campaigns.

Undoubtedly, Coca Cola has developed all the elements neccessary to run a multi-million worldwide enterprise and refreshes all the people that come in contact with their products.

Task 2

Products pass through several stages in their life-cycle. A typical product moves through for stages, namely—Introduction, Growth, Maturity, Decline. These stages in the life of a product are collectively known as product life-cycle.The length of the cycle and the duration of each stage may vary from product-to-product, depending on the rate of market acceptance, rate of technical change, nature of the product and ease of entry. Every stage creates unique problems and opportunities and, therefore, requires a special marketing strategy.

Lets try to look at stages of PLC in reference to Coca Cola's soft drink:

Coke, a soft drink from Coca Cola has four stages of its PLC: introduction, growth, maturity and decline. The Introduction stage is the point when the drink is being brought to the market for the first time. When the sales go up and the product is being consumed at higher rate then this can be termed as the growth stage. Maturity stage refers to a point when publicity has been intensified and all people who are potential buyers have known about the product. The last stage is the decline point. Here, the product starts to lose its customers and the stage is characterized by the fall in fashion. Consumers at the decline stage opt to use other drinks from other manufacturers.

Coke as a product is in the maturity stage. A good number of consumers have known the product. Intensive marketing strategies have been applied and advertisements have been heightened internationally. However, Coke started losing slowly and the manufacturers, Coca Cola rolled out its other product, diet coke which could address concerns from other users who did not find it fit to take the usual Coke. Also introduced in the market was caffeine free drink that other consumers recommended than the highly caffeinated Coke. These slight changes that were made to Coke were meant to reach other minorities who were not comfortable taking the original Coke.

Coca Cola maneuvered on increasing the product life cycle of Coke by changing the selling points. Internet selling was adopted and several consumer targets were reached. The advertisements went online apart from using radio and paper advertisements.

In general, for Coca Cola to be able to market its products such as Coke, it has to be aware of the product life cycle. Althoguh, Coke has a large loyal group of highly stable customers, the product differentiation, cost management and overall marketing strategies have become imperative as the growth declines and market share becomes a key profitability determinant. However, in international market, the PLC of Coke may be said to be at the growth phase and it has achieved success due to its strong branding.