I have an exam on friday week on two essays, both with similar content. But it is hard to memorize all the information. This is my second draft of this, it is amazing how much better essay’s get if you keep working at them, not just do it one go. have a read if your game.
Extended Response - Virgin Blue
Marketing is a system of business activities designed to plan, price, promote and distribute want- satisfying products, services and ideas to customers in order to achieve business objectives. “Virgin Blue” is a low-cost airline and the second largest in Australia. It is owned by the man who started Virgin record, Virgin Atlantic Airways and Virgin mobile. “Virgin Blues” is reported to be Australia’s most on time airline. Steven Townend, Chief Commercial Officer and Deputy Managing Director of BOC Aviation said that
“Virgin Blue is an established name in the Australian market for business and leisure travel”
To achieve a successful marketing planning process you have to begin with a situation analysis which involves doing a marketing analysis ( external and internal influences ) a production analysis and a competitor analysis. Once that is done you have to establish the marketing objectives which involves using the S.M.A.R.T analysis. The next is identifying the target market and then develop marketing strategies which includes the four key elements of the marketing mix.
After all this is done you must implement, monitor and control, this is the process of turning the marketing plans into actions and also looking at all the marketing expenditures. This also involves constant reevaluating of your marketing strategy through the process of monitoring your product’s/service’s sales and where possible introduce control measures to ensure the success of your product or service.
To do this one must undertake a situation analysis which involves firstly doing a marketing analysis. This looks at the external influences impacting “virgin blue” such as general economic conditions, government policy and regulations, over seas influences, demographic patterns and technological changes and by also looking at internal influences such as financial resources, human resources and production facilities.
In the case of “Virgin blue” these impact the company severely when change is occurring. for example : Obviously “Virgin blue” would have to keep a close eye on economic conditions, especially with the recent financial crisis. People will not be flying as much and definitely not going on as many holidays. The economic depression has affected “virgin blue” greatly and will continue for quite a while. “virgin blue” would also have to comply with new government regulations and policies like the upgrade of security in airports due to 9/11. And of course looking at the demographic patterns of the area would have huge impact on the airline with natural disasters increasing by 15% in the last 10 years. The company would be
What “virgin blue” must proceed to do next is a production analysis. This looks at the life cycle of your product/service. “Virgin blue” as a service started in 2000, it is now in the mature stage of the service life cycle. “Virgin Blue” started off in the year 2000 and came at a perfect time as another big airline company “Ansett” closed down, it started off with two 747 planes. Today they have over sixty 737’s and 18 E-jets. Not only has the product/service progressed since 2000, but so has their marketing strategies. To match the main competition being “Qantas” “Virgin Blue” formed frequent flyer agreements with Emirates Airline, Hawaiian Airlines and Malaysia Airlines. They have also made interline agreements with Vietnam Airlines. But as most business’s know there is always competition and whatever “Virgin Blue” puts out Qantas will try its very best to match them.
Next is a competitor analysis which consists of working out the competitors objectives. This part of the marketing planning process would be a very important one for “virgin blue” because the competition for air lines in Australia is of high standard. “Virgin blue” would look at the competitors and do a SWOT analysis which they would use on their own company as well as its competitors. A SWOT analysis looks at the strengths, weakness’s, opportunities and its threats to other business’s. It looks at both the internal and external factors of the business. It gives the business a good idea of their current strategies and suggests what they might do in the future. For example:
S - low-cost airfares, it is a “no frills” airline, it basically looked at the Australian airline market and found its flaws. As their operating costs are lower, they can afford to to lower cost of airline tickets this giving them a strong competitive advantage in the airline market. Very relaxed and young people speaking on customer service phone lines, good flying record, good aircraft, good human resources. They are also Australia’s most on-time airline.
W - It is not an Australian owned company, but as Qantas has now sold out and have now had their planes serviced in other nations this would weakness would not be so evidential.
O - others destinations, more services and partnerships with other International Airlines.
T- Jet star and Qantas and other Australian airlines with low-cost tickets.
Following, this one must establish the marketing objectives. The objective plan involves …….
Identifying the target market is also a very vital part of the marketing planning process. “Virgin blue” uses a differentiated marketing strategy which means they group their customers according to age, income size, family size, desire for image and prestige. They provide for a wide variety of customers as they do publicize themselves as a low-cost airline. A main target market for “Virgin Blue” would be business travelers as they are a low cost airline they would and mostly domestic flights, they would target these certain type of people this is shown through their newly introduced frequent flyer point strategy and their “blue room” which is dedicated to their loyal customers.
In developing marketing strategies “virgin blue” must use a marketing mix. This involves “virgin blue” looking at their service and deciding on what they would like their reputation to be? what their brand name and image might represent? e.t.c It looks at how they set a price on the service they are providing the customer ,taking into consider research costs, service development costs, service costs, promotional costs and distribution costs. It includes looking at the promotion of the business (the different ways of promoting) and then of course looking at where the placement of the product might go. for example: Virgin blue” must look at the population increases in area’s all over Australia to know where to keep planes there and offices.
The next stage is to implement-ate which is the process of turning plans into actions and involves all the activities that put the marketing plan to work. Then the business must be controlling which is important because it keeps the business informed about its performance. “Virgin blue” would do this by using a sales analysis, a market share analysis and do a marketing profitability analysis. I imagine “Virgin blue” doing this very regularly because as an airline business one would think it would be as important/more important to be informed about their sales, their market shares and look at their profitability. This is an example of one of the many graphs “Virgin Blue” and its competitors would look at when doing a marketing planning process.
2 years ago | Tags: Business studies
