Marketing (Coursework Sample)

Marketing
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

Question 1
Brand equity is the financial and marketing value associated with the strength of a brand in a market (Pride et al., 2015). Popular brands such as Coca-Cola have a high brand equity portrayed by their financial and marketing abilities. There are four major elements of brand equity, and they include brand name awareness, brand loyalty, brand associations, and perceived brand quality (Pride et al., 2015).
Brand awareness is the extent to which potential consumers are aware of the brand and associate it with a service or product. Awareness leads to familiarity making it easy for consumers to choose the brand over another. Brand loyalty is the favorable attitude that customers have towards a brand. Brand recognition is the customer awareness of the existence of a brand and that they can use it as an alternative if they miss their preferred brand or find unfamiliar brands. Perceived brand quality is the intangible and overall evaluation of a brand.
Companies maintain brand equity by maintaining the brand values consistently, and connecting and communicating with the consumers. Maintaining the values makes the customers believe in the product since it still contains what attracted them initially. Communication makes the customers feel valued in organizational decisions.
Question 2
In business, most products have a life cycle that portrays their journey from the introduction to when they get out of the market. The life cycle may be influenced by technology advancements, changes in social structures, and alterations of consumer preferences in the market. Every stage has different levels of profit, consumer demand, sales, and competition from similar products.
The main stages of the product life cycle are the introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. The introduction stage is also known as commercialization and is when the product comes into the market for the first time. There is much communication to create awareness and encourage consumers to try the product. The growth rate has a high profit, increasing sales, and the consumers have accepted the product in the market. The main objective of the maturity stage is to maximize profit while defending market share. In the decline stage, there is a decrease in product demand due to changes in preferences and availability of alternatives (Tanner & Raymond, 2015).
The marketing cost in the introduction stage is higher as compared to any other stage, and this makes it difficult to earn enough profit. There are low profits due to marketing costs, development costs, and research (Tanner & Raymond, 2015). The high sales in the growth stage result in better profit, but the company focuses on creating more products and opening more branches which still increases operational costs. There is high competition in the maturity stage, and the profits begin to level off and decline due to the absence of new consumers. The company may also reduce product price due to competition leading to low profits. In the decline stage, the low sales also result in low profits.
Question 3
There have been several technological advancements in the recent past. The internet has also resulted in ease of communication and access to various parts of the world. The innovations in online services and interactive television have revolutionized marketing today. They have eased communication, interaction, and convenience of marketing.
Interactive media has increased the extent of customer purchase. Interactive media are the marketing tools that enable interaction between customers and the company such as interactive television and online computer services (Matzick, 2010). They enable customers to ask questions and seek clarity before they purchase various products. The engagement between the consumer and companies increases the value of the product to the consumer and helps in customer retention. It also enables companies to market various things at once. For example, when a viewer responds to an advertisement by clicking the remote, the brands can drive him or her to other screens with different related products for more interaction.
The online services also increase the marketing of products without an increase in marketing costs. The customer reviews in online marketing are easy to access and enable new consumers to know the quality of a product before purchase. Good customer reviews attract more new customers. The internet is also available in various countries and enables companies to reach customers from various continents. Personal interaction with customers makes it easy to customize products according to their preferences and eases market research.
Question 4
Database marketing is the utilization of customer databases to enhance the productivity of marketing towards the efficient acquisition, development, and retention of consumers (Blattberg, Kim, & Neslin, 2008). The database is real-time, comprehensive, and up-to-date and shows the organization the information on various consumers, their inquiries, and prospects.
Database marketing is important in developing a high-quality and long-standing relationship between an organization and its customers. It also enables the organization to send anticipated messages to consumers at the right time, in the correct form, and to the appropriate recipients. Pleasing the customers increases the organization’s response rate per every marketing dollar, lowers the cost per order, and increases the profits (Blattberg, Kim, & Neslin, 2008).
The concern about customer privacy in database marketing relates to the ability of the customer to regulate the collection, use, and anonymity of the collected data (Blattberg, Kim, & Neslin, 2008). The main concerns include data security, secretive data collection, junk mail and spam, access to third-party, inequitable exchange, feelings of violation, and the fear of errors (Blattberg, Kim, & Neslin, 2008). Poor privacy results in low sales on platforms that require privacy such as the internet decreases the efficiency of the predictive models, results in ethical d...