1. What is meant by saying that an organization is ‘marketing-oriented’?
Organization is “marketing-oriented” is meant that company adopted marketing concept. It is a kind of management philosophy which holds that achieving organizational aims and goals depends on customer wants and needs. Customers satisfaction is on first place - customers should be in the middle of organization’s attention. Company should try to give their customers satisfaction from using products or services, which they offer and by this build long-term and profitable (for organization) relationship between them and costumers. It is very important, because content customer will go back to the company, will buy other organization’s products, will be less responsive for competitors’ offers and may recommend other people professional service and goods of company. A firm should to know what do their customers require from company. A chain of main courses actions, which organization should do, when is “marketing-oriented” are as follow:
1) identify customers’ needs and wants – define market by market research
2) design a product (good or service), which fulfill customers expectations – focus on customer needs and wants
3) produce this product and coordinate all the marketing activities
4) launch product on analyzed market
These are actions which company do, when want to give customers what they desire (and know about that), but customers often do not know what they really expect – they have latent wants and needs and they only wait for new products, which satisfy them and fulfill hidden wishes. To know latent needs can be also very important course of action, which company take on, when is “marketing-oriented”. It might be path to organization success (sales and profits).
2. What elements of marketing orientation or demonstrated by, or are missing from, the KitKat case study?
I thing that launching KitKat brand by Rowntree have been base on marketing strategy, because it take up these courses of action:
- company knows what wants to achieve - it has business strategy, strategies for every brand and it has clear objectives
Company’s strategy: pursue the company’s objectives rather than to defend its position against competitors.
Brand strategy: offering the customer value for money; differentiate its products; maintain clear position by stand-alone product brands (to prevent cannibalization); dedicate significant sums of money (10% of the sales value of the brand) to advertising and promotions (it helps to build customer loyalty and block the entrance of new competitors); different course of action conformable to each product; maintain customer loyalty by being innovative
- differentiation of products: KitKat have been design to differ from dominating on market Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and it was positioned as both a confectionery and a snack – it was news for customers (they always want to try new products, which they do not know yet for compare with other products or just for curiosity)
- market segmentation: company build two formats of KitKat brand for different group of customers
1) two-finger format, bought in multipacks at large grocers by parents for their children
2) four-finger format, bought individually by 16-24-years olds for their consumption
- market research: company divided chocolate market into 3 categories:
1) chocolate box assortments (a gift-oriented marketplace)
2) the countline market (a “self-eat” market) (four-finger)
3) CBCL (Chocolate Biscuits Countline) – a sector, which company created (two-finger);
KitKat covered 2 section of this market.
- create a new sector of market and differentiation: reasons: the growing power of the multiple grocers – a shift from a less structured retail sector into multiple business (different packs for the multiple grocers and the independent sector – this avoid direct price and value comparison by the consumer and restricts the power of the multiple retailers)
- updating KitKat brand image
Failure:
- emphasis on existing products rather than developing new ones
- inability to adjust to markets in different country
- launching products which were very similar to existing already on the market
TREBo