Marketing Management Assignment

• Subject Code : 8002MMGT
• University : Australian Institute of Higher Education My Assignment Services is not sponsored or endorsed by this college or university.
• Subject Name : Marketing

Capstone Assessment

Executive Summary

 The capstone assessment consists of a well-known brand and its one of the product. The Nike Company select as a brand and its basketball shoe product ‘Air Jordan’ is select. The report mainly consists of different sections including introduction and background, Target market, buyer persona and recommendations on 7P’s of the product. Nike is one of the leading multinational company around the globe. Air Jordan is one of the famous and quality based product for basketball players, especially. The buyer persona creates of the target customers. The target customer of the air Jordan product is basketball players of 19-35 aged people. The buyer persona creates in order to identify the habits, lifestyle and background of the customer. The recommendations have given on the basis of 7P’s of the product. 

Introduction

Nike is one of the leading multinational company around the globe. The Company basically introduced in 1964, 55 years ago. Headquarter of the company located is in Beaverton. Initially, the company was not brand, now Nike brand is the biggest market leader in manufacturing sportswear sector. Nike currently holds 47% of the market share across the globe, which is one of the biggest achievement (Kotler, et al., 2015). The company is currently run its business in many countries. Now, Nike has over 700 shops around the globe and has 45 offices in 45 countries. Mainly, Nike operates its business in India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Asia, Thailand, China and Indonesia. The Nike brand has various products such as sports products, Athletes shoes, football wear shoes, and street fashion and Nike socks. 

The given report consists of the marketing management plan of the famous brand. The company or brand which choose is Nike. Moreover, ‘Air Jordan’ product is select for the 7P’s recommendations. The report consists of the following section such as introduction, the target market of the product and customer persona, marketing mix recommendation and finally conclusion. 

Background

The Nike company originally were known as ‘Blue Ribbon Sports’, founded by the Phil Knight and his coach Bill Bowerman (Hoffmann, et al., 2016). If it talks about the background of the company, the company initially operate as a distributor for Japanese maker.  Basically, in 1964, which was the first year of the business. In the first year of the business, the company sold nearly 1300 pairs in Japan and earned a profit of $8,000. Then, in 1965, the Nike Company acquired the full-time employees, and the profit of the company reached $20,000. In 1976, the company hired John Brown and Partners, based in Seattle, as its first advertising agency. The following year, the agency created the first "brand ad" for Nike, called "There is no finish line", in which no Nike product was shown. By 1980, Nike had attained a 50% market share in the U.S. athletic shoe market, and the company went public in December of that yea

After that, the company in 1996 opened its first retail store which located in California. With the passage of time, the company become the leading international company around the globe. The annual profit of the company grows after time. For example, in 2014, the annual revenue of the company was $19 billion while in 2017 the annual revenue of the company increased to $29.6 billion (Mahdi, et al., 2015). This shows that with the passage of time, the annual revenue of the company increased. Further, the company from late 1980 steadily expanded its business and diversified its product line through numerous acquisition including the shoe companies Cole Haan. 

Moreover, the company in 1996 create the ACG, which markets the products for extreme sports. The company has also acquired the apparel and footwear companies over the course of its history — the first acquisition made in 1988 after the purchase of hockey in 1994. Moreover, the company in 2003 bought the surf apparel company and paid $309 million to acquire converse. The company also acquired Umbro, in 2004 as a manufacturer of the England national football team kit. 

Target Market persona

The product which is selected for the marketing management plan is Air Jordan (Basketball shoes) of the Nike brand. Mainly, the air Jordan shoes introduced by Nike in 1984. Air Jordan shoe pair mainly introduced for basketball players. Therefore, it was firstly introduced in the sportswear industry.  The target market of the air Jordan product is a basketball athlete. Moreover, when it first released within the market, the target market of the product was 18-35 years men. The people mainly purchase this product for sport and to play basketball. The target market of the product are teenagers, athletes and sports players. 

Buyer/ Customer persona

Generally, the buyer persona is one of the effective technique used by the large as well as small scale organizations (Moser & Kalton, 2017). The buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of the company’s ideal customers based on the research market and data. Mainly, the companies create buyer persona to get the details of the customers and consider their behaviour patterns. The creation of buyer person also helps an organization to increase the profit as well as revenue of the company. For example, The Company create a persona to evaluate the behaviour, interests, needs and motivation of the buyer regarding a given product. When company succeed in determine the needs and demands of the buyers then the profit of the company increased (Porter & Kramer, 2019). Majorly, a company create the buyer persona of multiple buyers not only a single buyer.  

The target market of Air Jordan product is basketball players and other athlete’s individuals. The buyer persona of a customer consists of multiple components. The primary components of the buyer persona are given below, 

1. Gender of the buyer

2. Age and income if it is

3. Location 

4. Education

5. Professional role 

6. Lifestyle

7. Sources and Influences

First of all, while making the buyer persona, the initial component is to identify the gender of the buyer. Whether the buyer is male or female. Beside the age of the buyer, the income as well as the age of the customer mentioned. The third primary component of the buyer persona is location or address of the buyer (Huq, et al., 2016). These components are important for a company to keep the record. Further, the professional role and lifestyle of the buyer mention. It means what the lifestyle of the buyer is, is buyer using high-quality products or low-quality products. What price the buyer wants when he/she purchase a product. Finally, the sources and influences describe. It includes how the buyer seeks information about particular products. What online websites did a buyer uses when he/she seek the information. The buyer persona template of the Air Jordan product is given below,

Buyer Persona

Richard- Stay in Australia with his Family 

Personal Background 

Richard is 26 years old

Married with a single child 

Live, New south wales state-Sydney 

Richard is also a basketball player

Business Background

Richard is from an HR background. 

He works in an HR company, and he plays basketball part-time

His total monthly income is $5000

Lifestyle

Richard lives with his family, and they have a great home

Richard like brand products 

The financial situation of Richard is very strong

Sources/ Influences

Richard uses the internet to seek all type of information. He uses Facebook, Pinterest and LinkedIn. 

The above is the buyer persona template of a buyer who lived in Sydney with his family. The persona creates in order to determine the behaviour, interests and daily routine of the buyer. The persona creates to build effective strategies. The Nike brand creates a persona to identify the strategies to be made. For example, after creating the customer persona, the company identify what useful strategies should a brand be used to fulfil the needs of buyers.

Marketing Mix Recommendations

Product

Air Jordan is the stylish basketball shoes made by the Nike Brand. The original Air Jordan sneakers were produced in 1984 for the Michel Jordan, the best player of NBA and publically released in late 1984. Now the Air Jordan available for athletic, style clothing and causal form. The success of the Air Jordan based on the new basketball season in 1986. Now the Air Jordan is reintroduced for different games. Different colourways were released in 2018 with soft material. The Nike Company should focus on the quality of the product as well as there is a need for different innovation in the feature of the product. Different colour streams should be introduced. Attractive packaging should be made for selling the products. The Nike Company should sponsor different Basketball session to promote their products (Brohi, Prithiani, Abbas, Bhutto, & Chawla, 2016). The Nike brand should make a different physical store for enhancing the selling of Air Jordan. Nike should also be made Air Jordan shoes for different game zone like Cricket. They should make Air Jordan shoes for young players, both for man women as well as kinds. They should also launch their product in different foreign market. Soft material should be used with long laces for easy wear. 

Price

As the Air Jordon shoes were promoting by the Best player of NBA Michel Jordan. The logo of the Air Jordon is (jumped Man symbol) recognizable the lover of the sport. Different categories of Air Jordon like Air Jordon 1, Air Jordon 2 and released in different countries on the premium price that was not affordable by the lower-level people. For increasing the sale of the company, Nike should minimize its sale and also targeted the middle-level audience. Nike mostly sells its shoes to the retailer at $160 average cost per pair (Bustaman, 2015). The company should directly sell to the customers by making the physical store for selling. Nike should add different affordable features in the product and different colourways to attract the customers. Nike should target the different audience like boys of the school, girls, women and men with lower-level income. Due to the higher price, most of the lover of sport cannot afford to purchase it. Nike should offer the different Discount rate on different shoes in different season for increasing the sale revenue. Nike has total revenue of 30.6 Billion pounds and expected to aim 50 Billion pounds in 2020. This target can be achieved by targeting the middle-level audience who inspired with this product. Nike should also target the competitor's customers to attract their product by offering the discount on different product and charge affordable price of the products.

Place

Nike Supply chain has in different countries. Different footwear manufactured in 2013, around 70% of its apparel and 85% of footwear were manufacture on lean lines (Distelhorst, Hainmueller, & Locke, 2016). Nike sells its products in different 42 countries, and its manufacturing network consists of 700 factories in different 42 countries. Most of the Nike products sell in the Asian continent. Nike doesn’t own factories for manufacturing that make its revenue up to 88%. By increasing the sale of Air Jordon Nike should establish more distributive channel in different countries. Nike should sell their products in different countries where they have no store for selling the products. Nike should make different independent Agreement for manufacturing their quality products. Nike should also have listened agreement to permit the different parties by using Nike own trademark, digital devices and other equipment designed for sport activates. Nike should increase the number of physical stores in different countries. Nike agrees to support manufacturing. Nike should also increase the number of primary distributive centres in U.S, Memphis and China for shipment of the products in different countries. Nike should sale their products to the wholesaler in different countries and the international market. The sales can be increased by using e-commerce. Nike should focus on the direct sale to consumer, direct sale to consumers provides a high margin than to sale wholesaler. So the company should focus on that factor that enhances their tribune.

The sale of Air Jordan sports shoes can be promoted by applying the strategies which stimulate the people to buy that product. The sale strategies should be cooperative and responsive that after selling the product once the customer should have the desire to purchase the sports shoes again from that brand. Furthermore, the promotional activities of brand set the goals in their minds, i.e. the increase in capacity of Nike to connect with other designing fashion. The sports shoes should be in such a form of design and with all the convenience that the shoes become easily accepted by the market according to the demand of consumers. 

Promotion

The brand should also be promoted offline by advertising it on billboards, marque boards, on a television commercial and also advertising on banners pamphlets. The brand can also be promoted by selling the sports shoes at a discount in debut, and when the sale of product enhanced, then the product should be sale at high price according to the quality of the product. The brand should adopt public relations by creating favourable publicity of brand. The positive publicity of brand can also give support to the brand in case of scandal and negative feedbacks of people.

The brand can also be promoted by personal selling of product that the product should be sold to close relations at the start or by making clients at the phone or in any event or even a trade show. The innovations material in the brand should also be added in the brand leather, which also enhances the promotion of the band.

People

People is another basic element of the marketing mix. Basically, people in the marketing mix is the joining element of the above four ps.  For example, a brand makes a marketing plan of a specific product, for a specific place, at a specific price and with the help of promotion strategies. Therefore, all these four activities cannot be successfully completed without people. People are the successful formula for entire marketing mix (Aithal, 2016). People are the employees, manufacturer, sellers, distributors and marketing associates. It is recommended that the brand should give benefits to associated people for retention. A company is considered successful only when the employee turnover rate is low. It is highly recommended the brand should fulfil the needs of their associated people so that they equally work for company benefits.

Packaging

Initially, the marketing mix was consist of four key elements such as product, price, place and promotion. Now, the marketing mix consists of seven major elements. The fifth major element of the marketing mix is the packaging of product. Air Jordan product is one of the key expensive product sell around the globe. The air Jordan product is majorly purchased by the upper class and people. Therefore, the packaging of the product is a key element. The packaging of a product is an important element for a company. 

Now, it is recommended that the company should pack a product or a pair of shoes in an attractive box. The boxes should contain the logo of the company, which would help to attract customers. Moreover, the company should sell air Jordan product in attractive boxes with shoe packaging protection. It is recommended that the company should provide the protection against dust, moisture, damage and atmospheric moisture during the shoe packaging.  Moreover, the key component is the shoe package box. The brand should be packed a pair of shoe in an attractive and efficient way because this is the only element that can attract and retain customers. The brand should use the double wall boxes for the heavier items. If the pair of shoe is heavy, then the brand company should use the double walls around it and protect the items from damages.
Additionally, the company should use the attractive greetings or a message outside the box for attracting the customer. Such as beside logo and slogan of the company there must be an attractive message for customers so that they feel happy. The company should consider these elements in order to increase its profit and revenue.  It is obvious that if company consider this recommendation, this will positively affect the profit of the company overall. 

Positioning

Another important element in the marketing mix is positioning. Mainly, the positioning is done of a product. Generally, the positioning is the process of placement of a product in the minds of the customer (Haider, et al., 2019). The Nike brand currently uses the positioning strategy through market segmentation and targeting. The company initially segment the market into smaller groups and then target the customers. 

Now, it is recommended that if Nike is going to launch its air Jordan product in Australia, the company should make positioning its product through continues marketing. The continuous marketing and advertisements on TV are one of the best ways to attract customers. The company should play continuous ads on television and attract target customers in a new market. Moreover, the company does not only play ads on television but also attract customers through other online communication channels such as advertising on Facebook by making an official page of the product. Besides this, another important way for positioning of the product is to create a brand positioning statement. The brand should attract target customers through an attractive brand positioning statement. The statement must contain a brand promise. This will help to attract the customers towards the product.  

Conclusion

The following report consists of the marketing management plan of one of the branded product. Air Jordan is a shoe product of Nike brand. The product is mainly used by basketball players all around the globe. The report mainly consists of two sections, including buyer persona and recommendations regarding 7P’s. The buyer persona creates to identify and examine the interests of the buyers. The persona mainly contains multiple components such as background, gender, age, professional background and interests. Moreover, it is recommended that the brand should promote the product by applying such strategies that stimulate customers to buy product. Further, it is recommended to the brand that it should make positioning of the product through continuous marketing on television and other communication channels. Besides these, the brand should make the packaging of the shoe pair in attractive boxes that must contain the logo and slogan of the company. 

References

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Distelhorst, G., Hainmueller, J. & Locke, R. M., 2016. Different footwear manufactured in 2013, around 70% of its apparel and 85% of footwear were manufacture on lean lines. Management Science, 63(3).

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