Marketing Management Assignment: Factors Influencing Malibu And Kahlua Marketing Competitive Advantage
Question
To help you get started on this piece of work, here are some points for further consideration:
- Your aim in this assessment is to analyse 2 separate marketing articles in around 600 words for each analysis. You need to write in a professional manner even for short pieces of work. However, there will be little (if any) need for tables, etc., and there is no need to write an executive summary for your article analysis.
Answer
Introduction : The article discusses the manner in which Malibu and Kahlua brands are looking to compete with their bigger rivals even with a shortage of funds. The article identifies the scope of digital platforms and innovations made within such platforms to positively impact the brands in their marketing endeavours. The companies use the innovation as Living Lab in which their priority is to have a start-up mind set and to overlook fear by speeding up processes. The article is presented with a video that goes behind the scenes to provide an insight into how the two brands are also impacting the culture of the workspace through the Living Lab (Fleming, 2018). As such, it would be important to understand the issues related to digital innovation in marketing and how those can be effectively addressed by considering the interest of the stakeholders.
Marketing issues: Digital innovation in marketing has been considered as one of the most important ways in which a greater customer reach can be affected (Chaffey and Smith, 2013). Major companies including Volvo are trying to provide customers with experiences such that a better immersive scope within marketing scope can be developed through digital innovation (Leeflang et al., 2014). The major benefit that companies can realise by engaging in digital innovation is the reduction in cost, something that has worked in favour of Malibu and Kahlua as well. However, the problem with technological integration within every aspect of business is that the excitement of the integration at times overlooks the problem that needs to be addressed. That is to say, businesses in their expectations of involving technology in almost every part of doing business and operations trivialise the actual problem. This is generally due to the belief that technology in its own right is a solution to any kind of problem. As such, integrating any form of technology that does not follow or addresses the actual problem in business might be devastating for the business (Johnstone, 2016). Also, the main benefit that has been noted, that of the reduction in costs of operations and any other function of business would not be realised; rather the cost of integration of a technology that does not fit would actually incur loss. This is the main issue that marketing function of business need to consider in order that benefits of the degree of Malibu and Kahlua can be realised.
Stakeholder, benefits or challenges: The main stakeholders who would be impacted by the marketing issues include the consumers and the company employees. This is because if the technological integration is not aligned to the overall scope of the business or even the strategies and plans of the company, then the consumers would not be provided with the right products and services. Also, because of the improper technological integration the employees would be affected to a considerable extent (Nambisan et al., 2017). On the other hand, if the technological integration is effective then there would be immense benefits in terms of reduced workplace stress and seamless operations.
Recommendations: The most critical recommendation in this regard is to have a proper analysis of the technology needs and also to understand how the effective steps can be taken to have a positive impact. Without understanding the scope of technological integration it would be inappropriate to invest in any such activities just for the sake of digital innovation.
Conclusion: To conclude, it can be pointed out that while there is immense scope in terms of the benefits that can be leveraged by companies by affecting technological integration and digital innovation, it is important to understand the ways in which a particular problem can be addressed through the same. In the example of Malibu and Kahlua, the problem was to stay in competition with bigger rivals which was effectively addressed through the digital innovation Living Lab. Without understanding the scope of a particular problem, integrating technologies would be actually be a hindrance to a company’s success.
References
Chaffey, D. and Smith, P.R., 2013. eMarketing eXcellence: Planning and optimizing your digital marketing. Routledge.
Fleming, M., 2018. Behind the scenes at Malibu and Kahlúa's marketing innovation hub. [online] Marketing Week. Available at: https://www.marketingweek.com/2018/11/26/malibu-kahlua-marketing-innovation-hub/ [Accessed 27 Nov. 2018].
Johnstone, K., 2016. The problem with innovation and marketing | Financial Times. [online] Ft.com. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/86a2f17f-e1c5-3e4a-a7d3-b988d59a2ea6 [Accessed 27 Nov. 2018].
Leeflang, P.S., Verhoef, P.C., Dahlström, P. and Freundt, T., 2014. Challenges and solutions for marketing in a digital era. European management journal, 32(1), pp.1-12.
Nambisan, S., Lyytinen, K., Majchrzak, A. and Song, M., 2017. Digital Innovation Management: Reinventing innovation management research in a digital world. Mis Quarterly, 41(1).
Appendix
Link to the article: https://www.marketingweek.com/2018/11/26/malibu-kahlua-marketing-innovation-hub/
