Marketing Management Assignment: Volkswagen’s Marketing Communication Effectiveness Analysis
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 name of the article is “Volkswagen should be focusing on effectiveness not efficiency” as quoted by Ellen Hammett. The purpose of this article is to understand the need for Volkswagen to focus more on its quality of work rather than boosting its marketing ways and its efficiency. Adaption of new marketing strategies by Volkswagen might prove to be fruitful for the organization for a short duration but it will not be helpful in the long run. Marketing is the process of making people aware of the products and services offered by an organization. Market research as well as advertising is a part of marketing.
Marketing Issues : The cost and the quality of products and services offered by an organization directly influence the sales and the profit generated by the organization. Volkswagen is following new marketing strategies in order to win the trust of the customers again and make it a brand. It should concentrate more on improving its quality in order to get back its old customers. The scandal that arose in 2015 regarding the emissions from the automobiles it manufactured adversely affected the brand name of the company as well as its quality and advice (marketingweek.com, 2018). Adapting new marketing plans will not help the organization to increase its sales and bring it back to the market, since customers go for the quality instead of brand name. Hence, the new strategy adapted by Volkswagen, that is, to change its logo will not help the organization to increase its sales. Therefore, the organization must sensibly plan its expenditures so that more emphasis is laid on the quality of the products and services it delivers to the customers instead of promoting its products and services without making any changes in the attributes of its products.
Stakeholders, benefits or challenges: The stakeholders can be benefited by the new marketing strategies followed by Volkswagen like the new design of the logo without increasing its expenditure on advertisement through media (marketingweek.com, 2018). Stakeholders like the managers, owners, directors and employees might get some benefits with the adaption of new market strategies as it might increase the sales of the products of the organization to some extent. However, as far as the customers and the shareholders are concerned there is no gain. As the quality of the products remains the same so the challenges that arose before like emission, will have an adverse affect on them again. However, small profits will be generated by the organization but this will not help it in the end (Harmeling et al., 2017).
Recommendations: It is recommended to follow the theory of perception in marketing in order to attract new clients and retain the old ones. Perception is a five-step process that includes inspiration, organization, examination, remembrance and bear in mind (Månsson & Björling, 2017). The only way to attract and retain old customers is by making changes and improving the attributes of its products. In addition to that, making the consumers know about the changes being made so that the drawbacks of its products that came into the scene a few years back might be erased from the minds of its clients. This is the only way to create a change in customers’ perception. If the organization takes this kind of an action then, the customers’ perception might change regarding the brand of Volkswagen (marketingweek.com, 2018). At this point of time, the organization must think according to the customers’ perception and should focus on the quality of its products instead of paying more attention on marketing of its old products by redesigning its logo and other ways.
Reference
Harmeling, C. M., Moffett, J. W., Arnold, M. J., & Carlson, B. D. (2017). Toward a theory of customer engagement marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 45(3), 312-335.
Månsson, S., & Björling, G. (2017). Implementation and Perception of Modern Marketing: A qualitative study on Storytelling, Brand Identification, and Content Marketing used and perceived in a marketing perspective.
marketingweek.com. (2018). Volkswagen should be focusing on marketing effectiveness not efficiency. Retrieved from https://www.marketingweek.com/2018/11/28/volkswagen-marketing-efficiency/
Montano, D. E., & Kasprzyk, D. (2015). Theory of reasoned action, theory of planned behavior, and the integrated behavioral model. Health behavior: Theory, research and practice, 95-124.
Ngai, E. W., Moon, K. L. K., Lam, S. S., Chin, E. S., & Tao, S. S. (2015). Social media models, technologies, and applications: an academic review and case study. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 115(5), 769-802.
Appendix
Link- https://www.marketingweek.com/2018/11/28/volkswagen-marketing-efficiency/
