Marketing Plan Assignment: Case Analysis Of Mobile News Games

Question

Task:
Marketing Plan Assignment Scenario: You are the Marketing Manager at Mobile News Games LLC (MNG). Review the MNG Marketing Plan to determine how MNG analyzed consumer behavior for their international market. India and Australia are international markets that MNG plan to enter.

Answer

1. Overview of the company analyzed in the marketing plan assignment
Mobile News Games LLC (MNG) is operating as a mobile game developer relating to the current news events. Our company’s vision is to provide the customers with a short time of flight embedded with fun within their everyday normal course by offering timely and interactive games that are easy to play, accessible on mobile, and would be linked to the current pop culture news. The report presents a review of the Marketing Plan of MNG and its effectiveness in analyzing the consumer behavior in the international market. The internet advertising has been one of the strengths of the organization used in product promotion and awareness.

2.0 Confirming the target market
2.1 Identify the market segments in accordance with the MNG marketing plan
Two types of customer segments such as customers that are outreached and the users of the games are identified by the company its marketing plan. In accordance with the case study, the market segmentation includes breaking up a complete addressable gamers market. It will include all gamers, all console gamers as well as all mobile gamers. As influenced by Hon and Hartono(2020), it can be stated that the cost benefit plan developed by the organization helps allocate their launch to the right people at a right time(Yanet al., 2020). The enforcements of E-Commerce Consumer Protection Act, with regards to engagingthe common people of Australia with the electronic products has made it effective for guiding the quality of services offered by the organization. The e-product lifecycle can be managed with the help of Ansoff’s Matrix which indicates towards setting an e-commerce model and volunteer model in order to deal with the customers.

2.2 Identify and discuss the aspects of culture that will have an impact on the international marketing of MNG’s products within the target markets that MNG plans to enter. (India and Australia)

2.3Identify and discuss the consumer attributes for the market segment from the market profile in the case study: i.e. demographics, psychographics, behavior and geographic.

2.4Identify and relate the features of the product in accordance with the case study marketing plan

Being the marketing manager at Mobile News Games LLC, the major aim is to target the mobiles games among children. They will be the major target audience. The free mobile games will be mostly targeted towards those who does not belong from a wealthy family background to purchase a game. The games with features ranging from $1.99 to $4.99 will be provided to those who have the ability to purchase the game.

3.0 Confirm level of customer interest
3.1 Analyze trends and past performance

Figure 1: Percentage of different app subscribers
(Source: Statista, 2021)

Figure 2: India Gaming Market
(Source: Statista, 2021)

Both the Australian and the Indian market shows high sales potentiality though the growth potential of Indian gaming market would be highly feasible as the predicted total sales of gaming industry is about to rise (Statista, 2021). The spending habits of the customers in Australia particularly on mobile applications do not show progressive result. Mostly the IOS devices are used in Australia for gaming as compared to India where Android is used for gaming.

It is imperative to analyze the trends as well as performance of similar companies in the industry. In India the gaming market has witnessed a considerable increase to 405 million from 266 million dollars within a span of 6 years. As a result, MNG will have a profitable business in the Indian market. India is regarded to be a soaring gaming market and is regarded as one of the topmost gaming industries globally. Poker Sports League is regarded as the most profitable business in India.

Figure 3: Comparison of online games and others
(Source: Harviainen, Ojasalo& Kumar, 2018)

Budget by year and facilitating requirements marketing expenses, as formulated by the organization around five percent. The budget would also include landing page generation and media postings(Harviainen, Ojasalo& Kumar, 2018). Optimization of the entailing price of the product and implementing marketing mix would be appropriate for attracting the target customers. Measuring the launching success for the game email list size, five star game review industry awards and others would be imperative to the success of the marketing plan. The promotional strategy of the organization includes consulting services tie up that would enhance the effectiveness of the promotional strategy further. In order to protect the rights of the individualsprovisions of defamation law are incorporated into the marketing(Rutz,Aravindakshan& Rubel, 2019).

SWOT analysis

• Key strengths include high quality commitment and provision of supportive customer service.
• Weaknesses include inaccurate product diversification for both Indian and Australian target market. High market competition and current condition is negative for the organization.
• Technological advancements and wider avenue for advertising would help creating new clients
• Organizational re-sizing and outsourcing the expert and specific country codes that create barriers of business growth.

Porter’s Analysis

The Porters five forces clearly shows that MNG will have low threats from new entrants as investment in gaming industry is costly. As a result, it will not be possible for new or small gaming companies to start a business in this sector. The bargaining power of customers are low thus making it profitable. In other words, the traders will be able to sell the games at almost fixed cost. The only threat is from competitors as in India there are already multiple gaming companies that are popular among children as well as adults.

3.2 Past marketing information
Mobile game users

3.3Assess the effectiveness of past marketing
The advertisement sponsorship had been provided to the consulting services and the budget developed helped in anticipating the future requirements it could be identified that the total marketing and sales expenses would exceed 60% in April.

3.4 Assess consumer behaviors

Therefore, consumer attributes from different countries are to be considered while applying the marketing strategies. The individuals who play games on computers or consoles mostly prefer complicated as well as difficult games. On the other hand, casual players opts for games that are simple as well as easier.

3.5 Assess organizational behaviors

It is imperative as this will help the manager to deal with conflicts as well as build an effective team.

4.0 Recommend marketing strategies

• The innate and influentialdecision makingappeal to the basic needs based on priority. Strategic planning and essential marketing tools would be imperative. Additionally, software such as Excel and SPSS which would help in communicating results with the marketing team effectively and would help in makinginformed decision about the marketing operations (De Pelsmackeret al., 2018).
• The organization could be found to be direct marketers and due to this reason, ADMA code can be used for minimizing the risk of breaching the legislation. A customer protection model inspired by the “Australian Government Policies on the Consumer Protection and business entity” would also help in protecting the customers.
• The company budget can be raised with the help of proper sales planning and enhancement in the number of custom games and sponsorship (Ghosh, 2017).

5.0 Outline the key provisions of relevant legislation, codes of practice and national standards
Legislation

Codes of practice

National standards

Legal provisions of copyright laws, privacy laws and other legal information are essential for meeting the internet needs. The age and racial discrimination can be mitigated through following the Anti-discrimination law 1984(Australian Human Rights Commission, 2021). The federal law would eliminate the risk of unfair practices adopted by the businesses. Consulting with the registered media authority is important to meet the digital needs of the modern day customers (Dong &Mangiron, 2018). The market entrance guidance from the Ansoff’s matrix to develop an e-commerce modelwould help protecting the consumers. The provisions of Information Technology Act 2000 and Bombay Wager Act and are to be incorporated into the marketing policy as this protect both the employee and consumer rights. Code for Self-Regulation formulated by ASCI directed marketing plan formulation would help maintaining marketing standards in India.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the analysis of strengths and weaknesses of the business model helped developing a business model that builds on the capacity and exploiting the available opportunity within the sphere of business. The promotional strategy that would be found most effective for the current organization is email, advertising and social media marketing. The web application services offered by different mobile phone operators would help providing valuable outcome for selling the product. On the other hand, the provisions of Equal opportunity legislations, ADMA code would be imperative to overcome the legal barriers in the environment of the organization.

Recommendation

• The target market for India and Australia would be 13-25 years of age and religious sensitivity and technologically advanced gaming would be preferable for India and Australua respectively.
• The level of interest can be increased through incorporating modern technologies such as AI
• The recommended marketing strategies are e-mail marketing, social media campaign and television advertising.This would help spreading awareness among the customers through spreading words of mouth, customer reviews and others and will be a helpful tool for achieving growth in the sales
• Email marketing would help approaching the customers personally leading to effective customization of the contexts increasing the effectiveness of marketing.

References
Australian Human Rights Commission, 2021. Legislation | Australian Human Rights Commission. (2021). Retrieved 20 March 2021, from https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/legal/legislation#:~:text=The%20Sex%20Discrimination%20Act%201984,sexual%20harassment%20against%20the%20law.

Cheng, C., Cheung, M. W. L., & Wang, H. Y. (2018). Multinational comparison of internet gaming disorder and psychosocial problems versus well-being: Meta-analysis of 20 countries. Computers in Human Behavior, 88, 153-167.

De Pelsmacker, P., Van Tilburg, S., &Holthof, C. (2018). Digital marketing strategies, online reviews and hotel performance. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 72, 47-55.

Dong, L., &Mangiron, C. (2018). Journey to the East: Cultural adaptation of video games for the Chinese market. The Journal of Specialised Translation, 29, 149-168.

Ducange, P., Pecori, R., &Mezzina, P. (2018). A glimpse on big data analytics in the framework of marketing strategies. Soft Computing, 22(1), 325-342.

Ghosh, C. (2017). A study on-evaluating marketing strategies adopted by home appliance for economic development in India. International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (IJSSH), 1(1), 9-15.

Harviainen, J.T., Ojasalo, J. & Kumar, S.N., (2018). Customer preferences in mobile game pricing: a service design based case study. Electronic Markets, 28(2), pp.191-203.

Hon, C.W. & Hartono, I.K., (2020), February. Analysis and Design of E-Commerce on the Game Information Portal. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 426, No. 1, p. 012171). IOP Publishing.

Rutz, O., Aravindakshan, A., & Rubel, O. (2019). Measuring and forecasting mobile game app engagement. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 36(2), 185-199.

Statista. (2021). Australia: smartphone app usage by type 2020. Retrieved 27 March 2021, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1173121/australia-smartphone-app-usage-by-type/

Statista. (2021). India - online gaming industry revenue 2014-2023.Retrieved 27 March 2021, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1010317/india-online-gaming-industry-revenue/#:~:text=The%20revenue%20of%20the%20online,growth%20potential%20in%20the%20industry.

Yan, N., Liu, Y., Xu, X. & He, X., (2020). Strategic dual-channel pricing games with e-retailer finance. European Journal of Operational Research, 283(1), pp.138-151.

Yang, M. (2018). International entrepreneurial marketing strategies of MNCs: Bricolage as practiced by marketing managers. International Business Review, 27(5), 1045-1056.